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Preview, the Mac app people forget about

fourth-wall.co.uk

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Re: Preview, the Mac app people forget about

#251

Post by Jcowell »

PrimeDirective wrote: post #195
ask_b123 wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems like you can move to the next or previous file with tab + up/down arrow keys. I just found out by mashing all the buttons I could think of. :-)

This is not exactly it. What I meant was, something what IrfanView does: when you open an image (or any file the program can read), you can press a button to open the (alphabetically?) next or previous image in the same folder. Looks like Preview only has this, when you select all files and open them (Cmd+O). Wish it was like IrfanView.

I’m confused here , so like if you’re in a folder with a file selected and hit the space bar , does pressing the arrow keys not preview the next file for you ?

Re: Preview, the Mac app people forget about

#252

Post by luhn »

wildrhythms wrote: post #241
lostlogin wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My passport application photo kept getting rejected as my eyes were ‘too dark’. I tried various things without luck, then in a rage, I copied my ‘light’ eye and stuck it over my shaded eye. I thought the passport photo submission tool would let me review before accepting an upload. Nope, off it went. The passport has worked in several countries, USA, UK and others. Thanks Preview.

Ancient companies requiring I print out a form, sign it physically, scan it, send it back... I just open it in Preview, use the text annotation tool and some random cursive font, "sign it", re-export, done. I haven't owned a printer or scanner in 10 years.

It has a feature now where you can scan your signature and pop it into any document on demand. Super useful.

Re: Preview, the Mac app people forget about

#253

Post by SllX »

hnlmorg wrote: post #176
kergonath wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The reason other OS's don't support that macOS feature is because their open and save dialogue is usable on its own. In my opinion the open and save dialogue is one of the worst designed interfaces on macOS (and easily the worst open and save dialogue across all of the popular desktop environments). The fact that it's "killer feature" is having to use another file navigator to find the target and then drag that fil…

> It is not a browser, or a file manager. It is a file selector. But you're selecting the file in a file manager and then dragging it into your "file selector". That whole dialogue then becomes completely redundant because you might as well just drag that file into the application window without having to click "open". > I get bitten at least a couple of times a week on Windows when I stupidly drag and drop the file…

It’s a shortcut that comes in handy when you operate in deep file hierarchies and can’t be bothered to memorize the path.

That said there’s even easier ways to get there:

Just navigate, the sidebar will reflect what’s in your Finder sidebar so you can use that as a shelf if you’re going into one specific directory a lot for your work. It’s a dynamic environment, you don’t have to treat it like it’s static.

Or: hit Command-Shift-G. This will allow you to type the path with tab completion.

Dragging the folder in is for when you’re operating in the Finder and another application and rather than navigating you want to just drag the proxy in to go right there. It’s a shortcut, but depending on the task it’s not necessarily the most efficient way to do it.

Re: Preview, the Mac app people forget about

#254

Post by vestrigi »

herodotus wrote: post #53

I really enjoyed working with the Preview team before I retired from Apple. My small group created a private framework that added "document reconstruction" to PDF documents: basically an inferred DOM based on whatever information (mainly geometric) we could use in the PDF document. Our moment of fame game at WWDC 2009, when Bertrand Serlet talked about Snow Leopard during the Keynote. At around the 5:10 mark he talks…

Have you by chance written a blog post or another HN comment about this? I think I heard that story before with some more detail :)

Re: Preview, the Mac app people forget about

#255

Post by samstave »

dylan604 wrote: post #232
wlesieutre wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed, on a Mac I feel like a PDF document is a stack of paper that I can rearrange, copy, rotate, and otherwise handle however I want to. On Windows it's more like a hardcover bound book that I can download and attach to an email to share with someone, but god forbid I want to change anything. They can make me use Windows in the office, but next time something dies in my home PC I'm just going to sell the rest of i…

I sometimes wonder if Preview being so much easier than Acrobat isn't an intentional poke at Adobe for all the times Adobe strayed from the one true path of Apple. That whole skipping a version of software release because Adobe didn't pay attention to words from up on high to quite using deprecated language surely didn't sit well.

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Re: Preview, the Mac app people forget about

#256

Post by urbandw311er »

CyanDeparture wrote: post #31

One massive I'd add to this list that got added recently - being able to copy and paste text out of images. I'm so often sent a screenshot with a url in the url bar, I can now copy and paste that screenshot of a url. It's been massively the past month since I noticed it. Not sure how long it's been there, I assume not long, maybe last OS update.

Anybody know how to override this feature when you’re just trying to draw a selection rectangle over the image? The App keeps recognising the portion under my pointer as text and changing the pointer to a text selection caret instead.

Re: Preview, the Mac app people forget about

#257

Post by 0898 »

jitl wrote: post #7

Preview is one of those essential things that sets macOS apart from the other operating systems, and contributes to that “Mac has good UX” vibe. Last time I opened the Windows equivalent, it tried to sell me on Microsoft’s PDF-alike format… and asked me to connect Office365. Another tiny macOS feature I love is that you can drop a file icon on any Open or Save dialog to select the file in the dialog. On other OSs, th…

I worry that not enough people are aware of these little touches, and that one day they'll disappear.

Re: Preview, the Mac app people forget about

#258

Post by urbandw311er »

Bondi_Blue wrote: post #167

Another underrated feature: add Quartz Filters to a PDF file by Choosing File > Export, click the Quartz Filter pop-up menu, then choose a filter. You can create custom Quartz Filters in ColorSync Utility.app (Note: these are not the same as Quartz Composition Filters, which live in Automator workflows and Photo Booth.app). For some inspiration: https://github.com/joshcarr/Apple-Quartz-Filters

Yes - agreed. This is one of the best ways to shrink the file size of a PDF: and if it’s not shrinking it enough create your own quartz filter with lower res/quality JPG or DPI settings.

Re: Preview, the Mac app people forget about

#260

Post by samatman »

jhasse wrote: post #92
lostlogin wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Select them then open them? Or select, right click, open with. I suspect I’m missing your point somehow?

The thing is, that "selecting them" might not be that easy depending on the number of files and how the content of the folder is sortes. On Windows/Linux you would just open the first file which is a lot easier.

It's dead easy in fact.

On Mac, if you want to find something it's Command-F. In Finder this opens up a dropdown, set Kind: Image, now you see all images in the folder, and nothing which is not an image. Command-A for select all, drag or right click to preview.

I explain it the way I do because I had never had occasion to try "let's find all the images in a folder of mixed file types" on Mac, so I started with "Find" and yeah. Quite simple indeed.

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