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macOS screenshot tricks to impress your co-workers

sal.dev

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Re: macOS screenshot tricks to impress your co-workers

#301
post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For sure. I wonder if there’s a better solution short of a “Screenshot” key.

You meant Print Screen?

Effectively, with a better name. This also strikes me a perfect use case for a Touch Bar since it’d be very helpful for a subset of users but wasted space for others.

Re: macOS screenshot tricks to impress your co-workers

#302
post #45

Here is a key sequence I use very often. It takes a screenshot of a chosen window without the window's shadow. - First, type command + shift + 4 (the mouse pointer turns into crosshair). - Then type the space bar (the crosshair turns into a camera icon). - Hover the mouse pointer (a camera icon now), to highlight the chosen window. - Finally, hold the option key and click. This sounds like a lot of steps but it becom…

[deleted]

Re: macOS screenshot tricks to impress your co-workers

#303
post #45

Here is a key sequence I use very often. It takes a screenshot of a chosen window without the window's shadow. - First, type command + shift + 4 (the mouse pointer turns into crosshair). - Then type the space bar (the crosshair turns into a camera icon). - Hover the mouse pointer (a camera icon now), to highlight the chosen window. - Finally, hold the option key and click. This sounds like a lot of steps but it becom…

I think Mac OS has the most inaccessible hidden hotkey shortcuts out of every OS I've used. Even essential functions like showing hidden files in a directory is uniquely done through an hidden shortcut in Mac OS.

As a lifetime Windows user who started using Macs for the day job about a decade ago, it was clear that Windows came from a keyboard-oriented background, and Macs come from a legacy of focusing on doing as much with a mouse as possible.

I have a lot of internal thoughts about why I like what I grew up with (particularly with respect to discoverable keyboard shortcuts), but it's just not worth the mental energy of exploring that with internet strangers. The bottom line for me is that a decade on, I still split it between a Macbook for work, Windows desktop for home/creative/gaming, and if I could reasonably work without MacOS I would, but I can't.

Re: macOS screenshot tricks to impress your co-workers

#304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been using computers too long to be able to "see" them through the eyes of a new user. But being user-friendly doesn't mean making every single feature user friendly or discoverable through visual manipulation. It means making the most common tasks user friendly and discoverable. The vast majority of users can be productive on macos without ever using a single keyboard shortcut. I think macos does this better th…

> The vast majority of users can be productive on macos without ever using a single keyboard shortcut. I'd be interested to know what portion of users use copy/paste.

Me too. I'm sure a lot, but I bet not all. But copy paste shortcuts can be discovered via direct ui manipulation - you click the edit menu and it shows the keyboard shortcuts. I actually copy/past with a right click nearly as often as with a keyboard shortcut. But I guess right click could be considered a "hidden" feature.

Re: macOS screenshot tricks to impress your co-workers

#306
post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I fully agree. macOS is a nightmare of usability. For showing hidden files and file extensions, there's a Terminal command you can run to permanently set it for every file. Of course, since it's only exposed through some command line utility, I forgot what it was and would have to search again.

“Usability nightmare” is objectively a bit of a stretch. The example given isn’t really something most users need. Even when I did need to do that the answer was discovered and executed within 20 seconds of googling. This is the same for other things most people don’t need across all the prevalent OSes

Well I disagree, so I don’t think it’s objective. Another goodie is when installing an update, macOS only shows that you can cancel the update if you hover over the progress bar or where the cancel X would be. If you just look at the window, you think there’s no way to cancel and that you need to ride it out. You just have to happen to hover over the right element. There’s no reason for this. macOS is absolutely full of little things like this that are hidden in the OS. iOS does this as well. Going to the settings screen, you gotta pull down to see that there’s a search bar. Again no reason for that. Both macOS and iOS are very inconsistent and hide all sorts of settings, behaviors, etc. Another example is that I can’t even adjust my external monitor’s volume and brightness from the OS because Apple wants you to buy their monitors. And all that’s ignoring the portion of usability from things in the OS just not working or that break.

Re: macOS screenshot tricks to impress your co-workers

#307
post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Mac OS has the most inaccessible hidden hotkey shortcuts out of every OS I've used. Even essential functions like showing hidden files in a directory is uniquely done through an hidden shortcut in Mac OS.

If all features had their menu or button visible, that would make the interface more complex. Maybe they consider this as advanced features, that advanced users will find out anyway.

Your comment is somehow weird in this publication, because the article assumes (and many comments corroborate) that advanced users are not advanced enough to know all the hidden UI of the screenshot feature.

Re: macOS screenshot tricks to impress your co-workers

#308
post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So that first page doesn't actually have the shortcut, it has a link to another page that contains the shortcut. Secondly, it doesn't have the details on capturing without a shadow in an easy to read format.

Apple has only recently created the fancy screenshot utility. It used to only be 3-5 shortcuts for screenshots since I switched to Macs about 15 years ago.

Sweet irony:

"Apple's UI is not discoverable or even obvious."

"Just use Apple's biggest competitor to find them!"

Re: macOS screenshot tricks to impress your co-workers

#309
post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gitlab and GitHub both let you upload videos (and probably more). I still use ffmpeg to convert .mov to .mp4 to get a better file size. But either run circles around the quality and size of .gif

do they show them inline and play automatically? the thing I love about gifs is that they play automatically so as soon as you open the issue you are seeing the animation of what the problem is.

They are shown inline but they don't play automatically. But they do let the reviewer pause and rewind to see something they've missed, rather than sit there and wait to hopefully catch what they missed.

Re: macOS screenshot tricks to impress your co-workers

#310

Y'all definitely need to check out Shottr too, it has built in annotation and OCR and doesn't cost anything unlike CleanShot (which admittedly, is great too!) https://shottr.cc/

Posting today on HN about Shottr https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31773863
Post reply on HN