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macOS Tips and Tricks (2022)

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Re: macOS Tips and Tricks (2022)

#71
post #3
post #2

For a mouse-first OS, there sure is a heavy dep on keyboard modifiers. Day to day it doesn't bother me so much, and I even like some of them, but so much functionality is hidden with no mouse-based option. Opt-Shift-V? :/ Windows does this much, much better. I can't think of a feature where you need to use the Windows key to modify the options presented in the GUI (though the Windows key has some unique shortcuts). I…

Many of these features Windows has no analogue for. Consider: > By default, clicking inside a scroll bar will scroll partially towards the clicked location. Hold Option while clicking in the scroll bar to jump directly to the clicked location. There is no way to present this option in the GUI without cluttering up the scroll bar, so neither Windows nor macOS do so. But at least this feature is available for power use…

> I find it odd that the option-variants are not listed unless option is actively being held.

Most likely to keep menus reasonably short and usable, which is particularly important on the smaller Macbooks and on iPads in Sidecar mode which can easily turn long menus into scrolling messes.

Also, progressive disclosure. This way allows the options to exist without overwhelming less technical users.

Re: macOS Tips and Tricks (2022)

#72
> Press ⇧⌘/ to search all of the current app's menu items. Then use the Up/Down arrow keys to navigate the results and press Return to execute that menu bar action.

Kinda like command palette for every app, I like it. Would be even better if it preselected the matching option.

Unfortunately, this is broken in Firefox – they’ve bound ⌘ ? to their help page, and it opens then immediately closes the Help menu. You can rebind it to something else (e.g. ⌥ ⇧ ⌘ /) in System Settings → Keyboard → Keyboard Shortcuts → App Shortcuts → Firefox, menu title: Get Help.

One other problem is, it doesn’t always find the command I’m looking for. E.g. when I typed “dev”, it didn’t show “Web Developer Tools” at first. I then checked Tools menu (it was there), then tried typing it in the Help menu again, and sure enough, it found it this time.

Re: macOS Tips and Tricks (2022)

#73
post #55

> On modal dialogs/sheets, press Command + the first letter of the button to press that button. ⌘. is the shortcut equivalent of the Escape key. This was my favorite, but no longer works on Sequoia or whenever was the version that changed modal dialogs.

[deleted]

Re: macOS Tips and Tricks (2022)

#74
post #20

Love that this is straight to the point. My tips: - Use Alfred. Game changer. It's an immediate improvement on spotlight search, you can run commands with three keystrokes (rather than opening a terminal, just command + space, then > ), it gives clipboard history and fast append (lets you press command + c twice fast to append to clipboard, and opt + command + c to search clipboard history), and lets you make 'workfl…

> There's still no good window manager for macOS. Rectangle is as close as it gets, but it's not good IMO because it only works on non full size windows. (the solution is just get ninja-like with three finger swipe, and endure using the mouse/trackpad more than you'd prefer) I don’t know your requirements for good, but I like Mizage’s Divvy. Works on Mac and Windows and can configure gTile similarly on Linux.

Divvy+Stay is the magic combo for me: https://cordlessdog.com/stay/ (moves windows back to my external monitor when I plug it in)

Re: macOS Tips and Tricks (2022)

#75
post #20

Love that this is straight to the point. My tips: - Use Alfred. Game changer. It's an immediate improvement on spotlight search, you can run commands with three keystrokes (rather than opening a terminal, just command + space, then > ), it gives clipboard history and fast append (lets you press command + c twice fast to append to clipboard, and opt + command + c to search clipboard history), and lets you make 'workfl…

Fwiw I hear good things about aerospace but haven’t yet had a chance to give it a shot.

Came here to recommend aerospace. It’s been amazing. My whole desktop is like a tmux session now.

It’s very much changed how I work/use my computer. More than Rectangle did, more than LLMs have.

(I still adore hookshot/rectangle though :)

Re: macOS Tips and Tricks (2022)

#76
post #20

Love that this is straight to the point. My tips: - Use Alfred. Game changer. It's an immediate improvement on spotlight search, you can run commands with three keystrokes (rather than opening a terminal, just command + space, then > ), it gives clipboard history and fast append (lets you press command + c twice fast to append to clipboard, and opt + command + c to search clipboard history), and lets you make 'workfl…

Fwiw I hear good things about aerospace but haven’t yet had a chance to give it a shot.

I've recently switched from Amethyst to Aerospace and am really liking it

Re: macOS Tips and Tricks (2022)

#78

My favorites: To quickly find text, select some text and press ⌘E followed by ⌘G. In save dialogs, press ⌘= to switch between the compact and expanded layout. In save dialogs, press ~ to open a Go To File dialog prefilled with the home directory. Press / to open it prefilled with the root directory. Hold Option while opening the Wi-Fi and Bluetooth menus to access extra options. After copying a file, press ⌥⌘V to mov…

> After copying a file, press ⌥⌘V to move the file instead of pasting a copy of it.

This one is very cool

Re: macOS Tips and Tricks (2022)

#79
post #20

Love that this is straight to the point. My tips: - Use Alfred. Game changer. It's an immediate improvement on spotlight search, you can run commands with three keystrokes (rather than opening a terminal, just command + space, then > ), it gives clipboard history and fast append (lets you press command + c twice fast to append to clipboard, and opt + command + c to search clipboard history), and lets you make 'workfl…

> - There's still no good window manager for macOS. Rectangle is as close as it gets, but it's not good IMO because it only works on non full size windows. (the solution is just get ninja-like with three finger swipe, and endure using the mouse/trackpad more than you'd prefer) I use Magnet and it does the job well. If you're familiar with it, I'd love to know why you don't think it's a good window manager. Or do you…

+1 for magnet. Indispensable to the extent that on rare occasions I use others Macs where it’s not installed I’ll gift it to them (and they invariably become passionate about it).

Re: macOS Tips and Tricks (2022)

#80

Does anyone know of a good solution to manage menubar on Mac? Have M2 Pro with a notch which hides many of many items and it's so difficult to access them unless I quit a few of them.

Icebar

I second Ice - it's great

https://github.com/jordanbaird/Ice

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