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macOS Tips and Tricks (2022)

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Re: macOS Tips and Tricks (2022)

#241
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…

I used to use tiling window managers on Linux, but I found out that my Mac usage contains lots of “graphical” apps that don't like to live in a quarter of the screen or something like that. So I've embraced overlapping windows. I strategically place them so that the import parts are visible. For example, my IDE is full screen, but the browser is only 70% with and height or so (so that the left 30% and the bottom 30%…

> I've embraced overlapping windows.

Same. My eyesight getting worse has been a big factor for me. The days of having all my active tools neatly organized and visible simultaneously is over, even with multiple large monitors.

Re: macOS Tips and Tricks (2022)

#242
post #122

All I want is an app that can fix the "broken window" focus management. Like when I click a window, Mac OS brings to top all windows of the respective app, and when an app (say, Finder) has no window open currently, bringing it to front also unaskedly manipulates the stacking order such that other app's windows become the top most one, completely destroying the visual context. Also, back in the days I used Expose a l…

You may be interested in https://alt-tab-macos.netlify.app/

Thank you for sharing this!

Re: macOS Tips and Tricks (2022)

#243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Aerospace tiling window manager is amazing

I agree, aerospace is great! I'm surprised I don't hear of it more often. I'm recent convert to MacOS and was surprised at how bad the window management was by default, but aerospace fixed that right up.

Re: macOS Tips and Tricks (2022)

#244
post #81
post #69

> Press ⇧⌘/ to search all of the current app's menu items. Shift command slash, got it. > Press ⌃F2 to move keyboard focus to the application's menu bar. Start typing the first few letters of a menu title to jump to that menu. Control F2? Control shift F2? None of those work on macOS Sequoiua.

Try Fn+Control+F2

This will depend on whether you have the function key row set to act as function keys or as special keys (based on the icons printed on them).

Re: macOS Tips and Tricks (2022)

#245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Things that are hard: launching a terminal at a location, viewing or copying a files path, navigating a deep file system, column width in the column view, searching for files, finding file info, and lots of other.

> launching a terminal at a location A workaround for this (especially if you have a terminal always open) is to drag the file/folder you want to operate on into an open terminal window, which will paste in its path.

Also, remember the commands pbcopy and pbpaste which along with pipes allow one to do a myriad of tasks.

Re: macOS Tips and Tricks (2022)

#247

awesome tips. Thanks for posting. For screenshots:- does anyone know of a way to take scrolling screenshots? I often need to take screenshots of webpages that are long.

Chrome dev tools > the three little dots at the top right of the window > capture full size screenshot.

I always look for it in the three little dots that are next to the 'x' in the dev tools drawer, but it's actually behind the dots in the top nav that show screen dimensions, throttling, device orientation, etc.

Re: macOS Tips and Tricks (2022)

#248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> launching a terminal at a location Right-click on directory > Services > New Terminal at Folder. > viewing or copying a files path Right-click on directory or file and press Option > Copy " " as path name. > navigating a deep file system Not sure what you mean. > column width in the column view Option + click & Drag. Or do you want them to adjust to files/folders name length? > searching for files What's wrong with…

> Right-click on directory > Services > New Terminal at Folder. Note that you can also bind a hotkey to this! And in general in macOS, you can a bind to a hotkey to any menu item in any application. Search "keyboard shortcuts" in settings, then under Services -> Files and Folders.

except Excel's ribbon menu items. As far as I know there's no method to hotkey those like ALT+[] on windows. Same for Outlook's categorize email function.

Re: macOS Tips and Tricks (2022)

#249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Things that are hard: launching a terminal at a location, viewing or copying a files path, navigating a deep file system, column width in the column view, searching for files, finding file info, and lots of other.

> searching for files Erm, what ? I use Mac, Windows, Linux and BSD daily. Of all four, searching for files on a Mac is a dream. Apple Spotlight is and always has been lightyears ahead of whatever garbage Microsoft use on Windows. And don't get me started on the inconvenience of searching for files on Linux or BSD, I mean, for starters you have to download a non-default tool like `fd` if you want to search at any rea…

Searching on my Mac's SSD is great.

Searching on my SMB network share doesn't work. At all. It's not just that Spotlight won't index it. It's that you can't even search by filename within the current folder you're viewing.

Re: macOS Tips and Tricks (2022)

#250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Things that are hard: launching a terminal at a location, viewing or copying a files path, navigating a deep file system, column width in the column view, searching for files, finding file info, and lots of other.

> launching a terminal at a location Right-click on directory > Services > New Terminal at Folder. > viewing or copying a files path Right-click on directory or file and press Option > Copy " " as path name. > navigating a deep file system Not sure what you mean. > column width in the column view Option + click & Drag. Or do you want them to adjust to files/folders name length? > searching for files What's wrong with…

In the column view, adjusting to the file/folder name length is easy. Just double click on the column divider.
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