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Mac OS X hidden features and nice tips & tricks

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Re: Mac OS X hidden features and nice tips & tricks

#21

Post by nfg »

GeneralMaximus wrote: post #20

A few I can think of: - Open the Apple menu. Now hold Shift. More menu options! Now try holding Opt. Even more menu options! This works for several Apple applications. - Hold Opt when clicking on a menubar icon for extra information. For example, holding Opt and clicking the WiFi icon in the menubar brings up the signal strength, IP address and other useful information. Likewise for the rest of the icons. - In Spotli…

> - You know you can drop files on dock icons? Did you know you can also drop them on the icons in the app switcher (the thing that comes up when you hit Cmd+Tab)?

This also works with Exposé, it's particularly nice if you set up hot-corners in the system preferences to trigger exposé:

1. Start dragging something.

2. Flick to a corner to tile windows exposé style.

3. Drop the dragged object on the window of your choice.

Re: Mac OS X hidden features and nice tips & tricks

#22

Post by nikcub »

whimsy wrote: post #10
nikcub wrote: post #6

The big one that I went through recently was killing startup items. You tend to hoard them over time, especially with a dev machine. Look in, and clear out in /Library/StartupItems and /System/Library/StartupItems Like any good UNIX, there are a dozen other ways that applications can launch themselves in OS X, so run a ps and find processes that you don't need and figure out where they are being started. I alias ever…

Are you doing anything fancy inside vbx, or is it just a copy of the startup item?

it is just a shell script that lets me do:

vbx xp1

vbx ie7

etc. to setup the network and start the vm with that name

Re: Mac OS X hidden features and nice tips & tricks

#23

Post by iaskwhy »

phsr wrote: post #17
iaskwhy wrote: post #15

"I love the fact that OS X will scroll the window that the mouse is hovering over, even if another application has focus. That way I can scroll an example that I am coding in TextMate without having to lose keyboard control on TM" This also happens on Windows (at least on Chrome) but Windows goes even further: you can click through a link or button on a non-focused window. On OS X, in order to follow a link or click…

This happens between Chrome windows, because you are still within Chrome if you have one of the windows in focus, so Chrome can determine which window you want to scroll by figuring out which one you are hovered over. On Mac, it scrolls even if the application in question is out of focus.

Oh, I didn't know it would work with any window, that's very nice!

Re: Mac OS X hidden features and nice tips & tricks

#24

Post by iaskwhy »

anon1385 wrote: post #16
iaskwhy wrote: post #15

"I love the fact that OS X will scroll the window that the mouse is hovering over, even if another application has focus. That way I can scroll an example that I am coding in TextMate without having to lose keyboard control on TM" This also happens on Windows (at least on Chrome) but Windows goes even further: you can click through a link or button on a non-focused window. On OS X, in order to follow a link or click…

Command click on buttons in background windows to click them without bringing the window to the front. Works for most things (at least anything using standard cocoa controls), although clicking links in Safari is a notable exception since it still seems to bring the window to the front. You can also command+click and drag background title bars to move those windows without bringing them to the front.

It's a good workaround I guess. I'm still not sure which way is the best. OS X kinda prevents the user from misclicking outside the window while Windows doesn't but if you're in need of some speed (and fewer clicks/keys) then you might prefer the Windows way.

Re: Mac OS X hidden features and nice tips & tricks

#25

Post by melling »

Shouldn't people sign up and put their answers on StackExchange? They have pretty good search built into it. Search: [haskell] mysql

This will return all questions tagged haskell that mention mysql.

I'd love a HN article search by title, comment, author, or my saved stories.

Re: Mac OS X hidden features and nice tips & tricks

#27

Post by spacemanaki »

tristian wrote: post #14

Wow, I just saw this nugget in one of the comments: VI mode for the standard Terminal. Add "set -o vi" to your profile and you get access to same modality and commands of VI. Damn, I wish I knew about this option earlier.

Note that I think that's a Bash thing, and the default is Emacs-style bindings (C-a, C-e, C-p, C-n) which include C-r for reverse interactive search of the history. I use that every day, a dozen or more times.

Re: Mac OS X hidden features and nice tips & tricks

#28

Post by bittersweet »

tristian wrote: post #14

Wow, I just saw this nugget in one of the comments: VI mode for the standard Terminal. Add "set -o vi" to your profile and you get access to same modality and commands of VI. Damn, I wish I knew about this option earlier.

This one is not OSX specific though. I've tried it and can not get used to it even though I'm a VIM user at heart. I think not seeing the mode I'm in was tripping me up.

Re: Mac OS X hidden features and nice tips & tricks

#30

Post by fkcek »

spacemanaki wrote: post #27
tristian wrote: post #14

Wow, I just saw this nugget in one of the comments: VI mode for the standard Terminal. Add "set -o vi" to your profile and you get access to same modality and commands of VI. Damn, I wish I knew about this option earlier.

Note that I think that's a Bash thing, and the default is Emacs-style bindings (C-a, C-e, C-p, C-n) which include C-r for reverse interactive search of the history. I use that every day, a dozen or more times.

My favorite is C-t to correct typos like 'liek' instead of 'like', I put the cursor between the e and the k and i press C-t.
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