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Keyboard tricks from a macOS app dev

notes.alinpanaitiu.com

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Re: Keyboard tricks from a macOS app dev

#21

Post by alin23 »

httpteapot wrote: post #15

I recently purchased a MacBook, and while I'm thoroughly impressed with the hardware, I find the keyboard navigation in the desktop environment somewhat lacking in comparison to my previous experience. Having used Linux Pop OS for many years, I've grown accustomed to the intuitive and powerful tiling window manager and keyboard navigation shortcuts it offers. I'm struggling to find a comparable solution on the macOS…

You can mimic that in part with yabai (https://github.com/koekeishiya/yabai). Disabling SIP gets you instant Space switching and creating without animation just like Pop_OS.

But you can get very far to an automated tiling WM and keyboard navigation even without disabling SIP.

Re: Keyboard tricks from a macOS app dev

#23

Post by httpteapot »

richbell wrote: post #19
httpteapot wrote: post #15

I recently purchased a MacBook, and while I'm thoroughly impressed with the hardware, I find the keyboard navigation in the desktop environment somewhat lacking in comparison to my previous experience. Having used Linux Pop OS for many years, I've grown accustomed to the intuitive and powerful tiling window manager and keyboard navigation shortcuts it offers. I'm struggling to find a comparable solution on the macOS…

It's a sore-spot for sure. I've found that Rectangle[0] does a good enough job. [0] https://rectangleapp.com/

Does Rectangle has a shortcut to switch the focused window in a split screen?

Re: Keyboard tricks from a macOS app dev

#25

Post by bartvk »

alin23 wrote: post #21
httpteapot wrote: post #15

I recently purchased a MacBook, and while I'm thoroughly impressed with the hardware, I find the keyboard navigation in the desktop environment somewhat lacking in comparison to my previous experience. Having used Linux Pop OS for many years, I've grown accustomed to the intuitive and powerful tiling window manager and keyboard navigation shortcuts it offers. I'm struggling to find a comparable solution on the macOS…

You can mimic that in part with yabai ( https://github.com/koekeishiya/yabai ). Disabling SIP gets you instant Space switching and creating without animation just like Pop_OS. But you can get very far to an automated tiling WM and keyboard navigation even without disabling SIP.

Just because this often comes up; I don't want to disable SIP. However I'm very happy with yabai.

Re: Keyboard tricks from a macOS app dev

#26

Post by ryangittins »

nbzso wrote: post #22

Better Touch Tool changed the way that I operate. Sequencing of keys can make you a productive monster:) Practically speaking, I remove the use of short keys that require to break my fingers every day.

Yes! I'm sure I'm not using it anywhere close to its full potential, but just being able to two-finger tap a link to open it in a new tab is huge.

What are your favorite shortcuts?

Re: Keyboard tricks from a macOS app dev

#27

Post by n8henrie »

gnicholas wrote: post #6

I used to have a clipboard manager that gave me access to my last X copied items, as well as a navigable list of snippets. A few years back, a MacOS update broke whatever tool I was using, and I ended up buying BetterTouchTool. BTT does give me my clipboard history, and it appears to be very powerful in general, but I can't figure out an easy way to replicate the navigable list of snippets. I do use the MacOS text ex…

I've used Quicksilver for clipboard history historically. There is a currently a bug that I've been meaning to delve into: https://github.com/quicksilver/Quicksilver/issues/2913 but still generally usable. Particularly handy combined with adding simple AppleScript or JXA actions to manipulate the content (I have several simple ones for example to run a regex, to clean extraneous content around a number, a phone number, strip whitespace, indent 4 spaces for pasting into a markdown codeblock on SO, etc etc).

The Shelf plug-in also very handy along similar lines.

Re: Keyboard tricks from a macOS app dev

#28

Post by m3kw9 »

BTT is great man, it just allows you to configure any shortcut for any app.

But the one key I use the most is assigning “`” key as the back button. You keep your hand on that key while surfing web or any app that has a back navigation, it’s just so much better than clicking or remembering each apps back shortcut.

If you really need to type ` then you assign fn-` it’s really rarely used

Re: Keyboard tricks from a macOS app dev

#29

Post by themadsens »

gnicholas wrote: post #6

I used to have a clipboard manager that gave me access to my last X copied items, as well as a navigable list of snippets. A few years back, a MacOS update broke whatever tool I was using, and I ended up buying BetterTouchTool. BTT does give me my clipboard history, and it appears to be very powerful in general, but I can't figure out an easy way to replicate the navigable list of snippets. I do use the MacOS text ex…

Alfred (https://alfredapp.com) has a snippet manager (and a _whole_ lot more kbd goodies)

Re: Keyboard tricks from a macOS app dev

#30

Post by theshrike79 »

gnicholas wrote: post #6

I used to have a clipboard manager that gave me access to my last X copied items, as well as a navigable list of snippets. A few years back, a MacOS update broke whatever tool I was using, and I ended up buying BetterTouchTool. BTT does give me my clipboard history, and it appears to be very powerful in general, but I can't figure out an easy way to replicate the navigable list of snippets. I do use the MacOS text ex…

Alfred has a clipboard history among a billion other things
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