Preview, the Mac app people forget about • Hacker News Board

Re: Preview, the Mac app people forget about

#281

Post by 2muchcoffeeman » Tue, May 10, 2022, 1:39 AM UTC

uhuruity wrote: post #273

jitl wrote: post #7

Preview is one of those essential things that sets macOS apart from the other operating systems, and contributes to that “Mac has good UX” vibe. Last time I opened the Windows equivalent, it tried to sell me on Microsoft’s PDF-alike format… and asked me to connect Office365. Another tiny macOS feature I love is that you can drop a file icon on any Open or Save dialog to select the file in the dialog. On other OSs, th…

> Preview is one of those essential things that sets macOS apart from the other operating systems, and contributes to that “Mac has good UX” vibe. As I read this I thought of another such feature - how pressing Space with a file selected (in either Finder or any 'choose a file' dialog window) presents a quick preview of the contents of the file. Extremely low friction way to quickly check out the contents of a file,…

It also has better file puppet than Windows or Linux. I can hit space on an STL and it will show me a preview.

Re: Preview, the Mac app people forget about

#282

Post by austhrow743 » Tue, May 10, 2022, 1:54 AM UTC

wanderingstan wrote: post #204

CyanDeparture wrote: post #31

One massive I'd add to this list that got added recently - being able to copy and paste text out of images. I'm so often sent a screenshot with a url in the url bar, I can now copy and paste that screenshot of a url. It's been massively the past month since I noticed it. Not sure how long it's been there, I assume not long, maybe last OS update.

To get this functionality everywhere , I’ve taken using the TRex app: https://github.com/amebalabs/TRex I have it mapped to ctrl-alt-command-C. As more and more apps and webpages make text unselectable, it’s become invaluable. My favorite trick is to copy the URL when someone is screen sharing their browser in a virtual meeting!

I really like how this works with alfred. Thanks!

Re: Preview, the Mac app people forget about

#283

Post by cyral » Tue, May 10, 2022, 2:04 AM UTC

jitl wrote: post #52

MawKKe wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That iOS scan feature is "hidden" in the Files app. Open it on your phone and press the three dots in the top right corner and it should have "scan documents" option. You can also select "black & white" mode for text documents which saves a ton of space

Notes.app also exposes scanning… but often I want to scan to camera roll. They should add a button in Camera.

I only knew about it through notes and thought it was neat but a little clunky... This "Scan from iPhone" feature is great, wish they made it easier to find as I've used MacOS for years and never knew about it.

Re: Preview, the Mac app people forget about

#284

Post by cyral » Tue, May 10, 2022, 2:11 AM UTC

howinteresting wrote: post #125

SamBam wrote: post #36

Signatures stamps are great, but the signature-creation method is absurd. Ok, there is something cryptographically special about a signature image, which means we can't just import a file, it has to be created while in the program, and it gets stored on the keychain. Fine. But then why not also give us the ability to add an arbitrary stamp from an image? Why have the only method for adding a stamp to a PDF be through…

Because fundamentally Apple computers do not put you at the center of your computer, they put Apple there. For example, on the new M1 computers, iOS apps stop functioning if SIP is disabled. Why? This is entirely artificial, because the iOS app model depends on you not being able to do whatever you want with the device you own. Contrast this with open source where this sort of restriction would just be patched away.

> Contrast this with open source where this sort of restriction would just be patched away.

Are there any distros with this feature at all?

Re: Preview, the Mac app people forget about

#285

Post by pschastain » Tue, May 10, 2022, 2:15 AM UTC

vestrigi wrote: post #259

Only thing Preview is weak at is filling out PDFs. I often have to place my own text boxes by hand and when text boxes are recognized the entered text is often oddly formatted.

Apple rewrote Preview.app post-Mavericks and crippled it in the process; text box placement definitely lost functionality

Re: Preview, the Mac app people forget about

#286

Post by prawn » Tue, May 10, 2022, 2:19 AM UTC

I love Preview but since the Monterey upgrade and this M1 Max, mine constantly loses the ability to actually preview something with spacebar. It will only show me a thumbnail. I'll have to kill and relaunch the Finder a few times a day to regain the normal functionality.

Anyone else seen this and managed to resolve it?

Re: Preview, the Mac app people forget about

#287

Post by barbs » Tue, May 10, 2022, 3:43 AM UTC

jitl wrote: post #7

Preview is one of those essential things that sets macOS apart from the other operating systems, and contributes to that “Mac has good UX” vibe. Last time I opened the Windows equivalent, it tried to sell me on Microsoft’s PDF-alike format… and asked me to connect Office365. Another tiny macOS feature I love is that you can drop a file icon on any Open or Save dialog to select the file in the dialog. On other OSs, th…

Been a while since I've used Windows as a daily driver but I used to use SumatraPDF for basic PDF operations. Small, lightweight, open-source. Looks like it'd still be useful today?

https://www.sumatrapdfreader.org/free-pdf-reader

Re: Preview, the Mac app people forget about

#288

Post by octoberfranklin » Tue, May 10, 2022, 3:57 AM UTC

kjksf wrote: post #179

Macha wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SumatraPDF is what you want as a windows user (yes, ignore the website looks like it's from the 90s). No upsells like acrobat/foxit, better compatibility than pdf.js like your browser. Linux I mostly use evince (included if you use a Gnome based distro), but it's clearly the weakest of Preview/SumatraPDF/evince, as someone who uses all 3 regularly. Still better than Acrobat Reader though.

Hey, I just updated the website https://www.sumatrapdfreader.org (for reference, the old one: https://sumatra-website-preview.onrender.com/free-pdf-reader ). Does it look better? Maybe early 2000?

Don't be ashamed of 90's looking websites, I've been conditioned to associate that with extreme competence.

For example https://www.rockauto.com

Re: Preview, the Mac app people forget about

#289

Post by 7speter » Tue, May 10, 2022, 3:59 AM UTC

wildrhythms wrote: post #241

lostlogin wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My passport application photo kept getting rejected as my eyes were ‘too dark’. I tried various things without luck, then in a rage, I copied my ‘light’ eye and stuck it over my shaded eye. I thought the passport photo submission tool would let me review before accepting an upload. Nope, off it went. The passport has worked in several countries, USA, UK and others. Thanks Preview.

Ancient companies requiring I print out a form, sign it physically, scan it, send it back... I just open it in Preview, use the text annotation tool and some random cursive font, "sign it", re-export, done. I haven't owned a printer or scanner in 10 years.

This isn't really too hard these days, at least in theory, since you can use your phones camera to scan the doc.

Re: Preview, the Mac app people forget about

#290

Post by octoberfranklin » Tue, May 10, 2022, 4:00 AM UTC

dantondwa wrote: post #131

Preview is amazing and I miss it very dearly, now that I'm not running macOS anymore. There's simply nothing like it anywhere else. The amount of things it can do, and what a sleek UI. I only suffered a bit during the El Capitan-Sierra era, as I think they rewrote the PDF engine and there were some regressions. Anyway, it's the best and I wish something like that existed elsewhere. On Linux, GNOME's pdf viewer could…

> Okular is a bit better, but it's UI is bad.

Understatement of the century.

It can do a lot of impressive stuff, but makes you fight with it to do it for the dumbest reasons. Like the fact that entering text into a form field requires a popup window, which I still can't figure out how to complete interacting with solely via the keyboard. Ye gads.