Ask HN: What feature did you find after years of using macOS? - <AUTHOR> For me, it was finding that I can use "Stacks" in Finder to clear desktop. For years, I was irritated with screenshots lying all over my desktop screen but didn't have the energy to sort them manually. When I found out Stacks, I was like ... <comment><USER4> Smart Folders (Finder -> File -> New Smart Folder). It's not exactly hidden but I never paid too much attention to it. It's essentially a way to create a folder whose content is dynamically updated based on your search conditions.

For example, you can create a smart folder that contains all PDF files matching a certain name pattern within a given directory (or the whole disk) [0]. You can get really advanced, there's a ton of different parameters you can use [1], and you can even create more complicated conditions by holding Option and clicking the plus sign (now changed to just three dots). And of course you can drag these folders into the sidebar's Favourites section.

[0] [https://i.imgur.com/lD2zaSd.png](https://i.imgur.com/lD2zaSd.png)

[1] [https://i.imgur.com/SKsQRnQ.png](https://i.imgur.com/SKsQRnQ.png)

<comment><USER5> I've been sad since they were introduced that they don't work at the file system level, hence not in CLI applications. Support for them in desktop apps that open directories is also spotty.

I would LOVE them if they were reimplemented as a fuse style file system instead of a userland macOS trick.

<comment><USER6> I wonder if there is a list somewhere around Apple of "Annoying Edge Cases We'd Have To Support If Smart Folders Worked At The Filesystem Level", and how long it is.

Like, you're in a smart folder that contains files whose name includes "foo", and you try to create a file whose name does _not_ include "foo", what happens? Do you get an existing filesystem error? Do you get a new "can't create new files in smart folders" error?

Interestingly enough I just discovered that if you drag a file into the Tags section of the Finder window's sidebar, it will remain where it is - but if you create a smart folder whose criteria is "tag:tagname" it won't let you drag anything into it, even though it shows the exact same set of files.

<comment><USER7> Also, duplicate filenames due to two files in two different locations both getting picked up by the smart folder.

<comment><USER8> You can easily tack on a random ID to the file name in that case and since it would just be a symlink it wouldn't matter.

<comment><USER7> That's not the point. I have no doubt that the people at Apple are able to solve these issues. I think a lot of people on HN are able to propose solutions to many of these issues.

The point OP was making is that they have probably did their due diligence and subsequently decided that it ain't worth doing.

<comment><USER8> Oh for sure. I also imagine it depends on which team proposed it. If it's the Finder team it might not occur to them to offload it to the file system team because it's a fancy add on, not a system level thing. I have never used this feature but might give it a go. Having all the PDF files in one place could actually be fairly useful. Could also be nice to combine this with my Dropbox photography workflow.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Cmd-space to bring up spotlight

Type whatever you want.

Cmd-b

Your default web browser with your default search engine will now open and perform your query. I can't stress this enough how much I use this workflow when writing code.

Another thing for the OPs issue with the screenshots, (there's a few steps via terminal so maybe try the above shortcut to search for an article on how to do it) you can have all your screenshots redirect to a folder.

For example all of my screenshots end up in $HOME/screenshots

Also, another cool and sometimes useful shortcut, holding option while clicking is a big thing in osx. Try click the wifi icon in the top right corner whilst holding the option key. It will give you a bunch more details :)

<comment><USER10> I tried Cmd-b search in spotlight but it went with Firefox+Google when my default is Firefox+Duckduckgo, any chance someone knows how to fix it?

<comment><USER9> So, I've been messing around with this for about 30 minutes now. I don't like giving bad advice!

Set safari as your default, set the search engine you want in the safari preferences, change your browser back to what you prefer.

<comment><USER8> Props for the follow up!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I've been using windows more recently since my personal Mac bit the dust and I'm trying to decide if there's really that much reason to own a personal Mac.

So now I realize for years I've been using this silent feature of macs for years called "not totally jacked up font rendering". I would never have imagined this was a feature, but apparently there is a collective insanity in windowsland where the quality of font rendering is not just a total and utter failure. So this is my new top Mac feature.

<comment><USER12> I remember watching a speech from Steve Jobs where he specifically said he learned about calligraphy or typefacing (I don't remember the specific terms) to implement proper font rendering on macs. This was also before OSX came out.

It was interesting because I realized how subtly difficult font rendering is. Unless you're using a monospaced font all of the characters have different widths, you have to figure out how to split text into lines, or how much to space text if the alignment is set to justify. In some of the fancier fonts on macOS, the characters actually change slightly if there are other characters nearby.

<comment><USER13> I don't think it was specifically for the Mac. I think this might be from the speech he gave at Stanford where he talked about dropping his required classes and going to ones that he just was interested in. He later applied what he learned though.

[1] [https://news.stanford.edu/2005/06/14/jobs-061505/](https://news.stanford.edu/2005/06/14/jobs-061505/)

<comment><USER12> Yes that was the speech

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> \- Ctrl + Cmd + Shift + 4 will let you take a screenshot of a region of your screen and copy it to the clipboard. It can then be pasted directly into most applications, from email clients to chat clients. No random screenshots sitting around. If you want to capture a whole window, press Space after the initial shortcut, then click the window.

\- While a menu is open, hold Option; if you're lucky, you'll get some additional options. This works after right-clicking an item in Finder, for example, or after right-clicking an icon in the Dock.

\- Magnet for window management. This is a third-party application, but you'll wonder how you lived without it. If you've used Spectacle, Magnet is similar, but I find Magnet to be a bit more graceful.

\- Sidecar and AirPlay. Want a second screen? Got an iPad or Apple TV? You can effortless treat it as a second screen with very low latency. It "just works."

\- Cmd + Space to open Spotlight. Most power users are already familiar with this; if you're not, try it.

\- Cmd + Shift + G in Finder to go to a folder by path. You can also use it to copy the path to the current folder.

\- Return/Enter to rename the currently-selected file in Finder. If you're coming from Windows/Linux and are accustomed to pressing F2, you might not know about this one.

\- Similarly, to open the currently selected item in Finder, press Cmd + O. To navigate up a directory, press Cmd + Up.

\- Ever installed a new drive in your Mac? You don't need to manually download macOS installation media beforehand; with the right key combination at boot, you can install it via the internet. There are a few different related combinations with differing functionality; it's worth looking them up and choosing the right one for your situation: [https://support.apple.com/en- us/HT201255](https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201255)

<comment> noman-land After you press Ctrl + Cmd + Shift + 4 and start dragging a region, if you hold the space bar, you can move this region around the screen so you're not trapped with where you originally started dragging.

<comment><USER15> In addition to pressing space to move the selected region, you can also press:

\- Option, to move all four corners symmetrically around the region's center

\- Shift, to constrain expansion to a single axis

\- Option + Shift, to move the edges on a single axis symmetrically around the center

\- Space + Shift, to move the entire region along a single axis

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Marking a file as "Stationary Pad" will create and open a copy every time you open the original. Good for templates or any other file you don't want to accidentally save changes to.

\- Get Info on file. \- Check Stationary Pad box.

<comment><USER17> That's a strange name/label for an awesome feature.

<comment><USER18> It'd make sense if the label were actually "Stationery", which is practically a paper template.

<comment><USER19> Fortunately, that is how it's spelled.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> This has been around for a long time but most people don't know about it:

Dragging and dropping files from the finder into an file selector window (ie. Open File in most programs) will navigate to that file and select it. As others mentioned this works in terminal as well to give you a path, but actually this generally works in any text box (unless it specifically handles paths being drag 'n dropped). This also works with multiple files / multi file selection, and in the case of inserting the path as text, they are space delimited and auto quoted (convenient for shell use).

Edit: This icon can include the one at the top of a finder window (the window title). That's actually interactable and can be dragged and dropped for the directory itself.

<comment><USER21> > this works in terminal as well to give you a path

I'll add that if you want the path of a file and the destination application doesn't support drag 'n' drop, right click on a file in finder, then hold the Option key and you'll see the copy command changes from "Copy" to "Copy as Pathname".

<comment><USER22> Oh my god this is so useful! I've known about the 'drag into your terminal' thing for ages but not needing to use the mouse and just doing command- option-c is so much nicer!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Mouse keys -- as an anti-feature. (press option 5 times)

My daughter enabled it while I wasn't at the computer and then thought my keyboard had died. Even took it in to get repaired, and got a new keyboard.

There is no permanent indicator that it's enabled, and it persists after reboots (once logged in)... when I figured out my brand new keyboard still had several broken keys I started looking for S/W level issues. Hard facepalm. It didn't help diagnosis that I did have some physically affected keys too.

At least I got a new keyboard out of it...

<comment><USER24> What happened? What does _mouse keys_ do?

<comment><USER25> See [1]

In short, it makes the keys on a numerical keypad allow you to control the mouse (move up/down/left/right and click)

[1] [https://etc.usf.edu/techease/4all/input-devices/what-are- mou...](https://etc.usf.edu/techease/4all/input-devices/what-are-mouse-keys/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Three-finger drag is the one thing I just can't live without.[0]

Finder: Cmd+Shift+G to navigate wherever I want (with autocomplete)

Text input: Control+Command+Space for the emoji list and search

Text input (switching keyboards for Japanese input): Control+Space for quick toggles

Text input (accents in my native language): all the accents and letters of various European languages are usually made by using Option+[key] for the accent, and Option+[key]+letter for the proper letter. The [key] maps are e -> ´, `` -> `` (I'm messing up the rendering of the quotes here despite my best efforts), i -> ˆ, u -> ¨ and some keys Option+[key] directly give a character when it's unique, such as Option+a=å and Option+o=ø, and Option+1=¡ (because it's the key for ! otherwise, which makes sense - and can help with Spanish)

For the longer examples, Option+e+e = é, Option+e+a = á, Option+`+a = à, Option+u+u = ü, Option+i+u = û, Option+n+n = ñ, etc.

Holding Option in menus also shows extra options and their shortcuts (although this is less and less the case outside of the Apple apps themselves). An example using Finder -> Edit and pressing/releasing the Option key[1]

Oh and one more: the app "Stickies", which allows you to have "post-it notes" with color coding and collapsing the note by double-clicking on the title, saving to file, etc. I use it to take quick notes or set casual reminders.

Last but not least, not an Apple app but a very helpful tool I've used to make the gif in this post: Kap is incredibly convenient to records bits of the screen and save to various formats, and it's been improving a lot since its early releases[2] (I have no stake in this, I'm just thankful for such a cool piece of free software)

[0] [https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204609](https://support.apple.com/en- us/HT204609)

[1] [https://i.imgur.com/feRhErF.gif](https://i.imgur.com/feRhErF.gif)

[2] [https://getkap.co/](https://getkap.co/)

<comment><USER27> > all the accents and letters

Nowadays, holding down a key will show a pop-up with all the accent options, which you can then select by mouse or by typing the number under it, much like on iOS. The option route is my preferred one, as it's faster, but the new one is much more accessible to people without keyboard prowess.

<comment><USER28> Is there a way to shut off the long press functionality? Sometimes I just want to type "byeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!", and I have already made the effort to learn accent key combos.

<comment><USER26> Pretty much this: [https://www.howtogeek.com/267463/how-to-enable-key- repeating...](https://www.howtogeek.com/267463/how-to-enable-key-repeating-in- macos/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Show hidden files (dotfiles) inside any finder window or file open dialog: Cmd + Shift + .

Discovered after ~10 years

<comment><USER30> Why would they not put this in the View menu? I can even imagine someone invoking it by mistake and not working out how to undo it.

<comment><USER31> Exactly, it's also a needless pain point for those switching from Windows, where the checkbox is relatively accessible, if a few clicks away.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Setting most (but not all) system preference using the terminal. It made doing clean installs every year so much easier. [https://github.com/mathiasbynens/dotfiles/blob/main/.macos](https://github.com/mathiasbynens/dotfiles/blob/main/.macos)

<comment><USER33> Do you have a good way of discovering these keys / syncing them with the UI? I like to do the same thing but sometimes change a setting in the UI and don't know what to update in my script without diffing the entire prefs directory before and after the change.

<comment><USER34> AFAIK diffing is the only way, I'd love to hear if anyone has a better technique

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> my favourite feature is how the title bar icon in any app that's editing a file (textmate/ word etc) is a pointer to the actual file unlike windows.

\- you can drag that file anywhere to move it.

\- CMD click it to see a breadcrumb menu showing where it is and navigate to the folder

on a similar vein, dragging a file into an open file modal box makes it browse to the containing folder. In windows, dragging a file would move the file into that folder.

I combine the above two quite a bit. Editing a file in app A, need to upload it somewhere via browser. Drag file from title bar into open dialog box, done.

<comment><USER36> I hate hate hate that they're hiding proxy icons in Big Sur.

<comment><USER37> Damn, what a bummer. Is there any way to re-enable it?

<comment><USER22> It appears almost instantly when you mouse over where it used to be. I've been living on it for the past few weeks and haven't changed my muscle memory at all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Cmd-R (R for "reveal") in the open/save file dialog opens the present directory in Finder. This is useful as I commonly want to do some additional janitory tasks in the directory.

<comment><USER39> A complimentary feature: when you want to "open" a file from some file open dialog box, instead of navigating through the dialog, go find the file some other way and drag-n-drop it onto the dialog. The file won't open, BUT it'll pop over to the directory and select the file for you to then open in the context of the application.

I use this all the time when I either have something handy in Finder or can find it more quickly with alfred.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> While this isn't a generic feature, I want to say that everyone should try embracing the non-keyboard nature of macOS (as it always has been done), not just complaining that some of the elements are not reachable in the keyboard.[0] Try using the mouse, trackpad (which is top-quality), and the Touch Bar (which I guess will be the most controversial?).

Especially drag-n-drop. I'm not sure if it's already mentioned, but the proxy icon (the icon in the title bar) is super-useful in situations when you need to find (e.g. upload/attach the file in Safari, opening the file with another app) the file somewhere else. Just drag the proxy icon and drop it to the destination, and it usually will do what you want.

Also the Touch Bar. Everybody complains about it while not even trying to take advantage of it...[1] Customize your Touch Bar so that the buttons are in a consistent way, e.g. I always put the new tab button (if it exists) in the far right, where I can reach without looking, and I put the most useful actions (like getting information, trashing files in Finder, tab switching in Safari, text suggestion, etc...) in the middle, and put the less-useful but somewhat frequent actions (like toggling the sidebar, emojis, etc..) in the left. If you consciously try using them for a week or two, you realize you're much productive using the Touch Bar than using obscure shortcuts or moving the mouse.

[0]: BTW, good news for people who were complaining - macOS Big Sur greatly increases the amount of controls reachable with the keyboard, although I dislike the fact that I have to bang more tabs to reach some button.

[1]: There's definitely Apple's fault here too, if you're using a Touch Bar equipped Mac, 'brew cask install haptickey' so that you get haptic feedback on your Touch Bar touches.

<comment><USER41> Isn't the touchbar explicitly a "keyboard nature" type of interaction? You mentioned Mac OS having a non-keyboard nature, and then tout the touchbar?

<comment><USER42> I know what they meant here. The touch bar seems like a keyboard but it's not, because of the sliders and customization.

My original touch bar layout mirrored the pre-touch bar layout out of familiarity. Recently I've learned how to use it as intended (sliders instead of up and down buttons, using application-custom buttons). I realized that I was just being an old man about the touch bar before.

<comment><USER43> I think one of the key advantages of a non-keyboard interaction is that you don't have to look at the pointing device to see what you're doing. Touch-bar precisely needs that, especially given that there is no tactile feedback. And it's the main reason why I think the Touch-bar destroys productivity.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> Batch renaming files in Finder.[1] It's quite useful and one of the few GUI- based looping operations that takes me less time than fat-fingering the shell incantation.

[1] [https://osxdaily.com/2015/05/28/batch-rename-files-mac- os-x-...](https://osxdaily.com/2015/05/28/batch-rename-files-mac-os-x-finder/)

<comment><USER22> What in the world, that's been here the entire time? I've been looking up how to do it in bash every time I've needed to do it. It's so strange how macOS has this appearance of simplicity but just below the surface you have stuff like this

<comment><USER45> No, it was added in OS X 10.10 Yosemite. Before that you needed to either use Terminal or "A Better Finder Rename" which still offers more options than Finder, including the use of metadata to rename your files.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> You can assign a folder full of images to the background of Terminal.app, and it will choose background images at random, so a folder full of dark solid colors gives you random dark backgrounds, enabling you to tell your terminal windows apart easily.

<comment><USER47> This does not seem to be supported in iTerm, if anyone else is wondering.

<comment><USER46> In fairness, it's barely supported in Terminal.app --- in that I had to make a bunch of solid-colored images to make it work! It should be a first-class feature of all terminal applications. I had no idea how much I want this feature day-to-day until I got fed up with a 27" monitor display crammed with overlapping identical-looking tcpdump windows a few weeks ago.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> Wait until you find out you can change which directory screenshots save to. I have a dedicated "screenshots" directory in my home directory. And then a stack in the Dock for it similar to the one for the Downloads folder.

<comment><USER49> Any idea if there is a way to remove the preview that shows up in the bottom right corner? OSX doesn't write the screenshot until after that disappears which is annoying

<comment><USER50> Shift + Command + 5… click "Options" in the bar down the bottom of the screen.

(Also, try hitting space a couple of times in that mode.)

<comment><USER51> Wait ... you can RECORD !

<comment><USER52> While recording your screen, you can also record your microphone by choosing it in the Options menu. However, there is no way to record audio that is output to your speakers unless you first create a custom audio source using Soundflower ([https://github.com/mattingalls/Soundflower](https://github.com/mattingalls/Soundflower)) or Loopback ([https://rogueamoeba.com/loopback/](https://rogueamoeba.com/loopback/)).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> I recently discovered some nice helpers to resize windows:

\- Hold down the option key while resizing a windows (with the mouse) to also resize the opposite side. This also works when resizing the window on a corner to resize all edges at once.

\- Double click a window border to enlarge this side of the window up to the edge of the scereen. Hold down the option key to enlarge also the opposite site.

\- Double-click the title bar of a window to maximize it

<comment><USER54> Try divvy. Works for both Mac and Windows.

It's the first app I install on any fresh box.

<comment><USER55> Here are some divvy shortcut ideas for the XDR Pro display: [https://i.imgur.com/Tf4c6yo.png](https://i.imgur.com/Tf4c6yo.png)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> Three-finger dragging on laptops with touchpads: [https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204609](https://support.apple.com/en- us/HT204609) It says it's for dragging windows, but it works for all dragging, including files in Finder etc. Couldn't do without it now.

Increase Contrast, which I prefer not just for aesthetic reasons (it gives a slightly old-school feel to the interface), but because it delineates areas of windows / apps more clearly: Preferences > Accessibility > Display > Increase Contrast. This will automatically turn on Reduce Transparency, but I used that setting anyway, to reduce distracting detail.

<comment><USER57> You can also get this behavior with "double tap to grab", which allows you to pick up your finger and put it back down repeatedly as you are dragging something around. Same idea, different (turned-off by default) gesture.

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> Focusing the menubar with Control-F2.

You can then navigate by arrow keys or typing. Space bar activates the highlighted menu/submenu.

It makes life so much better.

Control-F2 itself was slightly broken in 10.14 (IIRC), so I hacked up a dumb workaround in my Hammerspoon config:

[https://github.com/NateEag/dotfiles/blob/99f6b641151f85f6f78...](https://github.com/NateEag/dotfiles/blob/99f6b641151f85f6f781df3a17c15c5c4b4bba51/src/.hammerspoon/init.lua#L44)

<comment><USER5> Command-Shift-? is the better version of this imho, directly opens the help menu and you can just type the name of the menu item and hit enter. Way quicker than navigating to it.

<comment><USER59> Yep this is what I came to say - OSX's help menu automatically searches all menu commands and if you hover over them it will open up the menu, show you the location, and if you hit enter just use it for you.

This is also something you can generally call from Applescript as well, if you want to automate application behaviors.

<comment><USER57> Mind sharing an example AppleScript of that? Every time I've dug in there, it's never had quite what I wanted. But this seems like an especially leverage-able idea.

<comment><USER59> It's been about 10 years since I touched that code, so apologies if these are all things you know.

I am pretty sure most of the work was just extending the documentation in [https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/La...](https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/LanguagesUtilities/Conceptual/MacAutomationScriptingGuide/AutomatetheUserInterface.html) with looking up application "dictionaries" (iirc, a box of supported commands) and all menu items being accessible by default.

[https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/Ap...](https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/AppleScript/Conceptual/AppleScriptLangGuide/conceptual/ASLR_about_handlers.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40000983-CH206-SW1)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> I have long used Shift-Command-4 to take screenshots, but I only recently discovered Shift-Command-5, which provides finer control (and it's much easier to use when I'm working at my treadmill desk).

Also, Command-K to clear out a terminal window (also often works in similar places, such as the MAMP error log viewer).

<comment><USER61> My favourite hidden function: Pressing space after Shift-Cmd-4 toggles window mode. In window mode, only the window you select will be captured.

<comment><USER62> Note also that menus are treated like windows, so you can screenshot a menu as well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER63> That you can hold down certain keys, like i and o, to access a list of similar characters that aren't found on the keyboard.

My 1 year old taught me that one.

<comment><USER56> I actually turn that off - [https://osxdaily.com/2011/08/04/enable-key-repeat- mac-os-x-l...](https://osxdaily.com/2011/08/04/enable-key-repeat-mac-os-x- lion/) \- so it's easier to write things like noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

<comment><USER64> May not produce the same feel, but there is:

      defaults write -g NSRepeatCountBinding -string "^u"

> This default controls the numeric argument binding. The default is for > numeric arguments not to be supported. If you provide a binding for this > default you enable the feature. This allows you to repeat a keyboard command > a given number of times. For instance "Control-U 10 Control-F" means move > forward ten characters.

— [https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/Co...](https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/Cocoa/Conceptual/EventOverview/TextDefaultsBindings/TextDefaultsBindings.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER65> I found these after years, although it's been years since I found it. Preview is pretty good for merging PDFs, deleting pages from PDFs, and adding annotations. Whenever I have to do these things on a windows machine, I struggle to find software to do it. Most importantly, preview can add your signature via trackpad, or by holding up your signature to a webcam.

<comment><USER66> I have seen pdf files swell to ~ ten times the original size when I edit them with Preview. Apparently, Preview will reencode images upon saving, often choosing a less efficient encoding than original. The most extreme cases I encountered would be files scanned in black and white, with Fax or JBIG2 encoding. Since I use such files a lot, I use pdfpen instead for all my pdf editing tasks.

<comment><USER67> I've only ever seen that happen when re-exporting using Quartz filters, where the whole point is to re-encode, and saving an e.g. 300-page PDF will take several minutes, with a progress bar.

If you're just using Preview to rearrange/combine/etc. pages, no re-encoding happens and file size stays the same.

Believe me, I do a _lot_ of PDF management in Preview. Even to the point of creating my own Quartz filters in the ColorSync Utility precisely so that I can intentionally re-encode images when I want to. (Because the Apple-provided Quartz filters are hard-coded to abusrdly high or absurdly low resoltions.)

<comment><USER66> It's been years since I stopped using Preview for PDF files, generally using Skim for reading and pdfpen for editing them. Perhaps something changed since then? That is good news, if so.

<comment><USER66> I should have tried it before replying, but did not have easy access to my laptop. Now I redid the experiment. Starting with a 24 page scanned pdf, I deleted the first page using Preview, then saved and closed the file. It swelled from 2 MB to 6.7 MB. Looking into the file, I see that all the images in the original are encoded with CCITTFaxDecode, while the images in the edited file are encoded using FlateDecode. I cannot see anything relevant to the issue in the preferences.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER68> Does an app have shortcut you don't like? Go to System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts > App Shortcuts and click the plus. As prompted, enter the exact title of menu action you want trigger and the new shortcut. I use the on all my machines to rebind Quit Safari / Chrome / Firefox /Mail to Cmd + Option + Q to avoid killing the application when I fat-finger Cmd + Q instead of Cmd + W.

Others already mentioned:

\- three-finger drag is indispensable. Anytime I touch someone else's laptop I turn it on and blow their minds

\- hold Cmd in Spotlight to reavel the path containing the selected item, Cmd + Enter opens that folder in Finder.

\- readline keys work in basically every text input on the machine. Want to delete a line? C-a C-k. Delete the word preceding the cursor? M-Backspace.

\- Cmd + Down opens the selected item in finder, Cmd + Up jumps one level up the folder hierarchy Cmd + Left/Right expand/collapse

<comment><USER69> That's a really neat trick!

Worth noting: Chrome actually no longer dies when you fat-finger cmd-w. It shows a "hold cmd-q to quit" overlay and only dies if you keep holding the keys down.

<comment><USER70> That's a setting you enable in the app menu, not the default

<comment><USER69> Is it? Oh man, must've been a long time since I enabled it. They should make it the default.

<comment><USER71> Not built into macOS, but you can use this app to get the Chrome-style quit delay for every app:

[https://commandqapp.com/](https://commandqapp.com/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER72> You can hover/long press on the green traffic light item to tile your screen.

<comment><USER73> literally just discovered this yesterday myself for the first time - <USER2> prefer Spectacle, but nice that it's there.

<comment><USER74> Spectacle is no longer being maintained. Rectangle [0] offers the same functionally and is OSS

[0][https://rectangleapp.com/](https://rectangleapp.com/)

<comment><USER73> Oh nice, it looks good! Gonna try it out.

I've never had even a single issue with Spectacle so not really a big deal to me that it's no longer maintained. It Just Works, from my experience - <USER3> that said who knows for how long, I guess.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> You can tell Finder to show actual folder sizes instead of just "\--". Right click in a folder -> Show View Options -> Calculate all sizes. I'm not sure why it's not the default, it's not like Finder needs to traverse the folders hierarchy to calculate the size (I hope!).

<comment><USER75> It does have to traverse the complete filesystem to calculate the sizes. That is how most filesystems work (files have sizes, folders do not - so a folder size doesn't exist and is just a sum of whatever it contains)

<comment><USER4> Interesting, I thought it uses the Spotlight index to get this information and that the index already contains these aggregates, but you're probably right considering that it works even in folders that I've explicitly excluded (I wonder how many millions of node_modules folders are indexed for no reason).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER76> Cmd-Ctrl-Space (⌘⌃␣) for the character/emoji picker. Also, under Keyboard in preferences, check the "Show keyboard and emoji viewers in menu bar" option to get it as a menu-bar icon. This also includes the keyboard viewer, which is handy to figure certain Shift-Opt-Whaterver combos for seldom-used characters.

EDIT: Updated with the actual default command.

<comment><USER77> > Ctrl-Opt-Space for the character/emoji picker.

I think this may not be the default; it doesn't work for me.

While speaking of the character picker, does anyone know a way to get less broken search in the picker? For example, I frequently find myself looking for math italic characters in Unicode. Despite the description being, say, "MATHEMATICAL ITALIC SMALL A", it doesn't come up when I search for 'small'. In this case searching for 'mathematical' or 'italic' works, but there are other cases where I just have to guess search terms randomly (or go look up Unicode tables elsewhere).

<comment><USER76> Oops! Sorry! I meant Cmd-Opt-Space here. Also, yeah, the search is pretty janky in my usage as well.

<comment><USER77> > Oops! Sorry! I meant Cmd-Opt-Space here. Also, yeah, the search is pretty > janky in my usage as well.

Indeed, I thought that might be what you meant … but that opens the Finder search window for me, so I think that that shortcut also is not universal. Probably some of these differ depending on whether you've got a fresh install or an updated system that may carry along shortcuts from an older release.

EDIT: adsche ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24092377](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24092377)) suggests ⌘⌃␣, and that works for me.

<comment><USER78> If you go to the Edit menu in finder (or any application) all the way at the bottom of the dropdown menu you'll see "Emoji & Symbols" and to the right it should tell you the shortcut keys.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER79> You can use image capture app to copy pictures when you connect camera via usb.

If you create a "Developer" folder in your ~ it's gonna have a different icon and is canonical place to put all your code in mac world.

Clicking wifi tray icon while holding option is going to give you a lot more info and some hidden tools.

<comment><USER57> Damn that option-click one is HUGE. Thank you. Where are these things enumerated? Everything in this thread is such tribal knowledge. I've gone looking for this information in the actual help docs and it frequently isn't there. Is there a canonical source for Apple shortcuts/gestures in any of their ecosystems? Many of these things make life so much better.

</comment></comment><comment><USER80> The `say` command line tool. It will cause a synthesized voice to speak out loud whatever follows that command via text-to-speech.

This is especially useful for pranking your loved ones for whom you have remote shell access. ssh in and cause the other person's computer to start talking to them... by name... asking for help... to be let out of the small metal box they've been trapped in for SO long...

This has been available in Mac OS for at least 15 years, and probably longer.

<comment><USER47> This incredibly useful to get alerted to some long-running job finishing or the like, e.g.

      ./some-lengthy-job | say Done

Back when I did lots of Apache Spark on a underpowered cluster, I had a script to lower Spotify volume, tell me the outcome (success, failure), then set Spotify back to original volume.

I still use this as a kitchen timer all the time when cooking while on my Macbook with utimer, which is basically a count-down timer for the shell (available via brew install utimer), e.g.

      utimer -c 10m | say Pasta is done

<comment><USER81> That redirects the output to say's stdin. You probably want '&&' and '||'.

        ./some-lengthy-job && say Done || say Failed

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER81> I think one of the most magical moments was when I sent a job to print to one printer that was out of paper at the office, and it failed. I just used spotlight to open another printer and dragged the job from one printer to the other and it just worked!

</comment><comment><USER82> I once discovered a way to restore a minimized window without using the mouse. It requires a bit of practice:

1\. Press Command-Tab to show your running apps. Keep holding Command.

2\. Press Tab until you've selected the minimized app.

3\. Press the Option key, and let go of the Command key. You must release the Command key after pressing the Option key! The minimized app is now unminimized.

Note that this only works for an app with all of its windows minimized. If there is already a visible window of the app you won't be able to get to the minimized one with this trick.

I posted it once to Super User where it's still getting attention after 9 years: [https://superuser.com/questions/196141/keyboard-shortcut- to-...](https://superuser.com/questions/196141/keyboard-shortcut-to-unhide-or- unminimize-a-window-in-os-x)

<comment><USER52> Another way to restore a minimized wondow would be to use Ctrl+F3 to focus the dock (Ctrl+F1 to enable that shortcut), press Up repeatedly until the minimized window is selected, then press Return to open it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER83> Option + Click

And

Command + Option + Shift + Click

Works on most default OS things you can click on. Reveals a whole new set of amazing functionality.

Example: Doing so on the bluetooth icon on your menu bar, gives you the debug option for you to reset / restart bluetooth module.

<comment><USER84> Yes. My newest find is that you can option-click on the scaling options in Display prefs and sometimes get more choices.

</comment></comment><comment><USER85> Using the Touch Bar to adjust volume, brightness, etc. doesn't _have_ to be a two-step process... no need to tap, lift and re-position your finger to the slider that appears. Instead, just touch-and-hold the icon of the thing you want to adjust, and slide from there.

<comment><USER52> Be warned, though, that if you slide your finger before the slider finishes animating in, that movement is ignored. Too many times I tried a quick adjustment like that only for the volume to remain the same after my movement. It's why I added separate volume buttons to my Touch Bar and switched to using those primarily.

The sad thing is there's no good reason for the slider to ignore your input during the animation. I think Apple just didn't care enough to test it thoroughly. They only tested the Touch Bar with computer newbies who press every key slowly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER86> Every time you do a screen recordin with quicktime, encode it to h264 to save a LOT of space and make it playable on any device.

To do that use Handbrake, whick is open source and the go-to app for any encoding.

<comment><USER22> ffmpeg -i <original> -o out.mp4 also a super easy way to do this too since it'll get re-encoded. I don't know why screen recordings aren't handled this way automatically

</comment></comment><comment><USER87> I learned recently that in any terminal you can option click to move the cursor to a specific location in a command. It's really great when you want to reuse a command but with a small change.

<comment><USER88> In zsh you can C-x, C-e and it will open whatever is on the command line in $EDITOR.

When you save it the changes will be on the command line.

</comment></comment><comment><USER89> Creating one-file pdf from large pdf file with simple page drag to the home screen using Preview.

<comment><USER90> yes, and you can compose all sorts of decks by showing the sidebar and dragging images/pages between window sidebars.

i sometimes compose quick-and-dirty UX flows from mockups this way.

</comment></comment><comment><USER91> Mac has a storage explorer called "Storage management app". I found it great for making space as it can sort by categories and file size. Before realising this, it was a pain to find decent software for the MacOS.

I imagine this was added recently.

<comment><USER62> The Omni Group has had a free storage space app on the Mac for a long time called OmniDiskSweeper.

[https://www.omnigroup.com/blog/omnidisksweeper- catalina](https://www.omnigroup.com/blog/omnidisksweeper-catalina)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> You can drag the folder icon from the top of a finder window into an apps open/save dialog and the dialog will navigate right to it. This also works with files.

</comment><comment><USER92> Cmd + Shift + ? = Easy way to access menus via keyboard

<comment><USER27> For me, it just opens the application's "Help".

<comment><USER93> From there, you can use the arrow keys to navigate to the menu option you'd like.

<comment><USER27> No, it opens the actual help window or link. The menu doesn't get selected.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER94> If you are taking a partial screenshot but you want to change the position of the selection then press and hold space to pan the selected area.

</comment><comment><USER85> If you run:

        defaults write -g NSWindowShouldDragOnGesture yes

then when you hold _ctrl-opt-cmd_ (the three keys to the left of the space bar, so easy to remember) you can click-and-drag a window from _anywhere_ , not just the title bar. (Note: need to restart app first)

<comment><USER95> My goodness, I could kiss you. I never wanted to run a separate app just for this but have always loved it. Had no idea it was available system-wide.

</comment></comment><comment><USER96> macOS has a very good built-in text-to-speech engine with real voices that sound good (i.e. not annoying to read).

It's part of the Accessibility > Speech menu in Settings.

I wrote up a little info doc for how to enable keyboard shortcut for it so you can use with any text you can select: [https://docs.google.com/document/d/1mApa60zJA8rgEm6T6GF0yIem...](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1mApa60zJA8rgEm6T6GF0yIem8qpMmnaBFYOgV32gdMc/edit)

Use cases: \- read blog posts and news articles while doing dishes (basically turn anything into an podcast at the press of a button) \- read hacker news comments \- proofreading text (you can _hear_ the typos much easier than you can see them in a text you have written)

<comment><USER97> I'm even creating my own audiobooks from ebook text, as a way to consume books not officially available in audiobook!

I haven't tested it much yet but the 'Samantha' voice actually seems listenable and intelligible for long periods.

<comment><USER98> Do you think there will come a time when audiobooks are generated via sequence model using celebrity voices?

I gave it a go with LSTM's.

Each sentence is intelligible, but it feels so dry without the emotion of a human voice actor.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER97> I have a meta tip for everybody.

I only recently discovered the Youtube channel 'MacMost':

[https://www.youtube.com/user/macmostvideo](https://www.youtube.com/user/macmostvideo)

As a long-time macOS user, I am astounded at the things I'm currently learning from this guy, they're not just 'cool' things, they're seriously productivity- boosting things! They're small but sometimes impactful.

This is the best tip I can give anyone here.

</comment><comment><USER99> pbcopy / pbpaste (command line tool to access the clipboard)

Not builtin on macOS but iTerm2 is a must (together with oh-my-ZSH it's been a game changer)

The "time machine" on apps has been useful as well, rolling back to a previous version of a doc is great.

Some "unexpected feature" I found the other day. I accidentally dropped my MBP (and it seems it is engineered to close itself on drops but I knew that already _ahem_ so it fell shut and upside down) and it started making a siren- like noise, as I began to get worried, I opened the screen and it was showing only glitches and it restarted (well sh1t). But then it restarted just fine and crisis averted.

</comment><comment><USER100> "Reduce Motion" in Settings > Accessibility.

At some point in the last 8 years, Apple changed the animation for how a window becomes full screen. The default behavior is to expand while simultaneously shifting the window to the right, or conversely expand while the desktop shifts to the left.

Enabling "Reduce Motion" eliminates that behavior, and the full screen window fades in and out instead, which personally I prefer.

</comment><comment><USER101> I wonder how someone can read this thread and NOT realize that macOS is probably the most advanced desktop operating system out there.

<comment><USER102> Uhh... By hiding a bunch of functionality in obscure keyboard shortcuts that professional users don't discover after years, sometimes decades of use?

I have thought Macs were pretty cool since I first used system 7. But I would not apply such blinders. This thread could also be taken as criticism even if nobody intends it to be so.

</comment></comment><comment><USER103> After doing cmd + c a file, you can use option + cmd + V to move/cut it instead of copying.

<comment><USER104> I think you can hold cmd or option when dragging and dropping a file to do something similar.

using option will duplicate

using cmd will move

So the default for dragging on the same disk is move. option+drag will make a copy.

The default for dragging to a different disk is copy. cmd+drag will move instead.

</comment></comment><comment><USER105> Double click text to select a word. Triple click text to select the whole paragraph.

For decades I assumed that there's some weird fluky behavior when trying to select a word and accidentally selecting the paragraph.

<comment><USER106> You can also double click a word, keep the mouse button down, and drag. This will select whole words. I use this a lot.

<comment><USER105> I didn't know that either, thank you! It works with triple-click paragraphs too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER107> For anyone who hasn't already rebound Caps Lock to Ctrl - try to accidentally hit Caps Lock really quickly, and it won't activate. Press it normally and it will activate.

<comment><USER57> Psh. Caps Lock is to be mapped to Esc.

<comment><USER47> It's also a great fn key on external keyboards that lack it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER108> Re-enable the boot chime on the latest Macs with the following command in terminal:

      sudo nvram StartupMute=%00

To turn it back off:

      sudo nvram StartupMute=%01

</comment><comment><USER109> After searching for an item in Spotlight, hitting `Return` will open the file, but hitting `Cmd` + `Return` will open a Finder window to the directory where that file lives.

<comment><USER95> Command + R also does this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER110> Smart Folders + Tags = you move a file between folders by (un)tagging it.

Very handy i. e. for project management (Kanban…)

</comment><comment><USER111> Cmd + tab to _quit_ applications

Instead of releasing cmd to switch to the application, you can press q to quit it.

<comment><USER112> Command+q is the standard to quit in all well-behaving macOS apps. No need for tab.

<comment><USER111> Obviously. This lets you quit an app without switching to it or right clicking it on the dock -> quit.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER113> You can delete files immediately (i.e., skip moving to the trash) in Finder by holding the Option key in addition to Command + Delete (or Backspace).

</comment><comment><USER114> A little late to the party, but hopefully these are useful if anyone sees them:

\- If you need to make a quick screen recording video, open QuickTime Player. There's an option to record the screen in the menu.

\- (This one's been extremely useful to me, and hardly anyone seems to know about it!) — If you need to provide tech support to another macOS user, open iMessage on your Mac, and start a conversation with the other person's Apple ID. Click the dropdown caret beside their name in the recipient list, and click "Ask to share screen". A VNC request will be sent straight to their Mac (with built-in microphone audio, so you can chat to them), plus options to control their computer remotely.

<comment> m-p-3 I found out lately that you can even record the screen of a brand new iOS device using QuickTime when plugged via USB.

You can easily record the initial setup that way, which helped immensely with users working from home getting phone upgrades during the pandemic.

<comment><USER114> I didn't know about that, thanks for the tip!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER115> Command + double click a search item in spotlight to open the containing folder in finder.

<comment><USER68> Cmd + Enter opens the containing folder too - no clicking required!

</comment></comment><comment><USER116> Not a Mac built-in feature, but life-changing nonetheless: Amethyst window manager. You can install it with brew cask install amethyst.

It's a tiling window manager. If you've used tmux, i3 or awesomewm you'll feel right at home.

</comment><comment><USER117> The keyboard shortcut in finder to take you to your home directory, cmd + shift + h if I recall correctly. Makes it trivial to keyboard navigate to anything when you can easily start from the same place every time!

<comment> house9-2 cmd + shift + h = home directory

cmd + shift + a = applications directory

cmd + shift + d = desktop directory

Semi-related, type `open .` in terminal to open that directory in Finder

<comment><USER118> And when you are in terminal and want to change dir to some different path, just drag and drop it from finder (either a file or just a icon from the title bar)

<comment><USER62> If you cmd-drop a file icon into Terminal, it will automatically cd into the parent directory, it prefixes the path with cd and appends ; at the end and executes it. If the icon is a folder, it will automatically cd into that directory.

If you shift-drop a file icon into Terminal, it will paste the file path to the command line without escaping spaces.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER119> ⌘⌃⇧4 – for screenshots that go directly into your clipboard

⌘O – open file/folder in Finder

⌘J in Finder, Set as Defaults — sets default view options for all folders (struggled a lot with Finder inconsistencies before finding this out)

<comment><USER101> I use the first one so often. So super-convenient to compose emails or Keynote presentations with some additional graphics plopped in directly from another window through the clipboard.

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> Has anyone found a way to name desktop spaces anything other than Desktop 1, Desktop 2 etc?

<comment> house9-2 Not a built in feature:

[https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/211954/how-can- i-n...](https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/211954/how-can-i-name- desktops-spaces-in-el-capitan)

Some people on this post are using 'Stickies' app to put a label on each one?

Otherwise, there are 3rd party apps that do it.

<comment><USER55> Thanks for this. I did look into this a while back and both Total Spaces and the github project require at least temporary disabling SIP.

I may go for that commercial app anyway because it really is costly to lose context built up in a space. Especially when you have a lot of completely unrelated projects you want to task switch between.

I'd go so far as to say lack of Spaces feature polish in MacOS is impacting my ability to efficiently maintain open source code. Because those projects only get special extra time from me these days.

Apple should make more spaces API open to developers if Apple won't improve this important macOS feature.

<comment><USER6> This may or may not work for you: each space dedicated to a project has a desktop image related to the project - a logo, an important visual asset, etc. It mostly works for me. Wish you could name the damn things out of the box though.

<comment><USER55> This is a good idea. I started testing this previously by just choosing different wallpapers, but didn't take a step further to photoshop in some text.

I may yet in addition to the space naming. It feels like it would be helpful to see on the wallpaper using expose, and also from the three finger swipe up.

Really, Apple should allow this meta to be overlayed on a wallpaper instead of having to photoshop it in. I'm perplexed on why Spaces has gotten zero improvements for so long.

<comment><USER6> I never bother adding in text. It's just a matter of choosing images that are obviously-related for me.

Working on the graphic novel? Go to the desktop with a model sheet of one of the characters/props. Working on the Mastodon instance? It's the desktop with the image I drew for the front of the site. Drawing furry porn commissions? Hello, desktop with an endless rotation of Doug Winger's work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER120> Fn-Fn turns on speech dictation (if you have it enabled in settings). It is pretty accurate.

Ability to remap the Caps Lock key to Control

Shift+control+command+4 = screen capture to clipboard

</comment><comment><USER121> Preview can modify images. There's a button with a pencil icon that toggles a toolbar for simple image editing, such as adding lines, shapes, or texts.

<comment><USER122> There's a little prism icon too which opens a panel for Lightroom-type modifications like exposure, shadows, highlights, levels, sharpness, etc.

<comment><USER67> I mean I thought I was a Preview power user, but had never clicked that little toolbar button.

Blows me away I can do that stuff in _Preview_. Wow.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER123> Change the cursor movement speed (repeat rate) in the terminal. On the CLI you can go higher than the menu.

        defaults write NSGlobalDomain KeyRepeat -int 5

[https://stackoverflow.com/questions/4489885/how-can-i- increa...](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/4489885/how-can-i-increase-the- cursor-speed-in-terminal)

</comment><comment><USER124> Hold down the option key when selecting text (in some editors) and it enables columnar selection. Can be very useful for certain editing tasks.

<comment><USER125> This depend on softwares not OS features. Vscode can do that in all OS

</comment></comment><comment><USER126> Forget MacOS, I was practically living on the web for ages before finding out that you can select link text in browsers if you hold down alt.

</comment><comment><USER127> When you Cmd-Tab to an application with no open windows, press option as you release Cmd, and it will open that application's default window (as if you clicked on it on the Dock.)

Useful when you like to leave apps "open" even with all their windows closed (ie. not using Cmd-Q), but still want to use Cmd-Tab to get to the app instead having to click something.

</comment><comment><USER128> System Preferences>Keyboard>Text. I use this to create trigger letter combinations that auto complete things I type frequently, particularly for business correspondence- for example if I type "FRA-", in any application, it prompts me with the option to autocomplete "For routing/assignment" I actually have someones difficult to spell's name in there too but have omitted it here. It"s useful to use ALL CAPS as the trigger. You can even stack the triggers, I have several individuals whom I may send a message to with "FOR ROUTING/ASSIGNMENT". to and I have them all triggered by the same capital letter combo, and I am presented with a dropdown list that use the down arrow to select which I want to use.

</comment><comment><USER129> I believe desktop Stacks is only a version old (10.14) so you probably haven't been missing it for too long fortunately. Another good tip for screenshots is disabling the floating thumbnail. Just open the screenshot app and disable it in the options menu.

<comment><USER130> On the topic of screenshots, one I didn't know was hitting space before you take a screenshot will make it capture an entire Window, including the shadow instead of having to drag a region

<comment><USER131> Plus holding option while you click takes a screenshot _without_ the shadow, which I find vastly preferable. I only found out about that a couple of months ago, after a long time being annoyed.

<comment><USER132> This one is a true pro tip

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER133> Toggle Do Not Disturb with a single click:

[https://taoofmac.com/space/til/2020/06/11/1915](https://taoofmac.com/space/til/2020/06/11/1915) (has animated GIF explainer)

</comment><comment><USER134> Double clicking the title bar of a window to maximize it (without going into full screen mode). I used to install Spectacle on every computer, but this was really the only feature I needed from it.

Somehow it took me 12 years of using macOS to learn how to maximize windows.

<comment><USER135> This is settings dependent.

You can choose between "zoom" and "minimise" in System Preferences > Dock > Double-click a window's title to…

</comment></comment><comment><USER136> The caffeinate command: [https://brettterpstra.com/2014/02/20/quick-tip- caffeinate-yo...](https://brettterpstra.com/2014/02/20/quick-tip-caffeinate- your-terminal/)

</comment><comment><USER137> CMD + UP to up one dir in finder. Maybe I've got messed up settings or something, I don't know, but when I want to go up a folder I don't see a button or a an item called ".." that can be clicked. Did this drive anyone else nuts?

<comment><USER57> I have generally made the 3-pane view my default for this very reason (which has obvious left-right semantics for hierarchy traversal). I think maybe you can also command click the folder-name header? I think I once knew about CMD+Up but my general workflow is in the terminal these days, so Finder is mostly only used for selective-file-move/copy operations, and even then, called from terminal. It's usually `open path1; open path2` then select and drag.

</comment></comment><comment><USER138> Dictionary word lookup with a single gesture.

[https://media.giphy.com/media/Vg5tebSFuj1DFtHwrd/giphy.gif](https://media.giphy.com/media/Vg5tebSFuj1DFtHwrd/giphy.gif)

<comment><USER38> Sadly, that used to work better than it does now. From some versions ago, it was upgraded to be "smarter" and do google searches and link lookups and whatnot. I'm nowadays struggling to get the dictionary lookup shown. That's a shame; as a non-native speaker it's a super helpful feature. I've been trying to disable the other shenanigans, but without much success.

<comment><USER38> Woah, I found a way to fix it! You need to remove the checkbox "Show Spotlight results in <whatever the feature's name is in English>" in Spotlight settings. I wouldn't thought that I need to go look for settings elsewhere to fix that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER139> This is a neat hack for reducing PDF file sizes. As you may know, macOS already has a built-in filter to reduce file size, but for me, it often results in almost unreadable documents. This stackexchange question shows how to create a custom filter which delivers way better results, i.e. small files and very good quality:

[https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/297417/how-to- decr...](https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/297417/how-to-decrease-pdf- size-without-losing-quality)

</comment><comment><USER128> Using the exposé command to show desktop grab a file from finder then pressing the exposé command to show all windows of the current application and dropping the file I grabbed from the finder into the desired window, saves me a TON of time in photoshop and other design apps, and for attachments in files. I custom map mine the way they were in 10.4 when tis feature was released, f11 desktop, f12 all windows, f13 current applications windows.

</comment><comment><USER140> Adjust volume by finer increments: hold option+shift while changing volume.

</comment><comment><USER141> I've been using Apple devices for ~25 years now and I think the best feature I have used was the summarizer service (actually I would think that services in general in macOS you should look through). What it does is if you select some text it will summarize it.

While I was in Brazilian jujitsu class they had an MMA brand that needed "organic content" based on articles from wikipedia and I bartered with them so that I would receive a Jujitsu Gi for summarizing 150 articles. This allowed me to accomplish the above task in only a few hours.

</comment><comment><USER142> Unmounting/ejecting a drive by dragging its desktop icon to the trash. I know you did this in really old macs to eject a floppy, but it's cool they keep that feature around on modern macOS

</comment><comment><USER143> Option click on the upper right corner hamburger menu toggles Do Not Disturb mode without having to open the whole right panel notifications section. Helpful for presentations and screen sharing.

<comment><USER104> I have the system volume in the menubar too.

Option-click the volume icon will allow you to change your sound input and output devices.

</comment></comment><comment><USER144> You can also change the default directory where screenshots are stored, so they never end up on the desktop in the first place. I have mine set to ~/Pictures/screenshots

</comment><comment><USER145> The functionality of menu extras hidden in /System/Library/CoreServices/Menu Extras

Also, show files / packages on Logic Pro projects which are packed as a file.

<comment><USER146> How to use menu extras - I'd never heard of them before [https://methodshop.com/gadgets/tutorials/osx- menuextras/inde...](https://methodshop.com/gadgets/tutorials/osx- menuextras/index.shtml)

</comment></comment><comment><USER147> OPTION + CMD + V to cut and paste files (found this today here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24080378](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24080378))

Hold down OPTION to vertically select text (works in the terminal at least)

CMD + SHIFT + . in Finder to show/hide hidden files

CMD + CTRL + D on a selected word to open the dictionary

I'll sometimes use the `say` command to let me know when a long-running command on the terminal finishes (e.g., `say Done`)

</comment><comment><USER148> The picture-in-picture window can be precisely placed by holding down the Cmd key while dragging.

If a web site doesn't have a PiP button, press and hold the speaker icon.

</comment><comment><USER149> 1\. Accessibility > Zoom > "Use scroll gesture with modifier keys to zoom" > Ctrl

So you press "Ctrl" and then scroll down on the trackpad and it will zoom in _anywhere /on anything_. Use it quite often and love it :)

2\. Accessibility > Pointer Control > Trackpad options > Enable dragging > Without dragg lock

This one takes some time getting used to but it's awesome once you get the hang of it

3\. Control–Shift–Power button

To put the display to sleep

<comment><USER22> Scroll zoom is also great for giving live technical demos! I picked this up after watching some WWDC videos and it's so much better for drawing focus during a live demo than using something like a laser pointer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER150> Menu-bar search.

Press CMD + Shift + / to open a search over all Menubar-actions for the current app.

If you're used to action-search in IntelliJ or VSCode, this will feel familiar to you. It's for those countless features that you use often, but not often enough to remember their proper shortcuts.

There are Launchbar- and Alfred plugins that provide a nicer interface.

(Germans need to reconfigure the shortcut in the settings, because our keyboards are weird)

</comment><comment><USER151> If you drag a window's corner, the adjoining edges resize. If you hold down Option while you do this, all four sizes resize about the center. Even better, you can press and release Option during a single drag to turn this behavior on and off incrementally, which means you can arbitrarily adjust a window with one drag (if you're persistent enough).

</comment><comment><USER152> Drag and drop a file to the terminal to get its path.

<comment><USER125> Right click then hold down option key, no need terminal

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Might be mentioned below but:

In the terminal you can use pbcopy and pbpaste to use your clipboard: _cat my.txt | pbcopy_.

In the terminal you can use the open command to open a file or a folder in finder: _open ._ and _open foo.pdf_.

Double tap the window frame to maximize it correctly (not to a new screen and not just on one axis but the way Windows maximize works).

Multiple virtual desktops and swiping between them with gestures.

<comment><USER153> The cat command is unnecessary when all you want to do is copy a file's contents to clipboard. Just do

      pbcopy < my.txt

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> When typing with fancy characters: \- Alt-command-space brings up a window where you can select arbitrary Unicode characters \- Go to your keyboard settings in System Preferences and add the "Greek" keyboard. Then you can press ctrl-command-space to switch your keyboard and quickly type in Greek symbols (e.g. "a" becomes alpha). Press ctrl-command-space again to switch back.

</comment><comment><USER154> Option-clicking the sound menubar item to adjust input/output devices, or option-clicking the wifi menu to see additional wifi info.

</comment><comment><USER95> I didn't see this one anywhere. You can use modifier keys in combination with Hot Corners.

Go to [System Preferences > Mission Control > Hot Corners] and when you make your selection just press the modifier you'd like to use.

I've always found hot corners too easily triggered, for me this strikes the right balance.

</comment><comment><USER155> I usually have multiple Bash tabs open in Terminal, and I needed a quick way to see what each tab contained. The following bash script will set the Title of the tab.

      #!/bin/bash
      # Sets the title of the Terminal Window / Tab.
      # title foo => Sets the title of the Terminal Window / Tab to foo.
      echo -n -e "\033]0;$1\007"

<comment><USER47> Should anyone be wondering why this doesn't work in fish, it seems it overwrites the title back to the default pretty much instantly. So no custom tab names with fish, it seems!

</comment></comment><comment><USER156> That, in terminal you can move cursor to any position in command by holding Option-key & clicking wherever you want.

</comment><comment><USER157> You can create a screenshots folder and default all of the screenshots straight into it. That's been a lifesaver for me.

</comment><comment><USER158> I solved the screenshot on the desktop problem by using a program called Hazel. It can automatically move and sort files based on any number of criteria. I set it up to move all screenshots on my desktop to a ~/tmp directory. This has worked pretty well for keeping my desktop completely empty which is my preference.

<comment><USER5> You can actually just change where they go in the Command-Shift-5 option menu.

</comment></comment><comment><USER159> You can change your MAC address. I always thought this was permanent. Regus (OG wework) offices have finicky WiFi and one day it refused to connect to my laptop. Eventually I googled how to change MAC address and there was an ifconfig command.

Suffice to say I had to change my MAC address every week to fight their shitty system.

</comment><comment><USER34> You can do basic screensharing with Messages on macOS. Open Messages, select a message thread with an existing contact, then from the menu bar, select Buddies > Invite to Share My Screen (or Ask to Share Screen).

Doesn't work for groups (last time I tried at least), and hideously undiscoverable.

</comment><comment><USER160> If you took a screenshot to your clipboard but want it saved as a file you can open preview and hit cmd N.

</comment><comment><USER161> If you use spotlight and type in a word, you can press command + L, to jump to the dictionary definition

</comment><comment><USER162> Some of these are _amazing_. I'm currently a Windows user mostly, I added the same thread but for windows here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24099633](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24099633)

</comment><comment><USER163> Cmd + ~ (tilde)

Cycles between the windows of the same app. Similar to cmd + tab.

Saved me so much when reading multiple pdfs in preview

<comment><USER164> Oh this is a live saver that I have been looking for since forever.

Thank you so much.

</comment></comment><comment><USER165> You can move other windows without losing focus by holding command and move window's title.

<comment><USER95> It's not just limited to dragging windows around. The mouse-clicks get passed to the background app. You can use it with anything. It's called click-through and has been around for a long time.

I first learned about it here: [https://duckduckgo.com/?q=click- through+site%3Adaringfirebal...](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=click- through+site%3Adaringfireball.net&t=osx&ia=web)

</comment></comment><comment><USER166> If you're in Terminal and want to open a Finder window with the current path, just type "open ."

<comment><USER132> `open` is really useful in general. You can also use it to open apps!

`open ./someFile.foo -a App\ Name`

or even just

`open -a App\ Name`

<comment><USER167> Wow, thank you! I start my day off by launching 10 or more applications and have always procrastinated on my plans to automate this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER65> I was about to reply that stacks is a new feature, but I googled it and found it's been a feature since 2007. I could have sworn it was announced a year or two ago. Anyone know if there was an improvement announced recently that I seem to be recalling?

</comment><comment><USER168> Hold Option key while clicking to unlock all kinds of more detailed informtion and options

eg, Option-click the menubar wifi icon and you get all the details of your wifi connection including BSSID of the router you're actually connected to, RSSI, your assigned IP, etc.

<comment><USER56> For those with older Macs, this is the Alt key. There's this symbol on both: ⌥ Always have to think about that one!

</comment></comment><comment><USER169> command + space launches the spotlight search. In here, not only can you search, but you can also do some math to use it as a calculator. Real handy if I need to do a quick calculation. For example, entering in `243*2/4` will spit out `121.5`.

</comment><comment><USER170> Open a pdf in preview. Select pages, press Copy, then Cmd + N.

You get a new PDF with the pages you copied.

</comment><comment><USER171> Spaces. Including "Displays have separate Spaces". I kinda knew it was there all the time but never really used it until recently. It fits very nice with the Chrome "People" feature.

</comment><comment><USER103> You can add blank spaces on the dock using:

defaults write [http://com.apple.dock](http://com.apple.dock) persistent-apps -array-add '{tile-data={}; tile-type="spacer-tile";}'

Very useful for organizing icons.

<comment><USER57> It has been so very long since I've used the Dock that it always comes as a surprise when it comes up in macOS UX discussion as I forget that it exists. Can someone explain how it is useful to their workflow?

<comment><USER103> I have it hidden on the left so it does not take space. Even though I have shortcuts to open all apps. It is helpful for managing windows when I have many windows of the same app minimized.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER172> Increase Finder window size by dragging (in home directory), then press Cmd + Shift + E to make Finder open new windows with the new size. Works until a reboot. Why? Because those stupid windows are too small by default.

<comment><USER95> You can also do this by opening a new window, resizing/positioning it how you'd like, then immediately closing it. Next time you create a new window it will be exactly the same.

</comment></comment><comment><USER173> So many nice things here - and nearly all of them missing from iOS/iPad OS!

</comment><comment><USER174> Using the space bar to quickly look into the contents of any file: pdf, images, txt files.

And this works also within other apps like spark where I can use the space bar to quickly verify what attachements are present.

Don't think windows does this.

</comment><comment><USER175> You can write low level code to interject all keystrokes and program keys.

[https://github.com/yqrashawn/GokuRakuJoudo](https://github.com/yqrashawn/GokuRakuJoudo)

</comment><comment><USER176> When Cmd+Tab'ing press and hold the Option key before letting go of Cmd to unminimize/create a window for the selected application (assuming it doesn't already have unminimized windows open).

<comment><USER177> Not doin anythin for me

<comment><USER176> Make sure you release Cmd _after_ pressing the Option key.

[https://superuser.com/a/325530](https://superuser.com/a/325530)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER178> Emacs key bindings work in all standard text boxes and views. For example ctrl-A to go to the beginning of the line and ctrl-E to go to the end.

Also, damn you Microsoft for using non-standard views in your macOS apps.

</comment><comment><USER179> I was able to use software that I installed without a problem for years, but now Gatekeeper makes installing software from outside of the Mac App Store a chore for little to no gain.

<comment><USER57> I'm curious what this complaint is about, since the only thing I've experienced is an annoying pop up window that you must approve similar to what one gets in Windows.

<comment><USER179> If the developer didn't pay Apple $99/year and also notarize their software, you need to jump through settings panes to launch the application "for your own good".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER180> Mine is not a core os feature but rather a 3rd party add on. A window manager with keyboard shortcuts. Life changing and perplexing it's not the default that ships with the os.

<comment><USER181> Would be great with better builtins for this. I use yabai and skhd, but have to disable SIP to utilize fully. The instant spaces switching with no animation is so good!

</comment></comment><comment><USER182> When typing or editing text, Option-arrow to move the cursor one word to the left or right

Command-arrow to move to the beginning or end of the line

Combine either of these with the shift key to quickly select text.

<comment><USER183> Ive always found it frustrating there aren't quite the same number of tricks here as windows/visual studio.

Home/ctrl+home (Or end, to jump lines/doc) Ctrl+up (or down, to scroll without moving cursor)

I forget these others, but I keep trying to use these in osx.

<comment><USER177> This is exactly how I feel in windows coming from a mac, super-constrained due to lack of hotkeys to navigate.

Ctrl+A = start of line, ctrl+e = end, ctrl+n = next line, ctrl+v = next page

By default, in macOS, this isn't enabled everywhere, but you can do it easily [https://forum.keyboardmaestro.com/t/os-x-text-system- keybind...](https://forum.keyboardmaestro.com/t/os-x-text-system- keybindings/4929/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER184> Is there a method to the modifier key "madness"? I'd like to form a mental model of when to use Shift vs Ctrl vs Option in various shortcuts being mentioned.

<comment><USER62> In the beginning there was a sort of hierarchy with the addition of modifier keys, it goes cmd, shift, option, control.

Basic commands use the command key with a letter. Adding the shift key usually reverses the command, like cmd-Z in Finder is Undo, cmd-shift-Z is Redo.

The addition of the option key is supposed to add an alternative or extension to the basic command like when you see commands whose text contains an ellipsis (which means that the command will bring up a dialog for more information before executing). Adding the option key can remove the ellipse and just execute the command with the last parameters that were set. In the Finder, cmd-W closes a window, cmd-option-W closes all windows.

Rarely would you find a command that uses all four modifier keys, it's just hard to press them all at the same time.

Of course over the years and the proliferation of apps and developers, these ideas have faded and don't always hold up, but that was the general idea.

</comment></comment><comment><USER185> Option + Command + Spacebar opens a Finder search window. It is a fast way to open a new Finder window from anywhere in the system regardless of your currently active app.

</comment><comment><USER186> Ctrl+Shift+Esc (hold) to force-quit a locked up fullscreen app.

</comment><comment><USER187> How easy it is to move between various OS's now. I thought a mac user was mac user, but I think it is trivial for most users to swap to Linux and Windows now.

</comment><comment><USER188> My favorite anti-feature is copying a screenshot from the desktop with cmd+c, then pasting into gimp gives a high resolution png of the mac mime-type icon for pngs.

</comment><comment><USER189> In any native text field, try a few CTRL-hotkeys you'd type in Terminal:

CTRL + K (delete to end of line)

CTRL + D (delete in place aka delete key (not backspace))

CTRL + A (go to start of line)

CTRL + E (go to end of line)

</comment><comment><USER190> [Ctrl] Right/Left arrows

as an alternative to 3 finger swipe, to move across multiple desktop spaces. Especially helpful when when you have multiple editors and layouts

</comment><comment><USER191> double click the edge of a window to expand it to the edge of the screen. hold alt while double clicking to get the opposite edge to also expand.

</comment><comment><USER192> My favorite feature is the help menu, where you can search the menu for a command. I'm not aware of any other OS doing this so consistently.

</comment><comment><USER90> i posted mine yesterday[0], about being able to alt-tab between windows of all applications, not just between applications or tabs. i remapped that to opt- cmd-tab for easier access.

does anyone know how to turn off wifi on startup via scripting?

[0] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24085803](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24085803)

<comment><USER57> I found this one annoying enough to install Contexts[0]. The free demo immediately sold me on their approach.

[0] [https://contexts.co/](https://contexts.co/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER109> Yeah... I haven't been using Stacks this whole time from 2006 until today. Thanks for the nudge. It really is an improvement.

</comment><comment><USER193> Scroll with vim keys in Safari Reader Mode.

<comment><USER95> Nice!

</comment></comment><comment><USER194> Not macOS specific, but it took me too long to find out the tab key changed the focused text field in a web browser.

</comment><comment><USER195> I recently discovered the Bluetooth device debugging menu.

Hold Shift + Option and click on the Bluetooth icon in the menu bar.

<comment><USER87> I don't believe you need the shift. You just need to Option + click

<comment><USER195> Shit + Option gives you the extra debug option that option + click does not.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER196> Hopefully I soon discover how to cut/paste files to move them... Surely there must be a way!

<comment><USER197> ⌘C to Copy then ⌥⌘V to Move Item Here.

If you open menus on macOS and hold down various modifiers and combinations of modifiers you'll discover tons of hidden gems.

Try it with Finder > Edit then ⌥ Option, ⌃Control, and ⇧Shift.

</comment></comment><comment><USER198> To open a Finder window from the command line in the current folder type: open .

</comment><comment> noman-land Dragging a file from Finder into the terminal will insert the absolute path of that file.

</comment><comment><USER199> `pbcopy` and `pbpaste` for copying to / pasting from clipboard. Nice time savers!

<comment><USER15> In a similar vein, I have a shell script (fish, in my case) that combines these to let me quickly modify the contents of the clipboard:

      function pbedit
          set tmpfile (mktemp /tmp/pbedit.XXXXX)
          pbpaste > $tmpfile
          if vim -c "set nofixeol" $tmpfile
              pbcopy < $tmpfile
          end
          rm $tmpfile
      end

</comment></comment><comment><USER200> ⌘ + Down for dbl click to open ⌘ + [, ⌘ + ] to go back/forwards in finder history

<comment><USER201> The forwards and backwards in finder history shortcut also works in a large number of other apps :)

<comment><USER200> Indeed. The only reason I discovered it was because of the muscle memory from using it with a browser!

<comment><USER201> Same here, actually!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER118> Oh, press alt when minimising/maximising a window for an additional surprise.

</comment><comment><USER202> I find my mac periodically turns off its WiFi and starts spamming the airwaves on a private channel looking for partners in a protocol nothing else in the house depends on.

This makes servers running on the mac unreliable (sometimes it's not listening to the net) and adds interference to other devices.

</comment><comment><USER203> I can do a PIP on Netflix by tapping in volume icon on the Safari search bar.

<comment><USER95> Right-clicking worked for me. Also works with YouTube. Lovely tip.

</comment></comment><comment><USER204> Control + two finger swipe/mouse wheel to smoothly zoom in and out.

</comment><comment><USER119> ⌘⇧/ — focuses current application help search field, this is gold

</comment><comment><USER205> Going to the key above tab to switch windows within the same program

</comment><comment><USER206> Here is mine: [https://twitter.com/jdxcode/status/1268208784972951554?s=20](https://twitter.com/jdxcode/status/1268208784972951554?s=20)

<comment><USER87> You can also just long press

</comment></comment><comment><USER207> Install Alfred to replace spotlight, such a good utility.

</comment><comment><USER168> shift-ctrl-command-4 to crop a section of the screen to the clipboard.

Then "File"->"New From Clipboard" in Preview to be able to save it as a file.

<comment><USER27> Cmd-shift-5 does this even better: it allows you to select a part of the screen with 4 drag handles, and gives you the option to capture to disk, clipboard, mail, with a timer, etc.

<comment><USER168> sounds great but doesn't work for me on 10.12.6

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER208> Control-shift+power key to turn display off immediately.

<comment><USER209> Be careful of Control-Command-Power which will immediately reboot the computer (losing any unsaved changes, potentially creating FS corruption).

</comment></comment><comment><USER210> Cmd-` inside the Cmd-Tab modal cycles apps in reverse

</comment><comment><USER211> Digital color meter to get colors from webpages.

</comment><comment><USER25> Right click on Launchpad gives you a start menu.

</comment><comment><USER212> tmutil and pbcopy (cli utilities)

</comment><comment><USER213> cmd + k to clear the terminal

<comment><USER165> And cmd + r to just clear the view (keep the current buffer)

</comment></comment><comment><USER190> [cmd] `

</comment><comment><USER190> open .</comment>


Cassandra Lan Party: 20 Nodes, 3 Data Centers, 1 Hour - <AUTHOR> http://www.datastax.com/dev/blog/cassandra-nyc-lan-party

<comment><USER2> The article mentions that "Tokyo" DC was taken offline by disconnecting the data center from the "New York" and "Paris" DCs. Then writes were performed, Tokyo was reconnected, and the writes replayed, effectively re-syncing the DCs.

My question is: how was consistency maintained? What mechanism prevented the same record from being changed both in Tokyo and in New York while the network was split? Or, what mechanism resolved the conflicts? I think the article might be glossing over some details here. I'm guessing that either one side of the split was offline (or at least read-only) during the outage or that the writes were made without guarantees.

<comment><USER3> Cassandra allows you to specify the consistency of writes and reads per operation, so for these operations, it would be required to trade consistency for availability.

Conflict resolution is done using timestamps on each column. At first, this might seem too crude to work, but works well in production on real world applications.

When the datacenter link was healed, one of the 3 mechanisms used to repair consistency kicked in and data was restored to a consistent state: Hinted Handoff, Anti-Entropy, and Read Repair.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It was a lot of fun!

Most of the trouble was herding all the people who showed up. That took 80% of the time, getting the cluster up once everyone was on the network was the easy part.</comment>


Python Data Science Handbook - <AUTHOR> https://jakevdp.github.io/PythonDataScienceHandbook/ <comment><USER2> We're using this book for a "book club" at work. Doing 1 chapter every 2 weeks. Chapter 1 covers Jupyter, 2 covers numpy, 3 pandas, 4 matplotlib, and 5 machine learning. We just made it through the first 4 chapters and it lays a good foundation for those libraries. I suspect chapter 5 is the meatiest and most interesting chapter, which covers scikit-learn and machine learning techniques. It is a long chapter so we will spend a month on it.

I recommend combining this book with McKinney's Pandas book[1] and the author's excellent YouTube presentations at PyCon and PyData. Start with "Statistics for Hackers"[2] by Jake VanderPlas and then look for his others.

[1]: [http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920050896.do](http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920050896.do)

[2]: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iq9DzN6mvYA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iq9DzN6mvYA)

<comment><USER3> The notebooks say they are an excerpt from the book but some other place mentions you can read the book in its entirety in the posted link. So, the notebooks have all the content or part of the book?

<comment><USER2> To my knowledge, the notebooks include all, or almost entirely all, of the content in the print book. Jake mentions a few times in talks that the Notebooks are "compiled" into the O'Reilly book format. The nice thing about having the book as notebooks is you can literally "run the book as code" just by pointing Jupyter at that cloned repo.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I work with Jake (the author) at the eScience Institute at the University of Washington (though I'm merely a grad student) and can say that he is not only an extraordinary data scientist and educator but is a great guy as well. He worked extraordinarily hard on this, so I'm very glad to see it on the front page of HN––I'll be sure to show him the screenshot tomorrow!

</comment><comment><USER5> Looks like Jupyter Notebooks is a new standard for sharing Live Python code, as my Python for Bioinformatics book: [http://py3.us](http://py3.us)

<comment><USER6> My problem with Jupyter is that it doesn't produce good plaintext files, i.e. you can't edit it using your favorite text editor.

<comment><USER7> There's a vi mode plugin [1] for it which helps me get by.

[1] [https://github.com/lambdalisue/jupyter-vim- binding](https://github.com/lambdalisue/jupyter-vim-binding)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> What math level should I have to understand this book?

<comment><USER9> You don't need a strong math background. I got through a few books (PDSH included) and a couple of MOOCs on data sci/ML over the last couple of years with high school level math skills + some extra reading. Not everything is explained in minute detail but there are plenty of other sources to supplement it if you want to go deeper.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> It looks great. How would I convert it to the mobi format so I can read it in my kindle?

<comment><USER11> You can buy it. Its available for Kindle on Amazon. Also available DRM-free on ebooks.com.

Still a bummer that O'Reilly stopped selling books directly. There's been so many recently published books that I'm interested in that I can no longer purchase.

<comment><USER10> I know, but is really pretty expensive if you live in a third world country e don't earn a wage in dollars.

Nice tip about ebooks.com. I also was an Ora non DRM orphan.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Currently working through "Hands-On Machine Learning with Scikit-Learn and TensorFlow" which is solid but this seems like a good primer to that.

</comment><comment><USER13> Has anyone gone through this book? If so, what were your thoughts?

<comment><USER14> Particularly curious how it compares to Wes' Python for Data Analysis, aside from the sklearn stuff.

<comment><USER15> One of the challenges with Wes book is that it is quite old (2014). A lot of commands/functions/code mentioned in the book are obsolete and removed so code fails.

The OP book is relatively recent (2016). The majority of code still runs as mentioned. Only a few commands/functions mentioned generate deprecation warning. This book is also covers packages and ML exhaustively. I have gone through this book cover to cover and enjoyed it. This is the first and only book that I found that covers data analysis with Python comprehensively. I wish author had covered data cleaning aspects little bit more.

<comment><USER2> The Wes McKinney Pandas book has a 2nd edition coming out next month. Raw edition is already available on Safari here.

[http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920050896.do](http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920050896.do)

Release date slated for October 2017.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Wow! Thanks for this!</comment>


GnuPG Discussion Revisited - <AUTHOR> https://www.mailpile.is/blog/2015-02-26_Revisiting_the_GnuPG_discussion.html

<comment><USER2> This kind of mirrors my experience, I was writing a gpg keyserver in PHP at the time when 5.2 was current and was using an extension[1] that wrapped gpgme. When 5.3 hit it stopped working and I had not enough time to fix it (I just saw it's gotten updates meanwhile) so I also moved to using the gpg binaries.

IIRC digging into the gpgme source and the ruby or python bindings didn't prove to be very reassuring though, but my memory might fail me there.

Good to know thought that gpgme is actively endorsed now, because at that point of time it didn't look like it.

[1]: [http://pecl.php.net/package/gnupg](http://pecl.php.net/package/gnupg)</comment>


Show HN: Lootfeed – Help gamers save money while playing videogames - <AUTHOR> http://lootfeed.com <comment><AUTHOR> Lootfeed is a financial application that helps people save money and achieve their financial goals just by enjoying daily activities such as playing video games. Lootfeed is considered as the Acorn for people doing their pastimes. We have started a limited Steam Beta.

</comment><comment><USER2> Looks awesome!

I'm a bit vary of checking it out (I really dislike giving away my online- banking account), but the idea is great :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for the feedback, I understand. We don't connect to your bank account; we link to a debit card using Plaid (Most fintech startups use it). In general, I use [https://privacy.com/](https://privacy.com/) for new services. It helps with staying safe online.

<comment><USER2> That sounds far better!

I'd love to use privacy, too, but unfortunately they are still US-only and don't seem to plan on expanding to the EU :/</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: A Self-Taught Programmer's Library - <AUTHOR>

I search the web extensively looking for guidance and resources to build a curriculum that I can follow to learn to program.  I want to get out of my current job and into work building software.  I have some experience, but still consider myself a beginner.
One thing I noticed is that there are a huge amount of resources available but they are pretty widely dispersed.  It occurred to me that it might be helpful for beginner-types to have a place to go that collects pointers to these resources.  I can't be the only person with this idea, so why haven't I found  something like it?  Since I'm building my own study plan I've already found a lot of the content that would make the site.  Perhaps the site would elicit feedback/improvements and become a useful resource and place for self-motivated beginners to connect with fundamental topics of programming.
HN has impressed the hell out me as being a really cool group of people.  What do you think? <comment><USER2> MIT hosts a lot of their course materials online at <http://ocw.mit.edu/index.htm> . Dig through some of their classes.

I'm not sure at what level you mean by 'beginner', but my recommendation is to run through 6.001 (Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs). MIT has a new Python-based intro class that has since replaced 6.001, but the old class is still a very well-baked and well-respected curriculum.

After that, if you want, dig into a couple data structures and algorithms classes (like 6.006) to build up your theoretical background.

Next look into a software engineering course (theirs is 6.005). This should get you a bit of feel for diving into a large system without getting lost, or organising one of your own.

After that, just start poking around at things that look interesting. Build something shiny. (That's the great thing about our industry---you can get your tools for free, and build something useful without making a huge initial investment. That would not happen in a lot of other fields.)

</comment><comment><USER3> Such a thing is currently languishing as my #3 side project.

The idea is a curated directory of topical resources that takes into account what you already know, and what you'd like to learn.

E.g. the "Scala" topic may take into your self-assessed familiarity with the "Java" and "functional programming" topics to omit the learn-programming-with- Scala links and jump straight to the Scala-for-programmers links.

The content exists only as curated links to external sites with a well-written summary and sundry taxonomic information. User submissions will be welcome, but reviewed and catalogued before being published.

A small recommendation shall operate as well. If you've given yourself a 2 (out of 3) for "JavaScript" and have flagged an interest in "Statistics" then it'll recommend and tailor the "Data Visualization" page for you to include only the relevant links for your level.

This came about after witnessing the dozens of "What language should I learn?" and "How can I start ____?" threads that pop-up on Reddit, here, and various other forums.

Sorry I don't have a link for you right now, but just wanted to let you know you're not alone in missing a resource like this!

</comment><comment><USER4> The problem is that there are so many different areas that such a resource would have cover, likely it would be quite hard to navigate. The difficulty is that someone learning and someone experienced creating/adding to the site see things differently and would look in different areas. For example, I haven't done linear algebra in years but am currently relearning it since I'm working on an extremely complicated problem that requires some very advanced knowledge. With Google, Wikipedia, and Stackoverflow I can find almost everything, it's just a matter of finding the correct terminology so I know where to look and how to read the documentation.

I've taken a look at w3school and it gives a pretty good overview, enough so that afterwords someone should be able to find what they need (I am biased since I already know a few languages). I remember I first expanded beyond C using codemonkey, though I don't know if they still exist or what state their tutorials are in.

</comment><comment><USER5> Check out <http://www.reddit.com/r/carlhprogramming/>

+1 For MIT open courseware..

my advice is to just dive in you will pick it up.</comment>