By overriding one of the keybindings dict you can actually send arbitrary obj-c selectors to nstextview(?) on key-chords. With this you can implement a compose key, and also add in other emacs-like functionality. Probably the among the most powerful but least known features.
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Secret Finder tips? Oh come on!!!
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Alt-Tab (later, Cmd-Tab on Mac OS) is one of the very few UI/UX features found on Windows 3.1 first which I’m glad Apple saw wise to add by OS 8 (I think).
I only knew it because of working with POSIX-based command line keys. A longtime Linux user from the ’90s taught me that on IRC in the early ’00s, around when I began to use irssi. Then I realized it can be used practically anywhere in a command-line setting.
Honestly, I often forget this is something which got brought over to the GUI on OS X.
I am also glad they brought it to OS X. After many years of using that little app strip that OS9 let you pull out to switch apps, this was great to have.
In 1999 I forced myself to learn all the QuarkXPress keyboard shortcuts. Consequently, my hands are always resting on the keyboard. It's just easier to CMD+Tab than it is to use the mouse. Especially when my dock is a monitor or two away.
My problem is going to be in using it. 23 years of using QXP and ID has taught me the shortcuts for THOSE apps to get to the beginning and end of a line.
OK. Since my last post was related to CMD+Tab…
How many of you are aware that you can open documents this way?
For instance…let's say I have a PDF that I want to open in Photoshop. Double clicking it will open it in Acrobat or Preview by default. I can CTRL+Click on it to get a contextual menu and open it that way and that's my usual method. But sometimes there are situations where you may want to use CMD+Tab.
How?
Click, hold and start dragging the document. While holding it, press CMD+Tab (you can let go of tab when the open app icons appear). Now drop your document on top of the app icon you want to open the file in and release. Your document will open in the app you dropped it on, provided that app is capable of opening that type of document.
Note, you can also use CMD+Tab to import items. Say you have a QXP or ID document open and you want to drop an image in. But the folder that holds the image is behind the open document. Switch to the Finder, click hold and start dragging the document then press CMD+Tab and switch back to the app you are using. Drop the file into the app. And the file imports.
A Finder tip as a bonus. Most of you probably know this…
Say you're saving a document but the save dialogue box has the wrong folder location. All you have to do is grab and drop the CORRECT folder into the Save dialogue box and Finder will automatically switch to that folder location. You can also rename a file you are saving over by dragging the FILE you want to name it as in to the dialogue box - or just by clicking on the filename.
This works for opening files too or really any dialogue box that gives you Finder navigation.
This is one of the reasons I have so many folders open on my desktop.
How many of you are aware that you can open documents this way?
For instance…let's say I have a PDF that I want to open in Photoshop. Double clicking it will open it in Acrobat or Preview by default. I can CTRL+Click on it to get a contextual menu and open it that way and that's my usual method. But sometimes there are situations where you may want to use CMD+Tab.
How?
Click, hold and start dragging the document. While holding it, press CMD+Tab (you can let go of tab when the open app icons appear). Now drop your document on top of the app icon you want to open the file in and release. Your document will open in the app you dropped it on, provided that app is capable of opening that type of document.
Note, you can also use CMD+Tab to import items. Say you have a QXP or ID document open and you want to drop an image in. But the folder that holds the image is behind the open document. Switch to the Finder, click hold and start dragging the document then press CMD+Tab and switch back to the app you are using. Drop the file into the app. And the file imports.
A Finder tip as a bonus. Most of you probably know this…
Say you're saving a document but the save dialogue box has the wrong folder location. All you have to do is grab and drop the CORRECT folder into the Save dialogue box and Finder will automatically switch to that folder location. You can also rename a file you are saving over by dragging the FILE you want to name it as in to the dialogue box - or just by clicking on the filename.
This works for opening files too or really any dialogue box that gives you Finder navigation.
This is one of the reasons I have so many folders open on my desktop.
This is the reason you have six displays, right?
ONE of the reasons.This is the reason you have six displays, right?
Two large primary displays for work (in InDesign my document windows span both monitors), the two vertical wings for any supporting apps and the Finder windows of the docs I'm working on, the ACD for commonly used Finder windows and the HDTV for my media apps. With browsers I will commonly use Edge/Safari on the left display for ordering/tracking stuff (pizza usually) and the right display for actual browsing (Vivaldi).
And other stuff.
There's a method to it all!
Generalising comments ahead so maybe skip by if you melt easy...
But age is a lot to do with it from my experience. And by 'age', I mean what your age typically means you've been experienced to.
At 53 years old I'm of the generation which has been exposed to the most transitions in IT tech. I grew up when offices used typewriters, and home computers meant ZX Spectrums and Commodore 64s, connected (if you were lucky) to the fledgling internet by an audio-coupler you shoved the phone handset into. We progressed through Amigas, PCs and other computers, and we have seen the world largely transition away from traditional computers entirely to touch-devices for everyday use. We've had to learn to use it all.
But the fresh-from-college 20 y/o trainees in my employer's business are just as bamboozled by the Windows PCs they need to use every day as the 50+ y/o's I worked with 30 years ago, but for different reasons. The 50y/o's I worked with 30 years ago were frightened of computers and saw them as futuristic alien technology beyond their understanding. The 20 y/o trainees find computers obsolete anachronisms they begrudgingly have to use. Most of them don't even know how to make a new folder, let alone anything more complicated.
But I don't mind, because all these people still have (had) something incredibly valuable to offer the business. The 20y/o's bring fresh ideas that someone my age and older won't necessarily think about, while the 50y/o's from 30 years ago taught me experience that transcended their IT illiteracy, while young me chuckled at the fact they couldn't shove a 3.5" disk in the drive the right way up.
But age is a lot to do with it from my experience. And by 'age', I mean what your age typically means you've been experienced to.
At 53 years old I'm of the generation which has been exposed to the most transitions in IT tech. I grew up when offices used typewriters, and home computers meant ZX Spectrums and Commodore 64s, connected (if you were lucky) to the fledgling internet by an audio-coupler you shoved the phone handset into. We progressed through Amigas, PCs and other computers, and we have seen the world largely transition away from traditional computers entirely to touch-devices for everyday use. We've had to learn to use it all.
But the fresh-from-college 20 y/o trainees in my employer's business are just as bamboozled by the Windows PCs they need to use every day as the 50+ y/o's I worked with 30 years ago, but for different reasons. The 50y/o's I worked with 30 years ago were frightened of computers and saw them as futuristic alien technology beyond their understanding. The 20 y/o trainees find computers obsolete anachronisms they begrudgingly have to use. Most of them don't even know how to make a new folder, let alone anything more complicated.
But I don't mind, because all these people still have (had) something incredibly valuable to offer the business. The 20y/o's bring fresh ideas that someone my age and older won't necessarily think about, while the 50y/o's from 30 years ago taught me experience that transcended their IT illiteracy, while young me chuckled at the fact they couldn't shove a 3.5" disk in the drive the right way up.
I'm only a year behind you (born: 1970).
Typing classes were in 8th grade I think, with mechanical drawing in 9th. I never cared much for the typewriters. When I was nine (1980) I forced myself to memorize the keyboard of our TRS-80 CoCo. I said to myself, everything left of the number 7 is going to be handled by your left hand and everything to the right is going to be handled by your right hand. The spacebar can be used by either hand. So, I type pretty fast because I long ago memorized where all the keys are - I just don't use the traditional typing method.
It took me four years after graduation (1989) to figure out what I was okay with doing as a trade (graphic design). By that time (1993) the industry was transitioning from mechanicals to desktop publishing. I learned a lot from the old guy in my first job. He knew Photoshop in and out but I wouldn't touch his coffee cup with a 10 foot pole.
I've been fortunate since 2004 to have been in a 14.5 year newspaper position. When the business was sold I landed at another place that handles golf scorecards and yardage books. Still print, just different. I was hired primarily because I knew QuarkXPress in an era where most schools teach InDesign only.
I know a few things, but not everything, so it's always nice to be able to swap knowledge and to see things from different perspectives.
I mean, I feel like I only knew one or two of those things, presumably because I've never ventured past Snow Leopard nor had the hardware to do so and they're features from newer versions. Definitely stuff I could find on my own in about 5 minutes, I've only once or twice ever been thrust into a desktop environment (or wm) that I can't figure out on my own, but as someone that only ever interacted with a Mac outside an Apple Store for the first time last June, it's nice to get hints like this showing how I might be able to enable some features I might want pre-me possibly going for a used 14" MB Pro or mini or something for college.
I mean, I somehow feel like neither the curriculum nor the method of teaching are well tuned to G4s, even fast ones. I can always try, and even probably do decently well back in the in-person days, but Zoom is likely less than usable on, say, my iBook G4 or Oddball.
I mean, I somehow feel like neither the curriculum nor the method of teaching are well tuned to G4s, even fast ones. I can always try, and even probably do decently well back in the in-person days, but Zoom is likely less than usable on, say, my iBook G4 or Oddball.
I've been a Mac user since starting graphic design college in 2000 ... my first own Mac was a Cube in 2001. I didn't know the last one - "add wallpapers to folder windows". Can't say that I was missing this or that I'll be using it though. The others are among the first things I change when setting up a new Mac OS.