March 12, 2017
Paint the Hot Corners in macOS
Mission Control icon
macOS ships with Hot Corners. You can move your mouse/trackpad cursor to the four corners of your screen and make things happen.
Step 1:
Hot Corners
Go to the Mission Control Preference Screen on the Mac. Select System Preference… from the menu. Click on Mission Control. Click on the Hot Corners… button on the bottom left.
Step 2:
Four Corners
You can assign commands to each of those four corners. When you take your mouse to the specific corner on your display, the command chosen will activate.
You have a choice of the following commands.
Command Choice
The options are:
Mission Control
Mission Control: This is the command which lets you see every open window on the computer. You can activate this usually by pressing F3.
Application Windows: This will show you all open documents in an application. ⌘+`, while you are in the application is a better way of switching between open application windows. So, it doesn't make much sense to use this option.
Desktop: This command shows the desktop. fn+F11 is a better way of showing the desktop. So, this command is not very useful.
Dashboard: This command shows the Dashboard. The Dashboard is a collection of widgets which Apple has forgotten about in Sierra. They have turned it off by default. You are better off leaving it turned off. They are not useful.
Notification Center: You can click on the icon at the topmost right corner to get the Notification window to pop out. You don't need this one.
Launchpad: You are still using the Launchpad? What is wrong with you? You can use the Spotlight menu (⌘+spacebar) to type in the name of the application that you are looking for and hit return when you find it on the list. Why would you go through pages of icons on the Dashboard? Even newbies are contemptuous of the Launchpad. This command is not useful.
Start Screen Saver: This is useful. If you have password protected your macOS, this is a good command to have available. In an office, when you walk away from your desk, it is a good idea to have the login password kick in along with the screensaver. Keeps away prying eyes. Having the screen saver activate when you need it is thus beneficial. Use this for one of the corners.
Password Protection
You can enable password on screensaver activation by going to the System Preferences>Security and Privacy preference pane and clicking on the General tab.
Disable Screen Saver: If you are going to have moments of inactivity but you don't want the screen saver to kick in, this is an useful command to have. Since moving the mouse/trackpad or pressing any key disables the screen saver, I am not sure how critical this is.
Put Display to Sleep: This is useful. I use it all the time. I want the computer to carry on its task in the background, while the display is shut off. Saves power and my eyes. This is specially useful when I am using SuperDuper! to back up my computer hard drive to an external hard drive.
Step 3:
If you assigned a command to the Hot Corners and used the computer, it would drive you batty. Every time your cursor would stray to a corner of the screen, a command would launch. Very soon, you would find yourself dreading using the mouse/trackpad, because it would almost feel like your computer is an evil entity specifically designed to drive you crazy. Come to think of it, it would feel very much like using a Windows machine. What a dreadful thought. Instead, when you select the drop down menu hold down a key, any of the following keys, ⇧, ⌘, ⌥ or ⌃. I like the ⌃ key.
Now with Control
See how the drop-down menu changed? There is a ⌃ key attached to the choice. Now when you take your cursor to the corner, nothing will happen. You will have to hold down the ⌃ key and take the cursor to your chosen corner for the command assigned to that Hot Corner. Accidental batty behavior can thus be avoided by assigning a key to activate the Hot Corners.
Painting the Corners
This is how mine looks. Now get busy painting your corners.
macosxguru at the gmail thingie
Mission Control
macOS
March 6, 2017
fman: A Worthy Keyboard Driven Finder Replacement
fman icon
Product: fman: The addictive file manager
Price: $13, and $10/year for continued updates (first year free)
The Finder in macOS is a key part of using Macs. Developers over the years have attempted to design a Finder replacement. They include, Path Finder, ForkLift 3, Nimble Commander and Commander One and Commander One Pro. On the whole, they have had mixed success. The products have attracted a core group of users but widespread success has eluded any of them. They have been marketed differently. Path Finder is positioned as the full featured Finder alternative. The rest of them have taken different approaches to the task of replacing the Finder.
Forklift is:
"The most advanced dual pane file manager and file transfer client for macOS."
Nimble Commander is:
"Dual-pane file manager with classic design."
Commander One Pro is:
"Perfect dual panel file manager for Mac that flawlessly combines an FTP client for Mac and an Amazon S3 browser and provides you with the built-in Mac Terminal emulator making it super easy for you to manage all the system processes."
fman is a new addition to this marketplace. It is marketed as,
"A modern file manager for power users.
Beautiful, fast and extensible."
fman - dual pane
It has the usual, in this category, design of a two-paned file manager.
It is distinguished by being:
- Cross-platform (macOS, Windows and Linux)
- Extremely keyboard centric and hence super fast.
- Extensible with plug-ins.
I don't care about this feature. In fact, I almost look at this as a negative. The macOS has features which are not shared by the other OS'es.
Finder Services
For instance, Services, is a Mac only feature. I want my file-manager to support Services. I have a few services which are useful. Because of fman and its cross-platform focus, I don't get to access them in fman.
Cross-platform as a feature, is useful to those who work in multiple platforms and their subscription to fman means they can use the same product in every computer platform they are using. That is a product feature which is desired by some, but it looks like a lowest common denominator approach to product design to me. I miss out on the macOS goodies and have no interest in other computing platforms. This is not a selling point to me.
Extremely Keyboard Centric and Speed
fman is extremely keyboard centric. There are a few things you can do with a mouse but for the most part, you use the keyboard. I am not a fan of the mouse/trackpad. I love the ability to do everything through the keyboard. This is the one feature which made me fall in love with fman. The added feature is the ability to customize all the keyboard commands. You need to edit a json file of keybindings and that lets you customize the commands to your liking. Your inner geek is going to be in heaven.
The inherent speed of fman comes from two features: The Go To Command and the Command Palette.
The Go To Command
fman - the go to command
⌘ + P gives you the Go To command in fman. Gives you an input box and a dropdown of your recently visited places. The input box supports name completion, When you find a match, hit tab and move on to the next part of the path. Makes the process of switching between directories effortless and fast. Wicked fast.
The Command Palette—You Look Familiar
fman - Command Palette
Sublime Text users will find fman's implementation of the Command Palette familiar. ⌘ + ⇧ + P gives you access to the Command Palette and it works like the Sublime Text 3 Command Palette. You can start typing the command you are looking for, select it from the dropdown list and hit enter. The command executes instantly. The dropdown list also shows you the keyboard command associated with the command helping you learn them.
fman can be used extensively from the keyboard. Besides the Go To command and the Command Palette, you can start typing the name of a file in any directory you are in, and it takes you instantly to the matching file. You can switch between the two panes by hitting the Tab key. This is a great way of managing your files and fman makes the process intuitive, fast and efficient.
Extensible with Plug-ins
A unique feature of fman is the support for plug-ins. You can find them here. Plug-ins have the ability to extend the features/commands of fman. I am curious to see what the users of fman come up with to extend the features. One of them already has a VimNavigation plug-in for fman. Geeks are lovely people.
Plug-ins have the ability to make the program and your life better. In fman, you select a bunch of files and copy them on to another folder and the files in the original folder still remain selected. It is a pain that there is no built in deselect command. Richard Guay, who is an absolute treasure, has written a plugin called DeSelect, which lets you deselect the selected files by the keyboard command ⌘ + x, or the command deselect in the command palette. Made the process easy and painless.
This is the promise of plugins. It is going to fill in the holes in the feature set of fman and generally improve the functionality of fman.
I am certain that we will be clamoring for a plug-in manager soon. I am looking forward to that.
Observations From a macOS User
Being cross-platform means the focus is on designing a product that all platforms might find useful. That means that elements which are specific to an individual OS has the potential of being ignored. That is my concern with fman. These are some of the things I would like fman to support in macOS:
- Services: I have talked about this earlier.
- Tags: I have a whole slew of Hazel rules which are dependent on tags. Using fman I have no access to tags. If the goal is to be a Finder replacement, you have to give me access to the tags interface.
- Open With…: I live in text files. Sometimes I want to edit with Sublime Text 3. Sometimes I want to edit with iA Writer or Caret or Byword or CotEditor. I can achieve this in the Finder by selecting a file and right clicking through to the Open With… menu and picking the application I am interested in. In fman, you have the default text editor to open text files. fman uses the default app assigned by the OS to open files, so the only option is the default. I am sure that doesn't work out. I want to use a plethora of apps to interact with particular files, depending on what I want to do to them. Preview to look at images, Acorn to edit images, and so on. There must be some way to achieve this through plug-ins. That would add value to the user experience.
- Recycle Bin?: Don't make me use metaphors which make no sense to me. Recycle bin? What the hell are we recycling? My file is going to come back as what? What are we saving here? Can we call it the trash please? Microsoft saw that trash was taken and decided to name their trash bin with a cute eco-friendly phrase, Recycle Bin. Didn't make any sense then, doesn't make any sense now. Can we just call it Trash. Please?
fman - recycle this
If you underline the Y in Yes and the N in No, shouldn't I be able to press that letter to get the action? Instead I have the option of tabbing between the options and hitting enter, to choose it. The letters would make a good alternative choice.
One of the main features of fman is plugins. The developer needs to build a community of users who are going to provide users with the benefit of their creativity and expertise. That is what is going to make fman thrive in the marketplace of two-pane file managers. Build a forum, let users interact, let them make your product better. Give them a place to improve your product. Learn from Sublime Text 3 and Atom.
Conclusion
These are the things I love about fman:
- The Command palette.
- The Go to function.
- The keyboard centric operation.
- The extensibility provided by plug-ins.
- The speed of the program.
- The customization of keyboard commands.
I haven't been this excited about a file manager since I was first introduced to Path Finder many years ago. fman is a worthy addition to the macOS utility belt and I am going to keep using it. It is important enough to my workflow that it is now included in the list of three apps which automatically launch on my computer every day at 6 o'clock in the morning waiting for me to wake up at 6:15.
The developer is accepting registrations in time limited chunks. The price is now $13 and subsequently $10/year, for the next four days. It is scheduled to go up soon.
I heartily recommend fman. If you are interested in the category, you should move on it soon.
macosxguru at the gmail thingie
macOS
Finder
fman
February 28, 2017
Five More Finder Tips
Finder Icon
QuickLook
Finder QuickLook
Select one or more files in the Finder, press the Spacebar. You are going to get a Quick Look window. You can resize this window.
Finder QuickLook Index
If you have a multiple selection, the button which shows four squares is an index sheet display. Click that to get a look at all the files in an index view. Or, hit the arrow keys to go from one file to another. You can click on a particular item to display it in the index view. If you want to increase the size of the display, hold the ⌥ key to zoom in.
You can select files in the Finder and press ⌥+Spacebar to go to a fullscreen slideshow of the items.
Quick Look works with all kinds of files. If you don't see the contents of a chosen file, it might need a QuickLook plugin. There are two places online which are a good source of Quicklook plugins. They are:
Download the relevant plugin you are looking for and put it in the Quicklook folder which is inside your User Library folder.
Let Autocomplete Work for You
Finder AutoComplete
In the Finder's Go to Folder prompt (⇧+⌘+G) type part of a folder name, press to autocomplete the folder name. If you come across multiple matches, this will list the folders in alphabetical order, pick the one you need with the arrow keys and hit enter to complete the path.
Let's Learn Some Keyboard Shortcuts
Finder Go To Menu
Listed as choices for the Sidebar, these are folders you go to often. Learn the keyboard commands. It will be easy to navigate to them. These work in the Open/Save dialog box too. When you are in an application and want to save a file, you press ⌘+S and you get the Save dialog box. You can type ⇧+⌘+O to go to the Documents folder.
Bonus Tip - Screenshot of a menu: In the Finder take your mouse and choose the Go menu. When the dropdown menu appears, keep holding the mouse on the Go menu and press ⌘+⇧+4. Your cursor is going to turn into co-ordinates, keep the cursor on the Go menu and press the spacebar. The cursor will change into a camera. Keep it in the contents of the Go menu and click. You are going to get a screenshot of the Go menu. Keep it on your desktop and periodically highlight it and press the spacebar. Quicklook will show you the screenshot. Try to memorize the commands. When you use these commands, they will get ingrained into your muscle memory and you will save time traversing the file directory on your Mac.
Copy the Contents of a File
Copy Contents Icon
Product: Copy Contents on the Mac App Store
Price: Free
Not an utility you need all the time but it is useful when you need it. You have a file in the finder and you want to copy the contents of that file into another file you are working on. Copy Contents lets you copy the contents of a file without having to open an application.
Copy Contents
Choose a file in the Finder, right click on it. You are going to get the dropdown menu. Choose Copy Contents. Go to the application you are working in and Paste (⌘+V). This works with all kinds of text files, CSV files and markdown files. Doesn't work with pdf's, docx, or pages documents.
Arrange and Sort
Finder Arrange
You can group Finder items by attribute by choosing an option from the View>Arrange By sub menu. If you hold down the ⌥ key, the Arrange By option changes to Sort By. This lets you sort by a secondary attribute. Useful if you want items grouped together.
macosxguru at the gmail thingie
Finder
February 22, 2017
Making Bear Work With OperatorMono
I have been using Bear - Notes for iPhone, iPad and Mac for my notes and general writing.
Bear Editor Pref
Bear ships with the ability to use San Francisco, Avenir Next, Helvetica Neue, and Menlo. They are nice but I miss OperatorMono.
I must advice that the steps you need to take to manage this switch of fonts is a little weird. Most Mac users are used to choosing a font from a font list without much thought. This is different. This will need a dive into the innards of the application and some editing of files within the innards. So follow along carefully. The good news is that you don't have to be afraid. If you screw something up and Bear refuses to load. You can delete the application. Download it again from the App Store and you are ready to get to work.
First Step: Finding the File/s to Edit
Go to the Applications Folder. Find Bear. ⌃click (or right click) on the application.
Bear Show Package Contents
You are going to get a drop down menu. Choose, Show Package Contents. The Finder windows will show you the contents of Bear, the application. Click on Contents. Then on Resources.
Bear Font Themes
I didn't like the Menlo font. I didn't mind the others, but I didn't like the Menlo font at all. So, I decided to change the Menlo theme. You can choose any of the others you want. The System one was more complicated, but if you have come this far, you are willing to live on the edge. Go for it. Let me know how it worked out.
Second Step: Editing Menlo.theme
You have to hold on to the ⌥ key and drag the file Menlo.theme to the desktop. You can't drag it over. If you do, it makes an alias. You have to hold down the ⌥ key and drag. That makes a copy of the file on the desktop. Compress the file by ⌃Clicking on the file and choosing Compress "Menlo.theme" from the drop-down menu. This is your backup in case everything goes to hell. Now open Menlo.theme by again ⌃Clicking on the file and choosing Open With and a text editor from the drop-down menu. I chose CotEditor, any text editor will do.
Bear Menlo Theme
It is a plist file. It is a dressed up XML file. You can edit this in a text editor. A cursory search and I found three places which refer to the Menlo font.
Bear Menlo Theme Contents
I changed the references to Menlo to OperatorMono. I chose OperatorMono-Book for the paragraph and monospace font, and OperatorMono-Bold for the Title Font. I saved the file. You can use the name of whatever font you want in replacing Menlo. Make sure it is the actual name of the font file. I put in a space between Operator and Mono and that didn't work till I realized that the font file was OperatorMono.otf.
Replace the Original Menlo.theme
Take the edited Menlo.theme and drop it in the folder called Resources you got the file from originally. Overwrite the old file. You will be asked to authenticate this replacement. Type in your system password and you are ready to go.
Launch Bear. Enjoy your editor displaying your choice of font.
Caveats
Bear Post Switch
This is an unauthorized hack. The developers of Bear obviously do not endorse such aberrant behavior. I have been using the application for a week since the switch and everything is working out fine. I have not done any damage to the application or the cosmic order of things. Of course, this is not a hack which is going to last through an update. I will have to repeat this when Bear gets updated or the developer adds the ability to use our own fonts making this hack unnecessary.
In the meantime, I am enjoying Bear with OperatorMono.
macosxguru at the gmail thingie
Bear
Hack
February 19, 2017
Avoid Tabula
Tabula Icon
Product: Tabula
Price: $4.99 for macOS; $2.99 for iOS (both products discounted for launch)
Tabula is a new distraction free writing app for macOS and iOS. It has an interesting approach to the issue of formatting.
The claim is that the product has something called Automatic Formatting and that means:
Tabula uses intelligent algorithms and grammars based on natural composition to understand the way you've laid out the page and style it automatically. There's no markup or special syntax unless you prefer it.
It can handle lots of different writing styles, from blog posts to class notes to shopping lists to quarterly reports.
Tabula promises to understand the nature of your document by its content or arrangement of content and formats the document automatically. I have two problems with the approach:
- Why does one need this?
- Tabula is bad at it.
Why Does One Need This?
The problem lies in the nature of text files. By definition a text file is a slew of characters which are devoid of any style. So, you choose a font and a font size, and that is it. The characters in your text file are displayed in that font and that font size. That is it. A text file doesn't do bold, doesn't do italic, doesn't do any formatting. It is a good system to write code. But even there, modern code editors have introduced syntax highlighting designed to make code more readable. Syntax highlighting doesn't add anything to the text file, it takes elements in the code and colors them differently to make code more readable.
While working in text files, there have been several attempts to provide a framework where the author can define formatting elements. The goal is to control the look of the output. So, you write in text files, define some formatting elements, through some code, and some parser or interpreter takes your document, looks at the code, and outputs a formatted document ready for the printer, or a pdf file, or an html file for posting to the web. There have been several attempts at the definition of the code and the resultant parser: LaTex, reStructured Text, & Markdown are all examples of this attempt.
Markdown is the one which has gotten a lot of attention lately. The move to write for the web and the plethora of available tools has made this an active product category in the writing space. Markdown takes text files and adds code to the text file. For instance, to make something italic in markdown, you surround it with one *. That is interpreted by the markdown parser as italic. If you are outputting an html file, it will use the html code for emphasis and convert the *'s into appropriate html code.
As with anything that is trendy or hot, there are people who are not enamored by the system. They are the people who are "Markdown-averse."
Tabula is trying to cater to this niche of customers.
You write a document and Tabula will fill in the code. The only problem is that no parser can read your mind. So you have to start a word with a ` or enclose a phrase with two `s to indicate to Tabula that you are looking for an italic word or phrase. This is not much different from markdown at all. It is a different markup to achieve the same thing.
Another example, in Markdown you signify a header by appending #'s in front of the header text. Your choice of number of #'s defines the level of the header. In Tabula, you achieve the same effect by having a capitalized word in a separate line or a sentence with at least two capitalized words in a separate line. Tabula doesn't do multiple levels of headers, it does one level.
Tabula Is Bad at It
Software is not good at reading your mind. The more control you want over your output, the more specific you have to be. There is nothing automatic about Tabula. It is marketing hype which Tabula doesn't deliver on. It is another markup language masquerading as automation.
To understand that this is another markup language, this is a quote from their website:
If you would like to license the Tabula parse system for a project of your own, please contact us directly.
Tabula is a markup system which is pretending not to be one. And it is an ill-defined markup system. Markdown is a better alternative. Tabula doesn't do levels of headers, doesn't do footnotes, doesn't do bold, doesn't do nested numbered lists, doesn't support code blocks, doesn't support block quotes.
The only question I have after using this product is, "Why?"
Conclusion
Avoid 'Tabula.
Learn markdown. It is easy. Here is an online tutorial.
I spent $7.98 of my own money to review this.
Alternate Take
A favorable review of 'Tabula: A new distraction-free writing app: Tabula | Welcome to Sherwood
macosxguru at the gmail thingie
Tabula
Writing
Bicycle For Your Mind