Bicycle For Your Mind
tools
Three Goodies
I am going to cover three little apps I have been using. First on the list is Moves for macOS.
Moves
Moves for macOS
Moves is a little application which sits on the menubar and lets you move and resize windows. No more trying to hit the right spot on the window to move/resize it. Hold the modifier keys that you set up and move/resize the window with your mouse/trackpad. You will get used to it and this is going to become second nature.
Setup Moves
It is easy to setup. I love it. Moves is free.
The second one is a little utility called Yoink.
Yoink
Yoink for Mac - Simplify and Improve Drag and Drop
Once in a while I have to move a whole bunch of files to different folders on the hard drive. Instead of moving them sequentially I can drag them to the Yoink shelf and then drag them to the folder I want. This is a great way to move files quickly and efficiently. I was initially skeptical, but after using it for a while, I find myself using it all the time. It is now an essential addition to my toolset. I think Pathfinder had a similar feature. Yoink is something I have gotten used to.
Yoink is a deep application which does more than just move files. It does something with the clipboard history which I have not explored. Alfred manages my clipboard history. It deals with plain text and that is what I am comfortable with. I use Yoink for moving files and folders around.
Extensions
Yoink has some extensions which improve the product. Quick Actions, A PDF service and Alfred integration are all designed to improve your interaction with Yoink. I love it.
The third application is a group of applications which do similar things on macOS. They are designed to help you ignore your mouse/trackpad and use the keyboard to select and navigate around the macOS interface.
shortcat
Shortcat Universal command palette for your Mac
Shortcat is the first application, in this group, I am going to talk about.
You assign Shortcat a keyboard command to activate and then press the shortcut to get this:
shortcat selection
You type the letter/s on the selection you want to make and the OS selects your chosen option. Takes some getting used to but it is magic. Shortcat works in most applications and is an absolute joy to use.
shortcat preferences
Shortcat’s implementation of the scrolling function is a little wonky. Doesn’t work reliably and the keyboard commands are set for you. Space + (hjkl), is not the best solution for this. Using the spacebar key has definite functions in most programs and that doesn’t work as a modifier. A Meh key (⇧⌃⌥) and (hjkl) or some variant of that would work better. Scrolling, thanks to the keys chosen doesn’t work most of the time. The feature needs to be worked on and user selected keyboard commands would be an improvement.
Shortcat is not ready for release and the developer is not charging a price for it. A licensing scheme is being worked on and there is no indication of the price that the developer will charge. At this stage, it is a free utility.
homerow icon
Homerow — Keyboard shortcuts for every button in macOS
Homerow is a commercial application. It costs $49.99.
Homerow is similar to Shortcat in that it is designed to help you ignore the mouse/trackpad and use the keyboard to select and navigate the macOS interface and the applications you run. It is more polished than Shortcat and lets you do more with the keyboard.
homerow screen
Homerow is similar to Shortcat in that you invoke it with your assigned keyboard command and it layers the interface with letters to show you what you can type to select the item you are interested in. Works a charm.
The settings for Homerow are more extensive than Shortcat.
clicking
You choose the short cut key you want.
scrolling
You get to choose the key to scroll and the scroll speed. Makes the feature usable and nice.
ignore
This is where Homerow still needs more work. You can choose apps to ignore and the program doesn’t respect that choice. For instance, I have setup Homerow to ignore Emacs. But it doesn’t respect that choice. If I press the keyboard command for Homerow it activates in Emacs and that is not the desired behavior.
Homerow is a well-designed solution which lets you ignore the mouse/trackpad. I love using it.
mouseless icon
mouseless
Mouseless is a commercial application and it costs $9.99.
Mouseless is an application which wants you to ditch the mouse/trackpad but has a different approach to achieving that goal.
grid
Instead of selecting particular interface elements it provides a grid of letters for your whole screen. You get to choose the letters from the grid which overlays the item you want to select. Type them in, hit spacebar and you are off.
config
You can config various elements of Mouseless and its grid.
It works as expected however the experience of using Mouseless is a little too fidgety. It makes you do more work than Shortcat or Homerow. It doesn’t attempt to provide support for scrolling. You will have to mouse around for that.
Of the three, I prefer Homerow. Shortcat shows promise, but it is not ready yet.
macosxguru at the gmail thingie.
Thanks to: Photo by icon0 com: https://www.pexels.com/photo/grayscale-photo-of-combination-wrenches-220639/