Bartender. Menu bar manager.
aText. Text shortcut expander. I use the pi symbol to prefix my shortcuts (Opt-p).
eMacs shortcuts work in the GUI, btw.
I’ll try to remember to add more when I get home.
this post was submitted on 04 Jan 2024
5 points (100.0% liked)
macOS
939 readers
1 users here now
The home for all things macOS on LW.
Rules:
- No NSFW Content.
- No hate speech or personal attacks.
- No Ads / Spamming.
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
I really like raycast. It’s similar extension to Spotlight just like Alfred, but feels much better somehow.
If you like the integrated touchpad or planning to get an external one, better touch tool is also great productivity app which lets you create custom gestures.
There is also preinstalled application called shortcuts, which lets you easily create kind of scripts which you can use daily.
I would definitely recommend Raycast over Alfred. I came from Alfred and never looked back. Recast is a very powerful application and it’s extensible. It’s basically like a swiss aemu knife of applications and it’s one of the first things I install on macOS.
- AdGuard for Safari
- Amphetamine (to keep the Mac from sleeping when you need it, also check out caffeinate which is a CLI tool that comes with the OS to do the same)
- bsdtar from libarchive for a universal (un)archiver (Archive Utility doesn't unpack nearly enough common archive formats unfortunately and can create even fewer)
- Mac Mouse Fix (if you want to use a button mouse with it)
- Nix instead of docker, it actually bothers with native Mac packages instead of being a glorified VM
- Raycast (this one is also enhanced spotlight)
Some UI settings I've changed (these are up to taste obviously but I like them more):
- Mission Control -> Group spaces by application: ON
- Dock -> Minimize windows into application icon: ON
- Keyboard -> Press fn key to: Do Nothing (the default of I think Show Emoji & Symbols was driving me crazy because I kept hitting it by accident)
- Control Center -> Automatically hide and show the menu bar: Never (works especially well with the camera because it leaves blank space otherwise)
- Keyboard Shortcuts -> Function Keys -> Use F1, F2, etc. keys as standard function keys: ON
- probably more that I forgot but these should be the major ones
Didn’t see it here, but either VLC or IINA. I used VLC forever, but have recently mostly switched over to IINA.
Also an app uninstaller. I use AppZapper b/c I paid 99¢ for it forever ago (anybody remember maczot?) and it still works.
my favorite app is Parallels so I can run a Linux VM as my main environment and never touch the Mac stuff