I have been using the Macintosh computer off and on since 1989. On Friday, I'll share some tips and tricks using the computer and various accessories. All reviews and tips are my own.
I have been using the Macintosh computer off and on since 1989. On Friday, I'll share some tips and tricks using the computer and various accessories. All reviews and tips are my own.
A list of all the Blog Posts in this category.
Over the past year I have been working hard to get my desk in productive shape. I have multiple monitors - which is great. The thing that I have been struggling with is getting it all to work.
After playing around with different configurations, I finally got something to work. Here's my current monitor setup.
This computer is my Slack headquarters. The only application that I have open on this display is Slack. This way I can easily respond to messages and see what is going on with various teams.
I know I could just enable notifications to see alerts, but I find it easy to have the application open so that I can keep an eye out.
Applications Used Here: Slack. (Occasionally I'll park Cypress task window so that it's not in the way.)
This is my primary monitor. When I am working on automation or graphics this is where I am working. It's not as big as the Thunderbolt display, but it seems to be the perfect size to stay focus.
I'll have Chrome open with various tabs pinned to work-related responsibilities - such as email.
Applications Used Here: Chrome and BBEdit.
This is my overflow display. Here is where I'll do some development work or browse around the Internet. This computer is wide and I usually have multiple apps open to get things done.
There are times when I use this computer to watch the Chrome console while automation runs. It's great to have windows side-by-side. Having my daily goals up on this display makes it easy to stay on track. I find that I tend to stay focused more on my goals.
Applications Used Here: Affinity Designer, BBEdit, DayOne, Notion and more.
Last month, I thought I would experiment with Panic's Nova application.
Nova is a modern text editor that focuses on being the best Macintosh text editor. It's built for developers and design for the Macintosh.
For now, I am not going to purchase Nova. It's a pretty cool application, but I think the tools in BBEdit are good for me.
I'll keep an eye on updates, especially since September 23 is the one-year anniversary of the launch.
Last week Belight Software updated the popular Art Text Tool with some cool new features.
Graphic made possible by Art Text 4.1 update!
Here's where you can discover all the changes in v.4.1.
Vector Drawing Tools - These are located in the '+' in the bottom of the main window. Simply select the Shape option. You'll see the 'Pen Tool,' 'Move Tool,' 'Convert Anchor Point Tool.'Reverse Path Direction.' These are great when using existing vector designs.
Badge and Logo Design Templates - These are located in the "Design Gallery." On the bottom of the main window, click on the icon to the right of the plus sign. Once the gallery opens, click on the category called "Badge Logos." There are lots of great designs to help inspire the imagination.
New Vector Icons ahd Shapes - These are located in the content panel, which is the left side of the main window. On the top bar, click on the icon that has a circle and a square. You'll see the 17 new categories - Animals, Architecture, Arrows, Business, Flora, Food, Leisure, Media, Music, Nature, People, Science & Technology, Signs, Stars, Symbols, Tools, and Transport & Travel.
Shapes for Badge Designs - These are also located in the content panel, which is the left side of the main window. On the top bar, click on the icon that has a circle and a square. Look for the Badges category. There are 137 options. Wow, great collection of badge designs. Better than some packages I have seen on CreativeMarket.com.
Convert to Shape - Now you can convert your text to shapes! Simply right-click on any shape, and select the Convert to Shape option.
Every now and again I need to figure out a simple date calculation. For example, I am writing up a wiki page and want to reference something next Thursday. I don't want to say next Thursday but I want to say the simple date format.
I encounter this enough times, that I decided to write a simple Keyboard Maestro macro. There are three types of date scripts that I wrote:
This set of macros are built-in date calculations. Simply by using the generic hotkey: day* and some number I can display that date. So if I wanted tomorrow, I would type in day1. If I wanted 100 days from now I would type in day100.
This macro makes use of the ICUDateTimePlus functionality that is part of Keyboard Maestro.
This single macro makes it easy to put in any number of days. Simply type in a number, copy/paste, and then type in day++. This also makes use of the ICUDateTimePlus function. The return display shows the Month, Day, and Year.
This macro is my date count down. If I want to know how many days until an event, I simply type in a date, copy/paste and then type in the trigger: day+++. The return value will show Years, Months, Days, Hours until the event. This also works for events in the past. So I can see how many days past since I graduated.
The PHP secondsToHumanReadable function, used in this example, can be found at stackoverflow.com.
This week Bare Bones released an update to BBEdit - bring the application to version 14.
It took 9 years to go from version 10 to version 14. So when BBEdit does a major update - it's a big deal. In this update, the big new feature is Notes.
One of the biggest features in this update is a Notes section.
For years BBEdit users would open up a blank document and just type away. When it came to saving the document, if they remembered, they would use the default name "untitled."
With BBEdit Notes, you can simply write away and don't have to worry about saving - it does it automatically! The name of the file is the first few words on the first line.
You can organize your notes into collections. (otherwise called folders) This makes it easy to view your data.
Filename: While the name of the file displayed in the sidebar is the first few words of the first line. It's actually stored as a Globally Unique Identifier (GUID). The notes are not accessible in the Finder, they are in a package file in the finder in the BBEdit settings library. You can always use a simple trick to view the package file content - but why would you do that?
Emoji Filename - You can have Emojis in your filename! This is a creative way to make your notes stand out.
Dropbox Setup: If you are using BBEdit Dropbox sync configuration, you'll share the same Notes database between Macs. This is pretty useful. The problem is that notes created on a different Mac will show up in the Notes section using the GUID instead of the "friendly name." The workaround is to right-click on the note and select "Rename Note…" and assign a name. This name will carry over to the other Mac.
Collections: The Note collections works great on different Macs. You can nest collections. I setup up the notes to have two collections for the two computers that I use. This makes it easier to focus on the notes that may be important to me on a particular computer.
Search by Name: You can search for notes using the "Open File by Name." Only Noted created on the currently used computer will show up in the listing.
Search by Content: Use the new Notes check box in the Muti-file search dialog box to search through all your notes.
Opening Notes: You can open Notes in any BBEdit window. You don't need to use the Window->Notes feature to view a particular note. I find this useful as I have some reference documents and its great to have them available in the same window. The downside is that there's no indicator in the sidebar of what's a note file type and what's a plain file. I identify any filename that doesn't have an extension as a BBEdit note file.
Markdown: When you create a new Note it uses Markdown by default. If you are not familiar with the format, there is a Markdown Cheat Sheet in the Windows -> Palettes -> Markdown Cheat Sheet. This isn't new in 14, but useful to have when starting with Markdown.
Control - Option - Command - N -> Create a New Note (When you use this a few times, the keyboard combination makes sense.)
Shift - Command - F -> Multi-file search (Find Content in your Notes)
BBEdit 14 has a lot more changes other than Notes. Here are some other notable changes that I am excited about:
BBEdit 14 is worth the upgrade. Still not sure? Why not try the the 30-day trial to explore how BBEdit can help you manage text easily.
Have you ever run into this kind of error message:
'There isn't enough free space'
Usually this occurs when trying to save a change. The weird thing is that when you look at the disk space there's plenty.
The lack of disk space can't be the reason.
The other reason for the error is when the system clock is not set. Especially if the date is around 1970.
This may happen if your computer battery drained and it's not connected to the internet.
Simply fixing the clock will fix the error.
Sometimes you need to put the computer to sleep without using the mouse. This happens when you're charging the mouse - or the mouse battery died.
Did you know that there's a keyboard combination shortcut to quickly put your computer to sleep? This is a very useful combination to remember.
Download this graphic and use it as a quick reference to putting your computer to sleep.
Font Awesome is one of the popular online icon fonts. Web designers use it to make websites a little better.
You can easily search their collection for all sorts of creative icons. There are 7,865 icons in their collection - of that 1,609 are free.
There is one downside to the Font Awesome search. When you find an icon, there's only one way to copy the HTML class - by clicking on the name. When you do this you get the whole style prefix not use the class name: Sample:.
That's useful when you want to add it for the first time. What if you only wanted the font class name to replace an existing font awesome style? You would have to paste the content and then delete the remaining class info. This can be a pain if you're replacing a bunch of icons for a redesign.
I decided to write a Keyboard Maestro Macro to fix this situation. It's basically a regular expression that filters out everything outside of the quotes.
Here's the Macro:
"(.*)"
The nice thing about this Macro is that it can be executed by typing in the keyword: ".awesome " or using the filter menu in the Clipboard Switcher.
So now I can easily replace icons on a page with ones that I find on Font Awesome.
If there's a time when I am doing a lot of icon changes, I can change the macro to be easier to execute.
This is just a tip of how to use Keyboard Maestro for one instance. You may find another use of how this may help you have better copy/paste.
Have you ever gotten those Notifications when you are sharing the screen? Perhaps you are sharing your computer and don't want people to peek into your text message notifications.
There's a simple way to fix that in macOS Big Sur
Now you can turn off all notifications for a particular durations. Alternatively, you can turn off the notifications for particular apps.
Suggestion: turn off Notifications for Slack, Messages and Mail.
w has a lot of functionalities that can be enabled from the command line. This is handy when you want to launch Chrome with certain functions.
Using Keyboard Maestro, I can set up a taskbar menu of various configurations. This makes it easy to launch Chrome with a particular setting whenever I want. I don't have to memorize commands and I don't have to launch a terminal editor to run these commands.
I simply select the chrome action that I want and instantly Chrome launches.
Here is an example of one of the macros.
Bash Command:
#! /bin/bash
/Applications/Google Chrome.app/Contents/MacOS/Google Chrome --incognito
You can get a list of all the Chrome Command options with some explanation on this site: