Thanks to HoudahSpot for sponsoring BrettTerpstra.com this week! I’ve been using it for years and swear by it as a way to find files that Spotlight can’t, quickly and easily.
search, sponsor, spotlight
In Vim, most operations have can have a count specified in the keystrokes for the command, e.g. to delete 3 lines. You can do similar in any Cocoa text field (all Apple apps, plus most native apps). You just need to specify a keyboard shortcut to use before the count. Then you can hit that keyboard shortcut, type a number (X) and then hit a key or key combination to have that event repeated X times.
keybindings, keyboard, shortcuts, tricks
So you may have seen my KeyBindings project before. It’s an insanely large collection of keybinding tricks that work in any macOS text field. Well, any native cocoa field. You won’t have much luck in Electron or other non-native text editors. But for most uses, including in Safari, Mail, Notes, nvUltra, and most of the Markdown editors, the tricks work great. You can do things like adding TextMate-style ⌘+⏎ to any editor to create a new line no matter where your caret1 (cursor) is…
editor, keybindings, keyboard, tricks
I’m excited to offer the next giveaway, a 1-year subscription ($96 value) for Kaleidoscope. There is no better program for diffing on macOS. From code to prose to images, see what changed with fine granularity. Plus great new Git integration!
giveaway, macos
This post will only be of interest to people writing scripts in Ruby. Seriously, zero utility if you’re not using Ruby. Though I would be curious how you accomplish the same thing in other languages like Rust and Python, because I’ve never gotten too deep with string manipulation in anything other than Ruby, Swift, and Objective-C. If you care to leave a comment with pointers, I’m all ears.
regex, ruby, scripting
I’m excited to offer the next giveaway, 2 licenses ($39.99 value each) for SpamSieve. SpamSieve provides powerful spam filtering for any email setup. It learns and adapts to your mail, so it’s able to block nearly all spam. Use it instead of or in addition to your current junk mail filtering.
giveaway, macos, mail
I decided to make a “Brett’s Favorites 2023” part 2. I missed a few things in the first list. This will be a shorter post, but should cover some gaps I left in the first one.
appreview, audiobook, books, cooking, macos, reading, review, solutions
Thanks to Backblaze for sponsoring BrettTerpstra.com this week! I’ve been a user for years and it’s saved my hide many times. It’s so easy to set up, and just as importantly, easy to restore files whenever needed. Everybody should have a good cloud backup, and Backblaze is the best I’ve found.
backup, security, sponsor
Well, the SaneBox drawing has happened I have winners to announce! The following readers have won a 1-year subscription to the handiest email service out there!
sponsor
