Introduction to Mac Shortcuts

The importance of shortcuts becomes really apparent when you are playing games.

This perspective encouraged me to maximise my control when working in a new OS.

Here are my currently used navigation assistance tools:

Vimium

Vim control commands inside chrome. This helps to fill in the gaps of the default browser navigation and reduces the need for a mouse almost completely.

Slate

Nice open-source window management tool with JavaScript configs.

Touch a .slate file inside your user directory and try out some of these. Remember to reload the config when you are done.

• Full Screen the current window

By default there is not a keybind for this on Mac which is quite strange coming from Win. Binding this makes the transition easier and you can similarly use the up arrow key aswell.

bind up:shift;cmd move screenOriginX;screenOriginY screenSizeX;screenSizeY

• Indent/Shift/Nudge the current window

Nice bind to match indenting code inside IDE.

bind [:shift;cmd nudge +10% +0      # right
bind ]:shift;cmd nudge -10% +0      # left

Quick alignment is where the power really comes.

• Left/Right Half of Screen

Place the current window to take up half of the screen. Similarly match Win using left and right arrow keys.

bind left:shift;cmd    push left bar-resize:screenSizeX/2
bind right:shift;cmd   push right bar-resize:screenSizeX/2

Alfred

Essentially replaces the spotlight bar however, it is much more than that. To get access to the full range of features you need to purchase for $15.

You can shortcut program and scripts using an intuitive GUI. These can be called from Alfred or assigned to shortcuts.

Here are some of my preferred program shortcuts:

s+cmd+shift      # ST2
c+cmd+shift      # Chrome
t+cmd+shift      # iTerm
d+cmd+shift      # Dash