macOS tips and tricks

This page contains my personal tips and tricks for macOS.

Useful apps

• Rectangle is a free app that allows to control windows with keyboard shortcuts
• Contexts: switching between windows and applications with Cmd-tab.
  • The full discussion: https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/2718/best-app-to-switch-between-all-open-windows
  • AltTab is a decent free alternative
• Nimble Commander: an awesome dual-panel file manager
• Maccy: a clipboard manager
  • pass uses can prevent passwords from appearing in the UI by using the compatible gopass
• iTerm2 is a terminal emulator that does amazing things. Some settings:
  • Profiles -> Set as login shell
  • Profiles -> Keys -> Load Preset… -> Natural text editing: allows to use native macOS shortcuts to jump over words

Bash

• Upgrade bash: https://stackoverflow.com/a/77052639/15647
• Install bash-completion compatible with the new version. For Homebrew the name of the formula is bash-completion@2. Pay attention to Homebrew’s output to properly update .bash_profile
• Add the following lines to .bash_profile to have nice colors and prompt:

  export LANG=en_US.UTF-8
  
  # Enable colored output for ls command
  export CLICOLOR=1
  export LSCOLORS="ExFxCxDxBxegedabagaced"
  
  #
  # Git prompt
  #
  GIT_PS1_SHOWSTASHSTATE=1
  GIT_PS1_SHOWUNTRACKEDFILES=1
  GIT_PS1_SHOWDIRTYSTATE=1
  GIT_PS1_SHOWCOLORHINTS=1
  GIT_PS1_SHOWUPSTREAM=auto
  PROMPT_COMMAND='__git_ps1 "\[\e[34m\]\w\[\e[m\]" "\\\$ "'
  

Misc

• Make ssh-agent to store keys in memory so that you don’t have to type passphrases all the time (more details https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/technotes/tn2449/_index.html):

  ~/Desktop$ cat ~/.ssh/config
  AddKeysToAgent yes
  

• Spell checking in Ukrainian (although it doesn’t work with “Automatic by Language”): https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/262448/241119

• Move focus between controls using the Tab key: System Settings -> Keyboard -> Keyboard navigation

• TextEdit:

  • Settings -> New Document -> Format -> Plain text

• To change OS requirements for a .pkg file do the following:

  # Expand the distribution package
  pkgutil --expand VendorPackageWithLimitations.pkg /tmp/VendorPackageWithLimitations
  # Edit file 'Distribution'
  # Flatten the package again
  pkgutil --flatten /tmp/VendorPackageWithLimitations/ VendorPackageWithoutLimitations.pkg