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points by phil-pickering 3 days ago | 0 comments

You should be able to create and use templates for TextEdit using the Stationery Pad feature which comes built-in to macOS:

https://support.apple.com/en-ie/guide/mac-help/mchlp1341/mac

[–] Cockbrand 3 days ago

Stationery Pads are one of the almost criminally underused and well-hidden features that have been around since the Mac OS (pre-OSX) days.

Another one is Cmd+H for hiding an app. People often minimize the current window to see the next app underneath, while hiding the current app is much more elegant and creates a lot less friction for restoring it later.

Which of these hidden champions did I forget?

[–] staplung 2 days ago

.inetloc files. Mostly commonly used for HTML links but they can also be used to create SSH logins. They're easy to create too: just type something like

ssh://soandso@whatshername.com

into virtually any app (I use TextEdit), select the text and drag it out to some Finder location. It will create the file automatically. Then just click on the file (or open it with Quicksilver, Alfred, et. al) and it will open a new Terminal window with you ssh'd to the host as that user (normal auth procedures apply).

I don't use them too much anymore because there doesn't seem to be any way to get iTerm2 to be the default app to open such files (on modern MacOS versions the application drop-down in the Finder info window is greyed out) and I don't SSH into as many machines as I once did.

EDIT: turns out you can get iTerm2 to be the default opener for ssh .inetloc files; it's just done inside iTerm itself.

Settings > Profiles > [select profile on left] > URL Schemes

[–] Cockbrand 2 days ago

Nice! I also remember Text Clippings, although I haven't used those in ages.

[–] jpease 2 days ago

I’d never seen that. Thank you for sharing!