Ask HN: What feature did you find after years of using Windows?
I just moved to windows from MacOS - don't know many neat tricks yet.
11 comments
I can't recall when I found it about it, and OSX already has it - one of Windows' neatest tricks is being able to do some regular file operations in the standard open/save dialogs. It saved me countless clicks over the years at $WORK.
Was Windows the first to allow this, or was there some antecedent? There are 'modern' Linux GUI toolkits which still do not allow this, like GTK's GtkFileChooser which apparently lives in the dark ages (no thumbnail support there either).
Was Windows the first to allow this, or was there some antecedent? There are 'modern' Linux GUI toolkits which still do not allow this, like GTK's GtkFileChooser which apparently lives in the dark ages (no thumbnail support there either).
It is probably unknown to many, but I still remember someone telling me about it when Windows 95 was about to come out
To be clear is this feature being able to move or rename files from the save/open dialog?
Yes, also copy and clipboard integration. So many little uses. I can rename a file in the open dialog to ensure correct program behaviour, or forget where I saved something, open the save dialog again, and copy the file without needing to navigate with another program to the path. Note that the path is copyable in explorer dialogs, so I can copy it and navigate more easily with another program if that is still required.
I'm running KDE and it gets the open/save dialog just right, but every GTK program I run shows that barebones picker.
I'm running KDE and it gets the open/save dialog just right, but every GTK program I run shows that barebones picker.
Explorer: If you type cmd and press enter in the path bar it opens a cmd prompt at the current directory. Other way to open it is to hold shift when opening the folder context menu to expose this option.
Holding Shift while opening context menus usually show more advanced options, like the possibility to run as another user when right-clicking something executable.
Firefox: If you try to drag the mouse to select part of a link it you drag the link (so you can place it on the bookmarks toolbar/etc), to prevent this behavior you can hold Alt and now it'll let you select the text without dragging the link (this one is not windows specific, it works on Linux too).
Holding Shift while opening context menus usually show more advanced options, like the possibility to run as another user when right-clicking something executable.
Firefox: If you try to drag the mouse to select part of a link it you drag the link (so you can place it on the bookmarks toolbar/etc), to prevent this behavior you can hold Alt and now it'll let you select the text without dragging the link (this one is not windows specific, it works on Linux too).
Loads of shortcuts:
F2: rename
F3: find
Alt F4: close window, ctrl-w seems to do this a lot these days too
Alt minus: show child document window menu
Alt space: show window menu, useful if you remember the X for maximize/minimize, z for resize, m for move, r for restore immediately afterwards.
F4 go to address bar in Explorer
F5 refresh
Ctrl F6 switch windows in MDI interface
Ctrl escape: show start menu
Shift-F10: right click menu
Windows E: explorer
Alt-up in explorer: go to directory above; backspace/alt-left: go to previous history item
Windows W windows ink for annotation
Windows R for run
Windows U for narrator
Windows F used to do find but now shows the feedback tool, which I think is a loss
Any command after the word control will open control panel to the right place, eg control display
Windows D show desktop toggle
Windows M minimise all windows, windows shift M restore windows
Ctrl-shift-escape: show task manager
Ctrl tab/ctrl-shift-tab move to next/previous UI item so you can use the UI with a keyboard; this is why web apps that pretend to be native are so useless and annoying because this doesn't work
Also system items normally end with .msc to open the management console, eg. Compmgmt.msc. There's a load of these that help you get to the nitty gritty of the system.
Turn on "show accelerators" in accessibility and menu entries and buttons will have their accelerator underlined, eg the O in OK or F in File. You can then use alt-(letter) to go to it, eg alt-f to open the file menu, s for save.
Honestly I don't know how I would have got through using Windows for decades without these shortcuts. I always find the Mac relies on mouse usage a lot more and the ctrl-F2 and ctrl-F3 shortcut to get to the menu bar and dock on Mac doesn't compare.
F3: find
Alt F4: close window, ctrl-w seems to do this a lot these days too
Alt minus: show child document window menu
Alt space: show window menu, useful if you remember the X for maximize/minimize, z for resize, m for move, r for restore immediately afterwards.
F4 go to address bar in Explorer
F5 refresh
Ctrl F6 switch windows in MDI interface
Ctrl escape: show start menu
Shift-F10: right click menu
Windows E: explorer
Alt-up in explorer: go to directory above; backspace/alt-left: go to previous history item
Windows W windows ink for annotation
Windows R for run
Windows U for narrator
Windows F used to do find but now shows the feedback tool, which I think is a loss
Any command after the word control will open control panel to the right place, eg control display
Windows D show desktop toggle
Windows M minimise all windows, windows shift M restore windows
Ctrl-shift-escape: show task manager
Ctrl tab/ctrl-shift-tab move to next/previous UI item so you can use the UI with a keyboard; this is why web apps that pretend to be native are so useless and annoying because this doesn't work
Also system items normally end with .msc to open the management console, eg. Compmgmt.msc. There's a load of these that help you get to the nitty gritty of the system.
Turn on "show accelerators" in accessibility and menu entries and buttons will have their accelerator underlined, eg the O in OK or F in File. You can then use alt-(letter) to go to it, eg alt-f to open the file menu, s for save.
Honestly I don't know how I would have got through using Windows for decades without these shortcuts. I always find the Mac relies on mouse usage a lot more and the ctrl-F2 and ctrl-F3 shortcut to get to the menu bar and dock on Mac doesn't compare.
A couple of good surprises coming from MacOs:
- The window snapping shortcuts win + left or win + right are great. - Alt-tab rolls through all open windows, not open programs (avoids the tab + ` in mac) - Win + e to open explorer that one comes in handy often
- The window snapping shortcuts win + left or win + right are great. - Alt-tab rolls through all open windows, not open programs (avoids the tab + ` in mac) - Win + e to open explorer that one comes in handy often
I found them:
Access a Start Menu for power users. ...
Sniff out disk space-hoarding apps. ...
Quickly minimize all windows except the active one. ...
Stop background apps from running. ...
Become a Start Menu power user. ...
Print to PDF. ...
Know these new useful keyboard shortcuts. ...
New trackpad gestures.
I also find that people forget about the tricks on macos:
You can drag the icon from any title of a window into a finder window or dialog to go to that directory.
You can right-click on the title bar of any window and see the path to that window's document.
But enjoy Windows!
You can drag the icon from any title of a window into a finder window or dialog to go to that directory.
You can right-click on the title bar of any window and see the path to that window's document.
But enjoy Windows!
Recently discovered the Snipping Tool (start menu) - crop a screenshot rectangle, annotate with pen / highlighter, and save as JPG/PNG. Handy.
There's also a "quicker version".
Win+Shift+S, select an area to grab and the result is copied into your clipboard from which you can directly paste it into most apps that support inserting images (Slack, Signal, MSOffice, Skype...) or even image upload forms on the internet...
Win+Shift+S, select an area to grab and the result is copied into your clipboard from which you can directly paste it into most apps that support inserting images (Slack, Signal, MSOffice, Skype...) or even image upload forms on the internet...
I discovered that one too: win + shift + s
The only frustrating thing is that with that hotkey it just copies it to the clipboard (usefult often) but sometimes I want to do what you mentioned (save it). For that I don't know a hotkey...
There's no hotkey for that but boy do I have a solution for you. The dumbest thing I've ever made but it might actually help someone's workflow so here you go: https://gitlab.com/utf_8x/pastesave
Some of the dumbest things I have made have been the most useful. Thanks for posting this, appreciated that the first commit was when you made this comment so you got it online specifically for people in the thread in case they would find it useful.
Cheers :) I do a lot of reactive programming, that is I react to people's problems and hack up quick and dirty solutions :D
You can also make the snipping tool launch whenever you press print screen. Look in the keyboard settings for the toggle to turn that on.
That you can click and drag a file to the command line window and it'll populate the path and filename.
Winkey + . to open the emoji picker
Ctrl + Shift + T : Reopens a browser tab that you just accidentally closed.