Ask Lemmy

I don't consider them hacks. They're tooling and intended use. Even if most people don't know them. They were designed deliberately.

Using keyboard input is not a clever misuse of unintended functionality. It's intended design.

I hack websites through browser extensions. Adblocker, css inject, platform extensions. But even that is only hacking in the context of the original content. As a product it's its intended purpose. So I wouldn't call it life hack.

Mouse gestures, keyboard key combinations, alt access, alt keypad character input, YouTube Sponsorblock, adblock, search bookmarks are - I guess - my most used.

With Shift + Pos1 or End you can mark text from cursor until beginning or end of line! I use that often.

I'm a web dev and one "hack" I use all the time is bookmarklets. In Chrome @bookmarks let's you search your bookmarks, so I use this to fire off different scripts to do different things. Most are for debugging and the like. I have my hotkeys setup where ctrl + q puts focus on the omnibar so I can start typing, and then I use @books marks to search for whatever I need. A lot of the bookmarklets just append the current url to some other site like page speed insights or pure.md. I find this saves me a ton of time. Also the duplicate this tab hotkey, I use that all day every day.

Using the arrow keys for exactly what they’re made for isn’t a hack lol

As a basic Linux user, I have a shell script to do all my updating, upgrading, removing of unneeded packages, etcetera. Under no circumstances is it all that advanced, just a string of simple enough apt and flatpak commands.

I also recently figured out that god knows how long ago that I set an alias to run it that's only 3 keyboard clicks instead of 5, saving basically less than a second. So not that useful, but still good to know... until I inevitably forget about it again.

Linux. Windows is used for Russian oligarchs.

Since people are expecting windows shortcut keys, I nominate TAB navigation. Hitting tab will cycle the focus through all the buttons and edit boxes. Shift Tab to go backwards.

Cutting and pasting a folder is faster than copying and pasting.
OS just gotta add an inode in first case.

First thing required on every new keyboard

Are you serious? arrow keys instead of clicking? let's take it further:

shift+arrow highlights letters
ctrl+arrow skips entire words
ctrl+shift+arrow highlights entire words
home/end jumps to start/end of line
ctrl+home/end jumps to start/end of text box
ctrl+shift+home/end jumps to start/end of textbox and highlights it
um, do you need me to explain what ctrl+xcv do? or ctrl+zy? or ctrl+asdwerfgop?

isn't this just basic typing? didnt yall learn this in the 90s??? how are you all on the internet right now

wait til you hear about how i swipe texted all this

(Linux)

Add the same symbol at the beginning of most aliases. I use é

So when I type é+tab I get all my aliases

é+first letters of alias+tab and I'm sure autocomplete will select the alias and not another command

Using ublock origin picker to remove everything useless. Like, Youtube suggestions, everything but download button on ddl websites, useless footers/headers on news, etc...

My grub boot loader is pretty hacked together at this point. Really should probably do a fresh install at some point. Want to get a 4TB SSD at some point though.

Yay, nobody said my favorite hack.

While browsing on the web and you want to "open link into a new tab", click using the mouse wheel like it's a regular left or right click.

It's great for researching.

Ok, windows "hacks" I use at work.

There's a setting in windows that opens snipping tool when print screen is pressed. This allows to select a screen, window or a rectangle. More than that, it also has screen recording functionality. Very good for quick screen grabs with no additional software required.

Useful for multilinguals out there. Windows (and some linux distros) have an option to bind keyboard layout selection to open windows, meaning alt+tab'ing no longer requires switching between languages.

EDIT:
A phone thing. Some keyboards have whitespace and backspace drag functionality, that allows to move the cursor or highlight and delete text without blocking your view with your fat fingrers.

ANOTHER EDIT:
Having a mouse with at least two thumb buttons is a god send. Moving backwards and forwards between application pages is very useful.

Also, for devs. Go through you IDE shortcut settings and configure (ctrl|shift|alt)+click shortcuts. Having mouse controls to navigate between declarations, usages and implementations of different code elements with intention is awesome.
In the same vein: ctrl+(f|r) and ctrl+shift+(f|r) for find or replace in file or whole project respectively is really common use case.
Have multicarret shortcuts that allow edits in multiple lines at once. Don't forget to add shortcuts like alt+(up|down) to move selected lines up and down.
Configure shortcuts for code folding like ctrl+numpad+ and ctlr+numpad- to expand and hide current block or combine with shift to manipulate the whole file.
And for gods sake use home and end keys, combined with ctrl and shift it allows for efficient navigation and selection within a file. Combine it with multicarret support and ctrl+side_arrow_keys and you have a way to sync multiple carrets and efficiently edit multiple lines.

Finnaly: f1 – help, f2 – rename, f5 – refresh / run, optionally with ctrl, f11 – fullscreen, f12 – devtools.

Wait until you learn about vim keybindings. Instead of moving your hand to the arrow keys, you can stay on the homerow and movie up down left right from there.