I was inspired to submit these preferences after reading about Dan Studnicky’s rating preferences. I’ve only been using CoverSutra for a few months, but in that short time I’ve found that it completely reshaped the way I interact with iTunes—for the better.
Thanks to CoverSutra’s customizable shortcuts, I don’t have to stop what I’m doing to search and/or navigate my iTunes Library. All of my music is a quick keystroke away. For me, these keystrokes are accessible system-wide, and are grouped by a shared set of pre-cursors: ⌘+⇧.
- ⌘+⇧+Space searches the entire library.
- ⌘+⇧+A searches all artists.
- ⌘+⇧+B searches all albums.
- ⌘+⇧+T searches all tracks.
- ⌘+⇧+P searches all playlists.
Between these five options, I can almost always find exactly what I’m looking for in a few quick seconds. Without ever leaving my current task.
My only wish would be for a shortcut to trigger a Genius Playlist based on the current track. Currently you can enable/disable Shuffle & repeat, but not Genius Playlists. Hopefully in a future version.
Ian Hines
ianhin.es
When I download torrent files from the Internet with Safari, they go to ~/Downloads. I use Transmission to manage my p2p downloads, because it’s very lightweight but also powerful.
I immediately wanted a solution that would just start leeching after I decided to download a .torrent. So:
- Auto add: [Downloads]
- [v] Trash original torrent files (no need to keep them)
- [v] Start transfers when added (no additional clicks needed)
Plus, I don’t display any windows if I don’t add torrent manually (and it has to have more than 1 file inside) – I like to check appropriate files (like in a series of videos) before I start leeching.
I also keep all files in the same folder, named “*.part” to avoid opening up incomplete file (some movie players advance to next movie automatically).
Pitor Petrus
theriddle.tumblr.com
I write almost everything in TextMate (books draft, blog entries,…). So one of the first thing I ever do on a new/freshly installed Mac, is to open TextMate’s Advanced Preferences and check Save files when focus is lost.
That says it all. At the moment I switch to another app all opened files are saved (well, all the files that have already been saved once).
And since they are all saved in a Dropbox folder, it also gives me an easy-and-almost-automated ‘versioning’ system ;-)
David Bosman
http://davidbosman.fr
This one requires the use of Terminal:
defaults write com.apple.iCal ‘Default duration in minutes for new event’ 15
Artie Kuhn
ArtieKuhn.tumblr.com
I use iTunes ratings extensively for things like Smart Playlists, so being able to rate tracks quickly is important to me. People are happy with the most iTunes controllers like Bowtie, but these options in Coversutra’s preference window makes it stand apart from the crowd for me.
I use CTRL+Opt+Up and CTRL+Opt+Down to change volume and CTRL+Opt+Left and CTRL+Opt+Right to go through iTunes tracks, so CTRL+0-5 seemed like a natural fit.
Dan Studnicky
Barbarism.net
I spend an awful lot of time in Coda—the HTML+CSS Editor & FTP client from the good folks at Panic—so it’s important to me that it be a comfortable experience. This custom color scheme was recommended to me over a year ago, and it’s just perfect.
Out of the box, Coda looks like this. The editor frame is a bit harsh, in my humble opinion, if you’re going to be using it for several hours.
My theme, on the other hand, is very easy on the eyes. For me, it takes an otherwise potentially tiring experience—coding—and makes both relaxing and fun.
What you can’t see here, though, is the font. I’ve got the editor set to default to Droid Sans Mono, which I find to be a very legible, relaxing font to read. I know, I know—it’s an Android font. But it’s great. Try it for yourself.
You can download my custom Coda theme here, and Droid Sans Mono here.
Ian Hines
ianhin.es
OmniFocus lets you set custom perspectives. The perspective I live in the most is one I made myself called “Today”. It only shows me available actions which are due plus any flagged items. What I like about having flagged items appear in my Today perspective is that sometimes I know a new action item needs to be done today but don’t want to fiddle with assigning a context or project or due date (especially when entering it via my iPhone or iPad). Thus, flagging the item is the quickest way to get that task into Today’s list.
Shawn Blanc
shawnblanc.net
_____________________________________________________________________
Shawn has written extensively about Omnifocus on his own site, shawnblanc.net, and every single one of his posts are required reading for those of you out there who rely on Omnifocus as your “trusted system”. In fact his entire site is required reading. So go. Now.
I really hate reading or crafting posts that focus almost entirely on updates to a website. So with that in mind I am writing my third such post in less than a day. Suffice it to say - I am thrilled!
I hope it will be the last one for quite sometime.
I am going to focus on the things I have grown to hate about this site in the 24 hour period since it’s birth. Let’s start with the name, GainCMD.net;
- Name change: Initially I liked the name GainCMD.net, plus it had the added benefit of having been registered by me well over a year ago. I quickly grew to regret not thinking the name through a bit more, and within 3 hours of my first post I had registered CMDComma.net, in honor of the keyboard shortcut used by Mac users to access the preference panel in the vast majority of apps. A few short hours, and some DNS updates later, the name has been officially changed. Any doubts I had about the name were put to rest once I received an email from the highly esteemed and well respected Shawn Blanc, of shawnblanc.net, who referred to the new name as “splendid”. Done & Done. GainCMD.net will continue to forward here for the next few weeks, at which time it will once again be returned to my vault where it will wait for my (or Patrick’s) next great idea.
- Theme: I also grew to hate the theme I had chosen for the site. And by “chosen” I mean the theme that was already installed under that domain name on Tumblr when I christened the domain with it’s first post. To put it simply - I didn’t feel like it fit the content well. So now we have a new theme, and I don’t want to spoil the surprise, but I don’t like this one either. That being said I feel as though it works better than what I did have up, so for the time being we’ll leave it as is. In the meantime I will do some research to find a theme I am happier with, and the plan is to not accompany it with a post announcing it’s arrival. When you see it, there it is.
That’s all I’ve got. I couldn’t be happier with the response for the site. Just under one thousand hits in it’s first day, coupled with a pretty decent flow of submissions, has me excited for what is to come, and fills me with an unwarranted sense of pride for laying claim to Patrick’s idea.
So it’s been a great start but we all have work to do, YOU in particular.
Submit your preferences!
It’s easy, it’s fun, it’s good for the environment! How awesome is that? You can do so by hitting the ever so subtly named “Send Me Your Preferences!” link at the top of the page, or by emailing them to me at FValletutti@me.com. Very simple stuff, so now you have no excuse.
- Frank Valletutti
Here are two of the most overlooked preferences in iChat. When they became available they changed the way I use the app.
- In new chat windows, show: the last 100 messages
This retains your previous chats so every time you launch iChat or open a new chat window, you can see the most recent conversation with that buddy. Very helpful if you use iChat to share work files, such as images, like I do. Keeps an easily accessible record. I don’t jack up the menu selection to “The last 250 messages” because this feature tends to slow down iChat’s launch time the more messages you save.
- Collect chats in a single window
One single window for all chats, with tabs for each chat/buddy. This is something Apple picked up from other chat clients and it’s a true life/screensaver. Now if only they would do the same with accounts (AIM, Bonjour, and Jabber all get separate windows).
Stephen Coles
· · ·
Stephen Coles.org
Typographica
Fonts In Use http://fontsinuse.com
The Mid-Century Modernist
