FounderQuest Is GitHub Codespaces Basically Just X Windows?
Show Notes:
Links:
Amethyst
Alfred shortcuts
Hacker New Ubuntu 20.04 Thread
Ansible
Josh's dotfiles
Mathias Shell Scripts
Transcript:
Starr:
I'm the type of tiling Window manager user that never changes any of their layout, basically. I'm the type of tiling Window manager that like has all applications open full screen except for like my terminals, which I have a vertical split. And so, I've got two of those open on a single screen. I actually don't know any shortcuts to any of the Window managers I've ever used. I have to look them up every single time.
Josh:
Yeah. Yeah, that's the great thing about Amethyst, it is the one that's based on ... It's has nothing to do with Haskell, but it's based on xmonad. But the key bindings are all like ... There's not really much way to change them, it's all pretty simple. It's a lot simpler to use the key bindings than it is to use the Haskell.
Starr:
I use Magnet for my Windows manager.
Josh:
Yeah, that's what I've been using too.
Starr:
Yeah, I really like that. The key combos are easy to remember to put stuff in the various places. I'm always like corner or half or top or bottom, it's super easy.
Josh:
Yeah, that's what I've been doing. It's a different approach. Amethyst, I've used it before and it is really nice because it automatically tiles, it's not like ... Magnet is kind of you just set up, basically, your halves or whatever.
Starr:
That's been around for a while, right?
Josh:
Yeah.
Starr:
Okay. Yeah, I just used to use that, I think.
Josh:
There's a bunch of them like that.
Ben:
We're talking about Mac tools today because-
Josh:
I guess we are. I could go forever on that.
Starr:
I've got a feature request for the makers of Amethyst who I know are dedicated listeners to FounderQuest. For the love of all things good in the world, can we please have a dropdown menu that lets you select different Window actions? Why do I have to use hotkeys, because maybe I want to do something that I do once every six months and I don't want to have to look up the hotkey for it and then try and make my fingers go into that weird chord position.
Josh:
Because it wouldn't be a pure tiling Window manager.
Starr:
I know, it's like come on, just give me a dropdown. It's not pure anyway, let's be honest. There's little bars at the top of the Windows, I can minimize things, I can drag things around, it's not pure anyway. It's already debased-
Josh:
It's not written in Haskell but you got to draw the line somewhere, and the line is dropdown menus.
Starr:
It's like a menu. It's like a GUI, okay. Okay, fine-
Josh:
You're totally making want ... I'm going to have to go try Amethyst again, you're making me want to go check it out. You might look ... There was like a configuration, I think it has a JSON configuration file or something that you can edit.
Starr:
Okay.
Josh:
Which is exactly what you were looking for if you were looking for a dropdown menu.
Ben:
Do either of you use PopClip?
Starr:
No, what's that?
Josh:
No.
Ben:
PopClip is a little extension thing ... I don't know how you describe it, what do they call it? I don't even know what they call it. I'm looking at their website and they don't really say. But basically, any time you select text, then this little popup pops up right above your cursor. And it's extendable, you can choose what kind of things appear in the little menu that pops up, but by default it does things like copy and paste, but also there's a little search icon. If there's a text you want to search on instead of having to right click, that's much too much work to do, so you can just hit that little search icon. Or there's a dictionary one so you can define something.
Ben:
But I use it a lot because it has an Alfred connection as well, so I will ... I have a bunch of Alfred shortcuts for things like jumping to one of our user records in our admin tool, and so, if I highlight let's say a user ID, then I can ... It'll give the popup, I can then choose Alfred and then I can type in my shortcut and boom, because it puts whatever's highlighted into that little Alfred box for you.
Starr:
Oh, that's really cool.
Ben:
It's super handy.
Josh:
That's cool.
Starr:
You know what's really amusing to me is that ... Because I've been working with you all for so long it's like we sort of like swap ... Okay, we kind of like swap places in weird ways. I remember a long time ago I'd be like, "Okay, I'm using Alfred, what you using, Ben?" And it's like, "Oh, I'm just using Spotlight." And now it's like reversed, it's like, "I just used Spotlight," and it's like, "Oh, Ben's using Alfred now."
Ben:
Yeah. Yeah, I love Alfred.
Ben:
I actually also use Spotlight. The reason why is Alfred I've never really gotten it to work the way I want it to work for looking up files and folders. If there's a file or a folder that I want, I use Spotlight. But anything else, basically, I use Alfred.
Josh:
Yeah, file search in Spotlight seems pretty advanced. It's got all the indexing and stuff built into it.
Starr:
Yeah. It seems like it'd be really hard to get right.
Ben:
But one thing I love about Alfred is the Safari shortcut support and one password support. If there's a site I know I want to go to, boom, Alfred, it's three characters away.
Josh:
Yeah.
Ben:
And if I have a login I want, if it's a log in thing I can just type in my one password name for it and, boom, it goes there and fills it in for me. It's brilliant.
Josh:
I haven't decided if I want to enable that or not yet because you have to go enable third party access or whatever to your one password database.
Ben:
That's true.
Josh:
I don't know. I've gotten kind of in the habit of using whatever they call one password mini or whatever in the toolbar.
Starr:
Yeah.
Josh:
Because they have a system wide hotkey for it, it's like shift command/ or something.
Ben:
Oh, I didn't know that.
Josh:
That'll pop it up. I do that instead.
Ben:
I should do that.
Josh:
Yeah, I don't know. Just something about enabling third party application access to my passwords. Even though I think it's ... It's not the passwords themselves, it's just the index.
Josh:
The metadata.
Ben:
Right.
Josh:
I don't know.
Ben:
Yeah.
Josh:
But, yeah. One of my favorite tips, I forgot ... Someone posted this on Twitter a long time ago and I don't remember who it was, but ... Maybe it was one of you. If you option click the notification center icon in the toolbar, it will toggle do not disturb.
Ben:
Yes, I love that.
Josh:
That is a great one.
Starr:
Oh, wait. Really? Okay, I'm going to try it now.
Josh:
Yeah. I use it all the time.
Starr:
It's option, and that's alt, right?
Josh:
That's alt.
Starr:
Okay.
Josh:
Option click.
Starr:
Oh, wow. That's nice.
Josh:
Isn't that cool?
Starr:
I...