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Comment by epistasis | Hacker News Reader

Can't completely agree there. Contextual menus by right-click (or ctrl-click) have been core since OS X came out in 2000. (I would distinguish between "core" meaning extremely useful and effective, as opposed to "essential" meaning the only possible way to accomplish a task. Right click is still not "essential," just very useful.)

And back in the pre OS X days, tons of functionality was "hidden" with the option key. Things like saving the printer profile default were done by holding down option when clicking on the OK button. Again, not "essential" functionality, but very useful and known by those who had been using the system for years.

I think this type of hidden, but not essential to use, functionality goes waaaaay back in the DNA of Mac.

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Lots of magical things are still hidden behind modifier keys.

Option-click the wifi icon: special diagnostics info

Option-click the bluetooth icon: diagnostics info

Shift-Option-click the bluetooth icon: debug menu

Hold option while resizing a window: resize from both sides at once (see gif: https://twitter.com/dceddia/status/859518600931143680)

Thanks for posting this; I had no idea about any of these. Is there somewhere where tips like these might be compiled?

https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/400/please-share-y...

This just made me go and investigate the rest of my menu bar items.

Option-click the sidebar icon: turn notifications on and off.

Ooh! I wonder if this silences the "Do you want to restart now, or like an hour from now?" dialog...

other nice ones:

- option + click on audio -> choose audio in + out

- option + drag on columns in finder -> resize all columns

Shift-Option-Volume up/down (or Brightness up/down): Adjust the volume or brightness in finer-grained increments

The option-resize window trick is crucial when you come across a monitor/video card bug that doesn't let you touch the edge of the window that you need to drag in order to bring the window on-screen. Just option-drag the opposite edge as a workaround.

TBF, these are useless to the average user, but it would be awesome if there was a visual cue that option was useful.

One I find useful is option-right-click dock icon that force reveals the force quit menu item.

Contextual menus were in Classic Mac OS since at least OS 8.0. If memory serves, there were also extensions (who remembers those?!) which provided them prior to 8.

It's funny, I only ran Mac OS 9 for a few months while I waited for OS X, so I couldn't even remember if Class Mac OS utilized them!

I also tried to search for how much NextStep used right-click contextual menus, but that's also something that's pretty difficult to find.

A right-click under NeXTSTEP brought up the full menu, which could also have sub-menus 'torn off' and pinned to the screen. The NeXTSTEP menu system was remarkably advanced and efficient.

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