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Comment by aunty_helen | Hacker News Reader

Cmd-space to bring up spotlight

Type whatever you want.

Cmd-b

Your default web browser with your default search engine will now open and perform your query. I can't stress this enough how much I use this workflow when writing code.

Another thing for the OPs issue with the screenshots, (there's a few steps via terminal so maybe try the above shortcut to search for an article on how to do it) you can have all your screenshots redirect to a folder.

For example all of my screenshots end up in $HOME/screenshots

Also, another cool and sometimes useful shortcut, holding option while clicking is a big thing in osx. Try click the wifi icon in the top right corner whilst holding the option key. It will give you a bunch more details :)

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Command + L inside Spotlight to jump to the dictionary definition of the word you just typed.

Did you mean Command + D? That is what works for me (thanks for the tip!)

Oh, I didn't know that one! To summarize, within Spotlight --

Command + D: Opens Dictionary using the word you typed in Spotlight

Command + L: Jumps to dictionary definition without leaving Spotlight

Cool - I didn't notice it doing that.

I tried Cmd-b search in spotlight but it went with Firefox+Google when my default is Firefox+Duckduckgo, any chance someone knows how to fix it?

Try changing the default in Safari, on the theory that it might use that as some sort of “system search engine”? Failing that, it’s probably just hardcoded.

Changed and it's still Google. Yeah the search string is probably hardcoded :(

Definitely uses Safari + Duck Duck Go for me. It appears that it just "types" the string into Safari's search bar, so whatever that does is what it does.

Try Alfred. It’s even easier. I have a global shortcut that opens a search engine prompt. Press enter to begin the search.

Same for me. Changing safari search engines unfortunately doesn't help. Still a very cool shortcut.

So, I've been messing around with this for about 30 minutes now. I don't like giving bad advice!

Set safari as your default, set the search engine you want in the safari preferences, change your browser back to what you prefer.

Props for the follow up!

This one is revelatory. I've installed Alfred in the past solely for this workflow.

For more fun, have your screenshots sent to a folder, then have a LaunchAgent run pngcrush on new files in that folder...

I love you too

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