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Comment by mholm | Hacker News Reader

Apple really doesn't tell power-users about a lot of these features. You can really gain a lot by searching for Mac shortcuts and tricks. I still learn new things that have been around for over a decade.

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Another tip: lots of useful characters are only an option press away. You can find them by viewing your keyboard [1], which is easy if you have you input source on your dock. Some of my favorites:

     ⌥k = ˚ (degree)         ⌥e a = á
     ⌥p = π (pi)             ⌥e e = é
     ⌥5 = ∞ (infinity)       ⌥e i = í
     ⌥d = ∂ (delta)          ⌥e o = ó
     ⌥8 = • (bullet)         ⌥e u = ú
    ⇧⌥9 = · (middot)         ⌥n n = ñ

⇧ = shift; ⌥ = option

[1]: https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/use-the-keyboard-vi...

> which is easy if you have you input source on your dock.

correction: on your macOS menu bar (at the top-right of the screen along with WiFi, time/date, etc)

This is one of my favorite features of macs and it astounds me there's nothing close in equivalence for the other platforms. The recommendations are always 'Install a keybinding app and add all of them as key bindings', as if that wouldn't take hours of tedious labor to do.

I'd argue if you need to be told about keyboard shortcuts, then you're not a power user. (I.e., knowing how to find keyboard shortcuts I'd consider a core trait of power users).

Keyboard shortcuts should be exposed in some fashion. IMO, Microsoft is typically better at this.

What specifically does Microsoft do that Apple should do?

My perception is that on Windows it is standard to display keyboard shortcuts next to application menu items, whereas on the Mac, that doesn’t seem to be the case. Perhaps that’s just a culture thing. It’s expected on Windows, and not as expected on Mac.

macOS does this too (if I'm following correctly), you can see it in the "The Apple Menu in macOS Ventura" screenshot on this Wikipedia page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_menu#/media/File:Apple_m... it's done for both application keyboard shortcuts, as well as system shortcuts (as in this example).

For completion, system shortcuts are also available in `System Settings > Keyboard > Keyboard Shortcuts...` (where they can also be changed). (Although I don't think that's 100% comprehensive, e.g., I don't think `⌘⇥` for the application switcher is listed there.)

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