macos

Add a macOS-style drop shadow to your "partial" screen captures or plain-bordered images

By default, and like it or hate it, the macOS keystrokes to capture full app screen (⇧- ⌘- 5) will add a subtle drop shadow around your saved image.  This can make it more visually appealing when adding a screen shot or image to a document.  The convert app, part of the ImageMagick distribution, has a nice command line function to add this same drop shadow effect to any of your images (e.g., a partial screen capture using .⇧- ⌘- 4)

Once installed, you can use the following command line to update your image with a drop-shadow:
convert "Screen Shot 2021-07-07 at 09.47.13.png" \( +clone -background black -shadow 80x20+0+15 \) +swap -background transparent -layers merge +repage "Screen Shot 2021-07-07 at 09.47.13.png"


which will turn this:
sample_clean.png 143 KB



into this:
sample_shadow.png 132.01 KB


Pro-tip: You can create a pseudo-function in your BASH or ZSH environment - e.g., in your ~/.bashrc file, add this line:
shadow () { convert "$@" \( +clone -background black -shadow 80x20+0+15 \) +swap -background transparent -layers merge +repage "$@"; }
and then source your ~/.bashrc file (first time) to activate it:
source ~/.bashrc

Now, from your command line, you can add a drop shadow to any image file by simply typing:
shadow "Screen Shot 2021-07-07 at 09.47.13.png"
(remember to add double-quotes around your file if it contains spaces)

Done.
15
Jeff

Convert SVG to PNG

On MacOS, install inkscape (with brew) and use it like this:
$ inkscape --export-type=png --export-dpi=200 --export-background-opacity=0 file.svg
This will create a file.png with transparent background.
3
Const

Reset Postgres table sequence after DELETE

When deleting recent records from a table, you can reset it's sequence counter if auto-increment field continuity is important to you. Consider actions on the following table, users
 
select max(id) from users;

+-----+ | max | +-----+ | 896 | +-----+ 1 rows in set (0.03 sec)

Then, some delete action against most recent rows: 
delete from users where created_at > timestamp 'yesterday';
96 rows in set (0.15 sec) 

The next auto-increment value for id would be 897 on the next insert. Use the following command to reduce the sequence value for the users table by 96.
select setval('users_id_seq',(select max(id) from users));

+--------+
| setval |
+--------+
| 800    |
+--------+
1 rows in set (0.04 sec)
2
Jeff

My most used slack shortcuts

⌘-K(or T) to open the channel switcher (I navigate channels solely with this shortcut and have my slack set to hide all channels without new messages)

⌘-F opens the search box. Can modify searches with from:@user and in:#channel for extra awesomeness

Up Arrow will edit you last message; perfect for when you hit Enter too early or mispell things

+:emoji: react to the last message. Have to be quick so nobody else replies before you react though or you'll react to the wrong message

/remind [someone usually myself] [to do something] [at this time in words] not really a shortcut but is great for not forgetting simple tasks

The channel switcher also supports fuzzy matching to some extent. If a channel is named foo-bar you can type fb to show it. It's doesn't work so well with multi-user-dm's though.

1
Joe

Chrome tab manipulation

Sometimes I want to go back to the last page I viewed while still keeping the same one open. You can very easily achieve this with shortcuts

  1. ⌘-L to focus the omnibox
  2. ⌘-Enter to open the current URL in a new tab
  3. ⌘-⇧-[ to go back to the original tab
  4. ⌘-[ to go back to the previously viewed page in the original tab
1
Joe

Add spacers to your macOS app dock to make groups

Open term (or equivalent) and paste the following one-liner:

defaults write com.apple.dock persistent-apps -array-add '{tile-data={}; tile-type="spacer-tile";}'; killall Dock


When the Dock restarts, there should be a draggable blank space that you can move anywhere. Repeat to your heart's desire.

3
Jeff

Change system names on macOS

From term (or equivalent), copy and paste:

To change your public Host Name (i.e., jeff.oozou.com): 
sudo scutil --set HostName "New Name" 

To change your local Host Name (i.e., jeff.local): 
sudo scutil --set LocalHostName "New Name"

To change your Finder Computer Name (i.e., Jeff's MBP): 
sudo scutil --set ComputerName "New Name"

Finally, flush your DNS cache to force refresh: 
dscacheutil -flushcache 

2
Jeff

Use FFmpeg and Apple Script to compress videos

Build an application you can drag-and-drop videos onto to compress them significantely:

Make sure you have ffmpeg installed (brew install ffmpeg).

Create a new Apple Script app: AppleScript on open filelist repeat with i in filelist tell application "Terminal" do script "ffmpeg -i " & POSIX path of i & " -vcodec h264 -acodec mp2 " & POSIX path of i & "_compressed.mp4" end tell end repeat end open

1
Const

Get the password of the wifi you're on

wifi_password() {
    airport="/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/Apple80211.framework/Versions/Current/Resources/airport"
    ssid="`$airport -I | awk '/ SSID/ {print substr($0, index($0, $2))}'`"
    pwd="`security find-generic-password -D 'AirPort network password' -ga \"$ssid\" 2>&1 >/dev/null`"
    echo $pwd
}


$ wifi_password

password: "!forHackers"


1
Ali

Cleanup stale formulas on brew

Use brew cleanup to get some spaces back!

Use brew cleanup -n to list what's gonna get cleanup

Use brew cleanup to clean only that particular formula

<3

1
Tino