Target OS: Mac OS
1. Alfred
Alfred is a productivity app for macOS that I use as a heavily boosted Spotlight. Alfred is extremely powerful and offers a wide range of features, especially with the additional Powerpack capabilities such as workflows.
I mainly use Alfred for the following:
- Quick calculations without the need to open the calculator
- Open applications
- Search local files
- Shortcuts for various web searches (e.g. you.com, stackoverflow.com, deepl.com)
I know there is a lot more that can be done with Alfred and I'm sure I will be doing more with it in the future.
2. Rectangle
Rectangle is a great little app for macOS that lets you resize windows. Rectangle defines shortcuts to resize and move the currently active window into various positions on your screen. I use mostly the following shortcuts:
- Window to right/left half of the current screen
- Window to top/bottom left/right quarter of current screen
- Maximize window
- Window to next monitor
I find Rectangle to be extremely helpful for quickly arranging my open windows so that I can compare them side by side.
3. iTerm2, zsh and Oh My Zsh
For my terminal setup I have made great experiences with iTerm2 using zsh as shell and Oh My Zsh on top of it.
4. Fig
Fig is a terminal add-on that provides auto-complete functionalities for hundreds of CLI tools, e.g. git, kubectl.
While typing in the terminal Fig auto-suggests matching CLI commands and options. This is is incredibly helpful and has already saved me countless web searches and digs through man pages.
5. You.com
You.com is a relatively new search engine that takes a completely new approach to web search. Search results are not delivered as en endless list of blue-titled links with some text but rather aggregated by similar sources and visualized using a tile layout.
The sources (i.e. web platforms and common websites) from which your search results are compiled can be configured and ranked by you according to your preferences in the you.com settings.
One very great thing about you.com is that the search result tiles often allow direct actions on them. For example, if the result set of your search query contains code snippets, the code can be copied and pasted directly from the corresponding tile on you.com without having to open the source website itself.
Apart from the novel approach to the search experience, you.com offers excellent privacy settings so that you are 100% in control of how your data is handled.