
Ask HN: What are you favorite tiny tools? - seanlinehan
Everybody I know has a set of little software tools that they use that make their work either slightly easier or slightly more pleasant.<p>What are the tiny tools that you use for your work?<p>Some of mine:<p>Skitch -- Little Mac app that makes it easy to take screenshots and draw&#x2F;write on them<p>Be Focused -- A simple Pomodoro timer for Mac<p>&quot;Remove Stickies&quot; -- A URL bookmarklet I wrote that removes all floating elements from a page
======
yesenadam
bash, AWK, sips. A couple of bash commands I use daily:

 _cdf_ \- change directory to the folder open in (Mac) Finder

    
    
      cdf () {
        currFolderPath=$( /usr/bin/osascript <<EOT
          tell application "Finder"
            try
              set currFolder to (folder of the front window as alias)
            on error
              set currFolder to (path to desktop folder as alias)
            end try
            POSIX path of currFolder
          end tell
        EOT )
        echo "cd to \"$currFolderPath\""
        cd "$currFolderPath"
      }
    
      #dlm - "dlm filename" downloads filename.mp4 from URL in clipboard until its finished, resuming if interrupted
      fname=$(pbpaste)
      echo "Download $fname as $1.mp4 : "
      until curl -C - -kLo $1.mp4 "$fname"
      do
        sleep 5
      done

~~~
cuchoi
Where do you put this bash script?

~~~
JonathanMerklin
~/.bash_profile is the macOS equivalent of a .bashrc

It's also possible that the author is source-ing it (spelled that way
intentionally :\\) ) from another file in their .bash_profile

Note also that the author of the comment above was fast and loose with their
description of dlm, and if you copypaste it as-written, it'll bomb. (Perhaps
obvious, but you did ask where to put it!)

~~~
yesenadam
Ah thank u, yes, sorry. I have dlm saved as a shell script file. I didn't
paste here the first-line bash shebang, which would have made that clearer.

Maybe I use most:

    
    
      alias ..='cd ../'
    

Then ".." moves up to the parent directory.

------
schappim
I'm surprised no one has mentioned Alfred App
[https://www.alfredapp.com/](https://www.alfredapp.com/)

I cannot give it enough upvotes!

~~~
teknico
You could have added a description, though, so that uninterested people don't
have to click the link. Here it goes:

"Alfred 3 for Mac

Alfred is an award-winning app for Mac OS X which boosts your efficiency with
hotkeys, keywords, text expansion and more. Search your Mac and the web, and
be more productive with custom actions to control your Mac."

~~~
orcs
Sounds like autohotkey.

------
LVB
The ‘z’ directory switching bash script is usually the first thing I miss when
away from my own environment:
[https://github.com/rupa/z](https://github.com/rupa/z)

------
ivanmaeder
Colour picker: [https://sipapp.io/](https://sipapp.io/)

Download videos from YouTube and other sources:
[https://rg3.github.io/youtube-dl/](https://rg3.github.io/youtube-dl/) (was
the only way I could get a video from the BBC site recently)

Chrome extension for taking a screenshot of a full web page:
[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/full-page-
screen-c...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/full-page-screen-
capture/fdpohaocaechififmbbbbbknoalclacl?hl=en)

Shameless plugs:

Script for renaming multiple files at the same time:
[https://github.com/ivanmaeder/vimv](https://github.com/ivanmaeder/vimv)

Button in macOS Finder for creating a file in the current folder:
[https://github.com/ivanmaeder/finder-
touch](https://github.com/ivanmaeder/finder-touch)

That last one written in AppleScript which is craaazy.

------
enjayz
Avid fan of [https://htmlcolorcodes.com/](https://htmlcolorcodes.com/)

However, since a while ago if you search "HTML color picker" google brings up
a built-in color picker as the first result.

------
maio
Caffeine -
[http://lightheadsw.com/caffeine/](http://lightheadsw.com/caffeine/)

Caffeine is a tiny program that puts an icon in the right side of your menu
bar. Click it to prevent your Mac from automatically going to sleep, dimming
the screen or starting screen savers. Click it again to go back. Right-click
(or ⌘-click) the icon to show the menu.

------
xelxebar
Not precisely a tool, but YouTube channels actually have RSS feeds associated
with them:

    
    
        https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id=<channel-id>
    

From your subscriptions page, you can even download an OPML with feeds for
each channel. Most RSS will let you import this just fine.

As I love the cli, my preferred reader is newsboat[0].

[0]: [https://newsboat.org/](https://newsboat.org/)

------
mbrock
A little alias that rewrites

    
    
        clone foo/bar
    

into

    
    
        git clone --recursive https://github.com/foo/bar
    

is one of my favorites.

~~~
ioddly
I like this one, here it is for Fish shell:
[https://gist.github.com/upvalue/4f34df2397786535732a77676a72...](https://gist.github.com/upvalue/4f34df2397786535732a77676a726197)

------
tnolet
Httpie - basically a nicer cUrl. Adding json and headers is super simple.
[https://httpie.org](https://httpie.org)

Puppeteer Recorder - tooting my own horn, but is a Chrome extension that
records Puppeteer scripts. [https://github.com/checkly/puppeteer-
recorder](https://github.com/checkly/puppeteer-recorder)

~~~
tarellel
HTTPie is a great tool for testing API and stuff. I love it, I've also started
using an Electron GUI app similar to HTTPie that works pretty well as well.

\- [https://insomnia.rest/](https://insomnia.rest/)

------
superasn
Video speed controller chrome extension. It lets you speed up videos on any
site. I usually watch videos at 4x to 6x speed now (in addition to saving time
I feel that I don't get distracted / daydream as much).

Sadly it's like an addiction and now I even watch Netflix at 1.5X speed too
(which makes it impossible to watch with family)

~~~
garyng
I have this extension too, I usually watch videos at 2x (a way to be
"productive" while watching youtube videos ). But I wonder how can one watch
at 4x/6x...

~~~
Kagerjay
The secret is captions. You speed read through videos. I still watch most
dense tutorials at 2x speed though, and TV shows at 1x speed

------
beckler
ngrok: [https://ngrok.com/](https://ngrok.com/) expose local servers to the
public internet (super helpful for building webhooks)

grpcurl:
[https://github.com/fullstorydev/grpcurl](https://github.com/fullstorydev/grpcurl)
awesome tools for testing gRPC services

objective-see: [https://objective-see.com/products.html](https://objective-
see.com/products.html) tons of awesome security tools for mac, for free!

f.lux: [https://justgetflux.com/](https://justgetflux.com/) great tool to
adjust the color of your screen depending on the time of day

------
mohitmun
I extensively use
[pngpaste]([https://github.com/jcsalterego/pngpaste](https://github.com/jcsalterego/pngpaste))

Now I can copy any images from browsers/screenshot into any location in
terminal I want

------
dasmoth
"paste" \-- an unexpectedly useful data-wrangling tool. I used a hand-rolled
version for years before discovering it was available "as standard".

~~~
cuchoi
link?

~~~
dasmoth
[https://linux.die.net/man/1/paste](https://linux.die.net/man/1/paste)

------
jaclaz
Generic resource (mac/OsX):

[https://tinyapps.org/osx.html](https://tinyapps.org/osx.html)

Cannot judge for Mac, but the selection of Windows little tools has
traditionally been very good, the only Mac one I ever used (and it proved to
work well) was WakeOnLan:

[http://www.readpixel.com/wakeonlan/](http://www.readpixel.com/wakeonlan/)

------
msadowski
For me it's tmuxp ([https://github.com/tmux-
python/tmuxp/blob/master/README.rst](https://github.com/tmux-
python/tmuxp/blob/master/README.rst)). It allows to create scripts for tmux
sessions. It easily shaves off about 1 to 2 minutes of my time everyday.

------
amorphous
Scapple - by far my favourite brainstorming / mind mapping / thought
collecting tool. I use it every day. Features are just perfect, simple and
useful.

I combine this with monosnap screenshot tool so I can drag images into notes.

(It's from the maker of Scrivener)

------
trevordixon
I run [https://serveo.net](https://serveo.net). Lets you expose local services
through a proxy server (a la ngrok), but uses SSH as the transport, so there's
nothing to install.

------
txmjs
BitBar
([https://github.com/matryer/bitbar](https://github.com/matryer/bitbar))

Allows you to create custom MacOS menubar items from the text output of any
script.

------
mikebos
Drafts 5 combined with workflow and Pythonista on IOS. For everything ranging
from diary, personal crm, search adress/telephone number/e-mail in a given
text, meeting notes and well almost anything. Very usefull combo

~~~
JHonaker
What actions do you have set up? Would you mind describing it in a little more
detail? (Particularly the Drafts stuff)

~~~
mikebos
Sure.

Diary:

    
    
      - Python script that fetches the diary template and fills it with information like location
      - With x-callback-url it is sent to drafts
      - in drafts I can edit the rest and have an action to upload it to working copy
    

In drafts the action Call: With x-callback-url open pythonista and parse the
text for a telephone number. Then that's sent to the call program

Drafts Meeting notes: Launch python script. Scripts get the template from
working copy and fills it with date and through a popup a Title. Want to
change that so you can select the meeting from the calendar and have it filled
in. Then sends it back to drafts.

I have a vacation list drafts pulls from working copy.

In drafts I have shortcuts to add that draft to due, Things or mail/whatsapp
it.

The drafts forums and resource directory are a good starting point. Once you
add Pythonsita all bets are off it becomes the most versatile app on the
phone. Working copy is nice to have so you don't have to deal with templates
in java script code or with tags in draft itself. Apparantly a mac app is
coming, currently a pc user, this would almost be enough to just get a mac :-)

------
Artemix
I use kickstart to manage my templates, including projects
([https://github.com/Keats/kickstart/](https://github.com/Keats/kickstart/))

------
filosofikode
\- httpie -- command line HTTP client \- bat -- A cat(1) clone with wings

------
mstaoru
smcFanControl - makes my old '14 MBP with replaced-almost-everything tolerably
warm.

menuBUS - for easy switching between built-in audio, Bluetooth, digital output
+ equalizing each of them in their own ways.

Spectacle - for window management and easy fullscreen, half-screen and
whatever-part-of-screen shortcuts.

Karabiner - for complicated hotkey rebinding and controlling those Logitech
presenter sticks where clever designer put a tiny "Close presentation and
exit" key right next to "Next slide".

LICEcap - for capturing screen to GIF files for easy sharing.

~~~
cortinaone
+1 menuBUS is great. Too bad it's not being developed anymore.

------
designnomad
Vanilla -- ‘hide Mac menu bar icons’
([https://matthewpalmer.net/vanilla/](https://matthewpalmer.net/vanilla/))

Clocker -- ‘Menubar World Clock’

~~~
designnomad
CheatSheet -- ‘active short cuts of the current application’
([https://www.cheatsheetapp.com/CheatSheet/](https://www.cheatsheetapp.com/CheatSheet/))

------
albertgoeswoof
[https://tab.bz](https://tab.bz) to share lists of links to other people as
one link, or just across devices that aren’t synced

------
rusinov
For Mac automation I use: Keyboard Maestro, Hazel, Automator, AppleScript. Not
a tiny ones, though.

------
jpincheira
Jumpcut — macOS menubar clipboard manager with keyboard shortcuts

Spectacle - macOS window resizer / manager

------
wingerlang
Snappy - Let's you keep screenshot on-screen, annotate and so on.

