Efficiency

Efficiency tips for human–computer interaction

Principles

This guide prioritizes avoiding mouse usage and minimizing keystrokes while using standard peripherals.

VIM style arrow movement is utilized to avoid shifting hands to the arrow keys.

MacOS recommendations

1. Alfred

   • Alfred provides fast access to common operations

   • Shortcuts are accessible by CMD + space and typing the prefix of the command

     • Website bookmarks bookmark_name
     • Opening applications chrome
     • Opening files open filename.ext
     • Sleeping the computer sleep

   • Website bookmarks

   • Typing the prefix and hitting enter will open a new tab with the webpage

   • Unique abbreviations will usually only require two characters to match

     • wchat for workchat
     • dpmoulton for @pmoulton diffs
     • tpmoulton for @pmoulton tasks
     • dqueue for my diff queue

2. Divvy

   • Divvy enables fast window resizing with a single hotkey of your choice
   • The following commands are user configurable
   • Shortcuts are accessible by CMD + E and typing the command
     • space snap a window to full screen
     • w snap a window to the center (with padding)
     • h snap a window to the left half
     • j snap a window to the bottom half
     • k snap a window to the bottom half
     • l snap a window to the right half
     • o snap a window to the top right quarter
     • u snap a window to the top left quarter
     • m snap a window to the bottom right quarter
     • n snap a window to the bottom left quarter

3. Mission control space switching

Note: ⌃ denotes control

• See: pmoulton/keyboard for capslock to control/esc mod
• ⌃H move one space left
• ⌃L move one space right

Programming

The following is more helpful if you use command line tools but it may still be insightful otherwise.

1. Vi mode for terminal
   • set -o vi enables vi mode for your shell
   • This enables you to hop into visual mode to edit your current input line and much more
   • Add this command to the bottom of your ~/.bashrc file to enable by default