Five things I like (and one thing I don’t) — ep 1
Thing I like #1: PixelSnap
PixelSnap is the fastest tool for measuring anything on your screen. It works everywhere, on the whole screen, across all apps, and can measure anything.
Measure distance: Quickly get the distance between any elements on your screen
Measure objects: Instantly find the boundaries of any object by simply dragging an area around it
Add snappable guides: Check alignment by adding persistent horizontal and vertical guides on the screen
Take screenshots: Export your measurements as an image and easily collaborate with others
Thing I like #2. WhatFont
WhatFont is a Chrome extension that quickly and easily reveals the fonts used on any web page. In addition to the font name you can get information like size, weight, line-height, and color, and even a quick preview of the font itself.
Thing I like #3. Setapp
Setapp is an app store with curated Mac and iOS apps, all available to you with a $10 monthly subscription. There are some real gems here, including Things I Like such as PixelSnap (see above), Sip, Ulysses, 2do, CleanShot, and iStat Menus. Setapp is well worth the price and is adding new, high quality apps all the time.
Thing I like #4. PopClip
I wrote about PopClip previously, but it’s worth mentioning twice. It’s is a handy tool that shows actions and shortcuts you can perform on text when you select it with your cursor.
With PopClip you can:
- Get instant info on your selection like character or word count
- Run application actions like add to calendar, add to to-do list, check spelling, and look up in dictionary
- Manipulate your text selection by changing capitalization, adding or removing commas, hyphenating, etc
- Send the selected text to any number of apps like Things, Google Translate, Evernote, and Slack
It’s incredibly flexible and there’s a huge collection of actions and extensions to choose from. My most common uses for PopClip are to measure character/word count or to add the selected text to my calendar or to-do list.
Thing I like #5. Shortcuts.design
Shortcuts.design promises “every shortcut for designers in one place.” This site documents every keyboard shortcut for just about any app you might use for design or development (here’s the Figma page). Super handy if you like to move quickly when you design. And keep in mind you can set up your own custom shortcuts in macOS.
And one thing I don’t like: SketchUp
SketchUp is really the only name in the game when it comes to accessible and affordable 3d modeling software. It’s used widely for architecture, landscape design, industrial design, and, most interesting to me, woodworking. Unfortunately, it doesn’t take long to see why most professionals move on from SketchUp to more professional (and pricier) solutions pretty quickly. Even after years of using it I find the controls unintuitive, the UI vexing, and the handling of fundamental things like components and textures to clearly have been designed by madmen. And then there’s the beach ball. I rarely go more than a few minutes without it visiting me, usually for 5–20 seconds (longer if I’m trying to save). Nothing takes you out of flow so reliably as an app that hangs briefly every few minutes.
To be fair, I’m using an older version of SketchUp for Mac. To the best I can tell, they’ve started sending free/amateur users to a web app instead, but I haven’t found it to be an improvement and I don’t care for the need to be online while I work (I often use SketchUp while traveling or at cafes (you know, when not under COVID lockdown)).
Regardless, I think it’s pretty crummy that this software is out in the world making lives miserable. I’ve tried different installs on different machines, but it’s always the same. Here’s hoping SketchUp dusts itself off and gets back up there to help us amateurs and enthusiasts be creative in three dimensions.
