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Ask HN: Your favorite tiny feature?

17 points by blintson ↗ HN
While I'm working I occasionally encounter incredibly subtle features of applications I'm using that amaze me. Examples:

1. Emacs iterative search ignores case unless you type a capital letter in the search-string.

2.Vim's move-cursor-left/right doesn't go to the next/previous line.

3.This site: whiting out downvoted comments.

What's an application you use that has a subtle feature that surprises you?

18 comments

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davi
I really like that by default OS X has basic emacs navigation and kill/yank keybindings in all text fields. (Ctl-A, -E, -P, -N, -K, -Y)
nuclear_eclipse
re 1: `set ignorecase` in your vimrc to have Vim behave the same way.

edit: why am I being downmodded for sharing info about replicating the functionality in the biggest competitor to emacs?

samstokes
You want 'set smartcase' as well as 'set ignorecase'. On its own ignorecase makes incsearch unconditionally ignore case.
gkoberger
Windows 7 had a ton of these:

  - Dragging to the side/top of the screen
  - Being able to drag a window away from the top of the screen without minimizing it first
  - Preview of windows when running your mouse over the task bar
  - Desktop slideshow
  - Progress bar in task bar (http://rurl.org/28nt)
  - Functions built into the task bar (for example, you can see controls for iTunes by just mousing over it in the task bar)
  - Snipping Tool
I'm sure there's a few features I missed because I take them for granted now- but I remember being amazed by the little things.
pbhjpbhj
The progress bar and "functions built into task bar" aren't in KDE4; the others appear to be old hat. Perhaps these are from some other WM/DE?
savant
alias

When you can make a command and its arguments simple enough that your mother, who never uses a computer, can use it, then you've done well by the world. <3 alias

bigbang
F12 in mac. and spaces.
brm
Not a feature, but go to http://photojojo.com/store and add something to your cart. Always gets me.
pbhjpbhj
The "add to cart" button releases a green blob which arcs up to the sad-faced cart button, drops into the cart and causes the cart to change to be happy-faced. Pretty neat.
safetytrick
I love textmate's subtle and predictable completion. No abnoxious popup menu, it also forces you to learn and focus on the page to predict the popup.

apt-get completion in ubuntu

firebug's command history

Feynman
The various ways of taking screenshots in OS X. Something I do nearly every day and am amazed at just how much thought and refinement went into the process.
chaosprophet
Firefox 3.7 alpha builds: Hiding the menubar till I press the alt key.
TeHCrAzY
Google Chromes feature, whereby you can drag a tab into its own window, and then drag it back (or to another). I use this every day, and it hurts that I can't do it in other apps.
drewp
Why aren't our window managers doing this?! Then it would work for all apps, and it would be redundant for chrome and others to replicate the feature internally.

I used to think that window tabbing and grouping was too complex a UI problem for window managers to support. The implementations I'd seen required lots of keys and buttons to control the window groups, so it wasn't worth their time to implement something hardly anyone would use. But I was wrong, of course! There should be chrome-style tab grouping everywhere.

vorobei
screen, a subtle feature of remote access.
r11t
"Ctrl + r" for searching previously used commands in shell.