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Sridhar Katakam

A tech enthusiast that loves Apple products, software, productivity, WordPress and programming.

Raycast

    ∞

    Raycast

    Switched to Raycast as the primary launcher from Alfred.

    Before Alfred, I used to use LaunchBar.

    Notes

    • To install: brew install --cask raycast. I installed using the dmg.
    • Turned off Spotlight’s keyboard shortcut in the past in Mac settings. The default keyboard shortcut for Raycast is ⌥␣. Changed it to ⌘␣. Demoted Alfred to ⌃␣.
    • ⌘⎋ to escape to the main search page and ⌘W to close at any time.
    • ‘Calculator History’ command to see the history of all calculations and conversions.
    • Assigned cal alias to ‘My Schedule’.
    • You can use natural language to specify your file search! A couple of examples:
      • Searching text files in a certain folder .txt in ~/Desktop
      • Search for PDF files with “certificate” in its name .pdf certificate
    • Fuzzy search works. So we could simply type the first letters of commands like ss for Search Snippets, Search Screenshots etc.
    • Screenshots search includes OCR.
    • Begin typing Hide All Apps Except Frontmost: to concentrate on the frontmost app and hide all others.
    • To create a snippet, the command is ‘Create Snippet’.
    • To install an extension, begin typing the ‘Store’ command.
    • Didn’t find 1Password extension useful. Disabled it. It keeps asking me to sign in using TouchBar almost every time and that too twice in succession every time 🤷
    • In the Quick Add Reminder, we can specify repeat frequency like ‘every day’ and list name in natural language. Not sure if this needs the Pro version. I upgraded to the Pro w/ Advanced AI.
    • Installed CleanShot X extension but disabled it since I am used to ⌘⇧3, ⌘⇧4, and ⌘⇧5 .
    • Made Google as the first fallback command.
    • Window management frequently used commands:
      • Maximize
      • Almost Maximize
      • Restore
      • Center Three Fourths
      • Center
    • To bring up the emoji picker when typing within Raycast’s config windows, type :
    • It is possible to pass arguments to existing commands that accept text input using deeplinks. See this.
    • Any images in the clipboard history or Show Screenshots command can be annotated with CleanShot X using ⌘⇧X.
    • Sample snippets for importing: https://snippets.ray.so/symbols.

    Apps that Raycast made redundant for me

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