[scarlac]

A few tips for Spotlight that made me stop using apps like Quicksilver and Alfred:

1. Typing something and pressing CMD+B will open a browser and do a Google search for that

2. Typing math works now

3. You can change your Spotlight preferences to not include files you don't wanna search on, essentially always showing apps (if you just want it do be an app launcher)

Alfred does a lot more than this, but for me these were the key automation features I needed to stop using it.

[rgovostes]

Spotlight’s math support is very rudimentary. I think I even found a bug in it recently trying to use “1e9” scientific notation.

I’ve found Google has the best calculator feature, which supports complex unit-aware inputs like “6 gigabytes / (7.1 mb/sec)”. Even Wolfram Alpha seems to get confused with some simple inputs.

[johnwalkr]

I reach for my physical calculator that is always with me. Seems weird as it's less convenient that using spotlight in the moment and larger than my iphone 11. Just never got out of the habit.

[robszumski]

Is there a way to make the math layout in spotlight not take up so much space? When I am doing math it's typically reading numbers off the screen which are almost always covered by the dialog.

[scarlac]

Yeah it bothers me too sometimes. You can use the mouse to drag it to a new location and it'll remember it. It will also snap to alignment points so it's easy to revert the location again.

[addandsubtract]

4. You can jump to the definition of a word by pressing CMD + L

[mekster]

I just don't see the need when I can just open a new browser tab and type to search or launch the calculator app?

[reaperducer]

Because you don't need to open a new browser window or launch a calculator app. You just press a hot key and it's there.