Initial Mac quirks and tweaks

Right so after you have the IBM UK standard keyboard layout working, you probably want to swap the Command and Control key. You are used to pressing Ctrl + S to save, Ctrl +C to copy etc. thus having to re-learn how to type it is easier just adapting the Windows way. You can swap the keys in System Preferences under Keyboard and Mouse.

The next little anoyance is how the Home and End keys work. For programmers this is a big issue! When I press home, I want the cursor to jump to the beginning of the line and not the top of the document! I found this little gem called KeyFixer that fixes it for you.

Now the next issue is big problem for me and that is Font Smoothing or known as Clear Type on Windows. I absolutely hate smooth fonts! Yes I use a LCD monitor and I still hate it! To me the fonts look blurry and after an hour or so of coding I get massive headaches.

To disable the smoothing for all applications:

defaults write -g AppleAntiAliasingThreshold 128
defaults write CoreGraphics CGFontDisableAntialiasing YES

To disable the smoothing for only one application like lets say XCode:

defaults write com.apple.xcode AppleAntiAliasingThreshold 144

That basically just says that any font smaller than the number should not be smoothed.

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