Essentials


Essentials Icon“Essentials is a really handy app that could conceivably change the way you use OS X and speed up your workflow in a number of ways….If you’re looking for an affordable way to dramatically increase the speed at which you can access files, folders, text snippets, URLs or even colors, Essentials is definitely a great place to start.”

Joshua Johnson, mac.appstorm.net

 
 
Essentials app can easily become your favorite and irreplaceable shortcuts pad. Just press hotkey (default is Ctrl+Space, but you can customize it in preferences) and Essentials will appear where ever your mouse cursor is (or not, if you choose so in preferences).

 

You can use it to:
  • quickly launch applications – like in Dock
  • access assorted folders, documents and files of any kind as an shortcuts that can be customized
  • act as clipboard or “dropbox” for your e-mail messages, text clippings (snippets), colors (even mix colors by drag/droping color item one onto another) from OS X standard palette, PDF and image clippings, URLs, graphic paths (vectors)
  • make YOUR OWN simple Terminal commands/scripts (that can act as droplets too! …now which app can do that! )

 

Customize it!
  • resize groups or items and its titles in preferences or using shortcut keys + scroll
  • resize groups by holding Command key (⌘) and scroll up or down (or pinch it on trackpad)
  • resize items icons (⌘+scroll) and their titles (⌘+⌥+scroll) – hope this feature makes you say “sweet!”
  • use item spacing preference for even longer titles plus two line rendering of item titles for longer titles
  • reorder groups and items by holding Command key and dragging groups/items to desired position
  • switch between groups by keyboard: Command key (⌘) + 1 or 2 or 3 etc or Command key (⌘) + up/down arrows or Option key (⌥) + scroll
  • mark items AND groups with colors from pop-up menu
  • use preference to enable/disable Dock and menubar icons
  • use preference to state how to open items: by single click or double click
  • you can finally make your dock look fancy by not overloading it with so many icons

 

Essentials is simply essential because:
  • you can keep your favorite/frequently used items really accessible and nearby
  • enables fast viewing of important items and/or groups – you can color it differently (dots for groups and color scheme for items like in Finder)
  • saves your time and improves your productivity in many ways; e.g. displays right beneath your cursor when you hit the hot key, supports QuickLook, ads text clipping/snippet to the existing one - simple drag&drop snippet on that item will append it neatly below already saved text clipping – without even opening the document
  • no need to bother opening and saveing different types of documents – one for text clipping, one for image clipping, one for URL bookmark…; just simple drag&drop snippets into Essentials and later drag/drop them where needed
  • need color in RGB or CMYK? UIColor or NSColor mode? if you can drag/drop it from OS X standard palette to Essentials, you have it!
  • it has smooth and intuitive UI
  • it is responsive and fast
  • it can easily blend like it is part of the OS X