Agree. Dashes alone are worth the price of a MacBook Pro: <minus> for a hyphen, <option-minus> for an en-dash, <shift-option-minus> for an em-dash. Trivial to remember.
Just as good is the way Apple handles diacritics. You type a prefix keystroke for the diacritic, then follow it with the letter that's being modified: ö is <option-u, o>, ï is <option-u, i>, è is <option-grave, e>.
Most of the prefixes have easy-to-remember mnemonics: umlaut is <option-u>, grave is <option-grave>, tilde is <option-n> (for eñe, I suppose), but even hunting down these prefixes is fairly discoverable. After typing the prefix, a placeholder character is displayed in the text box showing the mark you've just entered, something like: ̲̈.
Then:
- <escape> or moving the cursor with an arrow key enters the diacritic as standalone character (e.g. ¨ is <option-u, escape>).
- <backspace> deletes the diacritic.
- A character that takes the diacritic enters the modified character.
- A character that does not usually take the diacritic enters the diacritic and the unmodified character (e.g. <option-n, 5> yields ˜5).
Just as good is the way Apple handles diacritics. You type a prefix keystroke for the diacritic, then follow it with the letter that's being modified: ö is <option-u, o>, ï is <option-u, i>, è is <option-grave, e>.
Most of the prefixes have easy-to-remember mnemonics: umlaut is <option-u>, grave is <option-grave>, tilde is <option-n> (for eñe, I suppose), but even hunting down these prefixes is fairly discoverable. After typing the prefix, a placeholder character is displayed in the text box showing the mark you've just entered, something like: ̲̈.
Then:
- <escape> or moving the cursor with an arrow key enters the diacritic as standalone character (e.g. ¨ is <option-u, escape>).
- <backspace> deletes the diacritic.
- A character that takes the diacritic enters the modified character.
- A character that does not usually take the diacritic enters the diacritic and the unmodified character (e.g. <option-n, 5> yields ˜5).