I use a tool called Espanso for this type of thing. It’s available on Linux, Windows and MacOS. It’s a text expander app that allows you to enter long passages with a simple keystroke, but can also be used to enter special characters. One minus is that the configuration is done in text files using YAML, but it’s not at all difficult, and the documentation is very good.

Great advice and insight, very helpful!

Thanks for the tip, I had not ever really heard of UPP or MPB, but I will for sure check them out.

Think I may have found my solution - uBar. I have downloaded it and am trying it out, and honestly, the Windows taskbar-like aspect of it appeals to me (I use Windows 11 at my job). It’s much more functional than the stock Mac dock, and I can stick it where I want it and it stays put. I will probably go ahead and purchase, once my trial is up.

I do use Keyboard Maestro, but don’t know how I triggered it. That gives me something to go on though.

Oh, excellent! I originally started out trying to install WriteFreely with Ngnx, but kept running into problems, so I gave up. Never thought to look in that category - thanks!

I knew about this, but the problem was that my Macbook is positioned below my external monitor, so unless I found just the right spot, the cursor would just move from one screen to the other, without changing where the dock was. However, after reading this reply, I tried again and found the sweet spot near the bottom corner of the screen that allowed me to at least move the dock to the larger monitor. I do wish there was a way to disable that behavior, though. I hate it when I accidentally move it. Thanks…

OK, I think I have this straightened out. The situation was that only my first couple of PixelFed posts showed up in my Mastodon timeline, anything more recent did not. Somewhere along the way, I unfollowed and refollowed my Pixelfed account, to no effect. Today, I went into my Mastodon settings and saw that my Pixelfed follow was “Pending”. I canceled it and followed my Pixelfed account again, and all is well.

I have to say, as something if a social media virgin, I am puzzled by #4. I have never been a Facebook, Instagram or Twitter user. Previous to getting into the Fediverse, the only platform I engaged with that could be considered social media was Reddit, and I left that behind because of the whole brewhaha over third-party clients.

Since finding my way here, I have become an enthusiastic user of Mastodon, Pixelfed and Lemmy. I could not have imagined that it would be easier to acclimate myself and i have not encountered any barriers to entry, or at least I have not recognized any.

Is my experience atypical?

Agreed. This is my position, exactly. Although I do consider myself to be an agnostic atheist, I am open to the idea that there may be a god or gods. I just don’t think that it is likely, and so I conduct myself as if there are not. The main point is, l don’t know, and I don’t think it’s possible to ever know for certain. That’s why I qualify my atheism (or maybe nontheism is more accurate) with an “agnostic”. If people were completely honest, I would wager we would find that most of the people in church every week are actually agnostic, but agnostic theists, rather than agnostic atheist