[HN Gopher] Impressions from a first-time Mac user
___________________________________________________________________
Impressions from a first-time Mac user
Author : loganmarchione
Score : 79 points
Date : 2022-04-11 19:15 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (loganmarchione.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (loganmarchione.com)
| imwillofficial wrote:
| As a decades long Mac user, all these points are fair and worth
| reading. Apple, hope you're paying attention.
| legitster wrote:
| THANK YOU!
|
| I was recently forced to switch to a Mac for work. After 6+
| months I am still relatively unimpressed.
|
| I feel like such a big baby, and I know it's because I am
| familiar with something else, but I cannot express enough how
| much I hate Mac's window management. I constantly have to split
| up my work between multiple Chrome windows and I am now resigned
| to losing track of everything all the time.
|
| (Hardware wise - I might actually disagree. The device feels
| nice, but I've found it to be fairly fragile and delicate.
| Whereas you can drop a Thinkpad down a flight of stairs into a
| pool of ice cream, a 6-inch fall onto a hard surface might total
| the screen on the MacBook. But special shoutout to the speakers
| which still impress me.)
| 960design wrote:
| I am a fan boy and did not find any of it offensive. Great write
| up, actually. Windows simply does a better job at window
| management. I use full screen and three finger swipe between 5
| separate desktops for work to overcome this weakness. The flash
| drive did make me giggle... oh you poor windows laden idiot.
| Flash drives... like from 1999? Most of your issues are just
| growing pains. I did it when I migrated about 10 years ago from
| my LeapFrog: no carry handle, screen too bright, no built in
| songs, ect.
| hprotagonist wrote:
| i used to be totally fine with the macOS desktop manager
| experience.
|
| then i went in _hard_ on i3.
|
| now, macOS feels ungainly.
| spicyusername wrote:
| > Package management
|
| This always floors me when I have to use a non-Linux computer.
| The difference between package management on Linux and other OSes
| is shocking. Dnf, Yum, Pacman are all so convenient and
| straightforward.
|
| I can't understand why Windows and MacOS don't have anything
| official that fills this gap.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| _> Windows and MacOS don't have anything _
|
| Doesn't Windows have two official ones? Chocolatey and Winget?
| dont__panic wrote:
| Blows my mind that Apple doesn't buy up homebrew and turn it
| official. I use it for everything, even my web browser!
| brimble wrote:
| Pretty much the only time I install something and it's _not_
| through Homebrew (unless it 's a dependency of a project,
| which I manage separately, because I like having an easy life
| and I'd do the same on Linux, for the same reasons) is when
| it's some sub-100-stars GitHub project. And half the time,
| those are on there, too.
| bombcar wrote:
| The main problem is that the majority of software in the
| Windows and Mac world doesn't come in a "package-manager"
| format, not really.
|
| For *BSD and Linux, the package manager is great because if you
| can think of it, it's probably there ready to be installed; as
| long as it's software like TeX or emacs or vi or something else
| available in an open-source way.
|
| But stand-alone programs? Not even things like Photoshop, I'm
| talking something written by someone and you want to install
| it? That's not as compatible with the Linux method, but Windows
| and Mac both have standard procedures and installers for them.
| Snap tries to do something here, but it's a complete joke.
|
| And homebrew (and anything equivalent for WSL?) works pretty
| well.
| emn13 wrote:
| I've not used macs for a few years, but has homebrew become a
| lot better then? Because my recollection of it is that it
| worked fine for small sets of well-maintained packages, but
| it's much, much slower than the linux package managers, and
| there were tons of compatibility issues once you even
| slightly left the beaten path. Also, I remember fighting with
| many apple CLI tools; they seemed to be wildly out of date
| with the comparable linux tooling, to the point that you
| sometimes needed to homebrew something technically already
| part of the base OS just to get other things working (e.g.
| IIRC bash)
|
| Incidentally, on windows there are the beginnings of package
| managers nowadays, e.g. chocolatey. They're nothing like as
| good as those in linux, but better than nothing. Chocolatey's
| focus isn't quite the same as homebrew, however, so they're
| not strictly comparable.
| bombcar wrote:
| It ... "works". For most things you may want, it works
| pretty well, but it's not at advanced as even Gentoo's
| portage, and once you leave the beaten path it can be all
| sorts of hell trying to figure out how exactly to compile
| something yourself.
|
| However, I've experienced the same on Ubuntu and RedHat -
| if they don't have what you want in a repo already, and you
| can't find one providing it, trying to roll your own can
| cause all sorts of fun explosions.
|
| Anything GPL included with MacOS is stuck at the GPL v2 -
| since many things like bash went to v3 they don't update
| anymore; one of the reasons MacOS changed to zsh as the
| default shell.
| smoldesu wrote:
| > But stand-alone programs? Not even things like Photoshop,
| I'm talking something written by someone and you want to
| install it? That's not as compatible with the Linux method
|
| There's definitely some room for improvement here, but fwiw
| you can double-click executables on Linux to run them just
| like you would on Windows (or to an extent, MacOS). I think
| the "solution" here is not to rely on portable software, and
| when you _do_ need to rely on it, use a packaging format like
| AppImage.
|
| > And homebrew (and anything equivalent for WSL?) works
| pretty well.
|
| I hate to burst your bubble, but Homebrew is genuinely awful.
| The vast majority of Mac devops issues I've encountered stem
| from a Homebrew issue, as a matter of fact. Oh no! Software
| (x) isn't running on Mike's M1, but it runs just fine on
| Melissa's x86 machine! The problem? Homebrew installs
| software to different locations depending on your system
| architecture. That's right, the same package will end up in
| _different places_ when the only difference between machines
| is CPU architecture. That 's just one issue, I have gripes
| about reinstalling, leftover files, formulae syntax, Linux
| "compatibility", UX and more... the author isn't wrong when
| they say the experience simply doesn't compare to apt or
| pacman.
| bombcar wrote:
| Yeah, homebrew isn't the greatest by any means, but it
| seems to have more stuff and more people use it than fink
| or macports anymore, so _usually_ there 's a workaround
| somewhere.
|
| The MacOS "app bundle" is a really cute solution to the
| installation/library problem, and I wish something like it
| had caught on in the Linux world. It seems AppImage is
| heading this way.
| smoldesu wrote:
| App bundles are neat, but when given the option of "an
| app directory on top of a traditional Unix filesystem
| layout" or "everything is packages", I'll tend to choose
| the latter. It might just be an impasse situation; I
| think the ideas of package management are developed about
| as far as they can go, even newcomers like Flatpak can't
| really bring anything new to the table. The only package
| manager that's impressed me in recent years is Nix. I
| think if most developers decided to throw their weight
| behind Nix packages, we could live in the "it just works"
| utopia that Linux and Mac developers alike have been
| dreaming of for years.
| bombcar wrote:
| The bane of package managers is when you have to go
| beyond what they supply for whatever reason - horrible
| memories of trying to upgrade php on old versions of
| CentOS still haunt me.
| josho wrote:
| They do. On Windows it's msi, and Mac it's pkg. But, for
| whatever reason folks have preferred to build their own package
| solution instead of learning the OS native approach. I'm
| guessing because building your own makes for an easier end user
| CLI experience.
| jeroenhd wrote:
| Microsoft made the mistake of adding non-deterministic
| behaviour to MSI files, because without that the package
| format is pretty much everything I'd want out of a software
| packaging system.
|
| I think companies wanted to stuff branding and ads into their
| installers, so MSI files fell out of use. Modern Windows
| seems to prefer msix and other weird UWP-based formats, but I
| don't think you can just install those.
|
| What Windows is missing though, is a clean way to manage
| these MSI files. A reinstall or an uninstall shouldn't take
| twenty windows and four different "next" buttons to process.
| When Microsoft created the Microsoft Store, they neglected to
| also add a command line option for installation (you can
| manually install a package, but you'll need to do updates
| yourself from what I can tell). Just add a Powershell command
| like "MSStore-Install" and the entire ecosystem would be so
| much nicer to use!
|
| I suppose this is what they're trying to do with WinGet,
| after forking AppGet and leaving the original project to die.
| For some reason they like to reinvent the wheel every time
| someone thinks of a new way to install binaries onto a
| computer.
| pishpash wrote:
| Because they are platforms on which open-source (including
| dependencies all the way down) is not the norm? They do have
| app stores.
| brimble wrote:
| Linux user for years before switching to Mac.
|
| I prefer Brew to every Linux package manager I've used.
|
| I like that it's totally separate from the base OS.
|
| I like the _insanely_ large package selection, including binary
| [edit: that is, closed-source binary] packages. I almost never
| install _any_ tool that 's not in Homebrew--usually I just
| blindly try it, and sure enough, I got the package name right
| and it does have it, and it installs no problem. Gentoo's
| Portage and Arch's whatever-they-call-it are pretty close, but
| those are... _higher touch_ operating systems, to put it mildly
| (I was a heavy Gentoo user for a few years--I know Arch is less
| of a pain than that, but it 's still got rolling-distro and
| various DIY rough edges)
|
| I don't try to use it to install development dependencies like
| some people seem to. It's not good for that, but doing that on
| Linux isn't a great idea, either. Your project should manage
| its own deps separate from your development system, or you're
| gonna have a bad time sooner or later, unless you are _only_
| deploying to _exactly_ the system config that you 're
| developing on.
| [deleted]
| jack_pp wrote:
| I tried the m1 mini when it came out because I was hyped by all
| the m1 HN talk. This was my first time using macOS and besides
| the window management what I loathed was having to re-learn all
| the shortcuts I've been using for 20+ years, how no one mentions
| this is baffling to me. I tried to make it work more like
| "normal" windows / linux but I didn't find any good options and I
| always felt like I was running with my shoelaces untied.
|
| I'll stick with my linux i3 env for the foreseeable future
| dmitriid wrote:
| Shortcuts are maddening when you just switch. But then you
| realise how much of the keyboard is underutilised in Windows.
| Linux uses the Meta key, but IIRC it was very app-specific, and
| not as comprehensively used.
|
| A lot of MacOS is keyboard driven [1][2], but it takes up to
| two weeks to get comfortable (it took me at least that long
| when I switched to MacOS in 2008).
|
| [1] But the new breed of "designers" at Apple no longer care
| about that. All new first-party apps that Apple vomits out are
| an abomination, UX-wise. And keyboard access there suffers as
| well.
|
| [2] There are a bunch of shortcuts that will work the same way
| across most apps (such as Cmd+<comma> for settings, or text
| navigation shortcuts), and that is a blessing. You can also
| assign custom shortcuts to any menu item in any app if you need
| directly from settings. Or you can re-assign behaviour of
| Ctrl/Caps Lock/Alt from settings as well. There are small
| things like this all across the system, but it _does_ take
| getting used to.
| jack_pp wrote:
| I doubt it could ever be as keyboard driven as linux with a
| tiling WM
| zamalek wrote:
| Put Asahi on that M1, it's apparently great even though the
| work they have done with the GPU is still disabled.
| jack_pp wrote:
| I returned it a long time ago and have no reason to replace
| my work thinkpad t490
| Veen wrote:
| It just takes time to get used to. I used Linux for a long time
| before switching to a Mac about seven years ago. I nearly
| returned my new MacBook to the store because I felt hamstrung
| by the UI. But in a few weeks, once I'd become accustomed to
| the application-centric windowing model, the keyboard
| shortcuts, and especially the touchpad gestures, it all clicked
| and I wouldn't go back now.
| jack_pp wrote:
| My linux workflow is almost entirely keyboard-driven, there's
| no need for a touchpad than maybe doing things in the
| browser.
| nerdjon wrote:
| I always find this interesting, my primary computing device that
| I do actual work on is Mac (technically I guess my primary is my
| iPhone or iPad if I go by time but I am not counting that). But I
| have a Windows computer for gaming and a few Linux machines
| lingering around.
|
| I constantly find myself frustrated by Windows because I am just
| used to how Mac operates. I have been using it as my primary
| compute device since Lion.
|
| However one of the things that I find interesting from the Window
| management point that I don't see mentioned, touchpad gestures. I
| cannot use Mac without gestures, even when I am using my laptop
| as a desktop I use the Magic Trackpad. The few times I have tried
| to use a mouse... it just feels wrong. I would highly recommend
| taking a look at this and looking at the window management from
| this prospective. Because of these gestures I never think I need
| to snap things because switching windows is a quick swipe and and
| a click. Then all the other gestures, hot corners, etc.
|
| That being said, I find the same issue with my partner. He has
| never used a Mac (has an iPhone though) but sometimes he needs to
| do something quick so grabs my laptop. It is fascinating watching
| him struggle with the trackpad and other basics that to me I
| don't even think about anymore.
| colinmhayes wrote:
| Yea, I think what OP is missing is that macOS was designed to
| be used with a trackpad. I think three fingers up is what they
| want when they alt tab. The green button makes the window full
| screen because using three fingers sideways and the occasional
| three fingers up is the best way to manage windows on small
| laptop screens. Even on my external monitor I have every window
| fullscreen. This was admittedly hard to get used to moving from
| windows/linux, but it really is a much better way to do
| windows/virtual desktops. OP should ditch the mouse.
| nerdjon wrote:
| I don't think it was necessarily designed this way to begin
| with, they didn't really add these gestures until well into
| OSX I don't think.
|
| But at the very least they have leaned very heavily into it.
| Considering they sell 2 devices to add gestures when you are
| not using a laptop.
|
| I find myself very rarely using cmd-tab because it just
| doesn't fit my use. I can either more quickly do that my
| moving my mouse to the bottom and accessing the Dock or 3
| fingers up and everything pulls out. Throw in hitting "space"
| to quickly zoom into a window if I just need a quick piece of
| information but not open the app completely.
|
| I am largely the same with 3 monitors. At least 2 tend to be
| full screen apps with my center one being my mix of things,
| but it depends on what is happening. Each monitor has a
| desktop of scratch things (like notes) that I don't want full
| screen but just sits somewhere. The native tab support in the
| OS for things like VSCode helps a lot with this.
| teilo wrote:
| Someone needs to tell him about option-click on the maximize
| button.
|
| Most of these "rants" really just amount to: "this different OS
| doesn't work exactly the same way as the OS I am used to." That's
| why 3rd party utilities exist to give you the functionality you
| wish to have. That formula cuts both ways.
| dont__panic wrote:
| Yep, as someone who's gotten really really dependent on app
| Expose on macOS... it's hard for me to switch to a keyboard for
| things I'd rather do on the trackpad!
|
| I do have to agree, though, that macOS window management can
| feel a bit clunky using a mouse and keyboard. That's a user
| story that the macOS UI/UX team ought to look into, it wouldn't
| be that hard to create some decent bindings in the OS itself.
| jayd16 wrote:
| This is Apple UX in a nutshell. Hidden power tools are not
| intuitive.
| Tagbert wrote:
| In part it is about progressive complexity. The simple things
| are exposed, more complex options require extra effort to
| access. Certainly there are times when it would be nice to
| make it easier to discover the more advanced features but
| there will always be a tension between keeping defaults
| simple for new users and exposing advanced features for the
| more serious users. Often they do it correctly but sometimes
| there are misses.
| _aavaa_ wrote:
| We can argue about them being intuitive or not, but at least
| they exist.
| darkteflon wrote:
| Absolutely - these ranty invectives are so tedious. The idea
| that something is fundamentally broken because it doesn't work
| the way you expect it to.
|
| I struggle through each of my Windows sessions despite having
| used Windows since the 80s and having built probably more than
| 10 PCs over the past 30 years. I don't blame Windows for that.
| I daily drive MacOS and that's what I'm used to. That's a me
| problem, not a Windows problem.
| thiagocmoraes wrote:
| I've been using macs for 9 years and never knew about
| option+click. Granted I've been using apps for window
| management since forever as the native tools suck or are almost
| hidden.
| josho wrote:
| Or double click on the window to perform the original Mac Zoom
| function.
| stouset wrote:
| Or double-clicking the window chrome.
| olyjohn wrote:
| That works... most of the time.
| lemoncucumber wrote:
| I set up a custom "All Applications" keyboard shortcut for the
| Zoom command, it's really handy.
| simonbarker87 wrote:
| Pretty reasonable write up to be honest. I think the window
| management thing is reasonable when you come from a background
| where that's a given. There are some great third party window
| managers available, I use one of them and very happy with it.
| It's called Magnet for those who are interested.
| h3cate wrote:
| spectacle will solve your snapping problems. gives windows /
| Linux snapping.
| itslennysfault wrote:
| Except it's end of life so you should probably switch to
| Rectangle (which the author mentions in the article explicitly)
| Perolan2 wrote:
| 100% agreed. I forget sometimes that spectacle isn't part of
| MacOS proper. The snapping and management are amazing and
| really add to the UX. https://www.spectacleapp.com/
| rubyist5eva wrote:
| > On the other hand, macOS has a weird snapping implementation
| where you need to click and hold the green "zoom" button, then
| choose to "tile" left or right. But, once you pick another window
| to fill the other half, both of those windows (together as one)
| move to their own virtual desktop. I want them split on my
| current desktop, not on a separate desktop.
|
| Hold the option key and it snaps on the same desktop.
|
| Or install Rectangle.app (free) which gives you mouse dragging
| and keyboard shortcut snapping like Windows/Linux.
| [deleted]
| sofixa wrote:
| I'm in the same boat, recently starting a job which provides an
| MBP. I've last used macOS in school, a few years ago.
|
| It's mostly meh. I don't care for the OS conventions ( like the
| cmd stuff) and I'm not going to force myself out of years of
| muscle memory for one of my machines, but i can mostly tune that
| ( with third party tools, but still). Cmd remapped to ctrl,
| cmd+tab remapped to ctrl+tab. The only issues is Ctrl+C doesn't
| work in iTerm, I've yet to fix that.
|
| However the UX is like something for children - what's with drag
| and drop for installing a program?? The included tools range from
| meh to garbage - Pages mangling .docx and saving them in its
| proprietary format is inexcusable. And for some reason i can't
| get the MBP to sleep when it's charging and an external screen is
| connected - clicking sleep through the menu makes it sleep for a
| second and then it wakes up. Oh, and it's _extremely_ annoying
| that the scroll button on a mouse and trackpad have to share the
| same scrolling direction.
|
| Honestly i find that macOS is OK. Slightly better than Windows,
| but with annoying differences and stubborn "this is how things
| are, the old way no longer works, you're holding it wrong"
| attitude. Linux is best in terms of flexibility but has some
| other downsides.
| gen220 wrote:
| Re: cmd+tab issues, consider trying cmd+space+(first letter or
| two of the app), followed by cmd+`.
|
| Especially for touch typists, I think it's faster than cmd+tab:
| doesn't require you to use your mental "app icon classifier", and
| it's impossible to over/under-shoot the target.
|
| Scales O(N), where N is the number of windows open in the app
| you're switching to, whereas cmd+tab + cmd+` is O(N) + O(M),
| where M is the number of apps you have running.
| ysleepy wrote:
| Just use Hot Corners and "Application Windows"+"Mission
| Control", its superior.
| gen220 wrote:
| It's a cool feature, but it does require touching the
| trackpad/mouse!
| zamalek wrote:
| > Homebrew is a lifesaver on macOS and is the only thing not
| making me pull my hair out.
|
| All credit due, Homebrew is amazing given that it doesn't have
| the same opportunities for deep integration that Linux package
| managers do. It certainly made MacOS bearable for me. _But,_ it
| 's only good in a walled vacuum. There's almost nothing else on
| the platform to compare it to. I have been using nix-darwin, but
| packages routinely break on darwin (not that I blame them for
| it).
|
| Windows might have never had a package manager, but there are
| decades of workflows build up around not having one. Downloading
| an .exe/.msi and installing is sub-optimal, dangerous, and
| barbaric, but it does work. Linux has pacman, RPM, deb, nix,
| ostree, flatpak, and more, which (from personal experience) are
| all _amazing._ The Mac package workflow has been built up around
| a second-class citizen: Homebrew. And the fact that Homebrew is a
| second-class citizen shows. If you 've used almost any other
| package manager as a daily driver you get an idea just how
| wanting the whole MacOS ecosystem is. There are a few ones worse
| than your options with Apple ( _cough_ Snap _cough_ ), but not
| many.
|
| I wonder how many Apple power users understand just how bad they
| have it with Apple.
| paxys wrote:
| File management is another one I'd like to add to the list of
| macOS screwups. How can viewing lists of files and moving them
| over from one place to another be so complicated?
| bombcar wrote:
| MacOS apparently caches directory views somewhere, and I can
| routinely get the "Downloads" folder to not actually show what
| is in the Downloads folder; often having to resort to "open" on
| the terminal to access the file. I wish I knew how to force it
| to refresh the actual contents instead of reading it from the
| cache.
| Tagbert wrote:
| Do you have that folder set to sort by something useful like
| "date added"? Then it should work. If you have it set to not
| sorted then maybe the file is lower on the list and off
| screen.
|
| ~\Downloads is always the first tab in Finder for me and I
| almost always keep it to show the most recently added files
| at the top.
| bombcar wrote:
| I always do date added, and it sometimes doesn't show new
| files _in the file picker view_ most commonly - and then I
| have to go somewhere else and back and it seems to refresh.
|
| The other weirdness is sometimes a file gets updated (think
| "touch") and it won't change it's order in the list.
|
| Most of the time it works fine. It's like inotify or
| whatever sometimes doesn't fire.
| Tagbert wrote:
| What is complicated about it? I typically keep a handful of
| tabs open in Finder and drag and drop between them or to
| applications. You can also always do CMD-C and then either
| CMD-V to copy a file somewhere or OPT-CMD-V to move a file.
| daok wrote:
| I like that in Windows I can copy-paste the location from one
| File Manager windows to another one. Something that you
| cannot do in MacOs File Manager
| dfxm12 wrote:
| As someone who switches around between primarily Windows and
| secondarily OSX, and GDM3, I find OSX to have the most intuitive
| window manager. I don't like apps being maximized, and I feel
| like I can always intuitively find the window I'm looking for in
| OSX, just under the active window. I find myself arranging
| windows in Windows like OSX might arrange them. Maybe Apple is
| just using a different metaphor. I understand this is very
| subjective though.
|
| _Apple products are supposed to be revered the world over as the
| pinnacle of design, used by artists, engineers, professionals,
| and creators._
|
| Is this still really the case? Most of what I hear nowadays is
| Apple's reputation is that their products are luxury status
| symbols rather than a tool for creative types, outside of maybe
| the camera on the iPhone. 10 years ago, you might have seen the
| coffee shop filled with macbooks, but that's not the case today.
| What artist is going to afford a $1900 monitor that can only be
| height adjusted with a $400 upgrade?
| jimbokun wrote:
| But that artist might be able to afford a thousand dollar
| MacBook Air with whatever cheap hand me down monitor they have
| lying around.
|
| (But then the dongles they need to buy to attach to that
| monitor or keyboard or what have you is the straw that will
| break their financial bank!)
| shaan7 wrote:
| Funnily enough, for the ~5 years I used macOS, the Window
| Manager was the most frustrating aspect for me. I could not
| maximize apps (there was only a weird fullscreen/focus mode), I
| would accidentally end up dragging a window very often etc. All
| this gave ended up creating this feeling in my brain that the
| windows are just "floating" on the screen instead of being
| tightly bound to an arrangement.
| rhinoceraptor wrote:
| You're not really 'supposed' to maximize or even tile apps on
| the Mac. In most cases it's a waste of screen space. The Mac
| has always been focused around the desktop metaphor.
| Historically applications were composed of multiple windows,
| and focusing a window in an application brought all of the
| other windows for that application to the front. You would
| manually arrange each of the windows/palettes of your
| application for multitasking, much like you would with
| physical pieces of paper.
| ysleepy wrote:
| My recommendations for Mac Users:
|
| * Put the Dock left or right, vertical space is precious (trust
| me, do it for a week and then decide)
|
| * Setup Hot-Corners (Settings -> Mission Control -> Hot Corners)
| - Upper-Right Corner as Mission Control (Must be upper right so
| spaces are immediately shown) - Lower-Left Corner as
| Application Windows - just fling your mouse curser
| into the corner (use std. gestures on the trackpad)
|
| This makes window management a lot better.
|
| * Maximise Windows by double clicking the Window title bar.
|
| * Disable auto-{correction, capitalize, etc}, smart-quotes under
| Keyboard settings (if you want)
|
| * Learn about the screenshot shortcuts CMD+shift+{3,4}, 3: full
| screen, 4: select area or switch to window select with hitting
| space bar once.
|
| * Learn about CMD+space for launching apps
|
| * Set Key-Repeat to fast and shorten the delay
|
| * Disable spotlight for everything except what you want to use it
| for.
|
| * Enable File-Vault
|
| * Disable "Wake for Network Access" under Energy
|
| * Enable the ssh server under Sharing "Remote Login" (If you
| want)
|
| * Disable the visual/audible bell in the Terminal profile.
|
| * Install MacPorts/Homebew
|
| And one thing to internalize is that Apple is a little
| authoritarian about some UX aspects.
|
| For example the snapping and window thing... Apple has a thing
| with continuos freedom opposed to the discretisation one is used
| to. I've come around to that view as well actually, free your
| mind, nature is not a stepped slider.
|
| Cool Utilities:
|
| MenuMeters with a CPU usage graph. this allows you to see if
| something is killing your battery.
|
| MonitorControl (on github) to set brightness of external
| monitors.
|
| LittleSnitch ($$) for fellow paranoid control freaks
|
| IINA (github) best video player
|
| UTM for VMs (free on github) paid options are good too
|
| MacPass for KeePass databases
|
| Hope it helps.
| darkteflon wrote:
| Hot Corners for Mission Control and App windows is interesting!
| Gonna try that today.
| correct_horse wrote:
| > Disable spotlight for everything except what you want to use
| it for
|
| My friend's mac would "take off" (fan spun up crazy fast) after
| every boot/login and I disabled full-text search of documents
| to fix it. There was probably a weird, maybe not-to-spec
| pdf/docx on the filesystem that spotlight couldn't parse and
| got stuck. Kinda dumb that it would waste a 100% usage on one
| CPU core for a couple minutes every boot though.
| smoldesu wrote:
| It's really abysmal. I had a similar situation: every time
| I'd pull a monorepo, my machine would be flooded with
| "mdworker" processes. The CPU would spin up and the machine
| would operate at 85c for a few hours before finally cooling
| down. The culprit was Spotlight, and the solution was to
| disable search indexing.
| AA-BA-94-2A-56 wrote:
| Spotlight is a really good search tool, and it's worth
| occasionally letting it build its index. You mostly only
| notice this when you've changes a whole bunch of files or
| setup the computer for the first time. It really is short-
| term pain for long-term gain, because Spotlight is
| phenomenal at finding anything on the Mac in a really short
| amount of time.
|
| That being said, if you're in the dev-space, I'd recommend
| using Raycast instead. I've dong some cool things with it,
| like format my commit messages, generate UUIDs, and search
| my bookmarks with a command (/w dev -> my company's
| development application with a really long URL).
| smoldesu wrote:
| It's not worth it if my computer heats up to 85 degrees
| for an hour and a half every few days. Really throws a
| wrench in my productivity and has already made me miss a
| couple meetings. Raycast looks neat, but I'm not
| interested in adding Yet Another Random Closed-Source
| Tool to my Mac. At this point I'm mostly using it as a
| dumb terminal and even that is testing my limits with how
| annoying Homebrew and the FreeBSD 4.1-ass kernel is.
| _aavaa_ wrote:
| Some really good ones missed: - iStat menu (better looking
| MenuMeters) - Alfred (MUCH better spotlight) - BetterTouchTools
| (keyboard, gesture, and other UX customization and macros, oh
| and window snapping with mouse and shortcuts)
| and0 wrote:
| I couldn't imagine navigating macOS without gestures. Great on
| touchpad, non-existent on any comfortable third-party mouse
| (the magic mouse is made for toddlers apparently.. I don't even
| have particularly large hands).
|
| Thankfully someone made an LUA script for the Logitech G app to
| use one of the random buttons on my gaming mouse to imitate
| three-finger swipes, which feels great:
| https://github.com/mark-vandenberg/g-hub-mouse-gestures/blob...
|
| I also am not a huge fan of Finder. Might be able to tweak so
| that the list view is default but crazy to me that you'd have
| folders and files just floating around in space.
|
| All that being said I went from lifelong Windows user to being
| fully onboard with Mac once I started developing
| professionally. PC gaming is the only reason I have a Windows
| machine at all. Windows is just gnarly, from the kernel to the
| UI.
| xisthesqrtof9 wrote:
| 3 of the 4 items that the author mentioned can be solved with
| using NixOS inside a VM on your mac :)
|
| Inspired by Mitchell Hashimoto's VMWare setup[0]. I setup my own
| computer in such a way, I now have the best of both worlds.
| Developing on a linux machine, where I can control everything if
| I wanted (down to the OS) and the ease of Notes/iMessages
| whenever I need it.
|
| Window management is a pita because of internal APIs and the fact
| that Apple doesn't cater to people that actually care about these
| tools. Check out Yabai[1] which btw requires you to disable SIP
| (System Integrity Protection) if you want to use its full
| potential.
|
| Instead you can run NixOS and choose your favourite window/tiling
| manager (i3).
|
| Package manager: I still run Nix but I am not that happy with it.
| Either I need to spend some more time or look for an alternative.
| One of the problems is the ability to easily pin older versions.
|
| [0] -
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubDMLoWz76U&t=359s&ab_channe...
| [1] - https://github.com/koekeishiya/yabai
| ppeetteerr wrote:
| The only negative is around window management and you can install
| helpers for this.
| cudgy wrote:
| > The entire design of macOS feels like the Gnome desktop: you
| use what they give you, how they give it to you, using their
| workflows, barely customizing anything.
|
| The user just started to use the OS: of course they have little
| knowledge of customization plus they are using a computer subject
| to corporate policies. Not a fair criticism.
|
| However, the critique of the window snapping mechanics is
| correct. Very frustrating to have the window go full screen when
| removing one half of the previously split screen.
| ghostpepper wrote:
| The window management grips are fair, although I don't find Cmd +
| ` to be particularly burdensome - it's right above tab on the
| keyboard, and my KDE Plasma desktop behaves the exact same way.
| mattnewton wrote:
| I don't know any Mac users who don't primarily use expose (or
| is it mission control now? The thing where it tiles all your
| windows open and you click the right one). Agree that windows
| should snap even when not fullscreened but I think expose
| solves this one better if you hand is already on the trackpad /
| mouse
| rconti wrote:
| I don't use it, in fact I thought it was mostly abandoned.
|
| I hate window snapping behavior. I use rectangle, but cannot
| for the life of me figure out why it makes sense to snap a
| window to fullscreen on my 40" ultrawide the instant I get a
| window somewhere near any side of my monitor. Who works like
| this? You have to just leave a window floating in space if
| you don't want it fullscreened?
| mattnewton wrote:
| I use Moom personally to tile windows. I feel like no one
| tests the huge external monitor setup at apple compared to
| just using the laptop screen, despite it's near ubiquity
| among developers. Maybe the vast majority of mac's aren't
| used that way? But Mac pros are.
| linsomniac wrote:
| I also recently got a MBP and it's the first time I've used a Mac
| since the '80s, mostly using Linux for work and a Chromebook for
| home.
|
| I agree with what this article has to say. Great hardware. For my
| primary reason for spending the money on it, it runs rings around
| anything else out there (video editing).
|
| The OS I find mostly ok, but a few things feel pretty rough:
|
| Updates. My terminal blocks updates from happening when I'm not
| using it. Updates take an amazingly long time where you can't use
| the system. I'm talking like the majority of an hour. It makes
| Windows updates look speedy, and I hate how long Windows updates
| take. Linux and ChromeOS do this right: You can use the system
| while it is doing updates, then it's just a reboot into the
| updates
|
| The app finder (3 finger pinch), I sure wish it was a little
| smarter. In Firefox if I go to the URL bar and type "n" it knows
| I probably want "news.ycombinator.com". Every time I 3 finger
| pinch and type "b" it's like a babe in the woods, never having
| met me before. Now, every time I type "blue", MacOS thinks I want
| "bluetooth" until I add the "j" and it can figure out that, like
| every time I've done this, I want the BlueJeans app because it's
| meeting time...
|
| I still haven't gotten used to clicking the yellow window button
| and the app "hides", the only thing on my screen is firefox or
| whatever, but when I start typing it's still going to that hidden
| app.
|
| That said, it's still a great box. Mostly I use it as a web
| browser and a SSH terminal to my work machine. But, it has
| absolutely solved an infrequent pain point for me: Editing videos
| of my kids. Last fall I edited a concert video, the hour long
| concert took me ~40 hours to do because my wife's laptop,
| reasonably powerful but not the highest end GPU, required so much
| time generating optimized media and churning, and even then
| everything I did was slow as molasses.
|
| The Mac has handled all video editing tasks without breaking a
| sweat. I feel like an idiot for spending the money for an
| infrequent task, but it is a 100% solved problem now.
| kemayo wrote:
| I actually like the command+tab behavior, and miss it when I use
| Windows.
|
| I'll explain: if you have a lot of windows open, I think it's
| nice to silo them. When I have ten Firefox windows and six
| Sublime windows and three iTerm windows, and a few other random
| applications, it's generally easier to go first to the app I want
| and then find the window inside it, rather than _always_ having
| to shuffle through 19 different windows at the top-level.
|
| This is probably a matter of personal preference and habit, and
| you can make a good case for either behavior. I just don't think
| macOS' behavior is obviously _worse_... only different.
| vnorilo wrote:
| If you pin apps to Windows task bar, you can cycle through the
| windows of the third one with Winkey-3 and so on. Currently
| daily drive a mac for work, but the above is my preferred way
| to switch windows on Windows.
| sylens wrote:
| Window management is still my number one complaint with macOS.
| Windows has only gotten better with it since Windows 7 introduced
| Aero Snap, and on Linux I can do whatever my heart desires,
| including using a proper tiling environment.
| deergomoo wrote:
| Ironically, if you're looking to snap two windows side-by-side
| (which I expect accounts for the majority of cases), iPadOS
| with a keyboard is actually more capable for that specific use
| case than macOS. I expect the same shortcut will make its way
| into the next Mac release, I just hope they don't gimp it by
| tying it to full-screen mode.
| Sharlin wrote:
| > Apple decided to grace the 2021 Macbook Pro with ports that any
| PC laptop user has had for years (HDMI?! SD card reader?! gasp!).
|
| To be fair, MBPs also had those for years, until Apple in its
| wisdom decided to ditch them in 2016, along with making other
| questionable interface decisions that they've been gradually
| reverting since then. I still use a 2015 MBP partially for that
| reason. Now it's probably become a time to upgrade to a M1 model.
| moonchrome wrote:
| I've had a long background of Windows and Linux usage but I've
| used MacOS a significant time as well - I'm daily driving a 2018
| MacBook Pro 15 and use a Windows Desktop for WFH because it's
| much more powerful an silent. And I'm also developing on .NET
| core right now which is a Microsoft tech.
|
| With that said I would say MacOS grows on you. On my 34 inch
| screen using snapping is just not practical - I just move windows
| around and have plenty of visual space and can quickly move my
| head to move attention to a different window, find other windows
| through overlaps - I prefer this to tabbing - and this is when
| working on my Windows desktop.
|
| Returning to Windows after not regularly using it for last 3
| years it's sad to see that the UI has regressed with Windows 11.
| For example windows had system calendar app that would connect to
| the system calendar in the bottom right and show event previews
| for the day and you could click on the day and get day summaries,
| sort of like Itsycal but built in. They removed this in Windows
| 11.
|
| I think MacOS is strictly better for most of my use cases :
|
| - The new right click UI is clunky and obviously touch optimized,
| most of the OS is going this way and it's shit for desktop
| usability
|
| - Dark mode support is hit-and-miss, much better in MacOS
|
| - PowerToys Run doesn't work reliably at all compared to Mac CMD
| + Space which works without a hiccup
|
| - chocolatey is garbage compared to homebrew
|
| Where Windows beats MacOS for me :
|
| - Docker performance is much much better
|
| - WSL/linux integration is fairly nice (using OpenSuSe rolling
| release to get relevant software, Ubuntu LTS they provide is
| ancient)
| IncRnd wrote:
| I constantly use window snapping on my desktop Mac with two
| widescreen monitors. But, I use keystrokes to do so, using
| Rectangle, not the mouse.
| moonchrome wrote:
| For me even the vertical space fully extended is too much
| visual area since I need to move my eyes/head to scan top to
| bottom. but I do have a 5k panel relatively close at low
| scaling so maybe your setup is different
| IncRnd wrote:
| It likely is different based on what you've said. I hope
| you keep finding and using what works for you. It's often
| different between people even who have similar
| configurations.
| darkteflon wrote:
| Docker is still such a mess on Macs. Losing hope that they'll
| ever sort it out.
| rconti wrote:
| IMO, command-tab and command-tilde are vastly superior to the
| Windows method. It's less relevant these days due to applications
| running their _own_ tabs inside of the app. I fought this for
| years but eventually gave up because you really have to use tabs
| these days. Many applications have wasted space for a tab bar
| even if you refuse to use tabs. But I liked being able to switch
| through windows in a given application vs switching applications
| entirely.
|
| I still feel that tabs-everywhere is making up for a broken
| window manager. Why should we offload this to each application?
| kps wrote:
| > _However, that keyboard doesn't have the Option ([?]) or
| Command ([?]) keys like on my Macbook._
|
| It does; they're just labelled 'Alt' and 'Windows'.
| fit2rule wrote:
| urbandw311er wrote:
| My favourite tool to modify most aspects of the OS is
| BetterTouchTool.
|
| I have it set to move the window under the mouse cursor when I
| hold down Fn -- and if I also hold down shift then it resizes the
| window under the mouse cursor until I release Shift
|
| It must have saved me, in aggregate, hundreds of hours as I no
| longer have to care about finding the top or edge of a window to
| move/resize.
|
| Try it! An absolute game changer for productivity.
| aeturnum wrote:
| I think Moom is one of the best reccs for OSX in general:
| https://manytricks.com/moom/
|
| Will let you snap windows the way you expect.
| traceroute66 wrote:
| The author makes a big deal of lack of snapping. Frankly I've
| never seen the utility of it on OSs that do have it, infact I've
| always felt it more of a hinderance than a help (gets in the way,
| tries to snap when you don't want it to).
|
| The author makes a big deal that you have to do Command+Tab to
| switch applications, and _then_ Command+` to cycle between
| windows in that application. Well, frankly I think thats the
| better way, I 'll give you an example:
|
| Let's say (as you do) you have a dozen browser windows open
| (maybe in more than one browser) ... do you _REALLY_ want to sit
| there hitting Command+Tab dozens of times ? No. Its quicker to
| switch to the desired app and then cycle within the app. That way
| you don 't cycle through the browser when you don't need to.
|
| Finally there are some, frankly bizarre, comments in the blog
| post, such as:
|
| > However, that keyboard doesn't have the Option ([?]) or Command
| ([?]) keys like on my Macbook.
|
| Well, yeah, its not Apple's problem if you choose to use a PC
| keyboard with your Mac. Most people would either use the built-in
| Mac keyboard or buy an external one (third-party Mac keyboards
| are available from the usual suspects if you don't fancy an Apple
| one).
|
| I gave up reading the blog post around that point ("The
| Undecided" header to be precise).
| deltarholamda wrote:
| I get where the author is coming from, but I too prefer the
| cmd-tab to switch between applications, and cmd-backtick to
| cycle through windows in the application. I do more of the
| latter than the former.
|
| Neither do I care that much for snapping. What I really prefer
| is for my windows to be where I left them, and MacOS is pretty
| good about keeping them that way.
| pishpash wrote:
| Probably because most of the "windows in the application"
| these days is just the web browser.
| hbn wrote:
| > What I really prefer is for my windows to be where I left
| them, and MacOS is pretty good about keeping them that way.
|
| Well, it is once you go into Preferences > Mission Control
| and turn off "Automatically rearrange Spaces based on most
| recent use"
|
| I can't imagine why that's enabled by default, and I always
| forget to turn it off when setting up a new machine and don't
| realize it until I get confused for the 50th time, thinking
| I'm losing my mind cause my desktops are in a different order
| from what I thought
| bombcar wrote:
| I've never used snapping on any OS, but on MacOS I feel the
| need even less, because the programs seem _really really good_
| about remembering my window positions once I have things setup
| the way I want.
| scns wrote:
| Sorry for the snark in advance: Are you for real? I do want IDE
| and documentation in browser next to each other on my 31.5"
| 1440 screen, thank you very much.
| lou1306 wrote:
| > The author makes a big deal of lack of snapping. Frankly I've
| never seen the utility of it on OS's that do have it, infact
| I've always felt it more of a hinderance than a help (gets in
| the way, tries to snap when you don't want it to).
|
| It may be useful for users of large external monitors, allowing
| to make better use of the screen real estate. Then again, Macos
| lacks per-application menu bars, which means you cannot do a
| lot of tasks without focusing the app first, so IMHO lack of
| snapping/advanced windows management is not as big as a deal as
| it would be under Windows.
| loganmarchione wrote:
| > It may be useful for users of large external monitors,
| allowing to make better use of the screen real estate
|
| OP here. This is exactly why I want snapping (I'm using a 27"
| 1440p monitor)
| AA-BA-94-2A-56 wrote:
| There are Mac applications you can download to get this
| behaviour. Magnet does it and is cheap, and Raycast
| (spotlight alternative) does it and is free.
| macrael wrote:
| I have never spent much time on Windows machines but I _love_
| cmd-` on the Mac. I mean, I have a whole rant about how its
| ordering behavior changed on Lion for the worse but I love having
| windows grouped by application and picking the app I care about
| before picking the window I care about. I have never understood
| why so many people use a single chrome window for all of their
| tabs but I think it comes from not being experienced with cmd-`.
| For me, I group tabs in my browser by subject, most commonly, by
| google search query, and then I can close them all at once when
| I'm done with them.
|
| I've actually started braking more websites out into their own
| fluid.app so that I can cmd-tab to them specifically. Jira,
| Github, Gmail (well, when I used gmail) all get their own app so
| I don't have to go hunting for that single tab in my browser,
| making my browser window management that much easier.
|
| If you're interested in that, I pair fluid.app with choosy so
| that links open in the correct fluid browser.
| urbandw311er wrote:
| Big fan here of "appifying" favourite Web apps too. I recently
| discovered a programme called Web Catalog that is best in class
| for this.
| uuyi wrote:
| This is a story as old as time.
|
| When you're used to something else the change hurts. I have found
| it far better to not bring your mental baggage with you and meet
| the new platform as its level rather than try and make it the
| same as the old one.
|
| I have gone MOS > RiscOS > WinNT -> Solaris -> Linux -> Win7 ->
| macOS and it hurt every time.
| thanatos519 wrote:
| Indeed, and the change that hurts me when I try to use a Mac is
| the fact that there are things that I can't change. I prefer
| focus-follows-mouse and no-raise on-focus, and those are
| apparently structurally impossible in macOS.
|
| "I can't change it to work the way I like it" is a totally
| legitimate complaint and Linux has a strong advantage in this
| regard.
| darkteflon wrote:
| Focus-follows-mouse is great. That's the biggest thing I miss
| from Linux.
| major505 wrote:
| I`m in a similar situation working as a android developer the
| company sended me a macpro 2021 with the infamous touch bar.
|
| Diferent from the author I had some previous experience with
| macbooks, since I did had a Macbook white many years ago, and
| have some vintage apple computers like a clamshell laptop and a
| G4 (I just think they are neat).
|
| While I`m in no way as productive with it as I`m with my thinkpad
| runing Fedora there`s some mitigation I was able to do.
|
| The main wone with the window manager. While I do think Apple
| full screen works well when working exclusive with the mac
| screen, when connected to multiple screens is a pain in the ass.
|
| In this case Magnet solved my problems since it looks a lot with
| the Windows / Gnome way of dividing the screen with multiple
| applications.
| als0 wrote:
| > While macOS isn't POSIX-certified, it is Single Unix
| Specification UNIX 03 registered and compliant.
|
| This sounds wrong. Isn't POSIX a mandatory subset of the Single
| Unix Specification? Hence it is inherently certified.
| thaway2839 wrote:
| I think at this point Apple does not see macOS (from the user
| perspective) like a traditional GUI OS.
|
| It used to be that OSes provided window management, file
| management, some basic file handling, and APIs and framework to
| build and connect apps.
|
| Apple, instead, sees the OS as an app launcher that provides a
| framework to build isolated apps.
|
| IOW, it's reduced macOS to the Dock.
| lbrito wrote:
| >you use what they give you, how they give it to you, using their
| workflows, barely customizing anything. Apple products are
| supposed to be revered the world over as the pinnacle of design,
| used by artists, engineers, professionals, and creators. Why do I
| feel like there are training wheels on a machine I use for
| productivity?
|
| Gosh, this is exactly how I felt in a similar situation. Really
| hit the nail on the head.
|
| I've used Linux for a long time, and for a while I was kindly
| forced to use a Mac (got a Linux laptop last week). It was a
| painful experience that took a heavy toll on my productivity.
|
| My impression is that Mac has so many idiossincrasies that fans
| just assume are "intuitive" while they're really not - they've
| just been used to it for a long time. Personally I hated, hated
| the usability. Can't stress it enough, it absolutely sucked.
| Never again!
|
| Also the benefits compared to non-Macs are diminishing over time.
| You can get great hardware and battery life with system76 for
| instance.
| imwillofficial wrote:
| "You can get great hardware and battery life with system76 for
| instance." The build quality of these two platforms is nowhere,
| and I mean nowhere close. Apples (heh) and oranges.
|
| I'm rooting for system76, but they have a long way to go.
| lbrito wrote:
| Absolutely agree. Build quality is meh, not even good. But
| the battery is _seriously_ good. Like 10+ hours good.
| lolpython wrote:
| Which model is that? My 2 year old System76 Galago Pro gets
| 1 hour of battery life.
| lbrito wrote:
| This guy here: https://system76.com/laptops/lemur
|
| >Up to 14 hours of battery life per charge
|
| I routinely get over 10 hours.
| count wrote:
| 10+ hours isn't 'seriously' good anymore. I routinely can
| get 18-20 hours on my M1 MacBook Pro.
| sitzkrieg wrote:
| they are cheap clevo laptops at a huge markup
| scns wrote:
| As a Linux user of 15 years now, i look forward to beeing
| challenged by using a Mac, since for me energy efficiency is
| more important than personal comfort.
| lbrito wrote:
| How does energy efficiency matter here? Or rather, why are
| you implying that a Mac might be more energy efficient, and
| enough to matter? Geniuenly curious.
| scns wrote:
| M1 coming secong at 10 watts shortly after a Ryzen at
| several times that? Check out the reviews on anandtech.
| NoraCodes wrote:
| There is nothing inherent about having a bad window
| manager that makes it more power efficient; Apple could
| implement a better desktop environment and still have low
| power use.
| lbrito wrote:
| Ryzen 5700 has 25W TDP https://www.notebookcheck.net/AMD-
| Ryzen-7-5700U-Processor-Be...
|
| IMO a 15-watt difference is basically negligible in this
| context. It is so insignificant it can be offset by
| pretty much anything. You know creating aluminum uses a
| ton of energy; maybe that fancy aluminum case of the Macs
| used more power than a tiny TDP difference will ever
| save.
| scns wrote:
| It came second to the desktop processors at 3-4x25W TDP.
| _aavaa_ wrote:
| I think they were talking about energy efficiency in
| terms of "how long battery lasts".
|
| And 15-watts makes a big difference when you have a
| 60-watt-hour battery.
| thanatos519 wrote:
| "Training wheels" is my favourite description of the macOS GUI!
| brimble wrote:
| What are people doing with their computers that a Mac is so
| stifling? I'm late to the Mac game, have been on it for about a
| decade, and was a 15-year Windows and Linux desktop user before
| that. Still, I don't even know what it might be.
| sofixa wrote:
| Docker Desktop is relatively bad compared to native docker on
| Linux. If you spend your day doing that macOS is very
| stifling. Or if you want to change a keyboard shortcut Apple
| don't allow you to, like cmt+tab.
| brimble wrote:
| Ah--I've done a lot of Docker on Mac, but just with the
| command line tools, so I don't know how Docker Desktop is
| (on any platform).
|
| > Or if you want to change a keyboard shortcut Apple don't
| allow you to, like cmt+tab.
|
| The only keyboard customization I do is something that Mac
| makes at least as easy as Linux (use Caps Lock as an extra
| control) but I bet it is frustrating if you want to
| customize stuff outside the cases that they explicitly
| support remapping. That makes sense.
| ryukafalz wrote:
| The options for package management on macOS aren't great in
| my experience, coming from using Linux on all my personal
| machines. Homebrew exists but it always feels bolted on and
| I've had things break in interesting ways using it. Nix might
| be better, I don't have much experience using it on macOS.
|
| Also, tiling window managers.
| darkteflon wrote:
| Cannot at all relate to this perspective. If you like PopOS,
| that's great. But this nonsense about Mac fans being blinded by
| their love of the brand is the edgelord meme that will not die.
|
| MacOS is fine. PopOS is fine. Windows is fine. They each ask
| you to adopt a UI paradigm because how could they not. It's
| natural that transitioning between them is costly.
|
| Every time I see comments like this I'm reminded of this great
| quote: "The only intuitive interface is the nipple. Everything
| else is learned."
| smoldesu wrote:
| > "The only intuitive interface is the nipple. Everything
| else is learned."
|
| At least IBM took this to heart.
| replygirl wrote:
| system76? sounds cool can it run excel and apple music?
| lbrito wrote:
| I guess?
|
| System76 makes laptops. They come with their own Linux
| distribution called PopOS.
| anhner wrote:
| Ah yes, apple music, the pinnacle of computing and benchmark
| by which to judge all professional-level personal computers.
| throwmeariver1 wrote:
| I don't like what you like...
| replygirl wrote:
| alright how about framer
| tetsusaiga wrote:
| > give anything to replace macOS with Linux (or even Windows)
|
| I agree that this was a fair, measured post, but I find it
| bizarre that a Linux enthusiast would ever want to replace their
| Mac OS with Windows when the biggest complaint is... window
| management? I feel like they left something out here.
| Tagbert wrote:
| I do understand that recent Windows has some pretty good basic
| window size+position control. That is not something that really
| comes default in Mac OS but there are several widely used
| third-party tools that do that using different interaction
| models (Moom, Better Snap Tool, Magnet). I suspect that
| building that into the OS would hurt the third-party market at
| this point.
| sandwichinvest wrote:
| Devoted fan of A tries B, is displeased.
| m0shen wrote:
| Since the author appears pretty savvy, I recommend trying out
| https://www.hammerspoon.org/ and writing a little bit of lua to
| customize his mac experience. Can even install it as a Homebrew
| cask
| jmull wrote:
| I think it's more what you're used to.
|
| I use Windows and macos daily and I sorta prefer the mac's window
| management, but they both work fine once you know what you're
| doing. In some cases macos just has different keystrokes that the
| author doesn't know yet, and in others you just manage windows a
| little differently (or use an app if you don't want to adjust).
| etchalon wrote:
| "In summary, macOS does not behave like Windows or Linux."
| thanatos519 wrote:
| "In summary, macOS does not behave like Windows or Linux out of
| the box, and it's difficult or impossible to change many of
| those behaviours."
| danaris wrote:
| ...And can you easily change Windows or Linux to behave like
| macOS, in these fundamental ways?
| max599 wrote:
| sometimes you can.
|
| A good exemple is Windows 8.1.
|
| Depending on who you ask, it's either the best OS Microsoft
| has ever made or one of the worse. If you know how to
| install a different Start Menu, you can get >95% of the
| benefits of W10/W11 with no downside other than game
| compatibility. If you are stuck with the menu provided by
| Microsoft, it's almost literally unusable. It's so bad that
| and hated by literally everyone that IMHO it deserved a
| "fire managers/leaders who approved it" type of response.
| sofixa wrote:
| On Linux yes, absolutely.
| ChicagoBoy11 wrote:
| Despite the warning, I didn't find it nearly as "ranty" as the
| author cautioned, and instead seemed like a fairly comprehensive
| and fair take on his experience.
|
| Having gone through the same thing myself several years ago, the
| UI aspect of it is something that I'd be curious to see how it
| develops for the author. I think it is not uncommon for Windows
| folk to find the windowing experience on macs rather painful, at
| least at first. However, after a while, it sort of "made sense"
| to me, if that makes any sense at all. There are some clear UX
| philosophies that are very different, and the initial transition
| can only be pretty jarring, but I'm curious what the author would
| say about it after a month or two.
|
| Also, fwiw, I think most power Mac users also marshal the use of
| some other programs to help along with some of that (or at least
| to tailor it more closely to what they want the experience to
| be). Rectangle is one of the first installs on any Mac I put my
| hands on... makes window management so much more pleasant!
| rwc wrote:
| Not that it's right or wrong, but the behavior dates back to
| the very first implementations of Mac OS and Windows. Mac OS
| has always been an application switching interface, and Windows
| has been a window switching interface. Takes getting used to
| the paradigm shift.
| drewzero1 wrote:
| This reminded me of a post on Macintosh Folklore[0] about the
| early development of application switching on Mac OS. It
| certainly gave me some insight into why things work the way
| they do in the Mac world.
|
| [0] https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=Switcher.txt
| pmontra wrote:
| Having used the very first Mac, it made sense on that tiny
| screen. One application per time was almost more than it
| could accommodate. The monitor got bigger after a few years
| and the menu on top and the full screen interface started not
| to make sense compared to the Windows PC next desk.
| SllX wrote:
| Nah, I'll defend the top menubar to the death. Infinite
| height and top-speed cursor speed makes working with it
| from the top versus from the window much more efficient for
| me, and it wastes less pixels (the purpose of high res
| monitors for me is to use all of the pixels) and gives me a
| working area on its right side for various utility apps I
| don't want taking up space in the Dock (which has enough
| problems even with a relatively small working app set).
|
| What also helps though is that an under-appreciated aspect
| of a typical set of Macintosh apps is how good the context
| menu has gotten. Typically I'm using the context menu and
| hotkeys much more than the menu bar because it is rare
| there is an option I want that is unavailable in the
| context menu.
| loganmarchione wrote:
| OP here. I like this perspective, I never thought about it
| this way!
| verelo wrote:
| As someone that came from a windows world for the first
| 10ish years of my career, i found this pretty frustrating
| too. I honestly still do. Sometimes it feels like I just
| cannot get to the window I want.
| darkteflon wrote:
| You don't have to live with it if you don't like it; open
| source to the rescue: https://alt-tab-macos.netlify.app/
| lwkl wrote:
| There is a separate shortcut to switch between windows of
| the currently selected application cmd + ` or ctrl + down
| arrow to show the windows.
|
| So you alt + tab to select the application and switch to
| the right window. I personally think it's more reliable
| than Windows especially if I have a lot of Windows open
| (I used Windows for the last 10 years). On Windows I
| regularly switched to the wrong windows because of my fat
| fingers...
| IncRnd wrote:
| FYI, I always load Rectangle on my Macs for window snapping
| using keyboard keys. It's fantastic!
| wmf wrote:
| I wonder how much of the difference between Windows and Mac
| comes from the 1980s look-and-feel lawsuits. Microsoft
| couldn't clone the Mac directly so they had to make it
| gratuitously different and worse.
| olyjohn wrote:
| I can't get used to the fact that I can't alt-tab to a
| minimized window. Nor can I figure out how to switch to any
| particular minimized window. You have literally no way of
| knowing that a minimized window exists other than right-
| clicking the dock icon, or going to the "Window" menu after
| you switched to the application. The dock was fine 20 years
| ago when they released OSX, but they've literally done
| nothing to make it better since then.
| uuyi wrote:
| I don't actually minimise windows on the mac at all. I just
| sling them on a contextual virtual desktop and then triple-
| swipe up when I need a different one.
|
| Not once have I had to sit there mashing alt-tab and
| guessing then.
| darkteflon wrote:
| This will help: https://alt-tab-macos.netlify.app/
| colinmhayes wrote:
| The solution is simple. Don't minimize windows. Everything
| fullscreen on virtual desktops. Three fingers up and choose
| the window you want if it's one you don't use normally.
| Three finger swipe between frequently used windows.
| Asraelite wrote:
| I do this. It's absolutely insane that it's the easiest
| way to do window management in MacOS. We have regressed
| to the point of not having windows anymore.
| hx833001 wrote:
| One way of addressing this is to use the intended method,
| which is to Hide the application instead of minimizing it.
| Cmd H hides the application away, and it pops back to the
| front with a Cmd Tab.
| nerdjon wrote:
| Has Mac changed its default settings?
|
| The Dock shows you any minimized windows on the right.
|
| If for some reason this is no longer default (I don't
| remember the last time I setup a new Mac and didn't carry
| over settings) Right Click the dock >> dock preferences >>
| Uncheck "Minimize windows into application icon"
| olyjohn wrote:
| Well, that did work. But now I just have a massive pile
| of minimized window icons... and still no keyboard
| shortcut to switch to them.
| s__s wrote:
| On Mac you generally just don't minimize windows unless
| you explicitly want that behaviour (sort of hidden and
| available manually through the dock). It's just a
| different workflow.
| nerdjon wrote:
| I guess like the other person mentioned I just don't find
| myself minimizing that often on Mac.
|
| That being said there is an option. The first is if you
| are in an application you can do control-down or (if you
| enable it under gestures >> more gestures for your
| trackpad) you do 3 fingers down you will see the
| minimized windows for your current application at the
| bottom. I did also just look it up and apparently if you
| do cmd-tab and press up on an application it does the
| same thing.
|
| Not exactly what you are looking for, but you can at
| least do it on a per application level for anything
| minimized.
| K7PJP wrote:
| I never minimize windows at all on the Mac, perhaps
| because of this behavior. I hide apps with (Command-H)
| instead, and use multiple desktops for managing different
| workflows instead.
| bouke wrote:
| While the app switcher is highlighting the app with
| minimized windows, press cmd+1 to switch to those
| windows.
| urbandw311er wrote:
| Ok, so you can actually do this but the keyboard sequence
| is a bit bonkers.
|
| * Hold down Command and press Tab until the application
| icon representing the minimised window is highlighted.
|
| * Release Tab but DONT let go of Command.
|
| * Now press Option too so you are holding down Command +
| Option
|
| * Now release Command so you are just holding down Option
|
| * Finally release Option
|
| Amazingly this will then maximise the window whose
| application icon you selected in the first place.
|
| Sounds crazy but it works. Try it!
| fiddlerwoaroof wrote:
| You can also tab to the application, hit the up arrow and
| use the arrow keys to select the minimized window then
| hit enter.
|
| In fact, my command-tab workflow is: command-tab to open
| the Switcher and then arrows to switch application/window
| djkoolaide wrote:
| You've literally improved my life with this comment.
| Thank you.
| Sharlin wrote:
| Agreed. The distinction between applications and windows that
| macOS/Mac OS has always made was jarring at first, but
| definitely one of those things that after the initial
| adjustment simply feel _different_ rather than objectively
| better or worse.
| goosedragons wrote:
| I never got used to it after a year. I wasn't even a "new" Mac
| user as I'd previously used Jaguar/Panther/Tiger/Leopard as
| well as Classic and even NeXTStep. But while those were better
| than XP time has marched on and I don't feel like MacOS
| improved enough compared to the competition (with regards to
| window management). If anything should have been Sherlocked it
| should have been rectangle/magnet etc.
|
| I also feel like Apple cripples mice, it's a very trackpad
| centered workflow and if you're not using one it suffers. Also
| they really need to have a separate mouse scroll toggle built
| in.
| divbzero wrote:
| What I miss most in macOS is _Super + Left_ and _Super + Right_
| to tile windows left and right..
| brimble wrote:
| I've used Spectacle with the defaults, for years. It's not
| actively developed but still works. There are actively-
| maintained alternatives, but since it has _zero_ times done
| anything weird or glitchy for me, even with multiple
| monitors, I 've not switched yet.
|
| "brew install spectacle", start it, give it accessibility
| permissions it needs in the Settings panel, set to start at
| login (check a checkbox in Spectacle's settings panel).
| Forget about it until you set up a new Mac.
|
| cmd+option+up/down/left/right for half-screen tile.
| Cmd+option+F for the equivalent of maximizing a window in
| Windows (not Mac-style fullscreen). Cmd+ctrl+left/right for
| upper-left and upper-right quarter tiles. Add shift to make
| it lower-quarter on that side. That's it. Was all available
| to me instantly via muscle memory inside a month, don't even
| think about it now. It's how I do nearly all my window
| placement/resizing.
| thatswrong0 wrote:
| Spectacle is a must have IMO.
|
| I set mine up to be Shift+Ctrl+(QWE/ASD/ZXC).. where
| Q/E/Z/C are for the corners, A/D left and right halves, W/X
| for top and bottom halves, then S in the middle for full
| screen. The mnemonic of the "box" formed by those keys on
| the keyboard is easier for me to remember.
| IncRnd wrote:
| I used Spectable as well. The newer version is called
| Rectangle.
| cj wrote:
| Check out the Mac app "Magnet" on the app store.
| uuyi wrote:
| You can add keyboard shortcuts to do that in settings if you
| really want it. It still does that. If you run apps in full
| screen mode it gives you a rudimentary tiling workspace on
| each desktop with a tiled app on it.
|
| Just long press on the green button on the window for a
| tiling menu.
| nine_k wrote:
| I can't shake off the impression that Apple does not offer
| options for better window management to make your screen more
| cluttered and thus sell you more displays.
|
| When using macOS, I _badly_ miss window management options
| available on Linux. (And don 't get me started regarding font
| rendering.)
| itslennysfault wrote:
| Honestly, for something with a disclaimer about it being a rant,
| this read pretty positive to me. Pretty sure this guy will be in
| love with Apple by the end of the year and will start weeing the
| shortcomings in windows/linux. (at least that was my journey
| anyways)
|
| For the cmd+tab thing I think it's a matter of taste and/or
| something that the author will get used to. I think I found it
| odd at first too, but now I get mad at Windows for not doing it
| that way. I love being able to switch between windows of the same
| program only.
| jonnycomputer wrote:
| All OS's should come standard with sophisticated windows
| management. I use BetterSnapTool on my Mac, have done so for
| close to 10 years now. I honestly don't know what I'd do without
| it--and I'm not doing too much fancy. But keyboard shortcutting
| to maximize, minimize, or tile (left right/corners/thirds)
| elimintes 90% of the fiddly annoying this about dealing with the
| too many windows I have open. But even this basic level of
| control that the app affords doesn't seem to be important enough
| for any of the major OSes to make standard.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _All OS 's should come standard with sophisticated windows
| management._
|
| Then people on HN would complain that the OS makers are driving
| the small utility software shops out of business with walled
| gardens and regulatory capture, or whatever the buzzword of the
| week is.
| colinmhayes wrote:
| I'm pretty sure macOS was designed to have every window in
| fullscreen 100% of the time and the user would three finger
| swipe to switch windows. Seems like having a shitty experience
| when trying to do anything besides fullscreen is kind of the
| point, "do things the way we want you to or suffer."
| danaris wrote:
| No, it was actually designed to _never_ have _any_ window in
| fullscreen. That behavior is a relatively recent addition to
| the macOS windowing model.
| colinmhayes wrote:
| Ok I'll rephrase. I'm pretty sure that apple redesigned
| their entire windowing system and related shortcuts around
| 100% fullscreen when they implemented full screen windows.
| Every short cut seems to be built with full screen windows
| in mind, especially the track pad stuff. Even the snapping
| that op complained about makes sense when considered
| through the 100% full screen paradigm.
| [deleted]
| Tagbert wrote:
| I almost never use that kind of full-screen mode in Mac OS. I
| do too much work between apps and rarely restrict myself to
| just one. Drag-n-drop has been a major interaction model in
| Mac OS for many decades
| colinmhayes wrote:
| I do most of my work in many apps too. It's pretty easy to
| remember to three finger swipe left twice to get to my
| browser from tmux etc. and is faster than other methods
| i've found. Plus I need all the screen space I can get, 16
| inches is barely big enough.
| jihadjihad wrote:
| I totally get the window switching thing, especially if one of
| the windows is minimized. In that case, hovering over the window
| using Cmd + Tab _will not_ open the window. You have to press
| Option while simultaneously letting go of the Cmd key.
|
| The only other major thing is how terrible Finder is out of the
| box. There are ways to make it less terrible, but it's still far
| less than ideal in usability.
| urbandw311er wrote:
| Yes! I provided the same comment above with a step-by-step as
| the sequence of key presses is a little hard to figure out the
| first time.
|
| I've now finally committed this to muscle memory but I doubt
| many people are aware of it -- it was really good to hear of
| somebody else using it!
| Tagbert wrote:
| What problems do you have with Finder? I feel the same about
| Windows File Explorer when I use Windows. If nothing else, I
| keep looking for a way to add a tab for a different path.
|
| Admittedly, I tend not to use that many keyboard short-cuts.
| Beyond the basics, I find the effort to learn more of them not
| worth the effort unless it is an app that I use frequently.
| File management is not one of those cases.
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