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How Intuitive Are Macs Really?

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Re: How Intuitive Are Macs Really?

#311

Post by robertoandred »

ryanmccullagh wrote: post #284
rchaud wrote: post #14

I bought a Mac in 2014 after a lifetime of using Windows. I never understood why people called it easier to use than Windows. Maybe this sentiment is a holdover from an earlier era when people would mindlessly run executables and zip files attached in emails and AIM messages. From a UI perspective, it's 90% identical to windows. From a UX perspective though, something fundamental like Finder is still not up to the jo…

And why can't you ever 'close' Finder? One can only hide it.

Why can't you close Windows Explorer?

Re: How Intuitive Are Macs Really?

#312

Post by viktorcode »

If a heavy Windows user finds themselves more at home there than on macOS, it's great! Just use bootcamp, and let's hope we'll have one for Apple Silicon soon too.

Just please, please, don't try making macOS into something that works anything like Windows. There are people who like it this way.

Re: How Intuitive Are Macs Really?

#313

Post by jrockway »

michaelmrose wrote: post #222
TulliusCicero wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, by default Finder seems to hide directory structure from you. This seems to be Apple thinking it'll confuse people if they can see 'up' directories, but I think just as often it confuses people like me who are trying and failing to go up. I use all three major desktop OSes regularly now, and overall Windows just feels like the most user-friendly and straightforward, though of course it too has issues (e.g. vari…

Linux rarely crashes. What it does do is handle low memory situations really badly. Simultaneously browsers have got way more memory hungry. I have left firefox overnight and had a tab decide it would like to eat all my memory. Linux does have an oom killer to deal with out of memory situations but it will kick in halfway to the heat death of the universe and you will reboot first. Oom looks just like a crash the UI…

I like how the OOM killer stays up to date with its list of the worst possible processes to kill first. Back in the day, it used to prioritize X, bash, and ssh. Now it extends that to include newer pieces of essential infrastructure like "kubelet".

It's careful attention to detail like this that keeps Linux relevant for the next generation!

(I'm kidding, of course. I was recently trying to reproduce some Node test flakiness that only happened on CI, which has limited resources and exposes timing sensitivity. I had trouble getting this to happen on my 32 core workstation, so I decided to run 100 copies of the tests in parallel which definitely reproduced the issue -- and ran the machine out of memory. The OOM killer kicked in, and chose to kill all the extra Node processes without killing my SSH session, which was nice of it.)

Re: How Intuitive Are Macs Really?

#315

Post by throwaddzuzxd »

robertoandred wrote: post #306
throwaddzuzxd wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Finder is atrocious. It's the worst default macOS app and probably the worst program period I've ever used. It's been so dumbed down that it's basically unusable for anyone slightly experienced. - There's no way to create an empty file - There's no easy way to cut a file/folder (Cmd-x doesn't work) - There's no (?) way to keep everything consistently sorted and aligned - ~~Tags are useless and just take up space…

What on earth is an "empty" file? And yes you can cut. Cmd-C, Cmd-Opt-V. And yes, you can sort and align. Just go to the View menu. And yes, there's a way to go the parent folder. SEVERAL: - Go -> Enclosing Folder - Cmd-Up - Right click on the window title and choose any enclosing folder from the tree - Show the Path Bar and double click any enclosing folder from the tree I don't think you've ever actually used a Mac…

> I don't think you've ever actually used a Mac.

For the last 2 years I've used a Mac professionally and personally. I switched from Windows because lots of things are better. Finder is not one of them. And your answers should give you a hint why it sucks.

An empty file is a file that is empty, with the name and extension I chose on the moment I need it.

>And yes you can cut. Cmd-C, Cmd-Opt-V.

With the wrong keyboard shortcut, the correct one universally being Cmd-X.

>And yes, there's a way to go the parent folder. SEVERAL: > >- Go -> Enclosing Folder > >- Cmd-Up > >- Right click on the window title and choose any enclosing folder from the tree > >- Show the Path Bar and double click any enclosing folder from the tree

Several ways, none being the correct one. Nice. I know Apple likes hard to discover shortcuts but this is ridiculous.

Re: How Intuitive Are Macs Really?

#316

Post by robertoandred »

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #115
klodolph wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First, not going to claim that macOS is "intuitive", because my in my experience, "intuitive" usually means very different things to different people. As a long-time Mac, Windows, and Linux user... I'll say that there are plenty of random broken things on the Mac, but there are also a few nice things that work very consistently on the Mac, but you'd never think to try them because you're used to them not working on L…

Those proxy icons are brilliant. I only discovered them a short while ago but use them all the time now. It’s a shame they are hidden in Big Sur.

100% agreed. You really notice their absence in apps that lack them. cough / vscode / cough

Re: How Intuitive Are Macs Really?

#317

Post by rchaud »

coldtea wrote: post #238
rchaud wrote: post #14

I bought a Mac in 2014 after a lifetime of using Windows. I never understood why people called it easier to use than Windows. Maybe this sentiment is a holdover from an earlier era when people would mindlessly run executables and zip files attached in emails and AIM messages. From a UI perspective, it's 90% identical to windows. From a UX perspective though, something fundamental like Finder is still not up to the jo…

> Why is it that when I click Finder, nothing actually opens? I have to hit Option+N to actually display a Finder window. Clicking Finder will open a new Finder window if none was created thus far, or bring up a minimized window. > Don't even get me started on the sort options. What kind of file manager applies a Sort view to every single directory, instead of the one you actually set the Sort view to? Not sure what…

I should have written it more clearly. It applies the sort view globally to all folders. What I want is the sort applied only to the folder I'm currently in.

Re: How Intuitive Are Macs Really?

#318

Post by KaoruAoiShiho »

throwaddzuzxd wrote: post #205
rchaud wrote: post #14

I bought a Mac in 2014 after a lifetime of using Windows. I never understood why people called it easier to use than Windows. Maybe this sentiment is a holdover from an earlier era when people would mindlessly run executables and zip files attached in emails and AIM messages. From a UI perspective, it's 90% identical to windows. From a UX perspective though, something fundamental like Finder is still not up to the jo…

The Finder is atrocious. It's the worst default macOS app and probably the worst program period I've ever used. It's been so dumbed down that it's basically unusable for anyone slightly experienced. - There's no way to create an empty file - There's no easy way to cut a file/folder (Cmd-x doesn't work) - There's no (?) way to keep everything consistently sorted and aligned - ~~Tags are useless and just take up space…

Also difficult/impossible to smart merge 2 folders, they always replace each other.

Re: How Intuitive Are Macs Really?

#319

Post by mthoms »

throwaddzuzxd wrote: post #298
noahmasur wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

@coldtea already pointed out some tips, but some others to note: > - There's no (?) way to keep everything consistently sorted and aligned Press CMD-J to open up the visual option, you can auto group and sort, snap to grid (unsorted), choose a default view. > - No "parent folder"... You can either press CMD-UpArrow or just right click on the title bar to see all the folders above it. > It has less cool features (no t…

> Press CMD-J to open up the visual option, you can auto group and sort, snap to grid (unsorted), choose a default view. I found this menu but missed the "default view" button, thanks! It still boggles my mind that "non aligned on the grid" is the default though. It's a mess.

>It still boggles my mind that "non aligned on the grid" is the default though. It's a mess.

This infuriates me every time. This should be the default for the desktop (maybe) and absolutely no where else.

Re: How Intuitive Are Macs Really?

#320

Post by tomtheelder »

samatman wrote: post #269
rchaud wrote: post #14

I bought a Mac in 2014 after a lifetime of using Windows. I never understood why people called it easier to use than Windows. Maybe this sentiment is a holdover from an earlier era when people would mindlessly run executables and zip files attached in emails and AIM messages. From a UI perspective, it's 90% identical to windows. From a UX perspective though, something fundamental like Finder is still not up to the jo…

> Why is it that when I click Finder, nothing actually opens? This would be an example of the 10% of the UI which isn't identical. One of the fundamental differences between macOS and Windows is the menu bar. There's only one at a time, and it belongs to the program which has the focus. A corollary of this is that you don't need a window to have a program. It's not just Finder, most macOS programs are perfectly happy…

There's nothing at all wrong with the behavior, and it's perfectly logical once you understand what is going on, but it's certainly not intuitive. It's a bit of an odd mental model that's (as far as I can tell) specific to OSX.

I find OSX to be generally pretty logical and easy to understand, but certainly no more _intuitive_ than something like Windows. Another way of saying this: if I took someone who didn't know how to use a desktop OS, I wouldn't be any more confident sitting them down in front of a Mac.

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