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How Intuitive Are Macs Really?

jeremyaboyd.com

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Re: How Intuitive Are Macs Really?

#401

Post by tsimionescu »

rjayatilleka wrote: post #355
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…

FYI you can do cut in Mac. Do Cmd-C to copy and the Cmd-Option-V to cut-paste. For whatever reason, Windows has cut attached to selecting the file, but Mac has it attached to pasting the file.

> For whatever reason, Windows has cut attached to selecting the file

That is the universal way copy/cut&paste work, everywhere outside the Mac Finder.

Re: How Intuitive Are Macs Really?

#402

Post by carlob »

ehecatl42 wrote: post #156
carlob wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I switched to Linux a while ago because I was annoyed at Apple for a number of reasons so I'm not exactly an Apple fanboy. However regarding your 1) there is one thing I'm sorely missing and that's QuickLook. No matter what finder view you are in, if you are in a folder with pictures (or even Word documents) you can press the space bar to see an almost full screen preview. Arrows for navigation work as they would if…

If you use GNOME there is sushi: https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/gnome-sushi-mac-quick-for-ubuntu

That's cool! Thanks!

Re: How Intuitive Are Macs Really?

#403

Post by dragonwriter »

samatman wrote: post #289
Kwpolska wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They live in the tray, aka notification area.

That's not the same thing though. macOS has those also, programs can live on the menu bar. But in macOS, closing the last window basically never exits the program. Even for a program like Element, which is just an Electron view, closing the window doesn't quit the program, even though what's left over is useless: there's no way to relaunch the Electron pane except to quit and start it again. This is just how macOS wo…

> But in macOS, closing the last window basically never exits the program

There's plenty (an increasing number, IME) of Windows apps that work that way, but mostly if an app exists to facilitate some kind of user interaction via a UI and there's no worries open there's no reason for it to be open, so no windows = closed app is a fairly same convention.

> Even for a program like Element, which is just an Electron view, closing the window doesn't quit the program, even though what's left over is useless:

I think that last part pretty well illustrates why “closing all windows is not closing the app”, while it make sense in many cases, is not a great model to be applied inflexibly.

Re: How Intuitive Are Macs Really?

#404

Post by jbverschoor »

speeder wrote: post #161

I concluded Mac interface designers are out of touch with reality when I found out that to "eject" pendrives you had to drag them to the trash bin. I mean, now they do show a convenient "eject" symbol next to the name of the remove-able drive on the Finder, but the "drag to trash" thing still work, and it always surprises people, they always assume it means you want to delete all files in a disk, not that you want to…

It's to "remove the icon from the desktop"

Re: How Intuitive Are Macs Really?

#405

Post by wlesieutre »

sjg007 wrote: post #229
wlesieutre wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed on the defaults, if you want to improve this there are a few related options to be aware of: 1) Edit the toolbar and add "Path" dropdown 2) View menu -> Show path bar 3) Cmd + up/down arrows to navigate up and down the path hierarchy But of course, when talking about how intuitive Macs are, having all that hidden by default doesn't exactly make it easy to understand where you are in the filesystem. It feels a…

Interesting.. integrate through the filesystem vs peer to peer.

But not peer to peer in any sort of automated syncing way. You'd end up with different versions of documents in different apps as you sent it from one to another.

Re: How Intuitive Are Macs Really?

#406

Post by alanbernstein »

yesenadam wrote: post #196
carlob wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I switched to Linux a while ago because I was annoyed at Apple for a number of reasons so I'm not exactly an Apple fanboy. However regarding your 1) there is one thing I'm sorely missing and that's QuickLook. No matter what finder view you are in, if you are in a folder with pictures (or even Word documents) you can press the space bar to see an almost full screen preview. Arrows for navigation work as they would if…

SPACE works for previewing many/most types of files, not just images! Video, audio, text, pdf, html etc. Folders too.

It also works with plugins for many other types, e.g. https://github.com/vibrog/quicklook-gpx

Re: How Intuitive Are Macs Really?

#407

Post by dsego »

jlund-molfese wrote: post #388
dsego wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Usually the option key uncovers more available options in context menus. > How does one discover Cmd-Opt-V? Keyboard shortcuts are not usually meant to be "discovered" (how do you discover ctrl+x?). You can learn and memorize them. Although, there is a common theme with the option/alt modifier on the mac.

Microsoft Word is an example of software which allows keyboard shortcut discovery pretty well [1] [1] https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/keyboard-shortcuts...

> Press the Alt key to display the ribbon shortcuts

Seems pretty similar to apple, you have to know that pressing Alt shows additional information.

Re: How Intuitive Are Macs Really?

#408

Post by m463 »

pmx wrote: post #264
tomp wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> - Pressing enter renames a file rather than opens it. What? Press space instead... mostly will "open" the file (preview it).

cmd and down arrow to actually open it. I'm used to it now but it still annoys me!

I always use cmd-o - never knew about cmd-down - it seems to do the same thing - why a different keystroke?

Re: How Intuitive Are Macs Really?

#409

Post by Steltek »

robertoandred wrote: post #350
rchaud wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can. explorer.exe may still be running as a process, but visually its presence can be eliminated from the GUI.

Which sounds just like the Finder?

Except I get a new window when I click on the Explorer icon. So no, it's the opposite of Finder's fail-silent behavior.
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