441–450 of 638 posts
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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.
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> - There's no way to create an empty file Create it for what? To use to launch the app that handles it? Just open the respective app and save an empty or unedited file. > - There's no easy way to cut a file/folder (Cmd-x doesn't work) Copy as regularly (Cmd-C), and use Option-Cmd-V to move the file where you want to. > - There's no (?) way to keep everything consistently sorted and aligned Not sure what you mean. >…
So basically "you're holding it wrong".
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…
CMD+C then CMD+ALT+V
I think of it not as copy-paste vs cut-paste but mark-copy vs mark-move.
It makes it consistent with drag and drop where alt is the modifier for copy vs move (the default depending on whether it's same disk vs another one)
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I actually find MacOS applications far more discoverable than equivalent windows or Unix tools. That's precisely thanks to the consistent menu structure, which always includes a help menu with a search option, including both the help files as well as the menu itself. Having help show you where to find a particular option so you can learn it for next time is precisely what I want.
It's better than nothing, and yeah, probably better than the competition as well. But then there are core features like "a file icon on a document window can be dragged exactly like a file icon in the finder" that you can use macOS for years and never find. That's before they started hiding the file icons in Big Sur! macOS is packed with little things like that.
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Amongst other gripes people have mentioned (and I agree with), here's another: cut. There does not seem to be a way to cut and paste a file/folder. The best I could figure out is to drag the icons, hold down the finger, and move the cursor to the desired folder on the sidebar (or another window) and release the finger. This is either extremely difficult to pull of, or I am less dexterous than I think I am. Why not ha…
This was one of my big gripes about MacOS when I had to use it for work. Evidently what you need to do is copy the file, then hold down OPT (along with CMD-V) when you paste it. You'll hear a sound effect that tells you it worked. If you right click to open the context menu, and press OPT, you'll even see the "paste item" option turn into "move item". It's 100% the wrong way to do it. Maddeningly wrong. In a world wh…
This post illuminates two ways in which users' expectations of computers have changed since the '80s, which is when this UX was designed: 1) Users don't deal with external storage nearly as much anymore, so the "disk image" paradigm feels out of place. Before the Internet, it was more common to insert a floppy disk, drag the application from the disk to the hard drive, and then eject it again. Users were accustomed t…
Spot on. I had a similar thought. Another major change is that the App Store is now the default way for 99% of users to download and install software. Pre-App Store (say, in the Tiger-Snow Leopard days), Mac users with even limited experience knew the `Mount DMG → Drag to Applications` ritual. At the time, it was one of the two primary ways of installing Mac software, the other being using Package Installer to run .p…
https://portableapps.com/ started around that time: builds of open source programs that ran out of a directory without any installation. They were meant for flash drives, but worked just from the desktop or wherever as well.
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I actually find MacOS applications far more discoverable than equivalent windows or Unix tools. That's precisely thanks to the consistent menu structure, which always includes a help menu with a search option, including both the help files as well as the menu itself. Having help show you where to find a particular option so you can learn it for next time is precisely what I want.
It's better than nothing, and yeah, probably better than the competition as well. But then there are core features like "a file icon on a document window can be dragged exactly like a file icon in the finder" that you can use macOS for years and never find. That's before they started hiding the file icons in Big Sur! macOS is packed with little things like that.
I think it's fine that they hid it, since even before, the things you can do with it (dragging, cmd/ctrl-clicking) were already hidden.
The only old functionality that is lost with Big Sur is that you could glance at the icon to see if there are unsaved changes (if so, the icon would be dimmed). But you can still tell by looking for the dot in the red close button.
Recent M1 user here - I had a PowerPC mac back in the Leopard/Tiger days. I thought OSx would have come on leaps and bounds since then. It's....more or less unchanged. As well as this crazy installer thing, there's quite a bit about Macs that just seems off.. My list of "things that don't seem right" as a long term Windows/ChromeOS user - Window snapping isn't built in outside of fullscreen mode (seriously?!) - Sleep…
Window snapping exists in macOS, hold the option key while hovering over the zoom button and the snapping options pop up in a tooltip. Personally, I like that macOS is more or less unchanged. It’s familiar, and I don’t have to worry about big sweeping changes like Windows 8 or Gnome 3 and Gnome 40. For everything else there’s usually a tiny utility app you can install the gives you the functionality and runs in the b…
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> consistent, discoverable I think that's what 'intuitive' means, practically, in this context.
I think he quoted intuitive because that's an effectively meaningless claim. To someone who spent two decades in Windows, everything Windows-like will be "intuitive". That doesn't make it a universal truth.
Of course, physical things are losing buttons. I guess kids will refer to things as 'tap the tappy spot' or some such.
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Amongst other gripes people have mentioned (and I agree with), here's another: cut. There does not seem to be a way to cut and paste a file/folder. The best I could figure out is to drag the icons, hold down the finger, and move the cursor to the desired folder on the sidebar (or another window) and release the finger. This is either extremely difficult to pull of, or I am less dexterous than I think I am. Why not ha…
Drag and drop has steadily gotten harder to use over the years. I have no explanation for it, it's maddening. Not cutting files is deliberate, I think. What should the OS do if you cut files, and then don't paste them and cut something else? Put them back, put them in the Trash? A sibling comment pointed out that there's a magic incantation for "paste and delete", but clearly the Mac way to do it is drag and drop. Wh…
> What should the OS do if you cut files, and then don't paste them and cut something else?
Windows, and common linux file managers leave the files in place in this scenario. Its not the most intuitive thing, but people (i think) understand this is what'll happen if you cut something and then cut something again.
> magic incantation
About that. I love how a combination of control, alt, command, function and tab keys can make you into a keyboard ninja but I also can't help but feel that it's a bit much. For the first few months after getting a mac, about 20-30% of my search engine queries were about these keyboard shortcuts. It's a steep slope. And the combinations often do something very fundamental that you often use tens of time a day. For instance, I was today years old when I realize that 'command+down' opens a file.