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How Intuitive Are Macs Really?

jeremyaboyd.com

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Re: How Intuitive Are Macs Really?

#451

Post by IshKebab »

jbverschoor wrote: post #404
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"

That doesn't really make it any more reasonable.

Re: How Intuitive Are Macs Really?

#452

Post by geraltofrivia »

philsnow wrote: post #300
geraltofrivia wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

the only possible thing I can think of that can explain this is that if you cut and then forget about the item, it just disappears eventually (reboot, copy other item, whatever). that's one thing when it's copied text from some web page, but quite another when it's a file or folder.

I'm not sure if other OS's do this. If you cut something on Windows Explorer (files or folders), they get somewhat greyed out. If you then paste them somewhere, they move. If you don't -- as in, you restart the computer, cut something else etc, the files stop being greyed out and return to their normal color. It's intuitive, and you don't lose your files.

Re: How Intuitive Are Macs Really?

#453

Post by arm »

tsimionescu wrote: post #395
dsego wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody is forcing you to use macs. Doesn't make the mac any less intuitive if it doesn't follow what alternative operating systems are doing.

It does make it less intuitive if it is hiding common interactions behind keyboard shortcuts (cmd+up instead of an Up button) or if it is inconsistent with common paradigms (different shortcuts for copy vs cut + single shortcut to paste is universal outside finder, which uses an entirely different paradigm).

> It does make it less intuitive if it is hiding common interactions behind keyboard shortcuts (cmd+up instead of an Up button)

Navigating to the parent folder isn’t exclusive to a keyboard shortcut (⌘↑). It’s also accessible from the menu bar (Go → Enclosing Folder).

Re: How Intuitive Are Macs Really?

#454

Post by ARandumGuy »

killtimeatwork wrote: post #33
arolihas wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that you can’t create a key binding for a window or even name it is ridiculous.

If the app lauching the window is placed as an icon in the task bar, you can pop its window app with Windows + (number of icon, counting from the start menu button). It doesn't work for some misbehaving apps which I guess didn't bother to do proper windows integration (Spyder IDE is one such example), but overall works great.

Wait, what? I never new you could do that! That's a super nice feature.

Re: How Intuitive Are Macs Really?

#455

Post by frosted-flakes »

rashil2000 wrote: post #423
mcv wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not that Windows Explorer is much better, though. I hate how it prefers to display everything as icons instead of details. How it hides files and directories, doesn't show extensions, etc. But there's one thing it gets right: it shows you where you are, and you can edit that to go anywhere. Finder can do that too, but it doesn't show you it can do that. You have to know. I recently got a Macbook from work, parti…

> I hate how it prefers to display everything as icons instead of details. It's actually the opposite. The view for each folder is dependent on what's inside, and if Explorer is unable to decide, it defaults to Details view.

And even then it's easy to change the defaults for each media type (documents, music, photos, etc.).

Re: How Intuitive Are Macs Really?

#456

Post by frosted-flakes »

dsego wrote: post #441
tsimionescu wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Everywhere being windows and linux file managers that copied windows?

Even on Mac OS cut works like Windows, except in Finder.

Re: How Intuitive Are Macs Really?

#457

Post by city41 »

baryphonic wrote: post #68
lordnacho wrote: post #21

Once I got to a certain place in my coding knowledge, I stopped caring so much about the different OSes. Once you see the abstractions you know what layer to look for. Is the thing a UI problem or a network config problem? Normally it's clear once you've coded a bit. I like my MacBook mainly because of the screen, and a little bit because of the touchpad. Those are both hardware considerations rather than OS. In term…

I don't really care between macOS or various *nix, but I really despise using Windows. The last time I seriously used Windows (granted, probably about seven years ago), I was astonished that the OS still required (or at least strongly urged) me to reboot after I installed anything. Small little shoddy UI quirks on Windows kept me frustrated, e.g. not being able to find anything in the control panel, or especially tha…

I have one Windows machine for a game I play. The number of updates it has to install, how long it takes, and the fact it has to take place during shutdown is so obnoxious. How do people put up with this? I could never use Windows as my daily driver due to this alone. Ubuntu quietly updates in the background, and only needs to reboot if the kernel got updated. I think I reboot my main machine after an update on the order of once or twice a year.

Re: How Intuitive Are Macs Really?

#458

Post by dhosek »

drewg123 wrote: post #96

I just helped a friend who is a lifetime windows user set up her new MBP M1. I was reminded how un-intuitive things are and how useful UI elements are hidden in the name of "simplicity". A lot of it for her is centered around the finder and accessing files in general. The two biggest issues she had was: 1) finder not easily acting as an image viewer. Eg, she had an SD card from her camera, and wanted to quickly scan…

1. If you select a file and press space, it opens a preview. Not just for images, but for anything that has a registered preview (so, for example, install word, press space on a .docx file and you can look inside without actually launching word). When I have to use Windows, the lack of an equivalent functionality distressing.

2. The home directory usually isn't that useful or interesting to navigate to in practice. I rarely want to go there in my own usage. In finder, if you drag a folder to the sidebar, it will appear in all open dialogs which is handy for frequently used folders wherever they might be (I think I had to do this manually when I installed Sync on my computers but Dropbox did it of its own volition)

Re: How Intuitive Are Macs Really?

#459

Post by [deleted] »

bayindirh wrote: post #291
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…

> There's no way to create an empty file This is one of the features I never miss and don't use on any other DE (like KDE). I just open the app, create the file and save. Maybe it's just habit, but I personally doesn't find it as a needed feature. > There's no easy way to cut a file/folder (Cmd-x doesn't work) Just drag it where you want while pressing CMD? I know it's not cut but it prevents a lot of errors I think.…

[deleted]

Re: How Intuitive Are Macs Really?

#460

Post by lucideer »

gowld wrote: post #358
lucideer wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is a common view held by experienced computer users, because they don't consider which parts of their own usage patterns are a component of their advanced knowledge, and which are inherent to all users. For example: an experienced user is more likely to notice that closing a window in macOS backgrounds the app, and more likely to figure out how to fully exit the app process completely (either via Cmd+Q o…

> an inexperienced computer user will likely leave all apps they use open all the time There are two kinds of novice users: * Leave all apps and windows open forever * Close everything as soon as context switches, avoiding with multitasking. You can also blend the two, but closing all windows you leave, but leave open forever when the system forces a switch. > grow more quickly accustomed to having to Option+N Novice…

> You can also blend the two, but closing all windows you leave, but leave open forever when the system forces a switch.

This was my point. I don't think "Leave all windows open forever" is specifically a type of novice user: I've met expert users who do this. But I was rather focused on the "Leave all macOS apps open forever" not because they're content with apps being open, but simply because it's non-obvious that the apps are running.

e.g. my mother is a "close everything" user: she even manually logs out of all online sessions immediately whenever she's finished with that tab (often entering credentials again many times in a browsing session if she needs to return to a site). She really can't stand having multiple things active simultaneously. She leaves all apps running (windowlessly) all the time on macOS. She would not be happy if I told her they were still running in the background.

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