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How Intuitive Are Macs Really?

jeremyaboyd.com

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Re: How Intuitive Are Macs Really?

#561

Post by smsm42 »

lloeki wrote: post #440
samatman wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> 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. The core difference is that macOS is (originally) document-oriented. You could care less if an app is opened or not, window == document, whereas on Windows, window == program. Each progressi…

I've been using macOS for more than a decade, and I can't remember a single case of doing anything where macOS being supposedly "document-oriented" helped me in any way that wouldn't work exactly in the same way in a different OS. So I'm not sure of what use is it for me, really?

Re: How Intuitive Are Macs Really?

#562

Post by qubitcoder »

selykg wrote: post #86
sgarland wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The inability to easily go to $HOME in Finder is of great annoyance to mevwhen combined with app signing. Hashicorp seems to run into this most often - download a new version of Terraform/Packer/whatever, install to ~/.terraform.d/plugins/darwin_amd64, and MacOS sternly tells me I can't run it, with zero instructions on how to proceed. Manually type the path in Finder/Go, Option+Open the binary, then you're good to g…

You can actually just goto your home folder. Goto Finder>Preferences, then Sidebar, you'll find your home folder is stashed away in there but not checked. It'll just be your username. You can also unhide hidden dot folders as well if you wish but by default those are hidden. I don't have the instructions for that right now but a google search can find it for you if you want it.

Yes, that's probably the first thing I do in Finder on a new macOS device. I struggle to understand the reasoning behind hiding it by default, since it only contains the standard folders like Documents, Downloads, Movies, etc.

I suppose it's an attempt to conceal/abstract away the underlying file system structure, which probably makes sense if those folders are already on the sidebar.

Re: How Intuitive Are Macs Really?

#563

Post by qubitcoder »

gowld wrote: post #353
chrisseaton wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why is it that when I click Finder, nothing actually opens? I'm not sure what you're doing wrong here - when I click the Finder icon it shows me the top Finder window, or opens a new one if there is no window. Is this not what it does for you?

That's only if the app is already open. If you Quit Finder when no windows are open, the first click opens no windows. Arguably, it's intuitive: * If you know what you are doing, you can go to the menu bar or click on the icon again. * If you don't know know what you are doing, the obvious action is to blame yourself and click the icon again, which does open a window (to the Recents folder). So it's gaslighting a lit…

Try closing Finder and report back ;-).

And that was definitely a bug at one point. Whenever I encountered it years ago, I was always bemused thinking about how a typical user would ever figure out how to open Finder and get to their files. No matter how many times you clicked the dock icon, the window would never appear. Of course, I know to use Cmd+N; and nowadays, a new Finder window opens as expected when clicked.

Re: How Intuitive Are Macs Really?

#564

Post by Tsiklon »

I always thought the Mac OS way of installing apps was quite intuitive;

there’s the .DMG way where the user opens the DMG and typically drags the app to their applications directory.

I thought this was pretty clever as it’s a glorified disk image containing a .app file, a shortcut to the applications directory, a picture which usually shows an arrow with a box and some metadata that tells finder how to display the whole lot.

So the work flow is, open the .DMG, which opens a special minimal finder window showing the picture and the two icons the user then drags the .APP to their applications directory.

Then there’s the wizard format version which consists of a .PKG file which gets sent through the package manager. This like a windows installer.

Re: How Intuitive Are Macs Really?

#565

Post by jolux »

AshamedCaptain wrote: post #469
jolux wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Windows makes it pretty easy with the one "add or remove programs" section of the control panel. Except there's no guarantee that uninstallers will remove all ancillary files on Windows either, especially because Windows developers seem to have a habit of just spraying configuration files and serialized state all across the filesystem haphazardly with little concern for organization.

It's not really a Windows-only thing. Even OSes with proper packaging systems (and even MSI on Windows) will still forget a lot of files e.g. in user's home directories. How do you even decide when do you remove those?

>How do you even decide when do you remove those?

I think as a developer you have to take pains to keep them all in one place, and delete them when uninstalling.

Re: How Intuitive Are Macs Really?

#566

Post by qubitcoder »

m463 wrote: post #408
pmx wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Same here. I just learned about Cmd+down today after using macOS for nearly two decades. I've always used Cmd+o (as in, "open").

But it makes sense. Especially when considering that an Application on macOS is basically a folder (e.g. right click on an app, and select "Show Package Contents"), so navigating "down" into an app would open it.

Re: How Intuitive Are Macs Really?

#567

Post by qubitcoder »

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…

For 1):

In Finder, you can go to _View > as Icons_ (or simply ⌘+1).

Then you can use ⌘ +/- (command plus/minus) to zoom in and out, respectively.

Re: How Intuitive Are Macs Really?

#568

Post by qubitcoder »

dhosek wrote: post #458
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…

The home directory is one of my most frequent destinations in Finder, and the first thing I enable in Finder (Preferences > Sidebar > ). And then I move it to the very top of the sidebar.

I'd argue that removing the home directory by default results in more confusion (as I've encountered multiple times now when helping others switch to macOS).

Re: How Intuitive Are Macs Really?

#569

Post by qubitcoder »

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…

To be fair, I don't think I've ejected something by dragging it to the trash can in eons (well, at least it was so long ago that I don't remember).

Re: How Intuitive Are Macs Really?

#570

Post by fukmbas »

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…

Installing an application is even worse. Drag here, long click there. What the hell, just install it
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