ITT: Let me tell you why you should take my anecdotal evidence and subjective preferences serious while I also dismiss your anecdotal evidence and subjective preferences.
Impressions from a first-time Mac user
291–300 of 756 posts
Re: Impressions from a first-time Mac user
#292Earlier quoted context omitted.
I had exactly the opposite experience. Homebrew chewed up my computer a couple times back when it installed everything alongside OS files. The only sane way to get rid of it was to reinstall the OS.
> back when it installed everything alongside OS files. Whoa—I don't recall it ever doing that. Some time before ~2012?
Since the start Homebrew installed in /usr/local instead of a dedicated directory (which it now does); it literally always had a worse design than the earlier systems Fink and MacPorts. The only reason people used it is that it was written in Ruby and at the time there was a generation of new Rails developers that for some reason only wanted to use tools written in Ruby.
Re: Impressions from a first-time Mac user
#293Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe "natural" scroll direction vs the old scroll-bar orientation.
Yes exactly.
I've seen this mention between comments and the article, but there is such an option! Or am I thinking of something else? If you go to "System Preferences" > Mouse > unclick "Scroll Direction: Natural".
Am I missing something?
Re: Impressions from a first-time Mac user
#294I am overwhelmed with how many of the comments in these discussions are of the form: 'this thing is super hard to do on a Mac' responded to by, 'actually it's super easy; all you have to do is cast this magic spell.'
OP here. This is why I wrote the article.
Re: Impressions from a first-time Mac user
#295[deleted]
Re: Impressions from a first-time Mac user
#296My wife just switched from being a life-long Windows user to a Mac last week. The two biggest frustrations according to her are: Cmd+O to open a file and window management. And as a long time Mac user myself, I completely agree.
Re: Impressions from a first-time Mac user
#297Earlier quoted context omitted.
I can't get used to the fact that I can't alt-tab to a minimized window. Nor can I figure out how to switch to any particular minimized window. You have literally no way of knowing that a minimized window exists other than right-clicking the dock icon, or going to the "Window" menu after you switched to the application. The dock was fine 20 years ago when they released OSX, but they've literally done nothing to make…
Instead of minimizing windows, put them on a separate virtual desktop. Or close them. I never minimize windows on purpose. I think the only reason the concept exists is because it predates virtual desktop switching. Also, instead of Alt-Tab, flick four fingers up or down and select the window of interest.
Keyboard shortcuts are IMO superior to gestures and are objectively faster.
The whole virtual desktop can get quite clunky fast when you have multiple windows opened or ephemeral programs that you temporarily need.
Re: Impressions from a first-time Mac user
#298> On the other hand, macOS has a weird snapping implementation where you need to click and hold the green “zoom” button, then choose to “tile” left or right. But, once you pick another window to fill the other half, both of those windows (together as one) move to their own virtual desktop. I want them split on my current desktop, not on a separate desktop.
> Also, unlike Windows or Linux, you can’t “maximize” a window using the green “zoom” button, it will only make the current window fullscreen (and again, on its own desktop). Confusingly, you need to again click and hold the green “zoom” button, then choose “Zoom”. Apple calls the green button “zoom” in their documentation, but its default function is fullscreen, not zoom.
Apple keeps changing the green button, but with Monterey, if you hold down Option then hover over the green its menu options become:
- Zoom
- Move Window to Left Side of Screen
- Move Window to Right Side of Screen
Which I think effect the behavior the author wants. In general, the Option key is the gateway to additional behaviors in the macOS GUI. I can't find a way to make this the default behavior of the green button, but what you can do is add keyboard shortcuts for them.
System Preferences... > Keyboard > Shortcuts > +
Application: All Applications
Menu Title: Move Window to Left Side of Screen
Keyboard Shortcut: something unique such as control-command-left-arrow.
The title bar can also be double-clicked to zoom (default is to minimize, but there's a preference under System Preferences... > Dock & Menu Bar to set it to zoom).
Re: Impressions from a first-time Mac user
#299My recommendations for Mac Users: * Put the Dock left or right, vertical space is precious (trust me, do it for a week and then decide) * Setup Hot-Corners (Settings -> Mission Control -> Hot Corners) - Upper-Right Corner as Mission Control (Must be upper right so spaces are immediately shown) - Lower-Left Corner as Application Windows - just fling your mouse curser into the corner (use std. gestures on the trackpad)…
Hot Corners for Mission Control and App windows is interesting! Gonna try that today.
I've had hot corners set up this way since 10.3. I feel lost on a computer without them set up.
I'd also recommend a hot corner for "show desktop".
Re: Impressions from a first-time Mac user
#300There's a lot of people in comments defending macOS saying that the difference in switching between operating systems will lead to a bad experience no matter what and people just need to power through and learn the new system. I'll say that I've used Windows and macOS both personally and professionally for two decades now (longer for Windows). I'd consider myself a power user in both OSes, I know the keyboard shortcu…
How does
> My experience is that Windows has far better UX for pretty most end users.
followed by
> I have 4 monitors connected to my Windows computer.
Make any sense? Using four monitors isn't something a lot of users do.
Anyways: How many monitor your computer supports depends on your graphics card. This is true for every OS. You should check the manual for your Mac to see how many external monitors at which resolution it supports.
> Windows explorer feels way more productive than finder. It still bothers me that I can't cut and paste folders by default.
You can move a file or a folder by using Opt + Cmd + V. It is basically the same functionality with different shortcuts. I guess Mac users feel the same way on about Windows.
The best UX for end users is the one they are used to. I think macOS has some positives. Windows Home is outright user hostile with all the ads Microsoft is putting in it. And they change the UI with every major release macOS is relatively stable and if you learned how to use a Mac 10 years ago you could use a mac today. Windows on the other hand changed a lot in this time.