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Impressions from a first-time Mac user

loganmarchione.com

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Re: Impressions from a first-time Mac user

#331

Post by saurik »

postingposts wrote: post #318
snorrah wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What a useless comment. The post is from someone new to Macs. You have completely failed to grasp the context and got immediately defensive.

Quoted post unavailable.

> > The post is from someone new to Macs.

> No it’s from someone new to the MacOS GUI. That’s it.

I don't understand how these are meaningfully different. Is your objection that you expected the user to have previously been well-versed with macOS via a Hackintosh?

> This person is new to computers in general and maybe is a longtime windows-user but that’s all they are.

You have, in fact, iterated the opposite cases from being a first-time Mac user: either they are a first time computer user, or they are a long-time computer user, just with a different OS (likely Windows).

Re: Impressions from a first-time Mac user

#332

Post by noizejoy »

Serow225 wrote: post #203
rwc wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not that it's right or wrong, but the behavior dates back to the very first implementations of Mac OS and Windows. Mac OS has always been an application switching interface, and Windows has been a window switching interface. Takes getting used to the paradigm shift.

the Mac OS model just doesn’t work for my ADHD brain. I much prefer the Windows model, it feels much more natural fit for how my brain works :)

> natural fit for how my brain works

and that is a perfectly sensible way of looking at this (and many other) fanboi discussions over the decades.

But then again, if such sensibility ever took hold in the majority of humans, it would be the end of social media as we know it :-)

Re: Impressions from a first-time Mac user

#334

Post by saurik »

forbiddenvoid wrote: post #231
ChicagoBoy11 wrote: post #2

Despite the warning, I didn't find it nearly as "ranty" as the author cautioned, and instead seemed like a fairly comprehensive and fair take on his experience. Having gone through the same thing myself several years ago, the UI aspect of it is something that I'd be curious to see how it develops for the author. I think it is not uncommon for Windows folk to find the windowing experience on macs rather painful, at le…

I'm now on 7 years since the first MBP provided to me by an employer. It's just as terrible as ever. I would not use an Apple product outside of work, despite some thousands of hours using one over the last several years. Everything about using a Mac feels patronizing and intended to make me work harder than I should to do the most simple tasks.

I had a similar experience: I was semi-forced to use a Mac for over a decade due to how much of my iOS-focused development work started to rely on tooling people only made for macOS, but when the pandemic started (due to being stuck at a desk all the time)--and now mostly working on non-"mobile" software-- I switched back to Windows and it was relieving.

Re: Impressions from a first-time Mac user

#335

Post by sooheon »

kevincox wrote: post #290
Aardwolf wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not a mac user (but a linux user who chooses desktops with the windowing paradigms of like windows 2000 or so plus multiple desktops) so have no idea how it's like in practice, but: These days it's very common for more than half your work to take place in a browser, with many browser windows, each having many tabs Every window of the browser almost is like its own application for the user, yet they're all from th…

I agree. While I admit that I have only lightly used macOS but for my last job I find it hard to get used to this multidimensional switching. I think it might have made sense where you had a few documents and a few emails and a few folders. But now I have 3 browser windows and 3 terminals and my brain can't get used to the fact that a video call window is in the same group as my reference docs but my text editor is i…

It's just the difference between a depth=2 tree and a flat list. What's better depends on your access patterns, but at least semantically, the tree makes a lot more sense to me.

Re: Impressions from a first-time Mac user

#336

Post by joeman1000 »

loganmarchione wrote: post #308
joeman1000 wrote: post #204

Nice article. Coincidentally we have the same computers, even the same specs. I’ve been on macOS for 11 years now, so I’m biased. On window snapping: why on earth would you want to obscure your desktop with two huge panes? I usually have ‘small’ applications on my desktop ‘workspace’ (terminal, reminders, messages, finder). I always see ex-windows users cluttering their desktop workspace and not utilising more worksp…

> On window snapping: why on earth would you want to obscure your desktop with two huge panes? OP here. I typically have a browser with documentation on one half, and a terminal/IDE in the other. I'm on an external monitor, so I want the space.

No doubt that multiplexing is useful, and macOS is NOT as good as something like BSPWM or EXWM. I didn’t mean that multiplexing/tiling/snapping is not useful. I meant that I don’t know why windows makes you multiplex over your desktop. It just clutters things. I know there’s Win+d to get to desktop (or something), but it just feels wrong to have many layers. It’s like a pile of junk. I consider it to be a real desktop in this sense. A window is a piece of paper, something on the desktop is an appliance (clock, pen, whatever). I wouldn’t want 5-10 pieces of paper laying on top of all my appliances. I want them spread out in separate spaces on the desk.

Re: Impressions from a first-time Mac user

#337

Post by sooheon »

olyjohn wrote: post #64
rwc wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not that it's right or wrong, but the behavior dates back to the very first implementations of Mac OS and Windows. Mac OS has always been an application switching interface, and Windows has been a window switching interface. Takes getting used to the paradigm shift.

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…

1. CMD-tab to application with minimized window.

2. Ctrl-down for "Mission Control > Application windows"

3. Down arrow to select minimized

4. Enter

This even works when all windows of application are minimized.

It's a tradeoff: takes more keypresses to access the minimized window, but prevents the minimized window from getting in the way most of the time. Which is what you want if you've minimized it.

Re: Impressions from a first-time Mac user

#338

Post by sooheon »

olyjohn wrote: post #115
nerdjon wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Has Mac changed its default settings? The Dock shows you any minimized windows on the right. If for some reason this is no longer default (I don't remember the last time I setup a new Mac and didn't carry over settings) Right Click the dock >> dock preferences >> Uncheck "Minimize windows into application icon"

Well, that did work. But now I just have a massive pile of minimized window icons... and still no keyboard shortcut to switch to them.

The keyboard shortcut to switch to them in ctrl-down (or whatever you have set to "Application windows") and then arrow keys.

Re: Impressions from a first-time Mac user

#339

Post by jakehilborn »

gnachman wrote: post #280
CSMastermind wrote: post #257

There'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…

I have five monitors. When it works, it's great. The other 5% of the time it's a giant pain in the butt. I don't know why this part of macOS is so incredibly buggy. It often forgets the arrangement, the HDR setting, and the refresh rate. I wrote a little program to detect when it breaks and set it back, but they don't have APIs for refresh rate and HDR so it's only a partial fix. I've half a mind to take a job there,…

Try using displayplacer. It supports hz and I added color_depth to it a while back. I don't remember HDR being in the APIs used either but that may address it.

https://github.com/jakehilborn/displayplacer

Re: Impressions from a first-time Mac user

#340

Post by vmception »

noway421 wrote: post #329

You don't need an app for window splitting. If you hold Option ⌥ key and hover over the green circle, there will be "Move Window to Left side of the screen" and "Move Window to Right side of the screen" options presented instead of "Tile Window to Left of Screen" and "Tile Window to Right of Screen" options. Those don't create a new virtual desktop.

yeah its weird they didn't look them up. they got 90% of the way there by already being a power user on Windows and then just gave up? I think the strength of MacOS is that non-power users would get 90% of the way there too.

But definitely just ask around and look up how to do things you are accustomed to! They even found the AltTab package somehow, even though I couldn't figure out what was missing... MacOS' minimized windows not being the thing that comes up, if they are minimized, but on Windows it will switch to those windows if they are simply behind or if minimized? Even the package they found doesn't exactly say whats going on. I almost never minimize windows on MacOS.... probably for that reason.

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