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Impressions from a first-time Mac user

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Re: Impressions from a first-time Mac user

#541
post #489

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cmd + left/right works everywhere for me (except the terminal)

And for those unaware of Cmd+left/right, there's also Alt+left/right for moving over one word at a time.

Yes navigating via muscle memory is way better on macOS because per word cursor movement is supported.

And terminal has ctrl+a and ctrl+e. My mnemonics: A is for Anfang (german: start, beginning), e is just End.

On windows I was confused as to whether Pos1/End gets me to file ending, or line ending. I think it's the first, unless you hit a modifier key.

Re: Impressions from a first-time Mac user

#542
post #536

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It was so absurd that I though[t] it was damaged. If you’re not getting haptic feedback, it is damaged.

it's not broken... the problem is that, for my fingertip, the haptic feedback is not enough. I want "physical" feedback.

The haptic feedback on my M1 Air is indistinguishable from the physical click of my 2013 Pro's springboard-design trackpad. Are you maybe comparing it to some low-quality trackpad that has a lot of flex?

Re: Impressions from a first-time Mac user

#543
post #489

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cmd + left/right works everywhere for me (except the terminal)

And for those unaware of Cmd+left/right, there's also Alt+left/right for moving over one word at a time.

And hold Shift while doing either of those, to select the text you move over.

Re: Impressions from a first-time Mac user

#544
post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see why you can't like a mouse if you like MACs. Also if you like a mouse that you have to turn upside down and can't use while charging you are just a glutton for punishment. USB-C mice are not really a thing, so you have to use a Bluetooth mouse instead of using a mouse you may have had for the last 10 years and replaced the omron switches in several times. All this for what arrogance?

Mac is not an acronym, it's short for Macintosh. MAC stands for Mandatory Access Control or Media Access Control (as in ethernet hwaddr).

I'd swear that writing Macs as MACs (or MAC's) is a shibboleth of people who don't like Macs.

Re: Impressions from a first-time Mac user

#545

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…

If you're a tinkerer and miss i3, try Hammerspoon [1].

[1] http://hammerspoon.org/

Re: Impressions from a first-time Mac user

#546
post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TIL, thanks! This is an issue on MacOS, a lot of features like this one are not easily discoverable.

In the old days, OSs comes with a manual and tutorial, so it is not a big deal. But you don't have a manual now and Mac still treats you like you have one. And it is a problem now.

The official macOS User Guide is available online [0], up-to-date, localized.

[0] https://support.apple.com/en-us/guide/mac-help/welcome/mac

Re: Impressions from a first-time Mac user

#547

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In fairness, I don't think most end users are plugging in four monitors, cut and pasting folders, or playing 25 year old games. And all those things are very user-specific and better for some than others in different places. I have a Dell from 2017 that won't run an external monitor with the lid closed out of the box, it'll go to sleep. I tried playing Total Annihilation (another 25 year old one) off GOG on it and it…

> I don't think most end users are plugging in four monitors, cut and pasting folders, or playing 25 year old games. Most users are not cut and pasting folders? What? When I first used a Mac, that was one of the first major difficulties I encountered. Cut and paste was quite unnatural - you had to Copy the source item, and then press COMMAND+OPTION+V to move/paste an item rather than to copy it. It was quite unintuit…

TIL.. There's shortcut to cut folder and I've been using OSX since mountain lion.

Not that it matter much since the first thing l do is to install 3rd party finder replacement on a fresh MacOS.

Re: Impressions from a first-time Mac user

#548

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have mostly enjoyed my transition from Windows to Mac. I agree the the default of not being able to Cut and Paste in Finder was annoying but there is one thing that absolutely makes me furious: The file save dialog box has this unbelievable limit of 38 viewable characters! I regularly have to deal with 50+ character naming conventions where the first 38 characters are the same among many files. It is a huge hassle…

I mean, I can't speak for any other long-time Mac users, but... > I regularly have to deal with 50+ character naming conventions where the first 38 characters are the same among many files. ...that's arguably a kind of unusual situation. I don't think you're necessarily wrong, to be fair! It's just that in over two decades of owning Macs and at least a decade before that of using them off-and-on, I've never been in a…

The thing is, 38 chars is arbitrary limit from bygone era when screen space was precious and UI had to make sure dialog boxes fit no matter what. It's not like Apple can do hidpi UI but can't overcome 38 character limit for file name entry widget. It'd be small qol fix but no, for some reason other commenters need to defend it and point out that OP should just organize their files better. I don't understand, truly I don't.

Re: Impressions from a first-time Mac user

#549

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless they've changed it really recently you can't have a mouse scroll "unnaturally" and a trackpad "naturally". They're tied together for some reason. You need a 3rd party utility to it.

Yes, you can, both options exists in System Preferences, one under Mouse, the other under Trackpad

But when you change one, the other changes :(

Re: Impressions from a first-time Mac user

#550
post #381

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…

Purely on monitors, I've had the opposite experience - Windows has been dramatically buggier and worse-behaving. Particularly if they're different DPIs - Mac DPI support is just so far ahead of Windows that it's absurd. I've had slightly better luck getting monitors to work at all on Windows... by a single monitor. I mean more around system behavior when I plug in a monitor. OSX acts... normal? Stuff moves where I la…

> Particularly if they're different DPIs - Mac DPI support is just so far ahead of Windows that it's absurd.

On Apple endorsed monitors and resolutions, yes, otherwise no. My personal pet peeve is that I have to use 3rd party tool (BetterDummy) got get decent output to 1440p monitor from my M1 mac. On Windows I know what I'll get when I plug in any monitor, on my Mac it's a guess. Maybe I'll get non-crappy rendering, maybe not. Otherwise I much prefer Mac handling of hidpi and fonts, but monitor situation in general is not perfect on MacOS.

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