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Impressions from a first-time Mac user

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Re: Impressions from a first-time Mac user

#661

Post by rodelrod »

BlueTemplar wrote: post #650
pdpi wrote: post #619

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I kind of gave up on non-US keyboards. The Portuguese layout sucks horribly for programming, especially on the Mac (brackets in horrible places), and the U.K. layout (where I’m based) sucks horribly for writing Portuguese in. The US international just works for all my purposes (including writing tiny amounts of other languages besides Portuguese and English)

Have you tried this one ? http://norme-azerty.fr/en/

That looks like an "AZERTY International", with no advantage over the Portuguese layout for programming, and no advantage over "US International" for typing languages other than French. It does look like an improvement over traditional AZERTY!

My choice is "US International with AltGr deadkeys". The deadkey behaviour in simple "US International" is very annoying for programming: you have to double-tap every key that could be an accent, such as single quotes or backquotes.

Re: Impressions from a first-time Mac user

#662

Post by guywhocodes »

rhinoceraptor wrote: post #86
shaan7 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funnily enough, for the ~5 years I used macOS, the Window Manager was the most frustrating aspect for me. I could not maximize apps (there was only a weird fullscreen/focus mode), I would accidentally end up dragging a window very often etc. All this gave ended up creating this feeling in my brain that the windows are just "floating" on the screen instead of being tightly bound to an arrangement.

You're not really 'supposed' to maximize or even tile apps on the Mac. In most cases it's a waste of screen space. The Mac has always been focused around the desktop metaphor. Historically applications were composed of multiple windows, and focusing a window in an application brought all of the other windows for that application to the front. You would manually arrange each of the windows/palettes of your application…

So the menubar is worthless? Because the fullscreen mode kills it. Or is it some mental gymnastics in saying that it's a waste of space to only look at one thing?

Otherwise what you describe sounds like, basically every floating window system ever.

Re: Impressions from a first-time Mac user

#663

Post by GeekyBear »

touristtam wrote: post #634
GeekyBear wrote: post #596

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In addition, the classic user interaction method for Macs has always been drag and drop between multiple on-screen windows, while Windows users have traditionally kept every window maximized. Personally, I think it goes back to early Windows originally supporting very low resolution graphics cards where you simply couldn't display more than a single widow's worth of content at once. Remember that EGA was only 640×350…

Drag 'n drop has been in MS Windows and different flavour of Linux distros for the last 10-15 years at least regardless whether the application windows have been maximised or not. Or are you referring to something completely different?

Are we pretending that Windows users don't use cut, copy, and paste instead of drag and drop for file management?

File management in the classic Mac UI was always to open a window for the source directory and another window for the destination directory and use drag and drop to move or copy the files.

File management in Windows was to navigate to the source directory, cut or copy the files, navigate to the destination directory and paste.

Just as the classic Mac OS only maximizes a window enough to show all the contents of the window, but no larger than that to facilitate interacting between multiple windows instead of having every window take up the whole screen.

Re: Impressions from a first-time Mac user

#664

Post by knolan »

mwint wrote: post #621
knolan wrote: post #566

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you go into the trackpad settings there are little videos showing what each gesture does. App Exposé is right there. I don’t know how more discoverable it can be.

Since it seems like it’s Windows converts that can’t find it, maybe Apple could buy some of those Windows File Explorer ads Microsoft is experimenting with and explain the functionality.

TBH I think this is a more universal problem. I work in a University and students with either Macs or Windows laptops all seem to lack the basic ability to get around their OS. They'll entirely mouse orientated ignorant of many time saving affordances.

On the other hand you have people who read HN who know their system intimately and don't like when another system is different. I could rant all day about Windows too!

Re: Impressions from a first-time Mac user

#665

Post by merdaverse »

Completely agree withe window management part. I find it easy to work on Win/Ubuntu with multiple desktops and Alt+Tab, but the overly complicated flow of Command+Tab makes this impossible on Mac.

So I just end up with most of the stuff on one desktop and using spotlight with the trackpad to switch. But props to Apple for having the smoothest spotlight implementation of the three.

Re: Impressions from a first-time Mac user

#666

Post by domepro »

noway421 wrote: post #349
vmception wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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' minimiz…

I minimise them quite frequently these days for something I want to tuck away. A good way to surface them is the "App Exposé" feature (Preferences -> Trackpad -> More Gestures). Shows all the hidden windows for the current app. It's different to Windows though. If they're looking for something more similar to Windows, maybe Command+H (hide the active app) is a better alternative.

It's an alternative, but in windows minimizing works on a window, not the entire app. The philosophies of [apps] vs [windows] are just too different, I don't think anyone that wants windows can be happy out-of-the-box, with the apps vs windows thing plus with the minimizing being basically "putting the app to sleep" on macOS vs "putting the app away" on windows.

Re: Impressions from a first-time Mac user

#667

Post by fauigerzigerk »

iso1210 wrote: post #615
nneonneo wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cmd+` switches between windows of the same app, and it's actually more convenient (IMHO) than using Alt+Tab to switch between every one of your windows from every app. There are also a handful of trackpad gestures for showing all the windows in the current app or all of your windows.

It's inconsistent compared with alt-tab behaviour. cmd-tab switches to the last used application (assuming you don't hold down), right now for me that switches from Firefox to Slack. Pressing cmd-tab again switches from Slack back to Firefox. However for window switches cmd-` switches from my HN window to a jira window. cmd-` again switches to a webmail window. To switch from jira back to HN I have to press cmd-shift…

Exactly, and believe it or not, this strange little inconsistency is the only thing I still can't get used to after using macOS for ~15 years.

Re: Impressions from a first-time Mac user

#668

Post by kitsunesoba »

Xevi wrote: post #659
zild3d wrote: post #645

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What monitor, mouse, and keyboard did not work with mac? Most of the complaints makes it sound like you aren't actually trying to do everything the "Apple way", rather wishing macOS way worked like what you're used to and comfortable with from Windows.

> What monitor, mouse, and keyboard did not work with mac? The monitor was an MSI Optix MAG321CQR (32", 1440p, 144hz). The text on it was blurry and pixellated as hell. It turns out that Apple has removed previously existing scaling functionality that would have made it work. So I had to upgrade to a 4k monitor to get around it. I would assume it's because they don't want to compete with cheaper monitors. The text wa…

> The monitor was an MSI Optix MAG321CQR (32", 1440p, 144hz). The text on it was blurry and pixellated as hell.

I've used a ton of third party 27" 2560x1440 monitors with Macs and they've all been fine. In fact I'm using one to write this post.

It sounds like either the monitor was running at a resolution below 2560x1440 or you don't like how macOS does text antialiasing – macOS favors on-screen letterforms more closely matching their printed versions while Windows will distort characters to forcibly snap them into the pixel grid.

The other possibility is that you're just feeling the lowered DPI that results from stretching 2560x1440 to 32". macOS definitely has a preference for moderate-to-high DPI, and stretching 2560x1440 to that large of a physical size probably pulls the DPI below the threshold.

Re: Impressions from a first-time Mac user

#669

Post by Liquid_Fire »

borland wrote: post #584

This is full of stuff that isn't actually a problem, he just hasn't learnt how to use macOS yet. > Snapping Yes, macOS does suck in this regard. I can only hope they address it in the future. > unlike Windows or Linux, you can’t “maximize” a window using the green “zoom” button Hold down option when you click the green button. Annoying that Apple made this undiscoverable, but nevertheless it works and is built-in > C…

> There's a checkbox in system prefs for that, you don't need any crazy logitech junk!

But that option also reverses the touchpad scroll direction. You can't have the touchpad scroll inverted like on a touch screen and the mouse wheel scrolling normally (without third-party software), which seems crazy to me.

Re: Impressions from a first-time Mac user

#670

Post by danaris »

deergomoo wrote: post #653
danaris wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Er...macOS has had the ability to put two windows side-by-side in full-screen mode for a few years now. Press and hold on the green "zoom" button and you'll get side-by-side options. It does not, and likely will never, have options for gluing two windows together and treating them as one in non-fullscreen mode. That seems like a fairly niche desire to me.

I don’t think there’s a keyboard shortcut for it though is there?

Oh—no, I don't believe there is. Sorry, I missed that you were specifically referring to a keyboard shortcut for that (since I very rarely use an iPad with an external keyboard).
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