Impressions from a first-time Mac user • Hacker News Board

Re: Impressions from a first-time Mac user

#681

Post by rogual » Tue, Apr 12, 2022, 2:57 PM UTC

MacOS's quirks don't really bother me much, except one:

    1. Open a terminal on screen 1.
    2. Open a terminal and a browser on screen 2.
    3. Be using the terminal on screen 1.
    4. Cmd-Tab to the browser.
    5. Cmd-Tab to "go back"

MacOS will switch to the terminal... on screen 2.

Drives me nuts.

Re: Impressions from a first-time Mac user

#682

Post by webmobdev » Tue, Apr 12, 2022, 2:57 PM UTC

brimble wrote: post #246

webmobdev wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's because most mac users fall to the well-crafted publicity of Homebrew, and remain ignorant about the better https://www.macports.org/ package management system. MacPorts was inspired by the FreeBSD Ports Collection, is created by Apple engineers, used by Apple internally, is unix-y and has more packages than Homebrew. (But yeah, I think both Homebrew and MacPorts still fall behind Linux / xBSD packaging system…

I started as a MacPorts user, and moved because it managed to break itself about quarterly over the two years or so that I used it, usually in some way weird enough that it was easier to just remove all my packages (rm the whole directory) and start over than try to fix it. HomeBrew's done that zero times for me, in about eight years. I've extensively used Portage (gentoo), rpm (Fedora, Mandrake), and dpkg/apt (Debia…

> HomeBrew has failed to have a package the fewest times of any I've used ...

Not that I doubt your claim but MacPorts has more packages than Homebrew:

Homebrew - around 6031 packages (https://formulae.brew.sh/formula/)

MacPorts - 29,128 packages (https://ports.macports.org/)

(Ofcourse, more doesn't imply it has all the newer and / or popular packages or that Homebrew has the same packages as in MacPorts, which could explain your experience).

Re: Impressions from a first-time Mac user

#683

Post by loginatnine » Tue, Apr 12, 2022, 3:03 PM UTC

colinmhayes wrote: post #674

loginatnine wrote: post #642

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Still, it's not alt tab with the press-hold-release which is always quicker than doing gesture->arrow to select something->enter.

Completely disagree. Doing three finger swipe x times is just as fast if not faster than keyboard shortcuts that require you hunt down the window you're looking for.

It's objectively slower when you need to leave the keyboard with one hand to reach your touchpad. I'm thinking about a desktop environment here where 1. you might not even have a touchpad and 2. you have your both hands on the keyboard.

Re: Impressions from a first-time Mac user

#684

Post by Xevi » Tue, Apr 12, 2022, 3:07 PM UTC

kitsunesoba wrote: post #668

Xevi wrote: post #659

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 clos…

The text looked crisp on Windows, but on Mac the PPI was too low, so it was barely readable. The frustrating thing is that Mac used to have settings that would fix this problem, but they removed them a while ago. I ran the monitor at 1440p, not at a lower resolution.

Re: Impressions from a first-time Mac user

#685

Post by danaris » Tue, Apr 12, 2022, 3:08 PM UTC

cycomanic wrote: post #526

s__s wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On Mac you generally just don’t minimize windows unless you explicitly want that behaviour (sort of hidden and available manually through the dock). It’s just a different workflow.

This seems like a weird comment, what did people do before macs got virtual desktops (which was relatively recent compared to unix)? As a side note I remember discussion with apple users arguing that virtual desktops are not how one "should work" and are useless, now it's "you should use virtual desktops, obviously".

Well, personally, I keep a lot of windows open on my screen because I work well that way. It's similar to the "cluttered desk" method—it may look messy, but I've got everything available to me and even if you don't know where anything is, I do.

But I recognize that's more of a personal style than general usage.

I've been a Mac user since before the system even had proper multitasking, and the general answer to your question is that we would keep open the applications and windows that were useful to us, sometimes hiding an application that we're not actively using and don't need to have cluttering up the screen. Once Mac OS X came along, we would also minimize individual windows we weren't using—and if you minimize a window, then hide the application that it belongs to, that also hides its minimized windows in the Dock.

Also note that for every application up until a few years ago, and for some applications even now (and dependent on a System Preference setting), you can keep an application open on the Mac without any windows open.

Re: Impressions from a first-time Mac user

#686

Post by fiddlerwoaroof » Tue, Apr 12, 2022, 3:14 PM UTC

jeltz wrote: post #597

wtetzner wrote: post #502

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Simple isn’t the same as convenient.

Sure, but Mac's solution is neither. At least in the modern world where almost everything is done in your browser.

So, my workflow basically involves switching between terminal, browser and emacs. With macOS’s scheme, if I switch from emacs->browser, I can always hit switch back to emacs without having to parse the switcher, even if I’ve opened a new browser window for some reason. On windows/linux, when I open a new browser window, alt-tab goes back to another browser window, not back to the other “task”.

Re: Impressions from a first-time Mac user

#687

Post by fiddlerwoaroof » Tue, Apr 12, 2022, 3:15 PM UTC

goosedragons wrote: post #602

fiddlerwoaroof wrote: post #427

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, I always invert the mouse scroll wheel on Linux now, because the Mac scroll direction just feels right to me. Which is sort of the problem here: macOS’s UI works really well if the paradigm makes sense to you and long-time Mac users often have the same problems “backwards” when they use Linux or windows.

Did it feel natural to you in 2011? It's not that old of a change. You can get used to it no doubt and I almost feel like it makes sense on trackpads but not so much on scroll wheels. Why fight 10+ years of muscle memory for literally no gain and a bunch of pain everywhere else?

I adapted to it in about two days, it made sense to me from the very beginning.

Re: Impressions from a first-time Mac user

#688

Post by mechanical_bear » Tue, Apr 12, 2022, 3:18 PM UTC

samatman wrote: post #260

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 have a few workflow solutions to this, but Control Down-Arrow or three finger swipe down is the most common. Also, windows are in a stack from least to most recently put in front, so if I know something is toward the back I start with command-~. I also happen to believe that there is such a thing as having too many browser windows open, so when these strategies start to become unmanageable, I will close some. The E…

I have 409 tabs open at the moment… (more on my desktop computer)

Re: Impressions from a first-time Mac user

#689

Post by mechanical_bear » Tue, Apr 12, 2022, 3:22 PM UTC

urbandw311er wrote: post #152

olyjohn wrote: post #64

Earlier 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…

Ok, so you can actually do this but the keyboard sequence is a bit bonkers. * Hold down Command and press Tab until the application icon representing the minimised window is highlighted. * Release Tab but DONT let go of Command. * Now press Option too so you are holding down Command + Option * Now release Command so you are just holding down Option * Finally release Option Amazingly this will then maximise the window…

I will try this once, be amazed, and promptly forget it.

Re: Impressions from a first-time Mac user

#690

Post by mechanical_bear » Tue, Apr 12, 2022, 3:28 PM UTC

loginatnine wrote: post #683

colinmhayes wrote: post #674

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Completely disagree. Doing three finger swipe x times is just as fast if not faster than keyboard shortcuts that require you hunt down the window you're looking for.

It's objectively slower when you need to leave the keyboard with one hand to reach your touchpad. I'm thinking about a desktop environment here where 1. you might not even have a touchpad and 2. you have your both hands on the keyboard.

I don’t think the literal fraction of a second difference matters.