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Tim O'Reilly: I am really starting to hate Mac OS X.

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Re: Tim O'Reilly: I am really starting to hate Mac OS X.

#141

Post by Bud »

WayneDB wrote: post #68
annon wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you hate learning the "myriad of keyboard shortcuts needed to get stuff done on a Mac," but are praising the intuitiveness of "hold Alt and middle click anywhere near a corner of a window to start resizing it?"

Well, there are a couple of subtleties that are being addressed, that maybe need to be said better. 1) Mac keyboard shortcuts are confusing and inconsistent compared to other OSes. They're not as discoverable. Maybe this is why it seems like there are more of them or that they're harder to learn. When I say they're confusing, I mean that they use those funky characters instead of the words Ctrl, Alt or Shift. Those c…

Um, have you ever actually used a Mac? Like, since 1987 or so?

Mac keyboard shortcuts are:

1) Not confusing at all, the common ones date back decades and are largely similar to other platforms. 2) No, they don't use "funky characters". Command is a word. Do you have difficulty recognizing what "Command-S" means for save, or "Command-P" for print, etc? 3) I beg to differ. Command, control and option are on the keyboard. 4) Just a detail, but: "Ctrl" and "Alt" are not words. Just so you know.

Re: Tim O'Reilly: I am really starting to hate Mac OS X.

#142

Post by covercash »

js2 wrote: post #75

Re: "maximize" button that is being complained about in this thread. It's not a maximize button, it's a zoom button, and while I don't like its behavior, it's always been this way in OS X. From the current HIG: Your application determines the initial size and position of a window, which is called the standard state. If the user changes a window’s size or location by at least 7 points, the new size and location is the…

I like to refer to the zoom button as the optimize button. I find that it helps people understand its function more than zoom (which makes me think enlarge, full screen).

Re: Tim O'Reilly: I am really starting to hate Mac OS X.

#143

Post by mgkimsal »

ugh wrote: post #134
mgkimsal wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alt-Arrows - is that a Lion thing? Opening up a stock iterm, and hitting... hrm... well "alt" is above the 'option' label, so I'm not sure how to invoke that. option arrows don't move by word. fn+option (which I'd assume give me 'alt' mode) doesn't work. What's the magic invocation to make that happen? Or is it Lion only? (snow leopard here).

I’m sorry, the German keyboard confused me – there the option key is labeled alt. You can replace every Alt in my comment with Option. I’m not sure whether that’s new (I think other shortcuts for moving from word to word were also already commented on around here) but when I fire up Terminal in Lion I can move from word to word by pressing Option -Arrow-left or Option -Arrow-right.

Hrm. Doesn't work here (US snow leopard MBP early 2011), and I'm pretty sure it's not worked on earlier versions.

Some other comments indicated "esc/b" and "esc/f", and those seem to work, but are horribly unintuitive and difficult to type. Will need to map them. I've lived X years without that ability, so another few minutes won't hurt :)

thx

Re: Tim O'Reilly: I am really starting to hate Mac OS X.

#144

Post by CamperBob »

js2 wrote: post #75

Re: "maximize" button that is being complained about in this thread. It's not a maximize button, it's a zoom button, and while I don't like its behavior, it's always been this way in OS X. From the current HIG: Your application determines the initial size and position of a window, which is called the standard state. If the user changes a window’s size or location by at least 7 points, the new size and location is the…

It's interesting to juxtapose your excerpt from the HIG with megamark16's comment below ("When I click the Maximize button on OSX, it doesn't actually maximize the window 99% of the time, it just picks a seemingly random size.")

What this should tell us is that a UI strategy can be "optimal" -- in the sense that the HIG passage you quoted likely emerged from a lot of intense debate between some very bright, motivated people at Apple -- yet still unintuitive and confusing to users who weren't sitting on the committee that came up with it.

If we accept Einstein's dictum that things should be as simple as possible but no simpler, then it's very hard to defend the byzantine "Zoom" button in OS X. A sufficiently-complex model may indeed appear to be a random process to someone who sees only the model's behavior.

Re: Tim O'Reilly: I am really starting to hate Mac OS X.

#146

Post by egypturnash »

dhughes wrote: post #29
rbanffy wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless you pick your PC carefully with the purpose of breaking Linux, it mostly works out of the box. That said, installing Linux on a Mac seems offensive, like replacing the dashboard of a Maybach with the one of a race car. Macs are a beautifully designed combination of hardware and software that may work for you. Or not. I like Lion better than Snow Leopard, but neither works for me for work. Casual browsing and p…

Like a teenager before a date Mac seems to be entirely about looks, oh everything works well both OS and hardware but sometimes it seems looks come before function. No separate delete or backspace keys, no multiple desktops, breathtakingly expensive hardware and software, awkward layout of files in the GUI, closing apps frustrating X doesn't close the app it minimizes it but you also have a minimize button (??), am I…

When's the last time you used one? There've been multiple desktops ("Spaces") since 2006.

And I've never had any confusion between copying, pasting, and cutting. Ever. Unless you're talking about expecting that weird-ass Windows behavior where you "cut" files to copy them around? Why's "open two windows and drag stuff to move, maybe with alt held down to copy" so hard?

OSX makes a big distinction between "quitting an app" and "closing all document windows" I really LIKE that I can have a big app like Illustrator loaded but dormant with no open windows to bother me.

Re: Tim O'Reilly: I am really starting to hate Mac OS X.

#147

Post by artursapek »

ugh wrote: post #77
artursapek wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh my god, so it's inconsistent and it's a step in the wrong direction?

They removed it for all apps that auto save. Save as doesn’t really make sense if an app auto saves and only serves to confuse. You now duplicate and then save.

When I saw the previews for Lion I thought autosave seemed like overkill. When I'm working on anything I "autosave" by reaching over slightly and hitting CMD-S every time I make any small amount of progress. The last time I experienced significant data/progress loss was probably about 3 years ago before I developed this habit. I don't see what problem they're trying to fix.

Re: Tim O'Reilly: I am really starting to hate Mac OS X.

#148

Post by X-Istence »

_delirium wrote: post #70
HSO wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Suum cuique but some of your concerns really aren't: > In OSX you can only resize a window in the bottom right corner, in Ubuntu I can resize from any corner, or I can hold Alt and middle click anywhere near a corner of a window to start resizing it. No more hunting for the resize sweetspot. They changed that in Lion to every corner, every side. And you don't have to press ALT to do it. > When I click the Maximize bu…

>> On a new linux machine I can apt-get most anything, but if I do need to compile something I just apt-get build-essentials and I'm ready to go, on OSX you have to download a DVD just to be able to compile stuff from source. > Darwin ports? Fink? I've used both for the past near-decade (fink for 4 years, now macports for the past 3), along with a Debian desktop, and they're much worse imo. They do the job sort of, b…

I have been using HomeBrew on Mac OS X and it is miles ahead of where MacPorts and Fink are. Definitely worth a try.

Re: Tim O'Reilly: I am really starting to hate Mac OS X.

#149

Post by gregschlom »

vertr wrote: post #123
js2 wrote: post #75

Re: "maximize" button that is being complained about in this thread. It's not a maximize button, it's a zoom button, and while I don't like its behavior, it's always been this way in OS X. From the current HIG: Your application determines the initial size and position of a window, which is called the standard state. If the user changes a window’s size or location by at least 7 points, the new size and location is the…

Hold shift while clicking the zoom button to maximize the window. Edit: in Chrome only.

That's one of the things I hate in OS X: many features are there, but hidden until you press some modifier key. Hold shift to maximize. Hold option while pasting to move a file instead of copying. Hold Cmd+Shift+. to see hidden files, and so on. That's the opposite of user-friendly.

Re: Tim O'Reilly: I am really starting to hate Mac OS X.

#150

Post by mattyohe »

I'll repost a comment I left:

Your first problem is that you started deleting stuff from a folder that Apple now deems wise to hide. With all due respect, why on earth would you start from the ~/Library folder? Why not delete these from the Mail client?

You can even "backup" from inside Mail.app. (Right click a folder > Export) Also, if you really want the Library folder, you can just go to Finder > Go > (Hold option) Library

There are real criticisms to be aired, this is not one of them.

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