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New MacBook Setup

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Re: New MacBook Setup

#71

Post by voisin »

wyclif wrote: post #11
whatever1 wrote: post #6

I find hilarious the fact that we need to buy & install a windowing tool because the native OS window system has been broken for the past 40 years. Can't they just copy what windows and linux are doing?

I tend to agree that the functionality you see in Rectangle or Magnet should be native. Window placement shouldn't be a third party app. But whenever I've asked people at Apple about this, the response has been "Well, Apple is historically just very opinionated about window placement and settings." The overall vibe was "Apple knows best."

But what’s the opinion? That people should constantly be dragging windows around the screen to get at different things?

Re: New MacBook Setup

#72

Post by thiht »

danaris wrote: post #70
thiht wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being opinionated is good, but at some point you have to realize when you went the wrong path. Window management on macOS is terrible, period. This isn't just force of habit or "just another way to do", it sucks. Even command+tab is terrible, it doesn't even browse all the open windows but the open app, which is a completely irrelevant distinction, I have to install AltTab because of this.

This is your opinion . The way macOS does window management is internally consistent, and for those of us who have used it for decades, it works perfectly well. Just because Windows chose to do it a different way, and Linux copied Windows because it had a monopoly on the desktop, doesn't mean what macOS is doing is bad . If you don't like it, you don't have to use macOS . (Or, you can install the exact utilities vari…

No, no, and no. The way macOS handles split screen is objectively bad, that's not an opinion. It's clunky, slow, not very discoverable, not intuitive, and is painful to use because it requires using the fullscreen mode. Windows does it a certain way and it's great and natural. Linux desktop environment copied it not because it's Windows, but because it's good. Why is there no desktop environment copying macOS window handling if it's just as good? Because it's not, it sucks.

Some things on macOS are just different, like having the red/green/yellow button on the left instead of on the right on Windows. Neither is objectively good or bad, just different.

But that I cannot take a window, drag and drop it to the side to make it take half the screen size is bad. It's an obvious feature nowadays and macOS should handle it natively. They don't even have to remove the way they do it currently, because it has its use (I have a permanently open full screen/split screen with my email client and Slack, it's great for that), just add a new mechanism that works better for quick split screen.

Same with command+tab, it sucks that it doesn't work with open windows (eg if I have 2 open Firefox windows, only 1 will be displayed). It used to work like that so I'm ok with macOS keeping it as a default, but WHY don't they add a setting to do what people expect? Or why don't they add option+tab as a shortcut with this behaviour?

I've used macOS, Windows, and various Linux DEs (KDE, XFCE, Gnome) extensively in my life and all of them have good and bad concepts. This is not a blind spot issue, just that some UI concepts work better than other, and the correct thing to do is to adapt.

Re: New MacBook Setup

#73

Post by ilikehurdles »

whenlambo wrote: post #49
ilikehurdles wrote: post #26

Dock on the right is better as it’s more out of the way of buttons you’ll use (left side menus, window buttons) so you won’t accidentally unhide it. Also I could never get behind magnification, just makes it harder to predict where things are, but I almost never use the dock anyway.

scrollbars

Rarely used with a mac trackpad

Re: New MacBook Setup

#74

Post by jwells89 »

thiht wrote: post #72
danaris wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is your opinion . The way macOS does window management is internally consistent, and for those of us who have used it for decades, it works perfectly well. Just because Windows chose to do it a different way, and Linux copied Windows because it had a monopoly on the desktop, doesn't mean what macOS is doing is bad . If you don't like it, you don't have to use macOS . (Or, you can install the exact utilities vari…

No, no, and no. The way macOS handles split screen is objectively bad, that's not an opinion. It's clunky, slow, not very discoverable, not intuitive, and is painful to use because it requires using the fullscreen mode. Windows does it a certain way and it's great and natural. Linux desktop environment copied it not because it's Windows, but because it's good. Why is there no desktop environment copying macOS window…

FWIW, you can do a split-window layout without fullscreen by holding Option while hovering over the green traffic light.

Personally I use this (or even resize or rearrange windows) very rarely though. Most of the time if I need two documents side by side it’s in an IDE that supports panes.

As for command-tab, it’s deeper than just one command. The macOS windowing model is just fundamentally different with how windows are not equal to processes. A toggle would need to change the windowing model of the OS to work properly.

Re: New MacBook Setup

#75

Post by wyclif »

voisin wrote: post #71
wyclif wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tend to agree that the functionality you see in Rectangle or Magnet should be native. Window placement shouldn't be a third party app. But whenever I've asked people at Apple about this, the response has been "Well, Apple is historically just very opinionated about window placement and settings." The overall vibe was "Apple knows best."

But what’s the opinion? That people should constantly be dragging windows around the screen to get at different things?

The opinion seems to be "you shouldn't want an easily resized split screen or snap windows to the edge of the screen."

Re: New MacBook Setup

#76

Post by voisin »

wyclif wrote: post #75
voisin wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But what’s the opinion? That people should constantly be dragging windows around the screen to get at different things?

The opinion seems to be "you shouldn't want an easily resized split screen or snap windows to the edge of the screen."

For a company with a philosophy of order, purposefulness, and minimalism, this seems odd.

Re: New MacBook Setup

#77

Post by danaris »

thiht wrote: post #72
danaris wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is your opinion . The way macOS does window management is internally consistent, and for those of us who have used it for decades, it works perfectly well. Just because Windows chose to do it a different way, and Linux copied Windows because it had a monopoly on the desktop, doesn't mean what macOS is doing is bad . If you don't like it, you don't have to use macOS . (Or, you can install the exact utilities vari…

No, no, and no. The way macOS handles split screen is objectively bad, that's not an opinion. It's clunky, slow, not very discoverable, not intuitive, and is painful to use because it requires using the fullscreen mode. Windows does it a certain way and it's great and natural. Linux desktop environment copied it not because it's Windows, but because it's good. Why is there no desktop environment copying macOS window…

Why is this an "obvious feature"?

I put two windows next to each other all the time. It's perfectly discoverable. I just drag one window on the right....

...then I drag the other window on the left.

Boom. Done. No fancy features required.

See, you're coming from a basic assumption that you will do most of your work with windows full-screened. That's not how classic macOS worked, that's not how Mac OS X worked for many years, and that's not how many of us have our workflows. That's how Windows worked back in the '90s, and the paradigm remained even though screens have gotten much, much bigger since then.

What you're demanding is that all OSes "adapt" to become a UI monoculture. So that the only way any of us can do things is the way you think is "objectively better", even though the evidence you have for that is "well, Windows does it this way, and Linux copied them, and I'm so used to it I can't imagine doing things any other way, so it must be best!"

Re: New MacBook Setup

#78

Post by HDThoreaun »

voisin wrote: post #71
wyclif wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tend to agree that the functionality you see in Rectangle or Magnet should be native. Window placement shouldn't be a third party app. But whenever I've asked people at Apple about this, the response has been "Well, Apple is historically just very opinionated about window placement and settings." The overall vibe was "Apple knows best."

But what’s the opinion? That people should constantly be dragging windows around the screen to get at different things?

Mac OS is designed to use workspaces. The idea is you have main windows in fullscreen and use the trackpad swipe to switch between virtual desktops. Basically they never want you to move windows at all. Maybe one of the virutal desktops has your notes and finder and other smaller apps

Re: New MacBook Setup

#79

Post by HDThoreaun »

thiht wrote: post #72
danaris wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is your opinion . The way macOS does window management is internally consistent, and for those of us who have used it for decades, it works perfectly well. Just because Windows chose to do it a different way, and Linux copied Windows because it had a monopoly on the desktop, doesn't mean what macOS is doing is bad . If you don't like it, you don't have to use macOS . (Or, you can install the exact utilities vari…

No, no, and no. The way macOS handles split screen is objectively bad, that's not an opinion. It's clunky, slow, not very discoverable, not intuitive, and is painful to use because it requires using the fullscreen mode. Windows does it a certain way and it's great and natural. Linux desktop environment copied it not because it's Windows, but because it's good. Why is there no desktop environment copying macOS window…

There is nothing objective about these opinions. MacOS with a trackpad works fine if youre willing to do things exactly as intended.
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