Live data from Hacker News

The new MacBook

apple.com

761–770 of 1001 posts

Re: The new MacBook

#761

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Curious - what do Finder complainers consider the gold standard of file browsers that Finder should aspire to be? I do most of my file management at the command line so I don't experience the pain of Finder very often, and I've generally been able to get Finder to do what I want without much fuss. Windows Explorer is, to me, a painful experience (but its 1980s DOS command line is so much worse) I've found the various…

I wish I was able to right click a folder and get an option "open terminal here" and then terminal opens and directory changes to the current selected folder. Is this available currently that I'm not aware of ? Else, make it easy to copy the path.... Just like the windows explorer does.

You might check out GoToShell: http://zipzapmac.com/Go2Shell

Re: The new MacBook

#762
post #261

This is a beautiful machine. Once again, Apple excels at hardware. But what the living hell is going wrong with Apple's desktop software? OS X and Apple's applications suite have been getting steadily worse with every release. Look at the App store: the latest releases of OS X, iPhoto, iMovie, Pages, and Numbers are (in stark contrast to earlier versins) all rated at 2.5/5 stars, with the plurality being 1-star revie…

With Apple I think the problem most comes from their aspiration for a mobile-only world. But they might just be suffering the same problem many (if not most) software packages face: The software gets near perfection.... but the organization does not have the capability to process this. They've got a team of developers, and developing on that particular piece of software is what they DO. There are managers of that team, and their career depends much more on keeping their team busy and working on some new thing far more than it relies upon the quality of the software itself. It doesn't look very good if your career seems to 'plateau' and your teams activity is just bugfixes and polishing a stable, usable product. The guy on another team who 'took risks' and radically redesigned the interface or jammed in a few new features that changed the target audience of their application will fare far better, even if their existing target audience has abandoned the application in droves (though they probably won't, as lockin is real).

I've never heard of a company which had an endgame - what to do when the software is DONE. I have certainly suffered through many different applications which reached an apex of near-perfection and simply changed direction and went rapidly downhill though.

Re: The new MacBook

#764
post #691

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OpenGL compatibility is still 4.1... I like linux, I like Apple hardware, but as a graphics/game programmer, I find developing native OSX applications to be a miserable process.

Intel integrated graphics on bleeding edge Arch Linux here. I'm stuck at OpenGL 3.3. I can only use shader language GLSL 1.30. And people say Intel has the best OpenGL support... :) Or maybe nvidia fares better?

Nvidia fares way better. I develop on Windows at work and use bleeding edge Arch at home. Happily using compute shaders on OGL 4.5 at home.

Re: The new MacBook

#765
post #617

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two features that Windows has that Finder doesn't, and annoy me all the time in my workflow are: 1)Finder search refuses to show the path for the files except in the status bar. So you can't sort by path. 2) Finder won't tell you the resolution of images. In general, Explorer has way more columns in the Details view than Finder.

I'm a former Windows user and now an all Mac user and I find that Finder is sub-par compared to Explorer. Even silly things like wanting to create a new folder and instinctively right clicking to look for a "New Folder" option. Nope, gotta go to the top menu and do it from there!

Why don't you just type Command-Shift-N like everyone else? Only beginners use the menu for these common operations.

Re: The new MacBook

#766

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Curious - what do Finder complainers consider the gold standard of file browsers that Finder should aspire to be? I do most of my file management at the command line so I don't experience the pain of Finder very often, and I've generally been able to get Finder to do what I want without much fuss. Windows Explorer is, to me, a painful experience (but its 1980s DOS command line is so much worse) I've found the various…

Have you tried Dolphin on Linux? It's absolutely the best graphical file shell I've ever used: - integrated command line whose PWD matches the directory shown in the graphic view. This is killer. - automatic numbering if you rename a bunch of files. - a tab-completeable navigation bar. - integrated context menu items (e.g. send via email, compress, encrypt, convert file type). - pretty, Apple-style image previews. I…

> pretty

I'd have comments on other points as well but if there is one thing KDE apps generally aren't then they consistently aren't pretty. I know, eye of beholder, but it's almost as bad as TK. In the link you provided there are:

- grooved borders between every second UI element.

- icons are way too colorful with gradients everywhere.

- underscore hints on menus are ugly.

- places panel takes up way too much space and eats away at the tree view panel.

That said, I use Dolphin, but only because other file browsers on Linux are for various reasons bigger catastrophes.

Re: The new MacBook

#767

How about this as a solution to the 1-port problem: Integrate the USB-C hub into the brick of the power charger. Then when you are charging, you can plug your USB or display devices into the power brick, and you don't have any extra hubs to carry around.

But then you have to keep the brick close.

Re: The new MacBook

#768

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Curious - what do Finder complainers consider the gold standard of file browsers that Finder should aspire to be? I do most of my file management at the command line so I don't experience the pain of Finder very often, and I've generally been able to get Finder to do what I want without much fuss. Windows Explorer is, to me, a painful experience (but its 1980s DOS command line is so much worse) I've found the various…

I'm also curious - what about Windows Explorer makes it a painful experience? I learned how to use computers using DOS/Windows and it's what my idea of "correct" is. I'm curious about the other perspective.

The worst thing of new versions of WinExplorer in my opinion is that you can't position files at the location you want (with the exception of the desktop). I have some folders in my Mac that I organize strictly by location, and that is impossible to do in recent versions of Windows.

Re: The new MacBook

#769

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Curious - what do Finder complainers consider the gold standard of file browsers that Finder should aspire to be? I do most of my file management at the command line so I don't experience the pain of Finder very often, and I've generally been able to get Finder to do what I want without much fuss. Windows Explorer is, to me, a painful experience (but its 1980s DOS command line is so much worse) I've found the various…

Have you tried Dolphin on Linux? It's absolutely the best graphical file shell I've ever used: - integrated command line whose PWD matches the directory shown in the graphic view. This is killer. - automatic numbering if you rename a bunch of files. - a tab-completeable navigation bar. - integrated context menu items (e.g. send via email, compress, encrypt, convert file type). - pretty, Apple-style image previews. I…

I am picky about file managers. Since switching to Linux on my primary desktop a few years ago, a file manager remains the only thing I miss from Windows. I used Directory Opus. It wasn't perfect, but was damn close for me (admittedly a power user as far as file management tasks is concerned). The one key feature that I have been unable to find in any Linux file manager is extensibility. I also dislike the lack of a queueing mechanism. I shouldn't have to sit around and wait for a 40GB copy to move from one network location to another before I can start another bit of data movement. And I should definitely be able to create a custom button that launches tools or performs certain common operations like flattening a directory tree or creating an ISO from a VIDEO_TS folder. In Linux I rely on the commandline, and don't mind that terribly, but if I had the time I would create a file manager that was easily extensible with Python taking design cues from something like Sublime Text. Should anyone do this I am certain it would be a successful product. I paid something like $95 for Directory Opus, and Opus is a fairly successful product despite its high price (a good bit of that high price comes from the company being based in Australia). I contacted them when I switched, telling them that a Linux port would be profitable for them, but they are not interested.

Re: The new MacBook

#770
post #680

Is this laptop aimed for the high-end Macbook Pro users, or is it poised as the spiritual successor to the Macbook Air? According to the tech specs, this has the slowest processor (1.1 Ghz Intel Core M) of all of their models and the oldest graphics card (Intel HD Graphics 5300). Granted -- I know I shouldn't commit the cardinal sin of "The number is lower so it's worse." My words aren't meaningful. I guess I'm just…

It seems clear the Air is doomed, although it'll take another couple of years. It'll be this for most users, MBP for those that really need more RAM, more ports, etc.
Post reply on HN