Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Sensible macOS Defaults

github.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 182 posts

Re: Sensible macOS Defaults

#131

Post by m463 »

When I read this I thought - A kindred spirit:

  # Disable automatic capitalization as it’s annoying when typing code
  # Disable smart dashes as they’re annoying when typing code
  # Disable automatic period substitution as it’s annoying when typing code
  # Disable smart quotes as they’re annoying when typing code
  # Disable auto-correct
  ...
but then I saw this -

  # Allow the App Store to reboot machine on macOS updates
I assume this after you manually started the update, otherwise it is madness!

Re: Sensible macOS Defaults

#132

Post by root_axis »

mrtksn wrote: post #72
root_axis wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, you could use it as a cheat sheet, but that's not what it is. IMO macOS has a lot of terrible defaults that are not at all sensible, of course this is quite subjective, but the fact that many mac users accept the defaults isn't really saying much, typically end-users don't even realize there are other options available.

You can have different opinions on what's sensible but to claim that something is not sensible as general you need to make a point about an issue due to the default settings. For example, if people were getting hacked through remote desktop connection all the time you could have said that macOS has insensible defaults on the security or even existence of that feature. However, with macOS that's not the case, in fact…

> a lot of its users have no understanding of how it works and yet successfully use it for years with no issues and not gaining any understanding through the years.

This is true of every popular operating system. Most people just adapt to the defaults regardless of the OS. There are millions of people who use windows or chrome os, or even ubuntu as-is out of the box. Whether or not people want to change the defaults just depends on what they're used to, if you used windows for years and switch to macOS it's very likely you're going to be inclined to modify certain defaults and the same is true in reverse.

Re: Sensible macOS Defaults

#133

Post by chipotle_coyote »

chrisseaton wrote: post #62
Nullabillity wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Compare how much time you spend using your own system vs others'.

If you learn the default, it doesn't matter how much time you spend on any given system. I don't get why people make themselves less portable by becoming dependent on non-defaults.

For what it's worth, I use Vim fairly regularly and have always left the escape key alone. (The "butterfly keyboard" Mac tempts to me remap it, but that is not, in the final analysis, Vim's fault.) I do, however, tend to remap caps lock to control, because I think it's a better place for it and it's not exactly a high effort thing to do the remapping -- it's built right into the Mac's system preferences.

As other people have pointed out, most of us aren't regularly using computers that aren't ours (or at least "ours," in the case of work machines permanently assigned to us), and I suspect nearly everyone who reads this web site has changed more than one thing on their computer that deviates from a fresh out-of-the-box default. :)

Re: Sensible macOS Defaults

#136

Post by capableweb »

mrtksn wrote: post #7

Wouldn't be better to call this "cheat sheet"? macOS already has sensible defaults, that's how people who have no interest in dealing with computers can use their machines for years with no issues or servicing(unless a latte is spilled over the keyboard). Then, you can customise behaviour for some specific things to fit your workflow. The problem with diverging from defaults without putting much thought on it is that…

> Wouldn't be better to call this "cheat sheet"?

No. A cheat sheet is used as a reference to some subject and is for making it easy to look up things many times, over time. This is something you read through once, apply the full thing / parts and then forget about it. Pretty big difference.

Re: Sensible macOS Defaults

#138

Post by lnwlebjel »

This is the best one:

  # Display full POSIX path as Finder window title
  defaults write com.apple.finder _FXShowPosixPathInTitle -bool true
I don't know how anyone knows where their stuff is without it.

Re: Sensible macOS Defaults

#140

Post by CGamesPlay »

dcow wrote: post #82
spankalee wrote: post #75

It'd be awesome if this could help with two anti-user innovations in recent macOS: 1) Disable Apple Music, which has the annoying habit of opening every time I touch my headphones, and is not removable from my own computer. 2) Force macOS to remember that I gave Chrome location permissions instead of reseting Chrome after every update.

Safari does this too.. Apple is on some horse about requiring user intervention for every single location request even from sites you’ve already allowed in the past. It’s annoying.

I think the only button on the dialog is like "rememberer for one day" or something, right? Once you've clicked that, go to preferences -> websites -> locations, change the affected site to "deny" and then "allow", and it's permanent.
Post reply on HN