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No Start Menu for You

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Re: No Start Menu for You

#141

Post by makeitdouble »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #80
zwaps wrote: post #34

I think search is hard generally. I switched to an M1 Mac pro recently, and it has its own set of challenges. For instance, there is no start menu but a search bar called Spotlight. You do your quick math in there (where you'd call calc.exe in Windows). However, it only accepts your query as math... sometimes. Like 50% of the times. Otherwise it searches the web. If you search for a program, it takes just that tiny s…

I've found Windows window management to be pretty poor. They removed always on top (except in OneNote, and it's in power toys). Open a second Word document and all your docs get maximised. Undock and re-dock your MS machine from it's MS dock and the MS OS suddenly has no clue where to put your windows. Dock to a different dock (hot-desking; same brand and size of monitor) and the entire display options need to be re-…

> Dock to a different dock (hot-desking; same brand and size of monitor) and the entire display options need to be re-written - no option to preserve it.

Also the same on macos BTW. Switching external screens resets all the screen size options, including your laptop display if you’re not at the “default” resolution.

Re: No Start Menu for You

#142

Post by greggman3 »

zwaps wrote: post #34

I think search is hard generally. I switched to an M1 Mac pro recently, and it has its own set of challenges. For instance, there is no start menu but a search bar called Spotlight. You do your quick math in there (where you'd call calc.exe in Windows). However, it only accepts your query as math... sometimes. Like 50% of the times. Otherwise it searches the web. If you search for a program, it takes just that tiny s…

For me Spotlight fails constantly. I don't know what's tripping it up but programs I use often it randomly decides "today I'm not going to find those for you". I have it set to only show programs and nothing else so no idea why it can't do that simple task but whatever, several times a week it decides "not this time"

As for tiling, Mac does do somethings that Windows (IIRC) doesn't. One is, if you move a window or the edge of a window slowly it will snap at the border of another window. So you move fast to get it close then slow down and it will align nicely.

Also, tiling: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204948

But I agree that Windows tiling is more discoverable.

Re: No Start Menu for You

#143

Post by everdrive »

greggman3 wrote: post #142
zwaps wrote: post #34

I think search is hard generally. I switched to an M1 Mac pro recently, and it has its own set of challenges. For instance, there is no start menu but a search bar called Spotlight. You do your quick math in there (where you'd call calc.exe in Windows). However, it only accepts your query as math... sometimes. Like 50% of the times. Otherwise it searches the web. If you search for a program, it takes just that tiny s…

For me Spotlight fails constantly. I don't know what's tripping it up but programs I use often it randomly decides "today I'm not going to find those for you". I have it set to only show programs and nothing else so no idea why it can't do that simple task but whatever, several times a week it decides "not this time" As for tiling, Mac does do somethings that Windows (IIRC) doesn't. One is, if you move a window or th…

Spotlight gets better the less you ask it to do. Remove varieties of results (eg: web searching) and see how much more useful it becomes.

Re: No Start Menu for You

#144

Post by Eisenstein »

roel_v wrote: post #123
Eisenstein wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's actually timely for me, as I just started using Glasswire with a clean ruleset. As I'm typing this, freakin' explorer.exe asked for network access to an outside IP address. It's hard to disallow explorer.exe network access as I won't be able to access SMB shares without it, but I have no idea why it would go outside my network. I don't know glasswire, but on Commodo firewall you can set a rule to allow access…

Yeah I should probably look into it more. Can Comodo's firewall be used standalone, i.e. without its antivirus? What I needed from Glasswire was click-to-allow on each network access, I couldn't find that in any product I tried a few years ago before I decided on Glasswire.

> Can Comodo's firewall be used standalone, i.e. without its antivirus?

Yep, just pick the firewall from the installers and make sure you uncheck everything except the firewall during the install (they are tricky, these guys):

* https://forums.comodo.com/news-announcements-feedback-cis/co...

after installing go through and (again) disable everything but the firewall. I also use their firewall to block their firewall (hah) from updating. Once you do this it works fine as a standalone firewall and the only reason to ever update it is if you reinstall or upgrade Windows.

EDIT: It does per-app blocking great; that's why I use it. I tried glasswire and didn't like it (or maybe they wanted to charge me money, I forget).

Re: No Start Menu for You

#145

Post by ClassyJacket »

0cf8612b2e1e wrote: post #32
martin_ky wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd say the reality is even more ironic - they collect so much data and reports, pretending this is to help to improve the user experience, but in the end it makes the experience so much worse.

It still irks me to no end when a Microsoft product asks me to rate my experience. Teams is constantly badgering me to rate the call quality. Is there a threshold percentage of users indicating good/bad that would lead to any change?

The Microsoft 365 admin panel still asks you how likely you are to recommend it to a friend or colleague.

"Hey Steve, I recommend the Microsoft 365 admin panel. Of all the one admin panels for 365, it's definitely the best!"

Re: No Start Menu for You

#146

Post by alpaca128 »

coldtea wrote: post #108
zwaps wrote: post #34

I think search is hard generally. I switched to an M1 Mac pro recently, and it has its own set of challenges. For instance, there is no start menu but a search bar called Spotlight. You do your quick math in there (where you'd call calc.exe in Windows). However, it only accepts your query as math... sometimes. Like 50% of the times. Otherwise it searches the web. If you search for a program, it takes just that tiny s…

> Oh and for some reason, it's less stable than my prior windows machine. Apps just crash a lot, but that's probably due to the Arm64. For what is worth, I use dozens of apps, several big ones and lots of utilities, and no crashes (though I went for all being M1 native). So could just be the choice of apps or some other factor. Regarding typing to launch apps, you can try Alfred. It's free for basic use, and is what…

> click and keep clicked for a second or so the green window button, and it will give you option to put the window in a left/right tile and chose another for the other side

But it won't let you just tile a single window to a side, it is mandatory to select another window for the other half of the screen. Also it moves those windows to a separate workspace for whatever reason, which causes a delay when entering/exiting this tiling mode because of the workspace switching animation.

I'm glad Rectangle exists. Now I just need something like Mission Control but with keyboard support (seriously, why can't I at least select another window with the arrow keys?)

Re: No Start Menu for You

#147

Post by adzm »

nikau wrote: post #126
boloust wrote: post #67

The worst thing about the Windows Start Menu search is that it changes the top result without any user input, and it feels like it happens almost every time I use Windows. I'll type the first few characters of a program installed on the machine, and the top result is the program I want. But just as I hit Enter, the top result switches out to a web search, so instead of the program I wanted to start, I'm staring at a…

There is a registry key that turns off web search in win10, it makes it much nicer.

For posterity,

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer

DisableSearchBoxSuggestions DWORD

Set its value to 1.

Should work for Windows 11 and 10

Re: No Start Menu for You

#148

Post by Joeri »

chris37879 wrote: post #52
mszcz wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rectangle, Rectangle Pro, Magnet are all very nice and make the window management ok-ish on Mac imho. I've made the switch a couple of months ago and the window management without those apps seemed both different but also somehow worse. Now, I'm all used to it and it works good.

I use Moom, it gives me basically perfect snapping and keyboard controls

I switched from magnet to moom. It feels like a native OS feature, which is the highest compliment I can give such a tool.

Re: No Start Menu for You

#149

Post by input_sh »

cassepipe wrote: post #110
input_sh wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> At this point, I'm wondering if there's a start menu replacement app Not using Windows for like a decade now, but I always go for a third-party launcher on Linux/macOS. They're fast(er) and more importantly extensible. Instead of trying to index everything all the time, they function via triggers. If I start my query with "em", it searches emojis, if I start it with "=" it does calculations, if with "tr" it transla…

While I agree with your point I found Ulauncher particularly slow when I tried it a year ago compared to the regularly recommended rofi

It just depends on what you're after. rofi is faster as an application launcher and I'm sure I could script my way into doing other things with it as well, but I'm willing to sacrifice a bit of speed for the convenience of extensions being easy to install and configure. In most cases it's a matter of browsing them (https://ext.ulauncher.io/), copy-pasting a GitHub link, and configuring a trigger. Sometimes there's also some system-level package I need to install and/or an API key I need to enter.

In any case, alternative launchers always beat the hell out of default ones. Once you get into them you're going to be reaching for a mouse/touchpad far less frequently and do a whole lot more with them than just launching apps.

Re: No Start Menu for You

#150

Post by roomey »

Sorry to be that guy, but this is why XFCE is so good!

Them random delays when doing simple things in windows is so frustrating.

A desktop should get out of your way, and be so quick you don't notice it. Window switches, minimizing, maximising, launching, closing etc. Or my personal favourite, type and the letters take their time to appear.

Only after you have worked with a system that never ever lags on these everyday actions do you see how frustrating it is to work every day with these laggy things.

I saw some Mac users comment on the lack of lag on their laptops! I'm sure they can identify with how nice it is.

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