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No Start Menu for You

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Re: No Start Menu for You

#161

Post by doix »

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

Does anything do this properly? I use i3[0], and wrote some super janky automation to preserve my layouts when I switched from dock to no dock and back. It has the concept of layouts that can be stored/loaded. So I had a script that would dump the layout, I had to manually run it before disconnecting (couldn't figure out how to detect the monitor disconnect and dump the layout before i3 re-arranged everything). And another script that would load the layout when new monitors were connected (this was easy enough to automate).

I'd be _really_ impressed if something did this correctly without any user hacking.

[0] https://i3wm.org/

Re: No Start Menu for You

#162

Post by nerdponx »

roomey wrote: post #150

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 every…

The XFCE whisker menu is an excellent start menu.

Re: No Start Menu for You

#163

Post by foobarbecue »

Why the hell does windows think it's ok to secretly phone home with crash reports by default, especially when sending those makes the problem worse by slowing down the crash recovery? In this case the problem would probably have been insignificant if not for super slow, blocking, error telemetry. At least store these and send them later, sheesh.

Re: No Start Menu for You

#164

Post by acdha »

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. I mean, remarkably stable compared to computer back when, of course, but compared to Windows 10, I have more crashes and even had to restart a couple of times!

This is not normal: you might have a hardware issue or possibly some kind of invasive corporate security software. The two M1 devices I’ve used have never had a system level crash and application crashes are rare except for the things I’m compiling myself.

For window management, I use Rectangle.app - Macs are all about keyboard shortcuts and that adds all kinds of resize patterns.

For search, I’ve used Launchbar since before Spotlight existed. It’s notably faster for app launching and customizable, and the clipboard history is invaluable.

Re: No Start Menu for You

#165

Post by Eisenstein »

dhaavi wrote: post #152
Eisenstein wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

You might enjoy Safing's Portmaster Firewall then: https://safing.io/ It's open source and is quickly surpassing GlassWire's capabilities. Disclaimer: I'm Founder/CTO of Safing.

I am a bit confused about Portmaster and Safing. The documentation on Safing constantly refers to Portmaster. Does portmaster do anything besides act as a local firewall?

Re: No Start Menu for You

#166

Post by acdha »

gcbirzan wrote: post #159
roomey wrote: post #150

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 every…

I honestly don't know what they're talking about, I had a mac until recently and very often I'd get up to 500ms delay in writing in a Chrome text box.

Anything more than roughly 10ms from the key being depressed to the display updating is not normal on a Mac.

If you’re seeing 500ms that’s either something specific to Chrome (the timing is slow enough I’d believe a network call for something like spell checking or suggestions) or some kind of extension interfering with the normal system behavior. I’ve heard about that with some security software so it can be useful to report those as bugs.

Re: No Start Menu for You

#167

Post by Gareth321 »

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 fully agree on all points. I took a Mac hiatus for a few years and have been shocked with how unstable it has become in that time.

FYI Alfred is the commonly recommended fix for Spotlight. Spotlight has become progressively worse over time. Apple recently removed the ability to remove web results, and disabled the ability to order which results come first.

Re: No Start Menu for You

#168

Post by dhaavi »

Eisenstein wrote: post #165
dhaavi wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might enjoy Safing's Portmaster Firewall then: https://safing.io/ It's open source and is quickly surpassing GlassWire's capabilities. Disclaimer: I'm Founder/CTO of Safing.

I am a bit confused about Portmaster and Safing. The documentation on Safing constantly refers to Portmaster. Does portmaster do anything besides act as a local firewall?

There are 3 big parts:

- The firewall itself with rules, filter lists, and so on - https://safing.io/features/

- Secure DNS (DoT/DoH resolver) - https://safing.io/features/

- "SPN": Optional paid VPN alternative similar to Tor, our source of revenue - https://safing.io/spn/

Re: No Start Menu for You

#169

Post by acdha »

iforgotpassword wrote: post #63
martin_ky wrote: post #6

It seems to be a pattern with (not just) Microsoft products to hang the UI while waiting for some remote API, usually talking to the home base. Happens a lot to me with Office desktop apps - they freeze sometimes for a good second or so while starting and more surprisingly also when closing. One time it bothered me so much, that I recorded an ETW and unsurprisingly the time during the hang was spent waiting for some…

I guess it's because in web context, it's easier to do web calls async than sync. While it's perfectly possible to do async web calls in something like C++, or at least move stuff to a different thread, people just somehow don't. Maybe out of lazyness since the first Google result was sync, or because lifecycle management is harder if raw pointers are involved, or whatever else.

In some cases I wonder if the Office team had internal coding policies against threading because they aren’t sure about thread safety on some legacy structures. I remember reporting the issues Outlook had blocking UI waiting on network calls in the Office 97 beta (oh, was I an optimistic teenager) and multiple decades later that’s still affecting users.
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