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macOS needs its grid back

blog.hopefullyuseful.com

161–170 of 272 posts

Re: macOS needs its grid back

#161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At that point it's a them problem.

Yeah, it always seems weird to me how we deem most adults responsible enough to own a car and not drive into oncoming traffic or how people are allowed to buy actually dangerous tools from big tool stores without a second glance. And sure, there's safety training available and in the case of driving you gotta first prove you're able to follow the rules. But after that? You're on your own, only in computer land do the…

> You're on your own, only in computer land do the manufacturers and so on keep holding your hand trying to make sure you're not figuratively cutting it.

Well, firstly, newer cars are now equipped with tons of safety features like various kinds of auto-braking, various warning systems which monitor blind spots in the car, and driving aids like lane assist, lane monitoring, what have you. And then they also have advanced telemetry features that don’t keep them safe, but their insurance company hopes will identify them as bad drivers if and when they get into accidents so they can be denied coverage. These could be analogous depending how you look at it.

Additionally while there’s not much out there for tools, I think that’s less to do with it not being an issue and more to do with it being kind of impossible? That said a few tools have things like sensors that detect the presence of fingers near saw blades and will not only stop operating, they’ll usually destroy the tool in the process to ensure the operators safety, because fundamentally, more saws exist, more fingers do not.

Like despite loving track driving, I wouldn’t think that everyone tearing around in V8 monsters with stripped interiors and roll cages is a good idea.

Re: macOS needs its grid back

#162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Never underestimate the ingenuity of a motivated fool. My litmus test for this sort of thing is Excel - I think we all can agree that Excel is used for way more than it should be, and the most complicated, unhinged uses of it are done by non-technical folks looking to get a task done through desperation.

At that point it's a them problem.

> At that point it's a them problem.

Except when it becomes a reputational problem for the OEM: Excel sucks at X (i.e., don't use it for that) and Excel sucks can become equivalent in many people's minds.

Sometimes it is actually a problem of people 'holding it wrong' (as the meme/trope goes). And who gets the blame?

Re: macOS needs its grid back

#163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you really underestimate the will of people to not change anything that annoys them about their OS. they will click 1 million times a popup away before even considering that it could be resolved indefinitely by an option change. i think Apple's system works well to keep the average user safe.

Agreed. It just doesn't occur to most people. To even come up with the idea that maybe there's a setting for something, never mind searching for a tutorial on how to change it, you already have to be a power user for some values of "power".

The grandma is going to follow the video on how to disable system security because scammers are making these videos and she think she has a virus.

Not because she wants to install brew or something.

Re: macOS needs its grid back

#164
The same applies to Linux.

I remember the 2x2 grid in Ubuntu 12 being the best desktop UI I had ever used.

The current Gnome workspaces with a single row are a huge step backwards in terms of productivity. It must be easier for beginners, but it frustrates me every single day.

Re: macOS needs its grid back

#165

I can never prove it, but I like to think I'm the one to credit/blame for inspiring Apple to "inexplicably restrict [spaces] to a horizontal line only" in Leopard. I produced a concept video in 2009 that prominently featured a linear window manager with gestural navigation, and while it's mostly forgotten today, it was covered by all the tech press at the time and inspired a few attempts at adapting some of its idiom…

Thank you for confessing!

I hate that design and what it has done to Gnome.

A grid was so much better.

Re: macOS needs its grid back

#166
Thank you, Great description. I have a similar feeling while on my work computer for switching between windows. For some reason when the number of windows are too much, full screen task switching is slowdowns (its not a case my personal work) So i made taskbar.ahmetozer.org my be it helps.

Re: macOS needs its grid back

#167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At that point it's a them problem.

Yeah, it always seems weird to me how we deem most adults responsible enough to own a car and not drive into oncoming traffic or how people are allowed to buy actually dangerous tools from big tool stores without a second glance. And sure, there's safety training available and in the case of driving you gotta first prove you're able to follow the rules. But after that? You're on your own, only in computer land do the…

That isn't true at all.

To attack your specific example, cars have added all kinds of things that "hand hold" the user and keep them (and others) safe: Seat belts, air bags, anti-lock brakes, traction control, automatic emergency braking, back up cameras, lane keep assist, blind spot monitors, etc, etc, etc. (Oh, and guess what, per-mile traffic deaths are WAY down from a few decades ago).

Re: macOS needs its grid back

#168
> Apparently what I wanted was a Merchant of Record. Someone to handle purchases, taxes and refunds. There seems to be three main companies providing this service: Paddle, GumRoad and Lemon Squeezy.

I've used Lemon Squeezy a couple years back, but after the acquisition I feel they've gone downhill. It's been a month since I submitted my product for review and I'm still waiting.

Stripe also has a MoR service now, I was able to set it up and ready to sell in a few hours

Re: macOS needs its grid back

#169
post #9

> If they approve, the settings open, then the user has to find the specific little toggle and enable it. Another security prompt then done. Why isn’t this at most 2 prompts? Answer: Because modern-day Apple has subscribed to a particular brand of mitigation for the "noobs will always click 'Allow' especially if you ask them to first" problem. The mitigation is that Apple just dumps you on step 2 of a little 4-5 step…

It got restrictive enough that I jumped to Linux with Hyprland and just configured everything the way I actually want

True, I started with Omarchy, but then changed everything to my liking. It's so much nicer if you can change your OS by changing some dotfiles, and don't get distracted by all the nonsense of new features that macOS and Windows are adding. I wrote about my journey https://www.ssp.sh/blog/macbook-to-arch-linux-omarchy/ and what I learned after 8 months: https://www.ssp.sh/blog/linux-omarchy-the-good-bad-and-fixab...

Re: macOS needs its grid back

#170
post #9

> If they approve, the settings open, then the user has to find the specific little toggle and enable it. Another security prompt then done. Why isn’t this at most 2 prompts? Answer: Because modern-day Apple has subscribed to a particular brand of mitigation for the "noobs will always click 'Allow' especially if you ask them to first" problem. The mitigation is that Apple just dumps you on step 2 of a little 4-5 step…

That is a solution. But the underlying problem is that they didn't go far enough. There's no good reason to bundle arbitrary screen recording with window snapshots, or bundle arbitrary keylogging with hotkey activation. Just off the top of my head:

For previews, Apple could provide an API for this very common task. The OS can provide the images, and they could be sampled at refresh rate that makes it unusable for arbitrary recording.

For key chords, they could repurpose the emoji key, which is currently not available for external binding, to effectively allow capture only following that magic sequence. The OS should manage this centrally, allowing a program to define its commands and then delivering only the command without the specific associated keys presses. We get the benefit of centralized management with deconfliction, too, which is a real pain on macos as it stands.

I don't know if these solve every problem, but they solve some. There are probably better ways. Apple has plenty of smart programmers. The product team needs to let them solve the problems that they surely know bother their professional users.

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