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macOS needs its grid back

blog.hopefullyuseful.com

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Re: macOS needs its grid back

#231

Post by wolvoleo »

butlike wrote: post #212
wolvoleo wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their approach is not decent. There should be some kind of master key to get full admin access. Leaving al the keys in the hand of a mega corporation is asking for trouble. It's gone so far that even tech people now think that having root access to a mobile device is somehow scary. Well guess what that root access is still there for the manufacturer. It needs it for stuff like updates. It just shields you from having…

Doesn't the government already have root to whatever machine via the NSA? It's the downstream government, the state-level governments that are squeaky wheels with the age verification and other nonsense.

I'm in Europe not the US. But NSA and their likes are a very expensive resource. They're not going to use that for small fry cases. Also, any evidence they obtain is not legal for any purpose so it has limited use.

And even NSA backdoors could be discovered more easily if we had full access to our phones, obviously.

Re: macOS needs its grid back

#232

Post by 1xn »

I still miss MacOS classic vibes, even System 7 was great to me. I'm not totally a fan of the whole new MacOS system, its amazing of course, not saying it's not. But I miss the simplicity of MacOS9 and how we customized our desktops with nice pixelart 32x32 icons!

Re: macOS needs its grid back

#233

Post by lobofta »

leojfc wrote: post #142

Yes, and I'd go a step further: OSes in general need a concept of a 'project' or 'task' or whatever, which a) cuts across apps and b) integrates deeply with windowing and spaces. Multitasking and context switching has been increasing for years, instant messaging boosted them again, and agent-based workflows are only going to push further in that direction. The OS needs to support that, and it's not an app-level conce…

I use Niri workspaces that way. I name my spaces (usually after branches) and have a browser, editor and usually a few terminals open on a workspace. It's also great that a workspace has infinite space so that I can never have to think about creating workspaces just because some workspace has run out of room.

Re: macOS needs its grid back

#234

Post by osjdiwnfiwjfi »

xp84 wrote: 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…

> As a complete nerd, you'd think maybe I'd like that I can prove my skills like this

As a self proclaimed complete nerd I expect you to be insufferable about this—lo and behold...

Let’s not pretend these security practices have no use, please. This “I’m such a greybeard, screw modernity” playacting is so tiresome it’s not even quaint any longer.

Re: macOS needs its grid back

#235

Post by js2 »

ramathornn wrote: post #185
rpastuszak wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it different from Rectangle? (I've been using it for ages)

looks pretty much identical!

Both apps look like a slightly less flexible version of Divvy (which I've been using since 2010):

https://mizage.com/divvy/

However, they're also cheaper ($0 or $4.99 vs $13.99).

Re: macOS needs its grid back

#236

Post by TylerE »

throwup238 wrote: post #193
TylerE wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

All of which are trivial for a user to override, disable, or ignore completely except the primary airbags, which I believe is the whole point. The user is in control and its all in the owner’s manual to boot.

Many are not, and ma y of the ones in the pipe line, like speed limiters and drunk driver detection are going to be legally mandated to be nondisableable..

Re: macOS needs its grid back

#237

Post by bitexploder »

drob518 wrote: post #218
bitexploder wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This assumes that every designer is on the bell curve at the big tech firms in the roles that can influence this. I am not defending modern UI/UX, but that is quite an assumption.

You're right, it is a big assumption, but it's not unfounded. I've worked at F50 companies and founded my own startup. It's a lot easier to get two really great designers from the far right side of the bell curve when you're a small startup. As an organization reaches even 1000 people, you're now starting to draw from the middle of the bell curve. In fact, you have to. If you try to hire only from the far right of th…

On the other hand, just working at big tech doesn't mean you are especially great. Conformance and criteria other than raw skill matter. As you say, promotion games, etc... I would just lump all of that under conformance. So, you aren't wrong.

However, why startups outperform big companies isn't just the skill gap. Even if you have the most amazing leadership in big tech it is monumentally difficult to move the needle on some problems purely because of size not because of incompetence. All I am saying is don't overindex on perceived intelligence. A big org can start looking pretty dumb even though it is still far right of the bell curve compared to even a startup (hypothetically). Org size and the constraints that brings are a significant factor.

Re: macOS needs its grid back

#238

Post by freedomben »

comboy wrote: post #109
xp84 wrote: 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…

> As a complete nerd, you'd think maybe I'd like that I can prove my skills like this, but it comes off as deeply disrespectful to me as the user that I can't disable this. You seem to have understood the problem. But then you didn't follow. If there was a way to disable this, first thing that the grandma would do is watch a video how to disable that and lose security from then on. Of course it is not perfect, but th…

I agree with you, but then to me this is a great reason why macOS (and Apple products in general) just aren't made for me. And that's ok, that's the beauty of diversity.

Re: macOS needs its grid back

#239

Post by brailsafe »

I'm excited, thanks for spending your free time bringing back parts of mac that made it an OS that felt nice to use. I also hope Apple brings this back as a native feature, but until then, I hope you can make some $$ on the effort.

Re: macOS needs its grid back

#240

Post by mortenjorck »

willtemperley wrote: post #224
mortenjorck wrote: post #54

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…

I like the concept. Assuming you were the inspiration for this (very possible) how do you feel about the usability? I spent an hour today trying to get it working the way I’d expect and it still does odd things, like after disabling automatic reordering based on usage the order is different when 3 finger swiping previews as opposed to actual windows. The visual order is as expected but the swipe order is not linear.

My criticism of MacOS Spaces is one I have of all Apple's window management efforts over the years: It's a great start and a foundation to build upon, but they never really followed through with iterative improvements informed by real-world usage.

In Spaces' case, the problem is a combination of an overly rigid model (only two full-height windows per space) and high friction to management (the process of moving full-height windows from one space to another requires multiple steps). Traditional free-form windows are a little better, but it's easy to lose track of them because the overview itself requires two steps to access (open Mission Control, hover the top bar to expand thumbnails). These could have been gradually improved over the past 14 years, but Apple has somewhat frustratingly left these core workspace features to wither on the vine.

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