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Impressions from a first-time Mac user

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Re: Impressions from a first-time Mac user

#251

Post by 2c2c2c »

brimble wrote: post #117
lbrito wrote: post #20

>you use what they give you, how they give it to you, using their workflows, barely customizing anything. Apple products are supposed to be revered the world over as the pinnacle of design, used by artists, engineers, professionals, and creators. Why do I feel like there are training wheels on a machine I use for productivity? Gosh, this is exactly how I felt in a similar situation. Really hit the nail on the head. I…

What are people doing with their computers that a Mac is so stifling? I'm late to the Mac game, have been on it for about a decade, and was a 15-year Windows and Linux desktop user before that. Still, I don't even know what it might be.

I had to start using mac for my current job as of last year and have no idea. once you learn about cmd-` and the weirdness with minimizing, and installed rectangle, i became as productive as I am on windows

finder to drive navigation to native desktop apps + a first class unix terminal nails my productivity needs. I ended up buying an m1 pro pretty soon after getting accustomed

Re: Impressions from a first-time Mac user

#252

Post by brimble »

rbanffy wrote: post #249
brimble wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I started as a MacPorts user, and moved because it managed to break itself about quarterly over the two years or so that I used it, usually in some way weird enough that it was easier to just remove all my packages (rm the whole directory) and start over than try to fix it. HomeBrew's done that zero times for me, in about eight years. I've extensively used Portage (gentoo), rpm (Fedora, Mandrake), and dpkg/apt (Debia…

I had exactly the opposite experience. Homebrew chewed up my computer a couple times back when it installed everything alongside OS files. The only sane way to get rid of it was to reinstall the OS.

> back when it installed everything alongside OS files.

Whoa—I don't recall it ever doing that. Some time before ~2012?

Re: Impressions from a first-time Mac user

#253

Post by kitsunesoba »

SllX wrote: post #144
pmontra wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having used the very first Mac, it made sense on that tiny screen. One application per time was almost more than it could accommodate. The monitor got bigger after a few years and the menu on top and the full screen interface started not to make sense compared to the Windows PC next desk.

Nah, I’ll defend the top menubar to the death. Infinite height and top-speed cursor speed makes working with it from the top versus from the window much more efficient for me, and it wastes less pixels (the purpose of high res monitors for me is to use all of the pixels) and gives me a working area on its right side for various utility apps I don’t want taking up space in the Dock (which has enough problems even with…

Additionally, when the menubar is a global system widget, UI designers in pursuit of minimalism can’t take it away. They’ll be there whether the designer likes it or not, acting as a searchable index of the app’s functionality.

Re: Impressions from a first-time Mac user

#254

Post by rbanffy »

thanatos519 wrote: post #43
lbrito wrote: post #20

>you use what they give you, how they give it to you, using their workflows, barely customizing anything. Apple products are supposed to be revered the world over as the pinnacle of design, used by artists, engineers, professionals, and creators. Why do I feel like there are training wheels on a machine I use for productivity? Gosh, this is exactly how I felt in a similar situation. Really hit the nail on the head. I…

"Training wheels" is my favourite description of the macOS GUI!

I actually appreciate the simplicity. Being stuck on Windows for the past couple months I say the best analogy for its window management would be “square training wheels”. Or rectangular, as square ones would have a single cadence.

Re: Impressions from a first-time Mac user

#255

Post by rubyist5eva »

and0 wrote: post #193
ysleepy wrote: post #87

My recommendations for Mac Users: * Put the Dock left or right, vertical space is precious (trust me, do it for a week and then decide) * Setup Hot-Corners (Settings -> Mission Control -> Hot Corners) - Upper-Right Corner as Mission Control (Must be upper right so spaces are immediately shown) - Lower-Left Corner as Application Windows - just fling your mouse curser into the corner (use std. gestures on the trackpad)…

I couldn't imagine navigating macOS without gestures. Great on touchpad, non-existent on any comfortable third-party mouse (the magic mouse is made for toddlers apparently.. I don't even have particularly large hands). Thankfully someone made an LUA script for the Logitech G app to use one of the random buttons on my gaming mouse to imitate three-finger swipes, which feels great: https://github.com/mark-vandenberg/g-…

Maybe this is heresy but I use the Magic Trackpad with my Mac Mini because the gestures are indespensable and the Magic Mouse kinda sucks.

Re: Impressions from a first-time Mac user

#256

Post by nneonneo »

urbandw311er wrote: post #152
olyjohn wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't get used to the fact that I can't alt-tab to a minimized window. Nor can I figure out how to switch to any particular minimized window. You have literally no way of knowing that a minimized window exists other than right-clicking the dock icon, or going to the "Window" menu after you switched to the application. The dock was fine 20 years ago when they released OSX, but they've literally done nothing to make…

Ok, so you can actually do this but the keyboard sequence is a bit bonkers. * Hold down Command and press Tab until the application icon representing the minimised window is highlighted. * Release Tab but DONT let go of Command. * Now press Option too so you are holding down Command + Option * Now release Command so you are just holding down Option * Finally release Option Amazingly this will then maximise the window…

This works, but it's (1) completely undiscoverable (how did you find out about this?), and (2) does not work for switching to a minimized window if the app has another unminimized window.

Re: Impressions from a first-time Mac user

#257

Post by CSMastermind »

There's a lot of people in comments defending macOS saying that the difference in switching between operating systems will lead to a bad experience no matter what and people just need to power through and learn the new system.

I'll say that I've used Windows and macOS both personally and professionally for two decades now (longer for Windows). I'd consider myself a power user in both OSes, I know the keyboard shortcuts, I know the OS settings somewhat in depth, and I've used a lot of the common tools to extend each OS.

My experience is that Windows has far better UX for pretty most end users.

I have 4 monitors connected to my Windows computer. I just plugged them in and it worked. I've burned hours fighting with external monitors on macOS. Is it even possible to have 4 external monitors? Actually you can extend this to all sorts of peripherals.

Windows explorer feels way more productive than finder. It still bothers me that I can't cut and paste folders by default.

I revert to the command line way more on macOS than I do on Windows. That's a skill that your average user isn't going to have.

I found my old Oregon Trail 3 CD two months ago and decided to play it. I had to navigate a few context menus but this 1997 game booted right up on Windows, how many hoops do you think I'd have to jump through to run a Mac OS 8 application on my MacBook Pro?

And there's a bunch of other examples I could give. There's a lot of reasons people like Apple products and if the interface works for you, great! But I don't think it's fair to dismiss critiques as ignorance of lack of ability.

Re: Impressions from a first-time Mac user

#258

Post by [deleted] »

nneonneo wrote: post #242
Aardwolf wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not a mac user (but a linux user who chooses desktops with the windowing paradigms of like windows 2000 or so plus multiple desktops) so have no idea how it's like in practice, but: These days it's very common for more than half your work to take place in a browser, with many browser windows, each having many tabs Every window of the browser almost is like its own application for the user, yet they're all from th…

Cmd+` switches between windows of the same app, and it's actually more convenient (IMHO) than using Alt+Tab to switch between every one of your windows from every app. There are also a handful of trackpad gestures for showing all the windows in the current app or all of your windows.

[deleted]

Re: Impressions from a first-time Mac user

#259

Post by DiggyJohnson »

kitsunesoba wrote: post #243
Aardwolf wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not a mac user (but a linux user who chooses desktops with the windowing paradigms of like windows 2000 or so plus multiple desktops) so have no idea how it's like in practice, but: These days it's very common for more than half your work to take place in a browser, with many browser windows, each having many tabs Every window of the browser almost is like its own application for the user, yet they're all from th…

This is where the value of electron wrappers and web apps installed as PWAs comes in. It offloads app management duties from your browser and puts them back in the hands of the OS. The former of those two can also get rid of redundant menubars (as seen in e.g. Figma) which is a nice bonus.

Exactly. When the Electron-apps-are--awful-compared-to-desktop-apps conversation comes up, I'm always frustrsted to not see this perspective, because it really reframes the real potential value of Electron implementations away from (from this perspective, unfair) critical comparison to implementing internet services and applications as true desktop apps.

Re: Impressions from a first-time Mac user

#260

Post by samatman »

Aardwolf wrote: post #216
rwc wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not that it's right or wrong, but the behavior dates back to the very first implementations of Mac OS and Windows. Mac OS has always been an application switching interface, and Windows has been a window switching interface. Takes getting used to the paradigm shift.

I'm not a mac user (but a linux user who chooses desktops with the windowing paradigms of like windows 2000 or so plus multiple desktops) so have no idea how it's like in practice, but: These days it's very common for more than half your work to take place in a browser, with many browser windows, each having many tabs Every window of the browser almost is like its own application for the user, yet they're all from th…

I have a few workflow solutions to this, but Control Down-Arrow or three finger swipe down is the most common.

Also, windows are in a stack from least to most recently put in front, so if I know something is toward the back I start with command-~.

I also happen to believe that there is such a thing as having too many browser windows open, so when these strategies start to become unmanageable, I will close some. The Expose for browser windows takes up to twelve before it needs to make the icons really small, that's a reasonable limit for me, especially given both tabs and tab groups (which I'm increasingly making good use of).

To be clear, this is a workflow, not a workaround: unlike focus follows mouse being impossible, I'm content and productive handling the browser this way.

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