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KDE beats macOS

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Re: KDE beats macOS

#271
post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not the GP, but I routinely have use-cases where I switch back and forth between (say) two windows of one app and one window of another app. That, is, for a given task I have a “working set” consisting of windows of different apps, involving more than one same-app window for at least one of the apps. It would be annoying to have to switch between different keyboard shortcuts, instead of just getting LRU behavior with…

My experience on MacOS is that whichever window for a given app was current when you last switched away will be current when you switch back, so it's still a single combo-keystroke to switch as you're describing. My point was that people tend to favor whichever approach they're most used to. Switching only at the window level does "lose" information about the hierarchy, while switching with the hierarchy in place req…

> whichever window for a given app was current when you last switched away will be current when you switch back

The problem is “for a given app”. If I want to switch back to the previous window, I have to use a different shortcut depending on whether that window was from the same app or not. Similarly, if I want to switch back to the window before that, I may have to first use one shortcut to switch back to the other app, and then use the other shortcut to switch within that app. If the windows represent documents, this roughly means that when switching between documents, you have to use a different shortcut depending on whether the type of the document you’re switching to happens to be the same or different from the one you’re currently on. This isn’t really intuitive, and arguably entails more cognitive overhead.

I agree that a lot comes down what you’re used to, but there are also good reasons to prefer one approach over the other.

Re: KDE beats macOS

#272
Now that's funny...come back at me bro when your laptop, desktop, tablet, and mobile handset devices talk to each other. Until then, don't forget to take care of yourself, including showers, vegetables, and sunlight. Toodles!

Re: KDE beats macOS

#273
post #223

Unintuitive things about macOS: the bar at the top is used both for app-context menus and for system-context settings. Wuh? If you want to scan something, you have to go via system settings instead of running an app. Wuh? They keep breaking drivers for important things, especially USB things, especially if it so happens that they decide to sell them themselves (like external keyboards). About a year ago I had an issu…

> Unintuitive things about macOS: the bar at the top is used both for app-context menus and for system-context settings. Wuh? Not unintuitive different to what you are used to . > If you want to scan something, you have to go via system settings instead of running an app. Wuh? No, you use Preview.app, which is the default image viewer in macOS, and always has been. > They keep breaking drivers for important things, e…

To clarify, I've been using the damn thing 10+ years (always in parallel with other OSs) and I still find it unintuitive.

> Not unintuitive different to what you are used to.

At the semantic level it's fundamentally mixing two separate concerns. Further, resolving this quandry requires opening a next-level menu and further analysis, it cannot be done immediately/visually. IMHO, this sort of thing is the objective definition of "unintuitive" in an interface.

> use Preview.app [to scan]

Never heard of using this to scan, and you even said it's an "image viewer". So that's unintuitive also. I now see it has an 'Import image from scanner...' function. Wow, that's ... not what I was looking for. I will always scan many pages at once.

> No different to any other OS.

Incorrect. I've never seen Linux drop support for hardware except ultra-ancient hardware (>40 years). What you describe with wifi is likely a closed source driver with special binary blob firmware requirements. These are the fault of the device manufacturer, often because they've bought closed IP for their chip. Dropping open source drivers or published third party drivers is the fault of the OS/distro. Linux doesn't claim to be easy to use, but it can be configured to be very stable. This is much preferable to OSX which IMHO every 6 months likes to "upgrade" you to a non-working system without recourse.

> [Somewhere on the internet has information...]

Yeah, great. If you're such an Apple documentation fan, try finding out how to fix my keyboard on the Apple site then. I'll send you a hardware gift if you can solve that one. Tried everything hinted at on the internet, no help.

> Time Machine is very effective

I don't trust closed source single vendor systems with my data, sorry.

Re: KDE beats macOS

#274
post #81
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I almost agree with this, except that the shared clipboard between my phone and computer on iOS/MacOS is so useful I'll often switch to my MacBook from my Linux desktop because of it. Once you've got used to it you just can't go back.

What you're looking for is KDE Connect or GSConnect. The pairing mechanisms are also extremely more flexible than what MacOS allows. The iOS client just launched this year.

It seems possible that might work, although without image support at least 50% of my use-case is gone:

> Clipboard

> "Share the clipboard between devices."

> With this, you can simply copy text from your computer and it will be immediately available to paste on your phone, and vice-versa. This does not work with images though.

Also I'm hesitant to even try it. I use PopOS and I've never managed to get a plugin to work properly, and the crazy "you need to install a browser plugin that can read all your data to use plugins" puts me off a lot.

Re: KDE beats macOS

#275
post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed one hundred percent. Why extremely biased rant from specific DE subreddit (also biased) gets so many upvotes? Who cares? My additions: * Poor to non-existing window tiling (at least Rectangle has very good defaults and works well) There are apps for that, like writer mentioned - so what's the problem? I'd argue that using Expose, Mission Control, Multiple desktops and controlling them with touchpad swipes is f…

> * Lack of native clipboard > To be fair - I am intrigued what does writer mean with `native clipboard`? Some sort of built-in app for clipboard management? You don't know native clipboard? It's like a universal second, "quick" clipboard in Linux. You select something somewhere - copied. You middle click somewhere - pasted. It's so much faster and super convenient, it supports terminal and is independent of the "mai…

macOS Terminal actually supports middle-click insert. It's quite nice, but it only works inside Terminal. It's useful as a second clipboard.

Re: KDE beats macOS

#276
post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Unintuitive things about macOS: the bar at the top is used both for app-context menus and for system-context settings. Wuh? Not unintuitive different to what you are used to . > If you want to scan something, you have to go via system settings instead of running an app. Wuh? No, you use Preview.app, which is the default image viewer in macOS, and always has been. > They keep breaking drivers for important things, e…

To clarify, I've been using the damn thing 10+ years (always in parallel with other OSs) and I still find it unintuitive. > Not unintuitive different to what you are used to. At the semantic level it's fundamentally mixing two separate concerns. Further, resolving this quandry requires opening a next-level menu and further analysis, it cannot be done immediately/visually. IMHO, this sort of thing is the objective def…

To clarify, I've been using Macs since 1987 and macOS in it's various guised for 21 years.

> At the semantic level it's fundamentally mixing two separate concerns. Further, resolving this quandry requires opening a next-level menu and further analysis, it cannot be done immediately/visually. IMHO, this sort of thing is the objective definition of "unintuitive" in an interface.

No, different to what you are used to. For nearly 40 years it has worked this way in the OS. I have no problem with you not liking it, but your reasoning isn't reasoned.

> Never heard of using this to scan, and you even said it's an "image viewer".

You didn't look very hard, clearly. It was used to scan when it was part of NeXTStep. In fact, in the olden days, when scanners were still a thing for most people, you would 'preview' the scan first!

> I now see it has an 'Import image from scanner...' function. Wow, that's ... not what I was looking for. I will always scan many pages at once.

Wow. It says 'scanner' in the fucking menu item. What more do you want! I know, I know, "work like my favourite OS".

> [Somewhere on the internet has information...] Yeah, great. If you're such an Apple documentation fan, try finding out how to fix my keyboard on the Apple site then. I'll send you a hardware gift if you can solve that one. Tried everything hinted at on the internet, no help.

You claimed that you needed "undocumented key combinations at boot time." I linked to official documentation! Would you rather a printed manual autographed by Steve Jobs? And if you tell me what's wrong with your keyboard (i.e. symptoms of the issue) instead of whining about it, I, and many others could help.

> Incorrect. I've never seen Linux drop support for hardware except ultra-ancient hardware (>40 years).

I gave an example of hardware that was broken. I couldn't give a shit that you think it's the manufacturers fault. The rest of us don't feel the need to Open-source all the things. We just want shit to work. Not including binary blobs is idealism at its worst. Fundamentally, an update broke it. This came from the distro. It. Is. Bad. User. Experience. And that lies with the distributor of the OS as much as the hardware vendor.

I haven't reinstalled macOS since I took the 2018 machine out of the box. It's running Ventura now without issue.

> I don't trust closed source single vendor systems with my data, sorry.

Right. That's, like, your choice, man.

All in all, save for the possibility that your keyboard issues are genuine, everything you listed isn't down to the system being 'unintuitive', it's down to your ignorance and at times not RTFMing. You are stating opinion as fact which doesn't lead to constructive conversations.

Re: KDE beats macOS

#277
post #139

KDE is the last bastion of GUI customizability. Everyone else is absolutely horrified by the idea of maintaining a UI option used by less than 20% of the user base. For things that are used by more than 20% of users, they actively make it worse so that people stop using it and they can justify removing them.

Heck, even KDE is unfortunately losing features (requiescat in pace, Desktop Cube, I'll never forget you), the days of a PC being very P may not last too much longer.

Re: KDE beats macOS

#278
post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To clarify, I've been using the damn thing 10+ years (always in parallel with other OSs) and I still find it unintuitive. > Not unintuitive different to what you are used to. At the semantic level it's fundamentally mixing two separate concerns. Further, resolving this quandry requires opening a next-level menu and further analysis, it cannot be done immediately/visually. IMHO, this sort of thing is the objective def…

To clarify, I've been using Macs since 1987 and macOS in it's various guised for 21 years. > At the semantic level it's fundamentally mixing two separate concerns. Further, resolving this quandry requires opening a next-level menu and further analysis, it cannot be done immediately/visually. IMHO, this sort of thing is the objective definition of "unintuitive" in an interface. No, different to what you are used to. F…

This brings to mind a proverb, "对牛弹琴", since the Han Dynasty.

Re: KDE beats macOS

#279
post #18

> Linux is great if you don't value your time Continues to be one of my favorite quotes. Yes I can spend endless hours getting arch installed with only the packages I want/need making sure it's totally optimized and then what, every single other part of my workflow now has to work around the limitations of linux. One day perhaps, but for now, macOS will do.

How do you set up a macos box from scratch? Don't you end up having to either manually install a bunch of apps, or wade through installs via brew or macports? I'm a little salty as just after I had a working setup on macos, the ventura upgrade crashed and I had to wipe my system partition to be able to install ventura - and then had to set up most things all over again (minus a few config files I had in a git repo).…

I'm not going to say what I want about Debian or Redhat, as it could take a while, but I'll say this about Suse: their decision to go whole hog on btrfs so we get root filesystem snapshots on update? Good show.

Re: KDE beats macOS

#280
post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Cmd-shift-G or Go > Go to folder isn't easy enough? What's KDE's super brilliant solution? Not sure about KDE, but every OS (admittedly not many), other than Apple's macOS and previous iteraitions I've used, have had an address bar with the file path. Both of the options you mentioned weren't obvious to me and I only found out about them from your comment. This isn't only an issue of familiarity but also an issue of…

Discoverability is a holy grail. With a list of features that has been expanding since 1984, you can't expect them all to be discoverable. And this one isn't a very frequent use case for normal users. KDE does have a different target audience from macOS and Windows, but even as a dev/architect/sysadmin, I'm not sure if I would have found it. I've got a GNOME setup at work, but no idea if it has a similar feature.

> And this one isn't a very frequent use case for normal users

The Finder's Go menu seems like a reasonably discoverable location.

That being said.... I kind of wish you could type and tab-complete paths in the Find window (cmd-F in the Finder) and Spotlight (cmd-space in any app.)

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