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Impressions from a first-time Mac user

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Re: Impressions from a first-time Mac user

#461

Post by user3939382 »

digisign wrote: post #435

No one mentioned the home/end keys so I will. ;-) I am a big user of these, use them a hundred times a day to go to front/back of line. Mac doesn't do that, goes to front/back of doc, which I do very rarely. But if I do, just click with the mouse or hold down PgUp/Dn. More common operations should get the default hotkeys imho. I managed to change this, but DBeaver finds a way to screw it up occasionally.

Karabiner can map home end to cmd left cmd right. Install it and go to advanced, custom script site and you’ll find it.

Re: Impressions from a first-time Mac user

#462

Post by postingposts »

saurik wrote: post #331
postingposts wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

> > The post is from someone new to Macs. > No it’s from someone new to the MacOS GUI. That’s it. I don't understand how these are meaningfully different. Is your objection that you expected the user to have previously been well-versed with macOS via a Hackintosh? > This person is new to computers in general and maybe is a longtime windows-user but that’s all they are. You have, in fact, iterated the opposite cases f…

Because every one of their complaints is about the GUI and has nothing to do with the Mac Operating System itself. Obviously they haven’t gotten far enough to have any complaints they can actually expound upon other than “I’m not able to arrange windows myself” and “also, I could use an app to do that but won’t!” Most windows users install 7zip or Winrar.

Each point is carefully crafted whiny nonsense. It’s not unclear.

Also, you can use a computer every day, most high school students do, and learn 2 apps: Word processor app Web browser app

And that is the full and total extent of their capabilities. It’s VERY easy to fall into the trap of “wow this OS is bad, because it doesn’t work like the other one!” When that is again, total fucking bullshit. If you skin MacOS to look like windows or vice versa 99% or users will think the GUI is the OS, and so all their complaints are about the current GUI setup.

It is the Automobile equivalent of “I don’t like that I had to adjust my mirrors”.

Who gives a shit?

Re: Impressions from a first-time Mac user

#464

Post by gghhzzgghhzz »

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…

I do this, it's the only thing I know how to do on a mac and it's in my muscle memory as there's no way I could describe it.

It put me off so much that I really can't be bothered to work out why it works, what the underlying switching philosophy is, or if there are any other commands to use.

Re: Impressions from a first-time Mac user

#465

Post by godelski »

I also really dislike that you can literally push a window off screen. It is weird to me that you can push a window 99.99% off screen.

That said, I prefer Mac over windows. It is close enough to linux and has crazy good battery life. Now that I'm not using C++ anymore and mostly python the differences aren't too big.

Re: Impressions from a first-time Mac user

#466

Post by [deleted] »

nine_k wrote: post #164
ChicagoBoy11 wrote: post #2

Despite the warning, I didn't find it nearly as "ranty" as the author cautioned, and instead seemed like a fairly comprehensive and fair take on his experience. Having gone through the same thing myself several years ago, the UI aspect of it is something that I'd be curious to see how it develops for the author. I think it is not uncommon for Windows folk to find the windowing experience on macs rather painful, at le…

I can't shake off the impression that Apple does not offer options for better window management to make your screen more cluttered and thus sell you more displays. When using macOS, I badly miss window management options available on Linux. (And don't get me started regarding font rendering.)

[deleted]

Re: Impressions from a first-time Mac user

#467

Post by godelski »

geoffmanning wrote: post #407

As a lifetime windows user that just recently joined a macBook company, i have to say i am indifferent overall, but there have been many alternating moments of delightful surprises and annoyances of unmet expectations in my journey to learn the MacOS UX. I'm a month in now and i have to say that attitude is everything when it comes to learning something new, and, especially when you know something "kind of like this"…

I think the thing that was hardest for me to learn is navigating the folder systems. Luckily I can use a terminal.

Re: Impressions from a first-time Mac user

#468

Post by gotrythis »

I came from Windows about four years ago.

The two top bad points in the article can be fixed with addons: - Moom (https://manytricks.com/moom/) to snap windows, - Contexts (https://contexts.co/) to switch between apps.

Yes, it would be better if this functionality was included, but it's an easy fix.

The thing that was a dealbreaker for me with Windows is that it would reboot to upgrade without my permission and I would lose work. Mac doesn't do that. It may reboot to upgrade when I"m not looking, but you would never know as it puts you exactly back where you were before the reboot.

That one thing will keep me loyal to Mac.

Re: Impressions from a first-time Mac user

#469

Post by mastazi »

I think this is a pretty fair article. I'll add one more:

in MacOS there is no unified way to get to the beginning or end of a line. In Linux and Windows this is done with the Home and End keys. In Mac, there are some shortcuts but they are not universal, what works in terminal may not work in a browser textarea and so on. Some programs interpret the same shortcut as "go to the very end of the text (as in a PgDown key) but that same shortcut, in another program, might go to the end of the line (like the End key).

Please let me know if I'm missing something! Every time I make a web search about this topic, I end up in various pages like this one[1] with shortcuts that don't work for me for the reasons explained above.

EDIT: I found out that there are some Mac keyboards with the Home and End keys. So it seems that this is not an OS issue but, I guess, a MacBook issue (I've only ever used MacBooks and always without external keyboard).

[1] https://djst.org/topic/what-is-the-end-key-on-a-mac/

Re: Impressions from a first-time Mac user

#470

Post by fomine3 »

rictic wrote: post #239
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…

Desktop PWAs and "open as own window" shortcuts help a lot with this, letting you (from a UI perspective at least) run a web app as though it was its own application rather than within the browser.

"Create shortcut" is heavily underrated feature on Chromium. Firefox dropped similar feature. https://support.google.com/chrome_webstore/answer/3060053
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