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Fed up with the Mac, I spent six months with a Linux laptop

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Re: Fed up with the Mac, I spent six months with a Linux laptop

#601
post #467
post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wasn't talking about Preview, I was talking about quick look, i.e. when I browse files in my file browser, I can hit space and immediately look at that file in a pared-down interface. But I'm not browsing my files that often, and when I do, the only time I seem to be interested in what it looks like is when I'm looking for an image, in which case the thumbnails that I can see without interaction suffice. So I'm pro…

> Does that mean that, because it's so fast and low-effort, you use it as a complete replacement of a native app you'd use otherwise? In my case, yes. It’s the only way I ever look at images, and I often use it to have a quick look at scripts or text/data files (try it on a CSV and it’ll show as a table!). It’s also convenient for design files, whose apps are incredibly slow to launch. With Alfred[1] you can even pre…

Thanks, I suppose I should make an effort to think of it when I look at local images or PDFs (which I don't do that often) - although edit doesn't seem to be supported by my version of it, unfortunately. CSVs or files without an editor I don't think I ever touch :)

Re: Fed up with the Mac, I spent six months with a Linux laptop

#602
post #581
post #567

Preview is one of the most underrated pieces of software in the world today. I make the assumption that Quicklook uses Preview (because surely it must). Being able to hit spacebar on just about any kind of selected document/image type file and see a near instant look, multiple pages and all, is so important. Once you don't have that (move to the Windows world), you realize how much you miss it. And you can, with a sm…

Quicklook is such an amazing feature and it seems so basic that I just don’t get why windows hasn’t added anything like that. Are there patents on this? Just an example that I have about every day: before sharing a file via file select/open dialog I can double check if it’s the correct one. I can only speculate that quicklook prevents a substantial amount of accidental information leak across the entire world :)

Because Windows users have long been dependent on Acrobat Reader (or lately, browser PDF renderers) for showing PDFs. If Apple had a relationship with a third party providing something akin to a system application like Windows and Adobe, they'd happily make a native equivalent and relegate the old product to the dustbin. Windows doesn't do that as much.

Re: Fed up with the Mac, I spent six months with a Linux laptop

#604

From someone who tends to try this switch about once a year (because the lack of TLC the Mac was getting in the last 5 or so years was getting very very worrying - M1 feels like Apple actually care about the Mac again), I agree with a lot of these pain points. My biggest personal issues end up being (and these are super subjective!): - Preview on macOS is great and no other OS has anything remotely equivalent. First…

> - Finding a mail client I don't hate on linux is tricky. I've never been able to get on with the console clients, and I actually quite like Mac Mail. Thunderbird is kinda okay. If you're not a mailing list based developer, I would recommend MailSpring, which is both snappy any polished. https://getmailspring.com/

What’s the caveat with mailing lists?

Re: Fed up with the Mac, I spent six months with a Linux laptop

#605
post #539

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For one thing, it is extremely slow . Every time open file meny appears, or need to search for something, prepare to wait 15-30 seconds. File management is a pain, renaming, viewing properties, etc are likely the worst of all file managers I've ever seen. Nautilus is so much better (but it changed for the worse since 2008, too). (I'd prefer a Far Manager version for linux / iOS to manage files, but I have accepted th…

How is renaming poor? You can batch rename and a simple click on the file name allows for renaming. Last time I used Nautilus, you still had to activate file renaming with a keypress or from a menu and that had to be done in a moat window. Viewing properties in Finder is easily done with cmd-i or viewable in column mode.

> You can batch rename and a simple click on the file name allows for renaming.

Exactly! So every time I double-click a bit slower than macOS wants me to, it enters the renaming mode. I rarely need to rename files, and since the name should be entered via keyboard anyway, a special hotkey makes way more sense.

Also, not showing file extensions by default is a big problem. And it is generally EXTREMELY SLOW, I shrug every time I have to launch the damn thing.

Re: Fed up with the Mac, I spent six months with a Linux laptop

#607
post #589

To preface, I think all of the author's complaints are pretty valid. I spent 15 years primarily on Mac laptops/desktops and finally switched in 2015 after a few years of being less and less happy with the direction both the hardware and OS was taking, and it was definitely a rough transition even having years and years of UNIX/LINUX experience and using "perfectly" compatible hardware (I started with a Thinkpad X250…

What is your "8C16T Mobile Ryzen laptop"? 12+ battery life sounds really promising!!!

Re: Fed up with the Mac, I spent six months with a Linux laptop

#608

Preview is probably the most underrated app of all time, with “quick look” as a contender for most under-appreciated feature. Just hitting spacebar to see virtually any file, and the ability to open in preview and read or even markup and make small changes, is so nice. Whenever I use a non-Mac system I really miss those two features.

I wish preview had the option to disable editing, I find its ability to make small changes a misfeature. I use it to read big spec documents, and it wants to change them all the time -- I think accidentally clicking on tables is the usual trigger. I resorted to making all my pdf files read-only, but Preview is the only pdf viewer that's ever forced me to do that...

Re: Fed up with the Mac, I spent six months with a Linux laptop

#609
post #575

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What is the f*cking point of cmd-tabbing to an application if you don't make its window visible!? What if you have multiple windows of the same application, and you minimize one of them, then auto opening of that window everytime you switch back to the app will be super annoying.

And if you want to open the minimized or hidden window, after cmd-tab, do a option-cmd-tab and finally release cmd-tab. The window will get focus

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Re: Fed up with the Mac, I spent six months with a Linux laptop

#610
post #575

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What is the f*cking point of cmd-tabbing to an application if you don't make its window visible!? What if you have multiple windows of the same application, and you minimize one of them, then auto opening of that window everytime you switch back to the app will be super annoying.

Just take me to most recent non-minimized window of that app. And if there is no such window left, and I told system that I want to switch to the app, then yes, of course I want the most recent window unminimized. This isn't rocket science.

This exactly.
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