I would think the audio prompt during system boot is a pretty critical piece of information if you ever have trouble starting your computer.
It's a Mac. If the computer doesn't start, take to a shop for an exchange.
Sensible macOS Defaults
71–80 of 182 posts
Re: Sensible macOS Defaults
#72Wouldn't be better to call this "cheat sheet"? macOS already has sensible defaults, that's how people who have no interest in dealing with computers can use their machines for years with no issues or servicing(unless a latte is spilled over the keyboard). Then, you can customise behaviour for some specific things to fit your workflow. The problem with diverging from defaults without putting much thought on it is that…
I mean, you could use it as a cheat sheet, but that's not what it is. IMO macOS has a lot of terrible defaults that are not at all sensible, of course this is quite subjective, but the fact that many mac users accept the defaults isn't really saying much, typically end-users don't even realize there are other options available.
You can have different opinions on what's sensible but to claim that something is not sensible as general you need to make a point about an issue due to the default settings.
For example, if people were getting hacked through remote desktop connection all the time you could have said that macOS has insensible defaults on the security or even existence of that feature.
However, with macOS that's not the case, in fact macOS has so sensible defaults that a lot of its users have no understanding of how it works and yet successfully use it for years with no issues and not gaining any understanding through the years.
The thing is so well designed that it's often dissed as a Starbucks machine, implying that it is used by people with a lot of money who don't know what they are doing while simultaneously is an extremely popular machine among creative professionals and engineers who also like coffee and know what they are doing.
Having options is nice, for example I dislike dark mode but I like the dark statusbar so I have a customisation for it. I dislike autosorting of the Spaces, so I disabled it. I prefer to simply tap and not have to press on the trackbar so I enabled it.
However I would't call the defaults not-sensible, it's just that I like some stuff differently from the defaults.
Re: Sensible macOS Defaults
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because the lines that do something are nicely categorized with documentation included. Instead of running it all, you can take a look what’s possible and apply it individually.
> Instead of running it all, you can take a look what’s possible and apply it individually. That's true of any script. The fact that this one is well commented doesn't make it not a script. A cheat sheet is something you hang on a wall and glance at every so often. A script is something you run to make changes to a system. You can't run a cheat sheet.
How do you tell that it's not a really long string or a web page but a script? Maybe it's just a pattern of dots projected on LCD or 1s and 0s stored on a computer. I don't see any more concrete proof that it's not any of these but a script.
Re: Sensible macOS Defaults
#74How does one find all of these "defaults" settings? Is there a reference somewhere?
defaults read will show you all of them but it's a pretty long list
That also only shows you values that have been set. There can be values that are defaulted within the program itself that can be set, but do not have their default values written to any file, so do not show up in the `defaults` command except when set manually.
Unfortunately, the usual way of finding those is to `strings` the application binary, and weed through all the chaff. And that requires either a fishing expedition, or for you to already know what you are looking for (including what binary might be responsible for that).
Re: Sensible macOS Defaults
#75It'd be awesome if this could help with two anti-user innovations in recent macOS:
1) Disable Apple Music, which has the annoying habit of opening every time I touch my headphones, and is not removable from my own computer.
2) Force macOS to remember that I gave Chrome location permissions instead of reseting Chrome after every update.
Re: Sensible macOS Defaults
#76I'm not sure I agree with much of these, which makes sense because this is definitely not 'sensible defaults' it is just someones preferred settings. I wouldn't copy this unless you know for sure this is how you want your system configured.
Presumably everyone thinks their own defaults are 'sensible', otherwise they wouldn't be using them. I think the most sensible defaults are those that come out of the box, rather than spending time tweaking things.
Speak for yourself, I'm well aware that many of my preferences are esoteric. :)
Re: Sensible macOS Defaults
#77Wouldn't be better to call this "cheat sheet"? macOS already has sensible defaults, that's how people who have no interest in dealing with computers can use their machines for years with no issues or servicing(unless a latte is spilled over the keyboard). Then, you can customise behaviour for some specific things to fit your workflow. The problem with diverging from defaults without putting much thought on it is that…
I mean, you could use it as a cheat sheet, but that's not what it is. IMO macOS has a lot of terrible defaults that are not at all sensible, of course this is quite subjective, but the fact that many mac users accept the defaults isn't really saying much, typically end-users don't even realize there are other options available.
Yeah but this is really a list of “tweaks”. It’s a nice list don't get me wrong, but changing the currency without prompting the user, using green as the highlight color (bad for accessibility), disabling window animations, configuring Transmission and TweetBot... there is plenty in the list that is in no way a “default” nor really even a sensible outcome to expect after running the script...
Re: Sensible macOS Defaults
#78Disabling natural-direction scrolling isn't sensible.
It's the first thing I fix on all other OSes. Why should the content go the opposite direction of the way I'm moving my finger?
This is one of the best fixes Apple ever made, back in Lion. Kudos to them to seeing the everyday and noticing that it was wrong.
Re: Sensible macOS Defaults
#79> # Trackpad: map bottom right corner to right-click This is the most monstrously non mac-like thing I’ve ever seen.
It was a popular “hack” back in the days before two-fingered click detection. Probably not as efficient as ctrl-click, but that felt even less Mac-like at the time. A lot of these preferences seem to reflect the opinions of someone who would quite happily be stuck in 2005. Reverse scrolling… ugh.
Weird. I can't remember anyone doing that back in the day, as it was super easy to just ctrl-click. This seems like a "hack" for former Windows users ("switchers"), where ctrl-click has been around since Mac OS 8.
Re: Sensible macOS Defaults
#80From the Reader: > Warning: If you want to give these dotfiles a try, you should first fork this repository, review the code, and remove things you don’t want or need. Don’t blindly use my settings unless you know what that entails. Use at your own risk!
I have some scripts that are super useful but also should not be used by somebody who doesn't know exactly what they're doing, so I literally stick a `exit 1` or such in the header so a teammate can't run the script without having looked at it first.