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Keyboard tricks from a macOS app dev

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Re: Keyboard tricks from a macOS app dev

#71

Post by lmz »

taspeotis wrote: post #59
httpteapot wrote: post #15

I recently purchased a MacBook, and while I'm thoroughly impressed with the hardware, I find the keyboard navigation in the desktop environment somewhat lacking in comparison to my previous experience. Having used Linux Pop OS for many years, I've grown accustomed to the intuitive and powerful tiling window manager and keyboard navigation shortcuts it offers. I'm struggling to find a comparable solution on the macOS…

Yeah I find some of the shortcuts confusing, like if I want to enter a directory in Finder I push ENTER and that's ... rename? Instead I'm meant to push PLACE OF INTEREST SIGN + O

Cmd-down would also work.

Re: Keyboard tricks from a macOS app dev

#73

Post by nsonha »

Trufa wrote: post #42
httpteapot wrote: post #15

I recently purchased a MacBook, and while I'm thoroughly impressed with the hardware, I find the keyboard navigation in the desktop environment somewhat lacking in comparison to my previous experience. Having used Linux Pop OS for many years, I've grown accustomed to the intuitive and powerful tiling window manager and keyboard navigation shortcuts it offers. I'm struggling to find a comparable solution on the macOS…

As a more general suggestion, macOS likely isn’t good at imitating what you previously had, try to understand the workflow they’re proposing, adapt and learn it, it generally gets second nature and pretty decent soon enough, getting to work the way you envision is not apple’s strong suit.

Classic blame the user kind of argument, what is the alternative workflow to "snap windows with a hotkey" then?

Re: Keyboard tricks from a macOS app dev

#75

Post by arthurcolle »

richbell wrote: post #19
httpteapot wrote: post #15

I recently purchased a MacBook, and while I'm thoroughly impressed with the hardware, I find the keyboard navigation in the desktop environment somewhat lacking in comparison to my previous experience. Having used Linux Pop OS for many years, I've grown accustomed to the intuitive and powerful tiling window manager and keyboard navigation shortcuts it offers. I'm struggling to find a comparable solution on the macOS…

It's a sore-spot for sure. I've found that Rectangle[0] does a good enough job. [0] https://rectangleapp.com/

Magnet is also pretty good

Re: Keyboard tricks from a macOS app dev

#76

Post by kps »

dan-robertson wrote: post #52
httpteapot wrote: post #15

I recently purchased a MacBook, and while I'm thoroughly impressed with the hardware, I find the keyboard navigation in the desktop environment somewhat lacking in comparison to my previous experience. Having used Linux Pop OS for many years, I've grown accustomed to the intuitive and powerful tiling window manager and keyboard navigation shortcuts it offers. I'm struggling to find a comparable solution on the macOS…

I don’t really tile windows much. The main case where I do is with a bunch of terminal windows. Most of what I get out of a tiling window manager is full screen by default and easy keys to switch workspaces. On macOS the thing that drives me insane is that the many-finger swipe to switch desktops won’t focus the target window until the animation is totally done (like 0.7s after starting). I wish it works like cmd+tab…

I am not sure whether it applies to this case, but you might try turning on ‘Reduce motion’ under the Accessibility settings, which eliminates some animation delays.

Re: Keyboard tricks from a macOS app dev

#77

Post by Tagbert »

httpteapot wrote: post #15

I recently purchased a MacBook, and while I'm thoroughly impressed with the hardware, I find the keyboard navigation in the desktop environment somewhat lacking in comparison to my previous experience. Having used Linux Pop OS for many years, I've grown accustomed to the intuitive and powerful tiling window manager and keyboard navigation shortcuts it offers. I'm struggling to find a comparable solution on the macOS…

You are probably better off ignoring Apples built in Window management controls unless you really like the way “Spaces” work. I find them too restrictive. Same with the green icon “full screen” mode. As others have mentioned, there are tones of third part tools that manage windows in various ways and you’ll probably find one that works for you.

Re: Keyboard tricks from a macOS app dev

#78

Post by AlchemistCamp »

richbell wrote: post #19
httpteapot wrote: post #15

I recently purchased a MacBook, and while I'm thoroughly impressed with the hardware, I find the keyboard navigation in the desktop environment somewhat lacking in comparison to my previous experience. Having used Linux Pop OS for many years, I've grown accustomed to the intuitive and powerful tiling window manager and keyboard navigation shortcuts it offers. I'm struggling to find a comparable solution on the macOS…

It's a sore-spot for sure. I've found that Rectangle[0] does a good enough job. [0] https://rectangleapp.com/

I’m a very happy user of Rectangle, as well.

Re: Keyboard tricks from a macOS app dev

#79

Post by Tagbert »

nsonha wrote: post #73
Trufa wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a more general suggestion, macOS likely isn’t good at imitating what you previously had, try to understand the workflow they’re proposing, adapt and learn it, it generally gets second nature and pretty decent soon enough, getting to work the way you envision is not apple’s strong suit.

Classic blame the user kind of argument, what is the alternative workflow to "snap windows with a hotkey" then?

The point is that when switching OSs you are going to run into lots of places where the new OS does things differently that what you are used to. Your choice is to fight the new OS and try to keep doing things the way you are used to or embrace the new OS and learn some new workflows.

That doesn’t mean adopting everything or abandoning everything, just try to be flexible and try some different things out. Just because it is different doesn’t mean it is broken.

For window management there are dozens (at least) third party tools that add features like snap window. Try some out to see what you like. Rectangle, Magnet, Moom, BetterSnapTool come to mind but here are others.

Re: Keyboard tricks from a macOS app dev

#80

Post by kitsunesoba »

illiarian wrote: post #53
httpteapot wrote: post #15

I recently purchased a MacBook, and while I'm thoroughly impressed with the hardware, I find the keyboard navigation in the desktop environment somewhat lacking in comparison to my previous experience. Having used Linux Pop OS for many years, I've grown accustomed to the intuitive and powerful tiling window manager and keyboard navigation shortcuts it offers. I'm struggling to find a comparable solution on the macOS…

Divvy for window management (assign your own shortcut). For almost everything else there's a standardized system-wide shortcut (including the ancient ones like Ctrl+a/e for text). If there isn't a shortcut, but the app exposes the action in a menu, you can assign a custom shortcut from keyboard settings. MacOS has traditionally been very friendly to keyboard navigation. Well, until somewhat recently when mobile-only/…

> If there isn't a shortcut, but the app exposes the action in a menu, you can assign a custom shortcut from keyboard settings.

The standardized menu system is underrated, IMO.

Setting aside preferences for the menubar being global vs. being attached to app windows, the fact that it's system-owned makes features like this possible. Apple was able to implement custom keybinds for menu items in arbitrary apps because they know that 99.9% of apps use the system menubar. This would be next to impossible on Windows where menubar implementations are disparate and numerous (even within first party apps), and while something similar could be patched together on Linux, it'd only work on some (mostly Qt) apps since GTK has mostly abandoned menus altogether.

This also enables the menu search in macOS Help menus to work, which is underused despite being basically a command palette for every app.

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