Can't you just right click? • Hacker News Board

Re: Can't you just right click?

#751

Post by GnarfGnarf » Fri, Aug 21, 2020, 8:45 PM UTC

aequitas wrote: post #732

GnarfGnarf wrote: post #640

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if the app is required to "do stuff" during the installation? Ex: informing a related app of its availability, writing an installation date for trial period expiration, etc. You need to do that with a script or auxiliary program, which is invoked at installation.

It would be much better if the application would take care of this on the first run (or a subsequent run if it is copied from a backup or other device). Restricting these things to only the installation phase makes App's less portable. Because you always need the installation file as well. On macOS pplications are bundled directories. So they are a single 'file' containing everything needed to get the App running (bi…

This is not possible in a "chicken and egg" situation: My app is a plugin for a main app. The main app can't find me to launch me until I "seed" its directory with a pointer to me.

To make my app visible to the main app, I place a "cookie" in the main app's directory (not my design), which is done by the installer script. Without this, the main app will never find my app. And the user can't launch me until he sees me in the list of available plugins. Vicious circle.

Re: Can't you just right click?

#752

Post by badsectoracula » Fri, Aug 21, 2020, 11:28 PM UTC

josephg wrote: post #626

badsectoracula wrote: post #607

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The real problem is that the desktop security model is outdated - it was designed for a world where software developers are trusted by default and users need to protect their data from each other. Today we can’t trust that developers will respect my data. Why is it any different today? You can always only install applications you trust. It would be useful to have sandboxing for untrusted applications (especially wh…

The UNIX permission system was designed when computers cost millions, they had lots of users through timesharing (many of whom were programmers themselves). And computers had comparatively little software. And most of the software that was on the computers was installed by the system operators; who could be trusted to not install software from disreputable developers. The threat model was malicious users accessing ea…

Right, but why do you install software you do not trust in the first place?

Re: Can't you just right click?

#753

Post by AMC11 » Sat, Aug 22, 2020, 2:21 AM UTC

zelly wrote: post #449

TheKarateKid wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The trackpad feels like it's from 2012. The speakers are very bad. The fans are constantly whirring. It’s sad because the XPS is beautiful, but these same issues plague every Dell, HP, and basically non-Apple laptop. Even the most premium lineup (Envy, XPS, etc.) How many years and fancy designs will it take before PC OEMs actually develop an excellent trackpad, not use tinfoil speakers, and use silent fans?

Apple has patents on their trackpad. Dell etc. are literally not allowed to make good trackpads.

Apple has so many patents that it’s impossible to design a good, or even decent trackpad?

Re: Can't you just right click?

#754

Post by bagacrap » Sat, Aug 22, 2020, 2:29 PM UTC

white-flame wrote: post #10

The fact that the standard model of computing is that applications are opaque machine code blobs that can access everything in your user permission space is the core problem in privacy and malware. Applications should see nothing but their executable jail, and whatever was intentionally allowed to them by the user (eg, Open file dialog giving the application an opaque file handle, etc, not carte blanche access to the…

I don't think the permissions model in mobile OSes was good to start although now it's slightly better. The web is where "they" got it right.

Re: Can't you just right click?

#755

Post by mitchdoogle » Sat, Aug 22, 2020, 3:45 PM UTC

pjmlp wrote: post #697

LocalH wrote: post #617

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You sound like the people against student loan reform because “I had to pay mine back, why shouldn’t they”. That’s peak entitlement, demanding others suffer because you did.

Entitlement is wanting stuff for free, quite the opposite.

It's not entitlement but it is harmful jealousy.

Re: Can't you just right click?

#756

Post by mitchdoogle » Sat, Aug 22, 2020, 3:45 PM UTC

LocalH wrote: post #617

pjmlp wrote: post #571

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Outrageous is the entitlement of the current generations for not paying for their tools. Many of us used to pay for every single piece of software that we had to run on top of our already expensive computer around 2000 euros on today's money.

You sound like the people against student loan reform because “I had to pay mine back, why shouldn’t they”. That’s peak entitlement, demanding others suffer because you did.

That's just jealousy

Re: Can't you just right click?

#757

Post by millimeterman » Sun, Aug 23, 2020, 2:41 AM UTC

adriancr wrote: post #498

raverbashing wrote: post #483

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, and I've used that other OS a lot as well But it is not a panacea and it is not for everybody. And it has two main issues: - developers don't care about stability and/or polish (just see the discussions on the trackpad ITT) "Oh but if you change library X to Y and reroute libinput and etc it might maybe work and maybe it will not break anything else" - because of the former reason, not all (important) applicatio…

Well... your choice is: - windows 10 - no privacy, hello telemetry, cortana, etc. - mac os - no freedom to do anything not allowed by apple - Linux - polish / ui issues? At least with Linux once I configure it right it works without issue and does everything I want. Currently that means kubuntu 20.04, AMD GPU (or intel integrated) and laptops that say they support it (Dell/Lenovo) or self built desktop. (I used gnome…

I have made multiple attempts to switch to Linux, spending days each time trying to customize it and get it how I wanted. And never did it ever approach the productivity and polish of macOS.

Certainly I have issues with Apple, but it's a simple cost/benefit calculation. Right now the benefits of macOS vastly outweigh the downsides for me.

Unless Apple's problems increase to the point of being unbearable (very likely to happen at some point) or the quality of desktop Linux increases significantly (unlikely to ever happen), I just can't justify switching. And I expect many, many other people are in the same boat.

My computer is a tool. Idealistic notions about free software are nice, but they don't mean anything if that software is worse than a nonfree alternative. Free software needs to be _better_ to win, and I just don't see that ever happening in the consumer OS space.

Re: Can't you just right click?

#758

Post by lwouis » Sun, Aug 23, 2020, 11:00 AM UTC

I'm the main contributor of an app that emulates Windows's alt-tab feature on macOS (https://github.com/lwouis/alt-tab-macos). I researched this topic extensively, and eventually decided that I would bite the bullet and pay from my own pocket, so that users get a good UX when launching the app.

It is displeasing to see Apple not having an open-source program in-which they give free certificates for popular open-source projects after a review. They are a large beneficiary of OSS after all.

Furthermore, smaller companies do it frequently these days: Jetbrains gave me free IDE licenses, poeditor gave me a free account, github hosts the project code, ticketing system, and is the distribution channel for first downloads and updates, appcenter hosts crash reports for free, travis does the CI for free, etc.

Re: Can't you just right click?

#759

Post by waheoo » Mon, Aug 24, 2020, 5:53 AM UTC

_qulr wrote: post #734

waheoo wrote: post #713

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its 2020. Apple has been hostile to openness since inception, see: right to repair or basically any Louis Rossman video on YouTube. Not to mention years of news stories showing how little apple cares for developers or individuals.

Has Apple become increasingly hostile? Yes. Since inception? No. For example, my MacBook Pro from 2007 had a user-replaceable battery. I just popped the old one out, popped the new one in, 15 seconds, it was brilliant.

Oh come off it. Those user replaceable batteries were expensive as hell.

It's cheaper to replace a MacBook air battery than it is to replace one of those old cartridge things, of which you could only buy from Apple.

Re: Can't you just right click?

#760

Post by reportgunner » Mon, Aug 24, 2020, 12:20 PM UTC

vladvasiliu wrote: post #542

reportgunner wrote: post #460

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Oh come now, there are millions and millions of professionals using macOS to do work every single day. Wait, have you seen them ? Can you link the source for this claim ? > seamlessness of owning an Apple Watch, iPhone, iPad, AirPods, and a macOS device. Why do you need this seamlessness ? Is your attention span so short that you forget what you were doing after the first error pops up ?

Don't know about the others, but I have an iphone and a mbp. I used to have android phones before this, and I bought the iphone just to check it out, since I got a good deal on it. For me, the "seamlessness" opened new possibilities of use. What I really love is being able to use the phone from my computer. I don't have to have it handy. Examples : 1. Call and take calls directly from the computer. Extremely practica…

I get that but I still don't understand why you need it. Actually now I'm noticing that _none_ of the replies answer my question - _why_ do you need it ?

1. If I don't notice my phone ringing it's because I don't want to notice it ringing. If I'm waiting for a phone call I will check my phone often or not use headphones.

2. Is being aware of where your phone is and typing off the code from it really so challenging for you ? I don't know about you but I spend maybe 1-2 minutes per day on punching in 2FA codes and most of the time I don't even realize I'm doing it.

3. DM link to yourself on twitter or any other platform. There is also sync for chrome so you can sync stuff as you want, but to be honest whenever I am reading something on the bus the link is still where I found it when I get home. Somebody sent it to me ? Open messages on computer. Found it after searching google ? Make the same search on PC.

4. I don't understand what is complicated about this. I swipe down on my phone and press icon for hotspot. My computer connects.

It's really interesting that Apple users speak about how everything is so smooth yet they don't want to "fumble around with the phone", seems like an oxymoron for me.