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 least at first. However, after a while, it sort of "made sense" to me, if that makes any sense at all. There are some clear UX philosophies that are very different, and the initial transition can only be pretty jarring, but I'm curious what the author would say about it after a month or two.
Also, fwiw, I think most power Mac users also marshal the use of some other programs to help along with some of that (or at least to tailor it more closely to what they want the experience to be). Rectangle is one of the first installs on any Mac I put my hands on... makes window management so much more pleasant!
Not that it's right or wrong, but the behavior dates back to the very first implementations of Mac OS and Windows. Mac OS has always been an application switching interface, and Windows has been a window switching interface. Takes getting used to the paradigm shift.
As someone that came from a windows world for the first 10ish years of my career, i found this pretty frustrating too. I honestly still do. Sometimes it feels like I just cannot get to the window I want.
There is a separate shortcut to switch between windows of the currently selected application cmd + ` or ctrl + down arrow to show the windows.
So you alt + tab to select the application and switch to the right window. I personally think it's more reliable than Windows especially if I have a lot of Windows open (I used Windows for the last 10 years). On Windows I regularly switched to the wrong windows because of my fat fingers...
So i actually use these shortcuts all the time! I think im more struggling with some edge case of my multi screen setup, im not sure. I just find myself having to do the full expand of all windows and then find the one i want to get things working again.
I wonder how much of the difference between Windows and Mac comes from the 1980s look-and-feel lawsuits. Microsoft couldn't clone the Mac directly so they had to make it gratuitously different and worse.
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 it better since then.
I don't actually minimise windows on the mac at all. I just sling them on a contextual virtual desktop and then triple-swipe up when I need a different one.
Not once have I had to sit there mashing alt-tab and guessing then.
The Dock shows you any minimized windows on the right.
If for some reason this is no longer default (I don't remember the last time I setup a new Mac and didn't carry over settings) Right Click the dock >> dock preferences >> Uncheck "Minimize windows into application icon"
I guess like the other person mentioned I just don't find myself minimizing that often on Mac.
That being said there is an option. The first is if you are in an application you can do control-down or (if you enable it under gestures >> more gestures for your trackpad) you do 3 fingers down you will see the minimized windows for your current application at the bottom. I did also just look it up and apparently if you do cmd-tab and press up on an application it does the same thing.
Not exactly what you are looking for, but you can at least do it on a per application level for anything minimized.
On Mac you generally just don’t minimize windows unless you explicitly want that behaviour (sort of hidden and available manually through the dock). It’s just a different workflow.
The few times I've used a Mac, trying to use this workflow just leads to a lot of visual clutter. Everything sits on top of everything else, and every window is sitting somewhere on the screen, a constant reminder that nags at the back of your mind.
This seems like a weird comment, what did people do before macs got virtual desktops (which was relatively recent compared to unix)? As a side note I remember discussion with apple users arguing that virtual desktops are not how one "should work" and are useless, now it's "you should use virtual desktops, obviously".
As someone who used Mac back then: mostly just complain about it and accept that OSX did not have any good way of stashing away windows. I am still not impressed but is less painful now that we have virtual desktops.
Well, personally, I keep a lot of windows open on my screen because I work well that way. It's similar to the "cluttered desk" method—it may look messy, but I've got everything available to me and even if you don't know where anything is, I do.
But I recognize that's more of a personal style than general usage.
I've been a Mac user since before the system even had proper multitasking, and the general answer to your question is that we would keep open the applications and windows that were useful to us, sometimes hiding an application that we're not actively using and don't need to have cluttering up the screen. Once Mac OS X came along, we would also minimize individual windows we weren't using—and if you minimize a window, then hide the application that it belongs to, that also hides its minimized windows in the Dock.
Also note that for every application up until a few years ago, and for some applications even now (and dependent on a System Preference setting), you can keep an application open on the Mac without any windows open.
> Well, personally, I keep a lot of windows open on my screen because I work well that way. It's similar to the "cluttered desk" method—it may look messy, but I've got everything available to me and even if you don't know where anything is, I do.
> But I recognize that's more of a personal style than general usage.
> hiding an application that we're not actively using and don't need to have cluttering up the screen.
So having only used macs very sporadically what is the difference of hiding an application and minimizing a window?
> Also note that for every application up until a few years ago, and for some applications even now (and dependent on a System Preference setting), you can keep an application open on the Mac without any windows open.
So am I understanding correctly that hiding an application is essentially the same as minimizing all windows of that application (into some hidden space), I assumed from the previous posts they would just be moved to some virtual desktop? I guess that would be very nice for some applications but very annoying for others, e.g. do terminals count as the same application?
Hiding an application, very simply and straightforwardly, just takes the application out of the foreground and makes all its windows disappear. They are still considered to "exist", in the same desktops/spaces, and no state is lost—when you switch back to the application, all its windows reappear exactly as they were when you hid it (assuming no background processing changed them, of course). They are just not visible for as long as you keep the application hidden.
The difference between this and minimizing is that a) it affects all windows of the application, not just a selected one, and b) a minimized window either goes into the side of the Dock, or into the application icon on the Dock (depending on your set preferences); hidden windows, as I said, are completely invisible.
There is also a "Show All" option under the application menu (the one just to the right of the Apple menu, with the name of the foreground application) that will un-hide all currently hidden applications.
Virtual desktops are a relatively recent addition to the Mac; this hiding behavior has been around and worked consistently since the mid-'90s, well before Mac OS X.
(As a final random tidbit, one of my most common methods of hiding an application—particularly if it's the one I'm using at the time—is to simply option-click on either the desktop or another application's window, as that is a longstanding shortcut for doing so.)
I never minimize windows at all on the Mac, perhaps because of this behavior. I hide apps with (Command-H) instead, and use multiple desktops for managing different workflows instead.
Exactly. Cmd-Tab to open the switcher, arrow-left/right to select the desired app, arrow-up/down to show all windows, then arrows or mouse to select the desired window.
Also, when it comes to maximizing, the green button changes modes when you hover over it with Option held and switches to tiling the window left/right or maximizing it. In general, holding Option on Mac toggles alternate behaviors for menus and buttons. (Special callout to Option+dragging a window edge)
This works, but it's (1) completely undiscoverable (how did you find out about this?), and (2) does not work for switching to a minimized window if the app has another unminimized window.
That's new to me. I had gotten used to knowing that the first minimised window for something like Messages or Activity Monitor is what I wanted, and used Cmd-0 to get that up.
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.
The solution is simple. Don't minimize windows. Everything fullscreen on virtual desktops. Three fingers up and choose the window you want if it's one you don't use normally. Three finger swipe between frequently used windows.
I do this. It's absolutely insane that it's the easiest way to do window management in MacOS. We have regressed to the point of not having windows anymore.
A while back I had the Raspberry Pi 400 computer on my desk and a newish M1 Mac. It was interesting how much better the window management was on the Pi. Frankly, for things like file management, that little computer was Snappy as hell.
And it does dual monitors like a champ!
And don't get me wrong here, I've used a lot of systems, and I'm fine with my Mac. I know how to use it, I get things done and the M1 chip is really sweet.
I generally go with the flow figure out what the flow is and I just don't worry about it past that. I just had to comment on this particular topic because I thought it was kind of humorous.
This is where snapping comes in. You can make a fullscreen window that is made up of two applications. Really it just comes down to never fusing with your windows once you have them set up to your liking. Once everything is either fullscreen or in its corner of a virtual desktop you should never be changing how your windows work. Nothing should ever be hidden behind anything else, if it is it's time to make a new virtual desktop for it.
I use a variation of this approach. Make all windows exactly the same size (I'm using Hammerspoon). Hide applications (Cmd-H) instead of minimizing windows. Cmd-Tab to whatever app you want. Cmd-` to whatever window you want.
Sometimes the silly shadow around the top window gets too big, but then you can Option-Cmd-H to hide all other apps.
One way of addressing this is to use the intended method, which is to Hide the application instead of minimizing it. Cmd H hides the application away, and it pops back to the front with a Cmd Tab.
Open the "Mission Control" settings in System Preferences to see what key sequence you have assigned to "Application Windows". While you are there you might also click "Hot Corners..." and check if "Application Windows" is assigned to a hot corner.
Invoke "Application Windows" and it will show you all the visible windows of the current application tiled so you can see them all, and it will show you all the minimized windows of the current application across the bottom of the screen. (Some applications, such as TextEdit and BBEdit also show recent documents there).
While in the "Application Windows" ctrl-tab cycles between all open apps while remaining in "Applications Windows" view.
Same. I use hide (Cmd-H) most of the time because I want to hide the whole application, not a single window of the application. I also use Hide Others (Cmd-Option-H) to focus on a single app. And I use Cmd-` to switch between windows of the app I'm in.
There is a rare case that I minimize a window, but it's generally because I don't want to work with that window any time soon, but I don't want to close it either, and I have multiple windows open in the app. Since I'm not frequently switching to the window in this situation, its fine if the easiest way to get back to it is to use my mouse.
The most annoying behavior for me is Alt-Tabbing an application whose windows are spread across multiple desktops. Alt-tab will not go back to the actual previous window, it will go back to the window of the previous application closest to the current desktop. Sigh. Luckily I don't have to put up with MacOS for very much.
Switching across multiple desktops (ie spaces) is really annoying. In particular, you switch (Cmd-Tab) to the app you want, realise the window is on another desktop, then Ctrl-arrow-left/right to the desired desktop, but there the windows are ordered as they were when you left, and you have to Cmd-Tab to the desired app again.
Alternative: Cmd-Tab to desired app, arrow up (while holding Cmd) to see all windows of that app, then pick the desired one (with arrows or mouse).
Yes, under macOS minimizing windows is conceptually more like putting them away in the cabinet for later retrieval whereas under Windows it’s closer to setting them aside momentarily. The level of friction is accordingly different.
In the case of alt+tab window switching I suspect it’s only faster if you are going to the last used window. If you’re hunting for an app through multiple alt tabs, you’re almost certainly going to take more time than using the mouse gestures to switch.
Not the way I lay out my windows. Most of the time every window is partially visible, and so I switch by clicking on the one of interest. Or I overlay them and scroll the partially obscured one without focusing on it. The only time I actually switch with mission control is when I'm searching for a particular desktop and window, or am reorganizing windows. In those cases mission control is far superior.
Completely disagree. Doing three finger swipe x times is just as fast if not faster than keyboard shortcuts that require you hunt down the window you're looking for.
It's objectively slower when you need to leave the keyboard with one hand to reach your touchpad. I'm thinking about a desktop environment here where 1. you might not even have a touchpad and 2. you have your both hands on the keyboard.
I mean maybe if you're using vim all the time, but most of my apps require mouse interface, so my hand is usually near the trackpad. Even when I'm using external monitors I still use the laptop keyboard and trackpad.
The one thing I'll say I like about the weird minimize behaviour is that I do a lot of screen sharing and it's pretty nice that once I minimize a window that it's pretty hard for it to suddenly pop back into view. On Windows I have to pretty much just religiously quit applications before I share screen but on OSX it's usually sufficient just to minimize them.
I minimize windows on purpose if I want to completely ignore their existence but not close the window. For example, Terminal windows that are running background processes that I don't need to attend to, VMWare windows for headless VMs that I only SSH into, and the like. It's nice because they don't show up when I open the app, and basically cannot unminimize without explicit action.
Most of the time, though, I don't bother minimizing windows on macOS, whereas I minimize windows often on Windows. Although they're similar actions, they wind up serving different functions, and trying to treat minimized windows on macOS like minimized windows on Windows is just a recipe for frustration.
2. Ctrl-down for "Mission Control > Application windows"
3. Down arrow to select minimized
4. Enter
This even works when all windows of application are minimized.
It's a tradeoff: takes more keypresses to access the minimized window, but prevents the minimized window from getting in the way most of the time. Which is what you want if you've minimized it.
This reminded me of a post on Macintosh Folklore[0] about the early development of application switching on Mac OS. It certainly gave me some insight into why things work the way they do in the Mac world.
Having used the very first Mac, it made sense on that tiny screen. One application per time was almost more than it could accommodate. The monitor got bigger after a few years and the menu on top and the full screen interface started not to make sense compared to the Windows PC next desk.
Nah, I’ll defend the top menubar to the death. Infinite height and top-speed cursor speed makes working with it from the top versus from the window much more efficient for me, and it wastes less pixels (the purpose of high res monitors for me is to use all of the pixels) and gives me a working area on its right side for various utility apps I don’t want taking up space in the Dock (which has enough problems even with a relatively small working app set).
What also helps though is that an under-appreciated aspect of a typical set of Macintosh apps is how good the context menu has gotten. Typically I’m using the context menu and hotkeys much more than the menu bar because it is rare there is an option I want that is unavailable in the context menu.
Additionally, when the menubar is a global system widget, UI designers in pursuit of minimalism can’t take it away. They’ll be there whether the designer likes it or not, acting as a searchable index of the app’s functionality.
While I do appreciate those benifits the confusion caused as soon as there are multiple windows on the screen doesn't seem worth it. I have enough trouble managing keyboard focus I don't need to add another layer (which somehow seems even harder for me to comprehend)
It’s just one of those things that if you want to, you can get used to it, but if you resist it you won’t. Like learning Vi or Emacs or BBEdit. There are tools you already learned to use, the Macintosh user interface is just another.
The alternative is what? Apple changes something millions of people are already used to, their existing customer base, to satisfy switchers specifically when most can easily adapt? Or you just don’t use a Macintosh. Now what Apple does need to do is bring proper contrast back and stop wasting everyone’s time with this minimalist nonsense; even the option in the Accessibility options is utter garbage.
I didn't resist. Although if that was an option I may have considered. And after a year of daily use are work it was still tripping me up.
It's possible for an interface to be widely used and still have sharp edges. I consider this one of macOS's. It doesn't need to change, it may well not be worth it. But at least some people will end up in the menu of the wrong application.
It's easy to run into this situation if you regularly have two windows side-by-side, and switch back-and-forth between them so that the focus could be in either window at any given moment. If you only have windows maximized (as I suspect GP does) it's not something you'll ever run into.
Nah. Many windows, from many apps, but typically two or three at the front side by side. I’ll leave Full Screen videos open as a kind of running queue in Mission Control but that’s about the extent of it.
There’s no secret, I just don’t lose track of which window I’m focused on in software because that’s the one I’m immediately focused on.
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 the same application with the same name for the OS
How does an application switching interface, rather than window switching interface, work out for that, if a lot of what you want to switch between is different windows of the same browser?
(and what if in addition there would be also many terminal emulator windows, each also with many tabs, and maybe some code editors, spread across multiple virtual desktops)
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.
Cmd+` switches between windows of the same app, and it's actually more convenient (IMHO) than using Alt+Tab to switch between every one of your windows from every app. There are also a handful of trackpad gestures for showing all the windows in the current app or all of your windows.
Yeah. It might be different on a non-US keyboard layout, though. It switches between windows of the current app, so it will only do anything if you have more than one window open in the current app.
I get that. I just use an app that lets me maximize windows with a shortcut (I use Size-up but there are many great options). I then make sure to maximize everything, so effectively all my windows are always maximized.
It's not the same as fullscreen, because it still has the top mac bar, but that's fine, and it gives me the ability to cmd+tab / cmd+tilde through my windows.
> As long as you haven't made the active window full screen, or the window you want to switch to, then yes, it works. But it is painful :P
What's being described as "full screen" windows on macOS is not exactly that, and it's very different than full screen windows on Windows or the standard Linux window managers.
On macOS, when we click on the little green button on top of a window, that window becomes full screen *and* becomes a new single-window workspace.
You can "Maximize" the app (to put it in Windows parlance) by Option+Click the green button (you can observe during the hover state for the green button the change from "full screen" to "maximize" by pressing Option).
The Portuguese layout sucks horribly for programming, especially on the Mac (brackets in horrible places), and the U.K. layout (where I’m based) sucks horribly for writing Portuguese in. The US international just works for all my purposes (including writing tiny amounts of other languages besides Portuguese and English)
That looks like an "AZERTY International", with no advantage over the Portuguese layout for programming, and no advantage over "US International" for typing languages other than French. It does look like an improvement over traditional AZERTY!
My choice is "US International with AltGr deadkeys". The deadkey behaviour in simple "US International" is very annoying for programming: you have to double-tap every key that could be an accent, such as single quotes or backquotes.
Yes I clicked but didn't notice the Greek overlay. It's neat. I imagine that it can be useful for math, if you're not using something like LaTeX or Emacs already. I even have something similar in my custom layout, although it seldom gets any use. That does not make it any better for programming, nor for typing in Portuguese (or even Greek).
Look, I think it's great that this thing exists and grateful that you mentioned it. I may even suggest it to some of the French-speaking juniors I work with.
It does not, however, address the issues of the person you were replying to. And I know because I'm in a similar position to them.
Just checking you're aware that dead keys for all Portuguese diacritics are available in the UK PC layout - alt+e (´), alt+n (˜), alt+\ (`), alt+c (ç), alt+i (ˆ)
Because I never went back to the Portuguese layout after finding those key combinations.
It's inconsistent compared with alt-tab behaviour.
cmd-tab switches to the last used application (assuming you don't hold down), right now for me that switches from Firefox to Slack.
Pressing cmd-tab again switches from Slack back to Firefox.
However for window switches
cmd-` switches from my HN window to a jira window. cmd-` again switches to a webmail window. To switch from jira back to HN I have to press cmd-shift-`
If you press Cmd-Tab, then let go, and press Cmd-Tab again, yes, you get back to the first application you were in.
If you press Cmd-Tab, hold Cmd, and keep hitting Tab, you cycle through the available applications.
If you press Cmd-`, get the window you want, and do something in it, then press Cmd-` again, you get back to the first window you were in.
If you press Cmd-` repeatedly, you cycle through the available windows of the active application.
There is a slight difference in how you trigger the two behaviours—and the behaviour of Cmd-` can sometimes be a little opaque, I grant, since "do something in the window" is not always 100% clear, either to the user or the computer—but they do have analogous behaviours.
You've swapped from application 1 to application 2
Press Cmd, Press tab, Release tab, Release tab
You swap from application 2 to application 1
That if you type something after swapping window and the behaviour changes is even worse!
For cycling
Press Cmd, Press Tab, release Tab, Press Tab, Release Tab, you can move from application 1 to application 3, although it doesn't switch immediately, just shows you a menu while you hold down Cmd
Do this with windows and the actual window changes as you move, not a menu
It's poor behaviour and one reason I prefer my linux desktop to my anicent macbook. (Another reason, I've got about 15 opwn terminals, but I can't just raise 1 terminal window above my browser, I have to raise them all. Of course there's no focus-follows-mouse either, it's all very user-unfriendly, at least by default. I'm sure there's some software that might fix this, but back in the 90s when I was using Windows I remember that sort of software was just terrible. The easier option is to finally fix my linux laptop, which died around the time covid started, and thus wasn't a critical path fix)
This is where the value of electron wrappers and web apps installed as PWAs comes in. It offloads app management duties from your browser and puts them back in the hands of the OS.
The former of those two can also get rid of redundant menubars (as seen in e.g. Figma) which is a nice bonus.
Exactly. When the Electron-apps-are--awful-compared-to-desktop-apps conversation comes up, I'm always frustrsted to not see this perspective, because it really reframes the real potential value of Electron implementations away from (from this perspective, unfair) critical comparison to implementing internet services and applications as true desktop apps.
I love doing this but my personal hell is when my Google account(s) are constantly signed out of my PWA for Meet, Chat, Work Gmail, Personal Gmail 1, Personal Gmail 2.
I quite like the epiphany / gnome-web functionnality to create "apps" out of separate website. Too bad it doesn't work with msteams and I wish firefox had that function as well so I can still use my extensions on thoses.
I have a few workflow solutions to this, but Control Down-Arrow or three finger swipe down is the most common.
Also, windows are in a stack from least to most recently put in front, so if I know something is toward the back I start with command-~.
I also happen to believe that there is such a thing as having too many browser windows open, so when these strategies start to become unmanageable, I will close some. The Expose for browser windows takes up to twelve before it needs to make the icons really small, that's a reasonable limit for me, especially given both tabs and tab groups (which I'm increasingly making good use of).
To be clear, this is a workflow, not a workaround: unlike focus follows mouse being impossible, I'm content and productive handling the browser this way.
I agree. While I admit that I have only lightly used macOS but for my last job I find it hard to get used to this multidimensional switching. I think it might have made sense where you had a few documents and a few emails and a few folders. But now I have 3 browser windows and 3 terminals and my brain can't get used to the fact that a video call window is in the same group as my reference docs but my text editor is in a different group with my build output. Maybe I should use a different terminal emulator for my editor but that just seems like fighting the window system.
Or maybe after a couple more years of macOS and I would get used to it.
It's just the difference between a depth=2 tree and a flat list. What's better depends on your access patterns, but at least semantically, the tree makes a lot more sense to me.
I just wish "spaces" worked like xmonad workspaces [0], specifically that in xmonad there are some number of workspaces (9 by default) and each display is a view into _any_ of those. Macos has a checkbox "Displays have separate Spaces", and neither checked nor unchecked gives the behavior I want.
Let's say I have just two monitors. That box being checked means I have spaces A1 A2 .. An and B1 B2 .. Bn, and monitor A can display any of the "A" spaces and monitor B can display any of the "B" spaces. But if I want everything from B2 to get displayed on monitor A, I have to create a new space An+1 and drag everything over one window at a time, like a cave man.
Unchecked means I have spaces AB1 AB2 .. ABn, and switching spaces switches both monitors at the same time! So if I want to see the A side of AB1 and the B side of AB2 at the same time, I'm out of luck.
Xmonad workspaces allow me to do any of the above behaviors (oh, and it switches workspaces instantaneously, instead of this left/right spatial thing macos insists on, I guess because of the trackpad swipe gestures). One of these days I need to try to make Hammerspoon fake workspaces in a way that works for me, because (like the OP) this is by far the least comfortable thing about working in macos for me.
Yeah this works because of indexed access. The tradeoff is you get a limited number of spaces, and you require a much larger key binding surface area. Like how indexes take memory.
If your state is A1/B2 (two monitors A and B displaying spaces 1 and 2 respectively), and you're working in A1 and want to switch B2 to B3, how do you "focus" on display B before moving spaces to B3? If you just press mod-3 I assume you'd get A3/B2. Do you have to alt-tab until you focus a window that is currently in B and then mod-3?
In my xmonad setup only one window (and thus screen) has the focus, so I would need to hit the key that switches focus to my B monitor (for me that's Mod4+e, B monitor is Mod4+q) and then Mod4+3.
True about indexed access; some other window managers have natively built in "tagged workspaces" where windows have tags and the "chat workspace" is just "all windows that have the chat tag". You can (probably? I've never used them) bind numbers to tags permanently or temporarily but you wouldn't be limited to 0-9. I never bothered trying to copy that setup in xmonad because I never used more than 5 or 7 workspaces.
> But if I want everything from B2 to get displayed on monitor A, I have to create a new space An+1 and drag everything over one window at a time, like a cave man.
That's...not true, though? Unless I'm misunderstanding what you're after...
When you activate Mission Control (not sure offhand what the default shortcut is; I have mine set to Ctrl-Up, but I might have customized it), you can drag entire spaces between monitors. I do this regularly.
Ah, I had no idea you could do that. I don't generally use the expose / mission control swipe gestures. ... Actually I just realized I haven't bothered using spaces in years (since before Catalina I think), maybe I should try again. Thanks!
The browser really breaks the paradigm. I think the ideal would actually be a browser that had a window per site and an “application” per category of site.
It doesn't work out well. This is an area of macos that grinds my gears daily. It gets even messier if you maximize an app, or use multiple desktops.
Often I need to quickly switch between a particular terminal window to a particular browser window. But it's always a gamble. I don't know what I'm gonna get when I press cmd+tab. It may show the correct window, or it may show all terminal windows, or it may even do absolutely nothing.
So, I have the opposite problem when I go back to using Linux/Windows: I mentally file all my windows into application buckets and it makes the alt-tab switcher for not-macOS seem to pick a random window.
I don't understand what's random about always switching to the last window you were using. It's a simple rule, no exceptions. Macos window/app switching rules are too complicated and full of special cases, which makes it harder to integrate into your work flow.
Because, basically, I don’t think in terms of switching windows, I think in terms of switching tasks/apps and some apps/tasks happen to have a bunch of windows.
It's still easy to understand because it is just one rule, with no exceptions. Comparatively the OSX model is filled with arbitrary rules that depend on many factors (is another window of this app open in a maximised mode?, does the last desktop you were on have no windows?).
Even if, with time, you have become comfortable with it, it is still a more convoluted way to manage tasks.
I bet a good percentage of Mac users use actual applications for their work instead of browser-based app facsimiles. That's what comes of having a (reasonably) consistent, stable OS to work from.
So, my workflow basically involves switching between terminal, browser and emacs. With macOS’s scheme, if I switch from emacs->browser, I can always hit switch back to emacs without having to parse the switcher, even if I’ve opened a new browser window for some reason. On windows/linux, when I open a new browser window, alt-tab goes back to another browser window, not back to the other “task”.
I certainly don't do everything in a browser. I usually have at most 2 browser windows open (usually just one). For important browser-based apps, I just pin the tabs.
I actually find the macOS model to be more convenient (even though I didn't like it when I first tried it). It makes it very easy to switch away from an app that has multiple windows.
To be honest, I'm not sure there's an objectively better solution. I think it all comes down to the workflow and habits you've built around the model you use most often.
It's also pretty convenient to be able to switch between browser windows using cmd+`. I don't need to worry about getting other apps in between my browser windows.
I dunno. I just want a focus group on a desktop, where switching is related to the project I’m doing. For example one desktop vscode, iterm, browser.
And another desktop about productivity.
The problem with switching is that you quickly get too many windows / apps.
I tried to have a user per group, but that does T work fast enough.
The best setup for me is 2 or 3 machines, linked with synergykvm
Application switching makes sense in a world where the application is the locus of interest and you tend to spend a long time in each app, only rarely switching to another. We haven't lived in that world for a very long time.
When you press Cmd-Tab, first of all, if you hold it down for longer than about a second, it shows you the icons of the currently-open applications, letting you select which application you switch to.
Whenever you use Cmd-Tab to switch to an open application, it will always foreground all the open windows of that application that are on the active desktop/space.
When I'm doing something like you describe, where I know I'll be switching back and forth between a specific pair of windows of different applications (and I have a bunch of other windows of those applications open), my usual practice is either to size and position them where I can just see both at the same time (large screens ftw), or I'll pull them off into a separate space where Cmd-Tabbing between the two applications will be guaranteed to switch between just those two windows.
As a lobg time on and off Mac user: nnt very well. The Windows/Xfce method of switching between all Windows within the current workspace fits the modern way if working much better.
Yes, Mac also supports switching between Windows in the same application but that is rarely what I want either since I am a heavy user of virtual desktops
It’s worth noting that Microsoft has moved more towards an “application switching interface” with Windows 11. Multiple windows for a single application are always forced to be grouped in the taskbar. I hate it.
Hasn't this been the case since Windows 7? I know 7/10 had the option to disable it, and it sounds like Windows 11 has removed that choice, but it's been clear what Microsoft has had in mind for a while now.
The switch-by-application is the only thing I have not let go when starting to exclusively use Linux on the desktop. Switch-by-window is too hard to get used to.
In addition, the classic user interaction method for Macs has always been drag and drop between multiple on-screen windows, while Windows users have traditionally kept every window maximized.
Personally, I think it goes back to early Windows originally supporting very low resolution graphics cards where you simply couldn't display more than a single widow's worth of content at once.
Remember that EGA was only 640×350. You had to have a user interaction method that worked at such a low resolution.
Having things optimised for drag and drop between multiple windows is the reason for Classic Mac OS to only maximize a window enough so that the entire contents of the window is visible, instead of taking up the whole screen.
The first Mac (actually Macintosh back then) had a 9" monochrome screen with 512x342 resolution, so less than EGA (16 colors). [1]
The Macintosh and EGA were released at about the same time. [2]
Remember CGA with a maximum resolution of 640×200 in two color mode or 320x200 at four color mode?
It was also supported in Windows, and given that Windows also kept a separate copy of the menubar as part of every window's chrome, they could have really called it Microsoft Window.
The need for a user interaction method that works at such a low resolution is the origin of Windows users expecting a UI that keeps every Window maximized.
Drag 'n drop has been in MS Windows and different flavour of Linux distros for the last 10-15 years at least regardless whether the application windows have been maximised or not. Or are you referring to something completely different?
Are we pretending that Windows users don't use cut, copy, and paste instead of drag and drop for file management?
File management in the classic Mac UI was always to open a window for the source directory and another window for the destination directory and use drag and drop to move or copy the files.
File management in Windows was to navigate to the source directory, cut or copy the files, navigate to the destination directory and paste.
Just as the classic Mac OS only maximizes a window enough to show all the contents of the window, but no larger than that to facilitate interacting between multiple windows instead of having every window take up the whole screen.
I believe you are making a generalization to apologize for the author of the article for not figuring out, or not immediately knowing already, how to use keyboard short cuts to cycle through selecting windows. [1]
You're both being silly, but the author is being especially silly to evaluate an operating system mostly based on how he feels about the user interface.
macOS is more than just a user interface, more on that in a bit. That being said, there is no Universe where any Linux user interface nor any user interface developed by Microsoft is superior to Apple's Aqua. Sure, Aqua sucks, but nothing, anywhere, approaches its ease of use (developed for everyone, not just the nitpicky self-proclaimed power users with weird tastes), and the feeling of solidity, like windows, menus and icons have some gravity and aren't just weightless and flat sprites ready to fly off the screen or fail to interact with other graphic elements properly. Frankly, every gui ever has been chasing Apple's guis since 1984. Truth hurts, I'm sure, but those are the facts. NT4 and 2K, very similar, were collectively the best guis Microsoft ever released, and gui-wise, everything since has been an absolute disaster, visually and with interaction, XP and 7 included, just absolute crappy junk of guis, and 10 and 11 are no better. In Linux, I always liked every gui I saw, Gnome and KDE, and really it can be tailored to whatever the user's desire is, can even run WindowMaker for the NeXT feel. But therein lies the problem, no consistency whatsoever and it's not for everyone; it is only for the tinkerers, coders, and Linux admins.
Back to the operating system. macOS is rarely given the credit it deserves for being such a solid stable gui running on top of SUS UNIX. Come' on, the author merely mentions this and says nothing about it, but right there is nearly everything that matters: more software available than any other platform ever plus all the best professional apps (printing, photography, audio, video, etc.) run better on macOS, and massive security benefits right out of the box, default config, but of course it can also be hardened, trivially, and then pretty much forgotten. You can never forget to attend to the security of your Windows machines, update, upgrade, constant, ceaseless, never ending scans, but that is in addition to its catastrophe of a user interface, so there's that.
Agreed. The distinction between applications and windows that macOS/Mac OS has always made was jarring at first, but definitely one of those things that after the initial adjustment simply feel different rather than objectively better or worse.
Funnily enough there was a time when MDI was a popular and favored design philosophy on Windows, practically leading to the same application/window distinction that MacOS had/has.
You can add keyboard shortcuts to do that in settings if you really want it. It still does that. If you run apps in full screen mode it gives you a rudimentary tiling workspace on each desktop with a tiled app on it.
Just long press on the green button on the window for a tiling menu.
I've used Spectacle with the defaults, for years. It's not actively developed but still works. There are actively-maintained alternatives, but since it has zero times done anything weird or glitchy for me, even with multiple monitors, I've not switched yet.
"brew install spectacle", start it, give it accessibility permissions it needs in the Settings panel, set to start at login (check a checkbox in Spectacle's settings panel). Forget about it until you set up a new Mac.
cmd+option+up/down/left/right for half-screen tile. Cmd+option+F for the equivalent of maximizing a window in Windows (not Mac-style fullscreen). Cmd+ctrl+left/right for upper-left and upper-right quarter tiles. Add shift to make it lower-quarter on that side. That's it. Was all available to me instantly via muscle memory inside a month, don't even think about it now. It's how I do nearly all my window placement/resizing.
I set mine up to be Shift+Ctrl+(QWE/ASD/ZXC).. where Q/E/Z/C are for the corners, A/D left and right halves, W/X for top and bottom halves, then S in the middle for full screen. The mnemonic of the "box" formed by those keys on the keyboard is easier for me to remember.
It doesn’t have a keyboard shortcut by default, but you can bind 'Move Window to the Left Side of the Screen' and 'Move Window to the Right Side of the Screen' in Keyboard > Shortcuts > App Shortcuts.
another thing to note is that you can add shortcuts to any application as long as it has a menu title... you just have to type the menu item exactly. this also works to effectively remove shortcuts from apps that hijack something that you use elsewhere and don't want available ever. you have to set it to something like control option command shift F15 or something that you'd never use.
I never got used to it after a year. I wasn't even a "new" Mac user as I'd previously used Jaguar/Panther/Tiger/Leopard as well as Classic and even NeXTStep. But while those were better than XP time has marched on and I don't feel like MacOS improved enough compared to the competition (with regards to window management). If anything should have been Sherlocked it should have been rectangle/magnet etc.
I also feel like Apple cripples mice, it's a very trackpad centered workflow and if you're not using one it suffers. Also they really need to have a separate mouse scroll toggle built in.
I've seen this mention between comments and the article, but there is such an option! Or am I thinking of something else? If you go to "System Preferences" > Mouse > unclick "Scroll Direction: Natural".
Am I missing something?
Unless they've changed it really recently you can't have a mouse scroll "unnaturally" and a trackpad "naturally". They're tied together for some reason. You need a 3rd party utility to it.
So, I always invert the mouse scroll wheel on Linux now, because the Mac scroll direction just feels right to me. Which is sort of the problem here: macOS’s UI works really well if the paradigm makes sense to you and long-time Mac users often have the same problems “backwards” when they use Linux or windows.
Did it feel natural to you in 2011? It's not that old of a change. You can get used to it no doubt and I almost feel like it makes sense on trackpads but not so much on scroll wheels. Why fight 10+ years of muscle memory for literally no gain and a bunch of pain everywhere else?
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.)
> 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.
OP here. This is a conspiracy theory I can get behind!
Apparently font rendering is going to get bad on Linux too with gtk4. I believe at some point they decided to stop supporting subpixel rendering with the idea that everyone will have hidpi displays. Unfortunately the display industry is lagging and 1080p is still the norm...
That doesn’t make any sense at all. Apple didn’t sell an up-to-date display for years. It’s only recently that they introduced the Pro Display XDR and the Studio Display. Before the XDR, there was only the LoDPI Thunderbolt Display from 2011.
I'm now on 7 years since the first MBP provided to me by an employer.
It's just as terrible as ever. I would not use an Apple product outside of work, despite some thousands of hours using one over the last several years. Everything about using a Mac feels patronizing and intended to make me work harder than I should to do the most simple tasks.
I had a similar experience: I was semi-forced to use a Mac for over a decade due to how much of my iOS-focused development work started to rely on tooling people only made for macOS, but when the pandemic started (due to being stuck at a desk all the time)--and now mostly working on non-"mobile" software-- I switched back to Windows and it was relieving.
Same. I have a MBP for work, and run Arch Linux on a Dell laptop for personal use. Before that it was Linux on a ThinkPad. The hardware on the MBP may be better, but not in any way I care about, and I'd trade it all to be rid of the touch-bar and have my function keys back. The MBP is fiddly as heck to get it to drive my ultrawide monitor at full resolution, while both Linux laptops "just worked". Personally I just can't find any reason I should prefer the Mac.
I've been on Mac for 10 years now and I still consider the way Windows handles windows vastly superior.
The fact that cmd-tabbing to a app will place all of its windows on top means that I might be forced to move a window with the mouse to see what's underneath it which I find infuriating. The fact that two windows belong to the same app is an arbitrary distinction to me. I group things by mental "projects", and I prefer to maintain my window z-order based on that.
I never liked using virtual desktops and I just downloaded altTab which I've read about in threads here, but it seems to flicker weirdly and it has already crached on me once within a 1/2 hour timespan so I don't foresee myself keeping it.
Same here. After 3 years of daily macOS usage I snapped and finally installed AltTab too. I though I’d get used to it’s way of doing but it’s really not good. I’ve also installed Rectangle a while ago to get easy screen splitting.
macOS does a lot of things very well, just not that.
My first Mac was the first Intel iMac. OSX Tiger was better than Windows XP. Expose felt better than the alt tab of xp- and more fun. And Tiger pushed to have windows take up the space of their contents rather than the whole screen, so most windows were visible on screen all the time making switching between them easier.
In the time since, I brought another iMac and had 2 work MBPs.
In that time, MacOS got worse. It now wants to make windows full screen. Mission control is awkward if you use an ordinary mouse.
My workflow has changed. I'm more likely to have 2 windows of every app- 2 vscode windows, 2 terminal windows and 2 browser windows. As stated many times over, MacOS handles switching between those configuration of windows badly (and I gave it plenty of time to become intuitive).
I now use the Gnome desktop. I have windows that snap. I have alt tab that cycles through windows (it needs configuring). And it has an Expose like effect (gnome overview).
I feel like I have the best of all worlds.
Great window management.
Great hardware support (none of the MBPs supported daisy chaining my displays).
The Linux command line.
The same apps I'd be using on any other OS.
I think the bit on window management reads a little too much like someone who sort or made up their mind upfront. I use windows in my professional life, because that’s how we roll in Denmark, but back in 2015 I bought my first personal MacBook and it’s been a great relationship ever since.
On windows I need to install tools for things like snapping pictures because the default snipping tool isn’t quite good enough. I also hate window management, especially on multiple screen setups where you can’t move the mouse from one screen to another if the resolutions are different (4k screens and an open laptop as an example). Mean while a lot of the things the author complain about are things I find decent on a Mac. The fact that you can easily auto-size windows so that you have 1 full screen, 2 half screen apps, and x csized windows on 3 different window spaces is just awesome.
The biggest issue is that even after 7 years I still have no idea how many little tricks I still don’t know about Mac OS because it never tells you how to use it and pressing shift command (or maybe it’s option) 4 to snap a screenshot isn’t exactly intuitive.
> especially on multiple screen setups where you can’t move the mouse from one screen to another if the resolutions are different (4k screens and an open laptop as an example)
What do you mean by this? That is absolutely possible.
> I think it is not uncommon for Windows folk to find the windowing experience on macs rather painful, at least at first. However, after a while, it sort of "made sense" to me, if that makes any sense at all.
I always feel like Apple optimises UX very heavily for laptops (small screens, fullscreen-first makes a lot of sense), where Microsoft optimises more for desktops (large screens, multiple apps sharing the screen makes more sense). I find windows really clumsy on small laptop screens, even though it works great on my desktop :/
I concur on "it sort of made sense to me" in regard to the windows management and I don't think this is due to the fact that I am getting used to the ways of macOS, at least this part.
When I use Windows occasionally, I miss the command+` to switch between windows of the apps, especially when they are far separated out in the Alt+Tab preview.
Most recent newcomers to Mac and ex-Windows users get tripped up by the fullscreen windows, which are honestly pretty bad.
The way to use MacOS is to use the Spaces to group windows by theme / task. For example, I have one space where I have Slack, Skype, Teams, Discord, Mail and Outlook currently open. Another one has my main "browsing" Chrome window. Another one has my iTerm (the only fullscreen app). And the last "permanent" one has my "debugging" Chrome window. They're always in the same order (none of that "reorder automatically" nonsense), so I can switch tasks using the mouse (2-finger swipe left/right on the Magic Mouse), trackpad (3-finger swipe) or keyboard (ctrl-left/right). Inside a Space, I switch between windows using Exposé (swipe on trackpad, double-tap on mouse or F3 on keyboard).
I've been using macOS both in my personal & professional life like this since Leopard and I think it works pretty well.
I get that some people prefer that, but I've been on macOS daily for 10+ years and still can't find the top level OS paradigms (window switching, over reliance on mouse/extremely poor keyboard support, lack of proper "maximized" windows) anything but painful.
It might be that growing up with windows ingrained certain gestures on my mind that I can't let go, but I feel like I've decidedly given it a shot. And I still hate it.
Yes, there are workarounds, but they're workarounds that require third party applications. I expected more from the OS.
All OS's should come standard with sophisticated windows management. I use BetterSnapTool on my Mac, have done so for close to 10 years now. I honestly don't know what I'd do without it--and I'm not doing too much fancy. But keyboard shortcutting to maximize, minimize, or tile (left right/corners/thirds) elimintes 90% of the fiddly annoying this about dealing with the too many windows I have open. But even this basic level of control that the app affords doesn't seem to be important enough for any of the major OSes to make standard.
All OS's should come standard with sophisticated windows management.
Then people on HN would complain that the OS makers are driving the small utility software shops out of business with walled gardens and regulatory capture, or whatever the buzzword of the week is.
I'm pretty sure macOS was designed to have every window in fullscreen 100% of the time and the user would three finger swipe to switch windows. Seems like having a shitty experience when trying to do anything besides fullscreen is kind of the point, "do things the way we want you to or suffer."
I almost never use that kind of full-screen mode in Mac OS. I do too much work between apps and rarely restrict myself to just one. Drag-n-drop has been a major interaction model in Mac OS for many decades
I do most of my work in many apps too. It's pretty easy to remember to three finger swipe left twice to get to my browser from tmux etc. and is faster than other methods i've found. Plus I need all the screen space I can get, 16 inches is barely big enough.
Ok I'll rephrase. I'm pretty sure that apple redesigned their entire windowing system and related shortcuts around 100% fullscreen when they implemented full screen windows. Every short cut seems to be built with full screen windows in mind, especially the track pad stuff. Even the snapping that op complained about makes sense when considered through the 100% full screen paradigm.
Full screen mode wasn't even a feature until OS X Lion 10.7 in 2011. Until then, the green button only Maximized a window; now you have to Option-click to get that behavior.
I rarely, if ever use Full-Screen mode. I’m struggling to understand why you think the OS is designed around this use.
Someone needs to tell him about option-click on the maximize button.
Most of these "rants" really just amount to: "this different OS doesn't work exactly the same way as the OS I am used to." That's why 3rd party utilities exist to give you the functionality you wish to have. That formula cuts both ways.
In part it is about progressive complexity. The simple things are exposed, more complex options require extra effort to access. Certainly there are times when it would be nice to make it easier to discover the more advanced features but there will always be a tension between keeping defaults simple for new users and exposing advanced features for the more serious users. Often they do it correctly but sometimes there are misses.
How is this Apple UX specific? Windows UX and Linux UX work the same way.
I'd argue a lot of power user feature are more accessible on macOS than on Windows. The shortcuts and gestures for macOS can be found in the system settings and you can change the shortcuts. How are you supposed to find them on Windows?
I think people see macOS as more intuitive because it doesn't offer as much customization and is relatively consistent compared to Windows. Also it doesn't have as many nested menus. The system settings on macOS go maybe three levels deep while on Windows you can go at least 5 or six levels deep if not more. Now guess which one will feel more intuitive?
The downside is you have to install some third-party tools if you want some features. But I prefer that to a lot of bloat.
> How is this Apple UX specific? Windows UX and Linux UX work the same way.
Meanwhile the post just below yours: "I have been using macs for 9 years and never knew ...". So, no. They don't. "Power user" things are much less discoverable on macs.
Yep, as someone who's gotten really really dependent on app Exposé on macOS... it's hard for me to switch to a keyboard for things I'd rather do on the trackpad!
I do have to agree, though, that macOS window management can feel a bit clunky using a mouse and keyboard. That's a user story that the macOS UI/UX team ought to look into, it wouldn't be that hard to create some decent bindings in the OS itself.
I've been using macs for 9 years and never knew about option+click. Granted I've been using apps for window management since forever as the native tools suck or are almost hidden.
Just FYI, holding down modifiers to reveal additional functions is a common theme in macOS. In the Finder for example, try holding down option and shift while looking through menus for a few examples. Holding down option while clicking the close or minimize buttons in apps will also close or minimize all windows for that app.
2 years into being forced to use them for work and this is the first time I even hear anyone mention this. Thanks!, I'll be checking it out first thing in the morning
Absolutely - these ranty invectives are so tedious. The idea that something is fundamentally broken because it doesn’t work the way you expect it to.
I struggle through each of my Windows sessions despite having used Windows since the 80s and having built probably more than 10 PCs over the past 30 years. I don’t blame Windows for that. I daily drive MacOS and that’s what I’m used to. That’s a me problem, not a Windows problem.
These responses are also tedious, in that a negative opinion can't be valid and the user just didn't 'do it properly.' The author went to the effort of providing the rationale for his opinion at least.
Per your second point. Why is that not a Windows problem? Because a lot of other people don't experience it? Just because a whole heap of people can work with Windows might mean they just got used to it, rather than it was good in the first place, which goes back to your first sentence.
No OS is 'good' for everyone, as no OS is 'bad' for everyone.
I can see that my comment did look like it was accusing the author of TFA of engaging in a rant. That’s my bad - I was instead responding to parent’s second paragraph.
As to your second point: I agree. Those specific discussions around what people like and dislike, and why, are interesting and thought-provoking. The low-effort “loll Apple drone” hot-takes that pop up on all of these threads, less so.
It is frustrating when interesting conversation/debate points are drowned out by the inevitable 'troll' comments that explode the threads into pointless arguments.
> A little background on me: I’ve been speaking French and Spanish my entire professional life
...
> The Bad
> I’m accustomed to gendered pronouns in both French and Spanish, so it was nice to see that in English. However, the lack of gendered nouns is awful. French and Spanish both have what I would call “sane” gendered nouns (shown in this dictionary), where you know of everyone's gender based on the adjective you hear.
> On the other hand, English has a weird grammatical system where you need to listen to the pronoun to know someone or something's gender. I want to know if someone is a man, a woman, or a chair based on the adjective, not just the pronoun.
A fun parallel. Consider the importance being placed on gender to be in part a malleable cultural factor in part perpetuated by language. Plenty on this in the sphere of ‘gender studies’.
I hate that idea, it's effectively overloading a noun that objectively speaking should only contain information that is intrinsic to the properties of the noun itself. A chair or other inanimate objects do not have genders, and forcing a non-native speaker to conjugate a noun correctly just adds to the mental complexity.
Side note: this is why I love grammatically simple languages such as Chinese.
People on corp hardware can't install third party utilities, though. You're basically saying "it's fine that this OS can't do what you need it to do, because I can customize it for my purposes". Not to mention - even if the author could install those third party utilities, now they're pulling untrusted code into a work environment and potentially exposing trade secrets to random software developers. Any IT department paying attention would not okay most of those tools. The stuff the author complains about missing is built in on Windows and Linux and is not particularly niche or complex.
You don’t even have to use the green zoom button. Just double click the top of the window like in every other OS. The difference is that zooming a window is not the same as maximising. It makes the window as big as the content it contains.
Also you can double click the edge of any window to extend it to the edge of the screen.
I really don’t get the obsession for tiling windows personally. It’s not part of my workflow.
Yes, they switched the behaviour shortly after they added the full screen mode merging it with a separate full screen icon they had introduced. The old behaviour is retained by option clicking the green button. It's annoying and I wish they kept it as was.
It is hilarious that a button called "zoom" only does "zoom" when you use its alternative functionality and by default does something completely different.
Pretty reasonable write up to be honest. I think the window management thing is reasonable when you come from a background where that’s a given. There are some great third party window managers available, I use one of them and very happy with it. It’s called Magnet for those who are interested.
File management is another one I'd like to add to the list of macOS screwups. How can viewing lists of files and moving them over from one place to another be so complicated?
MacOS apparently caches directory views somewhere, and I can routinely get the "Downloads" folder to not actually show what is in the Downloads folder; often having to resort to "open" on the terminal to access the file. I wish I knew how to force it to refresh the actual contents instead of reading it from the cache.
Do you have that folder set to sort by something useful like “date added”? Then it should work. If you have it set to not sorted then maybe the file is lower on the list and off screen.
~\Downloads is always the first tab in Finder for me and I almost always keep it to show the most recently added files at the top.
I always do date added, and it sometimes doesn't show new files in the file picker view most commonly - and then I have to go somewhere else and back and it seems to refresh.
The other weirdness is sometimes a file gets updated (think "touch") and it won't change it's order in the list.
Most of the time it works fine. It's like inotify or whatever sometimes doesn't fire.
Ah, I almost never use the file picker. I tend to keep certain folders open in tabs in Finder and drag from them to the apps or to the file open dialogs. I tend to do a lot of work in a handful of folders and never liked the process of of “File Open….now navigate to that folder you were just using”.
What is complicated about it? I typically keep a handful of tabs open in Finder and drag and drop between them or to applications. You can also always do CMD-C and then either CMD-V to copy a file somewhere or OPT-CMD-V to move a file.
Not quit sure what you want but you can copy or drag path information from the “Path Bar” at the bottom of a finder window/tab. I do this all the time to get a path in terminal
Most annoying for me is there is no simple way to simply search for files matching a name in a folder.
Attempting to search using Finder insists on bringing up a giant system wide search that indexes content of files, emails, every stupid thing that contains anything like the phrase I looked for.
So imagine I am sharing my screen and I try to just find a simple file and it's spewing the contents of my private emails in front of everyone. So aggravating.
Well, if Finder is in the folder, and you enter a search, then I see three options reading to just search in the folder. It pops up between the command bar and the folder contents.
yeah ... I guess I don't think that is simple when I have to click extra options to get to it. But also, it still insists on searching within files. I ONLY want it to filter on the file name.
The window management grips are fair, although I don't find Cmd + ` to be particularly burdensome - it's right above tab on the keyboard, and my KDE Plasma desktop behaves the exact same way.
I don't know any Mac users who don't primarily use expose (or is it mission control now? The thing where it tiles all your windows open and you click the right one). Agree that windows should snap even when not fullscreened but I think expose solves this one better if you hand is already on the trackpad / mouse
I don't use it, in fact I thought it was mostly abandoned.
I hate window snapping behavior. I use rectangle, but cannot for the life of me figure out why it makes sense to snap a window to fullscreen on my 40" ultrawide the instant I get a window somewhere near any side of my monitor. Who works like this? You have to just leave a window floating in space if you don't want it fullscreened?
I use Moom personally to tile windows. I feel like no one tests the huge external monitor setup at apple compared to just using the laptop screen, despite it's near ubiquity among developers. Maybe the vast majority of mac's aren't used that way? But Mac pros are.
I do leave my hand on the trackpad on Mac a lot more than I do with Linux - partly because the trackpad on Mac is better than any other trackpad - but also because I think a trackpad is inherently slower and sometimes when I use a mouse/keyboard on Mac I notice the system isn't quite as responsive as it feels when I use gestures
Window management is still my number one complaint with macOS. Windows has only gotten better with it since Windows 7 introduced Aero Snap, and on Linux I can do whatever my heart desires, including using a proper tiling environment.
Ironically, if you’re looking to snap two windows side-by-side (which I expect accounts for the majority of cases), iPadOS with a keyboard is actually more capable for that specific use case than macOS. I expect the same shortcut will make its way into the next Mac release, I just hope they don’t gimp it by tying it to full-screen mode.
Er...macOS has had the ability to put two windows side-by-side in full-screen mode for a few years now. Press and hold on the green "zoom" button and you'll get side-by-side options.
It does not, and likely will never, have options for gluing two windows together and treating them as one in non-fullscreen mode. That seems like a fairly niche desire to me.
Oh—no, I don't believe there is. Sorry, I missed that you were specifically referring to a keyboard shortcut for that (since I very rarely use an iPad with an external keyboard).
> Apple decided to grace the 2021 Macbook Pro with ports that any PC laptop user has had for years (HDMI?! SD card reader?! gasp!).
To be fair, MBPs also had those for years, until Apple in its wisdom decided to ditch them in 2016, along with making other questionable interface decisions that they've been gradually reverting since then. I still use a 2015 MBP partially for that reason. Now it's probably become a time to upgrade to a M1 model.
I’m certain this was a change in design philosophy. And I think the exit of Jony Ive resulted in substantially more rational design decisions (form follows function), but any time that happens there’s a year or two of product pipeline that has to cycle.
The author makes a big deal of lack of snapping. Frankly I've never seen the utility of it on OSs that do have it, infact I've always felt it more of a hinderance than a help (gets in the way, tries to snap when you don't want it to).
The author makes a big deal that you have to do Command+Tab to switch applications, and then Command+` to cycle between windows in that application. Well, frankly I think thats the better way, I'll give you an example:
Let's say (as you do) you have a dozen browser windows open (maybe in more than one browser) ... do you REALLY want to sit there hitting Command+Tab dozens of times ? No. Its quicker to switch to the desired app and then cycle within the app. That way you don't cycle through the browser when you don't need to.
Finally there are some, frankly bizarre, comments in the blog post, such as:
> However, that keyboard doesn’t have the Option (⌥) or Command (⌘) keys like on my Macbook.
Well, yeah, its not Apple's problem if you choose to use a PC keyboard with your Mac. Most people would either use the built-in Mac keyboard or buy an external one (third-party Mac keyboards are available from the usual suspects if you don't fancy an Apple one).
I gave up reading the blog post around that point ("The Undecided" header to be precise).
> The author makes a big deal of lack of snapping. Frankly I've never seen the utility of it on OS's that do have it, infact I've always felt it more of a hinderance than a help (gets in the way, tries to snap when you don't want it to).
It may be useful for users of large external monitors, allowing to make better use of the screen real estate. Then again, Macos lacks per-application menu bars, which means you cannot do a lot of tasks without focusing the app first, so IMHO lack of snapping/advanced windows management is not as big as a deal as it would be under Windows.
There are Mac applications you can download to get this behaviour. Magnet does it and is cheap, and Raycast (spotlight alternative) does it and is free.
> this is a work machine and I need to get everything I install blessed by IT security. Easy for large applications like Slack or Chrome, but harder for the small tools that only fix my niche issues (I’ve already found Rectangle, BetterSnapTool, and Magnet).
I get where the author is coming from, but I too prefer the cmd-tab to switch between applications, and cmd-backtick to cycle through windows in the application. I do more of the latter than the former.
Neither do I care that much for snapping. What I really prefer is for my windows to be where I left them, and MacOS is pretty good about keeping them that way.
> What I really prefer is for my windows to be where I left them, and MacOS is pretty good about keeping them that way.
Well, it is once you go into Preferences > Mission Control and turn off "Automatically rearrange Spaces based on most recent use"
I can't imagine why that's enabled by default, and I always forget to turn it off when setting up a new machine and don't realize it until I get confused for the 50th time, thinking I'm losing my mind cause my desktops are in a different order from what I thought
I've never used snapping on any OS, but on MacOS I feel the need even less, because the programs seem really really good about remembering my window positions once I have things setup the way I want.
Sorry for the snark in advance: Are you for real? I do want IDE and documentation in browser next to each other on my 31.5" 1440 screen, thank you very much.
> Let's say (as you do) you have a dozen browser windows open (maybe in more than one browser) ... do you REALLY want to sit there hitting Command+Tab dozens of times ? No. Its quicker to switch to the desired app and then cycle within the app. That way you don't cycle through the browser when you don't need to.
I'll see your use case and raise you a:
Let's say you now have two dozens of browser windows open on two desktops. And you also have a dozen terminal windows open also across two desktops. You've just googled something on desktop 1, and trying it out in terminal 1, now you get a beep from Slack on desktop 2, which is not maximized because you were communicating something from your workspace there so it was needed on the right half of the screen. You read the message, you alt-Tab back to the terminal... and end up in a different terminal on the current workspace.
It feels like this was done to work around the fact that windows are grouped by application in MacOS, so that Alt-Tab between a browser and terminal always stayed on the same workspace.
Yeah this annoys me too. I just had get used to the fact that if I context switch away to a different desktop, I should switch back with ctrl-left, not with cmd-tab.
Nobody seems to know about App Exposé, which you can trigger with ctrl+down. I also have it set for three finger swipe down. You can then use the arrow keys to move between windows if you don't want to use the mouse, and it includes minimized windows as well, which cmd+` does not.
When you go into the trackpad settings there are little videos showing what each gesture does. App Exposé is right there. I don’t know how more discoverable it can be.
Since it seems like it’s Windows converts that can’t find it, maybe Apple could buy some of those Windows File Explorer ads Microsoft is experimenting with and explain the functionality.
TBH I think this is a more universal problem. I work in a University and students with either Macs or Windows laptops all seem to lack the basic ability to get around their OS. They'll entirely mouse orientated ignorant of many time saving affordances.
On the other hand you have people who read HN who know their system intimately and don't like when another system is different. I could rant all day about Windows too!
When you’re used to something else the change hurts. I have found it far better to not bring your mental baggage with you and meet the new platform as its level rather than try and make it the same as the old one.
I have gone MOS > RiscOS > WinNT -> Solaris -> Linux -> Win7 -> macOS and it hurt every time.
Indeed, and the change that hurts me when I try to use a Mac is the fact that there are things that I can't change. I prefer focus-follows-mouse and no-raise on-focus, and those are apparently structurally impossible in macOS.
"I can't change it to work the way I like it" is a totally legitimate complaint and Linux has a strong advantage in this regard.
I’ve tried implementing focus-follows-mouse on macOS. It’s possible to do, but complicated, because changing focus to an arbitrary window can “mutate” it: popovers will disappear, and selections will shift under your mouse. I don’t think Linux or Windows really support these so they don’t have to deal with this.
>you use what they give you, how they give it to you, using their workflows, barely customizing anything. Apple products are supposed to be revered the world over as the pinnacle of design, used by artists, engineers, professionals, and creators. Why do I feel like there are training wheels on a machine I use for productivity?
Gosh, this is exactly how I felt in a similar situation. Really hit the nail on the head.
I've used Linux for a long time, and for a while I was kindly forced to use a Mac (got a Linux laptop last week). It was a painful experience that took a heavy toll on my productivity.
My impression is that Mac has so many idiossincrasies that fans just assume are "intuitive" while they're really not - they've just been used to it for a long time. Personally I hated, hated the usability. Can't stress it enough, it absolutely sucked. Never again!
Also the benefits compared to non-Macs are diminishing over time. You can get great hardware and battery life with system76 for instance.
“You can get great hardware and battery life with system76 for instance.”
The build quality of these two platforms is nowhere, and I mean nowhere close.
Apples (heh) and oranges.
I’m rooting for system76, but they have a long way to go.
I just spec'd out the System 76 Galago Pro to match that of the Clevo equivalent that's linked elsewhere in this thread (L143MU), and the System 76 came to $1032, while the Clevo is listed at €1,026.90 (or $1,116.89), so when you say "huge markup" it must be in reference to something else. That said, I don't have any real skin in this game.
well to be fair, i did the same exercise before buying a system76 a few years back and the difference was a bit more even with oem consideration so thats good to know. the build quality is very cheapish feeling and it fell apart pretty quickly and i regretted not just getting a lenovo or xps or something but it was nice to support their efforts
As a Linux user of 15 years now, i look forward to beeing challenged by using a Mac, since for me energy efficiency is more important than personal comfort.
How does energy efficiency matter here? Or rather, why are you implying that a Mac might be more energy efficient, and enough to matter? Geniuenly curious.
There is nothing inherent about having a bad window manager that makes it more power efficient; Apple could implement a better desktop environment and still have low power use.
You could also install a window manager such as rectangle or magnet if window management is a big deal for you. People switching OSs expect some things to roll over and then forget that they can google for potential solutions when things don’t work the way they expect/want.
I, like the author of this essay, was prevented from doing such things by my employer when I used a Mac for work.
I do also want to point out that such suggestions - "just install and configure [some software] which will solve your problem" - are generally rejected when I point them out to people who are having a hard time getting started with free desktops. The KDE or GNOME environment are expected to be perfect at installation, but Windows and Mac OS are afforded more leniency. It's a double standard.
IMO a 15-watt difference is basically negligible in this context. It is so insignificant it can be offset by pretty much anything. You know creating aluminum uses a ton of energy; maybe that fancy aluminum case of the Macs used more power than a tiny TDP difference will ever save.
> In the overall multi-core scores, the Apple M1 is extremely impressive. On integer workloads, it still seems that AMD’s more recent Renoir-based designs beat the M1 in performance, but only in the integer workloads and at a notably higher TDP and power consumption.
Apple’s lead against Intel’s Tiger Lake SoC at 28W here is indisputable, and shows the reason as to why Apple chose to abandon their long-term silicon partner of 15 years. The M1 not only beats the best Intel has to offer in this market-segment, but does so at less power.
I also included multi-threaded scores of the M1 when ignoring the 4 efficiency cores of the system. Here although it’s an “8-core” design, the heterogeneous nature of the CPUs means that performance is lop-sided towards the big cores. That doesn’t mean that the efficiency cores are absolutely weak: Using them still increases total throughput by 20-33%, depending on the workload, favouring compute-heavy tasks.
Overall, Apple doesn’t just deliver a viable silicon alternative to AMD and Intel, but actually something that’s well outperforms them both in absolute performance as well as power efficiency. Naturally, in higher power-level, higher-core count systems, the M1 can’t keep up to AMD and Intel designs, but that’s something Apple likely will want to address with subsequent designs in that category over the next 2 years.
I actually appreciate the simplicity. Being stuck on Windows for the past couple months I say the best analogy for its window management would be “square training wheels”. Or rectangular, as square ones would have a single cadence.
What are people doing with their computers that a Mac is so stifling? I'm late to the Mac game, have been on it for about a decade, and was a 15-year Windows and Linux desktop user before that. Still, I don't even know what it might be.
Docker Desktop is relatively bad compared to native docker on Linux. If you spend your day doing that macOS is very stifling. Or if you want to change a keyboard shortcut Apple don't allow you to, like cmt+tab.
Ah—I've done a lot of Docker on Mac, but just with the command line tools, so I don't know how Docker Desktop is (on any platform).
> Or if you want to change a keyboard shortcut Apple don't allow you to, like cmt+tab.
The only keyboard customization I do is something that Mac makes at least as easy as Linux (use Caps Lock as an extra control) but I bet it is frustrating if you want to customize stuff outside the cases that they explicitly support remapping. That makes sense.
To run Docker on macOS you need Docker Desktop or any of the alternatives. The docker CLI is really slow compared to native, at least with Docker Desktop, and i Rancher Desktop failed installing.
The options for package management on macOS aren’t great in my experience, coming from using Linux on all my personal machines. Homebrew exists but it always feels bolted on and I’ve had things break in interesting ways using it. Nix might be better, I don’t have much experience using it on macOS.
That's because most mac users fall to the well-crafted publicity of Homebrew, and remain ignorant about the better https://www.macports.org/ package management system. MacPorts was inspired by the FreeBSD Ports Collection, is created by Apple engineers, used by Apple internally, is unix-y and has more packages than Homebrew. (But yeah, I think both Homebrew and MacPorts still fall behind Linux / xBSD packaging systems in terms of the number of packages they have).
I started as a MacPorts user, and moved because it managed to break itself about quarterly over the two years or so that I used it, usually in some way weird enough that it was easier to just remove all my packages (rm the whole directory) and start over than try to fix it. HomeBrew's done that zero times for me, in about eight years.
I've extensively used Portage (gentoo), rpm (Fedora, Mandrake), and dpkg/apt (Debian and Ubuntu), and MacPorts, plus put in a smaller amount of time with several others. HomeBrew is, overall, my favorite.
[EDIT] And this in particular:
> But yeah, I think both Homebrew and MacPorts still fall behind Linux / xBSD packaging systems in terms of the number of packages they have
HomeBrew has failed to have a package the fewest times of any I've used. AFAIK only Arch and Portage even come close.
[EDIT]
Downvoted for countering someone's passive-aggressive insult ("people who don't like the software I do must be gullible morons, it can't be that they have good reasons") with my own, honest anecdote, in a respectful tone. I know, I know, don't complain about DVs, but man HN, sometimes....
I had exactly the opposite experience. Homebrew chewed up my computer a couple times back when it installed everything alongside OS files. The only sane way to get rid of it was to reinstall the OS.
Not sure. It made the system binary folders user writable. It stopped doing that when Apple forced them by adding some extra security measures around /usr/bin.
Man, that blows. I find the current model (and only one I can remember? Maybe I did use it when it worked that way, and just didn't realize it) of keeping all user packages totally separate from the core system and just linking them in better and safer than what e.g. most Linux package managers do—now that I'm used to my package manager not really being able to mess up my base system, I wish all the rest worked that way, too :-/
Since the start Homebrew installed in /usr/local instead of a dedicated directory (which it now does); it literally always had a worse design than the earlier systems Fink and MacPorts. The only reason people used it is that it was written in Ruby and at the time there was a generation of new Rails developers that for some reason only wanted to use tools written in Ruby.
(Ofcourse, more doesn't imply it has all the newer and / or popular packages or that Homebrew has the same packages as in MacPorts, which could explain your experience).
If you are used to using gnu user land you’ll be using a utility like brew to install the gnu components. The bsd counterparts are just off enough to find something a bit off on most of them.
I really dislike finder. I’ve not found a sane replacement.
Updates for me took 10-15 minutes. Rebooting a few times. Relegated to answering slacks on phone during that time.
Office is also awful on the Mac. I wound up using office in a windows VM because a lot of stuff was broken opening complex documents.
My newest job I asked for a windows laptop. WSL2 is ok. I just run vscode connected to wsl and do my work there and use native office. Those two apps, postman, and chromium (chrome and slack) is really my stack and it works well enough. I would rather use Linux but our IT department have a big thumbs down since they have no clue what they are doing regarding securing that.
I am not saying it will solve your problems, but I like PathFinder on the Mac. I use Directory Opus on Windows. They fulfill the same niche & need for me. I find Finder and Explorer to be anemic in terms of functionality.
I've used Windows, Linux, Mac extensively for decades and I also frankly have no idea. The other responses to you as of this writing seem to be nitpicking and not anything truly foundational to the user experience.
I had to start using mac for my current job as of last year and have no idea. once you learn about cmd-` and the weirdness with minimizing, and installed rectangle, i became as productive as I am on windows
finder to drive navigation to native desktop apps + a first class unix terminal nails my productivity needs. I ended up buying an m1 pro pretty soon after getting accustomed
Cannot at all relate to this perspective. If you like PopOS, that’s great. But this nonsense about Mac fans being blinded by their love of the brand is the edgelord meme that will not die.
MacOS is fine. PopOS is fine. Windows is fine. They each ask you to adopt a UI paradigm because how could they not. It’s natural that transitioning between them is costly.
Every time I see comments like this I’m reminded of this great quote: “The only intuitive interface is the nipple. Everything else is learned.”
>nonsense about Mac fans being blinded by their love of the brand is the edgelord meme that will not die.
Thank you for the completely unemotional comment that totally does not add to the notion I was alluding to that some fans are a bit sensitive about criticism.
Joking aside, our points are basically the same. I totally agree that nothing we create is intuitive "by definition"; that's my whole point. I would never claim that Linux or anything else is intuitive "by definition", and yet I see a lot of Mac fans claiming that. It might be perception bias, but I think not.
My first contact with a Mac was some 10 years ago. I struggled to turn it on -- contrary to _all other similar devices_, on the Mac the power button was very faintly beveled, and tucked in an invisible corner on the back of the screen (it was a desktop). I get that people might like this, totally fine. I just don't accept that this is intuitive design.
See, Mac users rarely turn the device off. It can stay on for months without issue. Laptops can sleep for weeks before they run out of power. The power button is more like a reset switch, and doesn't need to be front and center.
A lot of these first impressions are just that, first impressions, and can be quite different from feedback coming from daily users.
I read this comment and realized I don’t even remember the last time I powered down my Mac! You’re right that it’s not something I do very often. Is that not the case with Windows and Linux nowadays? What’s the point in powering down?
Software updates require a restart, but that's not what I'm thinking of when I consider a power down. I'm thinking of the scenario where you take explicit action to power down your machine and leave it powered down. I power down my machines before going on vacation, for example.
Even when you power down or restart a Mac it remembers all the applications you had running and all the application windows and it re-opens everything so you come back to everything just the way you left it.
Since the author appears pretty savvy, I recommend trying out https://www.hammerspoon.org/ and writing a little bit of lua to customize his mac experience. Can even install it as a Homebrew cask
Depending on who you ask, it's either the best OS Microsoft has ever made or one of the worse. If you know how to install a different Start Menu, you can get >95% of the benefits of W10/W11 with no downside other than game compatibility. If you are stuck with the menu provided by Microsoft, it's almost literally unusable. It's so bad that and hated by literally everyone that IMHO it deserved a "fire managers/leaders who approved it" type of response.
I didn't ask if you could make Windows act like Slightly Different Windows. I asked if you could make it act like macOS. Single menu bar at the top, Alt-Tab changing applications, with another shortcut for cycling through windows of the active application, etc. Since the criticism that it was hard to make macOS act like Windows.
I totally get the window switching thing, especially if one of the windows is minimized. In that case, hovering over the window using Cmd + Tab will not open the window. You have to press Option while simultaneously letting go of the Cmd key.
The only other major thing is how terrible Finder is out of the box. There are ways to make it less terrible, but it's still far less than ideal in usability.
What problems do you have with Finder? I feel the same about Windows File Explorer when I use Windows. If nothing else, I keep looking for a way to add a tab for a different path.
Admittedly, I tend not to use that many keyboard short-cuts. Beyond the basics, I find the effort to learn more of them not worth the effort unless it is an app that I use frequently. File management is not one of those cases.
This always floors me when I have to use a non-Linux computer. The difference between package management on Linux and other OSes is shocking. Dnf, Yum, Pacman are all so convenient and straightforward.
I can't understand why Windows and MacOS don't have anything official that fills this gap.
The main problem is that the majority of software in the Windows and Mac world doesn't come in a "package-manager" format, not really.
For *BSD and Linux, the package manager is great because if you can think of it, it's probably there ready to be installed; as long as it's software like TeX or emacs or vi or something else available in an open-source way.
But stand-alone programs? Not even things like Photoshop, I'm talking something written by someone and you want to install it? That's not as compatible with the Linux method, but Windows and Mac both have standard procedures and installers for them. Snap tries to do something here, but it's a complete joke.
And homebrew (and anything equivalent for WSL?) works pretty well.
I've not used macs for a few years, but has homebrew become a lot better then? Because my recollection of it is that it worked fine for small sets of well-maintained packages, but it's much, much slower than the linux package managers, and there were tons of compatibility issues once you even slightly left the beaten path. Also, I remember fighting with many apple CLI tools; they seemed to be wildly out of date with the comparable linux tooling, to the point that you sometimes needed to homebrew something technically already part of the base OS just to get other things working (e.g. IIRC bash)
Incidentally, on windows there are the beginnings of package managers nowadays, e.g. chocolatey. They're nothing like as good as those in linux, but better than nothing. Chocolatey's focus isn't quite the same as homebrew, however, so they're not strictly comparable.
It ... "works". For most things you may want, it works pretty well, but it's not at advanced as even Gentoo's portage, and once you leave the beaten path it can be all sorts of hell trying to figure out how exactly to compile something yourself.
However, I've experienced the same on Ubuntu and RedHat - if they don't have what you want in a repo already, and you can't find one providing it, trying to roll your own can cause all sorts of fun explosions.
Anything GPL included with MacOS is stuck at the GPL v2 - since many things like bash went to v3 they don't update anymore; one of the reasons MacOS changed to zsh as the default shell.
> But stand-alone programs? Not even things like Photoshop, I'm talking something written by someone and you want to install it? That's not as compatible with the Linux method
There's definitely some room for improvement here, but fwiw you can double-click executables on Linux to run them just like you would on Windows (or to an extent, MacOS). I think the "solution" here is not to rely on portable software, and when you do need to rely on it, use a packaging format like AppImage.
> And homebrew (and anything equivalent for WSL?) works pretty well.
I hate to burst your bubble, but Homebrew is genuinely awful. The vast majority of Mac devops issues I've encountered stem from a Homebrew issue, as a matter of fact. Oh no! Software (x) isn't running on Mike's M1, but it runs just fine on Melissa's x86 machine! The problem? Homebrew installs software to different locations depending on your system architecture. That's right, the same package will end up in different places when the only difference between machines is CPU architecture. That's just one issue, I have gripes about reinstalling, leftover files, formulae syntax, Linux "compatibility", UX and more... the author isn't wrong when they say the experience simply doesn't compare to apt or pacman.
Yeah, homebrew isn't the greatest by any means, but it seems to have more stuff and more people use it than fink or macports anymore, so usually there's a workaround somewhere.
The MacOS "app bundle" is a really cute solution to the installation/library problem, and I wish something like it had caught on in the Linux world. It seems AppImage is heading this way.
App bundles are neat, but when given the option of "an app directory on top of a traditional Unix filesystem layout" or "everything is packages", I'll tend to choose the latter. It might just be an impasse situation; I think the ideas of package management are developed about as far as they can go, even newcomers like Flatpak can't really bring anything new to the table. The only package manager that's impressed me in recent years is Nix. I think if most developers decided to throw their weight behind Nix packages, we could live in the "it just works" utopia that Linux and Mac developers alike have been dreaming of for years.
The bane of package managers is when you have to go beyond what they supply for whatever reason - horrible memories of trying to upgrade php on old versions of CentOS still haunt me.
But Chocolatey exists too and is pretty nice. I have used both of them but I know Chocolatey a lot better. They both are basically used as wrappers for traditional package formats like msi or other commercial installers. I guess windows has msix and appx as well which are used in the Microsoft Store.
Pretty much the only time I install something and it's not through Homebrew (unless it's a dependency of a project, which I manage separately, because I like having an easy life and I'd do the same on Linux, for the same reasons) is when it's some sub-100-stars GitHub project. And half the time, those are on there, too.
I prefer Brew to every Linux package manager I've used.
I like that it's totally separate from the base OS.
I like the insanely large package selection, including binary [edit: that is, closed-source binary] packages. I almost never install any tool that's not in Homebrew—usually I just blindly try it, and sure enough, I got the package name right and it does have it, and it installs no problem. Gentoo's Portage and Arch's whatever-they-call-it are pretty close, but those are... higher touch operating systems, to put it mildly (I was a heavy Gentoo user for a few years—I know Arch is less of a pain than that, but it's still got rolling-distro and various DIY rough edges)
I don't try to use it to install development dependencies like some people seem to. It's not good for that, but doing that on Linux isn't a great idea, either. Your project should manage its own deps separate from your development system, or you're gonna have a bad time sooner or later, unless you are only deploying to exactly the system config that you're developing on.
They do. On Windows it's msi, and Mac it's pkg. But, for whatever reason folks have preferred to build their own package solution instead of learning the OS native approach. I'm guessing because building your own makes for an easier end user CLI experience.
Microsoft made the mistake of adding non-deterministic behaviour to MSI files, because without that the package format is pretty much everything I'd want out of a software packaging system.
I think companies wanted to stuff branding and ads into their installers, so MSI files fell out of use. Modern Windows seems to prefer msix and other weird UWP-based formats, but I don't think you can just install those.
What Windows is missing though, is a clean way to manage these MSI files. A reinstall or an uninstall shouldn't take twenty windows and four different "next" buttons to process. When Microsoft created the Microsoft Store, they neglected to also add a command line option for installation (you can manually install a package, but you'll need to do updates yourself from what I can tell). Just add a Powershell command like "MSStore-Install" and the entire ecosystem would be so much nicer to use!
I suppose this is what they're trying to do with WinGet, after forking AppGet and leaving the original project to die. For some reason they like to reinvent the wheel every time someone thinks of a new way to install binaries onto a computer.
You can use Chocolatey until WinGet gets some traction. You have everything there and no more clicking around. I haven't started MSI by hand in last 5 years.
Errr ... because they're commercial operating systems, with the expectation that software is not just universally available for no cost?
The respective stores for macOS and Windows are changing this, but there's a 30-ish year history of needing to register and pay for your software, so having it all just _there_ still isn't really a thing.
I tried the m1 mini when it came out because I was hyped by all the m1 HN talk. This was my first time using macOS and besides the window management what I loathed was having to re-learn all the shortcuts I've been using for 20+ years, how no one mentions this is baffling to me. I tried to make it work more like "normal" windows / linux but I didn't find any good options and I always felt like I was running with my shoelaces untied.
I'll stick with my linux i3 env for the foreseeable future
It just takes time to get used to. I used Linux for a long time before switching to a Mac about seven years ago. I nearly returned my new MacBook to the store because I felt hamstrung by the UI. But in a few weeks, once I'd become accustomed to the application-centric windowing model, the keyboard shortcuts, and especially the touchpad gestures, it all clicked and I wouldn't go back now.
Shortcuts are maddening when you just switch. But then you realise how much of the keyboard is underutilised in Windows. Linux uses the Meta key, but IIRC it was very app-specific, and not as comprehensively used.
A lot of MacOS is keyboard driven [1][2], but it takes up to two weeks to get comfortable (it took me at least that long when I switched to MacOS in 2008).
[1] But the new breed of "designers" at Apple no longer care about that. All new first-party apps that Apple vomits out are an abomination, UX-wise. And keyboard access there suffers as well.
[2] There are a bunch of shortcuts that will work the same way across most apps (such as Cmd+<comma> for settings, or text navigation shortcuts), and that is a blessing. You can also assign custom shortcuts to any menu item in any app if you need directly from settings. Or you can re-assign behaviour of Ctrl/Caps Lock/Alt from settings as well. There are small things like this all across the system, but it does take getting used to.
I always find this interesting, my primary computing device that I do actual work on is Mac (technically I guess my primary is my iPhone or iPad if I go by time but I am not counting that). But I have a Windows computer for gaming and a few Linux machines lingering around.
I constantly find myself frustrated by Windows because I am just used to how Mac operates. I have been using it as my primary compute device since Lion.
However one of the things that I find interesting from the Window management point that I don't see mentioned, touchpad gestures. I cannot use Mac without gestures, even when I am using my laptop as a desktop I use the Magic Trackpad. The few times I have tried to use a mouse... it just feels wrong. I would highly recommend taking a look at this and looking at the window management from this prospective. Because of these gestures I never think I need to snap things because switching windows is a quick swipe and and a click. Then all the other gestures, hot corners, etc.
That being said, I find the same issue with my partner. He has never used a Mac (has an iPhone though) but sometimes he needs to do something quick so grabs my laptop. It is fascinating watching him struggle with the trackpad and other basics that to me I don't even think about anymore.
Yea, I think what OP is missing is that macOS was designed to be used with a trackpad. I think three fingers up is what they want when they alt tab. The green button makes the window full screen because using three fingers sideways and the occasional three fingers up is the best way to manage windows on small laptop screens. Even on my external monitor I have every window fullscreen. This was admittedly hard to get used to moving from windows/linux, but it really is a much better way to do windows/virtual desktops. OP should ditch the mouse.
I don't think it was necessarily designed this way to begin with, they didn't really add these gestures until well into OSX I don't think.
But at the very least they have leaned very heavily into it. Considering they sell 2 devices to add gestures when you are not using a laptop.
I find myself very rarely using cmd-tab because it just doesn't fit my use. I can either more quickly do that my moving my mouse to the bottom and accessing the Dock or 3 fingers up and everything pulls out. Throw in hitting "space" to quickly zoom into a window if I just need a quick piece of information but not open the app completely.
I am largely the same with 3 monitors. At least 2 tend to be full screen apps with my center one being my mix of things, but it depends on what is happening. Each monitor has a desktop of scratch things (like notes) that I don't want full screen but just sits somewhere. The native tab support in the OS for things like VSCode helps a lot with this.
I've got an ultrawide, and everything full screen isn't really a viable strategy, but I generally agree about like just having workspaces and shifting between them instead of keeping a bunch of windows floating around.
That said I would really prefer to use a mouse and one handed keyboard shortcuts in place of the trackpad, but when you transition applications/workspaces with the keyboard in macOS it plays the full (slooow) duration of the transition animation and you cant interact with anything until it finishes. Absolutely insane choice. On trackpad you can swipe faster and it changes faster.
I end up using my laptop with a mouse, but then using the trackpad to do gestures. It's crazy, and I really wish I could do something about it.
> Yea, I think what OP is missing is that macOS was designed to be used with a trackpad.
OP here. Yes, I'm starting to get that from reading these comments. Does everyone who uses a Mac with an external display also purchase the Magic Trackpad?
I would say a pretty good portion, enough that it is becoming more common that if IT either has a dedicated Mac person or they use Mac themselves... a new hire will likely just have a trackpad on their desk when they start. At least that has been my experience in recent years.
But even if not, I know I have had conversations many times of people being frustrated with something (especially if they primarily use their Mac as a desktop) and a trackpad (and gestures) largely fixing it.
As someone else said, Mac as long had a fantastic trackpad experience. Partially hardware for sure, but software is a major part of that. So they leaned into that and using a trackpad as a desktop initially felt like a really weird idea. But the ability to use the same control setup regardless of how I am using my laptop is awesome.
I use a MacBook Pro, and when I'm not just using the laptop on my lap, my usual setup has it connected to a dock with an external keyboard and a Magic Mouse. The Magic Mouse doesn't give access to all the different gestures the trackpad does, but it does let you use two-finger swipe left & right for switching spaces, and a two-finger double-tap for activating Mission Control (showing all the windows of the active space, as well as the active spaces along the top).
Mac OS is a better laptop OS, and Windows is a better desktop OS. Mouse support is poor on macs, window management is more painful, and multiple desktop support is rough. Meanwhile Windows has rough trackpad support, generally windows laptops have terrible battery life and buggy sleep.
100% agreed. I forget sometimes that spectacle isn't part of MacOS proper. The snapping and management are amazing and really add to the UX. https://www.spectacleapp.com/
Re: cmd+tab issues, consider trying cmd+space+(first letter or two of the app), followed by cmd+`.
Especially for touch typists, I think it's faster than cmd+tab: doesn't require you to use your mental "app icon classifier", and it's impossible to over/under-shoot the target.
Scales O(N), where N is the number of windows open in the app you're switching to, whereas cmd+tab + cmd+` is O(N) + O(M), where M is the number of apps you have running.
You can activate Mission Control with Control-Down Arrow. After that, you can use the arrow keys to navigate, but then the pointer is significantly faster and you don't have to "think."
As someone who switches around between primarily Windows and secondarily OSX, and GDM3, I find OSX to have the most intuitive window manager. I don't like apps being maximized, and I feel like I can always intuitively find the window I'm looking for in OSX, just under the active window. I find myself arranging windows in Windows like OSX might arrange them. Maybe Apple is just using a different metaphor. I understand this is very subjective though.
Apple products are supposed to be revered the world over as the pinnacle of design, used by artists, engineers, professionals, and creators.
Is this still really the case? Most of what I hear nowadays is Apple's reputation is that their products are luxury status symbols rather than a tool for creative types, outside of maybe the camera on the iPhone. 10 years ago, you might have seen the coffee shop filled with macbooks, but that's not the case today. What artist is going to afford a $1900 monitor that can only be height adjusted with a $400 upgrade?
Funnily enough, for the ~5 years I used macOS, the Window Manager was the most frustrating aspect for me. I could not maximize apps (there was only a weird fullscreen/focus mode), I would accidentally end up dragging a window very often etc. All this gave ended up creating this feeling in my brain that the windows are just "floating" on the screen instead of being tightly bound to an arrangement.
You're not really 'supposed' to maximize or even tile apps on the Mac. In most cases it's a waste of screen space. The Mac has always been focused around the desktop metaphor. Historically applications were composed of multiple windows, and focusing a window in an application brought all of the other windows for that application to the front. You would manually arrange each of the windows/palettes of your application for multitasking, much like you would with physical pieces of paper.
At this point, my work is around tasks, not applications. I hardly ever need more than one window in the same application simultaneously. What I need is my browser open next to a document, or a spreadsheet open next to powerpoint.
Heavy Mac user here for many years, and I agree. I can't even think of the last time I "maximized" an app. All my apps sit around in a pile and I switch between them. If I were on a tiny screen, maybe I would dislike this, but at 27" a maximized app would be a pain in the ass.
So the menubar is worthless? Because the fullscreen mode kills it. Or is it some mental gymnastics in saying that it's a waste of space to only look at one thing?
Otherwise what you describe sounds like, basically every floating window system ever.
3 of the 4 items that the author mentioned can be solved with using NixOS inside a VM on your mac :)
Inspired by Mitchell Hashimoto's VMWare setup[0]. I setup my own computer in such a way, I now have the best of both worlds. Developing on a linux machine, where I can control everything if I wanted (down to the OS) and the ease of Notes/iMessages whenever I need it.
Window management is a pita because of internal APIs and the fact that Apple doesn't cater to people that actually care about these tools. Check out Yabai[1] which btw requires you to disable SIP (System Integrity Protection) if you want to use its full potential.
Instead you can run NixOS and choose your favourite window/tiling manager (i3).
Package manager: I still run Nix but I am not that happy with it. Either I need to spend some more time or look for an alternative. One of the problems is the ability to easily pin older versions.
If corporate IT isn't okay with you installing third party window management tools, I can't imagine they'd be thrilled to discover you're running some oddball OS inside a VM on your corporate machine in order to hide unvetted third-party software.
Likewise, I doubt the OP or people like them would get away with disabling System Integrity Protection or loading untrusted kernel modules.
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[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 409 ms ] threadHaving 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 least at first. However, after a while, it sort of "made sense" to me, if that makes any sense at all. There are some clear UX philosophies that are very different, and the initial transition can only be pretty jarring, but I'm curious what the author would say about it after a month or two.
Also, fwiw, I think most power Mac users also marshal the use of some other programs to help along with some of that (or at least to tailor it more closely to what they want the experience to be). Rectangle is one of the first installs on any Mac I put my hands on... makes window management so much more pleasant!
So you alt + tab to select the application and switch to the right window. I personally think it's more reliable than Windows especially if I have a lot of Windows open (I used Windows for the last 10 years). On Windows I regularly switched to the wrong windows because of my fat fingers...
Not once have I had to sit there mashing alt-tab and guessing then.
The Dock shows you any minimized windows on the right.
If for some reason this is no longer default (I don't remember the last time I setup a new Mac and didn't carry over settings) Right Click the dock >> dock preferences >> Uncheck "Minimize windows into application icon"
That being said there is an option. The first is if you are in an application you can do control-down or (if you enable it under gestures >> more gestures for your trackpad) you do 3 fingers down you will see the minimized windows for your current application at the bottom. I did also just look it up and apparently if you do cmd-tab and press up on an application it does the same thing.
Not exactly what you are looking for, but you can at least do it on a per application level for anything minimized.
But I recognize that's more of a personal style than general usage.
I've been a Mac user since before the system even had proper multitasking, and the general answer to your question is that we would keep open the applications and windows that were useful to us, sometimes hiding an application that we're not actively using and don't need to have cluttering up the screen. Once Mac OS X came along, we would also minimize individual windows we weren't using—and if you minimize a window, then hide the application that it belongs to, that also hides its minimized windows in the Dock.
Also note that for every application up until a few years ago, and for some applications even now (and dependent on a System Preference setting), you can keep an application open on the Mac without any windows open.
> But I recognize that's more of a personal style than general usage.
> hiding an application that we're not actively using and don't need to have cluttering up the screen.
So having only used macs very sporadically what is the difference of hiding an application and minimizing a window?
> Also note that for every application up until a few years ago, and for some applications even now (and dependent on a System Preference setting), you can keep an application open on the Mac without any windows open.
So am I understanding correctly that hiding an application is essentially the same as minimizing all windows of that application (into some hidden space), I assumed from the previous posts they would just be moved to some virtual desktop? I guess that would be very nice for some applications but very annoying for others, e.g. do terminals count as the same application?
The difference between this and minimizing is that a) it affects all windows of the application, not just a selected one, and b) a minimized window either goes into the side of the Dock, or into the application icon on the Dock (depending on your set preferences); hidden windows, as I said, are completely invisible.
There is also a "Show All" option under the application menu (the one just to the right of the Apple menu, with the name of the foreground application) that will un-hide all currently hidden applications.
Virtual desktops are a relatively recent addition to the Mac; this hiding behavior has been around and worked consistently since the mid-'90s, well before Mac OS X.
(As a final random tidbit, one of my most common methods of hiding an application—particularly if it's the one I'm using at the time—is to simply option-click on either the desktop or another application's window, as that is a longstanding shortcut for doing so.)
* 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 whose application icon you selected in the first place.
Sounds crazy but it works. Try it!
In fact, my command-tab workflow is: command-tab to open the Switcher and then arrows to switch application/window
I learned a few things from idly perusing them when I had nothing better to do.
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.
A while back I had the Raspberry Pi 400 computer on my desk and a newish M1 Mac. It was interesting how much better the window management was on the Pi. Frankly, for things like file management, that little computer was Snappy as hell.
And it does dual monitors like a champ!
And don't get me wrong here, I've used a lot of systems, and I'm fine with my Mac. I know how to use it, I get things done and the M1 chip is really sweet.
I generally go with the flow figure out what the flow is and I just don't worry about it past that. I just had to comment on this particular topic because I thought it was kind of humorous.
Sometimes the silly shadow around the top window gets too big, but then you can Option-Cmd-H to hide all other apps.
Invoke "Application Windows" and it will show you all the visible windows of the current application tiled so you can see them all, and it will show you all the minimized windows of the current application across the bottom of the screen. (Some applications, such as TextEdit and BBEdit also show recent documents there).
While in the "Application Windows" ctrl-tab cycles between all open apps while remaining in "Applications Windows" view.
I find macOS alt-tab'ing works better for me with the addition of https://contexts.co/
There is a rare case that I minimize a window, but it's generally because I don't want to work with that window any time soon, but I don't want to close it either, and I have multiple windows open in the app. Since I'm not frequently switching to the window in this situation, its fine if the easiest way to get back to it is to use my mouse.
Alternative: Cmd-Tab to desired app, arrow up (while holding Cmd) to see all windows of that app, then pick the desired one (with arrows or mouse).
I never minimize windows on purpose. I think the only reason the concept exists is because it predates virtual desktop switching.
Also, instead of Alt-Tab, flick four fingers up or down and select the window of interest.
The whole virtual desktop can get quite clunky fast when you have multiple windows opened or ephemeral programs that you temporarily need.
Most of the time, though, I don't bother minimizing windows on macOS, whereas I minimize windows often on Windows. Although they're similar actions, they wind up serving different functions, and trying to treat minimized windows on macOS like minimized windows on Windows is just a recipe for frustration.
2. Ctrl-down for "Mission Control > Application windows"
3. Down arrow to select minimized
4. Enter
This even works when all windows of application are minimized.
It's a tradeoff: takes more keypresses to access the minimized window, but prevents the minimized window from getting in the way most of the time. Which is what you want if you've minimized it.
[0] https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=Switcher.txt
What also helps though is that an under-appreciated aspect of a typical set of Macintosh apps is how good the context menu has gotten. Typically I’m using the context menu and hotkeys much more than the menu bar because it is rare there is an option I want that is unavailable in the context menu.
The alternative is what? Apple changes something millions of people are already used to, their existing customer base, to satisfy switchers specifically when most can easily adapt? Or you just don’t use a Macintosh. Now what Apple does need to do is bring proper contrast back and stop wasting everyone’s time with this minimalist nonsense; even the option in the Accessibility options is utter garbage.
It's possible for an interface to be widely used and still have sharp edges. I consider this one of macOS's. It doesn't need to change, it may well not be worth it. But at least some people will end up in the menu of the wrong application.
There’s no secret, I just don’t lose track of which window I’m focused on in software because that’s the one I’m immediately focused on.
Exactly. The global menu and the top bar have been the main reasons I never bought a Mac.
and that is a perfectly sensible way of looking at this (and many other) fanboi discussions over the decades.
But then again, if such sensibility ever took hold in the majority of humans, it would be the end of social media as we know it :-)
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 the same application with the same name for the OS
How does an application switching interface, rather than window switching interface, work out for that, if a lot of what you want to switch between is different windows of the same browser?
(and what if in addition there would be also many terminal emulator windows, each also with many tabs, and maybe some code editors, spread across multiple virtual desktops)
If you’re talking about cmd-tab, personally I’ll take big recognizable icons than thumbnails with minuscule text and such any day.
And mission control will give you windows previews if you want them.
Except for that annoying quirk, I actually find the interface better (though it definitely took time to get used to it).
It's not the same as fullscreen, because it still has the top mac bar, but that's fine, and it gives me the ability to cmd+tab / cmd+tilde through my windows.
What's being described as "full screen" windows on macOS is not exactly that, and it's very different than full screen windows on Windows or the standard Linux window managers.
On macOS, when we click on the little green button on top of a window, that window becomes full screen *and* becomes a new single-window workspace.
https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/use-apps-in-full-sc...
The Portuguese layout sucks horribly for programming, especially on the Mac (brackets in horrible places), and the U.K. layout (where I’m based) sucks horribly for writing Portuguese in. The US international just works for all my purposes (including writing tiny amounts of other languages besides Portuguese and English)
http://norme-azerty.fr/en/
My choice is "US International with AltGr deadkeys". The deadkey behaviour in simple "US International" is very annoying for programming: you have to double-tap every key that could be an accent, such as single quotes or backquotes.
Uh, did you not even bother to click on the link or something ??
The easy access to all Greek characters (and more math symbols) alone is great if you work in a math-related field !
Look, I think it's great that this thing exists and grateful that you mentioned it. I may even suggest it to some of the French-speaking juniors I work with.
It does not, however, address the issues of the person you were replying to. And I know because I'm in a similar position to them.
Because I never went back to the Portuguese layout after finding those key combinations.
cmd-tab switches to the last used application (assuming you don't hold down), right now for me that switches from Firefox to Slack.
Pressing cmd-tab again switches from Slack back to Firefox.
However for window switches
cmd-` switches from my HN window to a jira window. cmd-` again switches to a webmail window. To switch from jira back to HN I have to press cmd-shift-`
If you press Cmd-Tab, hold Cmd, and keep hitting Tab, you cycle through the available applications.
If you press Cmd-`, get the window you want, and do something in it, then press Cmd-` again, you get back to the first window you were in.
If you press Cmd-` repeatedly, you cycle through the available windows of the active application.
There is a slight difference in how you trigger the two behaviours—and the behaviour of Cmd-` can sometimes be a little opaque, I grant, since "do something in the window" is not always 100% clear, either to the user or the computer—but they do have analogous behaviours.
You've swapped from window 1 to window 2
Press Cmd, Press `, Release `, Release Cmd
You swap from window 2 to window 3
Press Cmd, Press tab, Release tab, Release Cmd
You've swapped from application 1 to application 2
Press Cmd, Press tab, Release tab, Release tab
You swap from application 2 to application 1
That if you type something after swapping window and the behaviour changes is even worse!
For cycling
Press Cmd, Press Tab, release Tab, Press Tab, Release Tab, you can move from application 1 to application 3, although it doesn't switch immediately, just shows you a menu while you hold down Cmd
Do this with windows and the actual window changes as you move, not a menu
It's poor behaviour and one reason I prefer my linux desktop to my anicent macbook. (Another reason, I've got about 15 opwn terminals, but I can't just raise 1 terminal window above my browser, I have to raise them all. Of course there's no focus-follows-mouse either, it's all very user-unfriendly, at least by default. I'm sure there's some software that might fix this, but back in the 90s when I was using Windows I remember that sort of software was just terrible. The easier option is to finally fix my linux laptop, which died around the time covid started, and thus wasn't a critical path fix)
Edit: it didn’t behave this way before 2009
The former of those two can also get rid of redundant menubars (as seen in e.g. Figma) which is a nice bonus.
Also, windows are in a stack from least to most recently put in front, so if I know something is toward the back I start with command-~.
I also happen to believe that there is such a thing as having too many browser windows open, so when these strategies start to become unmanageable, I will close some. The Expose for browser windows takes up to twelve before it needs to make the icons really small, that's a reasonable limit for me, especially given both tabs and tab groups (which I'm increasingly making good use of).
To be clear, this is a workflow, not a workaround: unlike focus follows mouse being impossible, I'm content and productive handling the browser this way.
Or maybe after a couple more years of macOS and I would get used to it.
Let's say I have just two monitors. That box being checked means I have spaces A1 A2 .. An and B1 B2 .. Bn, and monitor A can display any of the "A" spaces and monitor B can display any of the "B" spaces. But if I want everything from B2 to get displayed on monitor A, I have to create a new space An+1 and drag everything over one window at a time, like a cave man.
Unchecked means I have spaces AB1 AB2 .. ABn, and switching spaces switches both monitors at the same time! So if I want to see the A side of AB1 and the B side of AB2 at the same time, I'm out of luck.
Xmonad workspaces allow me to do any of the above behaviors (oh, and it switches workspaces instantaneously, instead of this left/right spatial thing macos insists on, I guess because of the trackpad swipe gestures). One of these days I need to try to make Hammerspoon fake workspaces in a way that works for me, because (like the OP) this is by far the least comfortable thing about working in macos for me.
[0] https://xmonad.org/tour.html#using-other-workspaces
If your state is A1/B2 (two monitors A and B displaying spaces 1 and 2 respectively), and you're working in A1 and want to switch B2 to B3, how do you "focus" on display B before moving spaces to B3? If you just press mod-3 I assume you'd get A3/B2. Do you have to alt-tab until you focus a window that is currently in B and then mod-3?
True about indexed access; some other window managers have natively built in "tagged workspaces" where windows have tags and the "chat workspace" is just "all windows that have the chat tag". You can (probably? I've never used them) bind numbers to tags permanently or temporarily but you wouldn't be limited to 0-9. I never bothered trying to copy that setup in xmonad because I never used more than 5 or 7 workspaces.
That's...not true, though? Unless I'm misunderstanding what you're after...
When you activate Mission Control (not sure offhand what the default shortcut is; I have mine set to Ctrl-Up, but I might have customized it), you can drag entire spaces between monitors. I do this regularly.
For me it's a two-finger double tap on the mouse (I think--not at my computer at the moment.)
Often I need to quickly switch between a particular terminal window to a particular browser window. But it's always a gamble. I don't know what I'm gonna get when I press cmd+tab. It may show the correct window, or it may show all terminal windows, or it may even do absolutely nothing.
Even if, with time, you have become comfortable with it, it is still a more convoluted way to manage tasks.
I actually find the macOS model to be more convenient (even though I didn't like it when I first tried it). It makes it very easy to switch away from an app that has multiple windows.
To be honest, I'm not sure there's an objectively better solution. I think it all comes down to the workflow and habits you've built around the model you use most often.
It's also pretty convenient to be able to switch between browser windows using cmd+`. I don't need to worry about getting other apps in between my browser windows.
The problem with switching is that you quickly get too many windows / apps.
I tried to have a user per group, but that does T work fast enough.
The best setup for me is 2 or 3 machines, linked with synergykvm
Application switching makes sense in a world where the application is the locus of interest and you tend to spend a long time in each app, only rarely switching to another. We haven't lived in that world for a very long time.
When you press Cmd-Tab, first of all, if you hold it down for longer than about a second, it shows you the icons of the currently-open applications, letting you select which application you switch to.
Whenever you use Cmd-Tab to switch to an open application, it will always foreground all the open windows of that application that are on the active desktop/space.
When I'm doing something like you describe, where I know I'll be switching back and forth between a specific pair of windows of different applications (and I have a bunch of other windows of those applications open), my usual practice is either to size and position them where I can just see both at the same time (large screens ftw), or I'll pull them off into a separate space where Cmd-Tabbing between the two applications will be guaranteed to switch between just those two windows.
Yes, Mac also supports switching between Windows in the same application but that is rarely what I want either since I am a heavy user of virtual desktops
Personally, I think it goes back to early Windows originally supporting very low resolution graphics cards where you simply couldn't display more than a single widow's worth of content at once.
Remember that EGA was only 640×350. You had to have a user interaction method that worked at such a low resolution.
Having things optimised for drag and drop between multiple windows is the reason for Classic Mac OS to only maximize a window enough so that the entire contents of the window is visible, instead of taking up the whole screen.
[1] https://everymac.com/systems/apple/mac_classic/specs/mac_128...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enhanced_Graphics_Adapter
It was also supported in Windows, and given that Windows also kept a separate copy of the menubar as part of every window's chrome, they could have really called it Microsoft Window.
The need for a user interaction method that works at such a low resolution is the origin of Windows users expecting a UI that keeps every Window maximized.
File management in the classic Mac UI was always to open a window for the source directory and another window for the destination directory and use drag and drop to move or copy the files.
File management in Windows was to navigate to the source directory, cut or copy the files, navigate to the destination directory and paste.
Just as the classic Mac OS only maximizes a window enough to show all the contents of the window, but no larger than that to facilitate interacting between multiple windows instead of having every window take up the whole screen.
You're both being silly, but the author is being especially silly to evaluate an operating system mostly based on how he feels about the user interface.
macOS is more than just a user interface, more on that in a bit. That being said, there is no Universe where any Linux user interface nor any user interface developed by Microsoft is superior to Apple's Aqua. Sure, Aqua sucks, but nothing, anywhere, approaches its ease of use (developed for everyone, not just the nitpicky self-proclaimed power users with weird tastes), and the feeling of solidity, like windows, menus and icons have some gravity and aren't just weightless and flat sprites ready to fly off the screen or fail to interact with other graphic elements properly. Frankly, every gui ever has been chasing Apple's guis since 1984. Truth hurts, I'm sure, but those are the facts. NT4 and 2K, very similar, were collectively the best guis Microsoft ever released, and gui-wise, everything since has been an absolute disaster, visually and with interaction, XP and 7 included, just absolute crappy junk of guis, and 10 and 11 are no better. In Linux, I always liked every gui I saw, Gnome and KDE, and really it can be tailored to whatever the user's desire is, can even run WindowMaker for the NeXT feel. But therein lies the problem, no consistency whatsoever and it's not for everyone; it is only for the tinkerers, coders, and Linux admins.
Back to the operating system. macOS is rarely given the credit it deserves for being such a solid stable gui running on top of SUS UNIX. Come' on, the author merely mentions this and says nothing about it, but right there is nearly everything that matters: more software available than any other platform ever plus all the best professional apps (printing, photography, audio, video, etc.) run better on macOS, and massive security benefits right out of the box, default config, but of course it can also be hardened, trivially, and then pretty much forgotten. You can never forget to attend to the security of your Windows machines, update, upgrade, constant, ceaseless, never ending scans, but that is in addition to its catastrophe of a user interface, so there's that.
[1] https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-switch-between-window...
Just long press on the green button on the window for a tiling menu.
"brew install spectacle", start it, give it accessibility permissions it needs in the Settings panel, set to start at login (check a checkbox in Spectacle's settings panel). Forget about it until you set up a new Mac.
cmd+option+up/down/left/right for half-screen tile. Cmd+option+F for the equivalent of maximizing a window in Windows (not Mac-style fullscreen). Cmd+ctrl+left/right for upper-left and upper-right quarter tiles. Add shift to make it lower-quarter on that side. That's it. Was all available to me instantly via muscle memory inside a month, don't even think about it now. It's how I do nearly all my window placement/resizing.
I set mine up to be Shift+Ctrl+(QWE/ASD/ZXC).. where Q/E/Z/C are for the corners, A/D left and right halves, W/X for top and bottom halves, then S in the middle for full screen. The mnemonic of the "box" formed by those keys on the keyboard is easier for me to remember.
I also feel like Apple cripples mice, it's a very trackpad centered workflow and if you're not using one it suffers. Also they really need to have a separate mouse scroll toggle built in.
When using macOS, I badly miss window management options available on Linux. (And don't get me started regarding font rendering.)
OP here. This is a conspiracy theory I can get behind!
It's just as terrible as ever. I would not use an Apple product outside of work, despite some thousands of hours using one over the last several years. Everything about using a Mac feels patronizing and intended to make me work harder than I should to do the most simple tasks.
The fact that cmd-tabbing to a app will place all of its windows on top means that I might be forced to move a window with the mouse to see what's underneath it which I find infuriating. The fact that two windows belong to the same app is an arbitrary distinction to me. I group things by mental "projects", and I prefer to maintain my window z-order based on that.
I never liked using virtual desktops and I just downloaded altTab which I've read about in threads here, but it seems to flicker weirdly and it has already crached on me once within a 1/2 hour timespan so I don't foresee myself keeping it.
macOS does a lot of things very well, just not that.
In the time since, I brought another iMac and had 2 work MBPs.
In that time, MacOS got worse. It now wants to make windows full screen. Mission control is awkward if you use an ordinary mouse.
My workflow has changed. I'm more likely to have 2 windows of every app- 2 vscode windows, 2 terminal windows and 2 browser windows. As stated many times over, MacOS handles switching between those configuration of windows badly (and I gave it plenty of time to become intuitive).
I now use the Gnome desktop. I have windows that snap. I have alt tab that cycles through windows (it needs configuring). And it has an Expose like effect (gnome overview).
I feel like I have the best of all worlds. Great window management. Great hardware support (none of the MBPs supported daisy chaining my displays). The Linux command line. The same apps I'd be using on any other OS.
On windows I need to install tools for things like snapping pictures because the default snipping tool isn’t quite good enough. I also hate window management, especially on multiple screen setups where you can’t move the mouse from one screen to another if the resolutions are different (4k screens and an open laptop as an example). Mean while a lot of the things the author complain about are things I find decent on a Mac. The fact that you can easily auto-size windows so that you have 1 full screen, 2 half screen apps, and x csized windows on 3 different window spaces is just awesome.
The biggest issue is that even after 7 years I still have no idea how many little tricks I still don’t know about Mac OS because it never tells you how to use it and pressing shift command (or maybe it’s option) 4 to snap a screenshot isn’t exactly intuitive.
What do you mean by this? That is absolutely possible.
[1] http://hammerspoon.org/
I always feel like Apple optimises UX very heavily for laptops (small screens, fullscreen-first makes a lot of sense), where Microsoft optimises more for desktops (large screens, multiple apps sharing the screen makes more sense). I find windows really clumsy on small laptop screens, even though it works great on my desktop :/
When I use Windows occasionally, I miss the command+` to switch between windows of the apps, especially when they are far separated out in the Alt+Tab preview.
The way to use MacOS is to use the Spaces to group windows by theme / task. For example, I have one space where I have Slack, Skype, Teams, Discord, Mail and Outlook currently open. Another one has my main "browsing" Chrome window. Another one has my iTerm (the only fullscreen app). And the last "permanent" one has my "debugging" Chrome window. They're always in the same order (none of that "reorder automatically" nonsense), so I can switch tasks using the mouse (2-finger swipe left/right on the Magic Mouse), trackpad (3-finger swipe) or keyboard (ctrl-left/right). Inside a Space, I switch between windows using Exposé (swipe on trackpad, double-tap on mouse or F3 on keyboard).
I've been using macOS both in my personal & professional life like this since Leopard and I think it works pretty well.
I get that some people prefer that, but I've been on macOS daily for 10+ years and still can't find the top level OS paradigms (window switching, over reliance on mouse/extremely poor keyboard support, lack of proper "maximized" windows) anything but painful.
It might be that growing up with windows ingrained certain gestures on my mind that I can't let go, but I feel like I've decidedly given it a shot. And I still hate it.
Yes, there are workarounds, but they're workarounds that require third party applications. I expected more from the OS.
Then people on HN would complain that the OS makers are driving the small utility software shops out of business with walled gardens and regulatory capture, or whatever the buzzword of the week is.
I rarely, if ever use Full-Screen mode. I’m struggling to understand why you think the OS is designed around this use.
Most of these "rants" really just amount to: "this different OS doesn't work exactly the same way as the OS I am used to." That's why 3rd party utilities exist to give you the functionality you wish to have. That formula cuts both ways.
I'd argue a lot of power user feature are more accessible on macOS than on Windows. The shortcuts and gestures for macOS can be found in the system settings and you can change the shortcuts. How are you supposed to find them on Windows?
I think people see macOS as more intuitive because it doesn't offer as much customization and is relatively consistent compared to Windows. Also it doesn't have as many nested menus. The system settings on macOS go maybe three levels deep while on Windows you can go at least 5 or six levels deep if not more. Now guess which one will feel more intuitive?
The downside is you have to install some third-party tools if you want some features. But I prefer that to a lot of bloat.
Meanwhile the post just below yours: "I have been using macs for 9 years and never knew ...". So, no. They don't. "Power user" things are much less discoverable on macs.
"[x] Enable FooBar mode" oh hey, this tool has a FooBar mode!
In my experience, almost the first thing I do when trying a new program is having a look through the settings.
Can they? Where can I find the shortcut to copy the current path in Finder?
I do have to agree, though, that macOS window management can feel a bit clunky using a mouse and keyboard. That's a user story that the macOS UI/UX team ought to look into, it wouldn't be that hard to create some decent bindings in the OS itself.
I struggle through each of my Windows sessions despite having used Windows since the 80s and having built probably more than 10 PCs over the past 30 years. I don’t blame Windows for that. I daily drive MacOS and that’s what I’m used to. That’s a me problem, not a Windows problem.
Per your second point. Why is that not a Windows problem? Because a lot of other people don't experience it? Just because a whole heap of people can work with Windows might mean they just got used to it, rather than it was good in the first place, which goes back to your first sentence.
No OS is 'good' for everyone, as no OS is 'bad' for everyone.
As to your second point: I agree. Those specific discussions around what people like and dislike, and why, are interesting and thought-provoking. The low-effort “loll Apple drone” hot-takes that pop up on all of these threads, less so.
It is frustrating when interesting conversation/debate points are drowned out by the inevitable 'troll' comments that explode the threads into pointless arguments.
> A little background on me: I’ve been speaking French and Spanish my entire professional life
...
> The Bad
> I’m accustomed to gendered pronouns in both French and Spanish, so it was nice to see that in English. However, the lack of gendered nouns is awful. French and Spanish both have what I would call “sane” gendered nouns (shown in this dictionary), where you know of everyone's gender based on the adjective you hear.
> On the other hand, English has a weird grammatical system where you need to listen to the pronoun to know someone or something's gender. I want to know if someone is a man, a woman, or a chair based on the adjective, not just the pronoun.
Side note: this is why I love grammatically simple languages such as Chinese.
Also you can double click the edge of any window to extend it to the edge of the screen.
I really don’t get the obsession for tiling windows personally. It’s not part of my workflow.
I've always found that a bit disorienting. I guess Apple just decided that "zoom" is better as a name because it's one short word instead of two.
~\Downloads is always the first tab in Finder for me and I almost always keep it to show the most recently added files at the top.
The other weirdness is sometimes a file gets updated (think "touch") and it won't change it's order in the list.
Most of the time it works fine. It's like inotify or whatever sometimes doesn't fire.
1. Ctrl + Cmd + C to copy the folders path
2. Cmd + N to open a new Finder window
3. Shift + Cmd + G to open the "Go to folder..." menu
4. Cmd + V to paste the path
5. Enter to go to the pasted path in the new finder window
The other option is to right click the folder and open it in a new tab. But this doesn't open a new window.
Attempting to search using Finder insists on bringing up a giant system wide search that indexes content of files, emails, every stupid thing that contains anything like the phrase I looked for.
So imagine I am sharing my screen and I try to just find a simple file and it's spewing the contents of my private emails in front of everyone. So aggravating.
I've set it to search the current folder, you can also configure Finder to reuse the previous search scope.
I hate window snapping behavior. I use rectangle, but cannot for the life of me figure out why it makes sense to snap a window to fullscreen on my 40" ultrawide the instant I get a window somewhere near any side of my monitor. Who works like this? You have to just leave a window floating in space if you don't want it fullscreened?
It does not, and likely will never, have options for gluing two windows together and treating them as one in non-fullscreen mode. That seems like a fairly niche desire to me.
To be fair, MBPs also had those for years, until Apple in its wisdom decided to ditch them in 2016, along with making other questionable interface decisions that they've been gradually reverting since then. I still use a 2015 MBP partially for that reason. Now it's probably become a time to upgrade to a M1 model.
Will let you snap windows the way you expect.
The author makes a big deal that you have to do Command+Tab to switch applications, and then Command+` to cycle between windows in that application. Well, frankly I think thats the better way, I'll give you an example:
Let's say (as you do) you have a dozen browser windows open (maybe in more than one browser) ... do you REALLY want to sit there hitting Command+Tab dozens of times ? No. Its quicker to switch to the desired app and then cycle within the app. That way you don't cycle through the browser when you don't need to.
Finally there are some, frankly bizarre, comments in the blog post, such as:
> However, that keyboard doesn’t have the Option (⌥) or Command (⌘) keys like on my Macbook.
Well, yeah, its not Apple's problem if you choose to use a PC keyboard with your Mac. Most people would either use the built-in Mac keyboard or buy an external one (third-party Mac keyboards are available from the usual suspects if you don't fancy an Apple one).
I gave up reading the blog post around that point ("The Undecided" header to be precise).
It may be useful for users of large external monitors, allowing to make better use of the screen real estate. Then again, Macos lacks per-application menu bars, which means you cannot do a lot of tasks without focusing the app first, so IMHO lack of snapping/advanced windows management is not as big as a deal as it would be under Windows.
OP here. This is exactly why I want snapping (I'm using a 27" 1440p monitor)
> this is a work machine and I need to get everything I install blessed by IT security. Easy for large applications like Slack or Chrome, but harder for the small tools that only fix my niche issues (I’ve already found Rectangle, BetterSnapTool, and Magnet).
Neither do I care that much for snapping. What I really prefer is for my windows to be where I left them, and MacOS is pretty good about keeping them that way.
Well, it is once you go into Preferences > Mission Control and turn off "Automatically rearrange Spaces based on most recent use"
I can't imagine why that's enabled by default, and I always forget to turn it off when setting up a new machine and don't realize it until I get confused for the 50th time, thinking I'm losing my mind cause my desktops are in a different order from what I thought
I'll see your use case and raise you a:
Let's say you now have two dozens of browser windows open on two desktops. And you also have a dozen terminal windows open also across two desktops. You've just googled something on desktop 1, and trying it out in terminal 1, now you get a beep from Slack on desktop 2, which is not maximized because you were communicating something from your workspace there so it was needed on the right half of the screen. You read the message, you alt-Tab back to the terminal... and end up in a different terminal on the current workspace.
It feels like this was done to work around the fact that windows are grouped by application in MacOS, so that Alt-Tab between a browser and terminal always stayed on the same workspace.
OSX takes about a week, after 10 minutes with someone that's used it a lot.
All of the OS's are at parity now, the rest is just getting used to the frosting.
That seems like a problem.
On the other hand you have people who read HN who know their system intimately and don't like when another system is different. I could rant all day about Windows too!
When you’re used to something else the change hurts. I have found it far better to not bring your mental baggage with you and meet the new platform as its level rather than try and make it the same as the old one.
I have gone MOS > RiscOS > WinNT -> Solaris -> Linux -> Win7 -> macOS and it hurt every time.
"I can't change it to work the way I like it" is a totally legitimate complaint and Linux has a strong advantage in this regard.
Gosh, this is exactly how I felt in a similar situation. Really hit the nail on the head.
I've used Linux for a long time, and for a while I was kindly forced to use a Mac (got a Linux laptop last week). It was a painful experience that took a heavy toll on my productivity.
My impression is that Mac has so many idiossincrasies that fans just assume are "intuitive" while they're really not - they've just been used to it for a long time. Personally I hated, hated the usability. Can't stress it enough, it absolutely sucked. Never again!
Also the benefits compared to non-Macs are diminishing over time. You can get great hardware and battery life with system76 for instance.
System76 makes laptops. They come with their own Linux distribution called PopOS.
https://clevo-computer.com/en/laptops-configurator/purpose/b...
I’m rooting for system76, but they have a long way to go.
>Up to 14 hours of battery life per charge
I routinely get over 10 hours.
I really miss all day usage that I had on my last Mac. If System76 can provide that again I think I could live with lower build quality.
I have no idea whatsoever.
I do also want to point out that such suggestions - "just install and configure [some software] which will solve your problem" - are generally rejected when I point them out to people who are having a hard time getting started with free desktops. The KDE or GNOME environment are expected to be perfect at installation, but Windows and Mac OS are afforded more leniency. It's a double standard.
IMO a 15-watt difference is basically negligible in this context. It is so insignificant it can be offset by pretty much anything. You know creating aluminum uses a ton of energy; maybe that fancy aluminum case of the Macs used more power than a tiny TDP difference will ever save.
And 15-watts makes a big difference when you have a 60-watt-hour battery.
Apple’s lead against Intel’s Tiger Lake SoC at 28W here is indisputable, and shows the reason as to why Apple chose to abandon their long-term silicon partner of 15 years. The M1 not only beats the best Intel has to offer in this market-segment, but does so at less power.
I also included multi-threaded scores of the M1 when ignoring the 4 efficiency cores of the system. Here although it’s an “8-core” design, the heterogeneous nature of the CPUs means that performance is lop-sided towards the big cores. That doesn’t mean that the efficiency cores are absolutely weak: Using them still increases total throughput by 20-33%, depending on the workload, favouring compute-heavy tasks.
Overall, Apple doesn’t just deliver a viable silicon alternative to AMD and Intel, but actually something that’s well outperforms them both in absolute performance as well as power efficiency. Naturally, in higher power-level, higher-core count systems, the M1 can’t keep up to AMD and Intel designs, but that’s something Apple likely will want to address with subsequent designs in that category over the next 2 years.
https://www.anandtech.com/show/16252/mac-mini-apple-m1-teste...
> Or if you want to change a keyboard shortcut Apple don't allow you to, like cmt+tab.
The only keyboard customization I do is something that Mac makes at least as easy as Linux (use Caps Lock as an extra control) but I bet it is frustrating if you want to customize stuff outside the cases that they explicitly support remapping. That makes sense.
Also, tiling window managers.
I've extensively used Portage (gentoo), rpm (Fedora, Mandrake), and dpkg/apt (Debian and Ubuntu), and MacPorts, plus put in a smaller amount of time with several others. HomeBrew is, overall, my favorite.
[EDIT] And this in particular:
> But yeah, I think both Homebrew and MacPorts still fall behind Linux / xBSD packaging systems in terms of the number of packages they have
HomeBrew has failed to have a package the fewest times of any I've used. AFAIK only Arch and Portage even come close.
[EDIT]
Downvoted for countering someone's passive-aggressive insult ("people who don't like the software I do must be gullible morons, it can't be that they have good reasons") with my own, honest anecdote, in a respectful tone. I know, I know, don't complain about DVs, but man HN, sometimes....
Whoa—I don't recall it ever doing that. Some time before ~2012?
Not that I doubt your claim but MacPorts has more packages than Homebrew:
Homebrew - around 6031 packages (https://formulae.brew.sh/formula/)
MacPorts - 29,128 packages (https://ports.macports.org/)
(Ofcourse, more doesn't imply it has all the newer and / or popular packages or that Homebrew has the same packages as in MacPorts, which could explain your experience).
I really dislike finder. I’ve not found a sane replacement.
Updates for me took 10-15 minutes. Rebooting a few times. Relegated to answering slacks on phone during that time.
Office is also awful on the Mac. I wound up using office in a windows VM because a lot of stuff was broken opening complex documents.
My newest job I asked for a windows laptop. WSL2 is ok. I just run vscode connected to wsl and do my work there and use native office. Those two apps, postman, and chromium (chrome and slack) is really my stack and it works well enough. I would rather use Linux but our IT department have a big thumbs down since they have no clue what they are doing regarding securing that.
finder to drive navigation to native desktop apps + a first class unix terminal nails my productivity needs. I ended up buying an m1 pro pretty soon after getting accustomed
I could never have the majority of apps in full screen though, I switch apps far too often. My desktop is just a pile of windows on top of each other.
MacOS is fine. PopOS is fine. Windows is fine. They each ask you to adopt a UI paradigm because how could they not. It’s natural that transitioning between them is costly.
Every time I see comments like this I’m reminded of this great quote: “The only intuitive interface is the nipple. Everything else is learned.”
At least IBM took this to heart.
Thank you for the completely unemotional comment that totally does not add to the notion I was alluding to that some fans are a bit sensitive about criticism.
Joking aside, our points are basically the same. I totally agree that nothing we create is intuitive "by definition"; that's my whole point. I would never claim that Linux or anything else is intuitive "by definition", and yet I see a lot of Mac fans claiming that. It might be perception bias, but I think not.
My first contact with a Mac was some 10 years ago. I struggled to turn it on -- contrary to _all other similar devices_, on the Mac the power button was very faintly beveled, and tucked in an invisible corner on the back of the screen (it was a desktop). I get that people might like this, totally fine. I just don't accept that this is intuitive design.
A lot of these first impressions are just that, first impressions, and can be quite different from feedback coming from daily users.
For simpler userspace updates a restart of the relevant processes is easy enough, but it can be a bit more difficult when it comes to kernel updates.
(Updating a running kernel has been a thing in Linux for a number of years, but my systems don't do it.)
Even when you power down or restart a Mac it remembers all the applications you had running and all the application windows and it re-opens everything so you come back to everything just the way you left it.
A good exemple is Windows 8.1.
Depending on who you ask, it's either the best OS Microsoft has ever made or one of the worse. If you know how to install a different Start Menu, you can get >95% of the benefits of W10/W11 with no downside other than game compatibility. If you are stuck with the menu provided by Microsoft, it's almost literally unusable. It's so bad that and hated by literally everyone that IMHO it deserved a "fire managers/leaders who approved it" type of response.
The only other major thing is how terrible Finder is out of the box. There are ways to make it less terrible, but it's still far less than ideal in usability.
Admittedly, I tend not to use that many keyboard short-cuts. Beyond the basics, I find the effort to learn more of them not worth the effort unless it is an app that I use frequently. File management is not one of those cases.
I’ve now finally committed this to muscle memory but I doubt many people are aware of it — it was really good to hear of somebody else using it!
then i went in hard on i3.
now, macOS feels ungainly.
This always floors me when I have to use a non-Linux computer. The difference between package management on Linux and other OSes is shocking. Dnf, Yum, Pacman are all so convenient and straightforward.
I can't understand why Windows and MacOS don't have anything official that fills this gap.
For *BSD and Linux, the package manager is great because if you can think of it, it's probably there ready to be installed; as long as it's software like TeX or emacs or vi or something else available in an open-source way.
But stand-alone programs? Not even things like Photoshop, I'm talking something written by someone and you want to install it? That's not as compatible with the Linux method, but Windows and Mac both have standard procedures and installers for them. Snap tries to do something here, but it's a complete joke.
And homebrew (and anything equivalent for WSL?) works pretty well.
Incidentally, on windows there are the beginnings of package managers nowadays, e.g. chocolatey. They're nothing like as good as those in linux, but better than nothing. Chocolatey's focus isn't quite the same as homebrew, however, so they're not strictly comparable.
However, I've experienced the same on Ubuntu and RedHat - if they don't have what you want in a repo already, and you can't find one providing it, trying to roll your own can cause all sorts of fun explosions.
Anything GPL included with MacOS is stuck at the GPL v2 - since many things like bash went to v3 they don't update anymore; one of the reasons MacOS changed to zsh as the default shell.
There's definitely some room for improvement here, but fwiw you can double-click executables on Linux to run them just like you would on Windows (or to an extent, MacOS). I think the "solution" here is not to rely on portable software, and when you do need to rely on it, use a packaging format like AppImage.
> And homebrew (and anything equivalent for WSL?) works pretty well.
I hate to burst your bubble, but Homebrew is genuinely awful. The vast majority of Mac devops issues I've encountered stem from a Homebrew issue, as a matter of fact. Oh no! Software (x) isn't running on Mike's M1, but it runs just fine on Melissa's x86 machine! The problem? Homebrew installs software to different locations depending on your system architecture. That's right, the same package will end up in different places when the only difference between machines is CPU architecture. That's just one issue, I have gripes about reinstalling, leftover files, formulae syntax, Linux "compatibility", UX and more... the author isn't wrong when they say the experience simply doesn't compare to apt or pacman.
The MacOS "app bundle" is a really cute solution to the installation/library problem, and I wish something like it had caught on in the Linux world. It seems AppImage is heading this way.
Doesn't Windows have two official ones? Chocolatey and Winget?
But Chocolatey exists too and is pretty nice. I have used both of them but I know Chocolatey a lot better. They both are basically used as wrappers for traditional package formats like msi or other commercial installers. I guess windows has msix and appx as well which are used in the Microsoft Store.
I prefer Brew to every Linux package manager I've used.
I like that it's totally separate from the base OS.
I like the insanely large package selection, including binary [edit: that is, closed-source binary] packages. I almost never install any tool that's not in Homebrew—usually I just blindly try it, and sure enough, I got the package name right and it does have it, and it installs no problem. Gentoo's Portage and Arch's whatever-they-call-it are pretty close, but those are... higher touch operating systems, to put it mildly (I was a heavy Gentoo user for a few years—I know Arch is less of a pain than that, but it's still got rolling-distro and various DIY rough edges)
I don't try to use it to install development dependencies like some people seem to. It's not good for that, but doing that on Linux isn't a great idea, either. Your project should manage its own deps separate from your development system, or you're gonna have a bad time sooner or later, unless you are only deploying to exactly the system config that you're developing on.
I think companies wanted to stuff branding and ads into their installers, so MSI files fell out of use. Modern Windows seems to prefer msix and other weird UWP-based formats, but I don't think you can just install those.
What Windows is missing though, is a clean way to manage these MSI files. A reinstall or an uninstall shouldn't take twenty windows and four different "next" buttons to process. When Microsoft created the Microsoft Store, they neglected to also add a command line option for installation (you can manually install a package, but you'll need to do updates yourself from what I can tell). Just add a Powershell command like "MSStore-Install" and the entire ecosystem would be so much nicer to use!
I suppose this is what they're trying to do with WinGet, after forking AppGet and leaving the original project to die. For some reason they like to reinvent the wheel every time someone thinks of a new way to install binaries onto a computer.
The respective stores for macOS and Windows are changing this, but there's a 30-ish year history of needing to register and pay for your software, so having it all just _there_ still isn't really a thing.
I'll stick with my linux i3 env for the foreseeable future
A lot of MacOS is keyboard driven [1][2], but it takes up to two weeks to get comfortable (it took me at least that long when I switched to MacOS in 2008).
[1] But the new breed of "designers" at Apple no longer care about that. All new first-party apps that Apple vomits out are an abomination, UX-wise. And keyboard access there suffers as well.
[2] There are a bunch of shortcuts that will work the same way across most apps (such as Cmd+<comma> for settings, or text navigation shortcuts), and that is a blessing. You can also assign custom shortcuts to any menu item in any app if you need directly from settings. Or you can re-assign behaviour of Ctrl/Caps Lock/Alt from settings as well. There are small things like this all across the system, but it does take getting used to.
I constantly find myself frustrated by Windows because I am just used to how Mac operates. I have been using it as my primary compute device since Lion.
However one of the things that I find interesting from the Window management point that I don't see mentioned, touchpad gestures. I cannot use Mac without gestures, even when I am using my laptop as a desktop I use the Magic Trackpad. The few times I have tried to use a mouse... it just feels wrong. I would highly recommend taking a look at this and looking at the window management from this prospective. Because of these gestures I never think I need to snap things because switching windows is a quick swipe and and a click. Then all the other gestures, hot corners, etc.
That being said, I find the same issue with my partner. He has never used a Mac (has an iPhone though) but sometimes he needs to do something quick so grabs my laptop. It is fascinating watching him struggle with the trackpad and other basics that to me I don't even think about anymore.
But at the very least they have leaned very heavily into it. Considering they sell 2 devices to add gestures when you are not using a laptop.
I find myself very rarely using cmd-tab because it just doesn't fit my use. I can either more quickly do that my moving my mouse to the bottom and accessing the Dock or 3 fingers up and everything pulls out. Throw in hitting "space" to quickly zoom into a window if I just need a quick piece of information but not open the app completely.
I am largely the same with 3 monitors. At least 2 tend to be full screen apps with my center one being my mix of things, but it depends on what is happening. Each monitor has a desktop of scratch things (like notes) that I don't want full screen but just sits somewhere. The native tab support in the OS for things like VSCode helps a lot with this.
That said I would really prefer to use a mouse and one handed keyboard shortcuts in place of the trackpad, but when you transition applications/workspaces with the keyboard in macOS it plays the full (slooow) duration of the transition animation and you cant interact with anything until it finishes. Absolutely insane choice. On trackpad you can swipe faster and it changes faster.
I end up using my laptop with a mouse, but then using the trackpad to do gestures. It's crazy, and I really wish I could do something about it.
OP here. Yes, I'm starting to get that from reading these comments. Does everyone who uses a Mac with an external display also purchase the Magic Trackpad?
But even if not, I know I have had conversations many times of people being frustrated with something (especially if they primarily use their Mac as a desktop) and a trackpad (and gestures) largely fixing it.
As someone else said, Mac as long had a fantastic trackpad experience. Partially hardware for sure, but software is a major part of that. So they leaned into that and using a trackpad as a desktop initially felt like a really weird idea. But the ability to use the same control setup regardless of how I am using my laptop is awesome.
I personally use a Mac Keyboard and Magic Trackpad. And I got https://www.twelvesouth.com/products/magicbridge from TwelveSouth that basically just turns it into one single piece.
I would be completely lost if it wasn't for the trackpad. I tried the magic mouse and... it worked but it wasn't the same.
Especially for touch typists, I think it's faster than cmd+tab: doesn't require you to use your mental "app icon classifier", and it's impossible to over/under-shoot the target.
Scales O(N), where N is the number of windows open in the app you're switching to, whereas cmd+tab + cmd+` is O(N) + O(M), where M is the number of apps you have running.
Apple products are supposed to be revered the world over as the pinnacle of design, used by artists, engineers, professionals, and creators.
Is this still really the case? Most of what I hear nowadays is Apple's reputation is that their products are luxury status symbols rather than a tool for creative types, outside of maybe the camera on the iPhone. 10 years ago, you might have seen the coffee shop filled with macbooks, but that's not the case today. What artist is going to afford a $1900 monitor that can only be height adjusted with a $400 upgrade?
Otherwise what you describe sounds like, basically every floating window system ever.
(But then the dongles they need to buy to attach to that monitor or keyboard or what have you is the straw that will break their financial bank!)
Inspired by Mitchell Hashimoto's VMWare setup[0]. I setup my own computer in such a way, I now have the best of both worlds. Developing on a linux machine, where I can control everything if I wanted (down to the OS) and the ease of Notes/iMessages whenever I need it.
Window management is a pita because of internal APIs and the fact that Apple doesn't cater to people that actually care about these tools. Check out Yabai[1] which btw requires you to disable SIP (System Integrity Protection) if you want to use its full potential.
Instead you can run NixOS and choose your favourite window/tiling manager (i3).
Package manager: I still run Nix but I am not that happy with it. Either I need to spend some more time or look for an alternative. One of the problems is the ability to easily pin older versions.
[0] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubDMLoWz76U&t=359s&ab_channe... [1] - https://github.com/koekeishiya/yabai
Likewise, I doubt the OP or people like them would get away with disabling System Integrity Protection or loading untrusted kernel modules.