FWIW I've been on a OS X for many years now, but I still miss keyboard shortcuts in Windows. So much more consistent across the operating system and applications...
I've used macOS for years and still don't understand their windows minimize/restore logic. I'm always hunting for my minimized window. Yes, the fault probably lies with me.
OTOH the Windows UI is far better well designed and intuitive. But yeah... I'd rather fumble around in macOS: Windows is always trying to upsell a service that I don't need. If I say no it will helpfully keep reminding me (my answer is never going to change). I have 32GB ram and a recent processor being fed tons of wattage -- it feels so bog slow.
reading all these comments about windows having better shortcuts and window management features makes me feel like i'm taking crazy pills. windows for me was hands down the worst experience in ux. the shortcuts in macos are so well thought out and consistent.
now i'm using kde in linux land and it's the best and most customizable experience. I can't imagine going back to windows ever and would be missing a lot from linux if i went back to macos(though it would be fine).
I give you a well thought out macos shortcut for example. Ok, it is for a niche feature people rarely use... Screenshots, put straight to the clipboard.
On windows you have 2 options, bot pretty unintuitive:
1. You can either press PrintScreen button... (OK boomer, who uses a full size keyboard? My RGB clicky-keys 57% keyboard doesn't even have backspace, return, escape or delete, I don't even know when I saw a keyboard with Printscreen. My Neofetch-fork does save the screen, and otherwise no need for screenshots...)
2. Or you may press Win+Shift+S. Ok it is hard to memorize, how does S even relate to Screenshot?
Meanwhile on the intuitive MacOs to do this you only have to press Command+Option+Shift+4. So intuitive and easy!!! Also way easier to press, just try it! Only 4 keys to press at the same time, in a very convenient layout, way better than that illogical windows shortcut.
Sarcasm aside: It is clear why Microsoft is well known for the fact that in the 1990s they put a lot of effort to usability research, and why Apple is famous about Steve Jobs being the BDFL, and things had to fit his personal taste.
there's good reason the equivalent shift-command-s isn't bound to screenshot by default... it's the command to save a file and there's no good way to do partial screenshot and full screen screenshot with just command-shift-s + option if you want the option to put it into memory instead of a file. they chose command-shift-3 for full screen screenshot. command shift 4 for partial screenshot and add option to do either of those into memory which is a very common paradigm in macos shortcuts. the option key does something slightly different to the original shortcut in system shortcuts. in any event windows didn't get the non-printscreen version of a screenshot tool until very late in the game and osx had it in for a long time.
that issue isn't even an issue if you really want screenshots to be something else. you can change basically any shortcut in one place in macos. same with kde.
I don’t see much difference to be honest. I didn’t pick up Mac OS until later in life, so windows shortcuts are embedded in my brain. That said, I find Mac shortcuts just as simple to memorize. I’ve used cmd shift 4 thousands of times now and I don’t even think about it, I just press it.
Command+Shift+4 is area snipping, as you said, but pops up the viewer window
Command+Control+Shift+4 is snipping, but to clipboard. I mixed up the shortcuts, yet my fingers are getting used to it anyways, still I find it terrible default UX compared to other desktops.
It probably depends pretty heavily on your workflow. MacOS is designed around doing things visually with a trackpad. If you don't want to work that way, you're just out of luck, because that's the "right way" and if you disagree you're wrong. An example using my preferred workflow: I like to map the applications I use to <meta> (or option on mac) + number keys on the keyboard. So <meta>+1 is my editor. <meta>+2 is my terminal. <meta>+3 is my browser. Etc. If I have multiple windows open, just hit that combo again to cycle in a least-recently-used cycle. I don't have to raise all of the windows from the dock with my mouse and then go find the one I want. I don't have to open some mission control thing and go hunting for a window. I don't have to swipe to another space to remember where I put the window. I don't have to command+tab to a certain number of times to get to the window. I know exactly how to get the application I want with 1-3 key presses. Then once I've raised the window I want, I often want to tile it to one side or the other or fullscreen it with another keyboard shortcut.
Getting this to work on MacOS is a huge PITA. I tried app shortcuts in settings and they'd just randomly not work sometimes for some apps. Apps can override global shortcuts? What??? I tried the "shortcuts" app and it also similarly wouldn't work for some apps and would often forget my key bindings on an update. Tiling via the keyboard would randomly not work either. Multiple apps couldn't fix it. I finally found hammerspoon and scripted an option that consistently works. Rectangle finally solved my tiling issues. But why do I need 3rd party apps that involve writing my own scripts to get basic OS behavior? This is stock Windows behavior.
Beyond that it's just a bunch of papercuts. My dock randomly appears on the wrong screen. My windows sometimes don't get focus when I click on them. The coreutils are old and suck compared to the linux equivalents. Things built cross-platform are often the worst on Mac. Even though they're both sitting behind virtualization, WSL just feels much more integrated than running containers on mac. My usb mic randomly stops working...I've literally had more mic problems on Mac than I did on Linux. Sometimes I need to force kill my browser, and it'll sit for several minutes as a zombie descendant of pid 1 before getting cleaned up, preventing me from opening a new instance of the thing that should be killed. When I had initially mapped tiling to <option>+something, and it didn't work, I'd get a fun unicode character in my text instead, so I had to install an ascii-only keyboard layout to stop myself from looking like a moron who couldn't type. I'm guessing if you're a mac native, the shortcuts make more sense, but after 20 years of windows/linux shortcuts burned into my brain, moving to a mac for work has made me have to pointlessly relearn everything, and it still feels very unnatural.
The hardware is great, but the OS makes me hate this machine with a passion.
macOS does not and never has had a good strategy for handling minimizing windows. Keep in mind that prior to Mac OS X, you couldn't minimize windows at all, you could only roll them up. When OS X added the dock, they made minimized windows go there. Except, the Dock is an icon grid, so there's no way to see window titles, and the windows themselves are so small that it is difficult to identify them at a glance. Making things worse, the Dock is also a place you put app icons, so now you have an icon to show all your non-minimized app icons, right next to all your minimized window icons.
Meanwhile, Windows had minimize since version 2[0], except for whatever reason windows minimized to desktop icons, and there was no desktop folder. They'd known they'd invented a worse version of Mac OS, and in Windows 95 they made sure that there was not only a real desktop, but also a list of all open windows. This design was so successful that the only major tweak that stuck was merging the taskbar and Quick Launch[1] into something that superficially resembles the OSX dock, but is just plain better[2] because clicking an app icon actually shows you all the open windows.
[0] I don't have a Windows 1 install to check with.
[1] Strictly speaking you could put anything in Quick Launch, but only apps go in the Win7 taskbar
[2] Oldschool NeXT users will point out that in NeXTSTEP, minimized windows had an actual title on them, and the app icon instead of a screenshot of the window at tiny scale.
Early macOS also had rollup windows. I greatly prefer that to minimized windows in macOS, which are impossible to quickly access outside of the mouse or unminimizing all windows with a key combination which I can't remember.
A lot of shortcuts are shared between windows and linux and fairly consistent across applications. Mac is the one that takes a decided "we're different" approach to shortcuts. I.e., Alt+L for address bar instead of Alt+D, Command swapping with Control, Q instead of W for closing tabs, Command+Control+Q for locking a computer instead of Super+L, etc
They didn't mention cross-OS shortcuts, though. I interpreted "across the operating systems" as meaning "across the various versions of Windows". Yes, Windows is more consistent with their own common shortcuts. But Macs have exceedingly consistent shortcuts across Mac applications, compared to my experience with Windows and especially Linux.
I might also point out that Mac had keyboard shortcuts before Windows existed, so it's not really fair to describe them as the "different" one when MS chose their own, different shortcuts for Windows.
Apple also invented their own key “Apple” now “CMD” for operation like copy / paste to explicitly not have the issue to overload the already know escape sequences. Windows being on a system without a normalized keyboard had to reuse keys that are common to keyboards used back then. Vertical integration played into apples cards even back then.
With regards to the windows key, I have grown to appreciate it, I am on a X11 desktop and map all my window functions to it which makes a lot of sense, then ctl and alt can be freely used by applications however they like. I suspect this is sort of what microsoft wanted when they specified it but were hamstrung by their own backwards compatibility(they were not able to make the hard decision to move close to window+f4 for example).
The otherwise useless context key makes a great compose key.
On a theoretical level one would almost want one dedicated control key per level(os_key to send commands to the kernel, window_key to send commands to the windowing system, program_key to send commands to applications, user_key reserved for user custom bindings not to be pre bound by applications) I am not sure what role chording should have under this scheme. allowing a higher level to use the lower level button? a window manager cannot use os+key or app+win+key but they can use win+os+key. an app could use app+win+key. I would also like a unicorn, oh well, fun to think about.
Many of those shortcuts already existed in macOS before they were added in Windows. Inversely, a lot of desktop Linux stuff was designed specifically to mimic the Windows behaviour.
So, really, it's Microsoft that decided "we're different".
Also, as somebody who sort of lives in the terminal, the lack of the Command/Ctrl distinction is one of the things that really bothers me about Windows. In default GUI applications, application shortcuts use Command, and Ctrl is used almost exclusively for headline-style shortcuts (ctrl-k for kill line, ctrl-a for home, ctrl-e for end, etc). Ctrl-a Ctrl-shift-e is kind of baked into my brain as "select whole line".
This is definitely a Mac-apologia to the extreme argument. Microsoft isn’t event the one that came up with the layout, it was the IBM compatible PC keyboard layout that was specifically designed as a keyboard standard to be used across the whole industry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_PC_keyboard
And then Windows gained critical market share mass long, long before macOS did, and when it did they simply adopted the already popular IBM keyboard layout, which is common sense. Common sense would be for Apple to do the same when their mass market PC OS came along later down the road, even if technically neXTSTEP Classic macOS had their own layout, that OS was essentially irrelevant in the computing industry until Apple used it as the basis for modern macOS (and thus their macOS keyboard layout was not known to basically any normal person). macOS/OSX as we know it didn’t launch until well after windows was already very popular and thus had continued the already cemented IBM PC keyboard layout.
I’m all for Apple being unique and using their own layout if that’s what they wanna do/design around, but there’s exactly zero arguments available that actually they had the standardized and popular keyboard layout first and IBM/microsoft were the weird ones. That’s simply not accurate whatsoever.
On the other, as a Windows desktop person I can't live without Home/End/PgUp/Pgdown, and in different combinations with Shift/Control. That's one of reason I can't fully enjoy MacBook, not to mention the incredible fact that it doesn't have a Delete key. No, it's not the same that you can use modifier key with backspace, modifier keys are used for extra functionality, i.e. to delete to begining or end of the word, etc.
Sure, but using modifier keys. What if I want to add shift to the mix to select, let's say to the beginning of line or document? You'll need to press two modifiers. That's not optimal. And I use these all the time while editing.
And I don't consider this a MacBook flaw particularly, it's more or less general laptop flaw nowadays. If anything, other manufacturers have even more imagination to mess up keyboard layout.
Eh, I dunno. I played piano, so I'm not allergic to pressing 10 keys and a couple of foot pedals at once if needed. Here, that means I rarely consciously think about what chord I'm pressing to select from here to the beginning of the word/line/document.
The big one for me on Mac was refreshing a web page being CMD+R rather than F5.
Not to mention the muscle memory for pressing CTRL in the corner of the keyboard rather than CMD where Alt is.
Though I will say that having "Copy" (cmd-c) being different from ^C (ctrl-c) was kind of nice. Though Terminal has done a nice thing of making it so if you highlight text, Ctrl-C copies the first time you press it, and sends ^C the second time.
Conversely, when I use a PC, I have to stop and wonder why alt-R doesn't reload the web page like it's supposed to, and alt-C doesn't copy, and I have to stretch my pinky all the way over to use that shortcut. And what's the mnemonic for "F5 means reload"?
Which is to say that neither Windows nor Mac shortcuts are inherently better. It's just what we're used to. IME, the main difference is that once you learn the Mac shortcuts in a handful of apps, they'll pretty much work on the other apps you encounter, too.
A big issue with the macOS style I'd that there isn't a modifier key free for the user to build their own shortcuts around. The Win/Super key is a very good place to hang custom shortcuts off of on Windows and Linux.
If you want a little more consistency for muscle memory, ctrl+L goes to the address bar on Windows the same way cmd+L goes to it on Mac. Same for ctrl+W and cmd+W to close tabs.
The MacOS is a pretty nice system but their window management has been and still is shit. I get that tilling 4 windows doesn’t look good but all the view swapping and desktop switching stuff gives me a headache and sucks. Also that half second transition to full screen sucks. Windows seems so freeing when it comes to window management. Simple transition free resizing. Snaps into corners. The rapid transition free minimize and restores etc.
Windows menu navigation by keyboard allows almost everything to be done with no mouse, and macOS doesn’t. Alt-space, X will maximize a window from 3.0 to 11. Not a direct shortcut, more like the / menu of Visicalc or Lotus 1-2-3. Not as fast, but close, and better because it’s discoverable - if you forget, the menu is open and you can see the next step.
General Electric has a history of using that exact trick... just with jet engines and power generators and medical devices that can represent much larger amounts of revenue.
GE's latest trick is to roll long term maintenance contracts into the price of the product and then sell off the unit holding the bag on the maintenance contract. Very shady but very clever.
Have you considered seeing an allergist to test if you have some environmental allergies? If so, they may be able to recommend or prescribe meds to moderate the effects of those allergies. (disclaimer: I'm not a doctor, just someone else with sinus issues)
I did this 15 years ago. I didn’t feel like it helped much at all. But, that doctor was later on got sued for insurance fraud so it got me wondering if I was scammed as well. I’ll discuss this with my primary physician next exam. Thanks for the reminder!
Or as a plan B, you can try hayfever tablets / over-the-counter antihistamines, they're harmless to take (I am not a doctor / this is not medical advice / read the information) but if it's allergies they might provide relief already.
FWIW, the best way to get your website on Hacker News is to write a content-marketing blog post about someone else's work.
Don't get me wrong. This post is an interesting read. But the company publishing it appears to have nothing to do with the exploit or the people who discovered or patched it.
No. A newspaper is in the business of selling you content (or advertising alongside content)
grith.ai appears to be in the business of guiding you click a "request early access" button so they can eventually sell you software (or so they can pitch seed investors on the length of their list of prospects)
Again, I'm not criticizing. Just pointing out a pattern that's becoming pretty common on HN, especially for stories about vulnerabilities written up by companies selling cybersecurity solutions or services.
Yes, it's officially still the Department of Defense.
If this were a news outline writing "Department of War" I would be concerned. But in the case of the Anthropic CEO's blog post, I can understand why they are picking their fights.
That's exactly why the Bay Area Air Quality Management District exists (established decades before the federal EPA):
> Charged with regulating stationary sources of air pollution emissions, the Air District drafted its first two regulations in the 1950s: Regulation 1, which banned open burning at dumps and wrecking yards, and Regulation 2, which established controls on dust, droplets, and combustion gases from certain industrial sources.
> Much research and discussion went into the shaping of Regulation 2, but there was no doubt about the need for it. During a fact-finding visit to one particular facility, Air District engineers discovered that filters were used over air in-take vents to protect the plant's machinery from its own corrosive emissions! This much-debated regulation was finally adopted in 1960.
The reason for most of those fees for parks and schools is because Prop 13 has prevented property taxes from raising with the market on older property owners (and the LLCs that own commercial properties), so cities and school districts have to instead turn to newcomers to get some amount of revenue to cover the costs of providing public services.
We have a great system here I believe - or at least great enough? - councils charge a percentage of the hypothetical rental value of the property in fees/taxes (in reality this hypothetical rental value is quite a bit below actual rental values - they don't seem to minmax their income).
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