9 ms·

I try Ubuntu about once a year, in the hopes of getting rid of OSX. But each time, the reason for going back to Apple ID is interoperability: Try dragging stuff

by fnl 10y ago

I try Ubuntu about once a year, in the hopes of getting rid of OSX. But each time, the reason for going back to Apple ID is interoperability: Try dragging stuff (images, fotos, links, files, formatted text ...) from one program to another, including the "dreaded" Finder; Works nearly always in OSX. While Ubuntu has come a long way with these things, I think it's still an even longer way away from what OSX can do. So while I haven't tried Elementary, I'd be astonished if it's any better at interoperability than Ubuntu...

epmaybe 10y ago
My biggest gripe with OS X right now is that Safari doesn't play nice with some website when it comes to dragging pictures and pasting them in from the clipboard.
- jansenv 10y ago
  I also can't stand the lack of plugin support on Safari. Is uBlock origin or similar available on that platform yet?
  - mrcarrot 10y ago
    There are adblocking plugins available now, yes. Though last time I checked uBlock Origin wasn't one of them, unfortunately.
  - jungturk 10y ago
    https://safari-extensions.apple.com https://safari-extensions.apple.com
  - Rebelgecko 10y ago
    uBlock is available for Safari, but uBlock Origin is not.
- wyager 10y ago
  Part of this is sites like Facebook intentionally subverting proper click and drag behavior with photos, links, etc. It's incredibly annoying, and we should be shaming sites that do it.
- gotofritz 10y ago
  Safari is following in the iTunes and Preview in the "what's wrong with this once pretty decent piece of software??" thing Among web devs Safari is considered "the new IE" (which among web devs is probably the lowest insult) TL;DR avoid Safari. It's rubbish.
  - epmaybe 10y ago
    I can't personally justify using chrome over safari on my macbook though, I don't last the entire day with chrome but do with safari. Any other alternatives?
falcolas 10y ago
Eh, that functionality has a tendency to break after being used a few times in OSX. Specifically, dragging images from your browser to the finder works the first few times, providing an overlay image which becomes a file icon as you hover over the finder window. A few transfers later, the file icon stops appearing. Then the semi-transparent image stops appearing; though the files are still being copied. Then, silently, the copying starts to fail completely. Not fun.
- bshimmin 10y ago
  Macs have become a lot worse at this sort of thing - weird, intermittent user interface failures - over the last few years. Sometimes I can't drag attachments out of emails (which is about the only damn reason I don't use Mutt for everything) on the first few attempts; I thought for a while it was because the attachment hadn't completely downloaded, but no, it doesn't seem to be as predictable as that. Moving files around in the Finder in general seems problematic, especially dragging between directories in the list view. This often causes much cursing. The worst thing about Macs for me now is how much guff pops up entirely unbidden - messages about not having done any backups in 90 days, messages about an update which hasn't been able to be completed (but has caused iTerm to try and quit, which, in itself, causes a dialog to appear that I need to get rid of), iCloud approval nonsense (which also happens on both of my iPhones periodically), iTunes Store requests that I may or may not have made days ago that have failed with an unknown error, etc. The list goes on. I'm sure all of these things in isolation are very clever and should help improve my life, but in toto it's immensely frustrating.
  - tempodox 10y ago
    I have similar thoughts. I feel the Mac has gone from an environment that was great for developers and creative people to a kitchen appliance that tries to micromanage its users. If there were any viable alternative, I might have switched yesterday (and Windoze doesn't cut it). As it stands, I have to split up: Linux for development, and Mac for the movies, games and email. Slowly migrating away might work better than all in one swoop.
  - btschaegg 10y ago
TulliusCicero 10y ago
I've used Ubuntu for work development for some time now, and I would never consider it for home use. It just kind of sucks from a usability perspective. Lots of little things are just randomly broken or difficult compared to what I'm used to.
- Grishnakh 10y ago
  That's the exact same complaint I have about Windows.
  - tempodox 10y ago
    Sadly, that problem is as old as Windows and hasn't really gotten better. For a company that's specialized on software, that's a pretty abysmal bottom line.
    - tomtheelder 10y ago
      I would strongly disagree. Windows works pretty flawlessly nearly all the time these days. My only real complaint with it at this point is that so little of my dev stuff runs natively. If that weren't the case, I'd probably switch over.
      - TulliusCicero 10y ago
        I concur. For development Ubuntu is definitely superior, but for everything else Windows works pretty great.
      - btschaegg 10y ago
        And I'll have to disagree with you on that. I have to use "vanilla" Windows 10 at work and the various missing tools and kinks in the OS drive me borderline insane at times. How can it be that in 2016, the default "quick, dispensable" file editor (notepad) lacks pretty much every feature under the sun? The command line is still abysmal - even with the improvements of Win10. Powershell is not much better. Simple tasks have to be done using clicks all over the place, instead of just editing the according file from a cmd. The registry is still in heavy use (eww). The new virtual desktop feature (which *NIX systems had for decades) is clunky at best. IE is borderline unusable. Edge is worse. I could go on for ages. In fact, if you subtract the gazillion of little 3rd party tools you have to install to make Windows usable, the actual OS is a disappointment, and if you can use those tools you still have to install them through a wizard - by hand. Microsofts dev tools (i.e. Visual Studio) also seem to suffer from the same symptoms, although that seems to be changing slowly. One could argue that you have to install many tools via a package manager on other OSes, but at least, you get most of them (neatly organised) just by trusting one source (Canonical, Debian, whatever).
machbio 10y ago
I would suggest you try "Synapse" - its really good at being a Finder alternative - https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/synapse https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/synapse
vamur 10y ago
This works in Gnome. And if it doesn't you can just copy/paste stuff instead of dragging. In any case that's no reason to switch OS, whatever the direction.

by fnl 10y ago

epmaybe 10y ago

My biggest gripe with OS X right now is that Safari doesn't play nice with some website when it comes to dragging pictures and pasting them in from the clipboard.

jansenv 10y ago
I also can't stand the lack of plugin support on Safari. Is uBlock origin or similar available on that platform yet?
- mrcarrot 10y ago
  There are adblocking plugins available now, yes. Though last time I checked uBlock Origin wasn't one of them, unfortunately.
- jungturk 10y ago
  https://safari-extensions.apple.com https://safari-extensions.apple.com
- Rebelgecko 10y ago
  uBlock is available for Safari, but uBlock Origin is not.
wyager 10y ago
Part of this is sites like Facebook intentionally subverting proper click and drag behavior with photos, links, etc. It's incredibly annoying, and we should be shaming sites that do it.
gotofritz 10y ago
Safari is following in the iTunes and Preview in the "what's wrong with this once pretty decent piece of software??" thing Among web devs Safari is considered "the new IE" (which among web devs is probably the lowest insult) TL;DR avoid Safari. It's rubbish.
- epmaybe 10y ago
  I can't personally justify using chrome over safari on my macbook though, I don't last the entire day with chrome but do with safari. Any other alternatives?

falcolas 10y ago

Eh, that functionality has a tendency to break after being used a few times in OSX. Specifically, dragging images from your browser to the finder works the first few times, providing an overlay image which becomes a file icon as you hover over the finder window. A few transfers later, the file icon stops appearing. Then the semi-transparent image stops appearing; though the files are still being copied. Then, silently, the copying starts to fail completely. Not fun.

bshimmin 10y ago
Macs have become a lot worse at this sort of thing - weird, intermittent user interface failures - over the last few years. Sometimes I can't drag attachments out of emails (which is about the only damn reason I don't use Mutt for everything) on the first few attempts; I thought for a while it was because the attachment hadn't completely downloaded, but no, it doesn't seem to be as predictable as that. Moving files around in the Finder in general seems problematic, especially dragging between directories in the list view. This often causes much cursing. The worst thing about Macs for me now is how much guff pops up entirely unbidden - messages about not having done any backups in 90 days, messages about an update which hasn't been able to be completed (but has caused iTerm to try and quit, which, in itself, causes a dialog to appear that I need to get rid of), iCloud approval nonsense (which also happens on both of my iPhones periodically), iTunes Store requests that I may or may not have made days ago that have failed with an unknown error, etc. The list goes on. I'm sure all of these things in isolation are very clever and should help improve my life, but in toto it's immensely frustrating.
- tempodox 10y ago
  I have similar thoughts. I feel the Mac has gone from an environment that was great for developers and creative people to a kitchen appliance that tries to micromanage its users. If there were any viable alternative, I might have switched yesterday (and Windoze doesn't cut it). As it stands, I have to split up: Linux for development, and Mac for the movies, games and email. Slowly migrating away might work better than all in one swoop.
- btschaegg 10y ago

TulliusCicero 10y ago

I've used Ubuntu for work development for some time now, and I would never consider it for home use. It just kind of sucks from a usability perspective. Lots of little things are just randomly broken or difficult compared to what I'm used to.

Grishnakh 10y ago
That's the exact same complaint I have about Windows.
- tempodox 10y ago
  Sadly, that problem is as old as Windows and hasn't really gotten better. For a company that's specialized on software, that's a pretty abysmal bottom line.
  - tomtheelder 10y ago
    I would strongly disagree. Windows works pretty flawlessly nearly all the time these days. My only real complaint with it at this point is that so little of my dev stuff runs natively. If that weren't the case, I'd probably switch over.
    - TulliusCicero 10y ago
      I concur. For development Ubuntu is definitely superior, but for everything else Windows works pretty great.
    - btschaegg 10y ago
      And I'll have to disagree with you on that. I have to use "vanilla" Windows 10 at work and the various missing tools and kinks in the OS drive me borderline insane at times. How can it be that in 2016, the default "quick, dispensable" file editor (notepad) lacks pretty much every feature under the sun? The command line is still abysmal - even with the improvements of Win10. Powershell is not much better. Simple tasks have to be done using clicks all over the place, instead of just editing the according file from a cmd. The registry is still in heavy use (eww). The new virtual desktop feature (which *NIX systems had for decades) is clunky at best. IE is borderline unusable. Edge is worse. I could go on for ages. In fact, if you subtract the gazillion of little 3rd party tools you have to install to make Windows usable, the actual OS is a disappointment, and if you can use those tools you still have to install them through a wizard - by hand. Microsofts dev tools (i.e. Visual Studio) also seem to suffer from the same symptoms, although that seems to be changing slowly. One could argue that you have to install many tools via a package manager on other OSes, but at least, you get most of them (neatly organised) just by trusting one source (Canonical, Debian, whatever).

machbio 10y ago

I would suggest you try "Synapse" - its really good at being a Finder alternative - https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/synapse https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/synapse

vamur 10y ago

This works in Gnome. And if it doesn't you can just copy/paste stuff instead of dragging. In any case that's no reason to switch OS, whatever the direction.