4 ms·

I have always found Gnome's design to be horrible - the goal of the windowing system and desktop environment is to direct as much attention as possible to the a

I have always found Gnome's design to be horrible - the goal of the windowing system and desktop environment is to direct as much attention as possible to the application in focus; to be absolutely as minimal as possible to get the job done. This is also why I feel the osx dock is atrocious.

trymas 9y ago
You can hide the os x dock. And with spotlight - you can almost forget it exists..
- mercer 9y ago
  Indeed! Most power-users I know (and more than one non-computery-person) completely disregard the dock. The only reason I ever look at the dock is to open minimized windows, and even for that I usually opt for the 'see all windows of current app' gesture. That said, the dock is very useful for most tech-illiterate people I know.
  - gurkendoktor 9y ago
    I guess it depends on which apps you use, but I consider myself a power user and I regularly drag files onto Kaleidoscope in my Dock to diff them, or I right-click Dock icons to quickly re-open recent files with a single mouse gesture. It's all pretty efficient.
    - mercer 9y ago
      Fair point. I'm the command-line and use-vim-keybindings-for-all-the-things type person, which often clashes with all the reasons why I'm an Apple fan (slightly abashed these days) and fascinated with UX. I actually often find myself discovering interesting, hidden OSX 'solutions' to things even now, as a power user, and after using it for more than five years. I never discovered them before because my 'default' would be to go to iTerm2 for a quicker approach. For example, I find myself switching between Finder and iTerm2(+zsh) quite regularly when my need is to navigate folders/directories and/or quickly CRUD files. And yet, I was also fully aware of the OSX Finder keyboard shortcut 'SHIFT-CMD-G' to jump to a directory from within Finder. I never really used it. Just last week I decided to use the Finder keyboard shortcut more regularly, and I feel the end result is a boost in productivity, however tiny and ultimately insignificant it may be. There's a certain friction between using the command-line and OSX' GUI that just disappeared for many of my common use cases (CRUD files and directories with sublime text or vim). Exploring iTerm's extra features (toolbelt, profiles), but also discovering tmux and how iTerm integrates with it, are similar 'tucked away' things that 'fuse' power-user and normal-user interfaces, and that I only discovered in the past months. I'm not sure why I apparently feel drawn to making a strict dichotomy between CLI and OSX usage that causes me to be blind to these in-between cases, but thanks for reminding me. I'd never have thought to use the 'recent files' lists in the dock. Just a cursory glance makes me suspect I'll be using it quite a bit going forward!

trymas 9y ago

You can hide the os x dock. And with spotlight - you can almost forget it exists..

mercer 9y ago
Indeed! Most power-users I know (and more than one non-computery-person) completely disregard the dock. The only reason I ever look at the dock is to open minimized windows, and even for that I usually opt for the 'see all windows of current app' gesture. That said, the dock is very useful for most tech-illiterate people I know.
- gurkendoktor 9y ago
  I guess it depends on which apps you use, but I consider myself a power user and I regularly drag files onto Kaleidoscope in my Dock to diff them, or I right-click Dock icons to quickly re-open recent files with a single mouse gesture. It's all pretty efficient.
  - mercer 9y ago
    Fair point. I'm the command-line and use-vim-keybindings-for-all-the-things type person, which often clashes with all the reasons why I'm an Apple fan (slightly abashed these days) and fascinated with UX. I actually often find myself discovering interesting, hidden OSX 'solutions' to things even now, as a power user, and after using it for more than five years. I never discovered them before because my 'default' would be to go to iTerm2 for a quicker approach. For example, I find myself switching between Finder and iTerm2(+zsh) quite regularly when my need is to navigate folders/directories and/or quickly CRUD files. And yet, I was also fully aware of the OSX Finder keyboard shortcut 'SHIFT-CMD-G' to jump to a directory from within Finder. I never really used it. Just last week I decided to use the Finder keyboard shortcut more regularly, and I feel the end result is a boost in productivity, however tiny and ultimately insignificant it may be. There's a certain friction between using the command-line and OSX' GUI that just disappeared for many of my common use cases (CRUD files and directories with sublime text or vim). Exploring iTerm's extra features (toolbelt, profiles), but also discovering tmux and how iTerm integrates with it, are similar 'tucked away' things that 'fuse' power-user and normal-user interfaces, and that I only discovered in the past months. I'm not sure why I apparently feel drawn to making a strict dichotomy between CLI and OSX usage that causes me to be blind to these in-between cases, but thanks for reminding me. I'd never have thought to use the 'recent files' lists in the dock. Just a cursory glance makes me suspect I'll be using it quite a bit going forward!