6 ms·

This is one of the most infuriating things about Macs for me. Maybe Vim/Emacs aside, I've found word jumping and Home/End operations to be absolutely consistent

by FLGMwt 9y ago

This is one of the most infuriating things about Macs for me. Maybe Vim/Emacs aside, I've found word jumping and Home/End operations to be absolutely consistent on Windows, but just about every OSX app seems to have a different shortcut. As the author points out, the exact cursor position in some apps is different on Windows, but he shortcut is always CTRL+{direction}

m12k 9y ago
Really? On Mac I've found it very consistent that alt+left/right jumps forward/back one word, alt+up/down jumps to start/end of paragraph, cmd+left/right jumps to end of line, cmd+up/down goes to beginning or end of all text (like Home/End). This is the case for me in Sublime, RubyMine, Xcode, Firefox, Chrome and any other app I've used in recent years - which apps are you using that don't follow these conventions?
- colanderman 9y ago
  In Chrome on OS X it differs whether I'm casting my screen or not, whether Ctrl+←/→ move me to the start/end of a line or document. (I can't figure out how to move to the end of a line while Chromecasting. It is beyond frustrating.)
  - tlb 9y ago
    ^e for end-of-line, ^a for beginning-of-line. ^p for previous-line, ^n for next-line. All far more ergonomic than arrow keys.
    - seanp2k2 9y ago
      http://www.bigsmoke.us/readline/shortcuts http://www.bigsmoke.us/readline/shortcuts they're just GNU Readline shortcuts of copies of those :)
    - seanp2k2 9y ago
      Esp when you remap caps lock to control as the Lord intended it to be.
- EricLemieux 9y ago
  iterm2, at least that's what it defaulted to for me, uses ctrl + direction instead of alt + direction.
- afarrell 9y ago
  iTerm2 doesn't EDIT: Unless you do this: https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/136928/using-alt-cmd-right-left-arrow-in-iterm https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/136928/using-alt-c...
  - egwynn 9y ago
    Terminals are, generally, expected to behave like terminals, which brings along a host of legacy compatibility things about how keyboards used to work over the past 40 years. Not saying that’s an excuse, or that they shouldn’t try to, but balancing “sane modern defaults” vs “sane-ish defaults from the 70s that everyone’s used to now” is hard. EDIT: To elaborate a little… Terminals pre-date arrow keys, which is partly why there are lots of default “movement” keybindings that don’t use them (ctrl-a, ctrl-e, ctrl-b, ctrl-f, ctrl-n, ctrl-p, etc.).
vvanders 9y ago
Yes! This along with the lack of win + arrow drives me absolutely batty.
- m12k 9y ago
  Yes, the win+arrow shortcut is one of the few window management things from Windows that I miss on Mac - so I use HyperDock to get that functionality (and the similar drag-and-snap-to-edge-of-screen window resizing). I have a feeling you can find free tools to do the same too if you search a bit as well
- FLGMwt 9y ago
  This is my second hangup! A coworker of mine recommended https://www.spectacleapp.com/ https://www.spectacleapp.com/ which does a great job mimicking the Windows native docking commands.
whipoodle 9y ago
Mmm, I'd give the points for consistency to the Mac here. I bet still, in 2017, there are text inputs in Windows apps that draw a little rectangular character when you type Ctrl + Backspace instead of doing the right thing.
- nitrogen 9y ago
  In my experience apps frequently hard-code their keyboard behavior (Slack, Gimp), and websites hard-code shortcuts (Gmail, Atlassian products) based on detected OS, so even if you set up shortcut overrides like Ctrl-V to paste, some apps will glitch or simply fail in odd ways.
bhauer 9y ago
The lack of consistent behavior for Home and End is one of the things that irked me when using Macs back in the late 1990s. Back then, first-party Apple keyboards included Home and End keys so it was fairly inexcusable. Today, although the situation hasn't improved if you press Home or End, at least first-party Apple keyboards are essentially always laptop keyboards (even when sold for use on desktop computers). So you don't even have a Home or End key to press. I suppose that's an improvement.
mikejmoffitt 9y ago
The Home/End usage on Mac OS seems completely worthless to me. I find Home/End useful for going to the start or end of a line respectively, so having it jump to the top or bottom of a document (and having the frameskippy scrolling slowly catch up) isn't helpful.

by FLGMwt 9y ago

m12k 9y ago

Really? On Mac I've found it very consistent that alt+left/right jumps forward/back one word, alt+up/down jumps to start/end of paragraph, cmd+left/right jumps to end of line, cmd+up/down goes to beginning or end of all text (like Home/End). This is the case for me in Sublime, RubyMine, Xcode, Firefox, Chrome and any other app I've used in recent years - which apps are you using that don't follow these conventions?

colanderman 9y ago
In Chrome on OS X it differs whether I'm casting my screen or not, whether Ctrl+←/→ move me to the start/end of a line or document. (I can't figure out how to move to the end of a line while Chromecasting. It is beyond frustrating.)
- tlb 9y ago
  ^e for end-of-line, ^a for beginning-of-line. ^p for previous-line, ^n for next-line. All far more ergonomic than arrow keys.
  - seanp2k2 9y ago
    http://www.bigsmoke.us/readline/shortcuts http://www.bigsmoke.us/readline/shortcuts they're just GNU Readline shortcuts of copies of those :)
  - seanp2k2 9y ago
    Esp when you remap caps lock to control as the Lord intended it to be.
EricLemieux 9y ago
iterm2, at least that's what it defaulted to for me, uses ctrl + direction instead of alt + direction.
afarrell 9y ago
iTerm2 doesn't EDIT: Unless you do this: https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/136928/using-alt-cmd-right-left-arrow-in-iterm https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/136928/using-alt-c...
- egwynn 9y ago
  Terminals are, generally, expected to behave like terminals, which brings along a host of legacy compatibility things about how keyboards used to work over the past 40 years. Not saying that’s an excuse, or that they shouldn’t try to, but balancing “sane modern defaults” vs “sane-ish defaults from the 70s that everyone’s used to now” is hard. EDIT: To elaborate a little… Terminals pre-date arrow keys, which is partly why there are lots of default “movement” keybindings that don’t use them (ctrl-a, ctrl-e, ctrl-b, ctrl-f, ctrl-n, ctrl-p, etc.).

vvanders 9y ago

Yes! This along with the lack of win + arrow drives me absolutely batty.

m12k 9y ago
Yes, the win+arrow shortcut is one of the few window management things from Windows that I miss on Mac - so I use HyperDock to get that functionality (and the similar drag-and-snap-to-edge-of-screen window resizing). I have a feeling you can find free tools to do the same too if you search a bit as well
FLGMwt 9y ago
This is my second hangup! A coworker of mine recommended https://www.spectacleapp.com/ https://www.spectacleapp.com/ which does a great job mimicking the Windows native docking commands.

whipoodle 9y ago

Mmm, I'd give the points for consistency to the Mac here. I bet still, in 2017, there are text inputs in Windows apps that draw a little rectangular character when you type Ctrl + Backspace instead of doing the right thing.

nitrogen 9y ago
In my experience apps frequently hard-code their keyboard behavior (Slack, Gimp), and websites hard-code shortcuts (Gmail, Atlassian products) based on detected OS, so even if you set up shortcut overrides like Ctrl-V to paste, some apps will glitch or simply fail in odd ways.

bhauer 9y ago

The lack of consistent behavior for Home and End is one of the things that irked me when using Macs back in the late 1990s. Back then, first-party Apple keyboards included Home and End keys so it was fairly inexcusable. Today, although the situation hasn't improved if you press Home or End, at least first-party Apple keyboards are essentially always laptop keyboards (even when sold for use on desktop computers). So you don't even have a Home or End key to press. I suppose that's an improvement.

mikejmoffitt 9y ago

The Home/End usage on Mac OS seems completely worthless to me. I find Home/End useful for going to the start or end of a line respectively, so having it jump to the top or bottom of a document (and having the frameskippy scrolling slowly catch up) isn't helpful.