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I'm not sure if you're serious, but > Just drag/drop a PDF to a printer spool window, and it will print; this is just the most obtuse way of doing things. >

I'm not sure if you're serious, but > Just drag/drop a PDF to a printer spool window, and it will print; this is just the most obtuse way of doing things. > usually you just have to drag it to the Applications folder; to uninstall it, simply drag it to the trash; So does this, and unreliable as you noted - i.e. usually. But, ugggh... dragging things to other things to do things though? There's a reason why certain large classes of disabled users are on Windows. Stephen Hawking used Windows. Aside from the disabled, the mechanics of Windows have always been better, no matter how bad they actually were. That last bit is my opinion, but it is true that many, many more disabled users are on Windows. If they can figure it out, couldn't your roommate? I'm joking of course, some people just seem to have a completely different way of thinking about things and certainly it is a fact that at least some portion of the population prefers the way macOS does things just like there are some people who can only use their chin to move a mouse.

TimTheTinker 7y ago
> > Just drag/drop a PDF to a printer spool window, and it will print; > this is just the most obtuse way of doing things. Perhaps that was a bad example of the incredible leg-up Mac OS X had over Windows around printing... all-around, printing was so much more straightforward on the Mac. To extend the example: (a) printing to PDF has always worked - no need to install a 3rd party "PDF printer"; (b) PDFs and print spool jobs are indistinguishable, hence "drag a PDF to a print spool" works fine. (c) Accidentally printed to the wrong printer? Easy to fix - just open the intended printer and drag the job from the wrong one over.
- dingo_bat 7y ago
  > b) PDFs and print spool jobs are indistinguishable, Then what does "drag a PDF to a print spool" mean?
machello13 7y ago
Dragging things around is not required on macOS. There are always ways to do things without it. It's just that it's a generally pretty intuitive way to accomplish a task, and it's something that macOS embraced in a way that Windows never did. Want to trash an app? Drag it to the trash. Want to print a PDF? Drag it onto a printer. You can do it other ways, of course — right click and "move to trash", or right-click and "print".
- andrekandre 7y ago
  the other really great life-saver for me is the proxy icon on windows... just drag it out to another app to open itinerary another editor/viewer, or right click it to get the path and click one of the folders in the pop up to open it in finder.... always miss that in windows and linux... always hunting for where the file i’m currently viewing is
- LoSboccacc 7y ago
  want to remove a device? drag it to the trash where the icon suddenly changes to eject "intuitive"
  - mcintyre1994 7y ago
    Or right click > eject, which I’m pretty sure is the same as Windows.
userbinator 7y ago
I figured out very early on Windows (this was the days of 3.x) that the Alt key could activate the menu and then let you browse the items with the cursor keys, and the underlined letters (which idiotically have been hidden by default more recently) work in combination with Alt to activate UI elements. I couldn't figure out how to do the equivalent in Mac OS. You had to inspect each menu first with the mouse (and hold down the mouse button while doing so), and hope that there was a keyboard shortcut assigned to the items you needed. It's possible to use Windows almost entirely without a mouse, although I've only had to do that to install mouse drivers or reload a glitched one. The same can't be said for Mac OS. Some of the Finder keyboard shortcuts seem very counterintuitive; for example, the arrow keys move the selected item (same as in Windows), but although opening the selected item(s) is a very common task and one would expect that to be mapped to a very common key like Space or Enter like all the other file managers I've used, I believe one of those initiates a rename (a relatively uncommon operation) and the other does nothing, and the actual shortcut to open the selected item is Command+DownArrow or Command+O. I guess they make sense in their own way, but apparently I'm not the only one who finds this very unusual and confusing: https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/6727/why-does-the-enter-return-key-rename-a-file-folder-instead-of-opening-it https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/6727/why-does-the-... https://superuser.com/questions/59007/enter-to-open-a-file-in-finder https://superuser.com/questions/59007/enter-to-open-a-file-i... https://superuser.com/questions/176450/open-file-shortcut-for-mac-os-x https://superuser.com/questions/176450/open-file-shortcut-fo... https://superuser.com/questions/134892/how-to-open-folder-without-using-mouse-in-mac https://superuser.com/questions/134892/how-to-open-folder-wi... https://superuser.com/questions/119871/how-do-you-open-a-folder-in-osx-using-the-keyboard https://superuser.com/questions/119871/how-do-you-open-a-fol...
- gcarvalho 7y ago
  You can press Command+Shift+? to open a search box for the menu items. Not the same thing, but I find it useful sometimes. I also believe you don't need to hold down the mouse button to inspect the menus. In the end, I'd rate both (Windows nad macOS) as equally painful/unintuitive to use without a mouse.
- Angostura 7y ago

TimTheTinker 7y ago

> > Just drag/drop a PDF to a printer spool window, and it will print; > this is just the most obtuse way of doing things. Perhaps that was a bad example of the incredible leg-up Mac OS X had over Windows around printing... all-around, printing was so much more straightforward on the Mac. To extend the example: (a) printing to PDF has always worked - no need to install a 3rd party "PDF printer"; (b) PDFs and print spool jobs are indistinguishable, hence "drag a PDF to a print spool" works fine. (c) Accidentally printed to the wrong printer? Easy to fix - just open the intended printer and drag the job from the wrong one over.

dingo_bat 7y ago
> b) PDFs and print spool jobs are indistinguishable, Then what does "drag a PDF to a print spool" mean?

machello13 7y ago

Dragging things around is not required on macOS. There are always ways to do things without it. It's just that it's a generally pretty intuitive way to accomplish a task, and it's something that macOS embraced in a way that Windows never did. Want to trash an app? Drag it to the trash. Want to print a PDF? Drag it onto a printer. You can do it other ways, of course — right click and "move to trash", or right-click and "print".

andrekandre 7y ago
the other really great life-saver for me is the proxy icon on windows... just drag it out to another app to open itinerary another editor/viewer, or right click it to get the path and click one of the folders in the pop up to open it in finder.... always miss that in windows and linux... always hunting for where the file i’m currently viewing is
LoSboccacc 7y ago
want to remove a device? drag it to the trash where the icon suddenly changes to eject "intuitive"
- mcintyre1994 7y ago
  Or right click > eject, which I’m pretty sure is the same as Windows.

userbinator 7y ago

I figured out very early on Windows (this was the days of 3.x) that the Alt key could activate the menu and then let you browse the items with the cursor keys, and the underlined letters (which idiotically have been hidden by default more recently) work in combination with Alt to activate UI elements. I couldn't figure out how to do the equivalent in Mac OS. You had to inspect each menu first with the mouse (and hold down the mouse button while doing so), and hope that there was a keyboard shortcut assigned to the items you needed. It's possible to use Windows almost entirely without a mouse, although I've only had to do that to install mouse drivers or reload a glitched one. The same can't be said for Mac OS. Some of the Finder keyboard shortcuts seem very counterintuitive; for example, the arrow keys move the selected item (same as in Windows), but although opening the selected item(s) is a very common task and one would expect that to be mapped to a very common key like Space or Enter like all the other file managers I've used, I believe one of those initiates a rename (a relatively uncommon operation) and the other does nothing, and the actual shortcut to open the selected item is Command+DownArrow or Command+O. I guess they make sense in their own way, but apparently I'm not the only one who finds this very unusual and confusing: https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/6727/why-does-the-enter-return-key-rename-a-file-folder-instead-of-opening-it https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/6727/why-does-the-... https://superuser.com/questions/59007/enter-to-open-a-file-in-finder https://superuser.com/questions/59007/enter-to-open-a-file-i... https://superuser.com/questions/176450/open-file-shortcut-for-mac-os-x https://superuser.com/questions/176450/open-file-shortcut-fo... https://superuser.com/questions/134892/how-to-open-folder-without-using-mouse-in-mac https://superuser.com/questions/134892/how-to-open-folder-wi... https://superuser.com/questions/119871/how-do-you-open-a-folder-in-osx-using-the-keyboard https://superuser.com/questions/119871/how-do-you-open-a-fol...

gcarvalho 7y ago
You can press Command+Shift+? to open a search box for the menu items. Not the same thing, but I find it useful sometimes. I also believe you don't need to hold down the mouse button to inspect the menus. In the end, I'd rate both (Windows nad macOS) as equally painful/unintuitive to use without a mouse.
Angostura 7y ago