4 ms·

Apple has recovered. It made me buy my first MacBook Pro in my life, M1 was just too good to pass on even with the disadvantages that I was used to Windows and

Apple has recovered. It made me buy my first MacBook Pro in my life, M1 was just too good to pass on even with the disadvantages that I was used to Windows and I'm still not sure about the differences between control, option and command keys.

Jtsummers 6y ago
Command is (mostly) control under Window (CMD+C/V/X for copy/paste/cut, CMD+P for printing, CMD+Z for undo, and so on). It's also used for alt-tab. Option is Alt. Used to modify some keyboard shortcuts like the above, sometimes on its own, and often used to type in alternate characters than standard on your keyboard (Option+e e gives you an accented e). Control is honestly something I use often outside the terminal on macOS. I think Control+<left/right arrow key> gets you linear navigation with multiple full screen windows or multiple desktops. It probably does more, I don't know.
- xiphias2 6y ago
  I wish Apple opted for an Apple key that does window management (similar to Windows), so that those shortcuts are separated from application shortcuts, but I love at least how configurable they are.
intergalplan 6y ago
I have good/bad news: the command key thing, and most related macOS shortcuts, are so good that once you get used to them you'll be really annoyed when you use anything else, and left wondering how it's been this long and no-one's copied their exact physical keyboard arrangement, en-us keyboard layout, and shortcuts. Windows and Linux (desktop and server) user for ~15 years before getting my first Mac (at work) around 2011 (DOS user even earlier). Other keyboard+OS combos are so frustrating now. Not in the "this is unfamiliar" way macOS was initially, but in a "I know this and the Apple way now, and this is worse, why the hell do you keep doing this, and not either just copy Apple or come up with something even better?" way. Point is: you'll get used to it, and probably like it. But you might permanently be slightly irritated when using anything else, afterward. (Try Spectacle, or something similar, if you want somewhat better window layout management from the keyboard. It's in Homebrew. It's pretty much the only OS-behavior-modifying thing I install on Mac—my other tweaks are just in the settings GUI, mostly just making CAPS lock an extra ctrl. The default spectacle shortcuts are a bit wild, but 95% of what I use is just split-half-screen left, split-half-screen right, and fullscreen, and it'd be worth using if you never used any others)
- d3nj4l 6y ago
  After two years of working on Macs, I realised working on Linux gave me pinky fatigue from having to press control too much. Now I rebind ctrl to super wherever possible.
  - intergalplan 6y ago
    That's definitely one part of it: thumb-scrunching-to-cmd requires less wrist movement, for me at least, than ctrl+[anything]. Re-mapping caps lock as an extra ctrl helps a ton, but cmd is a much better default than the ordinary ctrl, for very common system-wide keyboard shortcuts. In fact, I just checked out of curiosity, and I move 2 fingers very slightly to cmd+c, while doing (standard) ctrl+c I move every joint up my arm, including my shoulder, and all my fingers (as I reposition my whole hand, so the fingers all flex, flattening so my pinky can hit the ctrl) Again, caps-as-control makes it much better, but I can still feel more strain than the very natural almost-pinching motion of cmd+c. I don't know how much of this was intentional when the Apple keyboard was designed and shortcuts chosen, but it's a real effect regardless.

Jtsummers 6y ago

Command is (mostly) control under Window (CMD+C/V/X for copy/paste/cut, CMD+P for printing, CMD+Z for undo, and so on). It's also used for alt-tab. Option is Alt. Used to modify some keyboard shortcuts like the above, sometimes on its own, and often used to type in alternate characters than standard on your keyboard (Option+e e gives you an accented e). Control is honestly something I use often outside the terminal on macOS. I think Control+<left/right arrow key> gets you linear navigation with multiple full screen windows or multiple desktops. It probably does more, I don't know.

xiphias2 6y ago
I wish Apple opted for an Apple key that does window management (similar to Windows), so that those shortcuts are separated from application shortcuts, but I love at least how configurable they are.

intergalplan 6y ago

I have good/bad news: the command key thing, and most related macOS shortcuts, are so good that once you get used to them you'll be really annoyed when you use anything else, and left wondering how it's been this long and no-one's copied their exact physical keyboard arrangement, en-us keyboard layout, and shortcuts. Windows and Linux (desktop and server) user for ~15 years before getting my first Mac (at work) around 2011 (DOS user even earlier). Other keyboard+OS combos are so frustrating now. Not in the "this is unfamiliar" way macOS was initially, but in a "I know this and the Apple way now, and this is worse, why the hell do you keep doing this, and not either just copy Apple or come up with something even better?" way. Point is: you'll get used to it, and probably like it. But you might permanently be slightly irritated when using anything else, afterward. (Try Spectacle, or something similar, if you want somewhat better window layout management from the keyboard. It's in Homebrew. It's pretty much the only OS-behavior-modifying thing I install on Mac—my other tweaks are just in the settings GUI, mostly just making CAPS lock an extra ctrl. The default spectacle shortcuts are a bit wild, but 95% of what I use is just split-half-screen left, split-half-screen right, and fullscreen, and it'd be worth using if you never used any others)

d3nj4l 6y ago
After two years of working on Macs, I realised working on Linux gave me pinky fatigue from having to press control too much. Now I rebind ctrl to super wherever possible.
- intergalplan 6y ago
  That's definitely one part of it: thumb-scrunching-to-cmd requires less wrist movement, for me at least, than ctrl+[anything]. Re-mapping caps lock as an extra ctrl helps a ton, but cmd is a much better default than the ordinary ctrl, for very common system-wide keyboard shortcuts. In fact, I just checked out of curiosity, and I move 2 fingers very slightly to cmd+c, while doing (standard) ctrl+c I move every joint up my arm, including my shoulder, and all my fingers (as I reposition my whole hand, so the fingers all flex, flattening so my pinky can hit the ctrl) Again, caps-as-control makes it much better, but I can still feel more strain than the very natural almost-pinching motion of cmd+c. I don't know how much of this was intentional when the Apple keyboard was designed and shortcuts chosen, but it's a real effect regardless.