6 ms·

Until there is as “simple” to use an app like Preview on the Mac, most of these new generation apps are garbage. I’ve just switched to Ubuntu on a workstation

Until there is as “simple” to use an app like Preview on the Mac, most of these new generation apps are garbage. I’ve just switched to Ubuntu on a workstation I have lying around. And man, is it hard to use for just normal everyday use. Yes, it has the basics covered, but like many others my job has a lot of simple image manipulation related stuff. Convert pdf to png. Assemble multiple images into a pdf. Quickly share with someone else over chat. Normal productivity stuff. Take a simple thing like screen capture - you have to remember to save the screen that you captured otherwise it just sits there doing nothing in the screen capture app. The thing that saves most Linux desktops for office productivity workers — is Firefox and Chrome. Otherwise, outside of programmers and highly specific use cases, hardly anyone would use a Linux desktop. And that’s kudos to the fact that so much of what we do these days is in a browser. But if you look at the small pieces of software to do everyday things - they are awful. Dropbox barely works in a sustainable way. I have to keep pulling out my laptop every now and then to do simple office productivity things. Yeah yeah, I know that Apple is a trillion dollar company that had a room full of people just working on the screen capture feature alone. And yeah, I use Linux every day for programming. But Brah, all the little widgets and do-da’s need some serious polishing.

jcelerier 5y ago
> Take a simple thing like screen capture - you have to remember to save the screen that you captured otherwise it just sits there doing nothing in the screen capture app. idk with KDE this seems to work ? I hit screen capture and spectacle shows up and saves it to images.
- heavyset_go 5y ago
  Can confirm this works on Plasma. There's also Flameshot[1], which is cross platform, that works really well and has pretty much every feature you could ask for in a screenshot app. [1] https://flameshot.org/ https://flameshot.org/
SevenDucks 5y ago
I love Ubuntu
malermeister 5y ago
I think Eye of GNOME is pretty similar to macOS preview: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye_of_GNOME https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye_of_GNOME
taeric 5y ago
I can't claim you are wrong... But I struggle with versions of those on my Mac on a regular basis, as well. Screen capture, in particular, is hilariously fickle for me. I finally got it so that it puts the image in my clipboard. Which is great, until I try to remember how to get it directly to a file. Because, I can't remember where that setting is anymore. And I have no idea how to make a pdf on this computer. Combine multiple images? I don't even know why I would do that. Much less how. My favorite battle recently was just trying to shutdown the machine without it starting right back up. Pretty sure that isn't possible if you have external monitor and keyboard hooked up. Which took me several shutdowns to realize.
- jmckib 5y ago
  On Mac don't screenshots go straight to Desktop?
  - taeric 5y ago
    They do by default, but you can make it start sending to clipboard. I find that a bit more convenient for many uses. Evidently, if I use the 5 version instead of 4, it gives you the option again. Not shockingly, I typically use 4...
  - flipper_au 5y ago
    Depends! I use the following modifier pretty frequently: Shift + CMD + 3/4/5 = Screenshot goes to desktop CTRL + Shift + CMD + 3/4/5 = Screenshot to clipboard
- greggsy 5y ago
  Shift+Command+5 gives you the full screenshot experience, and let’s you define where to put it (Desktop, clipboard, etc.) Once you select a location, it will be the default for next time. Preview let’s you create a PDF pretty easily? No idea what’s going on with your restart issue tho.
  - taeric 5y ago
    Thanks for the 5 tip! Hopefully I remember that. Not clear how to use preview to make a pdf with multiple images. I'm guessing that is something that is easy if you have to do it often? I'd probably reach for html or word. Probably word, first.
beepbooptheory 5y ago
Learn a little about imagemagick [1], it will change your life! Edit: also, I bet doing an rclone mount of your Dropbox will be pretty seamless and stable, havent tested this personally though [2]. If you don't like the command line interfaces, then yeah you are probably better off with a Mac. 1. https://imagemagick.org/ https://imagemagick.org/ 2. https://rclone.org/dropbox/ https://rclone.org/dropbox/
- greggsy 5y ago
  Most users don’t want to use the CLI.
  - hall0ween 5y ago
    Linux self selects: if you use linux you’ll need to become familiar with command line. It seems out of whack to complain about linux without investing a wee bit of time with cli.
  - beepbooptheory 5y ago
    Yes, then I just think for now they are better of with one of the other two. I think its great what progress is happening on the GUI front, but I won't argue with gp that some things are a little sketchy. But for those who do have the patience and understanding for the shell and man pages, well they can become more powerful than the other Oses combined!
  - peoplefromibiza 5y ago
    it's their right but it's not the car's fault if people don't want to use keys to start them up. anyway, there's a huge amount of GUI software to handle PDFs in Linux, I will say that Linux gives you the most options, either as free software and close source ones. Hell Acrobat is gold on WineHQ!
- wildrhythms 5y ago
  I don't want to annotate an image with a CLI, and neither do you. And a CLI is the worst UI possible for a visual task like editing an image. Apple figured this out 38 years ago with MacPaint.
oskenso 5y ago
Try nomacs as an image viewer/converter and Ctrl+alt+prntscrn for saving a screenshot of the window into your clipboard
yepthatsreality 5y ago
Yeah yeah, we know Linux isn't in the perfect state for Apple die hards. This article isn't about how nice it is to use Linux and how everyone should switch, it's about the advances the UI frameworks and hardware companies have successfully made to better cater to UI DE focused crowds.
imiric 5y ago
The issue is not the lack of good tools on Linux, just with the ones shipped with the major distros and DEs. Quality and simple tools do exist if you look for them: - Image viewer: feh - Screen capture: scrot - Dropbox: Syncthing - Converters: Pandoc, ImageMagick - PDF viewer: zathura - Media player: mpv etc. Granted, some of them are CLI only (though they might have GUI wrappers), but desktop users with productivity as the main goal should learn to use and not fear the terminal, instead of settling for whatever their popular brand of distro decided to package for them.
- wink 5y ago
  I've had problems with scrot and drawing selections, so I've been using maim for a while, otherwise: yes, exactly my kit - but for IM's convert I have to search for the syntax every damn time, it really sucks.
  - imiric 5y ago
    I use this script to help with selections: scrot -a $(slop -f '%x,%y,%w,%h')
    - wink 5y ago
      Thanks, gonna try that one - but so far maim hasn't let me down and it's a drop-in replacement.
firecall 5y ago
It's all true. I can use Ubuntu, for instance, perfectly fine for web-dev. It's great. But in the end, I'm just fighting it. The UI/UX on todays Ubuntu and apps isn't as good as macOS was 10 years ago! And yes, I know there are other Distros and I can customise KDE and Gnome and so on. But they are all offer a very shallow user experience. I wish the Linux GUI and App landscape looked better!
wink 5y ago
Trying my best not to sound like a raving Linux zealot, but what you see as normal productivity stuff I may not have done... ever. Converting a PDF to a png? Why? Maybe IrfanView could do that, it's what I've been using on Windows for any conversion since ACDSee went out of fashion... I've never seen a GUI tool that works as flawlessly as pdftk. Yes, it's CLI, but it works better than anything I ever encountered. Screenshots? You just need to find the right app, I'm not happy with the windows thing (I've been using Greenshot for a while and it's on par with whatever I use on Linux). But yeah, my comparison is only Windows, I've never owned a mac. And maybe I'm on the completely other end of the spectrum in my perception of what "normal tasks" are.
- wildrhythms 5y ago
  Have you never needed to annotate/sign a PDF? On Mac OS just open Preview (the sane default for PDFs), use the annotate tools. There's even a built-in UI for "scanning" a signature via the front-facing camera, the software automatically cuts out the background so you have a signature to drop on the page. Save and the PDF is signed. Trying to do this on Linux requires moving a mountain.
  - bitbang 5y ago
    In KDE: - Double Click PDF, Opens it in PDF viewer "Okular" - Select "Stamp" Annotation Tool - Draw region to place stamp - View stamp properties and click to select image source - Select SVG file I always use that has my signature that I created using my wacom tablet. - Adjust placement if needed - Save file Takes all of ~15 seconds. Don't see how that equates to moving mountains.
    - commandersaki 5y ago
      15 seconds and a wacom tablet. The killer part of the preview.app is that it uses the front facing camera to capture a signature, quite well if i might add.
  - wink 5y ago
    I've only ever done this with my own signature (so, a one-time process), of which I have a scan and my workflow hasn't changed for 20 years, just the tools. as the other reply said, just inserting an image into a PDF is not a problem, and I still don't understand the use case of the camera. But in this case maybe I've had my signature available for longer than phones with cameras exist contributes to the fact? I'm not saying you're wrong, but maybe all the office work I've done in my life is simply different.
peoplefromibiza 5y ago
> Convert pdf to png. Assemble multiple images into a pdf not want to sound harsh, but imgemagick could do that 15 years ago. I use OpenOffice Draw nowadays, but despite the fact that PDFs have become a joke of a file format, Linux is the best to handle them by far, unless someone thinks that Acrobat is anywhere near to being good (or Preview for that matter)
- SevenDucks 5y ago
  I'll say more: Linux is certainly good, but sometimes it's even easier to use online tools
MaKey 5y ago
Regarding the screenshots, maybe using the PrtSc key is more suitable for you? PrtSc alone saves the whole screen, Alt + PrtScr the active window. You'll find the screenshot as a png file in your "Pictures" folder.
anthk 5y ago
From ImageMagick: convert bla.pdf bla.png convert *.png output.pdf
- wildrhythms 5y ago
  Is this really easier than cmd+space "Preview" File > Export > PDF? Be honest.
  - beepbooptheory 5y ago
    I almost can't tell if you are being sarcastic or not! It's gotta on some level be at least apples/oranges right? You describe a process with more steps, that involves launching a GUI app to do one thing. Maybe its more intuitive, but I would argue the interface makes the user, not the other way around.
- yyyk 5y ago
  Note that ImageMagick isn't always the best tool, since ImageMagick always reconverts the image, often with lower quality. Often it's useful to have the image to go in as is, or use a loseless resizing. I use img2pdf for that with great results.
grey_earthling 5y ago
Maybe I'm just thick, but I don't find Preview on macOS simple or easy to use. What the hell is “Contact Sheet” and why should I have to care about this jargon? > And man, is it hard to use for just normal everyday use. This is how I see macOS. I've used it at work for 3 years now, and it still gets in my way every day. I accept that some people like it, but it's very much not for me. (I suppose I “think differently” from Apple's designers.)
- nullwarp 5y ago
  That's how I feel about it as well. My every day machine is Linux but I also have to use a Macbook and a Windows machine and of the three I absolutely hate using the macbook. It feels like very design choice in MacOS was purposely chosen to annoy the hell out of me.
viraptor 5y ago
For an opposing view, for productivity stuff, I really don't like the simple mac apps approach. I regularly open preview expecting it allow some simple changes, but end up disappointed and either do it via gimp or imagemagick. It's similar to Windows experience where people try to release simple apps like a tool for preview, tool for resizing, tool for optimizing compression, tool for merging images/pages, etc. It's too much hassle when two slightly more advanced tools can cover all of those usecases. And don't get me started on mac's screenshots which are saved in 12h time in the name, so your 1pm screenshot is before your 11am screenshot and there's no configuration option for it.
- wildrhythms 5y ago
  Funny that you mention resizing (Preview > Tools > Adjust size) and optimizing compression (Preview > Export > JPEG > compression slider), both tasks that Preview can do out of the box. For advanced edits I use Pixelmator Pro which has a UI that is actually usable compared to the decades-old cluster fuck that is the GIMP UI.
  - viraptor 5y ago
    > Preview > Tools > Adjust size Sorry, I should've used a different word - you can't "expand" the image - i.e. make the size larger and keep the picture in a specific place, so that there's more space for annotation on a side. (or I'm missing the option?) > Preview > Export > JPEG > compression slider That's recompressing (losing the quality in the process) not optimizing compression. You can't update the compression settings on a png for example.
arianvanp 5y ago
Funny you mention that. I just got a Mac and I spent 30 minutes trying to figure out how to save a screenshot from the screenshot menu only to rage quit out of frustration. 2 days later I found out I have 20 screenshots from all the failed attempts saved on my desktop! Nothing about the UI telling me how or where these things were saved. It confused me coming from Ubuntu a lot :)

jcelerier 5y ago

> Take a simple thing like screen capture - you have to remember to save the screen that you captured otherwise it just sits there doing nothing in the screen capture app. idk with KDE this seems to work ? I hit screen capture and spectacle shows up and saves it to images.

heavyset_go 5y ago
Can confirm this works on Plasma. There's also Flameshot[1], which is cross platform, that works really well and has pretty much every feature you could ask for in a screenshot app. [1] https://flameshot.org/ https://flameshot.org/

SevenDucks 5y ago

I love Ubuntu

malermeister 5y ago

I think Eye of GNOME is pretty similar to macOS preview: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye_of_GNOME https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye_of_GNOME

taeric 5y ago

I can't claim you are wrong... But I struggle with versions of those on my Mac on a regular basis, as well. Screen capture, in particular, is hilariously fickle for me. I finally got it so that it puts the image in my clipboard. Which is great, until I try to remember how to get it directly to a file. Because, I can't remember where that setting is anymore. And I have no idea how to make a pdf on this computer. Combine multiple images? I don't even know why I would do that. Much less how. My favorite battle recently was just trying to shutdown the machine without it starting right back up. Pretty sure that isn't possible if you have external monitor and keyboard hooked up. Which took me several shutdowns to realize.

jmckib 5y ago
On Mac don't screenshots go straight to Desktop?
- taeric 5y ago
  They do by default, but you can make it start sending to clipboard. I find that a bit more convenient for many uses. Evidently, if I use the 5 version instead of 4, it gives you the option again. Not shockingly, I typically use 4...
- flipper_au 5y ago
  Depends! I use the following modifier pretty frequently: Shift + CMD + 3/4/5 = Screenshot goes to desktop CTRL + Shift + CMD + 3/4/5 = Screenshot to clipboard
greggsy 5y ago
Shift+Command+5 gives you the full screenshot experience, and let’s you define where to put it (Desktop, clipboard, etc.) Once you select a location, it will be the default for next time. Preview let’s you create a PDF pretty easily? No idea what’s going on with your restart issue tho.
- taeric 5y ago
  Thanks for the 5 tip! Hopefully I remember that. Not clear how to use preview to make a pdf with multiple images. I'm guessing that is something that is easy if you have to do it often? I'd probably reach for html or word. Probably word, first.

beepbooptheory 5y ago

Learn a little about imagemagick [1], it will change your life! Edit: also, I bet doing an rclone mount of your Dropbox will be pretty seamless and stable, havent tested this personally though [2]. If you don't like the command line interfaces, then yeah you are probably better off with a Mac. 1. https://imagemagick.org/ https://imagemagick.org/ 2. https://rclone.org/dropbox/ https://rclone.org/dropbox/

greggsy 5y ago
Most users don’t want to use the CLI.
- hall0ween 5y ago
  Linux self selects: if you use linux you’ll need to become familiar with command line. It seems out of whack to complain about linux without investing a wee bit of time with cli.
- beepbooptheory 5y ago
  Yes, then I just think for now they are better of with one of the other two. I think its great what progress is happening on the GUI front, but I won't argue with gp that some things are a little sketchy. But for those who do have the patience and understanding for the shell and man pages, well they can become more powerful than the other Oses combined!
- peoplefromibiza 5y ago
  it's their right but it's not the car's fault if people don't want to use keys to start them up. anyway, there's a huge amount of GUI software to handle PDFs in Linux, I will say that Linux gives you the most options, either as free software and close source ones. Hell Acrobat is gold on WineHQ!
wildrhythms 5y ago
I don't want to annotate an image with a CLI, and neither do you. And a CLI is the worst UI possible for a visual task like editing an image. Apple figured this out 38 years ago with MacPaint.

oskenso 5y ago

Try nomacs as an image viewer/converter and Ctrl+alt+prntscrn for saving a screenshot of the window into your clipboard

yepthatsreality 5y ago

Yeah yeah, we know Linux isn't in the perfect state for Apple die hards. This article isn't about how nice it is to use Linux and how everyone should switch, it's about the advances the UI frameworks and hardware companies have successfully made to better cater to UI DE focused crowds.

imiric 5y ago

The issue is not the lack of good tools on Linux, just with the ones shipped with the major distros and DEs. Quality and simple tools do exist if you look for them: - Image viewer: feh - Screen capture: scrot - Dropbox: Syncthing - Converters: Pandoc, ImageMagick - PDF viewer: zathura - Media player: mpv etc. Granted, some of them are CLI only (though they might have GUI wrappers), but desktop users with productivity as the main goal should learn to use and not fear the terminal, instead of settling for whatever their popular brand of distro decided to package for them.

wink 5y ago
I've had problems with scrot and drawing selections, so I've been using maim for a while, otherwise: yes, exactly my kit - but for IM's convert I have to search for the syntax every damn time, it really sucks.
- imiric 5y ago
  I use this script to help with selections: scrot -a $(slop -f '%x,%y,%w,%h')
  - wink 5y ago
    Thanks, gonna try that one - but so far maim hasn't let me down and it's a drop-in replacement.

firecall 5y ago

It's all true. I can use Ubuntu, for instance, perfectly fine for web-dev. It's great. But in the end, I'm just fighting it. The UI/UX on todays Ubuntu and apps isn't as good as macOS was 10 years ago! And yes, I know there are other Distros and I can customise KDE and Gnome and so on. But they are all offer a very shallow user experience. I wish the Linux GUI and App landscape looked better!

wink 5y ago

Trying my best not to sound like a raving Linux zealot, but what you see as normal productivity stuff I may not have done... ever. Converting a PDF to a png? Why? Maybe IrfanView could do that, it's what I've been using on Windows for any conversion since ACDSee went out of fashion... I've never seen a GUI tool that works as flawlessly as pdftk. Yes, it's CLI, but it works better than anything I ever encountered. Screenshots? You just need to find the right app, I'm not happy with the windows thing (I've been using Greenshot for a while and it's on par with whatever I use on Linux). But yeah, my comparison is only Windows, I've never owned a mac. And maybe I'm on the completely other end of the spectrum in my perception of what "normal tasks" are.

wildrhythms 5y ago
Have you never needed to annotate/sign a PDF? On Mac OS just open Preview (the sane default for PDFs), use the annotate tools. There's even a built-in UI for "scanning" a signature via the front-facing camera, the software automatically cuts out the background so you have a signature to drop on the page. Save and the PDF is signed. Trying to do this on Linux requires moving a mountain.
- bitbang 5y ago
  In KDE: - Double Click PDF, Opens it in PDF viewer "Okular" - Select "Stamp" Annotation Tool - Draw region to place stamp - View stamp properties and click to select image source - Select SVG file I always use that has my signature that I created using my wacom tablet. - Adjust placement if needed - Save file Takes all of ~15 seconds. Don't see how that equates to moving mountains.
  - commandersaki 5y ago
    15 seconds and a wacom tablet. The killer part of the preview.app is that it uses the front facing camera to capture a signature, quite well if i might add.
- wink 5y ago
  I've only ever done this with my own signature (so, a one-time process), of which I have a scan and my workflow hasn't changed for 20 years, just the tools. as the other reply said, just inserting an image into a PDF is not a problem, and I still don't understand the use case of the camera. But in this case maybe I've had my signature available for longer than phones with cameras exist contributes to the fact? I'm not saying you're wrong, but maybe all the office work I've done in my life is simply different.

peoplefromibiza 5y ago

> Convert pdf to png. Assemble multiple images into a pdf not want to sound harsh, but imgemagick could do that 15 years ago. I use OpenOffice Draw nowadays, but despite the fact that PDFs have become a joke of a file format, Linux is the best to handle them by far, unless someone thinks that Acrobat is anywhere near to being good (or Preview for that matter)

SevenDucks 5y ago
I'll say more: Linux is certainly good, but sometimes it's even easier to use online tools

MaKey 5y ago

Regarding the screenshots, maybe using the PrtSc key is more suitable for you? PrtSc alone saves the whole screen, Alt + PrtScr the active window. You'll find the screenshot as a png file in your "Pictures" folder.

anthk 5y ago

From ImageMagick: convert bla.pdf bla.png convert *.png output.pdf

wildrhythms 5y ago
Is this really easier than cmd+space "Preview" File > Export > PDF? Be honest.
- beepbooptheory 5y ago
  I almost can't tell if you are being sarcastic or not! It's gotta on some level be at least apples/oranges right? You describe a process with more steps, that involves launching a GUI app to do one thing. Maybe its more intuitive, but I would argue the interface makes the user, not the other way around.
yyyk 5y ago
Note that ImageMagick isn't always the best tool, since ImageMagick always reconverts the image, often with lower quality. Often it's useful to have the image to go in as is, or use a loseless resizing. I use img2pdf for that with great results.

grey_earthling 5y ago

Maybe I'm just thick, but I don't find Preview on macOS simple or easy to use. What the hell is “Contact Sheet” and why should I have to care about this jargon? > And man, is it hard to use for just normal everyday use. This is how I see macOS. I've used it at work for 3 years now, and it still gets in my way every day. I accept that some people like it, but it's very much not for me. (I suppose I “think differently” from Apple's designers.)

nullwarp 5y ago
That's how I feel about it as well. My every day machine is Linux but I also have to use a Macbook and a Windows machine and of the three I absolutely hate using the macbook. It feels like very design choice in MacOS was purposely chosen to annoy the hell out of me.

viraptor 5y ago

For an opposing view, for productivity stuff, I really don't like the simple mac apps approach. I regularly open preview expecting it allow some simple changes, but end up disappointed and either do it via gimp or imagemagick. It's similar to Windows experience where people try to release simple apps like a tool for preview, tool for resizing, tool for optimizing compression, tool for merging images/pages, etc. It's too much hassle when two slightly more advanced tools can cover all of those usecases. And don't get me started on mac's screenshots which are saved in 12h time in the name, so your 1pm screenshot is before your 11am screenshot and there's no configuration option for it.

wildrhythms 5y ago
Funny that you mention resizing (Preview > Tools > Adjust size) and optimizing compression (Preview > Export > JPEG > compression slider), both tasks that Preview can do out of the box. For advanced edits I use Pixelmator Pro which has a UI that is actually usable compared to the decades-old cluster fuck that is the GIMP UI.
- viraptor 5y ago
  > Preview > Tools > Adjust size Sorry, I should've used a different word - you can't "expand" the image - i.e. make the size larger and keep the picture in a specific place, so that there's more space for annotation on a side. (or I'm missing the option?) > Preview > Export > JPEG > compression slider That's recompressing (losing the quality in the process) not optimizing compression. You can't update the compression settings on a png for example.

arianvanp 5y ago

Funny you mention that. I just got a Mac and I spent 30 minutes trying to figure out how to save a screenshot from the screenshot menu only to rage quit out of frustration. 2 days later I found out I have 20 screenshots from all the failed attempts saved on my desktop! Nothing about the UI telling me how or where these things were saved. It confused me coming from Ubuntu a lot :)