7 ms·

I'm always amazed at how many little third party utilities or programs people recommend downloading or buying just to bring the desktop experience on macOS up t

by sylens 5y ago

I'm always amazed at how many little third party utilities or programs people recommend downloading or buying just to bring the desktop experience on macOS up to parity with Linux (or even Windows!). The lack of snapping/tiling at this point is just a deliberately malicious decision. I can't fathom why they will not implement some version of this better than that half-hearted split screen view that requires a separate virtual desktop.

chrisseaton 5y ago
In return, I'm amazed that people don't just use the software as it's designed. Why do people want to tweak like this? Like he wants to move the clock. Oh my god just leave it where it is and get on with your job. Lack of customisability gives us more stable software. And he wants his windows to wobble? What on earth is the point of that?
- sseagull 5y ago
  Because people have different needs, expectations, and preferences. It’s part of what makes humans interesting. Computers should be made to serve people, not the other way around.
  - chrisseaton 5y ago
    I don't know - I'm a big fan of sensible defaults, lack of customisation (so lack of entropy) and just getting on and using it as designed, rather than trying to bend it to be something else. I'm not sure there can really be any reasonable requirement to move the clock. I think that's just being fussy. For every wacky feature or option someone wants, that has to be built, maintained, tested. Every boolean option you add doubles the state space of the application!! Less is more. This blog post is a set of requirements for a Homer car, not a sensible professional tool.
    - wara23arish 5y ago
      You believe moving the clock is a wacky feature? You can already move the macOS dock, so its not like it’s unheard of in that world. Sensible defaults are great, but after spending most of your day glued to a screen, you start noticing little improvements to your workflow. e.g. i dont want to turn my head all the way to the right to look at the clock (using external monitors) Thats not a big change, but I believe the sum of all those little changes add up
    - sseagull 5y ago
      I somewhat agree, except maybe: > This blog post is a set of requirements for a Homer car, not a sensible professional tool "Professional" is a wide category for sure, but I would argue professionals are the ones who need more customization, not less. They are the ones with esoteric tools and workflows, and where customizing their environment to match how their mind works allows them to focus on the problems at hand and not their tools. > For every wacky feature or option someone wants, that has to be built, maintained, tested True. However, these are trillion-dollar companies. Look at all the options for cars, or refrigerators, or whatever. And all these have the constraints of the physical world. And all made by companies with a heck of a lot less cash than Apple and Microsoft.
    - m3adow 5y ago
      Funny enough he's answering your complaints in the last paragraph. You're telling him he's "holding it wrong". Except individual taste can rarely be wrong.
      - chrisseaton 5y ago
        Nobody said his taste was 'wrong'. I don't even know what that would mean? I'm saying he'd get more out the tool by learning and embracing the design of it, rather than wishing it was something that it isn't. Go with the flow, rather than fighting it. Reduce entropy not create it.
        sseagull 5y ago
        I'll give a bit of a different example. I was recently playing the remastered Dark Souls on Switch. For some reason, they used the Japanese button mapping of B and A rather than the usual mapping in the US. And you couldn't change it. I mean, no big deal, I can learn the new mapping. And I mostly did. But even after 50-100 hours, I would still occasionally press the wrong button (accepting rather than cancelling). The previous configuration was so ingrained in me that I could not overcome my muscle memory without conscious thought. So even when I really try to "go with the flow" there is friction. People come from different backgrounds, using different software and different paradigms, and it's not really easy at all to remap their way of thinking, even if they want to.
  - ubermonkey 5y ago
    Having different preferences, and using a different platform that serves them better, is absolutely fine. Deciding that the platform that doesn't meet your needs is somehow illegitimate, "not a computer," or somehow morally unacceptable is juvenile fanboy crap.
    - nine_k 5y ago
      Your game console, your smart TV, and even your microwave oven all have computers inside, crucial for their interaction with you. But they choose to not expose to you the general computing capabilities they possess. (Yes, there is a reason for that.) Truth be told, a Macbook does expose itself as a general computing device all right.
- sylens 5y ago
  I'll agree with you on things like the clock - never felt the need to move it, that's just how it is on macOS. But I would expect a mature desktop operating system to have improved window management capabilities in 2022
  - LeFantome 5y ago
    Alternative point ( as somebody that uses macOS, Windows, and Linux about equally )… Apple may leave “wobbly windows” or even window manager behaviour as the kind of thing a third-party could add. They might do this because they want software companies to be able to make money making software for the Mac. A rich community of software providers is good for a platform. As a user, this means that high quality software is more likely to be available for the Mac than it is for Linux. Companies struggle to make money on Linux and so fewer companies try. Microsoft used to get roundly criticized for adding stuff into Windows for free that third-parties could be selling for money instead. In fact, Microsoft was branded as “evil” by many for including a web browser for free shortly after Netscape had biggest IPO in history selling theirs for money. I prefer the “everything in my distribution” model myself but calling an OS a “toy” because it does not bundle a utility or functionality that is hardly universal in utility or preference does not resonate with me. Not being able to run the software I need for work is a more legitimate beef. I love Linux and I can use it for almost anything. I have to admit though that even just using it for my work email or calendar is a far inferior experience to either Mac or Windows. For most people, an article about how Linux is still a toy because it poorly integrates with iMessage or Face Time may even make more sense than complaints about NFS. I do not like macOS as much as I used to but there is a lot bundled into it. Even simple apps like Preview work a lot nicer than what I have on Linux. The Linux printing subsystem ( CUPS ) is a gift from Apple. Again, I like Linux more than Mac these days. I am thinking of putting Garuda Linux on my MacBook Pro later today in fact. That said, this article did not hit with me.
- SSLy 5y ago
  >What on earth is the point of that? Monkey brain sees shiny things. Monkey brain releases dopamine. Monke brain happy.
- q3k 5y ago
  > And he wants his windows to wobble? What on earth is the point of that? To have wobbly windows.
- toper-centage 5y ago
  There are different brains out there, and they think differently, and understanding that is half way to developing empathy, but also extremely important when developing accessible applications. Maybe I don't want to see the clock whenever I look at notifications, or vice versa, because that's extremely distracting. Lack of customisability gives us less accessible software. Apple is really good at accessibility, but at the same time really bad. > And he wants his windows to wobble? Some people are fun at parties, some are not.
- Mikeb85 5y ago
  Window snapping is a pretty basic thing that every non-Mac OS and DE does... And it's annoying AF to not have it.
  - mmis1000 5y ago
    That's why people always use fullscreen in mac. Because window just don't really work well. The only time I ever use window is dragging file from finder to vscode. Because mac is dumb enough that don't allow drag happen between different desktop. (Or I would just drag file from finder to vscode on different screen)
    - wingerlang 5y ago
      Who are these people? I absolutely hate fullscreen in macOS and literally only use it for fullscreen videos and the like. What part of the window doesn't work well?
      - mmis1000 5y ago
        Snapping/alignment, gesture. The alignment, it don't even support snapping, place two windows side by side properly is just like impossible, and the + on window go fullscreen unless you hold opt. You can't just swipe to switch between window. You can only swipe between desktop. I'd wonder which part in mac's window manager actually works well (compares to other desktop manager)?
        lilyball 5y ago
        > place two windows side by side properly is just like impossible macOS has supported automatic snapping while dragging windows for years now. Just drag it slowly when you're approaching the edge of the other window and the window you're dragging will snap to it
        wingerlang 5y ago
        Swiping up with 4 fingers will display all windows for you to select the one you want. Then CMD+TAB or CMD+` if you want to cycle. Like macOS by default might not be exactly fitting for everyone, but surely it works well enough for 99.999% of the population. And coming from Linux users who love customizability... I mean there are multiple ways to make it work exactly as you want. I have snapping, and multiple gestures to position and resize exactly to my liking, through BetterTouchTool. And I am a very light user.
- generalk 5y ago
  > Like he wants to move the clock. Oh my god just leave it where it is > and get on with your job. I have an ultrawide monitor. I would very much like for the macOS clock to be centered in the menubar (except when using the built-in display, which for some ungodly reason has a notch in it) or failing that at least to the left of the menu icons. It makes a huge usability difference for me, as otherwise I have to physically turn my head, and sometimes crane my neck depending on how my eyes are treating me. This is impossible out of the box, and maybe possible depending on what third-party tools I hack together. IIRC command-dragging used to work on the clock, but either it never did and I'm misremembering, or the clock and the iOS-replica Quick Settings panel are special and exempt. > I'm amazed that people don't just use the software as it's designed. Why? Sometimes it's badly designed for a use case you're unfamiliar with, and needs a fix. Sometimes it's just hobbyists being hobbyists. This forum is called "Hacker News," after all.
Steltek 5y ago
Mac users eagerly recommend importing Linux tools (Docker, Brew) to make MacOS a tolerable dev environment. But they completely miss the fact that Apple makes it illegal to do the reverse: I can not run a MacOS VM on Linux. I can't understand the mindset that makes that kind of company behavior acceptable or the tradeoff worth it.
- usrn 5y ago
  You don't want to anyway. OSX is slow without hardware graphics acceleration. EDIT: I've hit my comment quota, here's my response: You don't need OSX for that, just their headers and libraries. People have built the build chain for Linux but it's useless without those and they cannot be redistributed.
  - Steltek 5y ago
    I just need to build iOS apps without any added absurdity. It can run at 640x480 VGA for all I care.
- adamomada 5y ago
  I didn’t know Homebrew was so successful on Linux that someone would think it’s a Linux tool; that surprised me (Homebrew started on Mac OS X)
mrtksn 5y ago
The catch is, with enough 3rd party apps MacOS can do all that stuff but no amount of 3rd party apps and utilities can make Ubuntu match the MacOS experience. To match macOS on Ubuntu you will need a full time Linux guru as PA to smooth things out for your. You will need another one for the after hours. Therefore, Ubuntu is great for really rich people or people who need that one thing that Ubuntu excels at and nothing else. It's essentially the same issue with iPhone v.s. Android. There's always some Android phone that can do one thing better than the best iPhone out there and to have an overall better-than-iPhone experience you need to use a dozen Android devices all the time(buying and maintaining multiple devices is unrealistic for most of the people, you need to be really rich and have a PA to manage all that for your. Another PA for the extra hours).
- Matl 5y ago
  As someone who uses both, I have to say I am not sure what's so special about the 'macOS experience'. I mean the desktop is not even a decent window manager imo, I have to get something like PathFinder for a decent file manager etc, yes there are some nice apps for macOS but it's not like the OS experience itself is some unbeatable benchmark.
  - mrtksn 5y ago
    Good for you. Good experience essentially means good defaults, stuff work reliably as expected and when things break you fix them easily. That usually require good edge case handling and justified restrictions. Notice how OP complains about not being able to change the default font and text size? Well, he is technically right but the thing is that Apple has already addressed the reason behind changing fonts by designing a UI that works well with all kind of resolutions. You don't have instances of extremely large or extremely small text or buttons, for example. It's all polished very well so there's no reason for someone to need to tune font size or font face. Sure, some people have visual impairments or use their computers differently therefore they can choose a "UI zoom level" instead of resolution and font sizes. This works very well for most people and that's why most people are very happy with their device. For people who don't find this behaviour useful for them, there's Ubuntu, Windows, ChromeOS etc. I see a lot of Android screenshots with barely legible fonts as system font. Some things are better when left to professionals and for those who disagree, there's Android of course.
EamonnMR 5y ago
Same reason they default to whole filesystem search and disorganized icons. No idea what the reason is, but there seems to be a wellspring of bad somewhere.
scarface74 5y ago
I’m sure most normal people would be equally “amazed” that they can’t get Microsoft Office or Adobe’s software for Linux…
weakfish 5y ago
Well I think it’s mostly because Linux users tend to not realize it’s an entirely different paradigm. Someone once put it roughly to me as Linux and windows being window focused, macos bring application focused
AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
> I'm always amazed at how many little third party utilities or programs people recommend downloading or buying just to bring the desktop experience on macOS up to parity with Linux (or even Windows!). You say that like there aren't always recommendations for GNOME extensions to install to make it act like it isn't a tablet.

by sylens 5y ago

chrisseaton 5y ago

In return, I'm amazed that people don't just use the software as it's designed. Why do people want to tweak like this? Like he wants to move the clock. Oh my god just leave it where it is and get on with your job. Lack of customisability gives us more stable software. And he wants his windows to wobble? What on earth is the point of that?

sseagull 5y ago
Because people have different needs, expectations, and preferences. It’s part of what makes humans interesting. Computers should be made to serve people, not the other way around.
- chrisseaton 5y ago
  I don't know - I'm a big fan of sensible defaults, lack of customisation (so lack of entropy) and just getting on and using it as designed, rather than trying to bend it to be something else. I'm not sure there can really be any reasonable requirement to move the clock. I think that's just being fussy. For every wacky feature or option someone wants, that has to be built, maintained, tested. Every boolean option you add doubles the state space of the application!! Less is more. This blog post is a set of requirements for a Homer car, not a sensible professional tool.
  - wara23arish 5y ago
    You believe moving the clock is a wacky feature? You can already move the macOS dock, so its not like it’s unheard of in that world. Sensible defaults are great, but after spending most of your day glued to a screen, you start noticing little improvements to your workflow. e.g. i dont want to turn my head all the way to the right to look at the clock (using external monitors) Thats not a big change, but I believe the sum of all those little changes add up
  - sseagull 5y ago
    I somewhat agree, except maybe: > This blog post is a set of requirements for a Homer car, not a sensible professional tool "Professional" is a wide category for sure, but I would argue professionals are the ones who need more customization, not less. They are the ones with esoteric tools and workflows, and where customizing their environment to match how their mind works allows them to focus on the problems at hand and not their tools. > For every wacky feature or option someone wants, that has to be built, maintained, tested True. However, these are trillion-dollar companies. Look at all the options for cars, or refrigerators, or whatever. And all these have the constraints of the physical world. And all made by companies with a heck of a lot less cash than Apple and Microsoft.
  - m3adow 5y ago
    Funny enough he's answering your complaints in the last paragraph. You're telling him he's "holding it wrong". Except individual taste can rarely be wrong.
    - chrisseaton 5y ago
      Nobody said his taste was 'wrong'. I don't even know what that would mean? I'm saying he'd get more out the tool by learning and embracing the design of it, rather than wishing it was something that it isn't. Go with the flow, rather than fighting it. Reduce entropy not create it.
      - sseagull 5y ago
        I'll give a bit of a different example. I was recently playing the remastered Dark Souls on Switch. For some reason, they used the Japanese button mapping of B and A rather than the usual mapping in the US. And you couldn't change it. I mean, no big deal, I can learn the new mapping. And I mostly did. But even after 50-100 hours, I would still occasionally press the wrong button (accepting rather than cancelling). The previous configuration was so ingrained in me that I could not overcome my muscle memory without conscious thought. So even when I really try to "go with the flow" there is friction. People come from different backgrounds, using different software and different paradigms, and it's not really easy at all to remap their way of thinking, even if they want to.
- ubermonkey 5y ago
  Having different preferences, and using a different platform that serves them better, is absolutely fine. Deciding that the platform that doesn't meet your needs is somehow illegitimate, "not a computer," or somehow morally unacceptable is juvenile fanboy crap.
  - nine_k 5y ago
    Your game console, your smart TV, and even your microwave oven all have computers inside, crucial for their interaction with you. But they choose to not expose to you the general computing capabilities they possess. (Yes, there is a reason for that.) Truth be told, a Macbook does expose itself as a general computing device all right.
sylens 5y ago
I'll agree with you on things like the clock - never felt the need to move it, that's just how it is on macOS. But I would expect a mature desktop operating system to have improved window management capabilities in 2022
- LeFantome 5y ago
  Alternative point ( as somebody that uses macOS, Windows, and Linux about equally )… Apple may leave “wobbly windows” or even window manager behaviour as the kind of thing a third-party could add. They might do this because they want software companies to be able to make money making software for the Mac. A rich community of software providers is good for a platform. As a user, this means that high quality software is more likely to be available for the Mac than it is for Linux. Companies struggle to make money on Linux and so fewer companies try. Microsoft used to get roundly criticized for adding stuff into Windows for free that third-parties could be selling for money instead. In fact, Microsoft was branded as “evil” by many for including a web browser for free shortly after Netscape had biggest IPO in history selling theirs for money. I prefer the “everything in my distribution” model myself but calling an OS a “toy” because it does not bundle a utility or functionality that is hardly universal in utility or preference does not resonate with me. Not being able to run the software I need for work is a more legitimate beef. I love Linux and I can use it for almost anything. I have to admit though that even just using it for my work email or calendar is a far inferior experience to either Mac or Windows. For most people, an article about how Linux is still a toy because it poorly integrates with iMessage or Face Time may even make more sense than complaints about NFS. I do not like macOS as much as I used to but there is a lot bundled into it. Even simple apps like Preview work a lot nicer than what I have on Linux. The Linux printing subsystem ( CUPS ) is a gift from Apple. Again, I like Linux more than Mac these days. I am thinking of putting Garuda Linux on my MacBook Pro later today in fact. That said, this article did not hit with me.
SSLy 5y ago
>What on earth is the point of that? Monkey brain sees shiny things. Monkey brain releases dopamine. Monke brain happy.
q3k 5y ago
> And he wants his windows to wobble? What on earth is the point of that? To have wobbly windows.
toper-centage 5y ago
There are different brains out there, and they think differently, and understanding that is half way to developing empathy, but also extremely important when developing accessible applications. Maybe I don't want to see the clock whenever I look at notifications, or vice versa, because that's extremely distracting. Lack of customisability gives us less accessible software. Apple is really good at accessibility, but at the same time really bad. > And he wants his windows to wobble? Some people are fun at parties, some are not.
Mikeb85 5y ago
Window snapping is a pretty basic thing that every non-Mac OS and DE does... And it's annoying AF to not have it.
- mmis1000 5y ago
  That's why people always use fullscreen in mac. Because window just don't really work well. The only time I ever use window is dragging file from finder to vscode. Because mac is dumb enough that don't allow drag happen between different desktop. (Or I would just drag file from finder to vscode on different screen)
  - wingerlang 5y ago
    Who are these people? I absolutely hate fullscreen in macOS and literally only use it for fullscreen videos and the like. What part of the window doesn't work well?
    - mmis1000 5y ago
      Snapping/alignment, gesture. The alignment, it don't even support snapping, place two windows side by side properly is just like impossible, and the + on window go fullscreen unless you hold opt. You can't just swipe to switch between window. You can only swipe between desktop. I'd wonder which part in mac's window manager actually works well (compares to other desktop manager)?
      - lilyball 5y ago
        > place two windows side by side properly is just like impossible macOS has supported automatic snapping while dragging windows for years now. Just drag it slowly when you're approaching the edge of the other window and the window you're dragging will snap to it
      - wingerlang 5y ago
        Swiping up with 4 fingers will display all windows for you to select the one you want. Then CMD+TAB or CMD+` if you want to cycle. Like macOS by default might not be exactly fitting for everyone, but surely it works well enough for 99.999% of the population. And coming from Linux users who love customizability... I mean there are multiple ways to make it work exactly as you want. I have snapping, and multiple gestures to position and resize exactly to my liking, through BetterTouchTool. And I am a very light user.
generalk 5y ago
> Like he wants to move the clock. Oh my god just leave it where it is > and get on with your job. I have an ultrawide monitor. I would very much like for the macOS clock to be centered in the menubar (except when using the built-in display, which for some ungodly reason has a notch in it) or failing that at least to the left of the menu icons. It makes a huge usability difference for me, as otherwise I have to physically turn my head, and sometimes crane my neck depending on how my eyes are treating me. This is impossible out of the box, and maybe possible depending on what third-party tools I hack together. IIRC command-dragging used to work on the clock, but either it never did and I'm misremembering, or the clock and the iOS-replica Quick Settings panel are special and exempt. > I'm amazed that people don't just use the software as it's designed. Why? Sometimes it's badly designed for a use case you're unfamiliar with, and needs a fix. Sometimes it's just hobbyists being hobbyists. This forum is called "Hacker News," after all.

Steltek 5y ago

Mac users eagerly recommend importing Linux tools (Docker, Brew) to make MacOS a tolerable dev environment. But they completely miss the fact that Apple makes it illegal to do the reverse: I can not run a MacOS VM on Linux. I can't understand the mindset that makes that kind of company behavior acceptable or the tradeoff worth it.

usrn 5y ago
You don't want to anyway. OSX is slow without hardware graphics acceleration. EDIT: I've hit my comment quota, here's my response: You don't need OSX for that, just their headers and libraries. People have built the build chain for Linux but it's useless without those and they cannot be redistributed.
- Steltek 5y ago
  I just need to build iOS apps without any added absurdity. It can run at 640x480 VGA for all I care.
adamomada 5y ago
I didn’t know Homebrew was so successful on Linux that someone would think it’s a Linux tool; that surprised me (Homebrew started on Mac OS X)

mrtksn 5y ago

The catch is, with enough 3rd party apps MacOS can do all that stuff but no amount of 3rd party apps and utilities can make Ubuntu match the MacOS experience. To match macOS on Ubuntu you will need a full time Linux guru as PA to smooth things out for your. You will need another one for the after hours. Therefore, Ubuntu is great for really rich people or people who need that one thing that Ubuntu excels at and nothing else. It's essentially the same issue with iPhone v.s. Android. There's always some Android phone that can do one thing better than the best iPhone out there and to have an overall better-than-iPhone experience you need to use a dozen Android devices all the time(buying and maintaining multiple devices is unrealistic for most of the people, you need to be really rich and have a PA to manage all that for your. Another PA for the extra hours).

Matl 5y ago
As someone who uses both, I have to say I am not sure what's so special about the 'macOS experience'. I mean the desktop is not even a decent window manager imo, I have to get something like PathFinder for a decent file manager etc, yes there are some nice apps for macOS but it's not like the OS experience itself is some unbeatable benchmark.
- mrtksn 5y ago
  Good for you. Good experience essentially means good defaults, stuff work reliably as expected and when things break you fix them easily. That usually require good edge case handling and justified restrictions. Notice how OP complains about not being able to change the default font and text size? Well, he is technically right but the thing is that Apple has already addressed the reason behind changing fonts by designing a UI that works well with all kind of resolutions. You don't have instances of extremely large or extremely small text or buttons, for example. It's all polished very well so there's no reason for someone to need to tune font size or font face. Sure, some people have visual impairments or use their computers differently therefore they can choose a "UI zoom level" instead of resolution and font sizes. This works very well for most people and that's why most people are very happy with their device. For people who don't find this behaviour useful for them, there's Ubuntu, Windows, ChromeOS etc. I see a lot of Android screenshots with barely legible fonts as system font. Some things are better when left to professionals and for those who disagree, there's Android of course.

EamonnMR 5y ago

Same reason they default to whole filesystem search and disorganized icons. No idea what the reason is, but there seems to be a wellspring of bad somewhere.

scarface74 5y ago

I’m sure most normal people would be equally “amazed” that they can’t get Microsoft Office or Adobe’s software for Linux…

weakfish 5y ago

Well I think it’s mostly because Linux users tend to not realize it’s an entirely different paradigm. Someone once put it roughly to me as Linux and windows being window focused, macos bring application focused

AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago

> I'm always amazed at how many little third party utilities or programs people recommend downloading or buying just to bring the desktop experience on macOS up to parity with Linux (or even Windows!). You say that like there aren't always recommendations for GNOME extensions to install to make it act like it isn't a tablet.