Suum cuique but some of your concerns really aren't:
> In OSX you can only resize a window in the bottom right corner, in Ubuntu I can resize from any corner, or I can hold Alt and middle click anywhere near a corner of a window to start resizing it. No more hunting for the resize sweetspot.
They changed that in Lion to every corner, every side. And you don't have to press ALT to do it.
> When I click the Maximize button on OSX, it doesn't actually maximize the window 99% of the time, it just picks a seemingly random size.
There's now a full-screen mode that takes care of that.
> Nautilus can access Windows network shares, SSH/SFTP/FTP access, and can mount NTFS, HFS, and pretty much any other filesystem type there is.
One of these might be for you: http://mac.appstorm.net/roundups/utilities-roundups/5-alternatives-to-the-os-x-finder/ http://mac.appstorm.net/roundups/utilities-roundups/5-altern...
> On a new linux machine I can apt-get most anything, but if I do need to compile something I just apt-get build-essentials and I'm ready to go, on OSX you have to download a DVD just to be able to compile stuff from source.
Darwin ports? Fink?
> I just want to see hidden files in Finder, why is that so hard?
defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE ?
Or just use the terminal ?
> And that reminds me, why can't I type a path in Finder?
CMD-Shift-G
> I like Home and End keys. Where are they?
Erh, fn-ArrowLeft/ArrowRight ?!
> In the default Terminal app, there are no shortcuts (at least none that I could figure out) for moving around the text I'm typing quickly, like going forward and back a whole word, or going Home or End, you have to hold down the left or right arrows for a while.
The keyboard tab in Terminal's preferences? Or switch from Emacs-like to Vim-like navigation in the terminal?
> Maybe for some people this locked down, dumbed down environment works for them.
As I said, to each his own and there are valid concerns/tradeoffs about OS X. But in this particular case, the only thing "dumbed down" here is your rant.
Homebrew is far superior to Macports or Fink IMO. In some ways I prefer brew install'ing to apt-get'ing. The packages are often far more up to date. I am not a fan of the transition from spaces to mission control. At least you can rearrange windows in mission control, before that update I was pretty unhappy with OS X.
> They changed that in Lion to every corner, every side. And you don't have to press ALT to do it.
You don't have to hold down ALT - you can do it without, holding down ALT increases the window edge hit area to make it easier to resize it.
> There's now a full-screen mode that takes care of that.
And makes using multiple monitors even more pathetic on OS X by effectively disabling other outputs - on top of the age-old problem of the menu for a window on a secondary monitor being displayed on the primary monitor, etc, etc...
> And makes using multiple monitors even more pathetic on OS X (the menu for a window on a secondary monitor being displayed on the primary monitor, etc, etc)...
Yes, that's one of my gripes too. Note that I didn't say OS X was perfect. I took issue with this pompous litany of faux issues.
> I took issue with this pompous litany of faux issues.
You are either accusing the poster of out-right deception in order to make OSX look back, or you are attacking the user for real issues that he/she came up against. Which is it?
(If it's the later, then I view this as the Mac version of the Linux literate telling new users to 'RTFM' instead of being helpful.)
Weder-noch (neither nor)!
I'd take the "pompous" back if I could. But yeah, "RTFM" (Mac edition); it's a good idea to put in some minimal search effort before writing a long list of pseudo-issues. There are real issues that could have been discussed instead and compared between systems to learn sth.
the age-old problem of the menu for a window on a secondary monitor being displayed on the primary monitor
That sounds very easy to fix when talking in a forum, but I bet there are a million corner cases. Worse, real users (as opposed to people who can look around a web page when a button moves) would have a hard time. "I have two file menus now, I'm scared!"
OS X isn't perfect, but, for the problem it's trying to solve, it does a really good job. I still don't have a better alternative for my needs that range from scripting and compiling through photoshop and sales presentations. Especially one that works so reliably in a consumer environment.
I'm about to buy a new laptop. I've been putting a lot of thought into it, and Linux just isn't there yet (mostly 3rd party apps I need) and Windows lack of unix underpinnings means fighting Cygwin or running a VM all the time (though I'm finally starting to get the mid-to-late 90s taste of Microsoft out of my mouth :).
>> I just want to see hidden files in Finder, why is that so hard?
> defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE ?
> Or just use the terminal ?
You just proved his point.
> You just proved his point.
Granted, it's not candy-color obvious. But for a developer working on Linux, "hard" should represent a different barrier than for Joe Sixpack, yes?
There is a distinction between "doable" and "usable".
I should switch to Terminal every time I want to toggle hidden file visibility?
Or write a service to install on my Finder toolbar. (I did this, because I'm not Joe Sixpack, but it's still annoying. If I wanted to write my own UI, I wouldn't have gone out and bought one.)
Apple has decided that regular users should never see hidden files. I can see how this might be annoying to you, but I don't think I can be convinced that it's a bad justification.
>I should switch to Terminal every time I want to toggle hidden file visibility?
You only need to run that command once.
Someone wrote a little app that toggles it, but honestly, if you care that much about it to ask, just leave the hidden files visible all the time. I've found it to be the path of least confusion.
>> On a new linux machine I can apt-get most anything, but if I do need to compile something I just apt-get build-essentials and I'm ready to go, on OSX you have to download a DVD just to be able to compile stuff from source.
> Darwin ports? Fink?
I've used both for the past near-decade (fink for 4 years, now macports for the past 3), along with a Debian desktop, and they're much worse imo. They do the job sort of, but it's a mess. Stuff just outright breaks much more often than even in Debian 'unstable'; you'll install a package and it'll fail to compile, fail to link, a script will die, etc. Dependencies are a mess, especially as regards versions of interpreted languages (python/perl/etc.), and anything that interacts with X11 tends to be flaky. And the use of binary packages is still very spotty, so a simple install, if it pulls in big library dependencies, might spawn an hour or two of compilation, rather than a few minutes of installation.
It gets the job done somewhat, but I'm not really happy with the situation overall; for many things I prefer to use a Debian VirtualBox install, despite that also having some awkwardness.
I think some of the points are valid; there may be solutions but they are so obscure that people obviously never discover them. I've had a MBP for nearly a year now and never knew that Fn+Left/Right substituted for Home/End (thanks for the tip, btw). I can't see myself guessing Cmd+Shift+G to type paths into Finder either...
They're valid solutions but normally Linux is (not unjustifiably) castigated for requiring obscure wizardry to do things, I don't see why OSX should get away with it either.
It is wizardry because it is baked into the OS that people will use the mouse or they will dive in and learn the incantations.
What to go to the end of a line? Click there. FWIW, I prefer ctrl-e and the other emacs bindings myself.
One handy thing is that because OS X uses Command for most of its window-management and application hot-keys, control + key is almost always unmasked by the application. Why is this important? Control-A and Control-E work in almost any text input! They work in Adium, they work in Chrome for the location bar and this textarea, and I'm sure many others.
I was pleasantly surprised because the Windows/Linux systems tend to mask Control-A for select-all.
They changed that in Lion to every corner, every side. And you don't have to press ALT to do it
He meant, you can click anywhere in the window and use Alt. If you left-click, it moves the window. If you middle-click it (apparently - I did not know this) will resize the window.
Mac OS X has oddly small targets for many of the Window management things. You have to be careful with the mouse when finding a resize corner (Lion makes it a little better) and the traffic light buttons are such a frustration that I'm led to believe they are not really meant to be used in an efficient work flow. You're better off enabling double-click-to-minimize or using Cmd-H to make a window go away.
There's now a full-screen mode that takes care of that.
But that green button is still there and still behaves strangely.
It's funnily called the zoom button.
Naturally when you click it in iTunes you expect the iTunes window to.... shrink down to a compact size.
I know the purpose of it is to 'change the window size to fit the content' - a nice concept but doesn't seem intuitive or easy to grasp for everyone.
Darwin ports? Fink?
Haha. I tried to get rdiff-backup or duplicity installed using MacPorts on Lion - it started by trying to install python2.4. And failed.
Anyway, this is not much of problem with Mac OS X - but despite being a Unixy system, I found it odd that certain tools are actually easier to run on Windows that on a Mac (not all but some)
Overall I like Mac OS X - it has great boot/shut down/sleep times, it can run a bash prompt as well as Photoshop and Word. But I'm skeptical about its usability being, on the whole, better than a Windows 7 system.
It's better in certain ways but worse in others.
> Mac OS X has oddly small targets for many of the Window management things.
I actually like this about OS X. When i heard that Lion added resize-from-any-side, i was annoyed, because i feared it would be Windows 7-esque (in that on W7 there is this 20- or 30-pixel dead zone around the edges of every window where you can't get anything done except resize). I found the final implementation on OS X to be surprisingly good.
> Naturally when you click it in iTunes you expect the iTunes window to.... shrink down to a compact size. I know the purpose of it is to 'change the window size to fit the content' - a nice concept but doesn't seem intuitive or easy to grasp for everyone.
iTunes and Finder are outliers when it comes to what the zoom button does. To Apple's credit, a few versions ago they did try to make iTunes more consistent by making the zoom button work as described. However, there was an ENORMOUS backlash from people who liked the former behaviour and found the keyboard shortcut (OpenApple+M i think — it's in the menu somewhere, but i never use the mini-player because it's stupid) too excruciating to use instead, so they switched it back around for the next version.
I think your comments just highlight the user unfriendlyness. Am I really supposed to enter some cryptic shell command I copied from the internet to be able to see my hidden files?
I can never remember keyboard shortcuts, even for screenshots I have to Google every time because I make them only infrequently.
Instead of buying an alternative file manager, why not just install another OS...
There are a lot of options that are modified by the plist mechanism ("defaults write ..."). They tend to be little things of a very unixy character that serious nerds would like.
It makes about as much sense as changing a .login or .profile or .ssh/config or .emacs or .exrc or .Xdefaults or ... . At least it's always the same tools and the same file format.
Like you, I don't remember the screenshot shortcuts. I know vi and emacs bindings backwards and forwards, but I don't much like remembering special-purpose bindings. So I just use "Grab", the screenshot app (comes standard with OS X).
Grab saves in .tiff. If you want .png, just use:
defaults write com.apple.screencapture type png
;-)
> I think your comments just highlight the user unfriendlyness.
More like I invested some time to learn the system I use.
But I'm curious, which system do you suggest is so "user friendly" that everything is instantly and intuitively discoverable without resort to documentation or google whatsoever? Or are you telling me that you learnt, I presume, Linux incantations from staring at the keyboard and deep breathing?
> Am I really supposed to enter some cryptic shell command
Yes, you are. It's a standard shell command. You can even look it up on Google in 5 secs. You want every option and contingency printed on the screen or keyboard?
> I can never remember keyboard shortcuts
My rule is, if I really need a shortcut, I'll remember it because I use it so often; if I only need it sometimes, I look it up in my notes or on Google; and if I only use it once or twice, what's the use of the shortcut in the first place? I disable it (if it's on by default) and save the combination for sth I might actually use.
> Instead of buying an alternative file manager, why not just install another OS...
Yeah right, and if a fly flies through your window, I assume you also pull out the flame thrower, yes? :-D
The full-screen mode is terrible. It leaves everything but your main monitor completely empty, making it essentially unusable for anyone with multiple monitors.
Homebrew is awesome but it should be way easier to compile from source without installing Xcode.
> > In the default Terminal app, there are no shortcuts (at least none that I could figure out) for moving around the text I'm typing quickly, like going forward and back a whole word, or going Home or End, you have to hold down the left or right arrows for a while.
> The keyboard tab in Terminal's preferences? Or switch from Emacs-like to Vim-like navigation in the terminal?
Here's some Terminal editing text:
- `alt-left / right` skips a word in either direction (these work in the entire cocoa text system)
- `esc backspace` deletes an entire word
- `ctrl-a and ctrl-e` skip to the beginning and end of the line respectively (again, entire cocoa text system)
- `ctrl-k` deletes any character from the cursor to the end of line (ditto)
Also, learning how to use these bash tricks will make your life a lot easier too:
- `!!` will repeat the previous command, and you can prefix it. Say you forgot to `sudo` something, just type `sudo !!` to repeat it.
- `!whatever` will repeat the last command in the history starting with `whatever`.
- `!$` will evaluate to the argument of the previous command. so `ls Desktop` followed by `echo !$` will echo "Desktop."
> They changed that in Lion to every corner, every side. And you don't have to press ALT to do it.
But when you do press ALT .. magic! The window resizes on both sides! Awesome feature :-)
DarwinPorts/MacPorts, Fink, and Homebrew all require the OS X developer tools, so "you have to download a DVD just to be able to compile stuff from source" still applies.
I count myself as a Mac power user, but I definitely learned something from your post.
Perhaps there should be a "power user FAQ", one that covers "how to make Mac OS X 10.X more like Max OS X 10.(X-1)".
"the only thing "dumbed down" here is your rant."
What are you talking about? Almost all of your rejoinders are poorly discoverable or require unexpected amounts of effort.
fn-arrow left/fn-arrow right is a pretty pathetic substitute for actual home and end keys. I've never used a Mac for a prolonged period of time so can't speak to other points, but I am baffled at how people can do anything without those keys. When I try to debug some code on one of my coworkers' Macs I feel like I suddenly can't type anymore because of their absence, not bs'ing or exaggerating.