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Thanks for the thoughtful reply. Most of what you cite here isn't dependent on the single-menu design, however. Application startup time, the way things are li

Thanks for the thoughtful reply. Most of what you cite here isn't dependent on the single-menu design, however. Application startup time, the way things are listed in Alt-Tab galleries, "background agents..." Valid beefs, perhaps, but none is related to the single-menu issue. "I like the single menu bar; every app has one, and it's always in the same place, and it's always the foremost app's" That's simply not true. I can have one application on my Mac screen, Safari, and yet the menu belongs to Mail. That's just dumb. You do correctly call out one of the (sadly plentiful) regressions in Windows: the sudden deletion of the standard menu from many applications' window frames. It was just as "findable" as the Mac's for most of Windows's existence, but now it's just often... missing. WTF? The Office UI is an absolute shitshow, and the rest of Windows has been circling the drain for years. Therefore no, I don't think the Mac should be a copy of Windows. I just hate the single-menu design and the pervasive UI clumsiness that has emanated from it. Any mode of operation it offers can also be offered by any other windowing GUI, minus of course the glued-in-place single menu... actually, you can mimic even that by maximizing your applications and Alt-Tabbing between them.

dividedbyzero 4y ago
> > "I like the single menu bar; every app has one, and it's always in the same place, and it's always the foremost app's" > That's simply not true. I can have one application on my Mac screen, Safari, and yet the menu belongs to Mail. That's just dumb. Right, it's the one belonging to the active application, not the foremost one (though, most often, the two will be the same). On Windows, an application and its main UI are very tightly coupled; macOS sees the two as separate entities, and I think Mail is a good example for an app where that totally makes sense, since that way I can open a new e-mail dialog without going through the main UI; just Cmd+Tab to Mail, Cmd+N, or Cmd+0 if I need the main UI, and if I don't explicitly close it or minimize it (and Cmd+H instead or just Cmd+Tab back to the browser or whatever) it'll come right up when I Cmd+Tab to Mail. I think that's a pretty smart way of doing things. Similarly, with Finder, I can just hit Cmd+K for the "Connect to Server" dialog, Enter, and I'm on my NAS since it remembers the last server address. No unneeded Explorer window popping up, no mouse required, pretty quick. I can close the current browser window and keep a minimized window with a few tabs I'll need for an activity later this evening, because the browser doesn't have to have a UI just to be active. Those tabs sit down there and out of the way, but I still have them and their state. Windows would force the minimized window to the foreground when I Alt+Tab to the browser, and it's hard to think of a system-wide scheme that does what you want, but still allows for this. I think actually the macOS paradigm is quite a bit more flexible. > Therefore no, I don't think the Mac should be a copy of Windows. I just hate the single-menu design and the pervasive UI clumsiness that has emanated from it. How tightly an app and its UI are coupled has nothing to do with the single menubar. It does sound like you have a very strong preference for the way Windows does things, and you expect things to work that way, and where they don't, you hate that. Why don't you just stick with Windows? After all, the great thing about having options is that I can have the macOS way and you can have the Windows way and we can all be happy.

dividedbyzero 4y ago

> > "I like the single menu bar; every app has one, and it's always in the same place, and it's always the foremost app's" > That's simply not true. I can have one application on my Mac screen, Safari, and yet the menu belongs to Mail. That's just dumb. Right, it's the one belonging to the active application, not the foremost one (though, most often, the two will be the same). On Windows, an application and its main UI are very tightly coupled; macOS sees the two as separate entities, and I think Mail is a good example for an app where that totally makes sense, since that way I can open a new e-mail dialog without going through the main UI; just Cmd+Tab to Mail, Cmd+N, or Cmd+0 if I need the main UI, and if I don't explicitly close it or minimize it (and Cmd+H instead or just Cmd+Tab back to the browser or whatever) it'll come right up when I Cmd+Tab to Mail. I think that's a pretty smart way of doing things. Similarly, with Finder, I can just hit Cmd+K for the "Connect to Server" dialog, Enter, and I'm on my NAS since it remembers the last server address. No unneeded Explorer window popping up, no mouse required, pretty quick. I can close the current browser window and keep a minimized window with a few tabs I'll need for an activity later this evening, because the browser doesn't have to have a UI just to be active. Those tabs sit down there and out of the way, but I still have them and their state. Windows would force the minimized window to the foreground when I Alt+Tab to the browser, and it's hard to think of a system-wide scheme that does what you want, but still allows for this. I think actually the macOS paradigm is quite a bit more flexible. > Therefore no, I don't think the Mac should be a copy of Windows. I just hate the single-menu design and the pervasive UI clumsiness that has emanated from it. How tightly an app and its UI are coupled has nothing to do with the single menubar. It does sound like you have a very strong preference for the way Windows does things, and you expect things to work that way, and where they don't, you hate that. Why don't you just stick with Windows? After all, the great thing about having options is that I can have the macOS way and you can have the Windows way and we can all be happy.