7 ms·

Say what you like about Apple, but having all these functions on the Cmd key instead is not just more logical, it's actually sane (doubly so for the terminal).

Say what you like about Apple, but having all these functions on the Cmd key instead is not just more logical, it's actually sane (doubly so for the terminal). I think MS has missed an enormous opportunity when they introduced the Win key; and X11 desktops, toolkits, and apps imitated the more familiar (rather than the better) solutions.

arcanemachiner 4y ago
I will concede that for once, Apple's insane keyboard mappings actually work in their favor. But I still won't get them any credit, since it is purely a coincidence that their mappings happened not to mess with this one browser game.
- outworlder 4y ago
  > it is purely a coincidence that their mappings happened not to mess with this one browser game. Not really a coincidence and that's not the only scenario where it's preferable to have a dedicated command key
  - account42 4y ago
    It is a coincidence. The issue is commands in the game clashing with the browser, an environment it was never meant to run in. Whatever command-key you want to use for shortcuts, both applications have equal claim to wanting to use them - is is about application shortcust vs. application shortcust not OS shortcuts vs. application shortcuts. It only works out because the game was developed for a different platform than the browser, which by coincidence uses a different key for commands.
  - jml7c5 4y ago
    It is a sort of coincidence that Apple decided the pinky finger button should be control rather than command. The other way around and crouch-jumping would be more difficult and you'd want to rebind it... but you would then run into the same keybind overlap issue as experienced on Windows/Linux.
- victorbstan 4y ago
  What’s insane about a standardized key mapping that is predictable across apps and works? On windows you can never be sure what any key combo will do from app to app.
  - conradfr 4y ago
    As a Windows user who has to use MacOS at work there's nothing predictable about "Cmd or Ctrl?". Habits, I guess.
- bobbylarrybobby 4y ago
  It's a whole extra button, how is it a coincidence. (Yes windows has the windows button but it isn't a modifier in the same way.)
- LordDragonfang 4y ago
  The control key was designed with the intent of subtracting 0x60 (or 0x40 if you assume the base state is caps) from a character code to send a control code. It's not some coincidence that "ctrl-c" sends an interrupt on the console, if you take a look at any ascii table[1] you can see it was designed that way. Repurposing that key to instead perform unrelated arbitrary commands is the insane move, and it only seems normal because you grew up using Windows and never thought to question it. Apple's mappings make much more sense, especially with both OSs having a Meta key. [1] https://www.asciitable.com/ https://www.asciitable.com/
- shepherdjerred 4y ago
  It comes in handy in terminals as well. You can use CMD + C to copy, CTRL + C to send a code.
  - pornel 4y ago
    This is the primary reason why I haven't switched to Linux yet.
- rtpg 4y ago
  I mean it's an intentional design decision to avoid using ctrl for OS shortcuts. Coincidence is a bit much! (Not an Apple partisan, stopped using Macs when I couldn't open iTunes without being pitched Apple Music)
outworlder 4y ago
One thousand times this. Even though there are exceptions, it makes for a far better experience. Even as I am writing this: control+A is Emacs-like keybindings, goes to the beginning of the line. Under Windows and even Linux, depending on the app it's probably going to run "select all", and we have to resort to home and end (but then these also have a chance of scrolling stuff). It's good to know that "command" will run commands. Easier to explain to new users too. The Windows key is indeed a missed opportunity. The main reason the opportunity was missed is likely to be because Microsoft did not control the hardware. Even after Windows 95 was introduced, many keyboards continued to lack the Windows key for quite a while. How do you deal with that? Not allowing apps to run? Having a fallback for when there isn't a windows key? Now the interface is inconsistent.
- peoplefromibiza 4y ago
  > Under Windows and even Linux, depending on the app it's probably going to run "select all" that's CUA. Which is a much nicer and saner standard than Emacs/Vi keybindings.
  - spudlyo 4y ago
    We're going to have to agree to disagree on that one. I love that macOS uses the command key for traditional CUA bindings, leaving control sequences open for me to continue using my Emacs style keybindings in all cocoa text widgets.
    - peoplefromibiza 4y ago
      that doesn't change the fact that CTL+S -> CMD+S CTL+W -> CMD+w CTL+q -> CMD+q etc. it's basically the same list, on a different key, which doesn't really change anything. on Emacs it's only a matter of remapping those keys, if someone wanted to one could easily do it on every system. I've been forced to use Windows lately and thanks to Microsoft Powertoys I've remapped all the relevant keybindings to the ones I'm used to. It took 2 minutes total. I could have used the windows key, but why? what's the advantage? so that I could play CS online in a browser? BTW on CS, if I remember correctly, to duck you simply press the left CTL, but in this version the key is C it is also very clearly specified in the help to use CTL only in full screen mode so the entire thread is based on false information. https://i.imgur.com/kIRmHXT.png https://i.imgur.com/kIRmHXT.png
chungy 4y ago
Can't speak for Windows, but GNOME and KDE heavily use the window key by default for DE and window management functions. Applications are pretty free to use control and alt keys to their heart's desire (they're free to use the window key too, but if the DE/WM captures a particular hot key, it won't work... it's not often that applications try to actually use it).
- account42 4y ago
  Pretty sure Alt+TAB and Alt+F4 are default window management shortcuts on at least KDE.
peoplefromibiza 4y ago
the point of the CTRL key is to send CONTROL messages anyway, this is just a coincidence, CS was a Windows only exclusive-full-screen game where those combinations had no possible conflict no one thought we would be playing CS in a browser in the future on Macs the CMD key is simply a poor man's CTRL key, except when you are in a terminal, where you have to use CTRL again... doesn't sound so well thought.
- rollcat 4y ago
  > on Macs the CMD key is simply a poor man's CTRL key, except when you are in a terminal, where you have to use CTRL again... Let me check. Cmd-F in Notes.app, finds things in the current note. Cmd-F in Terminal.app, finds things in the current terminal session's history. Cmd-C in Calendar.app, copies an event. Cmd-C in Terminal.app, copies the selected text. Cmd-T in Finder.app, opens a tab. Cmd-T in Terminal.app, opens a tab. Cmd-W closes the current window/tab. Cmd-Q quits the app. Cmd-S saves. And so on, in any app, tracing back to 1984 or so. Whereas Ctrl-C, Ctrl-T, Ctrl-F, Ctrl-S, on Windows/Linux... all do wildly different things, depending whether you are in an xterm, cmd.exe, a game, Emacs, or some other app. You know what else? Ctrl-C in Terminal.app does the same thing as Ctrl-C in an xterm. This sort of thing is consistent in every app. You're literally having your cake and eating it too. Windows couldn't use Ctrl-W to mean "close the current tab" in every single application, because - indeed, in a game, holding down Ctrl could mean crouch/sneak, and W to move forward. Windows could've chosen to use Win-W for that, but ignored the opportunity. > anyway, this is just a coincidence One of these patterns visible here is deliberate design, the other is piled up coincidences. I don't think it's that easy to confuse one for the other?
  - peoplefromibiza 4y ago
    > Cmd-F in Terminal.app, finds things in the current terminal session's history. > Cmd-C in Terminal.app, copies the selected text. you gotta love Mac users and their cultural bubble these are non standard keybindings for a Unix shell so if you are in every other Unix, you have to relearn them Apple is basically crippling you and locking you in, teaching you the wrong way to do stuff. It's like learning Italian from Mario Bros and a few stereotypes about gestures taken from American stand ups. But people seem so happy of their ignorance nowadays that I am probably on the wrong side here. > in a game, holding down Ctrl could mean crouch/sneak what happens in a game stays in a game, it doesn't really matter the game has exclusive control of the inputs, they could remap every button to do everything who really cares? When I'm in VSCode the left mouse click doesn't shoot at anything... is it an incorrect behaviour?
skunkworker 4y ago
Personally thumb + C and thumb + V on apple keyboards always felt a lot easier than pinky finger + C and pinky finger + V which just felt and still feels weird.
- zerd 4y ago
  Cmd+Shift+T is fine to hold to re-open a tab, but Ctrl+Shift+T makes my hands hurt on a regular keyboard. It's also annoying to have to switch between Ctrl+C to copy in normal apps, but in a terminal that would cancel the command, so you have to do Ctrl+Shift+C there. On a mac keyboard it's always the same. I've tried to use e.g. autohotkey to get the same consistency but it's rather annoying (need to inspect which window is active, sometimes doesn't work).
l2silver 4y ago
Try zooming in without a right click button. It's fun!
- dieortin 4y ago
  If you don’t have a trackpad, just cmd + scroll?
  - l2silver 4y ago
    and if you do have a track pad?
    - Zagill 4y ago
      Are you talking about the game or in general? MacBook trackpads have pretty intuitive gestures, just pinch zoom or two-finger scroll with cmd. If you're talking about the game, I don't know of any trackpad that isn't clunky as hell to play an FPS with
efxhoy 4y ago
The default keyboard layout is a big reason why I keep using macs tbh. I’ve used windows all my life and used a bunch of linux distros but the only os where my fingers are comfortable is on a mac. Swedish ISO btw.
- LAC-Tech 4y ago
  Not trying to convert anyone, but changing keybindings is pretty easy in almost any unix window manager and/or desktop environment I've ever tried.
  - efxhoy 4y ago
    Sure, it’s definitely possible. But getting a consistent layout, copy paste behavior and locale setup I like across editor, terminal, tmux, file explorer and browser in a Swedish ISO layout is a surprisingly big chore. I know a few Swedish programmers who use ANSI US keyboards and have special bindings for our Å,Ä,Ö characters.
  - Zagill 4y ago
    I haven't looked in a while but I could never find an easy way to mimic macOS's cmd/ctrl behavior in Linux. Being able to cmd+c to copy from a terminal window comes in clutch.
    - rollcat 4y ago
      https://kinto.sh/ https://kinto.sh/
    - LAC-Tech 4y ago
      Ctrl+Shift+C
      - Zagill 4y ago
        Not saying it's what's keeping me from using Linux for everything or anything, but that's a more annoying shortcut and also requires me to not accidently do the same key combo that gets used in every other application. It's nice that I can muscle-memory cmd+c on my Mac and not have to think about it when I'm using the terminal specifically

arcanemachiner 4y ago

I will concede that for once, Apple's insane keyboard mappings actually work in their favor. But I still won't get them any credit, since it is purely a coincidence that their mappings happened not to mess with this one browser game.

outworlder 4y ago
> it is purely a coincidence that their mappings happened not to mess with this one browser game. Not really a coincidence and that's not the only scenario where it's preferable to have a dedicated command key
- account42 4y ago
  It is a coincidence. The issue is commands in the game clashing with the browser, an environment it was never meant to run in. Whatever command-key you want to use for shortcuts, both applications have equal claim to wanting to use them - is is about application shortcust vs. application shortcust not OS shortcuts vs. application shortcuts. It only works out because the game was developed for a different platform than the browser, which by coincidence uses a different key for commands.
- jml7c5 4y ago
  It is a sort of coincidence that Apple decided the pinky finger button should be control rather than command. The other way around and crouch-jumping would be more difficult and you'd want to rebind it... but you would then run into the same keybind overlap issue as experienced on Windows/Linux.
victorbstan 4y ago
What’s insane about a standardized key mapping that is predictable across apps and works? On windows you can never be sure what any key combo will do from app to app.
- conradfr 4y ago
  As a Windows user who has to use MacOS at work there's nothing predictable about "Cmd or Ctrl?". Habits, I guess.
bobbylarrybobby 4y ago
It's a whole extra button, how is it a coincidence. (Yes windows has the windows button but it isn't a modifier in the same way.)
LordDragonfang 4y ago
The control key was designed with the intent of subtracting 0x60 (or 0x40 if you assume the base state is caps) from a character code to send a control code. It's not some coincidence that "ctrl-c" sends an interrupt on the console, if you take a look at any ascii table[1] you can see it was designed that way. Repurposing that key to instead perform unrelated arbitrary commands is the insane move, and it only seems normal because you grew up using Windows and never thought to question it. Apple's mappings make much more sense, especially with both OSs having a Meta key. [1] https://www.asciitable.com/ https://www.asciitable.com/
shepherdjerred 4y ago
It comes in handy in terminals as well. You can use CMD + C to copy, CTRL + C to send a code.
- pornel 4y ago
  This is the primary reason why I haven't switched to Linux yet.
rtpg 4y ago
I mean it's an intentional design decision to avoid using ctrl for OS shortcuts. Coincidence is a bit much! (Not an Apple partisan, stopped using Macs when I couldn't open iTunes without being pitched Apple Music)

outworlder 4y ago

One thousand times this. Even though there are exceptions, it makes for a far better experience. Even as I am writing this: control+A is Emacs-like keybindings, goes to the beginning of the line. Under Windows and even Linux, depending on the app it's probably going to run "select all", and we have to resort to home and end (but then these also have a chance of scrolling stuff). It's good to know that "command" will run commands. Easier to explain to new users too. The Windows key is indeed a missed opportunity. The main reason the opportunity was missed is likely to be because Microsoft did not control the hardware. Even after Windows 95 was introduced, many keyboards continued to lack the Windows key for quite a while. How do you deal with that? Not allowing apps to run? Having a fallback for when there isn't a windows key? Now the interface is inconsistent.

peoplefromibiza 4y ago
> Under Windows and even Linux, depending on the app it's probably going to run "select all" that's CUA. Which is a much nicer and saner standard than Emacs/Vi keybindings.
- spudlyo 4y ago
  We're going to have to agree to disagree on that one. I love that macOS uses the command key for traditional CUA bindings, leaving control sequences open for me to continue using my Emacs style keybindings in all cocoa text widgets.
  - peoplefromibiza 4y ago
    that doesn't change the fact that CTL+S -> CMD+S CTL+W -> CMD+w CTL+q -> CMD+q etc. it's basically the same list, on a different key, which doesn't really change anything. on Emacs it's only a matter of remapping those keys, if someone wanted to one could easily do it on every system. I've been forced to use Windows lately and thanks to Microsoft Powertoys I've remapped all the relevant keybindings to the ones I'm used to. It took 2 minutes total. I could have used the windows key, but why? what's the advantage? so that I could play CS online in a browser? BTW on CS, if I remember correctly, to duck you simply press the left CTL, but in this version the key is C it is also very clearly specified in the help to use CTL only in full screen mode so the entire thread is based on false information. https://i.imgur.com/kIRmHXT.png https://i.imgur.com/kIRmHXT.png

chungy 4y ago

Can't speak for Windows, but GNOME and KDE heavily use the window key by default for DE and window management functions. Applications are pretty free to use control and alt keys to their heart's desire (they're free to use the window key too, but if the DE/WM captures a particular hot key, it won't work... it's not often that applications try to actually use it).

account42 4y ago
Pretty sure Alt+TAB and Alt+F4 are default window management shortcuts on at least KDE.

peoplefromibiza 4y ago

the point of the CTRL key is to send CONTROL messages anyway, this is just a coincidence, CS was a Windows only exclusive-full-screen game where those combinations had no possible conflict no one thought we would be playing CS in a browser in the future on Macs the CMD key is simply a poor man's CTRL key, except when you are in a terminal, where you have to use CTRL again... doesn't sound so well thought.

rollcat 4y ago
> on Macs the CMD key is simply a poor man's CTRL key, except when you are in a terminal, where you have to use CTRL again... Let me check. Cmd-F in Notes.app, finds things in the current note. Cmd-F in Terminal.app, finds things in the current terminal session's history. Cmd-C in Calendar.app, copies an event. Cmd-C in Terminal.app, copies the selected text. Cmd-T in Finder.app, opens a tab. Cmd-T in Terminal.app, opens a tab. Cmd-W closes the current window/tab. Cmd-Q quits the app. Cmd-S saves. And so on, in any app, tracing back to 1984 or so. Whereas Ctrl-C, Ctrl-T, Ctrl-F, Ctrl-S, on Windows/Linux... all do wildly different things, depending whether you are in an xterm, cmd.exe, a game, Emacs, or some other app. You know what else? Ctrl-C in Terminal.app does the same thing as Ctrl-C in an xterm. This sort of thing is consistent in every app. You're literally having your cake and eating it too. Windows couldn't use Ctrl-W to mean "close the current tab" in every single application, because - indeed, in a game, holding down Ctrl could mean crouch/sneak, and W to move forward. Windows could've chosen to use Win-W for that, but ignored the opportunity. > anyway, this is just a coincidence One of these patterns visible here is deliberate design, the other is piled up coincidences. I don't think it's that easy to confuse one for the other?
- peoplefromibiza 4y ago
  > Cmd-F in Terminal.app, finds things in the current terminal session's history. > Cmd-C in Terminal.app, copies the selected text. you gotta love Mac users and their cultural bubble these are non standard keybindings for a Unix shell so if you are in every other Unix, you have to relearn them Apple is basically crippling you and locking you in, teaching you the wrong way to do stuff. It's like learning Italian from Mario Bros and a few stereotypes about gestures taken from American stand ups. But people seem so happy of their ignorance nowadays that I am probably on the wrong side here. > in a game, holding down Ctrl could mean crouch/sneak what happens in a game stays in a game, it doesn't really matter the game has exclusive control of the inputs, they could remap every button to do everything who really cares? When I'm in VSCode the left mouse click doesn't shoot at anything... is it an incorrect behaviour?

skunkworker 4y ago

Personally thumb + C and thumb + V on apple keyboards always felt a lot easier than pinky finger + C and pinky finger + V which just felt and still feels weird.

zerd 4y ago
Cmd+Shift+T is fine to hold to re-open a tab, but Ctrl+Shift+T makes my hands hurt on a regular keyboard. It's also annoying to have to switch between Ctrl+C to copy in normal apps, but in a terminal that would cancel the command, so you have to do Ctrl+Shift+C there. On a mac keyboard it's always the same. I've tried to use e.g. autohotkey to get the same consistency but it's rather annoying (need to inspect which window is active, sometimes doesn't work).

l2silver 4y ago

Try zooming in without a right click button. It's fun!

dieortin 4y ago
If you don’t have a trackpad, just cmd + scroll?
- l2silver 4y ago
  and if you do have a track pad?
  - Zagill 4y ago
    Are you talking about the game or in general? MacBook trackpads have pretty intuitive gestures, just pinch zoom or two-finger scroll with cmd. If you're talking about the game, I don't know of any trackpad that isn't clunky as hell to play an FPS with

efxhoy 4y ago

The default keyboard layout is a big reason why I keep using macs tbh. I’ve used windows all my life and used a bunch of linux distros but the only os where my fingers are comfortable is on a mac. Swedish ISO btw.

LAC-Tech 4y ago
Not trying to convert anyone, but changing keybindings is pretty easy in almost any unix window manager and/or desktop environment I've ever tried.
- efxhoy 4y ago
  Sure, it’s definitely possible. But getting a consistent layout, copy paste behavior and locale setup I like across editor, terminal, tmux, file explorer and browser in a Swedish ISO layout is a surprisingly big chore. I know a few Swedish programmers who use ANSI US keyboards and have special bindings for our Å,Ä,Ö characters.
- Zagill 4y ago
  I haven't looked in a while but I could never find an easy way to mimic macOS's cmd/ctrl behavior in Linux. Being able to cmd+c to copy from a terminal window comes in clutch.
  - rollcat 4y ago
    https://kinto.sh/ https://kinto.sh/
  - LAC-Tech 4y ago
    Ctrl+Shift+C
    - Zagill 4y ago
      Not saying it's what's keeping me from using Linux for everything or anything, but that's a more annoying shortcut and also requires me to not accidently do the same key combo that gets used in every other application. It's nice that I can muscle-memory cmd+c on my Mac and not have to think about it when I'm using the terminal specifically