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I shouldn’t have to try so hard to make multitasking work on a Mac
- Zetice 3y agoEr, what's wrong with command+tilde exactly? command+tab and command+tilde seem like they'd combo to solve the author's issues pretty completely. That said, I have 5 workspaces bound to command+1 through command+5 that I flip through on my macs, and that works pretty well. Honestly I find working on a Windows machine to be much worse for multitasking due to its lack of that functionality. I also used to use Divvy with some specific keybinds to organize my windows, but Divvy is no longer supported and I haven't yet found a tool that makes it easy to replicate that functionality quite the way I liked it.
- retrocryptid 3y agoThe specific problem I have is you used to be able to have a window float between virtual desktops, but that recently went away. FWIW, I spent most of my time on a real OS ssh'd into my mac. Assuming networking started on the Mac when I last rebooted it. Why do people put up with macOS?
- Zetice 3y agoThis sounds like a problem you encountered in like 2006 and have harbored it ever since.
- retrocryptid 3y agoI encountered this problem this morning. Which is why the hurt is so fresh. If you haven't encountered it since 2006, then count yourself as lucky. (Actually, 10.4 and 10.5 on PPC hardware seemed to work well for me. I don't remember ever having to manually adjust settings/preferences to make my wacom tablet work. And that was at a time when Windows was kind of a **-show. If only we could get back to the consistency of 10.3.)
- Zetice 3y agoI've been using macs for a few decades now and have not in any meaningful sense encountered an issue around networking failing to start on startup.
- retrocryptid 3y agoGood for you. If you were the only macOS user, we could say macOS doesn't have this problem. But there are other macOS users who do have this problem, so we can't.
- Zetice 3y ago> But there are other macOS users who do have this problem, Are there?
- postmodest 3y agoThis is what I use multiple monitors for. I used to "have" your problem, but the multiple monitor solution fixed it. Or using an iPad.
- retrocryptid 3y agoI'm not buying an iPad to paste over problems with Apple's flagship operating system. Also. I do not want to use multiple monitors. There's a fundamental disconnect here. I my world, the user gets to define what they want and the computer responds to those needs.
- retrocryptid 3y agoExcept that the author explicitly said command-tilde didn't work for their requirements.
- Zetice 3y agoExcept it does based on their description of their problem, my point is I don't believe them. This begins to look like the kind of article someone might write when they have a deadline and nothing else to say...
- retrocryptid 3y agoExcept that the author EXPLICITLY says it does not work for them.
- inconceivable 3y agolmao the claim is that the author is bullshitting, not whatever you're talking about.
- retrocryptid 3y agoRead the article. The author explicitly mentions the list of things they don't like. It's completely fine that you like it. Neither I nor the author are attacking you for liking a feature of macOS. We are both saying there are features we don't like and would like Apple to keep trying for better alternatives. In this sense, I'm using the word "alternatives" to mean people who like the existing interface can continue to use the existing interface, but those of us who do not like it can have an alternate, improved experience.
- Zetice 3y agoI was just (playfully, I hope) saying the trick of putting the apparent solution at the top of your article in an ironic "this doesn't work" way isn't an effective way of addressing why that solution doesn't work here.
- stevenkkim 3y agoFor me, I hate having the extra mental overhead of thinking "am I switching windows between apps or in the same app"? I just want to switch windows. I often pick the wrong shortcut.
- Zetice 3y agoWhen you start "hating" additional functionality, that might be a moment to think about whether it's really the service's fault or if you're curmudgeoning it a bit.
- retrocryptid 3y agoWhen you tell people they don't understand their own requirements, you're fan-boying a bit. You sound like an Apple product manager.
- Zetice 3y agoI think it's more likely you're an Apple hater, considering I use Windows and macOS daily (and Linux too I guess if you want to count the EC2s I have to SSH to now and then).
- retrocryptid 3y agoUh... I understand that as an Apple Fanboi you're required blame the user if they don't like Steve Jobs immaculate creation. But as it turns out, I am a user with very basic requirements for my MBP: if an external monitor is plugged in, use it; if a wired ethernet dongle is plugged in, make it available for use without having to set too many defaults; if I hit the power key on an external keyboard, turn on. These are all things I've seen other macs do. <snark> But you're right. I'm a hater for wanting my MBP to boot and use external monitors. </snark>
- Zetice 3y agoThose things are already true for macs generally, your issues notwithstanding (though you seem to flit between criticizing the hardware and the OS, not sure you even know why your issue is happening), and if you think you wouldn't have these issues with Windows, why use an MBP at all? Surely the mighty Bill Gates will save you from your troubles, yeah? And not for nothing, but Steve Jobs was a prodigiously arrogant asshole who had very little (if anything at all) to do with the Apple of today, and nearly nothing at all to do with how macOS functions now. The man literally killed himself with his own hubris.
- retrocryptid 3y agoSubmitting this article from last year on the hopes that someone from Apple reads HN. I would say macOS shouldn't be this hard. I have to write multiple properties to make facetime work on my MBP? Have to use a third-party app to replicate the "window on every virtual screen" feature embedded in every x/windows window manager (except TWM)? I have to edit properties through the command line to get wired ethernet to work with a third party dongle? Reboot my machine three or four times before the MBP recognizes an external monitor? And I'm not paying $99 for a dev account so I can find the docs that tell me how to turn on logging. And it would be cool if ANY of the #a11y features from several years ago still worked with modern apps. And the latest OS update broke compatibility with THE CHARGING BRICK? I have to buy a new charger so I can use the latest OS? What? (fortunately I figured out where in the properties tree to point the defaults tool to fix this.) But now I'm just ranting. As best I can tell, the only reason to use an MBP is so you can write iOS programs. But my customer really thinks the Apple ecosystem is cool, even though we target Linux in the cloud. Oh. Also. Why/how does macOS break BOTH parallels and VirtualBox between revs? Fortunately the latest VirtualBox works with the latest macOS. I will be very happy to leave this engagement in the past. Seems like I'm spending 20% of my time keeping a terminal window working on the mac. And I'm coming from a position of really loving NeXTStep and Classic Macs. In the classic era, we had consistent design guidance. Now it's a mish-mash of random recommendations which may or may not carry on to the next OS rev. And NeXTStep had it's problems, but at least it booted consistently. I know there are a lot of apple fans out here, so go ahead and down-vote me. Sorry for bruising your ego. But the objective of this post is to try to reach someone at Apple who has the ability to make things better for non-fans.
- nickelcitymario 3y ago> And I'm coming from a position of really loving NeXTStep and Classic Macs. In the classic era, we had consistent design guidance. Now it's a mish-mash of random recommendations which may or may not carry on to the next OS rev. And NeXTStep had it's problems, but at least it booted consistently. If your argument is that Linux or Windows are any better on this front, I beg to differ. Don't get me wrong. I love Linux. But it's hardly a bastion of design consistency or user-friendliness. As for Windows? I mean... come on. When's the last time anyone tried to steal design ideas from Microsoft? Everything good about Windows was stolen from somewhere else, and, in my not-so-humble opinion, implemented poorly.
- nickelcitymario 3y agoI don't like to shame people usually, but this article reads a little something like "Boomer tries something different, is upset by differences." I very productively multitask on my Mac and have for decades. I wouldn't personally want to go back to a Windows environment, but I'm not so arrogant as to claim multitasking isn't possible on Windows. It's just a different platform and there's a learning curve whenever you have to get used to any new platform. But I would argue that it's much easier for a Windows person to learn a Mac than the other way around. I may be biased, but it's my honest opinion.
- retrocryptid 3y agoNo no. The idea was that an Apple employee would read the complaint and think about how they can improve their product, not shame the user. But nice try. PROTIP: If you don't want to shame people, try not shaming them.
- NikkiA 3y agoThe way they work screams that they want bspwm, i3, or sway really.
- retrocryptid 3y agoKinda. They mention "snap to grid" which you would probably WANT to use with something like a tiling WM. But windows snap-to-grid is slightly different. You can still snap windows to hidden grid lines that move through existing windows. So you can get an overlap, but I don't think most people do that. But the author mentions coming from Windows instead of Leenooks, so my guess is they don't know the loveliness of i3. (Though I have to admit... i3 defaults aren't my favorites. And vi keybindings are foreign to my emacs trained fingers. Which is why I just have a script that moves my windows around a Gnome or LXDE desktop.)
- NikkiA 3y agoTo be fair, windows' window manager has some tiling/bsp style features these days, but IME it's never quite enough, and doesn't work easily in conjunction with the windows equivalent of workspaces, resulting in the whole thing being klunky