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I’ve tried switching from Windows to MacOS three times over the past few years and each time I run up against the wall of having to research, choose and purchas

I’ve tried switching from Windows to MacOS three times over the past few years and each time I run up against the wall of having to research, choose and purchase small utilities to fix things that I never in a million years would’ve guessed would be an issue. Windows management. File handler. Menu bar organizers. The list goes on.

jmuguy 2y ago
Well some of this is just getting used to MacOS though - Finder is a pretty huge adjustment (and honestly just not as good as Explorer). I agree that window management was probably the biggest sticking point for me. That being said - beyond being able to drag and snap windows side by side in Windows, I wasn't aware of any built-in management (or at least - thats all I missed when I switched a while back) that was missing in MacOS.
- jwells89 2y ago
  Yeah, a lot of the friction comes from macOS being one of the only surviving major desktops that isn’t based on a Win9X paradigm, instead being a blend of classic Mac OS and NeXTSTEP (both dating back to the 80s) with a smattering of modern Apple. For longtime Mac users, Windows (and winlike Linux DEs) present almost as much friction.
- djhn 2y ago
  I’m so used to column view as a metaphor for my files and directories that I don’t understand how non-mac people deal with essentially being forced to memorise their directory structure and hierarchy.
  - eviks 2y ago
    DOpus has a collapsible tree view with a few big issues remaining (don't think it has columns, but I don't find them useful on a Mac either, also use tree view there)
bityard 2y ago
If you hold down an alphanumeric key in MacOS, it automatically pops up an emoji selector. This is fine, except if you are someone (like me) who occasionally holds down keys to take advantage of key repeat _and_ uses vim keybindings in a few specific non-terminal applications. There is no GUI to disable this behavior, you have to drop to a terminal, run a command, and then reboot the machine. This is the example I now use whenever a Mac user says Linux is a pain to configure.
- chuckadams 2y ago
  Whenever you hold down a key in Linux, it always repeats, and there is no GUI to turn this into an accented character selector. Or any other means because there is no such selector to be had. Not a big knock on Linux though, because it has a working compose key instead. Also, you don't need to reboot after toggling ApplePressAndHoldEnabled, but you do need to restart apps.
- SebastianKra 2y ago
  defaults write NSGlobalDomain ApplePressAndHoldEnabled -bool false and while you're here, check out these other fixes: expand the save dialog by default: defaults write NSGlobalDomain NSNavPanelExpandedStateForSaveMode -bool true defaults write NSGlobalDomain NSNavPanelExpandedStateForSaveMode2 -bool true don't save .DS_Store to network locations defaults write com.apple.desktopservices DSDontWriteNetworkStores true bring up the hidden dock faster defaults write com.apple.dock autohide-time-modifier -float 0.15; Shut up gatekeeper spctl --master-disable I had almost forgotten how much annoying manual fixes you need to make this system usable, until I went through my notes...
  - magnio 2y ago
    Thanks for the helpful tips. Tangential but is there any free way to change the scroll direction of trackpad and mouse independently and to disable scroll acceleration? I have tried Mac Mouse Fix but it is not free.
    - bityard 2y ago
bhokbah 2y ago
As a long time mac user I have zero utilities installed. If you want to turn your mac into windows, maybe just use windows.
- Sohcahtoa82 2y ago
  Sometimes, you don't have an option. At my current job, we're issues MacBooks. My biggest pet peeve of macOS is the grouping of windows behind a single icon on the dock bar. I hate that if I have two Chrome windows open, it takes two clicks to go between them. With the exception of modals, if a program has multiple windows open, when I should see each of them as its own item on the dock bar (or in Windows, the taskbar). I don't think even Windows makes this an option anymore, but I use WindowBlinds on my personal Win10 computer to give me that behavior while also skinning everything to look like Win2K, because I can't stand the flat aesthetic that's popular right now.
  - benhurmarcel 2y ago
    > I don't think even Windows makes this an option anymore It does, they added it back into Windows 11.
  - adamomada 2y ago
    The dock is per-process because there are options to quit the program on the menu. I suppose they could switch it to close window and change to quit on the last window, but Mac users are very used to the way it is. There should be an icon there even with no windows. I‘d imagine the dock would look quite ridiculous for someone working on multiple docs, or a slate of images in photoshop, etc. Anyway try this app for a different method for what you want to do (switch to a specific window): https://alt-tab-macos.netlify.app/ https://alt-tab-macos.netlify.app/
  - al_borland 2y ago
    It could just take one long click to switch between them. Right-click the Dock icon (keep holding the button), move your mouse up to the window you want in the menu, then let go to activate that window. I typically just keep part of each of my windows viable, so I can simply click on them, if I'm going back and forth. So it's still just one click. I got out of the habit of maximizing windows a couple decades ago when I first got a Mac and my first widescreen display.
Sohcahtoa82 2y ago
I just really hate how there are some insane defaults that don't have easy ways to change them. Pointer Acceleration being the biggest one. One inch of mouse movement should always be the same number of pixels of pointer movement, whether I move my mouse at a snail's pace or at mach 2. A fast, but incredibly short movement of the mouse should not produce the same pointer movement as a slow, but very wide movement. Second was disappearing scrollbars. Those make sense on a mobile device where screen space is a premium, but on a desktop (or even a laptop!), it doesn't make sense. Nowadays, both of those actually do have options in the System Settings panel, but when I first got introduced to using a Mac in 2014, both of those requires some archaic shell commands that I had to Google to find.
- RulerOf 2y ago
  > Pointer Acceleration being the biggest one. I love pointer acceleration, and won't use an OS that doesn't feature it. I _like_ being able to perform pixel-precise movement of the cursor on a ~20MP desktop without also having to drag the mouse across the entire desk or modify mouse DPI to get from one corner to the other. The disappearing scrollbars are awful though. I have a feeling Apple made that a default to get people to stop clicking on them out of habit.
  - Sohcahtoa82 2y ago
    > I _like_ being able to perform pixel-precise movement of the cursor on a ~20MP desktop without also having to drag the mouse across the entire desk or modify mouse DPI to get from one corner to the other. shrug I can do pixel-precise movement without acceleration, I just have to move the mouse a lot slower. The problem is that in my experience, people conflate DPI with sensitivity, and so say things like "1000 DPI is sensitive enough for me". But of course, with only 1000 DPI, without acceleration, and with moderate sensitivity, you kind of get aliasing in pointer movements. You'll move the mouse as slow as you can, but the pointer will jump in 2-4 pixel increments. I have a 16,000 DPI gaming mouse and set the DPI in the driver to that maximum, then lower sensitivity to compensate. The result is that I can get pixel-perfect movement if I want to, though I admit that it requires a much steadier hand than if I were to just enable acceleration.
eviks 2y ago
Windows and file management are just as broken on Windows and require 3rd party apps (though there are often more free alternatives) (so is the menu bar, but I just don't know of a bartender alternative, you're right that research and testing takes a lot of effort) None of the OS are power-user capable for most of the "basics"

jmuguy 2y ago

Well some of this is just getting used to MacOS though - Finder is a pretty huge adjustment (and honestly just not as good as Explorer). I agree that window management was probably the biggest sticking point for me. That being said - beyond being able to drag and snap windows side by side in Windows, I wasn't aware of any built-in management (or at least - thats all I missed when I switched a while back) that was missing in MacOS.

jwells89 2y ago
Yeah, a lot of the friction comes from macOS being one of the only surviving major desktops that isn’t based on a Win9X paradigm, instead being a blend of classic Mac OS and NeXTSTEP (both dating back to the 80s) with a smattering of modern Apple. For longtime Mac users, Windows (and winlike Linux DEs) present almost as much friction.
djhn 2y ago
I’m so used to column view as a metaphor for my files and directories that I don’t understand how non-mac people deal with essentially being forced to memorise their directory structure and hierarchy.
- eviks 2y ago
  DOpus has a collapsible tree view with a few big issues remaining (don't think it has columns, but I don't find them useful on a Mac either, also use tree view there)

bityard 2y ago

If you hold down an alphanumeric key in MacOS, it automatically pops up an emoji selector. This is fine, except if you are someone (like me) who occasionally holds down keys to take advantage of key repeat _and_ uses vim keybindings in a few specific non-terminal applications. There is no GUI to disable this behavior, you have to drop to a terminal, run a command, and then reboot the machine. This is the example I now use whenever a Mac user says Linux is a pain to configure.

chuckadams 2y ago
Whenever you hold down a key in Linux, it always repeats, and there is no GUI to turn this into an accented character selector. Or any other means because there is no such selector to be had. Not a big knock on Linux though, because it has a working compose key instead. Also, you don't need to reboot after toggling ApplePressAndHoldEnabled, but you do need to restart apps.
SebastianKra 2y ago
defaults write NSGlobalDomain ApplePressAndHoldEnabled -bool false and while you're here, check out these other fixes: expand the save dialog by default: defaults write NSGlobalDomain NSNavPanelExpandedStateForSaveMode -bool true defaults write NSGlobalDomain NSNavPanelExpandedStateForSaveMode2 -bool true don't save .DS_Store to network locations defaults write com.apple.desktopservices DSDontWriteNetworkStores true bring up the hidden dock faster defaults write com.apple.dock autohide-time-modifier -float 0.15; Shut up gatekeeper spctl --master-disable I had almost forgotten how much annoying manual fixes you need to make this system usable, until I went through my notes...
- magnio 2y ago
  Thanks for the helpful tips. Tangential but is there any free way to change the scroll direction of trackpad and mouse independently and to disable scroll acceleration? I have tried Mac Mouse Fix but it is not free.
  - bityard 2y ago

bhokbah 2y ago

As a long time mac user I have zero utilities installed. If you want to turn your mac into windows, maybe just use windows.

Sohcahtoa82 2y ago
Sometimes, you don't have an option. At my current job, we're issues MacBooks. My biggest pet peeve of macOS is the grouping of windows behind a single icon on the dock bar. I hate that if I have two Chrome windows open, it takes two clicks to go between them. With the exception of modals, if a program has multiple windows open, when I should see each of them as its own item on the dock bar (or in Windows, the taskbar). I don't think even Windows makes this an option anymore, but I use WindowBlinds on my personal Win10 computer to give me that behavior while also skinning everything to look like Win2K, because I can't stand the flat aesthetic that's popular right now.
- benhurmarcel 2y ago
  > I don't think even Windows makes this an option anymore It does, they added it back into Windows 11.
- adamomada 2y ago
  The dock is per-process because there are options to quit the program on the menu. I suppose they could switch it to close window and change to quit on the last window, but Mac users are very used to the way it is. There should be an icon there even with no windows. I‘d imagine the dock would look quite ridiculous for someone working on multiple docs, or a slate of images in photoshop, etc. Anyway try this app for a different method for what you want to do (switch to a specific window): https://alt-tab-macos.netlify.app/ https://alt-tab-macos.netlify.app/
- al_borland 2y ago
  It could just take one long click to switch between them. Right-click the Dock icon (keep holding the button), move your mouse up to the window you want in the menu, then let go to activate that window. I typically just keep part of each of my windows viable, so I can simply click on them, if I'm going back and forth. So it's still just one click. I got out of the habit of maximizing windows a couple decades ago when I first got a Mac and my first widescreen display.

Sohcahtoa82 2y ago

I just really hate how there are some insane defaults that don't have easy ways to change them. Pointer Acceleration being the biggest one. One inch of mouse movement should always be the same number of pixels of pointer movement, whether I move my mouse at a snail's pace or at mach 2. A fast, but incredibly short movement of the mouse should not produce the same pointer movement as a slow, but very wide movement. Second was disappearing scrollbars. Those make sense on a mobile device where screen space is a premium, but on a desktop (or even a laptop!), it doesn't make sense. Nowadays, both of those actually do have options in the System Settings panel, but when I first got introduced to using a Mac in 2014, both of those requires some archaic shell commands that I had to Google to find.

RulerOf 2y ago
> Pointer Acceleration being the biggest one. I love pointer acceleration, and won't use an OS that doesn't feature it. I _like_ being able to perform pixel-precise movement of the cursor on a ~20MP desktop without also having to drag the mouse across the entire desk or modify mouse DPI to get from one corner to the other. The disappearing scrollbars are awful though. I have a feeling Apple made that a default to get people to stop clicking on them out of habit.
- Sohcahtoa82 2y ago
  > I _like_ being able to perform pixel-precise movement of the cursor on a ~20MP desktop without also having to drag the mouse across the entire desk or modify mouse DPI to get from one corner to the other. shrug I can do pixel-precise movement without acceleration, I just have to move the mouse a lot slower. The problem is that in my experience, people conflate DPI with sensitivity, and so say things like "1000 DPI is sensitive enough for me". But of course, with only 1000 DPI, without acceleration, and with moderate sensitivity, you kind of get aliasing in pointer movements. You'll move the mouse as slow as you can, but the pointer will jump in 2-4 pixel increments. I have a 16,000 DPI gaming mouse and set the DPI in the driver to that maximum, then lower sensitivity to compensate. The result is that I can get pixel-perfect movement if I want to, though I admit that it requires a much steadier hand than if I were to just enable acceleration.

eviks 2y ago

Windows and file management are just as broken on Windows and require 3rd party apps (though there are often more free alternatives) (so is the menu bar, but I just don't know of a bartender alternative, you're right that research and testing takes a lot of effort) None of the OS are power-user capable for most of the "basics"