3 ms·

> The Dock was useless > The Finder made all the same mistakes as Windows did Aren't these basically true, even now? If I could easily, completely remove the

by pxc 1y ago

> The Dock was useless > The Finder made all the same mistakes as Windows did Aren't these basically true, even now? If I could easily, completely remove the Dock and Finder, I would. Launching apps via search (e.g., Spotlight) is quicker and easier than hunting for icons visually (especially given the amount of clutter on the Dock by default), and so is switching apps via search (e.g., Contexts, Witch, etc.). Finder is the least capable file manager I've ever used since the Windows 3 days. If I could replace it wholesale with CyberDuck or something, I would.

roryirvine 1y ago
Even more true now than it was then, I think. I mean, the dock was actually quite nice in the NeXTSTEP days but OSX munged it together with the Shelf and aspects of the Win95 taskbar (actually, I think this might have started with the final OpenStep release, but I never got to use that). These days when using a Mac, I tend to make it as small as possible and set it to auto-hide. I never actually use it for anything, but I don't think there's any way to turn it off altogether - so now it's just an annoyance, popping up with a distracting animation every time the pointer touches the bottom few pixels of the screen. I never got along with the Miller columns in FileViewer / OSX Finder, but my impression is that it has also continued to get worse over time with features coming (and, just as often, going!) every few years without much in the way to help you discover them. TBH, I use the cli for file management by preference.
seec 1y ago
Yeah pretty much. The dock is truly useless in a way the taskbar cannot dare to be. I think the windows model with menus integrated into the software windows and the taskbar for general multitasking management is just better. It was also much more future proof for multi-display use. The global menu bar just feels dumb nowadays, especially with the notch on laptops, where they take even more space from a place where everything was already crowded. Overall, I feel that Windows model of computing is just more solid and allows for more complexity/expansions. And I say that as a Mac user since before I'm 10 years old. OS X had some solid technical base that made it very worth it. But nowadays it feels all locked down and there are fewer leftovers. The UI is increasingly focused on looking good at the expense of everything, they have abandoned many of the good ideas in favor of oversimplification and unification with iOS.

by pxc 1y ago

roryirvine 1y ago

Even more true now than it was then, I think. I mean, the dock was actually quite nice in the NeXTSTEP days but OSX munged it together with the Shelf and aspects of the Win95 taskbar (actually, I think this might have started with the final OpenStep release, but I never got to use that). These days when using a Mac, I tend to make it as small as possible and set it to auto-hide. I never actually use it for anything, but I don't think there's any way to turn it off altogether - so now it's just an annoyance, popping up with a distracting animation every time the pointer touches the bottom few pixels of the screen. I never got along with the Miller columns in FileViewer / OSX Finder, but my impression is that it has also continued to get worse over time with features coming (and, just as often, going!) every few years without much in the way to help you discover them. TBH, I use the cli for file management by preference.

seec 1y ago

Yeah pretty much. The dock is truly useless in a way the taskbar cannot dare to be. I think the windows model with menus integrated into the software windows and the taskbar for general multitasking management is just better. It was also much more future proof for multi-display use. The global menu bar just feels dumb nowadays, especially with the notch on laptops, where they take even more space from a place where everything was already crowded. Overall, I feel that Windows model of computing is just more solid and allows for more complexity/expansions. And I say that as a Mac user since before I'm 10 years old. OS X had some solid technical base that made it very worth it. But nowadays it feels all locked down and there are fewer leftovers. The UI is increasingly focused on looking good at the expense of everything, they have abandoned many of the good ideas in favor of oversimplification and unification with iOS.