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I think macs make working with keyboard shortcuts very difficult for various reasons. - Command and Control are confusingly named. - They use most of the func

by septerr 13y ago

I think macs make working with keyboard shortcuts very difficult for various reasons. - Command and Control are confusingly named. - They use most of the function keys for windows related things - bring all windows to front etc. - There is no key for right click like those offered by Windows keyboards to bring up context menus. - You can Command-Tab to an application but not to the individual windows of that application. You must use Command-Tilde for that. - Apps offered for mac don't have a consistent behavior for the close button. Some apps will close the window, but stay in the dock. Others will quit. - On Windows, if the first letter in the menu bar items is underlined, you can be sure you can just do Alt + that letter to open up that menu item. You could even move windows using one of the menu item options and arrow keys. My biggest issue on switching from Windows to Mac was losing all those keyboard shortcuts. On Windows I could do a whole lot more without ever touching the mouse. I know you can remap your keys etc. but then you usually end up acting all awkward anytime you have to use someone else's computer. So I want the defaults to be good instead and I think Windows got theirs better than Mac. Don't hate on me for this. I know both operating systems have their pros and cons.

ajanuary 13y ago
Windows is just as inconsistent with closing, with the added bonus of also being inconsistent with minimizing behaviour too. How do you get an app to go to the systray? Close it? Minimise it? Who knows. While I do agree Windows has a better keyboard story, most of what you describe are just differences, not worse.
- freehunter 13y ago
  Excel 2003 was the worst offender of inconsistent closing/minimizing behavior for me. If you had multiple workbooks open, you couldn't have one on each screen because they're tied to the main Excel window. If you tried to close a workbook using the normal X button like you were closing a single Word document, it would close every open Excel book. You had to use a smaller X below the main X to close a single book. I'm glad they finally changed that stupid behavior.
- falcolas 13y ago
  Closing in windows is always Alt+F4 (or with most programs, close the last open window for that program). Minimizing is easy after Windows 7 - Windows + Down (Using the windows plus the arrow keys are stupidly useful now, I would love for Mac to have something equivalent. I personally find Command+C to be very uncomfortable when compared to Ctrl + C - having to curl my thumb under my hand to hit Command is annoying compared to hitting Ctrl with my pinkie. Command + Q also drives me nuts, because it's so easy to hit accidentally when going for the W or tab keys.
- SEMW 13y ago
  Alt-space gives the window menu. Close: alt-space, c Minimise: alt-space, n Maximise: alt-space, x etc. Works in every version of windows since 95ish, as well as every popular Linux DE I've ever tried (inc. gnome, xfce, kde, cinnamon).
- com2kid 13y ago
  > How do you get an app to go to the systray? Close it? Minimise it? Who knows. This is a per app thing. Many people (myself included!) want some apps down in the system tray rather than in the task bar. A common example is IM and Email apps. This is more application developers responding to user demands than anything else. 99% of apps that do this have a toggle switch somewhere to turn this behavior off.
samirahmed 13y ago
I am surprised by this, as I have had the opposite experience. I moved from a windows to mac a few years back, adopted alot of the keyboard shortcuts and recently a few months ago back to windows primarily. I found that on a mac the same shortcuts I use in the terminal (readline bindings), I can use most everywhere (ctrl-a for line start/ ctrl-w to kill last word etc...). For the most part Vimium takes care of the browser. I have often found the windows shortcuts to be hidden an obscure. Alt+F4 is the defacto kill app on windows but trying to press it is inconvenient especially while Alt+tabbing through windows. I agree command and control can be confusing but they give you more range in keyboard shortcuts as a result. The windows 8 search (although an improvement over 7) is also medicore compared to OSX spotlight making it much easier to CMD+Tab and navigate to different apps. The least keyboard friendly part is certainly the windows cmd prompt where pasting is ALT+SPACE+E+P ... as opposed to CMD+V on OSX... not mention the lack of navigational shortcuts in the cmd prompt (kill back a word, kill rest of line etc...) The most frustrating part for me is windows shortcuts not being consistent throughout apps. In most of the windows CTRL+BACKSPACE will kill the last word but not in notepad? or most winform applications... Ctrl-F is find in most apps but "forward email" in outlook? I guess its really a matter of personal preference, but I think as far as keyboard shortcuts go, both OS's have plenty.
- mattmanser 13y ago
  You honestly can't compare the command prompt to anything else on windows. It's an absolute travesty, nothing works in the command prompt. None of the normal windows text functions works (ctrl-c, ctrl-x, ctrl-v, ctrl-z, ctrl-shift-left/right to copy, mouse copy or selection commands). Copy and Paste especially is an absolute travesty (although it's muscle memory to me these days) and I honestly don't know why they haven't fixed it yet. That and not being able to resize the window too. Nothing more frustrating than running a long running command and then the output wraps so it's unreadable, and you can't resize the screen. And the mouse screen resize simply doesn't work, you have to go through the whole rigmarole with the buffer size. It's simply a complete pile of shit. That they consistently bring it out is bizarre. They didn't even bother to fix it for powershell, which essentially just makes powershell a vast pile of crap as an exploration tool. As you can tell, the whole situation frustrates me a lot, it's a tool I use daily and that they leave it in such an abysmal state is frustrating. So don't judge windows shortcuts by it's console, for some reason they stubbornly refuse to upgrade it to behave like the sane text editor it should be.
rainforest 13y ago
One solution for the menubar shortcuts on OSX is to use the help menu. Hit Cmd + Shift + / and it'll jump to it, from there you can type any menu command and invoke it when you hit return.
eitland 13y ago
Keyboard shortcuts are a mess in all common DEs I think. Windows mostly use win+something for commands that have a scope wider than the current application. But there's always ctrl + x, c and v. Mac might have a better tought out keyboard [1] with @ on a key of its own and \|/ all available on a single key just using modifiers (isn't mentioned anywhere in the manual or help system and not printed in light blue on the keys). I think the biggest problem everywhere might be that there is no scoping. E.g. if ctrl + something would never affect anything outside of the currently focused window then any application could happily use any and all ctrl-shortcuts for its own purposes. In the same way Super could be defined to only be available for DE-level shortcuts (e.g. cut, copy, paste, switch windows etc). [1] Also note that apple laptops like ibm/lenovo laptops have fn|ctrl instead of ctrl|fn. Unlike lenovo though it c a n n o t be remapped. (At least it was not possible last time I tried back in 2011.)
- dhruvmittal 13y ago
  As someone who's used and seen Apple and Lenovo/IBM laptops (thinkpads and macs are vast majority of what students at my school and co-workers at my jobs used) almost exclusively over the years, I was incredibly surprised to learn that fn|ctrl was non-standard.
Nursie 13y ago
There's certainly been a learning curve for me recently, when switching to a Mac for my main work computer. Muscle memory for Ctrl-C, Ctrl-X and Ctrl-V are very strong and I find it highly annoying there's no easy way to make this work as it does on Linux and Windows. Also plugging in an external, standard (non-Mac) UK keyboard leaves you with weird mappings all over the place, and Home and End don't do what they do on every other OS, but appear instead to be largely useless. I appreciate Mac OS is it's own thing, but it does make switching that much harder and more frustrating.
- lewispollard 13y ago
  There's a reason they don't use Ctrl-C etc for copy/paste - because in the terminal, as I'm sure you know, Ctrl-C sends a SIGINT signal. In OS X you can use a consistent command for copy and paste across the whole operating system, including the terminal.
  - Nursie 13y ago
    That's not a good enough reason to break my muscle-memory, IMHO, even if it is consistent. I prize consistency across platforms more than within.
    - ChikkaChiChi 13y ago
      I think the point is that Microsoft 'broke' your muscle-memory by assigning an already-in-use shortcut.
      - lewispollard 13y ago
        Exactly. IIRC the command key and shortcuts were added on the Apple IIe. It's not a recent addition and not something that 'broke' anyone's muscle memory. If they'd changed it to ctrl-c to cater for windows users, that would've broken historical Mac muscle memory.
        13y ago
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

by septerr 13y ago

ajanuary 13y ago

Windows is just as inconsistent with closing, with the added bonus of also being inconsistent with minimizing behaviour too. How do you get an app to go to the systray? Close it? Minimise it? Who knows. While I do agree Windows has a better keyboard story, most of what you describe are just differences, not worse.

freehunter 13y ago
Excel 2003 was the worst offender of inconsistent closing/minimizing behavior for me. If you had multiple workbooks open, you couldn't have one on each screen because they're tied to the main Excel window. If you tried to close a workbook using the normal X button like you were closing a single Word document, it would close every open Excel book. You had to use a smaller X below the main X to close a single book. I'm glad they finally changed that stupid behavior.
falcolas 13y ago
Closing in windows is always Alt+F4 (or with most programs, close the last open window for that program). Minimizing is easy after Windows 7 - Windows + Down (Using the windows plus the arrow keys are stupidly useful now, I would love for Mac to have something equivalent. I personally find Command+C to be very uncomfortable when compared to Ctrl + C - having to curl my thumb under my hand to hit Command is annoying compared to hitting Ctrl with my pinkie. Command + Q also drives me nuts, because it's so easy to hit accidentally when going for the W or tab keys.
SEMW 13y ago
Alt-space gives the window menu. Close: alt-space, c Minimise: alt-space, n Maximise: alt-space, x etc. Works in every version of windows since 95ish, as well as every popular Linux DE I've ever tried (inc. gnome, xfce, kde, cinnamon).
com2kid 13y ago
> How do you get an app to go to the systray? Close it? Minimise it? Who knows. This is a per app thing. Many people (myself included!) want some apps down in the system tray rather than in the task bar. A common example is IM and Email apps. This is more application developers responding to user demands than anything else. 99% of apps that do this have a toggle switch somewhere to turn this behavior off.

samirahmed 13y ago

I am surprised by this, as I have had the opposite experience. I moved from a windows to mac a few years back, adopted alot of the keyboard shortcuts and recently a few months ago back to windows primarily. I found that on a mac the same shortcuts I use in the terminal (readline bindings), I can use most everywhere (ctrl-a for line start/ ctrl-w to kill last word etc...). For the most part Vimium takes care of the browser. I have often found the windows shortcuts to be hidden an obscure. Alt+F4 is the defacto kill app on windows but trying to press it is inconvenient especially while Alt+tabbing through windows. I agree command and control can be confusing but they give you more range in keyboard shortcuts as a result. The windows 8 search (although an improvement over 7) is also medicore compared to OSX spotlight making it much easier to CMD+Tab and navigate to different apps. The least keyboard friendly part is certainly the windows cmd prompt where pasting is ALT+SPACE+E+P ... as opposed to CMD+V on OSX... not mention the lack of navigational shortcuts in the cmd prompt (kill back a word, kill rest of line etc...) The most frustrating part for me is windows shortcuts not being consistent throughout apps. In most of the windows CTRL+BACKSPACE will kill the last word but not in notepad? or most winform applications... Ctrl-F is find in most apps but "forward email" in outlook? I guess its really a matter of personal preference, but I think as far as keyboard shortcuts go, both OS's have plenty.

mattmanser 13y ago
You honestly can't compare the command prompt to anything else on windows. It's an absolute travesty, nothing works in the command prompt. None of the normal windows text functions works (ctrl-c, ctrl-x, ctrl-v, ctrl-z, ctrl-shift-left/right to copy, mouse copy or selection commands). Copy and Paste especially is an absolute travesty (although it's muscle memory to me these days) and I honestly don't know why they haven't fixed it yet. That and not being able to resize the window too. Nothing more frustrating than running a long running command and then the output wraps so it's unreadable, and you can't resize the screen. And the mouse screen resize simply doesn't work, you have to go through the whole rigmarole with the buffer size. It's simply a complete pile of shit. That they consistently bring it out is bizarre. They didn't even bother to fix it for powershell, which essentially just makes powershell a vast pile of crap as an exploration tool. As you can tell, the whole situation frustrates me a lot, it's a tool I use daily and that they leave it in such an abysmal state is frustrating. So don't judge windows shortcuts by it's console, for some reason they stubbornly refuse to upgrade it to behave like the sane text editor it should be.

rainforest 13y ago

One solution for the menubar shortcuts on OSX is to use the help menu. Hit Cmd + Shift + / and it'll jump to it, from there you can type any menu command and invoke it when you hit return.

eitland 13y ago

Keyboard shortcuts are a mess in all common DEs I think. Windows mostly use win+something for commands that have a scope wider than the current application. But there's always ctrl + x, c and v. Mac might have a better tought out keyboard [1] with @ on a key of its own and \|/ all available on a single key just using modifiers (isn't mentioned anywhere in the manual or help system and not printed in light blue on the keys). I think the biggest problem everywhere might be that there is no scoping. E.g. if ctrl + something would never affect anything outside of the currently focused window then any application could happily use any and all ctrl-shortcuts for its own purposes. In the same way Super could be defined to only be available for DE-level shortcuts (e.g. cut, copy, paste, switch windows etc). [1] Also note that apple laptops like ibm/lenovo laptops have fn|ctrl instead of ctrl|fn. Unlike lenovo though it c a n n o t be remapped. (At least it was not possible last time I tried back in 2011.)

dhruvmittal 13y ago
As someone who's used and seen Apple and Lenovo/IBM laptops (thinkpads and macs are vast majority of what students at my school and co-workers at my jobs used) almost exclusively over the years, I was incredibly surprised to learn that fn|ctrl was non-standard.

Nursie 13y ago

There's certainly been a learning curve for me recently, when switching to a Mac for my main work computer. Muscle memory for Ctrl-C, Ctrl-X and Ctrl-V are very strong and I find it highly annoying there's no easy way to make this work as it does on Linux and Windows. Also plugging in an external, standard (non-Mac) UK keyboard leaves you with weird mappings all over the place, and Home and End don't do what they do on every other OS, but appear instead to be largely useless. I appreciate Mac OS is it's own thing, but it does make switching that much harder and more frustrating.

lewispollard 13y ago
There's a reason they don't use Ctrl-C etc for copy/paste - because in the terminal, as I'm sure you know, Ctrl-C sends a SIGINT signal. In OS X you can use a consistent command for copy and paste across the whole operating system, including the terminal.
- Nursie 13y ago
  That's not a good enough reason to break my muscle-memory, IMHO, even if it is consistent. I prize consistency across platforms more than within.
  - ChikkaChiChi 13y ago
    I think the point is that Microsoft 'broke' your muscle-memory by assigning an already-in-use shortcut.
    - lewispollard 13y ago
      Exactly. IIRC the command key and shortcuts were added on the Apple IIe. It's not a recent addition and not something that 'broke' anyone's muscle memory. If they'd changed it to ctrl-c to cater for windows users, that would've broken historical Mac muscle memory.
      - 13y ago

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]