12 ms·

>It always amused me how Apple is capable of producing so quality hardware and has so bright ideas in design, but makes so awful lot of questionable decisions i

by lmg643 13y ago

>It always amused me how Apple is capable of producing so quality hardware and has so bright ideas in design, but makes so awful lot of questionable decisions in software. Amen. I recently migrated to iMac/Mavericks from Windows 7 and there are a number of really useful things you can do in Windows 7 that there aren't good analogues for in Mavericks. Task-switching, for example, leaves a lot to be desired. Apparently a third party application, Witch, can fix that - wonderful (and not really a good fix if you are using windows virtual machines side-by-side). Launchpad is horribly designed, has phantom stuff on there and you can't delete them directly. I still like the machine but it's funny to think that windows had the edge in a number of usability areas.

nwh 13y ago
Window switching is something there's really little to complain about on OSX. You've got sloppy window focus (scroll on a window that's not active), mission control for switching and finding applications, an intelligently organised alt-tab application switcher, multiple desktops with pinning if necessary, and the Dock for even faster switching. What do you think is missing?
- rwc 13y ago
  I suspect the problem he's dealing with coming from windows is that the Mac OS paradigm is application switching via the dock and Command+Tab whereas in Windows the taskbar and Alt+Tab are window switching.
  - nwh 13y ago
    In which case alt + ` would be a suitable replacement, as that's the command for window switching.
    - shalalala 13y ago
      'Command' + '~' switches windows in the current app.
      - jesseendahl 13y ago
        For Windows style window switching (across all applications), use Control + F4. You may also need to hold down the function key if you have your keyboard setup the default way, where things like brightness, volume, etc. are the primary uses of the function keys.
        eyesee 13y ago
        It's worth noting that you can remap the key easily from the Keyboard panel in System Preferences. Look under Shortcuts -> Keyboard for "Movie focus to active or next window".
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  - rwc 13y ago
    Command + ` only works within the app once you've switched. You may only want to switch to one window from an application but Command+Tabbing to it brings all windows from that application on top. It takes some getting used to.
    - lmg643 13y ago
      Appreciate the sympathy. I'm used to minimizing applications to get them out of the way, and alt-tab on windows restores the window you want. on the mac, it only restores a non-minimized window, and command+~ only works if both windows are not minimized. Mission control also doesn't restore minimized windows. Windows Snapping was also a cool feature that isn't native to OSX, you need a third party tool - great to do a side-by-side on spreadsheet/document. And can we get a comment about launchpad? and widgets? considering how good the iOS experience is, the desktop launchpad is horrible. and widgets should be removed, rethought or integrated for sure. both of these strike me as afterthoughts, which is bizarre considering how central they appear when you first set up the OS.
      - nwh 13y ago
        Get used to not minimising things, it's not the flow you should be using on OSX for maximum efficiency. Widgets are antiquated and just there for legacy reasons.
      - frou_dh 13y ago
        > I'm used to minimizing applications to get them out of the way, and alt-tab on windows restores the window you want. Use Hide (Cmd-H).
      - plorkyeran 13y ago
        I use spotlight exclusively to launch applications. Launchpad I used exactly once before unpinning it from the dock. OS X widgets turned out about as well as every other attempt to make desktop widgets. Banishing them to their own virtual desktop solves the problem of it being impossible to use them due to that there's always windows in the way, but it doesn't solve the problem that apparently no one actually has any ideas for desktop widgets that are more than mildly useful.
  - girvo 13y ago
    But, doesn't mission control let you switch windows of an app globally? It's the only window switcher I use (swipe up on Magic Trackpad)
- shurcooL 13y ago
  I really want something like Cmd+Tab, except one that lists all windows on current desktop (doesn't include minimized windows or other desktops). When comparing two things on one small screen, I want to be able to rapidly switch between two windows. Depending on if it's within same app, I have to think to use either Cmd+Tab or Cmd+`. And all the minimized apps, as well as apps on other desktops get in the way. Mission Control is unacceptable for rapid window switching because it requires me to move the mouse pointer and find the other window, when all I want to do is "select previous window".
  - mgillett 13y ago
    I have the same gripe. Think about giving Switch (https://github.com/numist/Switch https://github.com/numist/Switch) a try. Cmd+Tab still functions as normal, but Opt+Tab (you can change the default keybinding) will allow you to cycle through all available windows on a single desktop. Not a perfect solution, but it's a big improvement imo over Cmd+`.
    - shurcooL 13y ago
      Thank you for that recommendation. I'm giving it a try, so far it looks like it might be an invaluable tool!
    - rjzzleep 13y ago
      you might want to try out http://contextsformac.com/ http://contextsformac.com/ i think it's a little better than switch, though not free.
  - ricardobeat 13y ago
    From a comment below, Control+F4 seems to do the trick. You could remap that to your Cmd+Tab.
    - shurcooL 13y ago
      That seems to be VERY close to _exactly_ what I'm looking for, but it's not quite right (which makes it very far from useful, unfortunately). The problem is that pressing Ctrl+F4 twice in a row keeps iterating over the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc. windows. So if you want to switch between two most recently windows, you have to press Ctrl+F4, then Ctrl+Shift+F4, then Ctrl+F4, then Ctrl+Shift+F4, etc.
- youWontLikeThis 13y ago
  > What do you think is missing? Single click access to every open window through the taskbar. See windows 95 for early reference.
- davidw 13y ago
  Mac OS X apparently does not have focus follows mouse: http://steve-yegge.blogspot.it/2008/04/settling-osx-focus-follows-mouse-debate.html http://steve-yegge.blogspot.it/2008/04/settling-osx-focus-fo... That's kind of old though. Have they fixed it? I doubt it's a priority.
  - madeofpalk 13y ago
    It does, in a 'lazy' way. e.g. You can scroll an unfocused window when you're mose is over it.
    - twoodfin 13y ago
      This is actually one of the few things in OS X that drive me nuts. It's tremendously useful, but because there's little visual distinction between a focused and unfocused window, I'll start typing in a window I've just been scrolling and realize I'm issuing random commands to Mail.app on my other monitor. Mavericks' blessed addition of per-screen menu bars has the nice side effect of making this a little more noticeable: The menu bar is transparent on a screen without the active window. Terminal.app also can be customized to make inactive windows partially transparent. I wish that option were system-wide.
- peralta 13y ago
  Well, that's crippled sloppy focus as you can only scroll the background windows, but NOT type on them. Terminal.app has some sloppy focus support, but only between its own windows which makes the whole experience a pain.
  - gmac 13y ago
    A.k.a. sane sloppy focus? I think I'd find it very confusing if my mouse position (which is effectively arbitrary when I'm not mousing) affected where my typing was going to appear.
    - peralta 13y ago
      I guess this depends on habit: once used to "real" sloppy focus, it is really difficult to live without it. At the same time, I've seen tons of people get confused when using my computer and accidentally moving the mouse. Still, worth a try if you haven't (and kind of impossible with OSX).
- bane 13y ago
  It's a mess, that's what the problem is. Just look at this thread and the number of ways that sometimes work in certain cases to do basic operations. Some of this is the added complexity of additional desktops (which I agree are awesome and sorely missing in Windows), but some, like switching windows in the same app, are a usability disaster. Here's a short list from this thread for something which is universally ctrl+tab (and shift+ctrl+tab for the other direction) in Windows: - Mission Control - cmd+tab - cmd+` - ctrl+f4 - Switch, a tool which enables Opt+tab - contextsformac - cmd+~ (only in some cases)
  - gmac 13y ago
    I'm confused how this is a problem for you. Pick the one(s) you find helpful, and ignore the rest?
    - bane 13y ago
      Because they don't all work the same and they don't all work all the time. It's not like they're just different aliases for the same action. Some work in certain cases with a certain app, some work in special contexts, some don't work unless you install an app an remap your keyboard. It's kind of insane.
  - shurcooL 13y ago
    Cmd+~ is the same as Cmd+`, just with shift pressed down. Doesn't make sense to list both of them (since you don't also list Cmd+Shift+Tab).
protomyth 13y ago
Am I missing something or is the F3 button in Mavericks not a good switching experience? I do agree with your Launchpad comment and just drag Application folder into the right side of the Dock (settings Sort by Name, Display as Folder, View Contents as List) along with Utilities, Documents, and Downloads (Sort by Date Added).
- frou_dh 13y ago
  Why use Launchpad or any kind of mouse picking for Applications/Utilities? You already know what you want to launch, and a letter or two typed in to Spotlight will get it.
  - thirdsun 13y ago
    Alternatively: Alfred - a fantastic app not just for quickly launching apps and furthermore very customizable with user-defined actions. It's been a long time since I used a mouse to launch an app.
  - joshuapants 13y ago
    Spotlight is slow and often doesn't find the right things. Quicksilver and Alfred do a much better job.
    - frou_dh 13y ago
      I haven't found that to be the case for app launching, and I've used Quicksilver and LaunchBar fairly extensively in the past.
  - protomyth 13y ago
    F3 is Mission Control, F4 is Launchpad (and I don't use Launchpad). I thought the op was about switching not launching.
  - gress 13y ago
    Launchpad works great with the keyboard too.
lelandbatey 13y ago
The killer feature that I dearly miss in OS X is decent Window management. In Windows, I can use Win+left/right keys to make a window take up precisely half of the screen. I can press Win+up_arrow to fullscreen a window. On Linux, I can use tiling window managers like Dwm or Xmonad to fullfil all my tiling needs. In OS X, I can full screen or have to manually deal with each and every window. It's awful.
- aaronbrethorst 13y ago
  Sizeup: http://www.irradiatedsoftware.com/sizeup/ http://www.irradiatedsoftware.com/sizeup/
  - trauco 13y ago
    Apart from resizing/moving windows, one feature I miss dearly from my Linux desktop is the ability to move windows from one desktop to the other. I use keyboard maestro to resize windows, and the developer mentions somewhere in his website that there's no way to move windows from one desktop to the other with OS X. Does anybody know if that's the case?
    - killerpopiller 13y ago
      you can grab a window with your mouse (left click) on its upper panel hold it, so that you can drag it around your desktop. To drag it to the next desktop just hold it + CTRL+1 or 2,3,4 (depending on your set desktops).
      - trauco 13y ago
        Ah, missed the most important bit in my comment: I could do this in Linux without the mouse, which is the behavior I want to replicate in OS X if possible. Thanks for your answer.
- ollysb 13y ago
  There's quite a few window managers available for OS X (divvy, sizeup, shifit to name but a few).
gmac 13y ago
Using Hot Corners, I have Mission Control (ie. app switching) activated at bottom right, and Application Windows (i.e. window switching) activated at top right, plus Desktop at bottom left. I find this makes any kind of switching extremely fast and fluid.
overgard 13y ago
I'm probably a bit weird, but all the computers I own now are macs... and I run windows 90% of the time on pretty much all of them. OSX really is pretty, and I like having a unix with a nice GUI, but when it comes to usability I think OSX just isn't very good. Task switching is awkward. The dock looks nice, but compared to the taskbar it's not very functional. Maximizing windows often ends up with surprising results. (Does it take up the full screen? Or does it just vertically maximize? What happens if I try to unmaximize?) Useful keyboard keys are mapped to weird things (for instance: home/end moving to the beginning/end of a document instead of the end of a line. I need to go to the end of a line about 100x more often than I need to go to the end of a document). Also: animations. They're great for demos, but when you're trying to get serious work done they're irritating and you can't turn them off without some commandline-fu. I get the impression apple pretty much will always prioritize gloss over functionality.

by lmg643 13y ago

nwh 13y ago

Window switching is something there's really little to complain about on OSX. You've got sloppy window focus (scroll on a window that's not active), mission control for switching and finding applications, an intelligently organised alt-tab application switcher, multiple desktops with pinning if necessary, and the Dock for even faster switching. What do you think is missing?

rwc 13y ago
I suspect the problem he's dealing with coming from windows is that the Mac OS paradigm is application switching via the dock and Command+Tab whereas in Windows the taskbar and Alt+Tab are window switching.
- nwh 13y ago
  In which case alt + ` would be a suitable replacement, as that's the command for window switching.
  - shalalala 13y ago
    'Command' + '~' switches windows in the current app.
    - jesseendahl 13y ago
      For Windows style window switching (across all applications), use Control + F4. You may also need to hold down the function key if you have your keyboard setup the default way, where things like brightness, volume, etc. are the primary uses of the function keys.
      - eyesee 13y ago
        It's worth noting that you can remap the key easily from the Keyboard panel in System Preferences. Look under Shortcuts -> Keyboard for "Movie focus to active or next window".
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- rwc 13y ago
  Command + ` only works within the app once you've switched. You may only want to switch to one window from an application but Command+Tabbing to it brings all windows from that application on top. It takes some getting used to.
  - lmg643 13y ago
    Appreciate the sympathy. I'm used to minimizing applications to get them out of the way, and alt-tab on windows restores the window you want. on the mac, it only restores a non-minimized window, and command+~ only works if both windows are not minimized. Mission control also doesn't restore minimized windows. Windows Snapping was also a cool feature that isn't native to OSX, you need a third party tool - great to do a side-by-side on spreadsheet/document. And can we get a comment about launchpad? and widgets? considering how good the iOS experience is, the desktop launchpad is horrible. and widgets should be removed, rethought or integrated for sure. both of these strike me as afterthoughts, which is bizarre considering how central they appear when you first set up the OS.
    - nwh 13y ago
      Get used to not minimising things, it's not the flow you should be using on OSX for maximum efficiency. Widgets are antiquated and just there for legacy reasons.
    - frou_dh 13y ago
      > I'm used to minimizing applications to get them out of the way, and alt-tab on windows restores the window you want. Use Hide (Cmd-H).
    - plorkyeran 13y ago
      I use spotlight exclusively to launch applications. Launchpad I used exactly once before unpinning it from the dock. OS X widgets turned out about as well as every other attempt to make desktop widgets. Banishing them to their own virtual desktop solves the problem of it being impossible to use them due to that there's always windows in the way, but it doesn't solve the problem that apparently no one actually has any ideas for desktop widgets that are more than mildly useful.
- girvo 13y ago
  But, doesn't mission control let you switch windows of an app globally? It's the only window switcher I use (swipe up on Magic Trackpad)
shurcooL 13y ago
I really want something like Cmd+Tab, except one that lists all windows on current desktop (doesn't include minimized windows or other desktops). When comparing two things on one small screen, I want to be able to rapidly switch between two windows. Depending on if it's within same app, I have to think to use either Cmd+Tab or Cmd+`. And all the minimized apps, as well as apps on other desktops get in the way. Mission Control is unacceptable for rapid window switching because it requires me to move the mouse pointer and find the other window, when all I want to do is "select previous window".
- mgillett 13y ago
  I have the same gripe. Think about giving Switch (https://github.com/numist/Switch https://github.com/numist/Switch) a try. Cmd+Tab still functions as normal, but Opt+Tab (you can change the default keybinding) will allow you to cycle through all available windows on a single desktop. Not a perfect solution, but it's a big improvement imo over Cmd+`.
  - shurcooL 13y ago
    Thank you for that recommendation. I'm giving it a try, so far it looks like it might be an invaluable tool!
  - rjzzleep 13y ago
    you might want to try out http://contextsformac.com/ http://contextsformac.com/ i think it's a little better than switch, though not free.
- ricardobeat 13y ago
  From a comment below, Control+F4 seems to do the trick. You could remap that to your Cmd+Tab.
  - shurcooL 13y ago
    That seems to be VERY close to _exactly_ what I'm looking for, but it's not quite right (which makes it very far from useful, unfortunately). The problem is that pressing Ctrl+F4 twice in a row keeps iterating over the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc. windows. So if you want to switch between two most recently windows, you have to press Ctrl+F4, then Ctrl+Shift+F4, then Ctrl+F4, then Ctrl+Shift+F4, etc.
youWontLikeThis 13y ago
> What do you think is missing? Single click access to every open window through the taskbar. See windows 95 for early reference.
davidw 13y ago
Mac OS X apparently does not have focus follows mouse: http://steve-yegge.blogspot.it/2008/04/settling-osx-focus-follows-mouse-debate.html http://steve-yegge.blogspot.it/2008/04/settling-osx-focus-fo... That's kind of old though. Have they fixed it? I doubt it's a priority.
- madeofpalk 13y ago
  It does, in a 'lazy' way. e.g. You can scroll an unfocused window when you're mose is over it.
  - twoodfin 13y ago
    This is actually one of the few things in OS X that drive me nuts. It's tremendously useful, but because there's little visual distinction between a focused and unfocused window, I'll start typing in a window I've just been scrolling and realize I'm issuing random commands to Mail.app on my other monitor. Mavericks' blessed addition of per-screen menu bars has the nice side effect of making this a little more noticeable: The menu bar is transparent on a screen without the active window. Terminal.app also can be customized to make inactive windows partially transparent. I wish that option were system-wide.
peralta 13y ago
Well, that's crippled sloppy focus as you can only scroll the background windows, but NOT type on them. Terminal.app has some sloppy focus support, but only between its own windows which makes the whole experience a pain.
- gmac 13y ago
  A.k.a. sane sloppy focus? I think I'd find it very confusing if my mouse position (which is effectively arbitrary when I'm not mousing) affected where my typing was going to appear.
  - peralta 13y ago
    I guess this depends on habit: once used to "real" sloppy focus, it is really difficult to live without it. At the same time, I've seen tons of people get confused when using my computer and accidentally moving the mouse. Still, worth a try if you haven't (and kind of impossible with OSX).
bane 13y ago
It's a mess, that's what the problem is. Just look at this thread and the number of ways that sometimes work in certain cases to do basic operations. Some of this is the added complexity of additional desktops (which I agree are awesome and sorely missing in Windows), but some, like switching windows in the same app, are a usability disaster. Here's a short list from this thread for something which is universally ctrl+tab (and shift+ctrl+tab for the other direction) in Windows: - Mission Control - cmd+tab - cmd+` - ctrl+f4 - Switch, a tool which enables Opt+tab - contextsformac - cmd+~ (only in some cases)
- gmac 13y ago
  I'm confused how this is a problem for you. Pick the one(s) you find helpful, and ignore the rest?
  - bane 13y ago
    Because they don't all work the same and they don't all work all the time. It's not like they're just different aliases for the same action. Some work in certain cases with a certain app, some work in special contexts, some don't work unless you install an app an remap your keyboard. It's kind of insane.
- shurcooL 13y ago
  Cmd+~ is the same as Cmd+`, just with shift pressed down. Doesn't make sense to list both of them (since you don't also list Cmd+Shift+Tab).

protomyth 13y ago

Am I missing something or is the F3 button in Mavericks not a good switching experience? I do agree with your Launchpad comment and just drag Application folder into the right side of the Dock (settings Sort by Name, Display as Folder, View Contents as List) along with Utilities, Documents, and Downloads (Sort by Date Added).

frou_dh 13y ago
Why use Launchpad or any kind of mouse picking for Applications/Utilities? You already know what you want to launch, and a letter or two typed in to Spotlight will get it.
- thirdsun 13y ago
  Alternatively: Alfred - a fantastic app not just for quickly launching apps and furthermore very customizable with user-defined actions. It's been a long time since I used a mouse to launch an app.
- joshuapants 13y ago
  Spotlight is slow and often doesn't find the right things. Quicksilver and Alfred do a much better job.
  - frou_dh 13y ago
    I haven't found that to be the case for app launching, and I've used Quicksilver and LaunchBar fairly extensively in the past.
- protomyth 13y ago
  F3 is Mission Control, F4 is Launchpad (and I don't use Launchpad). I thought the op was about switching not launching.
- gress 13y ago
  Launchpad works great with the keyboard too.

lelandbatey 13y ago

The killer feature that I dearly miss in OS X is decent Window management. In Windows, I can use Win+left/right keys to make a window take up precisely half of the screen. I can press Win+up_arrow to fullscreen a window. On Linux, I can use tiling window managers like Dwm or Xmonad to fullfil all my tiling needs. In OS X, I can full screen or have to manually deal with each and every window. It's awful.

aaronbrethorst 13y ago
Sizeup: http://www.irradiatedsoftware.com/sizeup/ http://www.irradiatedsoftware.com/sizeup/
- trauco 13y ago
  Apart from resizing/moving windows, one feature I miss dearly from my Linux desktop is the ability to move windows from one desktop to the other. I use keyboard maestro to resize windows, and the developer mentions somewhere in his website that there's no way to move windows from one desktop to the other with OS X. Does anybody know if that's the case?
  - killerpopiller 13y ago
    you can grab a window with your mouse (left click) on its upper panel hold it, so that you can drag it around your desktop. To drag it to the next desktop just hold it + CTRL+1 or 2,3,4 (depending on your set desktops).
    - trauco 13y ago
      Ah, missed the most important bit in my comment: I could do this in Linux without the mouse, which is the behavior I want to replicate in OS X if possible. Thanks for your answer.
ollysb 13y ago
There's quite a few window managers available for OS X (divvy, sizeup, shifit to name but a few).

gmac 13y ago

Using Hot Corners, I have Mission Control (ie. app switching) activated at bottom right, and Application Windows (i.e. window switching) activated at top right, plus Desktop at bottom left. I find this makes any kind of switching extremely fast and fluid.

overgard 13y ago

I'm probably a bit weird, but all the computers I own now are macs... and I run windows 90% of the time on pretty much all of them. OSX really is pretty, and I like having a unix with a nice GUI, but when it comes to usability I think OSX just isn't very good. Task switching is awkward. The dock looks nice, but compared to the taskbar it's not very functional. Maximizing windows often ends up with surprising results. (Does it take up the full screen? Or does it just vertically maximize? What happens if I try to unmaximize?) Useful keyboard keys are mapped to weird things (for instance: home/end moving to the beginning/end of a document instead of the end of a line. I need to go to the end of a line about 100x more often than I need to go to the end of a document). Also: animations. They're great for demos, but when you're trying to get serious work done they're irritating and you can't turn them off without some commandline-fu. I get the impression apple pretty much will always prioritize gloss over functionality.