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Comment by megamark16 | Hacker News Reader

I use a MBP at work and I'm not really a huge fan. I find the interface requires that I use the mouse way to often, and I have to know all Apple's special key combinations to get anything done. I spend most of my time in my Ubuntu virtual machine, and I wish I were booting Ubuntu natively, but I just haven't had time get it working correctly. I am also in the market for a new dev machine for personal use, and I'm leaning heavily towards a Thinkpad, just based on what I've heard around the Linux community.

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> I find the interface requires that I use the mouse way to often, and I have to know all Apple's special key combinations to get anything done

If you expect to get anything done without using the mouse, knowing all the "special key combinations" is a pre-requisite for any OS. I hate to be the kool-aid drinker that jumps to Apple's defense, but I hear a lot of complaints about OS X keyboard accessibility that simply aren't true. A single checkbox enables access to "all controls" through your keyboard. It's turned of by default because, frankly, most people don't use the keyboard. I do, but my computer is my instrument.

I'm a keyboard junkie (using Vimperator right now), but OSX still has a few brick walls when it comes to keyboard shortcuts. For example, there are no built-in shortcuts to move/resize/maximize the current window. This is pretty basic stuff, but I have to reach for the mouse to do it.

You can set up shortcuts for those things with a combination of BetterTouchTool (free) and Divvy (not so free).

BetterTouchTool might even do everything you need, but I'm not completely sure about that.

Try SizeUp for resizing and positioning your windows.

It took me over two years to find that checkbox, as I didn't know to look for it.

Not being able to dismiss a dialog box with the keyboard was driving me mad.

System Prefs>Keyboard>Keyboard Shortcuts>"All Controls"

You are my hero.

Seriously.

I had two find this twice - once when I got the mac, and a year later on a new install.

It was hard to find both times.

You can dismiss dialogs without enabling that.

Enter = Ok, Escape = Cancel, Command-D is "Don't Save" in "Would you like to save?" dialogs, etc.

Wow, none of my mac using coworkers told me about this, through all my complaints about not being able to use the keyboard in dialogs (escape, spacebar, enter, arrow keys, seriously?). You may have just solved most of my problems. Thanks!

I'm still getting a ThinkPad for personal development projects, but my work laptop just became much more usable.

Have you found out how to get Linux/Windows Alt+Tab behaviour on OS X? It's one of those things that slows me down 10% whenever I'm on a Mac.

Command+Tab?

Cmd+Tab doesn't switch to the most recently visited window. With Cmd+Tab and Shift+Cmd+Tab, you have to remember if your last move was forward or backward. I keep forgetting that. Unfortunately it's something I do hundereds of times each day. The other issue I have with OS X usability is how to quickly maximize a window.

switch among windows:

command + ~

when you get that going with the command tab switching you can fly!

No flying here. Cmd+~ doesn't switch to the most recently used window either.

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