Hacker News Reader

Comment by Zetice | Hacker News Reader

Er, what's wrong with command+tilde exactly? command+tab and command+tilde seem like they'd combo to solve the author's issues pretty completely.

That said, I have 5 workspaces bound to command+1 through command+5 that I flip through on my macs, and that works pretty well. Honestly I find working on a Windows machine to be much worse for multitasking due to its lack of that functionality.

I also used to use Divvy with some specific keybinds to organize my windows, but Divvy is no longer supported and I haven't yet found a tool that makes it easy to replicate that functionality quite the way I liked it.

View on HN

For me, I hate having the extra mental overhead of thinking "am I switching windows between apps or in the same app"? I just want to switch windows. I often pick the wrong shortcut.

When you start "hating" additional functionality, that might be a moment to think about whether it's really the service's fault or if you're curmudgeoning it a bit.

When you tell people they don't understand their own requirements, you're fan-boying a bit. You sound like an Apple product manager.

I think it's more likely you're an Apple hater, considering I use Windows and macOS daily (and Linux too I guess if you want to count the EC2s I have to SSH to now and then).

Uh... I understand that as an Apple Fanboi you're required blame the user if they don't like Steve Jobs immaculate creation. But as it turns out, I am a user with very basic requirements for my MBP: if an external monitor is plugged in, use it; if a wired ethernet dongle is plugged in, make it available for use without having to set too many defaults; if I hit the power key on an external keyboard, turn on. These are all things I've seen other macs do.

<snark> But you're right. I'm a hater for wanting my MBP to boot and use external monitors. </snark>

Those things are already true for macs generally, your issues notwithstanding (though you seem to flit between criticizing the hardware and the OS, not sure you even know why your issue is happening), and if you think you wouldn't have these issues with Windows, why use an MBP at all? Surely the mighty Bill Gates will save you from your troubles, yeah?

And not for nothing, but Steve Jobs was a prodigiously arrogant asshole who had very little (if anything at all) to do with the Apple of today, and nearly nothing at all to do with how macOS functions now. The man literally killed himself with his own hubris.

Also... as much as I have asked, Bill Gates doesn't come over to my house to help me edit my registry.

(Though in all fairness, I haven't had to do too much registry surgery since Windows 7)

If you read the thread, you'll discover two things:

1. The MBP is a work laptop given to me by a customer to do development on. I would never pick a Mac to develop Linux code, but that's what my customer has done.

2. I'm not a windows user. Or rather, I have used windows at work, but prefer Linux or BSD systems at home.

Additionally... I can assure you Steve Jobs was a prodigious arrogant asshole who has an awful lot to do with Apple.

None of this is relevant to the fact that macOS doesn't have a generic "networking intermittently fails to start on boot" issue that you claim exists.

I'm mostly criticizing the OS. When it sounds like I'm criticizing the hardware, I'm probably criticizing the company's inability to ship hardware with an OS that has drivers that work with that hardware (especially considering they control both the hardware and the OS.)

Why do I need to download a kext and monkey with defaults to make the charger work? This was the kind of thing Macs were supposed to free me from.

You don't, is the point. The fact that you have to do those things (and not a meaningful number of others) make it clear it's a you issue, not a macOS issue.

Again. When you tell me I don't understand my own requirements and that I'm clearly hating on a platform because of course it is the best thing in the world and I just don't understand how good it is... well... that's not a way to influence others.

I am happy that macOS works for you. But I am not you and I have different requirements. Requirements that macOS does not fulfill.

Yes it does, if you use it competently. It's not the OS, it's you.

Ok, it's obviously exaggeration. It's a frequent source of annoyance, not hatred.

It is also true that I am a curmudgeon.

I use both macOS and Windows. I think they are both fine operating systems, each has its own annoyances, but I agree with most of the article's points.

I think you'd get used to it if you did it regularly for a while, is my point.

I use both, about 50/50. I have a windows desktop and a mac laptop. Perhaps that's why I have difficulty adjusting because I am switching between the two. But I find the windows approach more intuitive since I use a combination of chrome web apps in separate browser windows and desktop apps, I don't like having to think about what type of windows switching I need to do, I just want to switch windows.

You find simpler more intuitive, I get that, but can you understand the possibility here that the more granular control is, in general, an advantage to most folks?

Except that the author explicitly said command-tilde didn't work for their requirements.

Except it does based on their description of their problem, my point is I don't believe them.

This begins to look like the kind of article someone might write when they have a deadline and nothing else to say...

Oh, I'm another person that command-~ doesn't work for. I mean, it can work, but let's say I am working with three apps - two of them are web apps in their own chrome windows, three more chrome windows that I don't care about at the moment, and Numbers. I need to swap between the two because the monitor isn't big enough to show all the information at the same time.

I have to think about whether I want to tab or tilde at the moment, and then I have to make sure to minimize anything I'm not actively working on (or move it to a different space.)

But if I want something on a different space, then I have to think about moving over there because command-~ won't go there. So, I have to keep context in my mind that I want to Just Work.

I think if I could split out things like gmail, google calendar, or other SAASes rather than being separate windows I'd be better off. (I've created electron apps for some of these in the past, but it does make links out of them messy.)

I have a large screen most of the time, so I can keep the necessary context on the screen, but it becomes a larger problem when I'm on just the laptop screen.

Yes, you have to think when you use tools that you aren't familiar with.

How is this a legitimate complaint? Your brain is not yet wired to handle the additional functionality, but you blame the functionality for that, and not your brain?!

I've been using Mac for 9 years consistently and it still is unpleasant. It's a bad system because it doesn't account for web applications being independent applications, as mentioned above. I'm hopeful for the Web Apps functionality, though it won't help for SaaS software that only supports Chrome - there is enough blame to go around there, though.

I hate that I have to meticulously order windows and keep a mental map of the order of my web browser windows instead of a more streamlined experience. It gives that unpleasant mental shock that bad user experiences do, and it happens on a weekly basis. After 9 years, that's not my fault and it's not just me.

And how is something like Rectangle still not built in?

Can you explain why I, someone who uses both Windows and macOS on a daily basis, do not have this issue?

You use a different use case on how you use the systems? Because you don't coordinate between multiple applications to solve a problem as part of your workflow or you work with a large monitor when doing so?

Why do you take this as if it's some sort of affront?

I do all of those things you’ve have just listed, and am in no way experiencing your issue.

I take no offense to any of this, I’m just observing the problem looks to be you and not the OS or even hardware.

Except that the author EXPLICITLY says it does not work for them.

lmao the claim is that the author is bullshitting, not whatever you're talking about.

Read the article. The author explicitly mentions the list of things they don't like. It's completely fine that you like it. Neither I nor the author are attacking you for liking a feature of macOS. We are both saying there are features we don't like and would like Apple to keep trying for better alternatives. In this sense, I'm using the word "alternatives" to mean people who like the existing interface can continue to use the existing interface, but those of us who do not like it can have an alternate, improved experience.

I was just (playfully, I hope) saying the trick of putting the apparent solution at the top of your article in an ironic "this doesn't work" way isn't an effective way of addressing why that solution doesn't work here.

The specific problem I have is you used to be able to have a window float between virtual desktops, but that recently went away. FWIW, I spent most of my time on a real OS ssh'd into my mac. Assuming networking started on the Mac when I last rebooted it. Why do people put up with macOS?

This is what I use multiple monitors for.

I used to "have" your problem, but the multiple monitor solution fixed it.

Or using an iPad.

I'm not buying an iPad to paste over problems with Apple's flagship operating system. Also. I do not want to use multiple monitors. There's a fundamental disconnect here. I my world, the user gets to define what they want and the computer responds to those needs.

This sounds like a problem you encountered in like 2006 and have harbored it ever since.

I encountered this problem this morning. Which is why the hurt is so fresh. If you haven't encountered it since 2006, then count yourself as lucky. (Actually, 10.4 and 10.5 on PPC hardware seemed to work well for me. I don't remember ever having to manually adjust settings/preferences to make my wacom tablet work. And that was at a time when Windows was kind of a **-show. If only we could get back to the consistency of 10.3.)

I've been using macs for a few decades now and have not in any meaningful sense encountered an issue around networking failing to start on startup.

Good for you. If you were the only macOS user, we could say macOS doesn't have this problem. But there are other macOS users who do have this problem, so we can't.

> But there are other macOS users who do have this problem,

Are there?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com