Remix.run Logo
drewda 6 hours ago

FWIW I've been on a OS X for many years now, but I still miss keyboard shortcuts in Windows. So much more consistent across the operating system and applications...

sidkshatriya 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I've used macOS for years and still don't understand their windows minimize/restore logic. I'm always hunting for my minimized window. Yes, the fault probably lies with me.

OTOH the Windows UI is far better well designed and intuitive. But yeah... I'd rather fumble around in macOS: Windows is always trying to upsell a service that I don't need. If I say no it will helpfully keep reminding me (my answer is never going to change). I have 32GB ram and a recent processor being fed tons of wattage -- it feels so bog slow.

Windows needs to fix itself fast.

weaksauce 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

reading all these comments about windows having better shortcuts and window management features makes me feel like i'm taking crazy pills. windows for me was hands down the worst experience in ux. the shortcuts in macos are so well thought out and consistent.

now i'm using kde in linux land and it's the best and most customizable experience. I can't imagine going back to windows ever and would be missing a lot from linux if i went back to macos(though it would be fine).

getting macos keybinding in linux land is a game changer to me: https://github.com/RedBearAK/toshy and this just makes me feel at home.

fodkodrasz 2 hours ago | parent [-]

I give you a well thought out macos shortcut for example. Ok, it is for a niche feature people rarely use... Screenshots, put straight to the clipboard.

On windows you have 2 options, bot pretty unintuitive:

1. You can either press PrintScreen button... (OK boomer, who uses a full size keyboard? My RGB clicky-keys 57% keyboard doesn't even have backspace, return, escape or delete, I don't even know when I saw a keyboard with Printscreen. My Neofetch-fork does save the screen, and otherwise no need for screenshots...)

2. Or you may press Win+Shift+S. Ok it is hard to memorize, how does S even relate to Screenshot?

Meanwhile on the intuitive MacOs to do this you only have to press Command+Option+Shift+4. So intuitive and easy!!! Also way easier to press, just try it! Only 4 keys to press at the same time, in a very convenient layout, way better than that illogical windows shortcut.

Sarcasm aside: It is clear why Microsoft is well known for the fact that in the 1990s they put a lot of effort to usability research, and why Apple is famous about Steve Jobs being the BDFL, and things had to fit his personal taste.

3form 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Overall it does sound like KDE is possibly the experience that you desire - did you try it before?

mschuster91 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

You want to look into HyperSwitch and SizeUp. These two solve pretty much all headaches relating to window management on macOS.

kmeisthax 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

macOS does not and never has had a good strategy for handling minimizing windows. Keep in mind that prior to Mac OS X, you couldn't minimize windows at all, you could only roll them up. When OS X added the dock, they made minimized windows go there. Except, the Dock is an icon grid, so there's no way to see window titles, and the windows themselves are so small that it is difficult to identify them at a glance. Making things worse, the Dock is also a place you put app icons, so now you have an icon to show all your non-minimized app icons, right next to all your minimized window icons.

Meanwhile, Windows had minimize since version 2[0], except for whatever reason windows minimized to desktop icons, and there was no desktop folder. They'd known they'd invented a worse version of Mac OS, and in Windows 95 they made sure that there was not only a real desktop, but also a list of all open windows. This design was so successful that the only major tweak that stuck was merging the taskbar and Quick Launch[1] into something that superficially resembles the OSX dock, but is just plain better[2] because clicking an app icon actually shows you all the open windows.

[0] I don't have a Windows 1 install to check with.

[1] Strictly speaking you could put anything in Quick Launch, but only apps go in the Win7 taskbar

[2] Oldschool NeXT users will point out that in NeXTSTEP, minimized windows had an actual title on them, and the app icon instead of a screenshot of the window at tiny scale.

kstrauser 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

This may be the first time that sentiment's ever been expressed.

malfist 6 hours ago | parent [-]

Why do you say that?

A lot of shortcuts are shared between windows and linux and fairly consistent across applications. Mac is the one that takes a decided "we're different" approach to shortcuts. I.e., Alt+L for address bar instead of Alt+D, Command swapping with Control, Q instead of W for closing tabs, Command+Control+Q for locking a computer instead of Super+L, etc

kstrauser 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

They didn't mention cross-OS shortcuts, though. I interpreted "across the operating systems" as meaning "across the various versions of Windows". Yes, Windows is more consistent with their own common shortcuts. But Macs have exceedingly consistent shortcuts across Mac applications, compared to my experience with Windows and especially Linux.

I might also point out that Mac had keyboard shortcuts before Windows existed, so it's not really fair to describe them as the "different" one when MS chose their own, different shortcuts for Windows.

larusso 5 hours ago | parent [-]

Apple also invented their own key “Apple” now “CMD” for operation like copy / paste to explicitly not have the issue to overload the already know escape sequences. Windows being on a system without a normalized keyboard had to reuse keys that are common to keyboards used back then. Vertical integration played into apples cards even back then.

chuckadams 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The location of the command key is also a lot more comfortable. Thumb vs pinky.

hparadiz 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I setup my Linux system to use it because it's more consistent for copy pasting in a terminal.

pdpi an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Many of those shortcuts already existed in macOS before they were added in Windows. Inversely, a lot of desktop Linux stuff was designed specifically to mimic the Windows behaviour.

So, really, it's Microsoft that decided "we're different".

Also, as somebody who sort of lives in the terminal, the lack of the Command/Ctrl distinction is one of the things that really bothers me about Windows. In default GUI applications, application shortcuts use Command, and Ctrl is used almost exclusively for headline-style shortcuts (ctrl-k for kill line, ctrl-a for home, ctrl-e for end, etc). Ctrl-a Ctrl-shift-e is kind of baked into my brain as "select whole line".

Sohcahtoa82 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The big one for me on Mac was refreshing a web page being CMD+R rather than F5.

Not to mention the muscle memory for pressing CTRL in the corner of the keyboard rather than CMD where Alt is.

Though I will say that having "Copy" (cmd-c) being different from ^C (ctrl-c) was kind of nice. Though Terminal has done a nice thing of making it so if you highlight text, Ctrl-C copies the first time you press it, and sends ^C the second time.

kstrauser 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Conversely, when I use a PC, I have to stop and wonder why alt-R doesn't reload the web page like it's supposed to, and alt-C doesn't copy, and I have to stretch my pinky all the way over to use that shortcut. And what's the mnemonic for "F5 means reload"?

Which is to say that neither Windows nor Mac shortcuts are inherently better. It's just what we're used to. IME, the main difference is that once you learn the Mac shortcuts in a handful of apps, they'll pretty much work on the other apps you encounter, too.

3form 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Ctrl-R reloads the page in every browser that I have used, so perhaps that's what you're looking for.

sunshowers 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

A big issue with the macOS style I'd that there isn't a modifier key free for the user to build their own shortcuts around. The Win/Super key is a very good place to hang custom shortcuts off of on Windows and Linux.

3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]
[deleted]
zarzavat 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> The big one for me on Mac was refreshing a web page being CMD+R rather than F5.

It's not like you can't change it.

System Settings > Keyboard Shortcuts > App Shortcuts > add your browser > remap the Reload menu item to F5

Along with Karabiner you can pretty much make Mac OS work however you want it to when it comes to keyboard shortcuts.

Miraste 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

If you want a little more consistency for muscle memory, ctrl+L goes to the address bar on Windows the same way cmd+L goes to it on Mac. Same for ctrl+W and cmd+W to close tabs.

cmiller1 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I've always found the opposite, do you have any examples where macOS falls short compared to Windows in shortcut consistency?