OS X - Another take 1 week later

Posted on July 24, 2007
Tags: Techie |

As Richard mentioned, it takes time to get used to OS X, but now I quite like it :-) I toned down the font smoothing and disabled it for small fonts so things are more readable while still looking very pretty. I’ve customized a lot of the top bar to show all the stats I like to see and generally become more used to and fond of the nice little design things OS X has to offer. I routinely find myself wanting to use Expose in Windows for example.

Some things though I still can’t get used to and am amazed I couldn’t find them, maybe they’re there but I’ve missed them. So these are just things I’m kind of carrying over from years of Windows use. Who knows maybe eventually I’ll find a way around them but for now they bug me.

1. Thou shall not only Copy - Where’s the ability to cut and paste files? What’s the deal with no context menu Cut and no ability to drag and move files?
2. Follow thy path - Err how can I grab the path of a file so I can use that path elsewhere? Related to that, why no path/address bar in Finder?
3. Tab your way to (mouse) Freedom - Why can’t I tab through an online form past the password?
4. I do have a taste in music, really! - No settings on Front Row? Play my own music while looking at photos? (OK, you can create a slideshow but, I like doing it on the fly)
5. You’ve got Mail! - I can’t change the alert sound in Mail, it just crashes. Tried many times.
6. Sub-folders exist for a reason - TextEditor will only allow me to save files to a top folder, huh?
7. Looking for a wireless network - can I please see the signal strength and whether it is secure or not?
8. Clicking in Firefox address bar does not highlight it? - I don’t need to fix a character or two, I’d like to type a whole new address on top of it.
9. Pre-select dialog boxes - When Firefox asks me whether to save a password or not why can’t I just tap the space bar or a hot key to either accept or tab to my other desired option?

So that’s it, my list of gripes. Working methods I “perfected” over the years and which won’t work for me anymore. But overall I’m enjoying this OS more and more :-)

Comments

4 Responses to “OS X - Another take 1 week later”

  1. Richard on July 24th, 2007 4:03 pm

    1) dragging files typically moves them, unless you are dragging across physical drives. I’ve never actually noticed that there’s no cut option, since I don’t re-org as much after I got used to spotlight (and I do big re-orgs via command line).

    2) shift-cmd-g will allow you to type an address. not quite an address bar, but similar

    3) dunno

    4) dunno

    5) dunno

    6) lots of apps have save dialogs like this. There’s a button beside the place where the filename goes that expands your options

    7) yeah, I like this on my XP laptop, too

    8) you can triple-click, or click off to the right and drag up a bit, which selects all the text

    9) I know, after all these years I *still* hit spacebar because I am wired to expect that to work. They should really change that!

  2. eyal on July 25th, 2007 1:57 am

    I think you had some issues with commenting? Looks like SK@ is playing up again. Thanks for re-posting.

    Didn’t realize about the saving stuff in sub-folders, good tip. Thanks.

  3. Richard on July 25th, 2007 10:12 am

    I think the first reply took too long, and whatever the server uses for the captcha expired or something. But, when I press “back” on my browser, my comment didn’t get repopulated, so I tried a number of times to convince by browser to restore it. I don’t know how many times the first comment got resubmitted and rejected in the process! I eventually threw in the towel and re-wrote it.

  4. eyal on July 25th, 2007 10:17 am

    I don’t know what’s going on with it, I thought I had solved this when I upgraded WordPress. I sometimes get the same problem while being logged in as the admin of the site! (no captcha is presnted). I disabled SK2 yet again and will see if there are more issues. I actually got both your other comments sent to my email - that’s how I realized you had those issues. So they weren’t completely lost :-)

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