Linked by Thom Holwerda on Wed 13th Aug 2008 23:50 UTC
An interesting article has been making its way around the internet the past few days, titled "Top 10 Usability Highs Of Mac OS". Mac OS X indeed does some things very, very right, just like many other operating systems and graphical environments do some things very, very right. The issue with the list of the article in question is that many of the items on the list are not exactly examples of "Usability Highs" at all.
Thread beginning with comment 327183
To view parent comment, click here.
To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.
To view parent comment, click here.
To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.
Recent Original Stories
Recent Comments
Headlines
Random Comments
Random Stories
Random OS Link
Member since:
2008-07-15
What bothers me is the uselessness of the enter key. Some dialog comes up and you want to execute the default highlighted choice? Not with Enter. Space works, but even with that you can't tab between choices (OK, Cancel, whatever). EDIT: I'm probably wrong about enter and space in dialogs, that is to say which one of them works. One does, one doesn't, and if I don't remember which it is that just goes to show how a new Mac user has problems with the keyboard).
Browsing Applications in Finder and you want to launch the highlighted app? Not with Enter. Not with Space either. A Mac user will be familiar with command-O, and that's great. But it's different.
Now obviously Apple is never going to change things to suit users of other operating systems when it would inconvenience long time users of their own operating system and I wouldn't ask them to (having stuff like that as an option would be nice though). As sensible as it is for them to stick with what their users know, it does remain an impediment for people switching. Or at least it does for me.
To be able to tab between controls, you can turn on full keyboard access, either under system prefs -> keyboard and mouse or by pressing ctrl+f1. No, enter doesn't execute the default choice, return does, as enter has other uses. Note that on Mac keyboards, enter refers strictly to the numeric keypad's enter key, and return is where PC users traditionally think of enter (at the right end of the home row). On a Mac, these keys do have different uses, return functions as the PC enter key and enter performs a variety of auxiliary functions, one of the most noteable being to rename items in applications such as iTunes. Press return on a track, and the song will play. Press enter on it, and you can edit its name.