"In 2005, Apple announced the Mac Mini. It was the answer to what I was looking for in a computer, so I bought one. This is a report about the early months with my new Mac, and how it compares to a Linux computer (I have never owned a Windows computer). In short, I am now both a Mac and a Linux user - Apple gets GUI simplicity, usability, and coherency right, and Linux everything else."
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Member since:2005-06-29
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Member since:2005-07-27
Hmm...
After using a Mac almost exclusively for the past 8 months from a lifelong taskbar user, I think the dock / expose / window hiding kicks the living shit out of the taskbar.
IMO all taskbars suck, it takes too much reading.
With the dock, I see big beautiful icon quickly, click quickly. I don't know about Linux, but Windows taskbar grouping sucks, you have no ability to group windows to the same area of the taskbar but NOT collapse them, and I don't even know if you can group at all in Linux (I suspect you can somehow)
but hiding a whole app > minimizing any day of the week.
IMO, Linux and Windows take too much fidgeting when it comes to managing the windows, and I expect this to get worse as resolutions increase... both of them are really meant for full screen usage, when we have 2000x whatever resolutions etc, are you going to want a fullscreen web browser? Windows/Linux as of right now don't offer anything as nice as expose to take the work out of organizing non-fullscreen windows... which I feel is the right way to go as resolutions increase.
I thought I would hate the dock, and initially I was a little iffy of it, but after using it so long it kicks the crap out of taskbar by a large margin IMO.
Member since:> Oh, and another thing that annoys me is that I can't set the focus to
> follow the mouse like I can on Linux and the like. It makes it rather
> difficult at times to deal with two windows at once.
MacOS has a global menu bar that changes depending on which window has focus; if focus-followed-mouse then the menu bar would be useless.
Member since:2005-08-02
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Much like the author I'm also mainly a Linux user. The things that bug me the most on OSX are the terminals. When you double click text it doesn't highlight everything between the spaces like you'd expect it to. I do imagine there's a way to change this though. Maybee someone would know off the top of their head?
Oh, and another thing that annoys me is that I can't set the focus to follow the mouse like I can on Linux and the like. It makes it rather difficult at times to deal with two windows at once.
And I fully agree with the author that expose is no replacement for a nice taskbar and some virtual desktops. But I suppose it may just come down to what I'm used to. I am learning to live with the OSX way of doing things I guess, or at least when I use it I don't want to throw the thing out the window anymore.