Little annoyances of OS X

In this post I will try to write down all the little things that make me not want to use OS X anymore. I am a windows switcher so I will be comparing Windows XP and OS X. I will also list some third party programs which work differently on OS X and Windows and the OS X way is annoying me. I do not want to bash OS X and I am writing this to find solutions. There are many things that OS X does better but this post is not about them. It's about the bad stuff. Maybe there are simple fixes. I don’t know. I have only been using my Macbook Pro for about 2 month. I do everything in OS X and only boot to windows to game about once a week. Here we go:

1. Finder: It is the most annoying program in all of OS X. I have already installed Xfolders as a replacement but often you are forced to use finder.

a. Finder does not refresh the content of a shared folder or a network drive. The situation is this, I share my OS X Movie folder on my network with other users (Linux and windows). I used sharepoints to do this. In the Movie folder I created a folder called "Junk" where I put movies that I want to get rid of. The idea is that I put old movies that are just taking up space there and they are free to be deleted. Everybody has read and write access to this folder and the others on the network will check the folder and either delete the file or copy it to their local drive. This works. Only thing is that Finder takes a reboot to show me how others have changed the folder. People delete or add files and Finder does not update the folder. If I try to open a deleted file I get an error but finder still shows it. I found half an answer in the MacFuse forum. It has something to do with OS X folder caching. But there was no solution given. The same thing happens with Shared folders of others. I need to close them and open them again to see that there where files added. How do I refresh folders? I found a add on for finder that claims to do this but it doesn’t work for me.

b. Finder does not display the full path of the file or folder. I often use the "show in finder" option in spotlight or other places. But finder has no easy option to display that path or even navigate to the parent folder. I know you can do that in the list/tree view. But that view is so ugly I rather not use it. I want to be able to see the whole file path in the finders window and also a button to navigate one folder up.​

2. Firefox: In firefox when I single click on the URL or on the search window then it does not highlight the whole text so I can over write it. It just puts the courser right in the middle of the URL right where I clicked. I need to double click to highlight the whole URL so I can over write it. I don’t ever want to write into a current URL, I want to change it. And if I want to change a current URL or search term I will click twice.

3. Widgets: I have a lot of them. So first point… They use way to much ram. Some of them take like 20MB??? Well I can live with that but what annoys me is that they load really long first time they open. It takes like 30seconds. I have tried removing the ones that I don’t need already but its still slow. I have a slower Vista notebook (slower as in only 1.8ghz Core Duo with 1GB ram) and it loads widgets much faster.

I hope all this is understandable. I might add more stuff later if I run into anything. I hope someone can help me to get rid of some of this stuff.

Thank you!

 

2. If you mean you want to highlight the whole URL in the navigation bar, just press CMD + L

 

Yeah that is what i ment. However doing it with the mouse/trackpad would be nicer. Firefox in windows and linux does it right and opera in OS X does not have this problem too.

 

This bothered me at first too. I got used to it though and now I prefer it and got frustrated using Firefox on my work PC (until I noticed you can CTRL + L on a PC). With the shortcut your hands don't have to leave the keyboard... and normally when I highlight an URL it's either to copy, paste or type a new one, none of which involves the trackpad

 

Where is annoyes me even more is the search funktion. And I always cut and paste with the trackpad/mouse . I like to lean back and surf with the mouse only. Cut some words from the text of the current page, open a new tab, paste it with the mouse into the search funktion or url.

 

i have heard many complain about finder, does anyone know if apple is doing anything to make it better in leopard?

 

apparently they are fixing the finder for leopard, yes.

 

I agree that Finder is way underpowered. About displaying the path or navigating to parent folders, option (or is it command? don't remember and I don't have a Mac here at work) click the icon in the title bar and it will display all the enclosing folders all the way up to the HDD. You can navigate from there.

 

1. Finder sucks. Pathfinder costs. Leopard needs to come sooner, but I'm worried that Apple will focus more on the "frills" (i.e. coverflow for a file explorer!? Beyond slowing it down and making it take up more real estate, I can't see how that's an advantage), than function.

2. Firefox on OSX sucks. OmniWeb, Shiira, Camino are all better IMO, especially OW and Shiira. (make sure you get OW v5.6 if you're using that). I can't recall how they handle clicking on the search/location bar though, since I don't use my mouse for that. OW lets you use regular expressions though, so the bar works slightly differently.

3. Windows doesn't have "widgets" period, unless you're referring to 3rd party software for XP or the gadgets on the sidebar for Vista. Memory usage for widgets depend largely on how well-written the widget is though. I.e. if you use "the weather channel widget", you'll be waiting forever for it to do its thing and your RAM usage will go waaaay up. Same with some of the "game" widgets. Overall though, I find it done better than the sidebar in Vista.

 

Don't know if it works in Firefox, but in Safari I have to click the little favicon left of the address once (or the globe if the website doesn't have any icon) and it highlights the entire address without using the keyboard.

Though I don't use Safari that way, I still click mutiple times because I'm used to it.

 

1) Finder is underpowered. Leopard will get a new Finder, but I haven't seen too much yet.

2) You might want to try Camino, which is Firefox optimized for Mac OS X (but loses add-ons and plug-ins, if that's what you're after. When you click on the URL it doesn't highlight the entire URL.

3) This is kind of personal preference. If you don't want to use as much RAM, don't put as many widgets.

 

additional annoyances of Mac OSX:

- the + button should fully maximize window (a la Vista or XP)
- I really hate using expose everytime when I want to see the windows that I have opened... they should have put the previews of the windows opened on the dock (rather than minimizing them first in order to do this)

other than that, I love OSX.

 

The + button definitely should NOT maximize windows . I hate how Windows tries to maximize everything to full-screen. It's so wasteful, especially on a widescreen. It sucks especially in Vista, because you lose the Aero Glass interface too. I hate having to resize everything manually in Vista when there should be an easy button for that purpose (i.e. what + does in OSX).

How many applications do you really need to be full-screen? Very few...and those apps usually DO maximize to full screen when you hit the + button (e.g. Mail). For most applications however, it's far more effective use of screen real estate if they're not full-screen.
Having an option to customize what the + button does though would be nice for those who like it either way.

In fact, I really wish there was an "auto +" button that set your window size depending on what you're viewing for web browsers.

For your 2nd point, I think they may do this with Stacks. I rather like Expose since it's actually more intuitive and efficient if you have many windows and sub-windows open (since the preview feature of Windows is limited, and Aero app switching is kind of clumsy at best). But I agree having both would be useful. We'll see what happens with Leopard.

 

How well does this work on the small screen of the MacBook? On large iMac displays, not maximizing is indeed better for overall efficiency (perhaps even for the eyes as well); but I'm concerned whether the 13" screen might get too crammed up. Do you think MacOs provides efficient/comfortable windows management for smaller screens?

If I decide for sure to get a MacBook, I shall be writing my dissertation on it in 4 years! Do you think the Macbook has a comfortable screen with good window management to author long texts (and read long pdfs)?

I know there's always the possibility to get an additional large display; but I've barely convinced myself to pay the "Apple premium", and want to keep peripheral expenses to a minimum.

 

I'm using a MacBook and I do all my work in full screen mode (either pressing the + button, which maximizes in some apps such as iPhoto, or by dragging until it covers the whole screen). I find the screen resolution comfortable to use in all tasks except in Photoshop, which is useable but of course the 1280x1024 on my desktop PC display is more comfortable.

 

Only skimmed this, but I saw a reference to "not highlighting the entire url in Firefox"? This is easily accomplished by triple-clicking (one click places cursor, two highlights word, three highlights entire row - or, in this case, entire url). Hope that helps.

 

that (triple clicking) is pretty consistent across applications... even in windows.

 

The key idea here is minimizing desktop clutter. Working on a word document and seeing your desktop background on both sides of the screen is distracting. Yes, you can move and resize the active window to full screen, but that's pretty annoying. There is also wasted space on the left and right side of the dock when you maximize the window.

 

You realize though, that if you maximize a window in Word, all you see to the sides is blank space? The active window and work-area itself doesn't get any bigger. I guess from a certain point of view, the plain solid grey that fills up the unused space when Word is maximized can be less distracting than whatever you have on your desktop wallpaper if you tend to look away from the active window a lot, but that's only under the assumption you have everything else closed when using Word.

But how often do you really use Word in isolation?

What about your web browser for research? Adobe Reader for pdf articles? Your note-taking, journaling and organization program? What about your notes and citations? Your e-mail and calendar if you're doing something work-related? Your timeline, flowchart, presentation, publication software if you're doing something along those lines? Your spreadsheet and database if you're working with large charts and tables?

I'm not saying you'll have all those open at any time, but it's not unreasonable to say that at any moment when people are working on Word, they may well have at least one such application open at the same time to assist in whatever project they're working on. The argument here is that since these situations could reasonably be argued to occur more frequently than cases where people would want to deliberately fill up screen space for fewer distractions, making the most efficient use of screen real estate is a higher priority than the questionable benefits of letting a screen be maximized.

Could there be a benefit to minimizing "desktop clutter"? Possibly - you could argue that people could concentrate better with a plain background and only 1 active working area in sight, but then again, is seeing half of a picture to the side of your working area really that distracting to cause a huge drop in efficiency and productivity? Possibly - but I suspect it's really not that big a deal for most. On the other hand, could you reap a more efficiency and other benefits from having two working areas that you could make use of side by side with easy access? Depending on the project, definitely.

 

I'm not intending this to turn to a mac vs. pc debate, but pc's have all of these capabilities all along. I could choose to maximize or switch between windows or put them side-by-side whenever I want to. With macs, you have to resize them first in order to get a full screen and have to drag the corner of the window to resize it again if i choose to have more than one window side by side. It's annoying.

 

Not true. Windows only has 3 options for instant resizing of windows - cascade and tile, and then maximize, none of which give a true proportionate representation of the window you're working on. If you want to change the proportions at all, you have to do it manually by resizing it yourself.

What I prefer is having a feature that automatically resizes to the necessary space of your working area, and NOT simply dividing the screen in 2 or in a cascade of windows or whatnot. A lot of software program have some sort of this implemented by default (e.g. Photoshop in some instances), but this is by no means a native function of Windows.

The + zoom in OSX does this for many programs to some extent, but it's not perfect - i.e. there needs to be a feature for it to do this automatically as the window size changes as an option. But in any event, I prefer it to simply maximizing the window.

Hopefully, OSX will improve on this in Leopard with Spaces, but I'm not seeing much hope

 

Just wanted to point out that Firefox for Linux also works by double-clicking to highlight the entire URL. I personally prefer it this way.

 

2. The quickest and easiest way to highlight the whole of the URL is to click the little icon/symbol in front of it. Its the same with safari. Example...

 

There are a few things with OSX that's annoying me at the moment, and anything you can comment to help make life easier would be good.

1. Whenever I save anything off the interent, it won't appear on the hard drive unless I search with it using Finder. It will appear the next time I restart the computer, but not before.

Actually, that seems to be the only thing at the moment. Ta.