Frustrations with OS X

[phinsman]

Originally Posted by fryke

I'm using Fn ArrowLeft and Fn ArrowRight. Those keys even have "home" and "end" written on them on my PowerBook. Must admit I'm not sure what the desktop keyboards currently have for that.

About offending anyone: I'm pretty sure you didn't, since you didn't say "Hey, Macs s*ck!", but rather you made your point quite nicely.

I can understand your gripe about the freeware/shareware situation. linux _is_ different here, a different movement altogether. However, I've seen more and more freeware alternatives pop up for any given utility task over the past few years.

I personally use SideNote for notes. It's the greatest, I believe. Handy, useful - and still under active development AFAIK. And hey: It's freeware. Looky! http://www.apple.com/downloads/macos.../sidenote.html

SideNote...I will check that out when I get home today! Thanks!

Dale

[phinsman]

Originally Posted by kainjow

Mac developers have a lot more requirements put on them then any other OS in the world. Why? Because Mac users expect good looking applications with slick UI's. Not all developers can do that and have skills in that. Plus, it requires icons, which 99% of programmers can't make, so they have to hire someone. But if they're going to be making a freeware app, they don't want to spend any more money then necessary on it. Mac users are picky. They don't take just any program that does the job. They want it to look good! I think it's sort of hard to grasp when users come from others OSs, especially Linux, in which the entire OS is open source! Mac OS X is not 100% open source, so why should each individual program be? Open source doesn't make full sense unless the OS is open source. Get my drift?

I don't agree with most of this. If you're going to make something freeware, most likely you can dig around the Internet and find yourself an icon to "borrow" -- asking permission if necessary. Or use some icon built into the system, as I did with most of the GTK stuff I wrote on my Red Hat machine. Or, better still, take any kind of picture, art, etc., break out The Gimp, and make an icon from that.

I'm not saying everything should be Open Source...I'm just whining about the lack of freeware.

Originally Posted by kainjow

Again, it's the same thing with GUIs. Most Mac OS X users don't care about X11, because there are (usually) far better native alternatives.

So far I haven't found that to be the case, unless I break out my credit card.

Originally Posted by kainjow

Next time I'd suggest you research the topic first, before spending $1500! Don't just assume the Mac is for you, because lots of other people are switching, especially if you're a techy

Now you are dead on here! Haha...I can promise you that I won't be admitting that to my wife.

Originally Posted by kainjow

Maybe iCal is meant to stay open? That's how Mac OS X works best. Give it good enough RAM, and leave all your programs open. That's what I do - I have anywhere from 15-25 open at once.

I just feel like if they can put a date on an icon, they should have it be correct whether iCal is open or not. Also, it seemed like it wasn't updating even when I left it open, unless I actively used it. I may be wrong there.

I'm trying to get used to keeping lots of windows open, but that seems very unorganized to me. I go back to my complaints about the lack of support for minimized windows.

Originally Posted by kainjow

What kind of "power" are you referring to? You know, Thunderbird is available for Mac OS X..

Poor choice of words by me...not really power, just a feature here and there. Labeling messages with a color, or marking as important a la Evolution. Just minor things; I'm sticking with Mail so far. I did try out Thunderbird on the Mac, but, like most of the other multi-platform apps, it didn't quite seem integrated enough.

Thanks for all the discussion; you made your points well.

Dale

[Lt Major Burns]

home and end is apple+left or +right. start and end of words is alt+left/ +right. much easier than home and end keys when you get used to it. pc's seem silly having a whole extra key for these function now, and it's so out of the way....

[mosx86]

My current favorite text editor is TextWrangler by BareBones. It's free as beer and has a lot of the great features of BBedit, only it's free as beer. It also installs a command line tool (edit) that allows you to open files from the command line within it. It also works well with Services.

http://www.barebones.com/products/te...er/index.shtml

[phinsman]

Originally Posted by fryke

Oh, Apple hasn't updated that page about SideNote. So here's the link to the developer's homepage, where you'll find version 1.7: http://www.chatelp.org/?s=Sidenote

Sidenote is great!!! Thanks for the heads-up. I'm still not sure whether I want to use it instead of a notebook app, but for note taking, it's as good as I've ever seen.

Thanks again,
Dale

[texanpenguin]

The iCal icon is supposed to update. A lot of people (including me) share the bug that it just... doesn't anymore.


I've NEVER noticed a lack of freeware on OS X. If anything, I've noticed an incredible amount of freeware. I think the problem is the actual applications you want to have. If you post a list of the *functions* you want programs to do, we can point you at the best way to do it.

[kainjow]

Originally Posted by phinsman

I'm trying to get used to keeping lots of windows open, but that seems very unorganized to me. I go back to my complaints about the lack of support for minimized windows.

You can learn to use the Hide <App> in each application's menu to hide all of that program's windows. It works well if you can get used to it.

Also, when command-tabbing around, you can use 'h' to hide an application also. Although AFAIK there is no way to show the application again via command-tab.

Originally Posted by phinsman

Poor choice of words by me...not really power, just a feature here and there. Labeling messages with a color, or marking as important a la Evolution. Just minor things; I'm sticking with Mail so far. I did try out Thunderbird on the Mac, but, like most of the other multi-platform apps, it didn't quite seem integrated enough.

You can color messages when you create a rule in Preferences, but it appears you can't just normally. That definitely should be a normal feature. You can also flag messages, and then use that with smart playlists/sorting, etc.

[fryke]

"Although AFAIK there is no way to show the application again via command-tab." - Well, if you bring it to the front, of course, but that's it.