enter to rename is just a lot faster for me than f2, bigger clearer button makes it much faster. from a usability standpoint, i'd rather rename easily than open easily.
I agree that f2, as an interface key, is less convenient that enter. However, there's a principle that more common interface operations should have shorter paths to activation and less common ones can become more and more inconvenient by being buried in menus or hidden behind some non-discoverable 3 or 4 key combination. The key side benefit is discover-ability. Renaming is just simply not as common an operation as opening/running. Unless you spend your days renaming lots of things and only open on occasion I guess.
But this principle, shorter path to common operations, is violated all over the place in OSX keyboard land, but rigidly followed in OSX mouse land and iOS touch land. Whereas the inverse is probably true for Windows.
also maybe it's because I've gotten used to the cmd+up and cmd+dn to go up and down directories (and also open files). in the end, we're all arguing a matter of preference.
I agree in many cases. cmd+up/dn is just as good as the windows equivalent. Being different isn't being worse, being worse is being worse.
it's equivalent to minimizing for windows. I want my mail app and calendar apps to be running and able to give notifications, but the window itself doesn't need to be rendered. Also, stuff like my browser that i open and close constantly doesn't need to be reloaded from the HD every time I open it, I don't want to see photoshop and office splash screens and wait the extra seconds to load an app every time i open a file simply because i closed the last window last time.
There are three things you should be aware of. In windows land, you can have background services running that handle notifications. You don't need the app open if they've designed it that way. Often they'll even stick a little icon in the taskbar you can click to open the app. Second, often pieces of windows software will stay resident in some part so that opening them a second time is much faster than the first time. Firefox for example takes a good 20 seconds to open on my system (what with all the extensions and junk I have in it). But only 2 or 3 seconds after that. Chrome opens so fast the first time I may as well have it minimized. Office apps in particular do a good job of this. Third, because of the MDI style in Windows, closing a document in an MDI style program is clearly not the same as closing the application. Many applications will stay up after closing the last document, like Photoshop, but it's clear that it's open and not just indicated by a generic toolbar at the top of the screen that could pretty much be from any old open app -- which is a consistent problem in OSX, "I've closed all my documents, now is the software closed or not, dunno, there's a toolbar that looks like every other tool bar for every other app, perhaps it is closed and I've just switched to another application, nope! It's still open". Not saying this is better, it just falls into the "different" category. Once you get used to it you go to close the app by command-Qing everything. But it's hugely annoying going from Windows->OSX and never ever ends up "feeling" right.
it seems at the end we're arguing a lot on preference.
just a final note on the last part. I am aware that windows caches your recently run programs to some degree, but it's still not quite the same sense of control of knowing your app is running. (also, have you tried starting a MS office app on the mac? yikes)
and windows 7 has definitely fixed a lot of the clutter that really annoyed me with the taskbar and makes it a lot less annoying to minimize a whole bunch of windows. and the whole "minimize to tray" was just a way to get around the taskbar clutter, but then you start getting system tray clutter... and that's another story.
the list of running apps on OSX is fairly easy to tell for me from the "dots" under the dock badges. also, my fav trick for quitting apps is holding cmd, tabbing to the app you want, then pressing q to quit.
anyway, it's mostly a matter of preference. it all felt foreign to me when i first made the switch too, but after getting used to it, i'll take OSX's quirks over windows any day
Yeah, lots of the differences are just differences.
> and windows 7 has definitely fixed a lot of the clutter that really annoyed me with the taskbar and makes it a lot less annoying to minimize a whole bunch of windows.
I agree, it really is a completely different way of operating. I used to spend a lot of time trying to get the old taskbar out of the way, with Win 7, it feels really nice, operates even better, and in many ways makes a lot of sense.
> and the whole "minimize to tray" was just a way to get around the taskbar clutter
Truer words were never spoken. The process tray is really quite abused. Do I really need 37 icons in there. At least with 7 you can configure the behavior a bit.
I do like how OSX's dock operates, and how it indicates running programs and the like. I think Windows 7 copied very liberally from this in terms of function, but it looks quite a bit different, with some updated ideas.
I still think Apple can optimize the dock and toolbar and notification area of OSX a bit more.
> my fav trick for quitting apps is holding cmd, tabbing to the app you want, then pressing q to quit.
Yeah, that's almost as nice as Chrome's tab closing operation.
One thing I also forgot was the way software on Macs handles choice buttons. On a Windows box it's usually, "OK" and "Cancel" or some such preceded by a question. "Do you want to do actions XYZ?" This can sometimes be confusing.
In OSX land, there is a nice tendency to put a verb on the buttons like "Yes, Do XYZ" or "Not right now" or something descriptive and unambiguous and creates a nice cognitive binding between buttons and actions. It's a simple thing but is noticeable and I wish it would start to bleed over in Windowsland more.
I agree that f2, as an interface key, is less convenient that enter. However, there's a principle that more common interface operations should have shorter paths to activation and less common ones can become more and more inconvenient by being buried in menus or hidden behind some non-discoverable 3 or 4 key combination. The key side benefit is discover-ability. Renaming is just simply not as common an operation as opening/running. Unless you spend your days renaming lots of things and only open on occasion I guess.
But this principle, shorter path to common operations, is violated all over the place in OSX keyboard land, but rigidly followed in OSX mouse land and iOS touch land. Whereas the inverse is probably true for Windows.
also maybe it's because I've gotten used to the cmd+up and cmd+dn to go up and down directories (and also open files). in the end, we're all arguing a matter of preference.
I agree in many cases. cmd+up/dn is just as good as the windows equivalent. Being different isn't being worse, being worse is being worse.
it's equivalent to minimizing for windows. I want my mail app and calendar apps to be running and able to give notifications, but the window itself doesn't need to be rendered. Also, stuff like my browser that i open and close constantly doesn't need to be reloaded from the HD every time I open it, I don't want to see photoshop and office splash screens and wait the extra seconds to load an app every time i open a file simply because i closed the last window last time.
There are three things you should be aware of. In windows land, you can have background services running that handle notifications. You don't need the app open if they've designed it that way. Often they'll even stick a little icon in the taskbar you can click to open the app. Second, often pieces of windows software will stay resident in some part so that opening them a second time is much faster than the first time. Firefox for example takes a good 20 seconds to open on my system (what with all the extensions and junk I have in it). But only 2 or 3 seconds after that. Chrome opens so fast the first time I may as well have it minimized. Office apps in particular do a good job of this. Third, because of the MDI style in Windows, closing a document in an MDI style program is clearly not the same as closing the application. Many applications will stay up after closing the last document, like Photoshop, but it's clear that it's open and not just indicated by a generic toolbar at the top of the screen that could pretty much be from any old open app -- which is a consistent problem in OSX, "I've closed all my documents, now is the software closed or not, dunno, there's a toolbar that looks like every other tool bar for every other app, perhaps it is closed and I've just switched to another application, nope! It's still open". Not saying this is better, it just falls into the "different" category. Once you get used to it you go to close the app by command-Qing everything. But it's hugely annoying going from Windows->OSX and never ever ends up "feeling" right.