OS X annoyances draft

osx_annoyances.md

OS X Annoyances

Little things that bother me when using OS X

Don't get me wrong, there are a lot of things to like about OS X (there's a section with just a few of my favorite things at the bottom), but I've become acutely disillusioned with OS X's veneer of perfection. It seems to me that one of the main things that Apple accomplished with OS X was to create and maintain a thriving ecosystem of third-party applications specifically designed to fix the shortcomings of the operating system.

Mind, I'm also an OS X newbie. I'm sure that there are apps or console commands or buried settings that fix a lot of these gripes. But that also sort of proves my point - because many of these are things that ought to be incredibly simple, or easy to tweak, or have a better default; but they aren't, or don't. These have been the pain points for me as a relatively experienced Windows and Linux desktop user trying to get used to OS X.

Finder

This is a biggie - I've started to really dislike Finder. Thankfully third-party replacements and enhancements exist to fix all these problems and more... for $39.95 or $18.00, respectively. And I can always use the terminal.

• Apparently no option to list folders before files
• No context menu option to rename a file, create an empty file/document, or 'cut' (move) a file
• In fact, there doesn't seem to be any way to 'cut' a file at all - no Cmd-X makes moving items with the keyboard a lot more difficult than it needs to be
• On a full-sized keyboard, the delete key on the main keyset (equivalent to backspace on a Windows keyboard) can be used to delete files... but the other delete key (above the arrow keys) cannot.
• No control of how to unpack archives - there seems to be only one way to extract a .zip - put the contents in a new folder in the current directory
• No form of icon organization is enabled by default - if you want your folders in a grid, you have to go into a menu and select that
• By default, creating a new folder places its icon under the mouse cursor. This is especially annoying combined with the above - if you extract an archive by double clicking on it, the folder with the contents is created underneath the archive file
• No folder merging - dragging the contents of a folder into another folder lets you replace the originals or abort the move, rather than merging the contents and prompting on conflicts (CHECK THIS)
• No Path Editing - there appears to be no context menu item or UI element to edit the current path, go to a specfic path, or even just copy th current path. The 'path bar' only shows the current path and lets you jump to parent directories - you cannot select the path as text or enter a path to go to.
• In the icon view, hitting enter renames an item, instead of opening it. Why on earth would you bind renaming to enter? I used to think that enter was basically universally associated with 'select'... guess not
• Replacing a file in a 'protected' (?) folders silently fails. I've wasted infuriating minutes trying to copy a file into an Applications subdirectory to replace a file with the same name. The copy appears to succeed but the file isn't actually replaced. (Of course, it worked from the command line with sudo cp.) I'm not sure which folders this applies to - but other operating systems have the decency to inform me when I lack the necessary privileges to perform an action.

Window Management

• Animation speed is slow as molasses (subjective, I admit) and cannot be edited. I can literally forget what I'm doing in the time it takes to switch Spaces or minimize a window. For some reason, you can slow down window animations with the Shift key, but I don't understand why someone who isn't actively developing window animations would ever need to do that. (NOTE: I do believe there may be console commands available to edit this? CHECK THIS)
• No way to control window layouts with the keyboard. Actually, windows sizing in general just kind of sucks - you can drag edges, and that's it. Of course you can hide a window or make it full screen, but there is nothing like Aero Snap (or even the old taskbar context menu options for cascading windows) to help layout windows to maximise screen usage. (Fortunately the excellent SizeUp and/or Cinch go above an beyond the call of duty in fixing this issue, for $12.99 and $6.99 respectively)
• No keyboard shortcuts for moving windows between spaces (though SizeUp adds that too - long live SizeUp)

Launchpad

On an operating system so heavily focused on mouse interaction (if Finder is any indication), why on earth is the main App launcher such a horrendous waste of space? Fortunately, you really don't have to use it (between the Applications folders, the Dock, and Spotlight). Basically, I don't understand why Launchpad exists.

Other

• By default, tab does not cycle the selected option in some prompt/message/confirmation dialogs, so you will be able to tab through buttons and fields in some windows, but not in some message boxes. Changing that ridiculous default to make tabbing behavior consistent, enter does not submit your tabbed selection - space does. enter will select the default option, regardless of which option you have selected with tab.
• Vanishing user accounts should not even be possible in a year later than 1980. (I found these articles and stories when looking for a solution for a similar symptom which I think turned out to be this)

Things I Like

• Spotlight! - I love Spotlight. Actually I like keyboard app launchers in general... Alfred + Powerpack does even more, but Spotlight still makes it super fast and easy to launch programs and open files with the keyboard, and I'm glad it's built in.
• Applications folder/format - I have a lot of respect for the way applications are packaged and installed on OS X. On Windows (and Linux, depending on the program and package manager and such), an installed program spreads itself all over the file system and registry and is basically impossible to remove cleanly without an uninstaller (or package manager). On OS X, installing a program is as easy as dragging the app's folder into the Applications directory, and uninstalling it is as simple as deleting that folder (mostly). I find that kind of beautiful.
• BSD - I love my Unix utilities, and even if the default terminal app isn't that great, with iTerm2 the console can really shine. Having a good terminal setup (nice color scheme, customized Vim, informative shell prompts, sudo, etc.) is usually the first thing I miss when switching from Max/Linux to Windows. OS X provides a unix-like environment where you won't have to spend days getting Wifi, automounting, and hybrid graphics card drivers to work.
• Online accounts integration - a couple of Linux desktop environments (cough_gnomeshell_cough) try to pull this off, but don't do very well. It's super easy to just plug in my Google account and have it work with Mail, Contacts, etc.