macOS and Mac Software: We still exist!

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > macOS and Mac Software: We still exist!

Axiem: Oct 19, 2005; I want to leave my mind blank, but I'm terrified of what will happen if I do

TopherCStone posted:

I've only played with OSX a little, but it seemed unclear which programs were running and which were just sitting there.

From a high-level computing philosophy perspective, that's kind of the point. You shouldn't really need to know what is and isn't running. All that matters (theoretically) is what's on your screen and what's not. Apps should (theoretically) behave accordingly.

The way apps work on iOS these days is a good example of this philosophy on a lower-powered computing platform.

(Not saying that I agree or disagree with this philosophy, but that's what I've come to understand "the Apple way" to be)

quote:

I've also felt that the mouse cursor moves a bit slowly, but that's probably just a setting I can play with.

Get SmoothMouse. There was a bit more discussion about it here.

# ? Aug 2, 2013 04:24

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# ? May 9, 2024 08:11

~Coxy: Dec 9, 2003; R.I.P. Inter-OS Sass - b.2000AD d.2003AD

Change to 2D dock, it looks way better and is much easier to tell which apps are running.

defaults write com.apple.dock no-glass -boolean YES
killall Dock

# ? Aug 2, 2013 04:25

TopherCStone: Feb 27, 2013; I am very important and deserve your attention

Mercurius posted:

ConfusedUs covered the dock stuff already (see my attachment below for an example) but there's a program called SmoothMouse which will allow you a lot more control over the way the mouse cursor works. You can also switch it to Windows-style acceleration (or lack thereof) if that floats your boat but I find it weird since I'm used to the OS X acceleration.

That definitely clears it up, and reading about smoothmouse makes it sound like exactly what I was looking for

carry on then posted:

The usual advice to new Mac users is: don't give up on it. Things are going to seem weird or counter-intuitive at first because you're expecting it to be like Windows, but as you use the computer for your normal stuff you'll get more comfortable.

Then one day you'll be on Windows and go for the upper left corner to close a window and your initiation will be complete

I won't give up this time. I say "this time" because I actually owned an iMac for a year or so and exclusively used windows/linux on it because after 15 minutes of OSX I just didn't "get it"

Axiem posted:

From a high-level computing philosophy perspective, that's kind of the point. You shouldn't really need to know what is and isn't running. All that matters (theoretically) is what's on your screen and what's not. Apps should (theoretically) behave accordingly.

The way apps work on iOS these days is a good example of this philosophy on a lower-powered computing platform.

(Not saying that I agree or disagree with this philosophy, but that's what I've come to understand "the Apple way" to be)

I see what they're going for, I guess it's just not what I'm used to

~Coxy posted:

Change to 2D dock, it looks way better and is much easier to tell which apps are running.

defaults write com.apple.dock no-glass -boolean YES
killall Dock

screenshots of the 2d dock make it look way clearer.

Any thoughts on Geektool? One of the things I like about linux is being able to use conky to have a bunch of semi-trivial info displayed all over. It makes me feel like I'm really using a computer and not just staring at the TV

# ? Aug 2, 2013 04:42

sudo rm -rf: Aug 2, 2011; $ mv fullcommunism.sh /america $ cd /america $ ./fullcommunism.sh

Also prepare on wanting to move the taskbar on any Windows machine you use to the top.

# ? Aug 2, 2013 06:29

aarstar: Mar 7, 2004

carry on then posted:

The usual advice to new Mac users is: don't give up on it. Things are going to seem weird or counter-intuitive at first because you're expecting it to be like Windows, but as you use the computer for your normal stuff you'll get more comfortable.

Then one day you'll be on Windows and go for the upper left corner to close a window and your initiation will be complete

I'm going through this now but in the opposite way. All my computers for the past 10 years have been Macs, and I just built a PC to play some games.

# ? Aug 2, 2013 06:37

Without much ado: Feb 11, 2006

carry on then posted:

Then one day you'll be on Windows and go for the upper left corner to close a window and your initiation will be complete

In some windows programs (definitely Explorer) you can double click in the upper left hand corner and it closes the window. I'm not at all familiar with Windows 8, so I don't know how widespread this behavior continues to be, but it works pretty consistently.

# ? Aug 2, 2013 07:09

keevo: Jun 16, 2011; WAKE UP

dox posted:

Downcast for Mac came out today. The most impressive feature for me was syncing all my data to iCloud from my iOS device and then clicking sync on the Mac app and having it all magically load in as it should. I've never had such a successful experience with iCloud app syncing between two devices. Other than that, it works just as you would expect from the iOS device, it's perfect.

Why the gently caress is it $10? Isn't it like $3 on iOS?

# ? Aug 2, 2013 08:38

brap: Aug 23, 2004; Grimey Drawer

More pixels. Those things don't grow on trees you know.

# ? Aug 2, 2013 09:04

japtor: Oct 28, 2005

TopherCStone posted:

Any thoughts on Geektool? One of the things I like about linux is being able to use conky to have a bunch of semi-trivial info displayed all over. It makes me feel like I'm really using a computer and not just staring at the TV

Assuming it works fine (i.e. doesn't break anything) I don't see the problem if you like that. I used something similar way way back but forget the name, that one is probably dead now though.

These days I use iStat Menus which shareware, but there's MenuMeters for free too.

keevo posted:

Why the gently caress is it $10? Isn't it like $3 on iOS?

Less customers.

And yes pixels are a valuable resource. The more you know.

# ? Aug 2, 2013 09:06

SRQ: Nov 9, 2009

Is there anything like PlayOnMac (A wine bottler program) that is able to use the Lion fullscreen style? It's kinda annoying that although I can play Baldurs Gate 2 on my mac, I can't do that and have safari in another fullscreen instance. Which I can do for Dos games with a fantastic program called Boxer.

# ? Aug 2, 2013 10:03

teagone: Jun 10, 2003; That was pretty intense, huh?

TopherCStone posted:

Also, is there any way to make the dock less confusing? I've only played with OSX a little, but it seemed unclear which programs were running and which were just sitting there.

Download Onyx (a utility anyone should have) and force the dock to display in 2D instead of that faux-3D perspective glass dock thing. I found those fuzzy orbs in the default dock style hard to see, but once I switched over to the standard 2D dock (which looks way better in my opinion), the fuzzy blue orbs are replaced with stark white dots against a dark background. They're much easier to see in comparison.

Didn't realize someone else already gave you this advice. I should get to bed. Haha.

# ? Aug 2, 2013 11:31

Bob Morales: Aug 18, 2006; ~~Just wear the fucking mask, Bob~~

I don't care how many people I probably infected with COVID-19 while refusing to wear a mask, my comfort is far more important than the health and safety of everyone around me!

TopherCStone posted:

I haven't seriously used a Mac since OS8. I've just bought my brother's early 2011 13" Macbook Pro, with 8GB RAM and he threw an SSD in there. I should have it in my hands this weekend.

I'm going to go through the Apple guides, but is there anything a bit more in depth?
Also, is there any way to make the dock less confusing? I've only played with OSX a little, but it seemed unclear which programs were running and which were just sitting there. I definitely prefer the way Windows and XFCE-based Linux distros work in that regard. I've also felt that the mouse cursor moves a bit slowly, but that's probably just a setting I can play with.

It works just like Windows. Remove programs from the dock and they won't show up until you run them. Like unpinning one from the task bar in Windows

# ? Aug 2, 2013 12:55

Smoke: Mar 12, 2005; I am NOT a red Bumblebee for god's sake!; Gun Saliva

Without much ado posted:

In some windows programs (definitely Explorer) you can double click in the upper left hand corner and it closes the window. I'm not at all familiar with Windows 8, so I don't know how widespread this behavior continues to be, but it works pretty consistently.

Not just some, pretty much all Windows applications do this. Even if there's no icon, the area itself is still clickable(it even works in Chrome) It's pretty much a holdover from the old days, and I'm fairly sure it still works in non-Metro apps in Windows 8.

Also, I find myself occasionally trying to use CMD+Q in Windows to close applications, or using the Windowskey for other shortcuts when I should be using Control. Not as annoying as mentally switching between keyboard layouts at least once per day though.

# ? Aug 2, 2013 12:58

Richman777: Jan 20, 2004; Porn Santa

carry on then posted:

Then one day you'll be on Windows and go for the upper left corner to close a window and your initiation will be complete

If you're still "clicking" anything in OSX you haven't fully been initiated.

I'm so much more of a power user in OSX because I took the time to learn shortcuts. Using the mouse for anything in OSX is wasteful and you immediately hate using Windows when you don't have everything on the keyboard. I can't stand not using end as cmd+right arrow. Ugh...stupid end button so far away from my hands.

Smoke posted:

Also, I find myself occasionally trying to use CMD+Q in Windows to close applications, or using the Windowskey for other shortcuts when I should be using Control. Not as annoying as mentally switching between keyboard layouts at least once per day though.

I tried for at least a year to not use the Command key and had remapped to control. I finally did the switch back to default and it's great. And now I hate windows, which i spend more time on at work.

# ? Aug 2, 2013 18:29

Pilfered Pallbearers: Aug 2, 2007

Axiem posted:

From a high-level computing philosophy perspective, that's kind of the point. You shouldn't really need to know what is and isn't running. All that matters (theoretically) is what's on your screen and what's not. Apps should (theoretically) behave accordingly.

The way apps work on iOS these days is a good example of this philosophy on a lower-powered computing platform.

(Not saying that I agree or disagree with this philosophy, but that's what I've come to understand "the Apple way" to be)

Get SmoothMouse. There was a bit more discussion about it here.

This is going to be even more true now once mavericks drops. The idea that if a window drops behind another window is it reroutes power is pretty amazing.

# ? Aug 2, 2013 18:46

Axiem: Oct 19, 2005; I want to leave my mind blank, but I'm terrified of what will happen if I do

Kingnothing posted:

This is going to be even more true now once mavericks drops. The idea that if a window drops behind another window is it reroutes power is pretty amazing.

It's the logical extension of the philosophy. Frankly, I think it's pretty sweet. But I can see why some people don't like the "Apple Way".

I've had my actual Mac for only two months now, and I'm still getting used to some things. Though it would probably go faster if I didn't also use a Windows machine all day at work. The switching off is really starting to screw with my keyboard-shortcut muscle memory.

# ? Aug 2, 2013 23:47

SRQ: Nov 9, 2009

Anyone else noticed a marked improvement wrt battery life on 10.9 over 10.8? Each new DP release seems to have helped in a small way too.
My 13'' mid 2012 gets an average of two hours extra life browsing now, that's hella neat. Once 10.9 is out they can break their own record with the 2013 Airs.

# ? Aug 3, 2013 02:58

Star War Sex Parrot: Oct 2, 2003

SRQ posted:

Anyone else noticed a marked improvement wrt battery life on 10.9 over 10.8?

It's probably the biggest new feature that Apple is touting, so yes.

Performance is actually better over 10.8 too.

# ? Aug 3, 2013 03:04

8ender: Sep 24, 2003; clown is watching you sleep

Star War Sex Parrot posted:

It's probably the biggest new feature that Apple is touting, so yes.

Performance is actually better over 10.8 too.

Mavericks is shaping up to be another 10.6 Snow Leopard and I'm super happy about that.

# ? Aug 3, 2013 06:11

SRQ: Nov 9, 2009

Star War Sex Parrot posted:

It's probably the biggest new feature that Apple is touting, so yes.

Performance is actually better over 10.8 too.

I know but I wasn't expecting such a noticeable improvement on old hardware, it's really nice.

# ? Aug 3, 2013 07:01

Choadmaster: Oct 7, 2004; I don't care how snug they fit, you're nuts!

TopherCStone posted:

screenshots of the 2d dock make it look way clearer.

Better yet, move the dock over the the left (or right) side - the vertical version of the dock is automatically 2D. gently caress bottom-of-screen dock; your display is widescreen, don't eat up that precious vertical space with the dock. I never understood why everyone seems to leave it at the bottom.

# ? Aug 3, 2013 07:03

ConfusedUs: Feb 24, 2004; Bees?
You want fucking bees?
Here you go!
ROLL INITIATIVE!!

Choadmaster posted:

Better yet, move the dock over the the left (or right) side - the vertical version of the dock is automatically 2D. gently caress bottom-of-screen dock; your display is widescreen, don't eat up that precious vertical space with the dock. I never understood why everyone seems to leave it at the bottom.

Mine's on the left.

I recently switched back to a Windows machine at work for Reasons, and I had to shove the taskbar to the left too.

# ? Aug 3, 2013 07:07

BobHoward: Feb 13, 2012; The only thing white people deserve is a bullet to their empty skull

SRQ posted:

I know but I wasn't expecting such a noticeable improvement on old hardware, it's really nice.

Haswell's new features (very fast power state transitions and ultra low power active idle) make timer coalescing more effective, but old CPUs benefit too. More time spent in low power states is always better.

Also, they kinda needed to get idle CPU percentage back up to where it used to be. I noticed a significant power regression in Safari when I first installed 10.8 last year. In 10.7 it was able to throttle non-visible tabs, but somehow that got lost in 10.8. (Filed a Radar about it and never got feedback, though that's pretty much par for the course.) 10.8 also seems to suffer from some daemons which maybe aren't as efficient as they could be. In 10.9 they're clearly looking to find and fix that kind of power bug, and they've added App Nap too. Using less CPU time is a great way to save power on any CPU.

# ? Aug 3, 2013 07:53

SRQ: Nov 9, 2009

So basically Apple is on the same sort of release-refinement cycle as MSFT ~kinda~ is, except not doing a poo poo job of it then?

# ? Aug 3, 2013 08:08

Mercurius: May 4, 2004; Amp it up.

Choadmaster posted:

Better yet, move the dock over the the left (or right) side - the vertical version of the dock is automatically 2D. gently caress bottom-of-screen dock; your display is widescreen, don't eat up that precious vertical space with the dock. I never understood why everyone seems to leave it at the bottom.

The only reason I left mine in the centre is that I have iTerm set to appear when pressing ~ like a quake terminal and if the dock is over on the left then when the visor appears there's a big gap above where the dock is which bothers me.

I leave the dock on auto hide so it being centre and 3D doesn't bother me because I never see it

# ? Aug 3, 2013 11:43

Polymerized Cum: May 5, 2012

So I tore apart my late 2012 iMac last night. Wasn't as bad as I thought, trying to trim the adhesive to fit the screen was the worst part. Anyhow, I took out the 1TB hard drive and put in the SSD out of my mid-2009 MBP.

Both computers were running the newest version of Mountain Lion, so it shouldn't be a problem, right? Wrong. The computer now just sits at the grey Apple screen with the spinny thing. Any ideas how I can transfer my installation to this new computer?

# ? Aug 3, 2013 14:49

Bob Morales: Aug 18, 2006; ~~Just wear the fucking mask, Bob~~

I don't care how many people I probably infected with COVID-19 while refusing to wear a mask, my comfort is far more important than the health and safety of everyone around me!

Polymerized Cum posted:

So I tore apart my late 2012 iMac last night. Wasn't as bad as I thought, trying to trim the adhesive to fit the screen was the worst part. Anyhow, I took out the 1TB hard drive and put in the SSD out of my mid-2009 MBP.

Both computers were running the newest version of Mountain Lion, so it shouldn't be a problem, right? Wrong. The computer now just sits at the grey Apple screen with the spinny thing. Any ideas how I can transfer my installation to this new computer?

Buy/borrow a USB 3.0 HD enclosure to boot from the old drive, and then just use Carbon Copy Cloner to transfer it to the new drive.

# ? Aug 3, 2013 15:13

Choadmaster: Oct 7, 2004; I don't care how snug they fit, you're nuts!

Polymerized Cum posted:

So I tore apart my late 2012 iMac last night. Wasn't as bad as I thought, trying to trim the adhesive to fit the screen was the worst part. Anyhow, I took out the 1TB hard drive and put in the SSD out of my mid-2009 MBP.

Both computers were running the newest version of Mountain Lion, so it shouldn't be a problem, right? Wrong. The computer now just sits at the grey Apple screen with the spinny thing. Any ideas how I can transfer my installation to this new computer?

Boot in verbose mode (command-V while it boots I think) and see where it is actually getting stuck.

# ? Aug 3, 2013 15:59

saint gerald: Apr 17, 2003

Mercurius posted:

I have iTerm set to appear when pressing ~ like a quake terminal

How did you do this?

# ? Aug 3, 2013 16:00

Axiem: Oct 19, 2005; I want to leave my mind blank, but I'm terrified of what will happen if I do

Choadmaster posted:

I never understood why everyone seems to leave it at the bottom.

Inertia. Also, if you frequently need to compare two things side-by-side, you want all the horizontal space you can get also. Plus the center-bottom is faster to get to from anywhere on the screen than the dock being against either side.

At work I use Windows, but with two monitors, one vertical, the other horizontal. My taskbar is on the left side of the horizontal, so it ends up being in the "middle" of my virtual desktop (as the vertical monitor is further to the left). And I don't like my home computer and work computer to be similar, so dock on bottom it is!

# ? Aug 3, 2013 16:25

carry on then: Jul 10, 2010; by VideoGames
(and can't post for 10 years!)

I've tried side docks but I usually wind up back to bottom of the screen. Besides, extra space is one CMD-OPT-D away.

# ? Aug 3, 2013 16:27

computer parts: Nov 18, 2010; PLEASE CLAP

SRQ posted:

So basically Apple is on the same sort of release-refinement cycle as MSFT ~kinda~ is, except not doing a poo poo job of it then?

Probably more refinement, Apple's basically giving the OS away at this point.

# ? Aug 3, 2013 17:30

Bob Morales: Aug 18, 2006; ~~Just wear the fucking mask, Bob~~

I don't care how many people I probably infected with COVID-19 while refusing to wear a mask, my comfort is far more important than the health and safety of everyone around me!

I just hide the drat dock. If I want to use a program I just alt-tab over to it and if it's not running I just use Spotlight

The only thing I find useful about the dock is dragging a folder to a program, in order to open it in a program.

# ? Aug 3, 2013 19:13

Bob Morales: Aug 18, 2006; ~~Just wear the fucking mask, Bob~~

I don't care how many people I probably infected with COVID-19 while refusing to wear a mask, my comfort is far more important than the health and safety of everyone around me!

Any idea why my MacBook Air 4,1 suddenly won't see my external monitor?

It shows up in Console. But the monitor doesn't get a signal. It's an Acer 22" LED and I'm using a Dynex MiniDP to DVI adapter. I can plug it into my rMBP and it works just fine. :argh:

http://pastebin.com/nKQ77D9H

# ? Aug 3, 2013 21:26

Mercurius: May 4, 2004; Amp it up.

saint gerald posted:

How did you do this?

First step is to grab iTerm2 if you haven't got it already. Once you've got it installed and running, go to Preferences and then Keys and turn on the system-wide hotkey:

Second step is to go into Profiles, go to the Window tab and then set the Window Style to Top of Screen and Space to be All Spaces:

After you've done that, pressing tilde/grave brings up a window that looks like the picture below from any space:

The only downsides to setting it up like this are that pressing tilde/grave in a fullscreen space will jump back to your last normal desktop space and that it makes grave annoying to try and add into shell scripts if you do that sort of thing.

# ? Aug 4, 2013 02:42

Choadmaster: Oct 7, 2004; I don't care how snug they fit, you're nuts!

Axiem posted:

Inertia. Also, if you frequently need to compare two things side-by-side, you want all the horizontal space you can get also. Plus the center-bottom is faster to get to from anywhere on the screen than the dock being against either side.

I'll grant you the side-by-side thing, if that's something you need to do frequently. However, with the Mac's mouse acceleration (which I think TopherCStone should get used to, because it makes so much more sense... but I see there are some people who just can't stand it for some reason) any side of the screen is an equally quick flick away.

# ? Aug 4, 2013 07:35

SRQ: Nov 9, 2009

computer parts posted:

Probably more refinement, Apple's basically giving the OS away at this point.

I wonder if Apple couldn't create the first subscription based OS.
Subscribe for 25 dollars a year, get the next version when it comes out, if you don't subscribe you still get updates for the old version.

# ? Aug 4, 2013 09:17

Jimmeh: Jan 19, 2007; Would you be interested in these panties?
They look about your size.

Mercurius posted:

The only downsides to setting it up like this are that pressing tilde/grave in a fullscreen space will jump back to your last normal desktop space and that it makes grave annoying to try and add into shell scripts if you do that sort of thing.

I set my hot key as cmd+` to avoid that.
Oh, you can also use an app called TotalTerminal to do this if you want to use Terminal.app instead of iTerm.

# ? Aug 4, 2013 10:33

Mercurius: May 4, 2004; Amp it up.

Jimmeh posted:

I set my hot key as cmd+` to avoid that.
Oh, you can also use an app called TotalTerminal to do this if you want to use Terminal.app instead of iTerm.

Yeah I think Visor will also allow you do this if all you want is a standard terminal wrapper. I have Cathode for that and I prefer iTerm's flexibility in general.

# ? Aug 4, 2013 12:15

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# ? May 9, 2024 08:11

IUG: Jul 14, 2007

SRQ posted:

I wonder if Apple couldn't create the first subscription based OS.
Subscribe for 25 dollars a year, get the next version when it comes out, if you don't subscribe you still get updates for the old version.

The OSs come out about once a year, so that wouldn't make a whole lot of sense. Unless if you're talking the 10.x.X updates, which would be evil.

# ? Aug 4, 2013 13:20

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