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Comment by arkades | Hacker News Reader

> The UI remains a convoluted Escher'esque nightmare.

Comments like this make it hard to take any side of the discussion seriously.

/Neither/ of the OSes are "Escher'esque nightmare[s]." My elderly mother can kludge her way through both of them, more or less reliably - admittedly, with more trouble than using her phone, but not a lot more.

Nothing that a tech-illiterate can reasonably use on a day-to-day basis qualifies as a "nightmare." Can we please stop pitching hyperbole-for-effect until it nullifies the entire discussion?

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> Comments like this make it hard to take any side of the discussion seriously. /Neither/ of the OSes are "Escher'esque nightmare[s]."

• macOS Finder: http://i.imgur.com/9Y5hK0e.png

• Windows Explorer: http://i.imgur.com/ef7CnJ4.png

Alright. Maybe not nightmarish, but one of these IS objectively more convoluted than the other.

Let's start with something simple:

WHY does the "Options" button on the Windows Explorer Ribbon (in the top-right corner) drop-down to reveal a SINGLE menu item which DOES THE EXACT SAME THING as clicking on the button itself?

(Bonus: This is what happened when I tried to take a screenshot first: http://i.imgur.com/UsN554o.png — Explorer hanged when trying to remove a shortcut to a now-missing network share.)

Perhaps you're failing to view things from the perspective of the average user?

I see the MacOS Finder and see unlabelled icons. My elderly folks are terrible at remembering what various icons do, and what error messages are for, etc. I've trained them to pause and read the words on the toolbar, read the words on the window, etc. as they're generally self-explanatory.

So the finder that is more convoluted for a more proficient user, is the one that my folks can actually more reasonably navigate.

Okay, your criticism is on point: the Explorer Options button has a redundant click. To me, that would matter if I ever used anything other than keyboard navigation. To my mother, father, and sister, "yay! It's f'n labeled!"

My nieces don't give a damn either way, because they're too young to care about one unnecessary click, and they don't forget what the icons mean.

Your point isn't wrong, it's just not that clear-cut an issue when dealing with different people with different levels of proficiency and needs.

But the fact that we're down to "labels vs. reasonably intuitive icons, plus or minus a redundant click" suggests we're well into the weeds of trivialities.

> I've trained them to pause and read the words on the toolbar, read the words on the window, etc. as they're generally self-explanatory.

You're a miracle worker. :)

Failure to read what's on the screen is one of the biggest reasons why "non computer" people don't get things done with computers.

Sometimes not just "non computer people". The number of times as a computer science TA (for a non-intro class) I had to read people their compiler error messages is staggering.

Redundant labeling is kludge, not a hallmark of an easily accessible UI. If an element in your interface requires multiple labels to make itself clearer, then you did not design it well in the first place.

In any case, the longer label could have been implemented as a simple mouse-hover tooltip, instead of an extra button alongside the primary button that expands to a menu with a single item (with its own icon too!)

I'm not just comparing it to macOS; the Windows UI is heavily flawed not only in terms of efficiency in usage of system resources, it is inconsistent with itself, and baffling no matter which school of design you adhere to.

The option button was just one of the immediate examples I could point out in a quick reply. There is still a lot to pick at in that screenshot without comparing it to any other OS.

----

As an aside, I don't think that "average" or new users are a good gauge of how well-designed a system is; people can learn and put up with horribly unintuitive interfaces out of necessity when they don't have any better alternatives. Just look at computers and phones and other devices and systems of only 20 years ago. Many will make you go "how the hell did we live through that?!"

I see both sides of the arguments but I'm a power user and even I rarely need access to those icons. Let alone my grandma. Surely, I can't be the minority here. If you do not need it, I think it should be hidden by default as Macs have done it.

Right click the tool bar in Finder and choose "Icons and text" from the drop down. One can discuss what should be default.

There's a lot to not like about Windows's UI, but Explorer is worlds better than Finder, there's absolutely no comparison. Every day I still struggle to remember how to go up a level. Option+Up? Nope that selects the next folder up. Control+Up? No, that made all of my windows do something weird that I don't know what that is. Ah, it's Command+Up. As far as I can tell, there's no non-keyboard way to do it. I can't click a button and go up to the parent folder, all I can do is go back, which is confusing if I forget what the previous folder was.

Likewise, "All My Files" sorts based on... what? And which folders does it look in? Because very often I save a file from the Internet and it never shows up in All My Files. And when I search for something when I'm in a directory, I expect the search to be restricted to that directory by default. Instead it defaults to My Mac, which makes no sense. Is there also no way to get the current path as text? On Windows I can type "C:\Users\My Documents" by hand in Explorer. I don't see an option to do that in Finder.

Explorer isn't perfect, but Finder is just awful. Just awful.

> As far as I can tell, there's no non-keyboard way to do it. I can't click a button and go up to the parent folder, all I can do is go back, which is confusing if I forget what the previous folder was.

Right-click on the toolbar and select "Customize Toolbar...", then drag the "Path" button into the toolbar.

> Option+Up? Nope that selects the next folder up. Control+Up? No, that made all of my windows do something weird that I don't know what that is. Ah, it's Command+Up.

In macOS, generally:

⌘ Command = App-specific shortcuts. The primary modifier key.

⌃ Control = Global shortcuts. App-specific shortcuts will not generally have Control as the sole modifier.

⌥ Option/Alt = Something to with the keyboard, selection, or secondary modifier for a shortcut. Option+Up/Down is Page Up/Down.

⇧ Shift = Something to with the keyboard, selection, or secondary modifier for a shortcut.

Common shortcuts are way more consistent than in Windows, and you can search for them from the Help menu of any app, and even modify/create shortcuts for any app from System Preferences -> Keyboard.

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> As far as I can tell, there's no non-keyboard way to do it.

Right-click on the folder icon in the title bar, use Columns view, or show the Path Bar from the View menu.

> Likewise, "All My Files" sorts based on... what?

Files in your home folder's hierarchy, that are indexed by Spotlight.

> And when I search for something when I'm in a directory, I expect the search to be restricted to that directory by default. Instead it defaults to My Mac, which makes no sense.

Keyword: defaults. You can change it.

> Is there also no way to get the current path as text? On Windows I can type "C:\Users\My Documents" by hand in Explorer. I don't see an option to do that in Finder.

"Go to Folder", it's under the Go menu.

To copy an item's path name, hold down Option/Alt to modify the "Copy" menu item.

----

Most of your complaints are basically "it doesn't do everything the way Windows does it so it's bad" or "I'm furious because I didn't bother to tweak the defaults."

And most of your solutions are incredibly non-obvious, just like Cmd+Up. Right click on the folder icon in the title bar? Hold down option to change the right click menus? This is exactly what I'm talking about. Explorer is terrible but it's better than Finder because you don't need to read a manual or tweak the defaults in order to make it work in a predictable manner.

You can right click on the folder/document icon in the title bar in any app, and you can left click it to drag it. The icon, not the window. What's bizarre is how Windows has trained people to see icons as non interactive stickers instead of reactive proxies for the underlying object. The fact that many labels in Windows still don't update until you close and reopen the dialog is ridiculous, as is the continued use of "ok" "cancel" preferences.

You can right click on the folder/document icon in the title bar in any app, and you can left click it to drag it. The icon, not the window.

"You are holding it wrong".

The only reason to know this seems to be because someone has told someone it seems.

There is no indication in the design of the element, and IIRC not even a subtle glow when you mouseover.

Sorry: as much as I like Apple I don't waste my time on their software. Not saying it is bad but for me I had to admit it was a waste of perfectly good working time and focus.

If you like it: good. I know people who seem to be more productive with Macs. And more Apple users is good news for both Linux users and Windows users since they force companies to think cross platform and force Microsoft to be more humble.

Not everything has to be equally discoverable. By that same logic, the majority of right click interactions are off the table. You can right click window icons in Windows too, with no visual cue either, they just act different and the surface area is much smaller. Titlebars also don't tell you you can drag them, and essential productivity shortcuts like alt-tab are not advertised either.

It's okay to have to be taught some things, it makes it better for pro users when the handholding is minimal.

Here's another one: hold alt when a menu is open to see some options change into alternate versions. Instant feedback, works on dialogs too. Keeps the UI uncluttered for noobs and power users alike without significantly impeding you.

> And most of your solutions are incredibly non-obvious, just like Cmd+Up.

HOW is Cmd+Up NOT an obvious shortcut for going UP one level? As I said, Cmd is already the primary modifier key for all app-specific shortcuts.

On the other hand, what does Windows use? BACKSPACE! A key people associate with deletion and editing text!

> Hold down option to change the right click menus?

Option modifies shortcuts, changing their behavior. "ALTernate." Again it's a behavior that's consistent across all macOS apps.

> Explorer is terrible but it's better than Finder because you don't need to read a manual

You don't need to read a manual for Finder, or almost any macOS app, because you can just click on the Help menu, and type the name of a command or action you expect that app to be able to perform, and it will automatically highlight the menu which contains that action:

http://i.imgur.com/HNUNqpN.png

I just typed "path" in the Finder help menu and it showed me the shortcut for "Copy as Pathname" including the Alt/Option modifier. And that works in EVERY macOS app. Try doing that in Windows!

In macOS, generally:

Back when I used it, 5 years ago, it was a solid mess IMO:

Jump one word forward or backwards?

Windows/Linux: ctrl + arrow

Mac: depends on which program you are currently using

IIRC our resident Mac enthusiast explained that it was because some was written in carbon and some in cocoa or something but I don't care.

Opening a file upload dialog box in one browser window would block other windows from the same browser forcing me to use two different browsers: one for docs and one for the task at hand.

This went on for 3 years and in the end I looked as much forward to leave as I had once looked forward to get a Mac.

To each their own but Mac users talking about consistency and ease of use still baffles me.

> Jump one word forward or backwards?

> Windows/Linux: ctrl + arrow

> Mac: depends on which program you are currently using

I don't know what the deal is with Carbon - it was already dead 5 years ago, even Photoshop transitioned in 2010 - but everything I use uses option-arrow. Even the terminal.

> Opening a file upload dialog box in one browser window would block other windows from the same browser forcing me to use two different browsers: one for docs and one for the task at hand.

I just checked and at present in Safari, file upload dialogs block the current window (i.e. can't access other tabs) but not other windows. Though to be honest, I don't understand why you needed to keep file upload dialogs open… why would you click the button to pop the dialog if you weren't intending to immediately select a file? But I guess https://xkcd.com/1172/ applies :)

Though to be honest, I don't understand why you needed to keep file upload dialogs open… why would you click the button to pop the dialog if you weren't intending to immediately select a file?

Would finding and copying a somewhat long folder path from the internal wiki qualify as a good reason?

These are the things that bug me the most about macOS. See also: page up / page down, home / end. For an OS that seems to want to care about consistency, to have pretty much every app interpreting the most common keyboard navigation differently is incredibly annoying.

The complaint is that Apple software tend to be throughly lacking in the discoverability part of their UI. It is especially bad on iOS.

Which issues are you specifically referring to?

macOS has demonstrably more discoverability than Windows; Not only are shortcuts consistent across all apps, but the visuals of common UI elements are the same as well, so a new user will immediately know what does what, in different apps. Whereas on Windows, you have a multitude of menu, button, scrollbar etc. styles right out of the box, in Microsoft's own apps!

macOS also has a list of all mouse/trackpad gestures — complete with videos — in System Preferences. Likewise, all global keyboard shortcuts are visible in one place as well (Keyboard preferences, where you can modify and even create your own shortcuts for ANY app.)

Best of all however, you can click on the Help menu and just type the name of a command or action that you expect an app to have (for example a filter in an image editor) but don't know its shortcut or which menu it's under, and the unified menu bar subsystem will automatically highlight all matching menu items and their shortcuts for you:

http://i.imgur.com/HNUNqpN.png

Here in that screenshot I wondered about the ability to copy a folder or file's pathname, and the Help Search pointed it out to me! And it works in EVERY macOS app! Does Windows have anything which comes close to aiding in discoverability like that?

I will concede your point on iOS, however.

Speaking of the nuances of Finder.

In windows, to jump to a file starting with 'docu' one can start typing d o c and explorer will jump the file.

Likewise, it's possible to tap d d d d to navigate between all files starting with 'd'.

Is there a way to do either of these with finder?

The way to do the first one in Finder is to start type d o c, as you might expect.

Typing the same letter a second time in finder will go to the last file starting with that letter, which could be a handy feature. But d, down, down, down seems almost as good a d d d.

I've learned to right-click the title on the toolbar, which shows a dropdown of folders above the current one, which you can select to go up.

Funny you call it a right click...

Just cmd-click the window title. Works in every document-based native macOS app btw.

By default the ribbon is hidden: http://i.imgur.com/5hxOIcb.png

I don't use Windows, but it's important to use fair comparisons.

> By default the ribbon is hidden: http://i.imgur.com/5hxOIcb.png

You have to expand it and be faced with that hodgepodge of cluttered buttons to perform many functions. Even with it collapsed, it's still 4! toolbars (counting the buttons in the title bar and the ones in the bottom status bar) and a menu (?) style that is inconsistent with many other built-in Windows apps.

You don't really have to expand it for typical day-to-day operations - everything of interest is in the context menu.

So to prove your point, you take a non-standard folder view on OSX, and a non-standard view on Windows to make the mac look simple and the windows version look convoluted.

A+

While you can argue about whether or not the option to modify folder settings belongs within that window or on a title bar, taking screenshots like that is dishonest, at best.

This is the default view when you click on the Explorer icon in the Windows Taskbar on a new user account: http://i.imgur.com/TM8ZyLg.png

This is the default view for Finder on a new user account: http://i.imgur.com/Dni0Kpo.png

The only thing I changed in this Finder screenshot is collapse the auto-populated Devices, Shared and Tags list for privacy, so I didn't have to edit the image. Notice that it defaults to the "All My Files" view which is empty for a new user and would be even more of an unfair comparison to the default Windows view.

My mother would find the Windows one easier to use. There is text on the buttons, so if she presses something by mistake, she'll have more confidence to press other things to put it right again.

Which even is the options on Finder? The cog, I assume. If I'm helping over the phone, can a user describe the current state of Finder? Not really. But I could ask for the contents of the address bar in Explorer.

> If I'm helping over the phone, can a user describe the current state of Finder? Not really. But I could ask for the contents of the address bar in Explorer.

• Click on the first icon/happy face at the bottom of the screen (to make sure Finder is in focus).

• Click on "View" at the top of the screen [or press Cmd+Option+P] to show the Path Bar.

----

To guide someone to a specific folder:

• Click on "Go" at the top of the screen [or press Cmd+Shift+G].

• Type the address.

As a longtime user of both OS's, I think Explorer is a lot more usable than Finder and has been for years. Personal choice of course.

"macOS Finder": you are talking about that software that rename folders when you press the enter key? :p

Can you give a reason why Enter to open a file is ideal, other than just because it's how Windows does it?

The Windows Explorer uses Alt+Enter to show the properties of something, and in games and other apps that shortcut means Full Screen.

Also, why does Alt+F4 quit an app? What does F4 stand for? Compared to Cmd+Q to Quit or Cmd+W to close it's a lot less intuitive.

And so on and so forth.

> Can you give a reason why Enter to open a file is ideal

Because "Enter" has been used a key to activate/open the currently selected item in various UIs across various platforms for several decades now?

Also, possibly, because the button is labeled "Enter"? I guess on Macs it's "Return" though, but that doesn't really make any more sense.

Really, it doesn't make sense to you that enter would correspond to the most common, least destructive action?

Alt-F4 makes little sense, true, but in almost all windows apps control-q or control-w does exactly the same thing as on osx.

Also, having sane defaults for keys people are likely to press is much more important than /not/ having obscure keyboard shortcuts that users never have to know even exist.

I want to say ctrl+q is an exit command from within the application (graceful shutdown) whereas alt+f4 is more of a system level halt for whatever is in focus (hard reset).

That's not actually true. Alt+F4 is exactly the same as clicking the Close window button, and sends WM_CLOSE to the app, which can then handle it gracefully (or not) as it chooses.

In particular, if you have unsaved data, most apps will prompt to save on Alt+F4.

Did not know that, so if an app is non responsive but alt+f4 does the trick, does that mean the app maybe wasn't as FUBAR as I thought?

When Windows sends WM_CLOSE for any reason, it will wait for some time for the app to react (not necessarily close itself, just process the message). But if it does not react soon enough, Windows will mark the app as hanging, and you'll get that standard wait-or-close dialog.

However, Alt+F4 translating to WM_CLOSE is also handled by the app message loop - i.e. Windows sends WM_KEYDOWN events for those keys, and when they get to the event loop, it's supposed to call TranslateMessage. That one normally handles WM_KEYDOWN -> WM_CHAR translation, but it will also handle any shortcuts, and this includes Alt+F4. So if the app is hanging, messages aren't pumped, and the shortcut doesn't work. To send WM_CLOSE, you'd need to use the close button on the window.

So if the app does close on Alt+F4, it was, at the minimum, pumping messages and invoking TranslateMessage on them.

Thanks for the detailed reply! I learned something today.

Yes. If you want to kill an app in Windows, use Task Manager or powershell.

Well aware of that alternative :P I had a display glitch with a game client where it would take the whole screen but not really display anything, leaving me with sound and a working computer but no display even after alt+tab or even ctrl+alt+del. I basically had to blind type win+r > "cmd" > taskkill /f /im Gw2-64bit.exe whenever it happened :(

> the most common, least destructive action?

Launching processes with a single keypress and no confirmation can hardly be called "the least destructive action."

Why Cmd+Q and not Cmd+Esc then? It is frustrating to press Cmd+Q by accident when you intend to press Cmd+W, at least there is a physical separation between F4 and F5, so you can't get it wrong.

I still haven't figured out how to actually open a file/folder in Finder (with the keyboard).

There is even a shell command called "open" that opens its argument with the application Finder would use, or watever you pass as an option.

(As a sidenote, you can drag documents from the finder into a Terminal window and their absolute paths appear at the cursor position).

I hear it's Command-O.

Oh! Thanks. ⌘↓ works as well (and ⌘↑ to navigate to parent directory).

Yup. Finder's still not the greatest for keyboard navigation, to be sure, but these shortcuts do make it more comfortable to use.

Don't worry I don't use "Enter opening something" as my only criteria to judge the discoverability and the ease of use of an interface -- and like you said Windows is full of arbitrary and/or curious keyboard choices -- but pretty much like all interfaces. (However, I still find enter => renaming really weird :p )

As for Cmd+Q and Cmd+W, those might be somewhat more intuitive, but only for some languages, and arguably only very vaguely intuitive for Cmd+W even for english speaking people.

But then again, I don't think there is a real notable difference in the end between most modern systems. It's more of a question of what we are used to.

Enter is just a huge fucking key on some keyboards and easy to get in your way. It just feels super unintuituve to map rename on there. I dont ever use enter for starting ether so its not really about that

> Can you give a reason why Enter to open a file is ideal

Lol. 10/10 troll.

Correction: Cmd+W to close a window.

That ribbon is hidden by default.

But it's not on the Finder, and the Finder defaults to the "All My Files" view which is completely empty on a new user account, so I changed one thing on each side to make the screenshots more comparable, but here are the absolute default views for each OS:

http://i.imgur.com/Dni0Kpo.png

http://i.imgur.com/TM8ZyLg.png

The Finder is still less cluttered, with all its buttons in 1 toolbar instead of spread across 4.

If you want to compare the two, at least use the default view. Pinning the ribbon and then call it more conveluted, is just trying to force your argument.

http://imgur.com/a/5AGBU

macOS Finder, for me, has always been one of the worst parts of of macOS btw. Try navigating to a different drive or to enter a path directly (without knowing the keyboard shortcut) or openeing a shell window at a location or doing anything useful... Explorer is so good at what it does. Maybe it's less pretty, form follows function?

Not to mention it gets special treatment as a program and the behavior of it in the task bar is weird and non-intuitive for inexperienced users.

You're trying to compare a simple case of Finder with an Explorer screen that's on the middle of reconfiguring the view. Ordinarily it's much simpler-looking than that. This is not a remotely fair comparison.

Are you talking about 1) or 2) in http://imgur.com/gallery/J3KPm

If it's 2, that's because other items can be added to that menu, such as LastPass and Bitdefender just to use the examples conveniently at hand.

And as a quick tip if you need to take a lot of screenshots on Windows - Greenshot is a great screenshotting program for Windows (and OSX, though I don't know how it is there), free, GPL, etc. Binds the PrtSc button and lets you select the area you want to capture as well as destination, format, etc.

Regarding the Options button, I think you're mistaking the tooltip for a menu item.

And as for when the ribbon is closed, assuming you're using an appropriate language selection I think I'd find "File/Home/Share/View" at least as informative as "4 squares/4 lines/3 boxes/multisize boxes" - and the text labels next to them on the Windows side when you're on the View ribbon to be much more informative.

> I think you're mistaking the tooltip for a menu item.

It's a bona-fide menu item, accessed via that extra dropdown button below the primary "Options" button.

When I moved out to a far away country, in the early 2000's, my non-English speaking mom started using my localised-Windows desktop as the mean to keep int touch (hello Yahoo messenger). In the 2 years that followed there was not a month were I didn't receive an alarmed phone call from her about "The computer says I am at risk!" or "There is a message in English, I don't understand, it looks bad!". Switched to OS X and the tone changed to, "there was an update and every thing went fine". I have been using OS X (macOS) for the last 10 years but I can still see in my corporate environment that localisation of OS and third parties (hello mandatory anti-virus) is not a fixed issue.

I am tech savy and I have been using mac for 4 years. I can't find where to change settings on Windows 10 to be honest, I find my self looking at two different control panels all the time, one is the moderm one like for tablets and the other one is the one we had since Windows 95 I believe. Some settings can be changed in one but not in the other one.

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