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Comment by Aaargh20318 | Hacker News Reader

Aaargh20318

> Window management in OSX is horrible.

What is so horrible about it ? I have the exact same reaction every time I have to use Microsoft Windows. Window management is one of the strongpoints of MacOS.

> A network drive hangs? Good luck with Finder..., the whole system halts.

I've never encountered this problem on both AFP and SMB shares.

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Fullscreen mode loses focus constantly with 2 monitors, SMB shares are very slow especially with large amounts of files to be listed. Finder crashes a lot dealing with network filesystems. The search on Finder is extremely bad and doesn't hold a candle to Windows 10 search.

I am typing this on a Macbook Pro so I am not some Windows fan. OS X has fallen way behind in its desktop incarnation. The only reason I use OS X is due to its Unix shell for development. I don't think anyone can honestly say that as a GUI OS X is better than recent Windows.

>Fullscreen mode loses focus constantly with 2 monitors

I've never lost focus with fullscreen/2 monitors. So?

"I haven't experienced the problem you're talking about, so it must not exist."

> Window management is one of the strongpoints of MacOS.

Can you give an example of this? I regularly switch between macos, windows and ubuntu and I have a hard time coming up with much positive to say about macos window management (unless a third-party tool is used).

... on Windows you drag a window to the right and make it 1/2 or 1/3 or 1/4 the screen. On a Mac dragging the window... drags the window.

I never understood the whole obsession with running applications fullscreen. The whole point of a multitasking OS is to run multiple apps at the same time. If you need to run your apps fullscreen you probably need a bigger monitor.

The common use-case is laptop vs. desktop. If you have a 34in. WQHD display, full-screening one app is going to be silly; if you're stuck with the built-in display on an MBP when you're at the cafe, it's much more practical.

For the other perspective - it actually boggles my mind when I see coworkers with one desktop open with 3-4 windows kinda mushed all around, different sizes, etc. Like, you paid a lot of money for that good display, why are you not using it?! How can you stand having to scroll all over a window to see something, when you could just fullscreen it? Is it that they need to context switch quickly? Why not just use multiple desktops, with all fullscreen or at least fully-half-screened apps?

I never understood this type of workflow and when I was in school it was everywhere, it's like apple was pushing for people to have little windows strewn out over an otherwise gorgeous display.

I am using it, that's the whole point of having multiple windows open. Each window shows whatever is relevant about that context, and it takes up no more space than necessary so I can have as many sources of information visible as I want.

Also, it's nice for spacial awareness. I feel a little bit lost when a window takes over the entire screen and blanks everything else out.

Regarding spacial awareness, because I have the same window in a given "desktop" all the time, my spacial awareness is locational. If I'm in my IDE, I know it's 2 desktops to the right to get to my terminals. From there, 3 to the left to get to my company chat. Etc.

It's even better in ubuntu because desktop switching isn't just left/right, it's up down. So I can really think geographically. I guess that's just the kind of brain I have - for example, if I want to look for tickets for a movie I want to see, I search "movie theater" in google maps and click the theater in the location I want to go to, then navigate through ticket buying etc. shrug who knows man

When you want to write a letter by hand, do you clear your entire desk and get a desk-sized blank sheet of paper to write on ?

How can you stand having to scroll all over a window to see something, when you could just fullscreen it?

Uh... because with three 30" monitors, it would be like sitting in the front row at an iMAX theater?

My MBA always has an app in full screen mode. My TB display has windows on windows. It is the apps' fault, not mine.

command-tabbing between apps instead of windows is just wrong imo. You constantly have to keep in mind if the window you're switching to is part of the same app or a different app.

The way command-tabbing brings all an application's windows forward always bugged me too. Fortunately, there is LiteSwitch (http://sysbeep.com) that lets you switch to the frontmost window only.

While I'm at it, I'll also plug https://manytricks.com/witch which I find invaluable for switching between windows and just got an update.

Cmd-` lets you switch windows within an application though, as I recall (can't confirm as I'm on Windows at work)

Hyperswitch (https://bahoom.com/hyperswitch) fixes that perfectly.

Having the menu bar on top is confusing when you've got multiple windows open.

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