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Comment by wraptile | Hacker News Reader

As someone who recently switched to MacOs (not by their own choice) there are hundreds of little annoying, broken or inconsistent OS things I find.

One of my favorites just happened yesterday with finder - I was trying to figure out how to rename a file, well the usual fx keys aren't doing it so the common process was to go to the toolbar context menu where hotkey is indicated next to the action's text. Rename for some reason had no hotkey indication! [1] so naturally I'm thinking it's somehow not bounded, google around for hotkey editing etc just to findout it's the least obvious key: return.

1 - https://i.imgur.com/LtcrBPU.png

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> well the usual fx keys aren't doing it

When you say the 'usual' function keys... do you really mean some other system's function keys? Why would you expect macOS to use the same function keys as a different system? There's no standards body for these things.

> There's no standards body for these things.

Yes there is -- it's called CUA (Common User Access)

"The subset of CUA implemented in Microsoft Windows or OSF/Motif is generally considered a de facto standard to be followed by any new Unix GUI environment."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Common_User_Access

The original Mac predates that, and I think it is quite conceivable that "Enter" to select a file name and edit it was in use back then.

Yes, I can confirm that it's been that way (almost) since the beginning.

Apparently[1] the original intent was to allow the user to just type and rename the file, but the enter key was quickly added after they noticed that the display models all had garbage filenames. It was an early tweak that stuck (much to the chagrin of those of us who also use other systems). Why they never added it to the context menu is beyond me.

[1] https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&stor...

it was just muscle memory but that's not the point.

Not showing the shortcut key for rename is definitely dumb. And I wouldn't be surprised if it was because of some silly reason like a high level designer at Apple thought it wouldn't match the cmd paradigm, and so would rather not show it (even though there are plenty of existing exceptions elsewhere).

But I would argue F2 is less obvious. It's only obvious if you learned it at some point or if you were there when F2 was chosen. Enter is at least a normal text editing key for day to day typing, and it's already the bookend key to finish typing a new name.

I only mentioned Fx keys in passing - my point was that they key was not present in the context menu which is a very common idiom to indicate action is not bound to any key. If all actions have key and this one doesn't: the first natural though is, well, this action has no key. The fact that it's leftout and hundreds of other similar anectodes really shows off that macos is not any more magically intuative than any other OS and has lots of space to grow.

The only reason that the return key is the 'least obvious' key to you is because you're used to that being the 'open' key on other operating systems.

On literally every other operating system. I've used dozens of platforms, some of them pretty obscure, some of them hobbyist, some of them were purpose built for hardware that stopped being manufactured 20, 30 or more years ago, and all of them supported return as a trigger in menus, be it graphical or text based. Finder really is the odd ball with regards to binding it to rename.

Well, it makes total sense in one way - ENTER toggles name editing. After you change a file name, you press ENTER to 'save' the new name and finish editing. That seems logical, I think. So why not have the same key to start editing the name too? In the way PLAY/STOP are usually the same button etc.

Also, you use cod+down to open a file. Just like you use cmd+down to enter a directory. You’re going “down” into the directory (to view its content), and if you go “down” into the file it should be opened with its default application (to view its content). Alternatively, cmd+down “activates” the directory so you want the same shortcut to “activate” files.

Because, as was mentioned, in every other context/OS, that is not what Enter does?

My question was rhetorical. Sorry I wasn't clearer.

I understand the frustration and I'm with you that Finder is atrocious.

My head-cannon about this is that for consistency within macos, all actions must be cmd+something, so is cmd+O for opening a file. In the terminal you can also use the "open" command which opens the file or the directory (I use "open ." a lot, I find faster navigating in the shell that in the finder).

> all actions must be cmd+something

Which is why I always try Cmd+R for renaming a file and then nothing happens.

As someone who only encountered windows after a decade of using mac and started using windows (not by their own choice) there are hundreds of little annoying, broken or inconsistent OS things I find.

Now I've used windows for a decade, and I still overall dislike it. But that doesn't mean these things are done "wrong" they are just done differently and not how I'd expect.

Windows doesn't place the light switches where I'm accustomed to. For example hy are there so many menus bars on each window. It's simpler to always know where the menu is at the top and it creates less screen clutter. Why does windows quit a program when close the document. If I wanted to quit it, I would have quit it. I just wanted a new document. These are just a few of the things that aren't bad but just aren't the philosophy I'd come to expect. Control-alt-delete to log in? Why?! I can't hit that one handed easily! Good thing I have two hands. And yeah bash or shell is kinda mess, but powershell is a verbose and has bureaucratic feel. It's just not my cup of tea but that doesn't mean it's wrong.

I'm curious, why didn't you click on the filename after it has been selected? That initiates rename on both Finder and Explorer, as well as other applications that edit that sort of text. (Except not OpenOffice's spreadsheet tabs, grrr)

I generally don't use mouse where's possible so click+wait+click is a rather unintuative motion for me.

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