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Comment by brimble | Hacker News Reader

Firefox and Chrome have proven Apple right, in forcing a top-of-screen menu bar to appear whether the application wants it to or not. This was demonstrated to me recently when my parents couldn't figure out how to print on Windows in Firefox (because there's no standard menu on it—they know "file -> print" just fine) and called me for help. After a moment of confusion on my part as I remembered that FF doesn't have a normal menu anymore, then a brief and totally failed effort to talk them through finding the beyond-stupid, tiny, "everything" drawer button, I finally just told them to press the keys for the keyboard shortcut, which they won't remember and will have to ask me again next time.

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That’s anecdotal, but my mother who "grew up" on DOS and Windows was never able to grasp the relationship between the top menu bar and the application window on MacOS. I bought her a Mac in 2010 because they are supposedly more intuitive and I didn’t want to provide PC support anymore, but it was no better than Windows for her at all (also not worse overall I guess).

I spent years thinking they [EDIT: Apple's always-top-of-screen application menus, that is] were dumb for that reason. It never occurred to me that major software vendors would be stupid and/or user-hating enough to ditch the standard top menu, when they have a whole bunch of stuff that should go in it.

The top menu made sense when computer screens were small and the mouse pointer thus never far away from the top, and applications were fullscreen most of the time anyway.

To me it seems the top menu bar is a holdover from early Mac OS. I saw a demo of one of the early versions of the OS, and it made a ton of sense there. The OS could only run a single application at a time, but that application could have multiple windows. From that perspective it's very sensible that whichever application had full control over the screen would want a menu bar global to its own windows.

Now though, it's just weird to have the menu bar at the top of the screen. And it's especially strange when there's no windows for the application left but the menu bar for it is still visible (something that wouldn't be strange in the single app at a time model)

Except that in this scenario, the application is still running, it just has no documents open. It's a nice thing to have because you can close all the documents in say Word, do some other work, and then when you need to open Word again, it's there ready to go without having to load again. The Mac seems to do a better job of having apps hanging out in the background than Windows does.

I seem to recall Steve Jobs saying the reason the menu is at the top of the screen is that it's easier to hit it with the mouse, you just push it all the way up. I think it's a valid point.

I've noticed it's really nice if you like quarter- and half-screen layouts (or anything else that's sorta tiling-like). Four different programs on the screen, only one "file, edit, ..." menubar eating space.

I have had my second monitor on top of my main one for the last 20 years, when I switched to a Mac this was the hardest thing to get used to.

Apple's HIG used to have a bunch of these nuggets - things about predictability of where inputs are, what was clickable, etc. Not sure how much has been preserved over the years, but the original docs are pretty legendary.

One nice thing about this too is that when you have something like a full-screen video playing, pushing the mouse to the top of the screen will reveal the menu pretty much universally. Trying to get to the application menu in full-screen on Windows is going to vary from one app to the next and has poor discoverability.

At the same time they don't utilize the 4 most easy to reach points of the screen, the corners. Windows always used those for essential interactions so the interface was really fast to use: for the start menu just throw your mouse to the bottom left corner; to close the window throw your mouse to the top right corner; to show your desktop throw to to bottom right; not sure anymore about the other corner as I am on Mac for a while already. Since switching to Mac I am always thinking about how stupid the interface is for disregarding important user-friendly details like these.

Apple has Hot Corners (configurable in the Desktop & Screen Saver > Screen Saver section of Settings) that can replicate some of the functionality that you described.

Another anecdote, my mom was essentially a lifelong Windows user. I would have to answer basic tech support questions for her several times a month.

She's switched 80% of her use to an iPad and the rest to a Mac laptop, and I get a question about once a year.

YMMV.

I ended up switching my parents to iPads as well, which was a huge improvement.

The first time I discovered that "dragging an icon to the trash" was one of the few ways to uninstall an application on Mac, my mind was a bit blown. I was struggling so hard to find an "Add/remove programs" equivalent or an uninstaller.

I believe it’s because that literally just deletes the application file/directory, there’s no hook for application-specific uninstall routines.

Remember when the way to eject a floppy or other removable disk on a Mac was to drag its icon to the trash? That was weird.

With OS X (maybe even OS 9?) the interaction was changed so that when you dragged a disk to the trash can icon, the icon changed to an eject icon (⏏), but it seems that this has been removed at some point in the last 18 years since when I went to check it, it doesn't happen anymore. On the other hand, the disk icon now has an eject button next to it in at least some Finder views.

Exactly, wave goodbye to any attempt at user consistency. Same with Win10, it launched 7 years ago and they still haven't made the the new UI standard. Try changing user passwords or system sounds or..etc. In all honesty find Linux Mint with XFCE far less mental grind than either of the predominant platforms. It has a rough edge here and there but that's it - things in general stay in place. As a result I dedicate more time to end result of my computing rather than the medium.

there kindof are, though it's very inconsistent. For example, yesterday I installed the AdGuard app, which adds a proxy and some Extensions.. When I finally realized I didn't need it and it was a paid service, and I really just needed the free AdGuard DNS, I dragged the icon to the trash....

And that also prompted me to confirm that it would delete the proxy and the Extensions that were installed.

I remember a few more apps being like that. So there ARE hooks, just not used universally. AND it won't delete personal files or preferences related to the app, which is what users are expecting these days when they delete an app, UNLESS it's an app installed from the App Store, because those store prefs and data in a different folder than regular apps..

> And that also prompted me to confirm that it would delete the proxy and the Extensions that were installed.

I would be interested if someone could point me to the mechanism used for that (triggering application-specific uninstall logic upon dragging the application to the trash).

Good question, I unfortunately have no idea of the mechanisms for this, I just know they exist and have encountered them before as a user...

I suspect many people reading this HN thread also serve as their family's tech support team. Every week I get calls or emails from my parents requesting help figuring out something that's not obvious from the UI, is accidentally triggered by users, deliberately activated (by the app) during a software update, or buried deep in some settings or submenu. This week's selection includes:

- Turning off yet again the annoying computer voice announcing any navigation or volume change on my parents' new Samsung TV (accessibility option, not sure why it turned on, but it required me visiting their home in person again to turn it off)

- Trying to help my father disable the "get Outlook for iOS" line that suddenly started to be appended to the bottom of his work emails.

- Helping my spouse troubleshoot a Shopify app feature that prevents >1 item being subtracted from inventory at a time

- Figuring out how to enable a social media save shared photos to her phone's photo album

Yes, sometimes software is so complicated and feature rich these items have to buried deep in the settings. But often I find that the lack of obvious text labels for basic features and navigation items is the problem. Hamburger menus and the three dots "more actions" icon are a poor substitute for clear text labels and links.

The thing about modern software that infuriates me the most, watching my parents struggle with it, are the damned screen-takeover or focus-stealing on-launch notices, usually about some update they don't care about. They opened the thing to use it, not to read your changelog or marketing shit. Coupled with auto-updating, it confuses the absolute hell out of them, and the way modern design (and Android especially) make it hard to tell what's a button and what's text, and inconsistent cutesy button labels, make it even worse (it often takes them a while to figure out how to make the thing they didn't ask for and never, ever want go away). Google loves to do this pretty much everywhere, and it's especially bad on mobile, but FF desktop's post-update new-tab-to-market-at-you-about-what-changed (nothing important, 95%+ of the time) is almost as bad.

Hell, I don't like that stuff either (does anyone?) but it's just a minor annoyance for me. For them it can mean they give up trying to do whatever they wanted to do.

> The thing about modern software that infuriates me the most, watching my parents struggle with it, are the damned screen-takeover or focus-stealing on-launch notices, usually about some update they don't care about.

I would bet in almost all cases, these can be directly attributed to the developer company's poorly devised career incentives. Behind every full-screen "OMG CHECK OUT WHAT'S NEW" takeover or notification-spam lies a product manager or engineering manager whose bonus is tied to some vanity measurement of how many users are engaging with the new feature they launched. "How much of the user's attention and screen space can I take over in order to try to jam this unwanted feature down their throat and show huge usage numbers next performance review?"

> - Turning off yet again the annoying computer voice announcing any navigation or volume change on my parents' new Samsung TV (accessibility option, not sure why it turned on, but it required me visiting their home in person again to turn it off)

For this one, I don't think it's a software update but rather user error (though it's not clear even to me how).

I myself have accidentally enabled it, there seems to be some combination of buttons on the remote that will enable it. Still not sure on the specific combo though.

The way Apple does it is also better design than a conventional menu bar.

I can see why FF and Chrome hide it by default. Most of the actions tucked away in it are either used infrequently, or have common keyboard shortcuts. Turning it on in Firefox makes the chrome feel cluttered to me.

By exporting the application's menu bar to an OS-provided panel that includes other OS-provided functions (clock, status indicators, wireless controls), they enforce both a strong level of consistency while allowing for reduced window clutter.

In case it's helpful: You can also tell them to right-click anywhere in the main toolbar area aside from the URL field, select "Customize Toolbar...", and then drag the "Print" button to wherever they want it. Alternatively: Hamburger menu > More tools > Customize toolbar...

I know this is besides your point, but in Firefox there is an option to turn the menu bar back on (at least until they remove the option :/).

If you go to the "Customize Toolbar" page, on the bottom left where it says "Toolbars v" you can check "[ ] Menu Bar". Hope that helps (a little)!

Or right-click on any free space on the top row. There's an option in the menu.

Oh you are right! That's how I was getting to the Customize Toolbar page too haha. Totally missed that!

Or press the Alt button to show the Menu bar temporarily.

It'd occurred to me there was probably a setting to fix it, but I've forgotten to check the last couple times I've been over, because I'm a bad son :-( Thanks for confirming my suspicion, will try to remember to change that setting for them next time.

You can also tap "alt" to make it appear, I believe, if it isn't enabled.

To help your parents, in FireFox simply pressing Alt once conjures the familiar menus (for now). They disappear as soon as they are first used or on first mouse click.

On Windows, and most Linux apps, pressing Alt reveals a menu similar to MacOS's global menu. It's basically impossibe to discover, but it's there!

I knew that from long long ago adventures in mouseless Windows-using, for focusing it, but not for causing it to appear if there isn't one. Thanks.

You can turn the regular menu on for them in the options. (Firefox: Right-click on tool bar, choose "Menu Bar" option to enable.)

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