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Comment by pocketarc | Hacker News Reader

I think the reason people might prefer it is because it avoids the startup time. The parent mentioned Photoshop - an already-open Photoshop with no windows can open up a new window instantly, whereas a closed Photoshop will have to go through the whole startup process again.

This, pre-SSDs, used to be a much, much bigger deal. Now it's not as big a deal, but if you've been using Macs for 20 years surely you've felt the difference between opening a window of an already-open app vs opening an app from scratch.

I personally love that I can have all the apps I want permanently open on my Mac, and never have to experience the delay of anything launching. A new window just pops up instantly when I wanna interact with an app. It's great.

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This doesn't require that the dismissed application still have control of the menu, however.

It's annoying when you momentarily check a new E-mail message, minimize Mail, and then try to zoom the Web page you're looking at... only to find that it doesn't work because Mail still has control of the menu. And to fix that you have to click on the browser's window, which is a hypocritical admission that the GUI is the expected means of interacting with an application.

I rarely find that momentarily checking an email changes the zoom level that I prefer on a web page, but if I did, I think Command-Tab Command-+ would allow me to change it quickly.

I much more frequently quickly check an email, close it, and then want to send a new email than I want to change the zoom on a web page as my next action.

Seriously?

The zoom example was only that: an example of an attempt to interact with the "active" application on the screen that fails because the menu does not correspond to the application that's being shown.

Feel free to replace the Mail-&-browser example with two applications that YOU might want to bounce between.

Yes, seriously. I believe that, on average, my next task is more likely to be in the same application than the previous application.

"I believe that, on average, my next task is more likely to be in the same application than the previous application."

So what?

I’d prefer that application stay open so that I can accomplish my next task and that Command-N does “make me a new one of what I was just doing, not a new one of the thing I was doing before that”.

That has nothing to do with the issue at hand.

I use cmd+tab and cmd+`, no issues figuring out what has control over what.

That doesn't get the undesired application off the screen.

Then use Cmd-H to hide it.

It's a different model to what you are used to and IMHO more flexible and powerful. If you try and keep operating in a manner learned on a different model you will inevitably be frustrated.

OK so now we have to issue a series of hotkeys (and then another series to undo them) in order to achieve what only requires half those actions on other systems.

There has been no evidence provided to show how this design is "more flexible and powerful," since all the same options exist on Windows, which ALSO offers other options that require half the steps to achieve app-switching.

That’s why I just cmd+(shift+)tab and cmd+(shift+)`. No need to use a mouse and it doesn’t bother me that the window stays in the background. Most apps run in full screen anyway. Same with windows: alt+tab (citrix…) is the way to go.

I haven’t minimised a window in months. For those special needs, there’s expose.

> This doesn't require that the dismissed application still have control of the menu, however.

You haven't dismissed the application; you've closed or minimized a document. The application is still active.

That depends on the application. Most modern applications (fortunately) shun the pile of floating windows that dominated Mac application design historically. For document-centric applications, developers can implement MDI style or tabs and keep their app tidy.

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