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Comment by notatoad | Hacker News Reader

the complete list of software i use day-to-day consists of a web browser and a terminal emulator. if i switched over to this, that list goes down to just a browser.

maybe some people don't care, but i think it's pretty cool.

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I don't like the idea of using a single app for everything. I have tons and tons of (personal) reasons, but the most obvious and un-solvable reason is: I can switch between terminal emulator and web browser with Command+Tab. If they were both the same thing, I couldn't do it and I would be very disturbed and confused. The same reason I don't use GMail web app and use Mail.app instead, or Reeder.app or iCal.app or iTunes.app.

You know you can Ctrl+Tab between tabs in most web browsers, right?

Of course. But I usually have a few open browser windows (each containing 5-10 related tabs). If Gmail was also a window, I would have to press Cmd-` (Mac's shortcut for switching between different windows of a single app) multiple times.

But to be honest that's not how I actually do my stuff. I use QuickSilver[1] and when I want to go to Mail.app, I just press Cmd-Space, then 'M' or 'Ma' (because Mail.app begins with M) and press return. It takes less than 0.4 seconds (QS is wicked fast) and is much more convenient than a tab in my browser. Not to mention that a native app is usually way faster and more responsive (I have a ridiculously slow internet connection).

[1]: http://qsapp.com

On Windows and *nix--well Ubuntu at least--you can drag a browser tab into a new window and then Alt-Tab between them. Is there no equivalent on a Mac?

Yes. It's Cmd-` (~ without holding down shift. and it works in all apps, not just browsers). But there are more benefits to a native app than a browser tab (for me at least): http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3912689

"un-solvable reason is"

This is actually completely solvable, if it was something lots of people wanted to do it could be trivially built into any browser.

It could be built into FF globally with an extremely simple plugin.

Well if the world turns out to become as Google fantasizes and all applications will be ran in browsers, you can switch between apps with ctrl+tab.

It's the difference between Ctrl-Tab and Cmd-Tab, no?

If the complete list of software you use is a web browser and a terminal emulator, what do you do in the terminal emulator? Run a text-based web browser and/or other terminal emulators?

sorry, i mean software installed on my computers. i use many different software packages installed on remote servers, but i don't need or want any of that stuff running on my computers.

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