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Comment by Havoc | Hacker News Reader

Recently dived into mac world (air) too after decades of win/linux.

Pleasant experience and very impressed by hardware and polish except wow the keyboard/shortcut situation is absolutely cursed. Not different...actually cursed.

Who decided that sometimes its cmd+Q to close a window while other times its cmd+W and some apps support both but with different behaviours and knowing which of the three it is depends on knowing what's an OS window (but not all OS windows)? Or why is taking a screenshot of an area to clip it a FOUR key combo with one of them being a random number (the key 4). I can definitely memorize it and get used to it, but were the designers high as a kite when it was shortcut design day?

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The cmd+q is the "quit" command. And the convention in single-window apps (or ones that have a single unambiguous main window) is that the window only closes when the app is quit. So this is command you have to give.

For "document-based" apps (think almost anything where you open multiple files), the application can stay running even if there are no open windows. So you have both cmd+q and cmd+w available to you.

You can probably come up with some apps that don't cleanly fit these two, but that is what Apple has.

As to screen shot commands, it is a three-key chord because it is system-wide, and they did not want to step on any toes that the apps might have. And there are a few versions: shift-command-3 takes the entire screen shift-command-4 takes either a window or a section (press space bar to switch between them) shift-command-5 opens a more menu-based system that includes a timer

Why 3, 4, and 5 (and not 1 or 2)... I don't know. Maybe there was something in those spots at some point.

Command - Shift - 1 was "Eject Floppy Disk in Drive 1" and Command - Shift - 2 was "Eject Floppy Disk in Drive 2". I kid you not, that's how old these keyboard shortcuts are, they date back to the 80's.

> keyboard/shortcut situation is absolutely cursed. Not different...actually cursed

You know, you can change almost any shortcut you want with Karabiner (app). You don't even need to memorize them.

When I first switched to Mac after using Ubuntu for 4 years before that, I didn't expect this level of customization. It's misunderstood because Apple doesn't advertise this.

>You know, you can change almost any shortcut you want with Karabiner (app)

That's actually my other complaint. "Fixing" problems with the OS with mystery apps.

Connected an external mouse. Mouse wheel is inverted...weird? Google it. Yeah you can toggle it. Thank goodness. Apple knew people use mice. Oh but that inverts the trackpad too. WHAT? You're joking. I need to pick between a sane trackpad and sane mouse? I own both and need both to work to work in a not upside down manner.

Climb onto an AI and ask it what to do because this is insanity like surely not this can't be how it is. LLM goes yeah no that's just macos you need to install a mystery app to unfuck it.

Don't get me wrong my overall experience is positive and there has been the expected learning curve which is fine ofc, but also a fair bit of "what the actual F how are people OK with this".

This one was shocking to me too. I get the argument around the upside down trackpad, but inverting the mouse wheel with no built in open is insane. I also have a mystery app who's only just is to correct this stupid behavior.

cmd-W closes windows and cmd-Q quits the App. That Apps can stay open without having a Window is actually useful (at least it makes sense to me).

@screenshot

Mac has always been kind of amazing for the granular options you get to take screenshots out of the box.

• Command - Shift - 3 | Takes a fullscreen pic of the entire display. Loads a preview in the bottom right corner. Click to expand, and from there edit, share, save, delete, etc.

• Command - Shift - 4 | Turns your mouse cursor into a crosshair. Drag to create a rectangular window. Takes a capture of the contents when done. Escape or right-click to cancel. Preview loads the same as above.

• Command - Shift - 5 | Brings up a rectangular section that can be moved around and resized.

But any shortcut can be remapped:

Go to System Settings > Keyboard > Keyboard Shortcuts > Screenshots

>cmd-W closes windows and cmd-Q quits the App.

Open Finder. cmd+Q. Does it quit anything? Nope nothing happens.

Open apple TV. cmd+w -> minimizes window. Open Safari. same keys - cmd+w. Closes current window? Nope. Closes tab. Open Apps. Cmd+w. Does it close window? Close Tab? Nope...third option...does fucking nothing.

That's 3 different apps made by apple and preinstalled by apple...three different behaviours

Cmd-W closes the current *document*. In tabbed apps, the document is the tab.

It is true that Finder is always running, you can’t quit it or kill it.

I'm so used to macos now that I don't even realize that this is confusing. What OS did you use before, windows? is there no distinction between quiting an app and closing a window on windows?

One thing that helped me make the transition to nearly full time with the Mac was remapping Command. I remapped Command to Control, and put Control on the Meta / Windows key (I mostly use an external kb).

This kept my decades of muscle memory almost intact since I'm so used to Control being the primary modifier in Linux and Windows. And, weirdly enough, it helped me learn the new MacOS shortcuts since the patterns were now centered on Control instead of the Command key.

You can make the switch without having to use 3rd party software. The Keyboard section of Settings will let you adjust the modifier keys on a per keyboard basis. With different settings for internal, external, etc. if you wish. And it will let you remap Caps Lock if you prefer that to be something else.

The standard behavior is that:

Command Q quits the currently active application.

Command W closes the current window without quitting the active application.

>Command Q quits the currently active application.

Open Finder. cmd+Q. Does it quit anything? Nope nothing happens.

>Command W closes the current window

That's 3 different apps made by apple and preinstalled by apple...three different behaviours

>standard behavior

It isn't and its a tribute to human adaptability to chaos that mac crowd thinks this is standardization

That actually makes sense, because you cannot quit Finder. I haven't used macs for a couple years now but I'm taking your word for it. Finder hasn't been quittable for as long as i can remember, so you stop trying to quit it.

> Open Finder. cmd+Q. Does it quit anything? Nope nothing happens.

You can’t quit finder - it’s a fundamental part of the hi that always has to run.

> Safari

Multiple tabs in a window are intended to be treated the same as multiple windows. This has been the case since macOS made tabbed interface components a standard part of the OS.

> Open Apps

What do you mean? Which apps?

>You can’t quit finder - it’s a fundamental part of the hi that always has to run.

That's what google told me after I set out to discover what rules are behind the inconsistency. The solution to inconsistent shortcuts is apparently memorizing which parts of the software that is PREINSTALLED is considered part of the OS and which parts are not.

>Which apps?

Not apps small a...Apps big A...the thing apple macs ship with on the dock and literally entitled "Apps". That baked into the default install window just behaves differently from both finder style built in OS things and Safari also built in but different built in not part of OS. Why? I don't fuckin know. Neither Q nor W make it go away. OK so hit esc. Does that make the window go away? It turns it into a smaller window that now performs a different function?!?!? Spotlight. OK so now i need to memorize what is an preinstalled OS window, preinstalled not os window, preinstalled not os window not app window but some sort of launcher I guess?

So a new user is basically guessing which of THREE keys combos may or may not make the window go away or possible do nothing or do something else entirely (close tab).

I feel like I'm being gaslight by all the hn users telling me yeah that makes sense

> Not apps small a...Apps big A.

That's a fancy spotlight search modal, not an application or window...

> Open apple TV. cmd+w -> minimizes window.

No it doesn't, it closes the window. Look at your dock - minimized windows show up on the other side of the | divider with a mini representation of their contents.

> I feel like I'm being gaslight by all the hn users telling me yeah that makes sense

It feels more like you're willfully railing against the way macOS is because you're not used to it. If you remove your preconceptions about how things should be (and keep in mind that macOS defined most of the things we're talking about 30+ years ago, so it's not like there was a standard to follow), it really does make sense. CMD-W closes the current doc/tab/window, CMD-Q quits the application.

The only time that doesn't work is when the application writer intentionally breaks it (and the macOS community typically rages about that - looking at you chrome!), or you're not dealing with a normal application/app/program (ie you can't close a system prompt with a command targeted at applications).

What app doesn’t support cmd-w?

Some apps close window. Some apps close tabs. Some apps can close tab or window. Some apps require double press (chrome)

That’s chrome being a dick - it chrome has an option to undo that (and it’s cmd-q they dickified, not cmd-w).

Oh, you are right. Wrong key

As an outsider it boggles my mind that apple crowd doesn't notice how all over the place macos shortcuts are.

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