Speedbumps in OS X

[bob5820]

I've been using OSX for about a month now. While for the most part I'm finding that the switch from Win-XP has been a good one there have been a few speed-bumps, little things that I miss about the Windows way of doing things. I bring these up not only to generate some discussion but to gain better insight to the Apple way of doing things.

1. Finder vs Windows Explorer - I miss the Up Folder button from Explorer that allowed you to move back up the directory.

2 Print Dialog - OSX print dialogs seem a little less featured then those in Win Xp. While both Win XP and OSX have options for printing the entire document or printing a range of documents, I miss the option in XP that would allow me to print just the current page.

 

[someguy]

I miss the option in XP that would allow me to print just the current page.

Is it that hard to enter the current page number in the range fields?

 

[Xenesis]

For 1), while you have a finder window up, goto View, Customise Toolbar.

A dialog will come up allowing you to edit it. Add 'Path' to it. It'll work in a way that allows you to go up the directory structure.

 

[Warbrain]

Is it that hard to enter the current page number in the range fields?

Honestly, it's not. I was thinking the same thing as you.

 

[bob5820]

Is it that hard to enter the current page number in the range fields?

Is it that hard no, but simply clicking current page is certainly easier.

 

[bob5820]

For 1), while you have a finder window up, goto View, Customise Toolbar.

A dialog will come up allowing you to edit it. Add 'Path' to it. It'll work in a way that allows you to go up the directory structure.

Thanks, I was hoping that some off my speed bumbs were more due to my own newbeness then to omissions in OSX

 

[Eraserhead]

2 Print Dialog - OSX print dialogs seem a little less featured then those in Win Xp. While both Win XP and OSX have options for printing the entire document or printing a range of documents, I miss the option in XP that would allow me to print just the current page.

What about the fact that OS X can print pdf's out-the-box with the drop-down pdf menu? Though the lack of a current page print is a little silly.

 

[ddekker]

switching

Bob, you know my thoughts on finder...lol... I think switching has been harder for me due to I guess I'm really not 100% switching, I still use Windows all day everyday at work (engineering software that can't run on apple) and I run pretty much apple at home, I still fall back on XP for certain tasks that I either can't figure out or it just doesn't seem as easy as it should be (I've written about many of them on my site) all in all the apple is very fun to use..

DD

 

[nsbio]

Indeed, "Print Current Page" is blatantly missing from the OS X interface. The function is not as useless/redundant as some may think: it is not always obvious what page I am at while browsing through, say, a long pdf document in Preview or a webpage in Safari. And even if I do have that info, it is way easier to click "Print Current Page" once than to click the page range, check which page you are on and then type TWICE: 125/125.

The function is present in the Office apps, and that comes up very handy. Please, Apple, bring the same function to the rest of OS X.

Another big annoyance, of course, is the lack of Cut function in Finder. There is no better way to move a file from one location to another (no, doing it through the dock is not a better way, and straight drag-and-drop is convenient only in some cases). This is one of the few things that the windows people have the right to make fun of OS X about (I have had that happen to me at least twice with my PC-biased co-workers).

Other than that, OS X is leages above Ms.

 

[bob5820]

Bob, you know my thoughts on finder...lol... I think switching has been harder for me due to I guess I'm really not 100% switching, I still use Windows all day everyday at work (engineering software that can't run on apple) and I run pretty much apple at home, I still fall back on XP for certain tasks that I either can't figure out or it just doesn't seem as easy as it should be (I've written about many of them on my site) all in all the apple is very fun to use..

DD

I also need to use Windows at work, and ocasionally still use it at home. Your doing a grat job with your site.

 

[bob5820]

Indeed, "Print Current Page" is blatantly missing from the OS X interface. The function is not as useless/redundant as some may think: it is not always obvious what page I am at while browsing through, say, a long pdf document in Preview or a webpage in Safari. And even if I do have that info, it is way easier to click "Print Current Page" once than to click the page range, check which page you are on and then type TWICE: 125/125.

The function is present in the Office apps, and that comes up very handy. Please, Apple, bring the same function to the rest of OS X.

Another big annoyance, of course, is the lack of Cut function in Finder. There is no better way to move a file from one location to another (no, doing it through the dock is not a better way, and straight drag-and-drop is convenient only in some cases). This is one of the few things that the windows people have the right to make fun of OS X about (I have had that happen to me at least twice with my PC-biased co-workers).

Other than that, OS X is leages above Ms.

I agree that in most cases OSX is a far better OS then Windows, but there are some instances where MS just seems to have a better way of doing it. The purpose of this thread is not to knock Apple. I'm simply trying to find where OSX's shortcomings, from my perspective, are actual shortcoming or just due to my in experience. I appreciate everyones feedback thus far.

 

[Warbrain]

Indeed, "Print Current Page" is blatantly missing from the OS X interface. The function is not as useless/redundant as some may think: it is not always obvious what page I am at while browsing through, say, a long pdf document in Preview or a webpage in Safari. And even if I do have that info, it is way easier to click "Print Current Page" once than to click the page range, check which page you are on and then type TWICE: 125/125.

The function is present in the Office apps, and that comes up very handy. Please, Apple, bring the same function to the rest of OS X.

Another big annoyance, of course, is the lack of Cut function in Finder. There is no better way to move a file from one location to another (no, doing it through the dock is not a better way, and straight drag-and-drop is convenient only in some cases). This is one of the few things that the windows people have the right to make fun of OS X about (I have had that happen to me at least twice with my PC-biased co-workers).

Other than that, OS X is leages above Ms.

So you would rather select cut, have a file on the clipboard and then paste it into a folder? It seems that there are too many issues with this and Apple knows that. You could easily **** yourself over by not remembering that you had that file on the clipboard and you then accidentally copy something else to the clipboard, therefore losing the file. I doubt that Windows has a way to prevent this.

 

[nsbio]

I agree that in most cases OSX is a far better OS then Windows, but there are some instances where MS just seems to have a better way of doing it. The purpose of this thread is not to knock Apple. I'm simply trying to find where OSX's shortcomings, from my perspective, are actual shortcoming or just due to my in experience. I appreciate everyones feedback thus far.

Hmmm, here's another one. Imagine your boss just called you and asked you to grab a large file from his/her Mac. You, of course, have a USB thumb drive with you, so you drop by the office and insert the drive into the Mac and try to copy the file onto the thumb drive. Alas, you do not have enough room on your drive. You do not need all the files on you drive, so you are OK with deleting them to free up the drive space. But with a Mac you CAN NOT do that without collaterally emptying the trash on the Mac itself. The boss can not be reached (so the trash can not be emptied) and his standalone office computer is not on the LAN. This is plain bad... There is always a way out, but Apple is supposed to be about simplicity and convenience, right?

There are third-party programs that allow you to deal with this problem, but not every Mac has those.

Enough venting... Those are the only major OS X annoyances that I could come up with.

 

[nsbio]

So you would rather select cut, have a file on the clipboard and then paste it into a folder? It seems that there are too many issues with this and Apple knows that. You could easily **** yourself over by not remembering that you had that file on the clipboard and you then accidentally copy something else to the clipboard, therefore losing the file. I doubt that Windows has a way to prevent this.

In Windows, if I am not mistaken (correct me if I am wrong - I have not used Windows for a while), the Cut function in Exploder works by placing it not into a regular clipboard but rather into a separate buffer. So one has no chance of accidentally deleting the file that way. The same should be implemented in OS X. And it is so easy to prevent executing two consecutive Cut commands in Finder that Apple engineers should be able to come up with the code to implement this on their drive home.

 

[SmurfBoxMasta]

Hmmm, here's another one. Imagine your boss just called you and asked you to grab a large file from his/her Mac. You, of course, have a USB thumb drive with you, so you drop by the office and insert the drive into the Mac and try to copy the file onto the thumb drive. Alas, you do not have enough room on your drive. You do not need all the files on you drive, so you are OK with deleting them to free up the drive space. But with a Mac you CAN NOT do that without collaterally emptying the trash on the Mac itself. The boss can not be reached (so the trash can not be emptied) and his standalone office computer is not on the LAN.

If you have physical access to the boss's mac, can get to the files he/she wants, and your thumb drive mounts on the desktop, then whats the problem with making room on the flash drive and emptying the trash ? And what does being/not being on the LAN have to do with this situation ?

 

[Xenesis]

Another big annoyance, of course, is the lack of Cut function in Finder. There is no better way to move a file from one location to another (no, doing it through the dock is not a better way, and straight drag-and-drop is convenient only in some cases). This is one of the few things that the windows people have the right to make fun of OS X about (I have had that happen to me at least twice with my PC-biased co-workers).

Other than that, OS X is leages above Ms.

Eh, the cut function can be handy, but I never found it as useful as you say it is. Use of Spring-loaded folders and Exposé is faster for the most part if you're shuffling files around to different windows, especially as you can call up Exposé while dragging a file and just drop it in the appropriate window.

Spring Loaded folders are also nice. Just navigate the directory structure with a single click and hold of the mouse.

 

[nsbio]

If you have physical access to the boss's mac, can get to the files he/she wants, and your thumb drive mounts on the desktop, then whats the problem with making room on the flash drive and emptying the trash ? And what does being/not being on the LAN have to do with this situation ?

The problem is that the boss did not ask me to empty the trash, and may rightfully get pissed off at me for having done so. If I were the boss, I would have gotten angry at anyone changing anything on my computer without my explicit permission (wouldn't you?). There are excellent utilities available to custom-manage trash (such as Compost, which has been a blessing for me), but it seems to me that this functionality should be built into OS X.

Oh, and I could have just moved the file over the LAN if there was LAN access, without bothering with a thumb drive.

 

[nsbio]

Eh, the cut function can be handy, but I never found it as useful as you say it is.

It would have been very useful for me. I am sure that there are millions of users that belong to one of the two "camps". It would be nice to actually have a choice...

 

[i4k20c]

wow, s/he clearly stated s/he isn't here to say OSX is worse yet everyone is bashing this person.. os x users need to remember alot are switchers and are used to something. It's like most people use the qwerty style keyboard, if tommarow someone said use a dvorkian since it produces a faster response, i'm sure people would wonder why or ask questions to Let the person give their impression of os x, and explain to them why os x does things the way it does rather than immediately calling issues of windows useless! OS x by-far isn't god, and that's obvious when seeing all these mishaps and crashes recently from the new upgrade!

about the cut thing in windows, if you forget it is in the clipboard, the file just stays where it is, nothing is deleted. After cut, the file only changes once you hit paste...

one thing i do like about windows is when if you select a file and move it to the desktop or w.e. i believe it creates a shortcut rather than actually moving the file. At-least this is true for programs! I kind of like that feature since it is a "safe-guard" as i accidently deleted address book this way when i first got my mac. inorder for this to work, OSX would need to have the cut function, beacuse the only way to physically move to file in XP and not create just a shortcut is through cut. Overall though, i think the copy method in OSX is better, but it takes some time getting used to for us switchers!

 

[mduser63]

The problem is that the boss did not ask me to empty the trash, and may rightfully get pissed off at me for having done so. If I were the boss, I would have gotten angry at anyone changing anything on my computer without my explicit permission (wouldn't you?). There are excellent utilities available to custom-manage trash (such as Compost, which has been a blessing for me), but it seems to me that this functionality should be built into OS X.

Oh, and I could have just moved the file over the LAN if there was LAN access, without bothering with a thumb drive.

While I see your point, I just wanted to point out that it is possible to delete single files in OS X without emptying the system wide Trash. You have to go into Terminal and use the rm command. It's no big deal for people who are used to the commmand line, but of course that's sort of against the whole idea of the Mac...

 

[topgun072003]

For 1), while you have a finder window up, goto View, Customise Toolbar.

A dialog will come up allowing you to edit it. Add 'Path' to it. It'll work in a way that allows you to go up the directory structure.

thank you....I've been looking for that.

 

[nsbio]

While I see your point, I just wanted to point out that it is possible to delete single files in OS X without emptying the system wide Trash. You have to go into Terminal and use the rm command. It's no big deal for people who are used to the commmand line, but of course that's sort of against the whole idea of the Mac...

And it certainly is beyond my abilities - I just like to click the mouse or push buttons .

 

[Lixivial]

For 1), while you have a finder window up, goto View, Customise Toolbar.

A dialog will come up allowing you to edit it. Add 'Path' to it. It'll work in a way that allows you to go up the directory structure.

Indeed, or the older and more universal way of command-clicking on the title of the window. This also happens to work in more applications than simply Finder. Try it out in Safari, too. I think there are a few more that take advantage of this -- text editors/FTP programs -- but I don't remember a good list.

"Print current page" isn't necessarily a legitimate gripe in my view. Lacking a "Print current selection," however, is a legitimate gripe.

 

[Transeau]

Is it that hard to enter the current page number in the range fields?

In a 400 Page PDF, that you didn't stop to look at the page number - it's a PITA...

On this point I agree with the OP

 

[matgelakt]

A lot of pdf docs with more than 100 pages contain introductions and contents pages, which are numbered with roman numerals (a scanned real book for instance). In preview these intro pages with numerals count as page numbers, and therefore the number on the bottom of the page you'd like to print does not correspond with what you have to type in the print dialog.

So when you want to check out a specific tune in a realbook pdf document and it is on let's say page 100, and the contents pages and introduction take up 15 pages you have to type 115 in the print dialog. This is IMHO pretty nasty if you want a certain tune printed out fast. That's why I really miss the print current page and current selection buttons.

I now use adobe reader in stead of preview, because it does have these printing features