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5 things I miss after switching from Windows laptop to MacBookPro.

Oleksandr on April 11, 2020

How I tried to substitute missed functionality. A while ago I was employed and what was new for me — I got MacBookPro as a work laptop. It was a n...
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Roman Fedyshyn • Edited

2 you could use Alt+Cmd+H maybe it's configured like this only on my machine but it's work just perfectly, you hide all windows and leave the active one

5 yes you couldn't change the language while typing, but you could use this config

System preferences -> Keyboard -> Input Sources -> Automatically switch to a document's input source

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Oleksandr

Thanks for sharing!

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tsia

I think there is a shortcut to switch input languages. I think it is alt/option + Tab but it may be turned off by default

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Elliot DeNolf

Most of your window manipulation woes can be remedied by a tool like Hammerspoon. While it has a bit of a learning curve, it is extremely powerful once you dig in. You can find some examples of window management in the sample configurations

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Mark Harr

1 I don't have any problems stretching the Chrome window to multiple monitors. But since my monitors are different resolutions and sizes, I have to be careful the window is not larger (taller) than the 2nd monitor, else dragging the side border stops at the monitor edge; shrink the window size, then it will stretch to 2nd monitor.

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Lauri Auronen

For #3, the dock problem, I recommend uBar (brawersoftware.com/products/ubar). Provides a very similar experience to Windows taskbar on Mac. For me the killer feature is to show each instance of, eg. Chrome, as a separate item on the taskbar, so I can easily switch between them rather than having all of them collapsed under a single dock icon.

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Ben Sinclair

1 has been a problem for OSX for a long time. There are a lot of glitches in Mac multi-monitor systems, like:

  • If you have Preview open and drag the window from one monitor to the other, it re-initialises Preview, which means it re-loads the file from disk and re-renders it. This makes no sense, no other app does it.
  • If you set the monitors to behave independetly, you can switch workspaces on either but not drag windows correctly or let them overlap.
  • if you set the monitors to behave together, you can't make an app full screen without turning the other one blank. You know, stuff other OS sorted out a decade or two ago.

2 is solvable to an extent with a combination of workspaces and Spectacle. Spectacle lets you resize, snap and move windows with keyboard shortcuts and is a really useful tool. Workspaces on the other hand... if you set a shortcut to go to a different workspace and that one has no windows open, it's effectively showing your desktop.

3 is an option in the latest versions of MacOS I believe. It works on my MBP now anyway :)

4 is achievable by either using a real ISO keyboard plugged into your mac or a tool like Karabiner to map a different key. I say like karabiner because I'm not certain it works with the latest MacOS, but there are probably tools to achieve it.

Hope any of this helps. I've been using MacOS for donkey's years now and the thing that sets it apart isn't that it's better or worse than anyone else's UI (ok, I lie, it's worse than everyone else's UI) but that it's harder to force it to behave in the way you want as a user.

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Oleksandr

3 is an option in the latest versions of MacOS

Cool! I should check it

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Eyad

I'd like to read another article about what new things you did enjoy about macOS that don't exist in Windows.

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Oleksandr

I should think about it, hm..
Possibly linux-like terminal (but windows has gitbash)
ScreenSlide with three fingers
MacFanSpeed control app (I dony know if windows laptops has such app)
Possibility to install/run MidnightCommander :)
Notes app is quite good
Nice MacBookPro design with metal case

I think such article may appear if I switch back to windows in 10 years and notify the diff :-D

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Marvin Heilemann

You cannot really compare gitbash with any cmd tool on macOS. Gitbash also has limitations and let's not talk about powershell... Try iTerm2 on mac together with the zsh prezto plugin and powerlevel10k theme. IMO best terminal experience ever.

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Oleksandr • Edited

Possibly yes for experienced user, but for me gitbash was quite good. PowerShell has another purpose I guess - more for admin specific tasks.
I am Linux admin in the past so for me macOs term is nice old good days memories)

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TU ESTUDIO WEB

The only thing I miss is Windows + D and select only external displays without closing my laptop

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SJellen

My dock is available on every screen(but not at the same time). But maybe that’s because I keep it hidden and it only appears when I mouse over the bottom of a screen.

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Oleksandr • Edited

Yeah, this is what I do too. But sometimes I'd prefer having Dock on all screens at once

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tsia

the annoying thing about #1 is that it used to work and then it didn't and then it did. I think this happened when Apple introduced "Spaces"

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Oleksandr

Yeah, got advice to turn off spaces to make it work should try

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Oleksandr

More advises in thread: twitter.com/ThePracticalDev/status...