Friday, August 14, 2020

MacOS minimize paradigm

Almost 10 years ago I wrote how the Windows task bar was better than the OSX Dock but since then I've come around... Windows' alt-tab is between running windows only, regardless of app, while back divides it between cmd-tab for apps and then cmd-` within apps. I now think that double wheel nature is superior.

Another difference in behavior only now makes sense to me: what happens when you minimize a window. On Windows, it just gets the Window out of the way, but on Mac it tucks in the Dock - and it is no longer in the cmd-` cycle of windows, which contrasts with Windows where it's still in the loop.

It also doesn't popup when you close out all the other open windows in the app.

Now I use why it's like that- instead of just being a screenspace management thing, it's like a little safe storage box. You can put some a browser tab you want to get back later there without worrying about accidentally closing it, or you can have a long run terminal process there, stuff like that.

It's how long it takes me to realize little things like that that make me hesitate before trying Linux fulltime, since I'm sure there are dozens and dozens of little behaviors I expect that Linux may or may not support out of the box - or if there's a setting to control it, I'm not sure how to describe what I'm looking for to find it in settings...

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