The macOS shortcuts seem like an easy thing to dismiss... but once you have bought into them, they are kind of thing that turn into a deal-breaker when trying to move away from macOS.
The dedicated Cmd key for most operations (which doesn't conflict with, say Ctrl+C in the terminal) is super-convenient. The consistency across apps is... something that you can't appreciate until you experience it. And the pervasive Emacs-like text navigation shortcuts throughout the system are productivity boosters. I like how someone else described the "right side of the keyboard" as "keyboard Siberia" -- I have not touched it for years and have not missed any of those special keys in minimalistic keyboards that don't have them.
Until I tried to actually move off of macOS last year. The different shortcuts on Windows were and still are super-painful. For months, I fought those and tried to use macOS-like shortcuts on Windows. You can see my AHK configuration here if you are interested in adopting something similar: https://jmmv.dev/2021/07/macos-ahk.html
Recently, though, and because that setup is problematic at times and because I decided to remove macOS altogether from my machine... I'm trying to retrain my hands and adapt to the non-macOS shortcuts. It's painful and I miss the macOS consistency a lot. On the plus side, however, after a few weeks of this on Windows, I booted into a FreeBSD desktop and could navigate the system pretty well :) Some more details here: https://jmmv.dev/2022/03/a-year-on-windows-shortcuts.html
Being able to map any menu item for any app in the Keyboard pref pane, Shortcuts tab by typing the exact label (case sensitive) is crazy.
You don't even have to have a third party app to snap left||right or maximise via the keyboard, as these are available (behind Option either in the menu or when hovering over the traffic lights, but once you bind them they're always there, example is my bindings):
Ctrl+Option+Return: Zoom
Ctrl+Option+Left: Move Window to Left of Screen
Ctrl+Option+Right: Move Window to Right of Screen
And for multihead users there's "Move to <display name>".
Again in Keyboard pref pane, Shortcuts tab, under Mission Control there's also Switch to Desktop 1-N keyboard shortcuts but you first have to create as many virtual desktops (a.k.a Spaces) as you want to have all the shortcuts show up. Make sure to disable "Automatically rearrange Spaces based on most recent use" under Mission Control pref pane to keep them predictable. Since the total count is spread across display heads, I create 5 on my left screen and 5 on my right one. I also disable "When switching to an application, switch to a Space with windows open for that application", otherwise clicking on a Dock icon jumps me to another Space when I just want to have the app activated. As a i3 user on Linux (which of course is in another league) this brings macOS kind of close enough in behaviour to not be too jarring for me when I jump from one to the other.
Another one of my favourites is Paste and Match Style, which is absolute genius.
Okay, I liked your idea of the window moving left and right and I tried to parse what you said and how to set it up as I haven't done shortcuts like this before.
In every app's menu bar (so like Safari or Chrome), there is the Window menu item. If you open that then press and hold the Option key on the keyboard, you'll see some alternative commands - two of them being:
Move Window to Left Side of Screen
Move Window to Right Side of Screen
You'll need those exact command names when you open Apple -> System Preferences -> Keyboard -> Shortcuts tab. Then under App Shortcuts you can add some new shortcuts, where you can assign the Ctrl+Option+Left to the command title "Move Window to Left Side of Screen"
Once added, as you've said - once they are bound they will appear in the Window menu now as well.
MacOS built-in shortcuts are cool I guess, but when it comes to positioning windows, no way should you limit yourself to left and right. My preferred tool is "Divvy", which isn't auto-tiling per se but has really granular and straightfwd "set it and forget it" config. I've got muscle memory for sizing and positioning windows across displays in horizontal and vertical halves and fullscreen. Piece o cake, no brainer.
Appreciate the option to do it without 3rd party tools, but if you do want more power in this space I find Magnet indispensable.
I have shortcuts for left/right-third and two-thirds, as well as left/right half, which I must use dozens of times a day. Oh and I use ASZX to push stuff to the 4 corners too.
> Appreciate the option to do it without 3rd party tools, but if you do want more power in this space I find Magnet indispensable.
Used Moom and Spectacle, and now using Magnet as well on personal machines (actually it was the first one I ever used back when it was called Window Magnet), but the work laptop has a policy about vetted apps you can install, and only Spectacle is allowed, which I don't like personally, so I use the macOS native stuff there.
I use Moom for this, totally customizable key combos for any size/location of window, and you can customize the global shortcut to activate it so it don’t conflict with other global key combos like for iTerm or Alfred. I sync the settings by copying around a plist checked into my dotfiles repo.
Haven’t tried magnet before, just wanted to throw another option out there.
Conversely, switching from Windows/Linux to MacOS is also very painful.
For instance, why is there no way to minimize to desktop? Having to use Command+Button to go to beginning/end of a line? A horror for coding.
My favorite pain point: @ in some regional keyboard layouts for Win/Linux is ALTGR+Q, whereas the keys with the same physical action in MacOS close the program. Fun when writing emails, or using passwords and logins.
Also, whether its due to capability or lack thereof, MacOS has the most custom UIX apps/addons/plugins of any OS. Heck, our corporate Macs come with some of those preinstalled.
Yes, of course migrating to macOS is equally painful.
But after doing that transition myself many years ago and then back to Windows now... I think that the macOS shortcuts are objectively better. The consistency across the whole system is hard to describe unless you have experienced it, and the distinction between Ctrl and Cmd is quite ergonomic.
I'm kind of sad that, in 1995, when Microsoft introduced the Win and Menu keys... these did not become _the_ keys to drive shortcuts. I think it's only until recently that extra shortcuts have been added to the Win key.
> Having to use Command+Button to go to beginning/end of a line? A horror for coding.
Cmd-arrow keys work fine for this, if you are willing to take your hands off the home row, which I am generally loathe to do.
The Mac inherited emacs keystrokes from the NeXT days, so control a (beginning of line) and control e (end of line) “just work” in any text widget. Likewise open a line, kill a line, previous or next line.. .with 40+ years of those wired into my fingertips I didn’t even notice that I was using them!
My old personal Debian derivative, Door Linux (because Windows are for bugs), used the Win key for all non-application shortcuts, save Alt-Tab because that is just too familiar though Win-Tab would also work. Some examples are Win-1 for English, Win-2 for your second language, etc. Win-[ for Volume Down and Win-] for volume up. Win-L for lock screen, Win-F2 and Win-F12 both would open Krunner.
I started configuring these shortcuts due to the powerful and plentiful shortcuts in Jetbrains IDE, which always seemed to be masked by some KDE default shortcut or another.
It actually works the other way around too - moving from Windows to Mac is a pain because of the shortcuts. It was a challenge to overcome in many aspects, but one of the most annoying things is that there is no keyboard shortcuts for navigating application menus. That still bugs me very often.
I tried to use Windows for some shitty corporate gig a few years ago, and after getting used to using things like ctrl+e ctrl+a etc for line ends and beginnings, I was also so frustrated. Hated that fucking piece of shit laptop.
Right? I _despised_ one of the laptops I got from work because it did not allow me to install AHK to leverage my macOS-like shortcuts, so I was extremely unproductive while using it. Kinda fixed now that I've been retraining myself to the PC-style shortcuts.
The dedicated Cmd key for most operations (which doesn't conflict with, say Ctrl+C in the terminal) is super-convenient. The consistency across apps is... something that you can't appreciate until you experience it. And the pervasive Emacs-like text navigation shortcuts throughout the system are productivity boosters. I like how someone else described the "right side of the keyboard" as "keyboard Siberia" -- I have not touched it for years and have not missed any of those special keys in minimalistic keyboards that don't have them.
Until I tried to actually move off of macOS last year. The different shortcuts on Windows were and still are super-painful. For months, I fought those and tried to use macOS-like shortcuts on Windows. You can see my AHK configuration here if you are interested in adopting something similar: https://jmmv.dev/2021/07/macos-ahk.html
Recently, though, and because that setup is problematic at times and because I decided to remove macOS altogether from my machine... I'm trying to retrain my hands and adapt to the non-macOS shortcuts. It's painful and I miss the macOS consistency a lot. On the plus side, however, after a few weeks of this on Windows, I booted into a FreeBSD desktop and could navigate the system pretty well :) Some more details here: https://jmmv.dev/2022/03/a-year-on-windows-shortcuts.html