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Microsoft Responds To "Like OS X" Comment
Z80xxc! writes "After a comment by a Microsoft employee claiming in an interview that 'what we [Microsoft] have tried to do with Windows 7... is create a Mac look and feel in terms of graphics,' the Windows 7 team has issued an official rebuttal, saying that the comment came from an employee who was 'not involved in any aspect of designing Windows 7,' and that it was 'inaccurate and uninformed.'"
One of the problems OS X has is that it lacks the ability to use these menus through the keyboard easily
Remembering the shortcuts on Macs is usually easier because they are consistent (ignoring the three different ways I have of making Apple's video-playing apps run full screen, and the fourth way that VLC uses). On Windows, an entire key on the keyboard is reserved for going to the menu bar. This is something that most users don't do - they either click on the menu with the mouse or hit shortcuts directly - and so on OS X is a chord. By default, it's control-F2, but it's configurable in System Preferences, so if you want it to be something easier to hit then you can change it.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
System Prefs > Mouse & Keyboard > Keyboard shortcuts*.
A quick look tells me that CTRL-F2 puts focus on the menubar, CTRL-F3 places focus on the Dock, etc etc. OSX has had this since (someone correct if i'm wrong) since at least 10.2 .
So, that's about enough of this "can't navigate in OSX without the mouse" propaganda. [/wishful thinking]
* Apologies if the wording isn't exact as i'm translating from the italian.
Which is slower, as I mentioned in a reply to another poster who brought this up.
Might not be important to some people, but to me, it's a feature I miss in Mac OS X land.
I don't understand your complaint. On windows, you do alt, F, S and get to the save menu item in the file menu. On OS X you do contol-F2, F, S, and get to the save menu. It is just one more keystroke. I'm not sure why this is better than using shortcuts to jump straight to the menu though, nor why you think pressing keys to explore the menu is better than using the mouse.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Definitely sounds like person who has only used a Mac on occasion. I used to think like you about it until I actually used a Mac for a while. Actually I find OS X and most OS X applications to be more keyboard-friendly than Windows. Every single command you use frequently has or can be assigned a command-something combination (or control-something). So things like open, close, print, save are always assigned the same command key sequence across all apps. That's a time saver right there. Why alt-f-s when command-s will do? While most Windows users will actually click on file->save to save their document, very few Mac users I've seen bother with clicking on the menus for most common tasks; it's all done with the keyboard.
As was said earlier in the discussion, OS X and Windows come from very different philosophies. You speak of how you want to explore the menu. On OS X that's absolutely wrong. If you have to explore the menu to find something, then someone screwed up. Deep, nested menus are considered bad on OS X. Besides, alt-something-something-something reminds me of emacs!
There are many inconsistencies in OS X that are legitimate grievances. But not being able to alt-something-something-something the menu doesn't appear to me to be that important. I'm far more frustrated on a daily basis by how OS X eats the click that focuses a window (now I use command-tab and command-` to focus windows anyway without the mouse), that you have enable keyboard navigation in dialog boxes as it's off by default, and that carbon and cocoa apps behave so differently.
Both systems have their inconsistencies, and both are getting better in this regard. And from what I can tell from using Windows 7, Windows is getting more usable and mac-like all the time.
Ummm... Windows Vista and onwards is more secure out of the box. I mean, Mac OS X hasn't even really implemented ASLR yet. That Mac OS X is more secure is a common misconception.
Read this: http://www.tomshardware.com/news/hack-windows-security-snow-leopard,8704.html
Charlier Miller covers why he thinks Windows is more secure than Mac OS X.
Okay, try this...
1) CTRL-F2 (yes, yes, bear with me)
2) Type the first letter of the menu item you want*
3) Down arrow
4) Repeat step 2
5) Repeat 2-3 until you drill down to the desired command and hit "enter"
* If by chance there are two menu items with the same first letter, it's sufficient to type the first and second letter.
How is this slower if not more efficient than ALT-whatever?
Only happy to help.
Don't try to bullshit the rest of us. Windows gets shoved down our collective throats so we can't help but have experience with it. This isn't like MacOS where you're only ever going to have experience with it if you explicitly seek it out.
Need encryption? Try using a tool that explicitly ensures it. There is even a "checkbox" for it.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Double Jeopardy protects a person from being tried twice for the same crime. It doesn't mean that you can't be held accountable for committing the same type of crime multiple times. If you don't believe me try this; go speeding through a school zone at 80-90mph on a weekday morning. Keep doing this until you are pulled over by the police. Get the ticket, go to trial, pay the money, go to jail, etc.... When all of that is behind you start speeding through school zones again. The next time the cops pull you over look them in the eye and calmly say, "I can do this all I want now, I've already been tried and convicted for this." The Apple/MS look and feel lawsuit you are referring to was about a specific Microsoft product possibly borrowing the look and feel from a specific Apple product. Since both of those products predate Win 7 and Apple OS X the ruling (or dismissal, I can't really remember what happened) in that suit has no bearing whatsoever on whether there has been copying/borrowing going on with both companies current products.