The home for all things macOS on LW.
Rules:
I use homebrew as it has good list of package formulas. You can also check out macports.
Colima is a must if you run containers.
Command key instead of control for shortcuts.
Cmd-, app preferences
Cmd-c/x/v for copy/cut/paste
Cmd-shift-4 to capture part of screen (draw a box). Press spacebar to change to window screenshot.
Enable tap to click and extra gestures for the trackpad if you have one. Multi finger swipes are very useful.
The day 1 hurdle for me on unfamiliar paradigms was how to install applications.
As a software engineer brew is good for some stuff, but a lot of apps you will likely be downloading binaries from the Internet like Windows. When you download an app they will usually come as .dmg files which are like disk images.
When you mount a dmg, it will pop up a window with an app icon and your applications folder.
And you might then think "What the hell do I do with this"
Well, what you do with it is drag the app icon to the applications folder. And then it's installed. You can do that through finder too - the "installer" window just provides a convenient shortcut.
And to uninstall an app, simply delete it from the Applications folder. That's how it's done on mac.
This one got me too. Coming from Linux, I was expecting just about anything but dragging an icon (from a disk in my case) into "Applications"
Feels very clunky and cumbersome to me, but i'm sure some folks love it.
Another wild one is that you can dismount a USB drive by dragging its desktop icon into the trash!
Feels to me like doing that would be bad and should delete it!
Fortunately, you can also right-click and eject, or click the eject icon in finder, which is to me much more intuitive.
There is no best package manager (depends entirely on what you're looking for) but I would +1 Brew.
Keyboard is different but it's just another layout with a few quirks, nothing hard to get used to ;)
On a Mac forget about seriously tweaking the OS to fit your needs (even some basic stuff are not doable, like moving the menubar sitting on the top of the screen). I've been using Apple since the 80s and I've seen it close all the doors to personalization and customization, making harder and harder... Even more so during the last decade.
Apps: there are many amazing apps available for Mac, true gems, but get ready to pay for almost any that is not CLI or provided by Apple (even Safari extensions, most are paid for).
I've switched the other way around, to Linux and I still miss a few Mac apps (mostly, from indie devs). I don't miss macOS itself that much beside Spotlight which after all those many years is still unrivaled be it on Windows and on Linux.
Oh, pay attention to the windowing system: an application that can open more than one window at once can also run with no windows open, and one-window apps like system settings quit when you close the window.
Be aware that some symbol keys may be in different places that don’t match a Windows keyboard. This can be especially annoying when using an external Windows keyboard as the printed markings will be misleading.
You can use a utility like karabiner-elements to rebind affected keys and retain your sanity.
You can potentially also solve this without Karabiner by installing a different input language.
I noticed this because I am in the UK and so want British English keyboard.
In input languages I have a choice between "British" or "British - PC" where PC means that all the symbols are in the standard PC (non-mac) locations. I prefer PC layout as it is then consistent between all my devices.
Similarly for American layouts you have "U.S International - PC" available which should hopefully do the job :)
Interesting! I never knew about that.
But can you have different input languages set per input device? One of the things I like about karabiner is it uses my custom layout for external keyboard but reverts to the standard layout if I use the built in keyboard on the MacBook (since I want it to match what’s printed on the keys).
Sadly no, you can't have per device, the input language applies system-wide.
I'm the other way around - I want all keyboards to always be a British English layout, even if the printing on the keyboard doesn't match it. I don't care what's on the keys, I just want what happens to match my muscle memory.
It’s shell so there’s a lot of command overlap. I would check out homebrew package manager
Command is usually used in place of control in windows style shortcuts. So cmd+x/c/v instead of ctrl.
Been forced to use mac for like two years now. Have not figured it out.
Command is like Ctrl, not Control. Option is like AltGr... Almost. But there is no left or right separation (alt/altgr). Option cannot be used as a modifier like on linux like super can. I use a windows keyboard and move command to ctrl, control to super, and option to alt.
Then if you ever gotten used to the two clipboards that linux has (highlight + middleclick & ctrl+c/ctrl+v), only one remains but some terminals emulate this behaviour. I would suggest you turn it off right away, because it gets very confusing.
I have used brew for a package manager. It is not great. I had issues where a package upgrade would break my workflow but it did not keep an older version for a downgrade. If it was my personal mac, and for some reason I would keep macos on it, then I would try nix as a package manager instead. Also, if you use bash or not, you probably want to install latest bash (mac only ships with a very old bash).
I have not found a terminal emulator I really like, but I use kitty since it allows me to remap some keys. I suggest you start looking for a terminal that you like right away.
There are many shortcuts using Option as a modifier. Probably the second most common one after Command. What do you mean it cannot be used as a modifier?
Like setting option + number as a move tab-group in firefox for example, as that injects characters in open text fields
Generally there are no shortcuts with option as the only modifier on keys that actually type characters (for this reason I suppose), usually command+option+something or non-symbol keys such as option+up. Use command+option+number instead.
Thanks for the tip, but I will not. That does not fit my workflow on linux, which is more valuable than the workflow on mac.