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Comment by IgorPartola

20 hours ago

Mac got the Command key right. Windows got the Home and End keys right. Wish we could have both on one system.

27 comments

IgorPartola

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oniony  11 hours ago

I've kinda got used to Fn-Left and Fn-Right for home and end now. It has taken a very long time though.

  • dchest  9 hours ago

    Mac equivalents to Windows Home and End are Cmd-ArrowUp and Cmd-ArrowDown. Fn-Left and Fn-Right are Mac-flavored Home/End, which don't move the text cursor, but scroll the text container, keeping cursor in its original place (although there's no distinction when viewing documents, e.g. in a web browser).

    • oniony  9 hours ago

      Crazy, I hadn't appreciated that.

      So:

        Fn-Left = scroll to top
  Fn-Right = scroll to bottom
  Fn-Up = scroll page up
  Fn-Down = scroll page down

  ⌘-Up = cursor to top
  ⌘-Down = cursor to bottom
  ⌘-Left = cursor to start of line
  ⌘-Right = cursor to end of line

      1 reply →

AdamN  16 hours ago

For those ctrl+a and ctrl+e are the way to go.

  • kluc  15 hours ago

    Just a note - first time I see this and you just made my day, as Home/End behaviour on Mac was driving me crazy since I switched 7 YEARS AGO

    • AdamN  15 hours ago

      Nice! Then you might really like ctrl+k. Go to the middle of the line and it will delete everything from the cursor to the end of the line.

      Also Option and the right and left arrows to move from one word to the next. I don't really use this one much though

      1 reply →

Razengan  17 hours ago

I love that on macOS all in-app shortcuts are consistently Command+Something, like Q for Quit, W to close a window, and Control is usually for system-wide shortcuts, and Shift/Alt/Option is exactly what it says on the tin: modifiers for alternative behavior. You usually won't see Alt/Option on its own for any shortcut..

..while Windows is all over the place. Like why the heck is Alt+F4 used for quitting an app?? What does 4 stand for here? Death in Japanese and Chinese!?

  • JdeBP  2 hours ago

    It's [Alt]+[F4] because before being translated to a GUI setting where [Alt] modifiers denoted things that were the same across all applications, or at least 'system key' events, it was actually plain [F4] to 'save and exit'. This was notably the case in some PC-DOS text editors.

    Common User Access (CUA) in 1987 came from the world of IBM mainframes to IBM-involved microcomputer operating systems like PC-DOS and OS/2, and was the idea that there would be a common set of function keys across all 'panels' in Systems Application Architecture (SAA) applications.

    Fun fact: CUA didn't originally define [F4] with its current meaning, and it was actually [F3] to exit, after [F1] for help and [F2] for toggling between two sets of function key bindings. But notice how [F5] was refresh all along.

    * https://web.archive.org/web/20001117223900/http://publib.bou...

    * https://web.archive.org/web/20001102070751/http://publib.bou...

  • artpar  16 hours ago

    > I love that on macOS all in-app shortcuts are consistently Command+Something, like Q for Quit, W to close a window

    Yeah consistency is great, similarly cmd+t closes a tab, wait cmd+w closes a tab not a window. and cmd+w in vlc does not close vlc, cmd+w in finder does close the window.

    • Razengan  13 hours ago

      You're thinking only halfway

      > similarly cmd+t closes a tab, wait cmd+w closes a tab not a window.

      Because tabs are windows, and most multi-window-capable apps have the option to use tabs instead.

      > and cmd+w in vlc does not close vlc

      Again, in multi-window apps, closing the last window does not necessarily quit the app, but it's optional.

      5 replies →

  • mixmastamyk  16 hours ago

    CUA is a union of Mac like mnemonic command keys on Ctrl plus another set (from IBM/Motif perhaps) that use shift+insert,delete etc.

    Alt+F4 through Alt+F9 are for Window Menu operations, like minimize, max. etc. Some besides Alt+F4:Close still work on older window managers, I remember SGI supported all of them.

    Newer ones tend to hide or even disable the whole menu! Even Windows as it is further lobotomized.

    • pasc1878  10 hours ago

      CUA is from IBM and Motif is using CUA.

      The shift+insert,delete etc. are from MSDOS as far as I used them – they might have been copied from a previous OS.

  • WernerKintsel  15 hours ago

    This is so hilariously wrong.

    Apple commands are not always Command+Something. Go ahead, try to reopen the last closed tab on anything you're using, with the keyboard. Whooops, you pressed three keys. Also try to take a partial screen shot or record the screen. Hey, buddy, what the heck? Why did you press 4 and 5? What do 4 and 5 even mean?

    • kalleboo  14 hours ago

      Same reason your main drive in Windows is "C:" - history.

      The command-shift shortcuts (function keys as they were called) were added in the 80's as such:

      Command-Shift-1: Eject internal floppy

      Command-Shift-2: Eject external floppy

      Command-Shift-3: Take screenshot

      In the System 7 era in the mid-90's, Command-Shift-4 to select an area to take a screenshot of was added.

      Back then you could also install FKEY code resources into the system file to add custom ones, there was a small ecosystem of freeware/shareware function keys with useful shortcuts people would install.

    • Razengan  15 hours ago

      You really didn't have to create a new account to say all that

      > not always Command+Something. Go ahead, try to reopen the last closed tab on anything you're using, with the keyboard. Whooops, you pressed three keys.

      Not always JUST Command duh. It still includes Command champ; the rest are modifiers.

      I mean just ask any AI to list out all the common shortcuts for macOS and for Windows, then see which is more consistent.

      > partial screen shot or record the screen ... Why did you press 4 and 5? What do 4 and 5 even mean?

      4 alludes to the 4 corners of a rectangle, and 5 includes the time dimension, of course :)