Mac UI

I’ve mentioned already why I am now using a mac after years of beloved Windows.

But I’m still complaining about the really bad UI behavior of macOS (I’m on Sierra). And the ca_fr keyboard that should have had the exact same layout that Windows had for years instead of trying to be wiser… But that’s hardware so there’s nothing I can do about it.

During my last round of complains I was asked to write an article about it. So here it is.

First, one of the first things I’ve fixed is the random behavior of Home and End keys. By default, depending on the app you are in, the behave differently. This is plainly insane. Here is the fix:

cd ~/Library
mkdir KeyBindings
cd KeyBindings
vi DefaultKeyBinding.dict

Put these lines in that file, including the curly braces:

{
/* Remap Home / End keys to be correct */
"\UF729" = "moveToBeginningOfLine:"; /* Home */
"\UF72B" = "moveToEndOfLine:"; /* End */
"$\UF729" = "moveToBeginningOfLineAndModifySelection:"; /* Shift + Home */
"$\UF72B" = "moveToEndOfLineAndModifySelection:"; /* Shift + End */
"^\UF729" = "moveToBeginningOfDocument:"; /* Ctrl + Home */
"^\UF72B" = "moveToEndOfDocument:"; /* Ctrl + End */
"$^\UF729" = "moveToBeginningOfDocumentAndModifySelection:"; /* Shift + Ctrl + Home */
"$^\UF72B" = "moveToEndOfDocumentAndModifySelection:"; /* Shift + Ctrl + End */
}

Then, macOS is lacking Windows docking. So I’ve installed BetterTouchTool for that.

Back to complaining. Here are the things I wasn’t able to fix so far.

• Cmd+Tab should bring to front the requested window. Always. It doesn’t matter if the window is minimized, in background or whatever. Just bring it in front
• Cmd+Tab should bring the last used window of an application to the front. Not my 6 Chrome windows. Only the latest one
• Cmd+ù should behave as Cmd+` when using a ca-fr keyboard. I can probably use the remap trick for that. I tried BTT, it doesn’t work
• When switching desktop, it shouldn’t matter where my mouse is. Especially to access the dashboard. It should just switch all screens. It there a shortcut to switch screen 1?
• Cmd+X should cut everywhere. Cmd+C and then Cmd+Alt+V is just not the way my brain works. I think about copy or cut when seeing the file. Not when pasting it. Am I the only one?
• I use 2 keyboard layouts (US-en and CA-fr). Because of the dumb keyboard. macOS should remember which application is using which keyboard. However, I don’t need it for each Chrome tab

That’s it for the day. Can you help me?