Keyboard differences between Windows and Macs

ankurdhama

mac treats modifier keys like modifier keys whereas windows treat super key as modifier key and start menu key (which is weird)

olyjohn

The demo keyboards in the article, I'm pretty sure are wrong. The "Start" or Windows key is the same as the "Command" key "Alt" is the same key as "Option" This is how every keyboard I've ever used has worked. This is usually how they work when you plug a PC keyboard into a Mac or vice-versa.

spankalee

I recently got a Linux desktop after being Mac-only for a long time and using Linux only as a deploy target, and holy shit: the modifier key situation on PCs is so bad . Control specifically is just a terrible modifier key for common things like edit commands. First, it sits near your pinky instead of your thumb, making chording it with Z, X, C, V, etc., really difficult. But then... who decided that ctrl-c should be used for both copy and abort??? That's diabolical levels of messed up. In a terminal app ctrl-c aborts, so you need to use shift-ctrl-c to copy, and now you have two shortcuts for the same operation you need to remember based on context, except that in a web-based terminal in Chrome shift-ctrl-c opens "Inspect Element Mode" and now you have no way to copy! Am I the only one who finds this astoundingly frustrating?

IgorPartola

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

wpm

> A small group of vocal users love these. That's me! readline everywhere by default is fantastic and should be immediately copied by every Linux DE!

karhuton

Asahi and GNOME teams, please take this as an guide to implement ”Mac input compatibility mode”! Dual booting between a MacOS and Linux is a painful process of manual keyboard and shorcut overrides to get the linux side somewhat to the (better) mac way of doing this.

musicale

I just wish Apple would get back to making decent electromechanical keyboards.

bombcar

The delete key thing comes from how Windows descends from DOS which always had the cursor ON a character (blinking box kind of thing) whereas the Mac had the cursor as a thin line BETWEEN characters. Technically DOS could have had "backspace" (delete the character BEFORE the cursor), "delete" (delete the character on/under the cursor), and "forward delete" (delete the next character AFTER the cursor).

anonymous344

what is most awful, is that sublime text isnt the same with windows keyboard in mac, than it is in windows. and cannot be.. so had to abandon mac

AceJohnny2

The most [1] annoying difference to me is the Alt/Cmd vs Win/Alt key swaps. In this case, Mac has precedence, and Microsoft decided they would place their new Windows key to the left of Alt. Also, 10 whippings for whomever at Apple decided to put the Fn/Globe key to the bottom left of laptop keyboards, and move Ctrl over. It's the first thing I swap on a Mac (used to use Karabiner, until macOS finally, years later, decided to implement the setting), and I always trip when using a colleague's laptop. These kids don't respect no traditions! .. that rant over, I must recognize that Ctrl isn't used as much in GUI apps which prefer Cmd, and only us relatively few terminal junkies care. [1] second most, perhaps, after swapping Delete & Backspace.

anArbitraryOne

I thought ⌘ denoted a place of interest. I found many an interest spot just pulling off the road when seeing that

PetitPrince

> Windows still supports Shift+Delete for cut, Ctrl+Insert for copy, and Shift+Insert for paste. I am not sure how many people use these. Shift inset is handy when ssh-ing intobabtemoyr machine with Python windows.

phplovesong

I wish i had mac hardware with a fully supported Linux OS. There are some options but most have bad hardware. I kind of wish Apple would just "unlock" its hardware for other options like Linux.

theodpHN

In a similar vein, the "Costs of Switching Schoolchildren Between Windows, Chrome, Mac?" ( https://slashdot.org/submission/17349696/costs-of-switching-... ) begins: If you've ever made the jump from PC to Mac (or vice versa) at work or home, you're painfully aware that there are very real costs of switching platforms in terms of lost knowledge and productivity. In addition to flushing years of accumulated knowledge down the toilet — goodbye Outlook-Teams-OneDrive-SharePoint-Excel-Word-PowerPoint-VBA, hello GMail-Workspace-GDrive-Sheets-Docs-Slides — there's also the matter of a thousand UI and other "paper cuts" to contend with ("Why are you looking for a 'prt sc' key," condescendingly replies a Mac aficionado in response to a question from a former Windows user, "when Shift+Command+3 is so intuitive?").

anilakar

Didn't know backspace is called delete on Apple products. Explains why one commercial vibecoded project management product used it to delete the whole item I was working on when I missed a text box. OS-specific abstractions should not leak to web apps under any circumstances.

hmyn

speaking of mac keyboard, I have macbook pro m1 with touch bar and the touch bar blinks like hell and it is been like this for years and it seems like a software bug because when you put flash light on the screen dimming sensor it goes away or atleast blinks less. I reported the bug many times, I checked apple forum lots people has the same issue but no fix yet. is there anyone who has a solution for this? I dont want update my mac just because of this.

jasomill

Over the years, I've grown so accustomed to using Mac keyboards on Windows that I swap the positions of the left Alt and Windows keys when using PC keyboards.

RobGR

This is a really interesting and complete writeup. I have been helping someone who has little experience with Windows or Mac, but used DOS for years ( until pretty recently ) and I've set them up with a simple Debian Linux running XFCE4 as the desktop. I've found that I have to teach them and also document a lot of basic computer idioms -- Control-C / X / A / V to copy, cut, select all, paste; but also more basic things, like the fact there are two pointers on the screen -- one for the mouse and one for the keyboard -- if you slide the mouse pointer to a specific point and press a keyboard key, the new key will not appear where the arrow is, it will appear where the text cursor is. A big one was tabs. I had to get a couple of manilla folders and show them the actual tabs, and hold it up next to the browser with several tabs, and suddenly it snapped with them what the interface was trying to represent. Control-A will select all of a web page, unless you are in the text entry box of a form, then it selects just the things in that text entry box. I started writing this up in a little manual, it got to a dozen pages fast, and I haven't put very much in it. If anyone knows of a place where some portion of all of this is written down, post a link !

abhikul0

Aside for a peculiar trackpad issue: Does anyone else have problem scrolling diagonally on a page that's a bit zoomed in(like on HN, you zoom in a little to read the threads)? It just doesn't move smoothly and instead does a staircase shape traversal. This used to occur on all browsers before upgrading to Tahoe, now it's mostly fixed but still persists on Safari. For reference: https://www.reddit.com/r/MacOS/comments/1hh5yjo/diagonal_tra...