Any more example of arbitrary and limitations of shortcut keys on Windows except close window/application?
Correct me if I’m wrong, but don’t you switch tabs with ctrl+tab but close a tab with cmd+w on macOS. How is that not arbitrary and not based on a limitation on a legacy platform?
Re:macOS Setup after 15 Years of Linux
by kitsunesoba on Friday December 31, 2021 @10:31AM
(#29748888)
I dunno about limitations, but similarly F5 for refresh on Windows feels quite arbitrary compared to Cmd-R.
Ctrl-Tab at least builds on the concept of [modifier]-tab cycling tabs, and Cmd-W makes sense for closing browser tabs because there tabs are functionally the “windows” you’re working with most often.
When working with a bunch of tabs and cycling thru them and wanting to close some of them based on visual decision means that you have to move your hands much more on macOS than on PC, thus ergonomically bad.
There is a reason they’re different, and it’s because those are the shortcuts that macs have used since 1985. It would extremely upsetting to Mac userbase if all of the sudden shortcuts were wincloned.
I also think that most Mac shortcuts make more sense in the modern context; they’re nearly all mnemonic (e.g. Cmd+W to close a window and Cmd+Q to quit) whereas Windows shortcuts are more arbitrary and rooted in limitations of legacy platforms (Alt+F4 doesn’t mean anything to someone new to computers, for instance).