[shifuimam]

Originally Posted by Dakar V 

So... did you know about command + ~ ?

No, I don't believe so. Is that the shortcut to switch between windows of an application?

[ThinkInsane]

Originally Posted by Laminar 

Ridiculous.

Agreed. But I had just seen it posted on gizmodo and it seemed appropriate

[Laminar]

Originally Posted by shifuimam 

No, I don't believe so. Is that the shortcut to switch between windows of an application?

Yes. Comes very much in handy.

[Dakar V]

Originally Posted by shifuimam 

No, I don't believe so. Is that the shortcut to switch between windows of an application?

Yes. I believe that might simplify some of your window switching problems, as command + w would be a terribly inefficient way to navigate in the Finder like you mentioned.

[Dakar V]

Originally Posted by Laminar 

Yes. Comes very much in handy.

Except in Photoshop, because Adobe are assholes.

[Laminar]

Is Adobe some sort of collective noun? Also, is there a shortcut to switch between tabs in Safari?

[Dakar V]

Yes, it is.

Also, Command + Shift + [ or ]

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by Laminar 

Is Adobe some sort of collective noun? Also, is there a shortcut to switch between tabs in Safari?

1. Yes, in some parts of the English-speaking world.

2. Yes, the ones listed under Window>Select Next Tab and Select Previous Tab. There's also command-shift-left arrow and command-shift-right arrow hardcoded in.

[shifuimam]

Originally Posted by Dakar V 

Yes. I believe that might simplify some of your window switching problems, as command + w would be a terribly inefficient way to navigate in the Finder like you mentioned.

I think I'll stick with Witch. I don't just want to quickly switch between open windows in an application. I want to quickly switch between all open windows. Witch facilitates that much more easily than having to rely on multiple keyboard shortcuts. If Apple's native application/window switching works for you, then it works for you. I'm glad that Witch was created though; I find it far more useful.

[Dakar V]

Originally Posted by shifuimam 

I want to quickly switch between all open windows.

That's Option + ~

[CharlesS]

Originally Posted by shifuimam 

I think I'll stick with Witch. I don't just want to quickly switch between open windows in an application. I want to quickly switch between all open windows.

There's actually a shortcut for that, as well - it's Ctrl-F4 by default, which is horrible, but you can remap it to something more reasonable in the Keyboard and Mouse preference pane.

[Dakar V]

Originally Posted by Dakar V 

That's Option + ~

Originally Posted by CharlesS 

There's actually a shortcut for that, as well - it's Ctrl-F4 by default, which is horrible, but you can remap it to something more reasonable in the Keyboard and Mouse preference pane.

Aha, you're right. Looks like sometime in the past I remapped it to option + ~ . Seemed logical.

[Laminar]

Originally Posted by Dakar V 

Aha, you're right. Looks like sometime in the past I remapped it to option + ~ . Seemed logical.

When I try ctrl-F4'ing through my windows, it gets stuck once it switches to Word.

[Dakar V]

Originally Posted by Laminar 

When I try ctrl-F4'ing through my windows.

Sounds dirty.

[Railroader]

Originally Posted by - - e r i k - - 

WTF? Non sequitur.

Actually, it's very logical. But then, I bet you are going to be headstrong enough not to even attempt to "get it".

[Railroader]

Originally Posted by shifuimam 

...I prefer to use Windows when I need to get some real work done ....

Yeah, cause "real work" can't be done on Mac OS X.

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by CharlesS 

There's actually a shortcut for that, as well - it's Ctrl-F4 by default, which is horrible, but you can remap it to something more reasonable in the Keyboard and Mouse preference pane.

It's like Expose only more random.

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by Railroader 

Actually, it's very logical. But then, I bet you are going to be headstrong enough not to even attempt to "get it".

No, it's not relevant, because religious topics go in the PL. Don't derail this thread.

[Railroader]

Originally Posted by Chuckit 

No, it's not relevant, because religious topics go in the PL. Don't derail this thread.

I never said it was "relevant".

Maybe you should talk to - - e r i k - - ? He's the derailer.

What about the long discussion about switching windows, apps with key strokes? Or the discussion about why someone prefers windows or linux, or Mac OS? Those are all also derailments.

[CharlesS]

Originally Posted by Railroader 

Yeah, cause "real work" can't be done on Mac OS X.

No, she said she prefers to do her work in Windows. Different strokes. She uses Macs for other things, and she's not bashing the Mac in any way that I can see. What's the problem?

Is this some sort of cult, that you need to only use OS X for everything in order to post here?

[Railroader]

Originally Posted by CharlesS 

No, she said she prefers to do her work in Windows. Different strokes. She uses Macs for other things, and she's not bashing the Mac in any way that I can see. What's the problem?

Actually, she said "I prefer to use Windows when I need to get some real work done (e.g. my job)", as in: Her job is real work, and can only be done with Windows.

Originally Posted by CharlesS 

Is this some sort of cult, that you need to only use OS X for everything in order to post here?

C'mon, quit with the hyperbole. Lame!

[CharlesS]

Originally Posted by Railroader 

Actually, she said "I prefer to use Windows when I need to get some real work done (e.g. my job)", as in: Her job is real work, and can only be done with Windows.

Yes, she said "I prefer." She didn't say that her job can only be done with Windows, just that she prefers to do so. Of course, we don't know what her job is, so for all we know she very well might have to use Windows for her job, if she has to use some specialized application that has no Mac version. Who cares? She uses Windows for work, and Mac for other stuff, just like in the "I'm a Mac / I'm a PC" ads where the PC guy is wearing the business suit and it's always emphasized how the PC is great with numbers and spreadsheets and such, but the Mac is more fun for home use. (See how I brought this back on topic? Impressive, no?)

[Railroader]

Originally Posted by CharlesS 

Yes, she said "I prefer." She didn't say that her job can only be done with Windows, just that she prefers to do so. Of course, we don't know what her job is, so for all we know she very well might have to use Windows for her job, if she has to use some specialized application that has no Mac version.

Your right. Prefer being the key word.

Originally Posted by CharlesS 

Who cares? She uses Windows for work, and Mac for other stuff, just like in the I'm a Mac / I'm a PC ads where the PC guy is wearing the business suit and it's always emphasized how the PC is great with numbers and spreadsheets and such. (See how I brought this back on topic? Impressive, no?)

Impressive.

[shifuimam]

Originally Posted by CharlesS 

There's actually a shortcut for that, as well - it's Ctrl-F4 by default, which is horrible, but you can remap it to something more reasonable in the Keyboard and Mouse preference pane.

Although unlike Witch (and Alt+Tab in Windows), it doesn't bring up a window so you can see which application window you're going to switch to...

Originally Posted by Railroader 

Yeah, cause "real work" can't be done on Mac OS X.

It can, but it's a hell of a lot more frustrating. I despise OS X's lack of the parent/child paradigm. It's very frustrating to be using an application like Photoshop, which has many palettes, only to find my cursor has switched me into another application because I accidentally clicked outside the constraints of a document or palette window.

There's also the fact that I do a lot of file management at work (copying files from dev to prod, etc.), and Finder sucks for that IMO.

Originally Posted by CharlesS 

Yes, she said "I prefer." She didn't say that her job can only be done with Windows, just that she prefers to do so. Of course, we don't know what her job is, so for all we know she very well might have to use Windows for her job, if she has to use some specialized application that has no Mac version. Who cares? She uses Windows for work, and Mac for other stuff, just like in the "I'm a Mac / I'm a PC" ads where the PC guy is wearing the business suit and it's always emphasized how the PC is great with numbers and spreadsheets and such, but the Mac is more fun for home use. (See how I brought this back on topic? Impressive, no?)

Heh...not quite. I do lots of fun stuff on my PC. In fact, I still use my Windows machines as my primary machines at home. My PowerMac G4 was specifically purchased so I could run leopard, in order to do usability tests on the web applications I develop for work. Right now, it's also serving use as browsing and chatting until I get around to ghosting my desktop's hard drive for easy restoration in the future.

I use my iBook in my living room when I want to Google something or check my email and I don't feel like getting up and going into my office to do so. Plus, given how much time and money I've invested in that thing, I feel rather obliged to use it (even though compared to my G4 it's god-awful slow).

I don't use my Macs for any of the "fun" BS that the Get A Mac ads try to push. I don't create presentations in Keynote, I don't make silly photo books in iPhoto, and I won't touch iTunes with a thirty-foot pole.

If anything, my Macs are just kind of there. If I find an interesting piece of software that's OS X-exclusive, I can check it out. I also use my PowerMac to create SSH tunnels from work to do various things, since (again, on the short list of things I like about OS X) SSH is built in. Overall, though, I still do all my "fun stuff" in Windows. I just prefer it overall.

Oh, and in reference to one of your earlier posts, yes - there is Windows-only software I use daily at work, including Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio, BeyondCompare, Red Gate SQL and SQL Data Compare, Outlook, and Remedy.

[CRASH HARDDRIVE]

Originally Posted by shifuimam 

It can, but it's a hell of a lot more frustrating. I despise OS X's lack of the parent/child paradigm. It's very frustrating to be using an application like Photoshop, which has many palettes, only to find my cursor has switched me into another application because I accidentally clicked outside the constraints of a document or palette window.

That's actually one of the things I despise most about Windows. ( I use both OS's all the time, and am not a hater or fanboi of either).

The whole parent window thing has always struck me as backwards, and one thing the Mac got right from the start. If you notice, many Windows developers are abandoning it, or at the very least, making it a choice. (You can choose to use a parent window type workspace even with Photoshop on the Mac). On the PC, Photoshop CS3 no longer limits you to the parent window; the image editing workspace isn't tied to it, and palettes float outside of it (it's 100% retarded to lock palette windows inside a parent). Heck, all it really does is hold the menubar, which really, is a bit of a silly, and inconsistent design.

[TETENAL]

In CS4 you can switch to the one window mode on Mac.

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by TETENAL 

In CS4 you can switch to the one window mode on Mac.

You've been able to switch to rooted mode for a long time. I'm using Mac CS1 here and it works just the same.

[analogika]

Originally Posted by shifuimam 

It can, but it's a hell of a lot more frustrating. I despise OS X's lack of the parent/child paradigm.

It's funny that you choose the Mac's *single* most effective productivity advantage over Windows as a point of criticism (though I can understand why it drives you batshit if you're not used to it).

Applications just arrogantly assuming that I want them to blank out my *work*space with useless grey area are so tremendously limiting to any workflow that involves more than a single program or document...

[shifuimam]

I'm highly interested in how to make a parent-type window in Photoshop on a Mac. It's the only reason I despise using Photoshop on a Mac, so how do I fix it? I know that CS and CS2 also allowed moving palettes around (I use it myself when I need to see a large image; I move all the palettes over to my second monitor). However, by having that neutral parent window, I don't have to worry about accidentally clicking outside a palette or open document and changing application focus.

WRT Photoshop covering up everything with its gray parent window, I find that quite useful. When I'm working on an image, I don't want it to be lost in a sea of background windows and processes. I want to focus on the image I'm trying to edit.

The thing is, with Windows, you're never forced to have one window take up the whole screen. You can resize your windows however you want, and if you want one window to take up the whole screen, you can.

I don't find lots of window edges all over the place to be remotely good for my productivity. My workflow involves multiple applications; that doesn't mean I need to see all of them at the same time. For instance, I generally do something like this:

Create database diagram in Visio...Create database in MSSQL Server Management Studio...Begin developing web app...Test web app in browser(s).

I have a dual monitor setup at work. I can keep my Visio diagram open on one monitor, and my MSSQL app open on the other (although I usually print out my Visio diagrams so I can easily annotate them and make quick changes). When I'm developing the actual web app, I keep Dreamweaver open on my primary monitor, and Firefox open on my secondary. It's a lot faster than resizing windows and constantly hitting Expose to swap between them (or even swapping virtual desktops; I've tried that in Windows and Linux and it's just not in line with how I work).

I've noticed in some different text editors and word processors, there's a "full screen" mode so that you can focus on your writing without being distracted by other applications. That's the whole function of a maximized window. Multitasking is great, but it can start to get crazy when you're trying to keep track of thirty different windows at the same time. I'd rather be able to cleanly focus on one or two things at a time so that I don't get overwhelmed.

[besson3c]

Points will be deducted from your score for using MSSQL and Dreamweaver, shif!

[shifuimam]

You try coding ColdFusion without Dreamweaver. It's not like I use the shitty drag-and-drop interface. However, since ColdFusion is made by Adobe and Dreamweaver is now owned by Adobe, it's the best application for the job. It autocompletes CF tags, which normal text editors don't typically do.

MSSQL is what our department uses. It's cheaper and generally faster than Oracle for the stuff we do.

[- - e r i k - -]

Originally Posted by Railroader 

Actually, it's very logical. But then, I bet you are going to be headstrong enough not to even attempt to "get it".

Besides that your statement is a logical fallacy, it is completely off topic and not worth derailing a thread for. Pitiful.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by shifuimam 

You try coding ColdFusion without Dreamweaver. It's not like I use the shitty drag-and-drop interface. However, since ColdFusion is made by Adobe and Dreamweaver is now owned by Adobe, it's the best application for the job. It autocompletes CF tags, which normal text editors don't typically do.

MSSQL is what our department uses. It's cheaper and generally faster than Oracle for the stuff we do.

I'm not a fan of ColdFusion either. I don't quite get the attraction to writing Windows only web apps for Windows only web servers.

[shifuimam]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

I'm not a fan of ColdFusion either. I don't quite get the attraction to writing Windows only web apps for Windows only web servers.

Uh. How is CF Windows-only? A web app, by nature, is OS-independent. Even OWA (Outlook Web Access) works in alternative browsers and OSes.

And, for the record, you can run ColdFusion on Apache. Which means it's not OS-dependent. You're probably likely to get less support from Adobe if you do, but it's entirely possible to run it on non-Windows web servers.

I heard a lot of crap about ColdFusion before I started this job. I've programmed in PHP, JSP, Classic ASP, ASP.NET, and ColdFusion. Granted, most of my experience has been with PHP (until now), but I've worked with multiple server-side web programming languages.

ColdFusion is fantastic. It has a ton of built-in functions, the syntax is incredibly easy to learn (I went from having never touched CF to writing data-driven web apps within two weeks of starting my job), and it's fast. It handles most loads fine (our extremely high-traffic apps are usually in ASP.NET, but most of the stuff we do is CF), and it takes a quarter of the time to write something in CF compared to other languages. And, now that Adobe owns CF, its got freaking awesome PDF support. There are built in CF tags for generating, merging, and modifying PDFs - no third-party extensions required.

It's just that CF is expensive, moreso than even ASP.NET. I mean, just looking at Adobe and Microsoft's websites, Windows Server 2008 Web Server Edition is less than $500. ColdFusion 8 Enterprise, however, is $7500. On top of that, you generally run it in a J2EE environment, which adds to your licensing costs.

Consequently, it doesn't see nearly as much widespread commercial use as other solutions. However, since I work for a higher education institution, we get gianormous licensing discounts from Adobe, so CF suddenly becomes quite affordable (as does MSSQL).

As far as SQL servers, unless you're either doing some oddly complex work or some very high-traffic sites, they're all just about equal. MSSQL is extremely cheap for us, and it works plenty fine. There are a few oddities about Transact-SQL (its SQL engine), but other than that it's no different than working with MySQL.

[besson3c]

Strictly speaking CF is not Windows only, it does run under Linux, but find me a host that offers CF as an option under Linux? It is basically part of the Windows server camp. It likely runs with fewer hassle there, just as Apache and PHP and other languages work better under Linux/Unix. At least, this is my impression.

I'm sure the language has some nice perks to it, but again, I just don't get the attraction of a Windows webserver.

[- - e r i k - -]

ColdFusion is expensive and proprietary. It had it's place back in the early days of the web, but it's time has long since past.

We threw tens of thousands of dollars on a CF project, and we might as well have just lit a fire with the money and stayed warm instead.

[shifuimam]

It just depends on the application.

Running CF in a hosted environment is indeed expensive and generally avoided. However, like I said, we're higher education. We run CF in a Windows Server 2003 environment with MSSQL 2005 as the backend. Both of these are Microsoft products, and thanks to Microsoft's massive education discounts, they're cheap to license and support, as is ColdFusion itself.

It's not like the decision to adopt CF was made overnight. The fact is, it's extremely fast to develop apps in, moreso than other languages. Our group generally does rapid application development, usually for customers who have pressing deadlines. When you need to get an app out within a week, you need to do it the quickest way possible, and CF facilitates that.

I'm not saying that CF is universally better than other languages - I still like PHP for some things (mostly because it's free and installed on my Linode). And, like I said, CF doesn't do well in high-volume situations, which is why we still use other technologies (mostly ASP.NET) in those situations.

Given the high cost of CF, I doubt most companies would voluntarily adopt it. I'm very happy developing in it, though. We have no justifiable reason to migrate to a different web development technology, since what we have now is working well for our needs.

[jokell82]

Originally Posted by shifuimam 

I'm highly interested in how to make a parent-type window in Photoshop on a Mac.

You certainly like to criticize the Mac for features that it actually has...



That's CS4, and the option for it is in the top bar (right under the Select menu). In CS3 and below I believe it is at the bottom of the left palette.

[Railroader]

Originally Posted by shifuimam 

WRT Photoshop covering up everything with its gray parent window, I find that quite useful. When I'm working on an image, I don't want it to be lost in a sea of background windows and processes. I want to focus on the image I'm trying to edit.

In CS3 you hit the "f" key.

[Railroader]

Originally Posted by - - e r i k - - 

Besides that your statement is a logical fallacy, it is completely off topic and not worth derailing a thread for. Pitiful.

Please stop derailing the thread.

[- - e r i k - -]

Originally Posted by Railroader 

Please stop derailing the thread.

Irony.

[shifuimam]

Originally Posted by jokell82 

You certainly like to criticize the Mac for features that it actually has...

<snip>

That's CS4, and the option for it is in the top bar (right under the Select menu). In CS3 and below I believe it is at the bottom of the left palette.

That would appear to be similar to maximizing a single image window in Photoshop in Windows, no? Or can I have multiple images showing in that view?

I want a real parent window - a netural container in which I might have multiple images open and visible.

Nevermind - I just did that in CS3 on my G4. That's not what I'm talking about; Windows can do that. I'm talking about a genuine parent window. When I'm doing stuff in Photoshop, I generally am working with multiple images simultaneously, while doing other stuff in the background (downloading, playing music, chatting, browsing, etc.). It gets mighty busy in there with all those windows cluttering up my background, just because I can't have a neutral backdrop for Photoshop.

It's just two different ways of looking at things. Some people much prefer the OS X route, but I'll stick with Photoshop in Windows.

[- - e r i k - -]

CS4 has the much dreaded parent window as an option (on by default).

[Stogieman]

Haha... desperate times call for desperate measures.

MS puts "I'm a PC" kiosk near Apple Store