h3h.net

After several months of using my PowerBook G4 and running OS X 10.4.3 now, I have compiled a list of the things that annoy me most about OS X or certain OS X apps.

General Interface (Cocoa Apps)

• Triple-click to select line should not select newlines.

Finder

• There’s no clean tree view like Windows Explorer. A dual pane interface with a tree structure in one pane and folder contents in another is a must. Window preferences such as size and view types should be saved automatically.
• The scroll position for each folder is remembered. This is useless, confusing and frustrating. The scroll positions for each folder should default to the top (0,0).

Spotlight

• Most used items should be first, sorted by frequency. “Show All” should be last, as it is the least useful.

Safari

• Auto-correct typos in address bar:
  • .cmo → .com
  • .nte → .net
  • .ogr → .org
  • .ifno → .info
• CMD+Left/Right in address bar should navigate browser history.
• HTML form controls other than input type="text" should be in the default tab order.
• Enter/Return on a non-text form control should submit the form.
• History should be fully searchable.
• Snapback shouldn’t ever appear for the root of a website (it does sometimes).
• Google search box contents should only persist for the current window.
• A new window should not be launched for files that are downloaded (e.g. .tbz, .dmg).
• Need an optional confirmation dialog when pressing CMD+Q with 2+ windows open.
• Should be an icon indicating JS errors if JS logging is enabled.
• Auto form-fill should only be activated with a specific key combo (or button). The automatic behavior is terrible.
• The HTML document should have focus by default (after navigation) to facilitate keyboard-based scrolling.
• select elements should jump to a given typed letter (or better yet, refine with continued typing à la Firefox).

I’ll probably submit some of them as bugs to Apple, but for now this covers most of my annoyances. The motivation for this list was derived from Matthew Thomas’s more detailed critique.

Of course the pure awesomeness of TextMate makes up for anything OS X is lacking.