I'm primarily a Linux user, and (perhaps) thus not too concerned with appearance. But I'm very concerned with functionality, and I think Apple consistently fails to apply obvious little touches. I use my girlfriend's Mac quite often, and almost always leave angry at the interface.
Some of my hating goes towards applications (why does Acrobat insist on popping up windows off the screen? why does printing work from Preview but not from Illustrator?) but a lot of it goes toward the basic interface. In my opinion, it's very well polished, but not very consistent or well designed.
I appreciate the response. Yes, I tend to press "Cmd-W" about three times before I realize that I'm dealing with a dialog and not a window. Then I'll either reach for the mouse or press Escape.
Similarly, if I know that a window is in the background, I might manage to remember to Command-click (only needed on the links, not the icons in the title bar?). Occasionally when the stars align I can even copy text from a window without bringing it (and all other windows belonging to that application?) forward.
But my real question is why I should have to distinguish a small 'window' from a large 'dialog'? Shouldn't Cmd-W work in both?
And why should I have to distinguish between a foreground and a background app? Especially in the multi-monitor situation she has set up, it seems like it would be more 'polished' to have all the apps act the same.
This is ignoring the non-standard applications, and the absurdity that clicking on one window often brings many of them to the foreground. My point is not that there aren't workarounds that one can warp one's behaviour to, but that I don't think the mental model itself is that coherent.
Here's two:
Why does Cmd-W close some dialog windows but not others? I frequently hit Cmd-O, realize I'm in the wrong application, then hit Cmd-W to make it go away. Occasionally this works. http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1052118/how-to-make-a-key...
Why do some clicks on background windows cause actions, and others are ignored? I don't want autoraise, I just want explicit clicks, say, on links or buttons in web pages, to be obeyed. http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2008/04/settling-osx-focus-f...
Some of my hating goes towards applications (why does Acrobat insist on popping up windows off the screen? why does printing work from Preview but not from Illustrator?) but a lot of it goes toward the basic interface. In my opinion, it's very well polished, but not very consistent or well designed.