> No way to fullscreen a window without moving it into a separate workspace.
One of the reasons why I almost never use the full screen feature. You can click on the full screen button on the too left-hand corner of each window whilst holding Option, I think that’s the closest you can do out-of-the box. You can assign a keyboard shortcut for this very easily (seriously, the way we can define keyboard shortcuts for almost anything and have them work in almost any app is amazing; nothing comes even close on the Linux side).
Otherwise, you can use something like Magnet or Rectangle, which enable exactly what you want.
I do use magnet. But something I do want something to be truly fullscreen (no menubar or anything else visible), but without being on another workspace. I think the most common use case for this is with videos. I often want to fullscreen a video, but still be able to quickly switch between windows so that I can for example reply to a message.
Note that with any non-fullscreen window I can continue to see live updates to the window in the mission control view. So I could for example continue to watch a video (albeit smaller) while watching chat messages arrive in another window as my friend sends them. But with a macOS fullscreen window I can't do that. If I open mission control then I can only see the fullscreen window (because it's the only window in the workspace), and if I switch to another workspace to the see the contents of those windows I can no longer see the fullscreen window. Infuriating!
Try exiting full-screen in the video player (green button) back to windowed mode and then double clicking the title bar. It’s not full, full-screen, but it’s the largest window you can get.
I’m still not sure why you can’t switch between applications even if they aren’t on the same workspace though. Cmd tab, Cmd tab takes me from a full-screen video to the last app on a separate workspace, and right back to the video.
And if you want to see other apps at the same time as the video, no wonder full-screen gets in the way.
The problem is if it isn't a dedicated video app. Say for example a video embedded in a webpage. Then you can maximise the browser window, but the video itself still takes up a small part of the screen.
> And if you want to see other apps at the same time as the video, no wonder full-screen gets in the way.
You say that, but is doesn't on windows or linux. And it didn't used to on macOS either until they changed things around a few years ago.
What keyboard shortcuts are you missing in Linux? At least with KDE, I can go the entire day without touching the rodent. And on the rare occasions that I do use the mouse, I'm mostly touching it only for webpages that don't work with Tridactyl, or for highlight-middle-click copy-paste.
I miss the ability to set arbitrary shortcuts and bind them to arbitrary menu items. Also, shortcuts are not very consistent across Linux applications, compared to macOS, which is much more homogenous and less surprising. OTOH, that's not a deal breaker and I keep using both Linux and macOS daily.
macOS is frustrating to use without a mouse. On one side the shortcuts are consistent, work everywhere, and are very deeply customisable. Really much better than anything I have tried on other platforms. All the menus are very easy to use without a mouse once you know the shortcuts (which, granted, are not obvious if you don't know they exist). Emacs-like shortcuts in all text fields are absolutely fantastic. The fact that Command is used throughout the GUI leaves Control available for things like terminals, which is awesome (e.g. there is no conflict between Control-C to kill a process and Command-C to copy some text). But at the same time there are things like window management that pretty much require a mouse, but really should not.
> I miss the ability to set arbitrary shortcuts and bind them to arbitrary menu items.
In each application? Interesting that the OS provides that.
> macOS is frustrating to use without a mouse.
My experience confirms this as well. I was really expecting an ergonomic, well-polished experience but I found that the Mac is polished like shark skin. It's nice and smooth if you do things - or can force yourself to do things - like the engineer in California does things. But if you like to keep your hands on the keyboard, or organize your applications (not just windows but applications), or anything else then you are going against the grain and that smoothness turns into obstacles and pain points.
One of the reasons why I almost never use the full screen feature. You can click on the full screen button on the too left-hand corner of each window whilst holding Option, I think that’s the closest you can do out-of-the box. You can assign a keyboard shortcut for this very easily (seriously, the way we can define keyboard shortcuts for almost anything and have them work in almost any app is amazing; nothing comes even close on the Linux side).
Otherwise, you can use something like Magnet or Rectangle, which enable exactly what you want.