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Random MacOS questions from a Windows user

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Comments

  • edited December 2020

    A case of literal PEBCAK! :tongue:

  • The Keychrons are great. Typing this on the new K3 optical, which is my favourite yet. (Also my family's, as it doesn't make the lovely clacky racket my earlier Gateron models do and so they throw fewer things at me when I'm typing while they're trying to watch TV.)

  • And another one:

    I can Shut Down the Mac, or I can sent it to Sleep.

    But I cannot find any valid summary from Apple, what this means exactly.

    • What does go into Sleep exactly, and what not?
    • How to wake up from Sleep exactly?
    • How can i see or check, if the Mac is in Sleep mode?

    I already read, that the pulsating LED does not work anymore, it is only constantly on.

    I saw things mentioned like "Standby Mode", which a Mac seems to enter after 3 hours in Sleep mode.
    Is Standby Mode something like "suspend to disk"?
    But i cannot find any concrete documentation about those modes.

    Also, i read statements, that a Mac does not really sleep in Sleep Mode nor in Standby Mode and not even while Shut Down.

    There is even more, like "Power Nap", mentioned here: https://eshop.macsales.com/blog/47473-tech-tip-should-you-shut-down-your-mac-or-let-it-sleep/


    All of this is a bit confusing for a Windows user :smiley: :blush:


    In Windows, things are simple: The PC is either running, in "suspend to RAM" mode or in "suspend to disk" mode.
    In any "suspend" mode, it does nothing at all.

    Finally, i just want the same, if that is possible:

    1. Totally shutting down the whole Mac, totally disabling any activity.
    2. "Suspend to RAM", which could be similar to "Sleep Mode"
    3. "Suspend to Disk", which could be similar to "Standby Mode"

    Does anybody know more about those mode?
    It is difficult to find any information, I tried.

  • @Masanga said:
    The Keychrons are great. Typing this on the new K3 optical, which is my favourite yet. (Also my family's, as it doesn't make the lovely clacky racket my earlier Gateron models do and so they throw fewer things at me when I'm typing while they're trying to watch TV.)

    I felt in love with the K1V4 :smiley:

    Just because it can be used with my PC, my Windows Laptop, the new Mac and also the iPad (both cabled or over Bluetooth).

    It has some problems, as the lights cannot be permanently disabled, which makes it difficult to use with the iPad and a Hub, when it is not powered on.

    Also, switching between "Cabled" and "Bluetooth" goes over "Off" in the middle of that switch, so that you cannot simply switch between cabled and Bluetooth too.

    But so far, it is still my dream keyboard!
    I tend to mistype a bit, and am not totally sure why exactly ...

  • edited December 2020

    Sleep is like suspend to ram, hibernate is suspend to disk, standby is kind of in between, but goes into hibernate eventually. Power nap means it can wake up from network if I remember correctly, or maybe it’s sleeping but can still receive emails, something like that.

    To wake it up, press any key, or if it’s in standby or hibernate, you should just have to press the power button quickly. 5 second press on the power button is shutdown.

    You can also set it to go into those modes after certain periods of time, or not at all, like on windows.

    When I first switched to Mac it made very little sense to me, but the more I used it the more I liked it.

    Also, you can create virtual desktops and switch between them, go to mission control by either doing a three finger swipe up on a trackpad or pressing control and the up arrow. Click the plus on the upper right to add as many desktops as you want. You can set up whatever shortcuts you want in the system preferences for switching between desktops or going to mission control.

  • @Liquidmantis said:
    A case of literal PEBCAK! :tongue:

    What is pebcak?

  • @mrufino1 said:

    @Liquidmantis said:
    A case of literal PEBCAK! :tongue:

    What is pebcak?

    “Problem Exists Between Chair And Keyboard.”

  • @Liquidmantis said:

    @mrufino1 said:

    @Liquidmantis said:
    A case of literal PEBCAK! :tongue:

    What is pebcak?

    “Problem Exists Between Chair And Keyboard.”

    Aha!

  • tjatja
    edited January 2021

    @mrufino1 said:
    Sleep is like suspend to ram, hibernate is suspend to disk, standby is kind of in between, but goes into hibernate eventually. Power nap means it can wake up from network if I remember correctly, or maybe it’s sleeping but can still receive emails, something like that.

    To wake it up, press any key, or if it’s in standby or hibernate, you should just have to press the power button quickly. 5 second press on the power button is shutdown.

    You can also set it to go into those modes after certain periods of time, or not at all, like on windows.

    When I first switched to Mac it made very little sense to me, but the more I used it the more I liked it.

    This is all quite cryptic and lots of people seem to have similar questions:

    https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/51725/do-macbooks-have-a-true-hibernate-option

    https://superuser.com/questions/139354/how-can-i-manually-put-a-macbook-pro-to-hibernate-without-going-to-sleep-mode-fi

    https://www.quora.com/Is-there-a-way-to-trigger-a-macOS-Hibernate-mode-manually-If-you-run-a-MacBook-until-the-battery-reaches-0-it-shuts-down-safely-I-know-of-Power-Nap-mode-this-seems-to-be-deeper-than-sleep-I-guess-it-saves-state-to

    And i cannot find any complete documentation from Apple, only other webpages, that partly contradict themselfs:

    https://computers.tutsplus.com/tutorials/how-to-hibernate-a-mac--cms-23235

    https://www.howtogeek.com/260478/how-to-choose-when-your-mac-hibernates-or-enters-standby/

    https://mackeeper.com/blog/post/366-do-you-know-what-sleep-mode-is-the-best-for-your-mac/

    At least with the M1 Mini, things seem to have changed.

    The Mini in Sleep mode is still visible as LAN device on my router, even after 24 hours.
    So, it does not really "sleep" at all and did not go into deeper sleep or suspend to disk after 3 or 24 hours.

    I am going to try disk hibernation with the commands mentioned in the above websites.
    Apple likes to hide information, which I sure do not like.

    Also, you can create virtual desktops and switch between them, go to mission control by either doing a three finger swipe up on a trackpad or pressing control and the up arrow. Click the plus on the upper right to add as many desktops as you want. You can set up whatever shortcuts you want in the system preferences for switching between desktops or going to mission control.

    This is interesting, many thanks!

  • tjatja
    edited January 2021

    Another Random Stupid Question:

    BTW, as a long-term user of "PuTTY", I find it annoying, that the right mouse button not automatically pastes the copied content.

    And that marked text is not automatically copied to the clipboard.

    Also, it is strange that a window there i pasted something into, does not automatically get the focus.

    Can this be changed, probably?

  • I found the hint to "pmset" and the man page gives all information that is required!

    Those are the defaults:

    TJAs-Mac-mini:~ tja$ pmset -g
    System-wide power settings:
    Currently in use:
     disksleep            10
     powernap             1
     womp                 1
     networkoversleep     0
     sleep                20 (sleep prevented by powerd)
     Sleep On Power Button 1
     ttyskeepawake        1
     tcpkeepalive         1
     autorestart          0
     standby              0
     displaysleep         20
    

    I really need to change that hostname :D

    The automatic sleep after 20 minutes (which was disturbing me), is prevented by "powerd".
    Sadly, there is no man page for this daemon ... will try to find information about this.

    disksleep 10 and displaysleep 20 seem reasonable, as most of the other settings.

    I only needed to change powernap to 0, as I sure don't see any need for a suspended system to do anything at all.

    And I need to check, what effects "powerd' has on the sleep mode and how to configure that.
    There is more about this, in the "I/O Kit power assertions, and the uses for "caffeinarte" ...
    Will check this later.

    I also will use this, just to be sure (I found no way to read out the current value):

     pmset -a destroyfvkeyonstandby 1
    

    Next, i am going to read about "standby" and the uses of "hibernatemode" ...

    "tcpkeepalive" is strangely not mentioned in the man page.

  • tjatja
    edited January 2021

    There does not seem to be a way to put the system into standby (hibernate to disk) directly.
    Strange again, Apple.

    You can only put it so sleep and configure the system in such a way, that it hibernates shortly or directly after.
    Some details:

    You need to set the following, as it seems:

    pmset -a powernap 0
    pmset -a destroyfvkeyonstandby 1
    pmset -a standby 1
    pmset -a autopoweroff 1
    pmset -a hibernatemode 25       # use 3 to suspend to disk AND let the memory powered on
    pmset -a autopoweroffdelay 0    # not sure if 0 is possiblty, or if 1 is required - as 0 sometimes disables instead
    

    I did not test this yet.

    Those changes would be written to /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.PowerManagement.plist
    But this files does not yet exist, so maybe the man pages is wrong here.


    There are options to enter standby relative to the level of the battery, but this does not apply to the Mac Mini.

    From the man page:

    standbydelayhigh and standbydelaylow specify the delay, in seconds, before writing the hibernation image to disk and powering off memory for Standby.

    standbydelayhigh is used when the remaining battery capacity is above highstandbythreshold , and standbydelaylow is used when the remaining battery capacity is below highstandbythreshold.

    highstandbythreshold has a default value of 50 percent.

    So, there is no way to just enter standby on the Mac, it seems.


    But with the above settings, it should hibernate to disk, when i put it into sleep mode.

    This could be done by the menu, or by issuing "pmset sleepnow"

    Testing as soon as possible, but will check out "caffeinate" before.

  • Having tested the above script as root and comparing outputs of "pmset -g" a new attribute shows up:

    TJAs-Mac-mini:~ tja$ diff pmset_1 pmset_2
    0a1
    >  DestroyFVKeyOnStandby        1
    1a3
    >  SleepServices        0
    6c8
    <  powernap             1
    ---
    >  powernap             0
    8c10
    <  standby              0
    ---
    >  standby              1
    

    "SleepServices" is now 0 and was invisible before.

    It is not mentioned at all in the man page of "pmset".

    Apple is really doing bad in all those things!

  • I issued "pmset sleepnow" and this seemed to work ... partly.

    When waking up the Mini, the "main" monitor (in landscape mode), connected over Thunderbolt-DisplayPort, is totally disabled!
    It did not show the login mask, not did it get awake at all!

    Instead, the login mask was shown on the portrait mode monitor, connected over HDMI-DisplayPort!
    The same monitor was wrongly used already before, after updating the operating system.

    It could be, that HDMI is regarded as the main monitor of the system, regardless of the settings.
    But then, this may also simply be the result of the other monitor not waking up.

    And from some YouTube videos, I can only assume that this problem with monitors not waking up, is still a bug in MacOS.

    Not sure, how I shall continue.

    Maybe drop the idea of hibernating the system to disk, for now.
    And instead just shutdown and boot.

    :(

  • Another Random Stupid Question:

    For a Windows User, it really is annoying, that Applications (most? many? all?) simply don't get closed, when closing their window.

    The Apps remain running, just have no window anymore.
    Why, Apple?

    To close the Apps, I need to close them again, in the taskbar with the right mouse button and issue "Quit".

    Can "Close Window" somehow be configured to "Quit" the App instead?!?

  • edited January 2021

    @tja said:
    Another Random Stupid Question:

    For a Windows User, it really is annoying, that Applications (most? many? all?) simply don't get closed, when closing their window.

    The Apps remain running, just have no window anymore.
    Why, Apple?

    To close the Apps, I need to close them again, in the taskbar with the right mouse button and issue "Quit".

    Can "Close Window" somehow be configured to "Quit" the App instead?!?

    Unfortunately not; here you're encountering one of the fundamental clashes of mindset between the two systems where each brainwashes its users into thinking its way is the right way here. Mac users for their part find it absolutely insane that closing a window in a Windows app will automatically quit the app. (Why, Microsoft? If you want to close a window, you close the window. If you want to quit the app, you quit the app. These are two distinct operations which Microsoft has decided actively to encourage users to confuse…) There's no workaround, so best just to embrace it for now as an interesting alternative which you may even end up preferring (or which may just continue to drive you nuts).

    I'm really enjoying this thread, though. There's plenty about MacOS that fully deserves a well-informed kicking. In case you haven't already found it, the Activity Monitor app in Utilities is very useful for monitoring processes.

  • Use CMD-Q to fully terminate an app.

  • @tja said:
    Can "Close Window" somehow be configured to "Quit" the App instead?!?

    If you start writing your own apps and want them to terminate when you close the window then implement "applicationShouldTerminateAfterLastWindowClosed" on the app delegate and have it return true.

    As @Masanga said, it's just one of those things that are different. If you want an app to keep running without a window cluttering up your desktop then it's useful. For example Activity Monitor can use its icon to display various meters instead of having a window open.

  • @Masanga said:

    @tja said:
    Another Random Stupid Question:

    For a Windows User, it really is annoying, that Applications (most? many? all?) simply don't get closed, when closing their window.

    The Apps remain running, just have no window anymore.
    Why, Apple?

    To close the Apps, I need to close them again, in the taskbar with the right mouse button and issue "Quit".

    Can "Close Window" somehow be configured to "Quit" the App instead?!?

    Unfortunately not; here you're encountering one of the fundamental clashes of mindset between the two systems where each brainwashes its users into thinking its way is the right way here. Mac users for their part find it absolutely insane that closing a window in a Windows app will automatically quit the app. (Why, Microsoft? If you want to close a window, you close the window. If you want to quit the app, you quit the app. These are two distinct operations which Microsoft has decided actively to encourage users to confuse…) There's no workaround, so best just to embrace it for now as an interesting alternative which you may even end up preferring (or which may just continue to drive you nuts).

    Many thanks for this different view on the situation.
    It gave me something to think.

    Still, i cannot fully agree ...

    MacOS is a Unix operating system.
    And i used lots of different Unix operating systems: Silicon Graphics IRIX, HP UX, AIX, Solaris, several Linux distributions, ...

    NONE of them behaves like MacOS, not that I ever noticed!

    If you have a graphical user interface and close the window of the application, this also closes the application itself.
    So, this is really a pure Apple idea, and it is quite unusual ...

    And even after thinking about what you wrote, why would you want to close a window, but still have the application running?
    If you click on the icon again, a new window will be opened anyway!
    So for what did you want to close it?

    I see no real positive effect of this way to handle windows.
    It may save a little bit of RAM, probably.


    Thanks, @Liquidmantis for the command-Q hint! :smile:


    I'm really enjoying this thread, though. There's plenty about MacOS that fully deserves a well-informed kicking. In case you haven't already found it, the Activity Monitor app in Utilities is very useful for monitoring processes.

    Already found and used it, thanks :smile:

    In summary, I already feel a bit more comfortable on MacOS ... a little bit :D :D :D

  • A couple of other semi-hidden power tools:

    • Apple -> About this Mac -> System Report gives you a sysinfo slash Device Manager listing.
    • The Console app lets you access logs and crash reports.
  • @Liquidmantis said:
    A couple of other semi-hidden power tools:

    • Apple -> About this Mac -> System Report gives you a sysinfo slash Device Manager listing.
    • The Console app lets you access logs and crash reports.

    Thanks a bunch :smile:

  • Another Random Feedback:

    As @SevenSystems already mentioned, it is very strange, that I need to first click into a window that currently has no focus, before being able to click any of it buttons.

    So strange, Apple :smile:

    I often have the impression, that Apple does things different, just to not do them as others did them ... only for the purpose of being different.

  • edited January 2021

    @tja said:
    MacOS is a Unix operating system.
    And i used lots of different Unix operating systems: Silicon Graphics IRIX, HP UX, AIX, Solaris, several Linux distributions, ...

    NONE of them behaves like MacOS, not that I ever noticed!

    Well, MacOS has only been a Unix system for a little over half its life as an OS (since 2001); before that it was a proprietary system, long predating Windows, whose UI and its affordances were for obvious reasons carried over into the Unix-based version. Apple have been keeping apps running after all windows are closed since 1984, and are unlikely to change their behaviour now.

    And even after thinking about what you wrote, why would you want to close a window, but still have the application running?
    If you click on the icon again, a new window will be opened anyway!
    So for what did you want to close it?

    This is where the Windows behaviour seems as mad to any Mac user as the Mac behaviour does to Windows users. Consider the everyday use case of closing one document and opening another. On a Mac, you close the window you want to close and open a new one. On Windows, you either quit the app and then immediately have to relaunch it, or you open the new window, then switch windows to the one you don't even want any more, and close that. Life's too short…

  • @tja said:
    I often have the impression, that Apple does things different, just to not do them as others did them ... only for the purpose of being different.

    Oddly enough, that's exactly what Apple users have always said about Windows – particularly when it first launched…

  • @tja said:
    Another Random Feedback:

    As @SevenSystems already mentioned, it is very strange, that I need to first click into a window that currently has no focus, before being able to click any of it buttons.

    Well, the worst part of it is that it depends on where you click, as some UI elements apparently can be declared "receive-click-immediately". Try clicking around. Some elements will react to the first click! :D

  • edited January 2021

    @Masanga said:
    This is where the Windows behaviour seems as mad to any Mac user as the Mac behaviour does to Windows users. Consider the everyday use case of closing one document and opening another. On a Mac, you close the window you want to close and open a new one. On Windows, you either quit the app and then immediately have to relaunch it, or you open the new window, then switch windows to the one you don't even want any more, and close that. Life's too short…

    I can't remember the last time I used an application's "File" menu to open a file belonging to that application. I always open everything from a file manager or a shortcut in some kind of generic launcher or menu, so that makes your point a bit weak for that scenario... but yeah, maybe many people first open Word, and then navigate to their "Word documents" folder and look for the document.

    However, I think of file management as a completely separate, generic task that takes place in a specific application for that (like, Explorer in Windows or Dolphin in Plasma).

  • @SevenSystems said:

    @Masanga said:
    This is where the Windows behaviour seems as mad to any Mac user as the Mac behaviour does to Windows users. Consider the everyday use case of closing one document and opening another. On a Mac, you close the window you want to close and open a new one. On Windows, you either quit the app and then immediately have to relaunch it, or you open the new window, then switch windows to the one you don't even want any more, and close that. Life's too short…

    I can't remember the last time I used an application's "File" menu to open a file belonging to that application. I always open everything from a file manager or a shortcut in some kind of generic launcher or menu, so that makes your point a bit weak for that scenario... but yeah, maybe many people first open Word, and then navigate to their "Word documents" folder and look for the document.

    Well, I think @tja was talking about clicking on the close box. I've always assumed that everyone always did all this stuff from keyboard, but one of the fun things about this thread has been seeing how things that look completely normal and obvious to one person seem utterly mad to others…

  • Just to document this:

    I don't want to start a fight between Windows and MacOS, for sure!

    But, I hope that I can write down my impressions and some feedback, while trying to get used to MacOS :smile:

    I sure will have some problems and irritations :D

  • @tja said:
    Just to document this:

    I don't want to start a fight between Windows and MacOS, for sure!

    But, I hope that I can write down my impressions and some feedback, while trying to get used to MacOS :smile:

    I sure will have some problems and irritations :D

    Yes, bring it on! Nobody will take umbrage; Mac users are just as annoyed by MacOS as everyone else…

  • Another Random Question:

    I opened the Mac App Store App and checked for Updates ... there were no updates available.

    Then, I search for "StrongBox" and noticed, that it shows the "Update" button, so there is a new version available!
    The version is 1.14.5

    Looking into the Updates section again, this is not visible at all!
    What's wrong here?!?

    Why are updates not shown in "Updates"?
    Is there a way to refresh this, like on iOS / iPadOS?

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