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by pathartl12 hours ago |
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upvoteby cosmic_cheese12 hours ago|
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As a system macOS definitely has some holes in keyboard navigation, as well as a couple corners which are KB-navigable but the way to focus them is not immediately obvious.

On the app level, keyboard navigability depends on the developer. If they take the time to dot their I's and cross their T's it's between decent and great, but if they don't care it'll be bad.

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upvoteby dpark12 hours ago|
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MacOS has intentional holes in keyboard support. You have to go into settings and turn on a config for keyboard navigation to reach all elements. Apple intends for most users to navigate with a mouse.

It’s in the accessibility settings.

https://support.apple.com/en-za/guide/mac-help/mchlc06d1059/...

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upvoteby burnte6 hours ago|
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I cannot think of a single reason these would be disabled by default other than Apple stubbornness.
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upvoteby ChickeNES6 hours ago|
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This is the company that popularized the mouse and GUIs, why are you shocked?
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upvoteby cyberax12 hours ago|
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"Some holes"? That's an understatement.

There's no option to bring up a context menu with the keyboard. And there are no keyboard accelerators _AT_ _ALL_. Windows will underline the shortcut characters when you hold "alt".

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upvoteby kccqzy11 hours ago|
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The philosophy was that anything visible in a context menu should also be in the app-wide menu bar. Instead of bring up a context menu and click Copy, you would find the Copy menu item in the menu bar. Therefore such menu items can be assigned any keyboard shortcut by the user.

I quote from Apple https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guideline...:

> Always make context menu items available in the main interface, too. […] In macOS, an app’s menu bar menus list all the app’s commands, including those in various context menus.

Therefore one can rightly conclude that there is no need for a key to bring up a context menu.

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upvoteby Tallain9 hours ago|
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In this case it's not a context menu, it's just a menu. User experience is degraded, see GP's case. There is an expectation and a common paradigm which is intentionally ignored because the OS developers thought they knew better than the users.

This reminds me of frequent conversations with other developers when presented with a bug report. "That's not a bug, it's working as intended." The intention is wrong, then -- the bug is in the design, not the code, but it's still a bug.

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upvoteby cosmic_cheese12 hours ago|
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> There's no option to bring up a context menu with the keyboard.

That used to be the case but has changed. Since at least macOS 15 the context menu key on typical keyboards is recognized and functions, and on other keyboards it can be opened with Ctrl+Return.

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upvoteby Muskwalker3 hours ago|
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> Since at least macOS 15 the context menu key on typical keyboards is recognized and functions

Apple's adding it to its own keyboards as well, at least on the third-generation Magic Keyboard with number pad (between F13 and forward delete).

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upvoteby AceJohnny211 hours ago|
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To reinforce your point, by default on macOS you can't use Tab to select different options in a dialog box. You have to enable that in System Settings -> Keyboard -> "Keyboard navigation" which is off by default.
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upvoteby failbuffer7 hours ago|
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My theory is that Mac was born with a mouse while Windows (and Windows apps) originally had to function on machines that might not have one. Thus, keyboard navigablity was prioritized, and that design sensibility stuck around longer.
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upvoteby marshray7 hours ago|
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I think it probably has more to do with Mac's lack of adoption by the US Government and large corporations.

Microsoft took accessibility of Windows and apps as a basic requirement. The fact that Windows is the daily driver desktop for the staff of the regulatory agencies that would bring complaints would not have gone unnoticed.

But really, why wouldn't you? You almost get it for free if you use the standard widgets, and smooth keyboard navigation is far faster for experienced users than having to repeatedly move one's hand between keyboard and mouse.

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upvoteby nashashmi6 hours ago|
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You would be baffled to know that after the creation of the mouse, Steve Jobs wanted to remove the arrow keys so developers would be forced to create mouse only interfaces.
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upvoteby quantified5 hours ago|
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Not baffling at all. Wasn't he against the two-button mouse?
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upvoteby nashashmi5 hours ago|
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> Windows components however, especially old ones, are incredibly accessible

Bing, Bing, Bing! I came here to vent how the new windows 10 and windows 11 interfaces (made by Mac enthusiasts, ughh) have omitted keyboard accessibility for a cleaner look. They also dropped drag and drop support (which I never knew about in windows 7) and I completely missed how useful it could be on Windows 10/11.

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upvoteby cosmic_cheese4 hours ago|
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For whatever it's worth, the new W10/11 designs aren't in line with traditional Mac design philosophies either. They're more in line with those of iOS and Android with how they tend to bury and omit options entirely and prefer massive whitespace.
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upvoteby pathartl2 hours ago|
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Tons of built in winui3 stuff is still very accessible by the keyboard, metro era though what pretty rough.
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