I just read something by Tim Bray on the way he uses his Mac, specifically how he feels about the UI and how he configures his Dock.
I have to say that I think he is on to something. I am really bothered/ confused by the concept of an open/minimized window and how to move between them. For all the strong points of OS X this behavior is one of it’s downsides. For the life of me I don’t understand why CMD-Tab’ing on an app that is minimized doesn’t bring the app up (i.e. maximize it). All you get is your menu bar at the top changed to the app you selected, but you’re still looking at the app you had “front and center” before the CMD-Tab operation.
I think I’m gonna try Tim Bray’s Mac usage tips for awhile and see how I’m doing. I thought about trying this behavior almost day-one when I got my PowerBook but I felt like I needed to give the “Apple way” of using the UI a chance. Well, I’ve given it a number of months and just can’t see the logic Apple used.
Tim Bray also mentioned that he really liked TigerLaunch and I’d have to say that I agree. I tried it a few weeks ago and didn’t think it was a “must have”. But, using the “Tim Bray Mac UI Guidlines” something like TigerLaunch will be a must. I think that something like TigerLaunch would make for an AWESOME Dashboard widget when Mac OS X v10.4 comes out.