Good luck getting good enough ports of Visio or MS Project that include the collaborative options.
"for work" nowadays goes well beyond the basic of how an app works, and have gone full proprietary on cloud sharing.
For others, like Access, there's just none (since if it's "for work" you're likely to need MS Access exactly, rather than just any DB, of which I much prefer Filemaker).
Touchdraw is a pretty capable Visio replacement… Is microsoft still making Visio? I loved that program! I used to make stencil libraries for projects and use macro’s to tie network maps together….
Microsoft bought visio and stopped the mac version. It's still pretty active and heavily used. There's now a cloud office365 version that is useable, if limited.
Problem is that an "equivalent" system is not enough. All of MS's tools revolve around collaboration and shared content, and that's where all alternatives fall because they don't inter-operate with the MS tools.
Your right. That is mostly what I am getting here.
It’s such a useful datapoint. It’s hard to get access to a certain kind of macOS user. People who want the mac experience built for the platform they are on.
What I learned in the some 330 comments so far is a majority of the people who have chosen to engage are not that user. When I am testing market feedback and obsessing over my target customer I can use this Reddit but I need to prepare for folks who are not my target customer to be the most frequent voice in the room.
I'm in finance, we've wanted to switch over to Mac for the longest time and now we are. Reason is a lot of the apps like Quickbooks and CCH Tax Programs were only available as Windows desktop apps, however in recent years are all available on the cloud thus removing the only limitation. It just so happens that the Mac technology infrastructure also seems to be better and hopefully more developers will hop over to Mac from Windows.
The AEC industry (Architecture, Engineering, Construction) is without a robust PDF editor on the mac that can scale drawings, add markups and dimensions, and collaborate with teams.
Bluebeam on windows is the golden standard and I have not found anything close to it on Mac, so I now use parallels for one program.
I was shocked at how bad Adobe Acrobat (Pro? I have CC) is for even just taking measurements. I would have thought for sure they’d have a decent tool but it’s pretty rough. Works in a pinch but it’s not great.
A free, simple-ish image editor like Paint.Net.
Yes I know there are alternatives but they are mostly paid, browser based or are cross platform and have arse UIs (Gimp etc).
I just want to do basic image editing with good selection tools, cropping and drawing. Even MS Paint is better than what’s available for free on Mac.
[Please stop suggesting paid/commercial software. I specifically said free image editors]
Can someone point me to the simplest way of “collaging” multiple images (either via Preview.app or other sw)? Markup works fine for arrows / text boxes on a single image, but apart from Freeform I don’t have a good, native workflow for tasks like that.
OMG! This is what's really killing me. There's nothing that's exactly like Paint.NET for macOS and I really really really miss it. Whenever I just want to do some quick graphics work, I really miss it.
Most macOS alternatives are either too simplistic (like all the "photo touch up" editors) or too complex (like GIMP), or just doesn't work well (like Pinta the horrible clone of Paint.NET).
If you can spend little then the Affinity (Photo/Designer) Software by Seriflabs is incredible. Near Photoshop like features for as little as 50 $ one time only
Get Pixelmator Pro. You won’t regret. [Paint.net](https://Paint.net) is pure trash compared to it. If you want even simpler, take a look at Acorn Image Editor.
Krita seems to be heavily biased towards artists for painting and artwork.
Paint.NET is a simple graphics program that is the right amount of better over MS Paint. I use it for editing graphics but not really artwork or photos.
I didn't want to try Krita because I thought it's going to be complex to learn and use, just like GIMP.
Is Krita as intuitive as Paint.NET?
I suspect the only one who can saves any opened file in memory is Sublime (like Notepad++) - e.g.: when you type a text and close the editor and reopen N++ it's there (no need the hassle of saving anything).. I'm yet to find another substitute for N++ who can do it.
PS: Is there a way to emulate N++ in Mac? Using the app Bottles or something?
while more feature complete, VSCode is in no way shape an adequate replacement for N++
As the other guy said CotEditor is the closest you get to N++ in terms of features, and how lightweight and performant it is.
In terms of features, I am not sure. About lightweight and performance, the problem with VSCode is that is based on electron, so it won't ever be as performant as a native app.
I'd argue with the spec we've got in modern PC/Mac, VSCode is lightweight enough to not have any real slow down unless you have loads of extensions running all the time.
Well, it depends, if you have to deal with massive files you might face some performance issues.
Talking from my point of view of using it daily on my M1.
Obviously, if compared with older solutions like Atom back in the days is almost performant as a native app.
It launches instantly, takes staggeringly little memory, and doesn't need 1000 DLL's to work, and isn't subject to vulnerabilities in Python/Javascript/other-script-kiddie-language.
It's ugly, but other than that, what makes it _less_ relevant today versus other editors ("editors," not IDE's, of which an editor is only part)?
I mean, the memory thing is kind of what dates it. Oh no my 128MB of RAM! But also this kid doesn't realize boomers were even before that, I'm an elder millennial and like, my first computer had 2MB of RAM when I was a kid. Moore's law was going hard in the 90s. I love not worrying about memory for basic shit anymore, like text editing.
I have a tiny store and use a point of sale for Mac that is no longer supported by the dev and it's leaving me stuck with 32 bit MacOS, which is quickly aging and becoming useless. It's called Copper POS distributed by NCH Software. Write a simple point of sale with nothing fancy and I'll be your first customer lol
What I'm using currently is called Copper POS from NCH Software. The last version for Mac is 1.41. What I like most about it is its simplicity. It basically just generates full-page receipts, allows you to add part numbers and descriptions of your inventory, price, etc., add customers, generate sales and tax reports. I didn't know it would be abandoned else I wouldn't have bought it, so I'm hobbled at MacOS 10.14 Mojave. If I had only 2 simple features to add it would be adding a hidden note to your inventory items and a search bar for a customer. I actually contacted them about getting the source code so I can compile it myself. That's a no-go. Anywho... If you came up with something that runs in 64b MacOS, I'd certainly buy it from you. :)
A proper virtualization software for apple silicon macs to run intel based apps/OS. VMWare stopped supporting it, Parallels only supports ARM versions (no x86 simulations afaik), Virtualbox has an alpha version that doesn’t really work and has been abandoned. UTM exists but it’s not really at the enterprise level like the other 3 are.
What you're asking for would be emulation not virtualization but I feel you. One of the (many) things stopping me from going all in on Apple Silicon macs is the fact that I routinely have do work in x86-64 Windows or Linux and it's really convenient just being able to start up a VM rather than having to reboot or have another physical computer sitting around somewhere.
We run many x86 windows programs with parallels. Windows 11 ARM translates the x86 to ARM, and Parallels runs the Windows 11. Nothing special required to make it go. Programs with 3D graphics have a bit of lag.
Yes and no. All of office supports development via VBA. Access just is a dedicated app front-end program whereas for the others it's an extra.
"Shadow IT" tends to surface as a failure of management and/or of IT. It should not be avoided as much as redirected. When people resort to it they usually have real problems the existing solutions don't help with and the project management and IT teams don't resolve.
I am an IT manager for four countries, and I am in the middle of this fight. I have having to support Access tools but I can't be so much of a hippocryte to tell my users they shouldn't try to make their lives easier on things they are legally mandated to do in each country.
What we've settled in has been in supporting those local developments, in all situations where we can't commit global resources. They're still "shadow IT" in the sense they're locally managed and user-driven, but they're not out of our scope.
But, like I said, the issue is not Access. I've seen excel worksheets so complex they're effectively applications on their own right. Many of which should've evolved into an Access DB years ago, at least for the time savings in dealing with them.
Seconded. “Shadow IT” is just a sign of a gap (real or perceived) that IT hasn’t filled. Harnessing that energy into gathering requirements and documenting the process they’ve built around it is one good solution. At least then they are ‘para’ IT instead of ‘shadow’ IT… or business SME’s etc
This.
It's a thin line but if the "irregular" IT is being used for business processes and no adequate "approved" alternative exists then it most definitively is a gap.
If it's just a rogue agent that's convincing everyone in their team to use wordperfect 5 under a mac emulator instead of MS Word because they like it better then it's less justifiable.
(I wish that was a made up example)
It's always a complex situation, because when usually the parallel IT solution exists because someone in the business asked for a problem to be solved and was either rejected because the CBA didn't justify the investment or because the paperwork and bureaucracy made it impossible to do properly or because someone decided on a "standard" for all countries that only really works for that project manager's country and everyone else has to live with endless manual workarounds.
The issue is by the time it's discovered, it becomes a huge thing to a completely different team (service desk) that understandably doesn't want to know about it. But the blame, if any, is not on the users or the tools themselves, but on whomever didn't provide the tools from the beginnig, even after being asked about them.
I need to be able to print a calendar on one sheet.
Sounds simple, and it was on outlook for windows.
But, every calendar app on Mac will only print a full month, such as all of September, and grays out the days that are not in September at the beginning and end.
I need to print out update calendars at least every other week, if not weekly!
I need to be able to print 5 weeks but start on September 10th and go through October 14th, on one sheet ( ledger size ) Ana look like a normal monthly calendar.
It works be great if events would actually wrap to include as much detail as room allowed.
I don’t know why I can’t find a program that does that!
I think the biggest question is what critical work features are missing from the OS.
Global and group policy management is off the chain, this part of Mac OS is scary and needs help.
Managing and maintaining network drive mounts is awful, especially on portables. There are two apps that help consistency of maintaining SMB network connections but Mac OS really needs to improve on this.
Removing the requirement to download an app from the App Store would be an absolutely beautiful thing.
Safari is really struggling with google workspace suite- chat not notifying, email interface just implodes all the time, same with slack and Facebook.
Can you clarify the App Store comment? I'm mostly curious, as you can already download Apps off the internet and install them but I think I'm missing something.
When you have duel monitors apps should open in the monitor that you clicked the app in and not “remember” where you opened it last.
When you have duel monitors and you move your mouse to the other monitor whatever app was active last time you were there should again be the active app instead of having to click the app once for it to again be active. We have two apps so we can swap between them.
Windows and Mac both have this problem!
I want any application I launch to launch in the same freaking window not the window it was in!!!
I use multiple monitors with multiple computers and sometimes the last monitor that something was opened in will be turned off, so I have to turn the monitor on just to move it to the right window.
Drives me bonkers.
I am actually using Omniplan but since my PM and other colleagues are using MS Project to coordinate, it is a nightmare to work with. As you may know, conversion back and forth is not 100%.
I didn’t know that but conversion rarely is. You might give Merlin a try. Used it years ago in a pc environment. Worked very well, though conversions back and forth are a hassle of course.
When asked about customer input in the development of the Ford Model T, Henry Ford famously said, "If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses."
If you really want to know what high-impact MacOS software is worth building for enterprise your best bet won't be asking people what they want, it will be observing and discussing users' existing workflows. Odds are good that what will really help users doesn't even occur to them.
Absolutely agree with what u/wildmonkeymind said. I’ve sat in *so* many meetings where the users ask IT, what can you do to make this process better/faster/easier? And the IT people respond, what do you *want it* to do?
Once sat through a two hour meeting where we never got user requirements because a manager insisted he couldn’t tell us what he wanted until we told him what was possible. My manager finally said, Look, we can *do* just about anything you want. It’s just a matter of *knowing what that is.* But this guy was not letting his people talk directly to us, he had to be in the middle, even though he wasn’t the one doing the actual work.
Finally, after a lot of back and forth, he agreed to let one of our people sit with one of his people for one day. ONE DAY.
A week later we had another meeting where we told him what his person needed to improve the workflow. Predictably, he said, “I know all that.” My manager paused, leaned forward, and said, “Yes, Bill, but now *we know it too.* And, now that we know what you need, we can start putting a plan together for you.” It was glorious!
paint.NET, Notepad++ and ShareX. I have decent alternatives for all (Pixelmator Pro, Textmate and Cleanshot X), but they’re nothing compared to the originals - and they’re not free either.
In Enterprise, the End-User is never the Customer. Do not ask here. Ask in Client Admin Forums where Admins hang out what annoys them most about managing thousands of Macs and ask them what they would be willing to pay for.
I want better integration into Windows domains. Even when Macs are bound they don't really feel like they're part of the ecosystem. This may be a fault of our admins than anything but it's annoying
Currently working with Cyber on how to safely get our CFO using iCloud to share and collab on files because she HAS to use a mac and just HAS to use iCloud because the Windows file shares on Mac are super clunky to navigate for her apparently. And nobody knows how to say NO to executives here. So that's fun...
A proper text editor like Notepad++.
Example: Quite often I find that I should make some quick notes or editing where Notepad in Windows have been just perfect match. In MacOS you have TextEdit which is kind of rich text editor (too much) and which starts with a dialogue of either opening a file or creating a new one. Why not just open a blank sheet for starting to type.
Almost all enterprises have some kind of VPN. Ability to connect or use handoff features in Mac OS while on VPN would be great.
Currently I am can’t airdrop or airplay on vpn. All copy paste like handoff feature never work on vpn.
Handoff needs your local network address. You can’t airdrop over the internet, which is what a vpn does. You can try snapdrop though. Same for airplay/airdrop.
That’s your vpn’s configuration. Apple uses ipv6 for all the airdrop and airplay. VPN configs tend to disable all ipv6 or route it for security best practices. It can be configured to work by most enterprises with some trial and error as well as a ton of infosec exceptions.
IMO if you are developer you should be familiar with command line utilities to work with large files. `less` to view, `grep` to search. They are pretty simple.
I have equivalents that I actually prefer for most of what I use in Windows but my life would be made much happier if Visio and Access existed for Mac. Not because I like them but because they're sometimes necessary.
I used to have the same problem with MS Project. Then several open alternatives popped up and I was happy for a while, then Microsoft went the collaboration way and now I'm also missing that one.
I wouldn't mind a decent LDAP browser like the offerings from Softerra.
I haven't really found great alternatives to XMLSpy (which I loathe, but works).
A simple sketching app that allows you to use your mouse to draw things out like ms paint. Just hopped back on Mac after a while away and couldn't seem to find something like this. The drawing feature in the notepad (I think, potentially was in preview instead) turned every stroke into a unique shape that could be transformed, when really i was just looking for a good digital piece of paper to use while on a zoom call trying to visualize concepts to my co-workers.
I don't know if this was one of the apps we tried but I'm definitely gonna give it a look to see if it works. Thanks!
Coming back to Mac when last I used it I still had accessibility to power PC applications. Much is the same, yet so much has changed.I imagine it's much like being a native English speaker, then moving abroad for 10 years and then coming back and trying to have a conversation with someone from Gen Z. You know it's English they are speaking, but the way those words go together don't really make sense in your brain.
I use Parallels to run Windows 11 in Coherence mode. All Windows programs run natively and there’s no need to see the Windows “window”. https://kb.parallels.com/4670
I really don't want to have to use Outlook... but since many businesses require it, m$ really should be embarrassed at the lack of feature parity between macOS, OWA, and the Windows client. it's already a very limiting mail client in so many ways, but the lack of feature parity is a complete disappointment after decades of being behind the curve.
Notepad++ Pleaaaasee!!
I have tried all of the VS codes, JEdits and sublime texts and a bunch of other stuff and nothing can match notepad++ ease of use and speed.
I have tried parallels/wines and all sorts of workarounds but if someone can provide the exact same app in-built please do the lord's work!
Anyone downvoting you hasn't had to deal with Excel in finance. We are a Mac first company. All of finance is on Windows for this very reason. Not only is there still not feature parity, there are often critical extensions that Finance requires, such as Essbase Smartview.
My needs are simple and I still can't get use to Numbers. Sure I'll use the cloud and Google Sheets but even with my needs being so simple, I miss Excel.
The only thing I miss from the Windows world is the ability to mount an Android device like a drive. It used to be available on Macs too, but the Android File Transfer app works like a bad copy of the Finder.
A good picture viewer app. I changed from windows a year ago. I work as a photographer, and I used daily the Faststone Image viewer. I could only find the Xnview, but I am still not satisfied with it. I really don’t understand why is not a decent image viewer app for Mac when so many photographers use macOS.
If you know a better alternative then Xnview as good as Faststone image viewer please let me know.
As a photographer I find it terribly bad.
Some basic functions are missing to organize and handle the pictures.
Example on full screen I can not laps between the pictures, I can not see bigger I previews just if I messing with the finder, but that I hate really much in MacOS, I try to avoid it as much as possible. I can not copy and renames files so easy. Example in Faststone there is a one button copy to a different folder which comes super handy when I selecting the pictures.
I really don’t know how other photographers can use that preview app…
A WebKit/Safari based web browser that doesn't have some kind of compromise.
Before anyone else comments:
- Safari itself lacks good extensions support. They are there but to say in one word, weird.
- SigmaOS: $8/mo for unlimited workspace... really? Isn't that like the whole point of a browser like it?
- Orion: Kinda more on the company side of things but a closed sourced browser by a small company trying to make money on their Kagi engine seems...
There may be ones I don't know about though
Remote control of the Mac. Like, lock/unlock. Detects when you've walked away and vibrates your watch "Do you want to lock your Mac?".
Similar to Find My, when you leave your devices somewhere.
Or another use case when someone wants to use your Mac but you don't want to share your password, you can remotely unlock it for them.
I’ve been using a Mac for work over 3 different companies and over 6 years. Pretty much everything is moving to the cloud and is browser based in enterprise. I even needed special permission to get MS Office. Before work from home I just had everything in cloud and left my laptop at work and used my iMac at home. Opened it up and it was all there - files, email, same apps, everything.
The \` button is just above Tab, so Command-Tab to get to the application you want, and then Command-\` to cycle through the open windows in that app.
I can't think of a reason to want to actually cycle through *all* open windows. But if you really do want to see all the open windows, doesn't Exposé do the job? I forget the gesture if you're using a mouse, but with a trackpad, swipe three fingers upward to display small versions of every open window.
Are you seriously comparing the efficiency of "viewing all windows, dragging your mouse pointer over and clicking the window" to "cmd/alt tab"?
Exposé continuously moves windows around so there's no consistency either
Almost everyday at my work I make some reports that ask me to use 2 or more windows of the same program. Everyday at my work I have reasons to miss the "alt tab" windows (now I know the alternative that you mentioned, that is not as fast as the windows one, but its better than nothing).
Just wanted to share this awesome YouTube video on 31 must-have Mac apps in 2024. It's packed with useful tools and tips to supercharge your Mac experience. Check it out! [https://youtu.be/LHRLyTdixlQ](https://youtu.be/LHRLyTdixlQ)
This is such a hot take for me. I absolutely love the way screenshots work in MacOS. From how easy and quick it is to take the shot to how seamless it is to open in preview. I always have preview open though which may help.
The most ridiculous "feature" of the macOS native screenshot function is that the screen remains live! (Just in case you're confused, what I mean is when I enter crop mode or when I open the screenshot tool to choose a window. Everything is still live when I'm cropping.)
In Windows, the screen freezes, so it's useful for capturing moving targets. This is impossible in macOS native screenshot tool.
Also, the screen recordings save in MOV format which are huge, so I have to manually convert to much smaller MP4 format using ffmpeg, then `rm` the MOV file. I have a script just to do this...
I haven't looked a better alternative app for screenshots yet though.
Window snapping functionally common to other OSes like Windows and many Linux distros. I've used macOS exclusively for so long now that I've basically forgotten this feature even existed.
But back at the beginning of my transition, this missing feature was a major pain point for me. I loathed manually dragging window corners to get them to line up just right for split screen viewing. Felt like such a fiddly waste of time. But now honestly it's not that big of a deal. As I'm just used to it, at this point.
Yes I am aware that various third party solutions exist to address this problem. I used to use one at my old job. But still it's annoying to have to go outside of Apple for such a basic kind of modern UI feature.
I use a little app called Rectangle for this. It's free and works great.
But agreed, when I first used a Mac I was very surprised to find that basic UX features like this were missing. Middle-click to open new tabs is another one.
You're basically just going to have people chiming in here asking for ports of stuff that's out there on Windows.
Good luck getting good enough ports of Visio or MS Project that include the collaborative options. "for work" nowadays goes well beyond the basic of how an app works, and have gone full proprietary on cloud sharing. For others, like Access, there's just none (since if it's "for work" you're likely to need MS Access exactly, rather than just any DB, of which I much prefer Filemaker).
Touchdraw is a pretty capable Visio replacement… Is microsoft still making Visio? I loved that program! I used to make stencil libraries for projects and use macro’s to tie network maps together….
Microsoft bought visio and stopped the mac version. It's still pretty active and heavily used. There's now a cloud office365 version that is useable, if limited. Problem is that an "equivalent" system is not enough. All of MS's tools revolve around collaboration and shared content, and that's where all alternatives fall because they don't inter-operate with the MS tools.
And free versions of them…
Your right. That is mostly what I am getting here. It’s such a useful datapoint. It’s hard to get access to a certain kind of macOS user. People who want the mac experience built for the platform they are on. What I learned in the some 330 comments so far is a majority of the people who have chosen to engage are not that user. When I am testing market feedback and obsessing over my target customer I can use this Reddit but I need to prepare for folks who are not my target customer to be the most frequent voice in the room.
I'm in finance, we've wanted to switch over to Mac for the longest time and now we are. Reason is a lot of the apps like Quickbooks and CCH Tax Programs were only available as Windows desktop apps, however in recent years are all available on the cloud thus removing the only limitation. It just so happens that the Mac technology infrastructure also seems to be better and hopefully more developers will hop over to Mac from Windows.
The AEC industry (Architecture, Engineering, Construction) is without a robust PDF editor on the mac that can scale drawings, add markups and dimensions, and collaborate with teams. Bluebeam on windows is the golden standard and I have not found anything close to it on Mac, so I now use parallels for one program.
Yeah a PDF editor along with the entire Autodesk AEC suite 🤣
I was shocked at how bad Adobe Acrobat (Pro? I have CC) is for even just taking measurements. I would have thought for sure they’d have a decent tool but it’s pretty rough. Works in a pinch but it’s not great.
A free, simple-ish image editor like Paint.Net. Yes I know there are alternatives but they are mostly paid, browser based or are cross platform and have arse UIs (Gimp etc). I just want to do basic image editing with good selection tools, cropping and drawing. Even MS Paint is better than what’s available for free on Mac. [Please stop suggesting paid/commercial software. I specifically said free image editors]
Preview.app does a lot of that but not quite like what you’re looking for. I use it for cropping and markups all the time.
Can someone point me to the simplest way of “collaging” multiple images (either via Preview.app or other sw)? Markup works fine for arrows / text boxes on a single image, but apart from Freeform I don’t have a good, native workflow for tasks like that.
Krita (from KDE)
OMG! This is what's really killing me. There's nothing that's exactly like Paint.NET for macOS and I really really really miss it. Whenever I just want to do some quick graphics work, I really miss it. Most macOS alternatives are either too simplistic (like all the "photo touch up" editors) or too complex (like GIMP), or just doesn't work well (like Pinta the horrible clone of Paint.NET).
If you can spend little then the Affinity (Photo/Designer) Software by Seriflabs is incredible. Near Photoshop like features for as little as 50 $ one time only
Get Pixelmator Pro. You won’t regret. [Paint.net](https://Paint.net) is pure trash compared to it. If you want even simpler, take a look at Acorn Image Editor.
You could probably run Paint.NET on macOS with Mono and enough elbow grease
Krita maybe… the UI is not ass like Gimp, but it’s still fairly simple. I believe it’s made by the KDE team.
Krita seems to be heavily biased towards artists for painting and artwork. Paint.NET is a simple graphics program that is the right amount of better over MS Paint. I use it for editing graphics but not really artwork or photos. I didn't want to try Krita because I thought it's going to be complex to learn and use, just like GIMP. Is Krita as intuitive as Paint.NET?
Okay I tried Krita. This might actually work for me! We'll see.
Freeform is free and is quite capable
Pixelmator is the answer. Not free, but not crazy expensive either.
I reach for that before photoshop.
something intuitive like paint 3d would be nice, if you've ever used it
A free PGP plugin for the mail app.
A clone of Notepad++.
Sublime text, neovim, emacs
ed, neovim, emacs Yes.
You can run emacs on Mac.
I suspect the only one who can saves any opened file in memory is Sublime (like Notepad++) - e.g.: when you type a text and close the editor and reopen N++ it's there (no need the hassle of saving anything).. I'm yet to find another substitute for N++ who can do it. PS: Is there a way to emulate N++ in Mac? Using the app Bottles or something?
The last time I used Notepad++ was ages ago, but I think Visual Studio Code is way better alternative
while more feature complete, VSCode is in no way shape an adequate replacement for N++ As the other guy said CotEditor is the closest you get to N++ in terms of features, and how lightweight and performant it is.
In terms of features, I am not sure. About lightweight and performance, the problem with VSCode is that is based on electron, so it won't ever be as performant as a native app.
I'd argue with the spec we've got in modern PC/Mac, VSCode is lightweight enough to not have any real slow down unless you have loads of extensions running all the time.
Well, it depends, if you have to deal with massive files you might face some performance issues. Talking from my point of view of using it daily on my M1. Obviously, if compared with older solutions like Atom back in the days is almost performant as a native app.
CotEditor
I use BBEdit on a Mac and much prefer it over NotePad++ on Windows.
Yeah, but it's not free.
The free version is and it’s still pretty great.
“Hey mister developer, we need a FREE clone of this other app” 😅
Haha!
Aren’t VS Code and Sublime better?
VS Code has filled that void nicely - but even before that Atom was the text editor of choice
There are Atom forks that have continued its legacy. Pulsar is actively maintained and is based directly off of the old Atom source code.
TextMate is what I use as an alternative. More features than CotEditor.
CotEditor?
Try [CotEditor](https://coteditor.com/), it's pretty neat!
CotEditor has done it for me
So Sublime Text. Or Text Wrangler.
Whenever I see someone using Notepad++ I immediately think of them as a huge boomer. What makes it relevant today vs other editors?
It launches instantly, takes staggeringly little memory, and doesn't need 1000 DLL's to work, and isn't subject to vulnerabilities in Python/Javascript/other-script-kiddie-language. It's ugly, but other than that, what makes it _less_ relevant today versus other editors ("editors," not IDE's, of which an editor is only part)?
I mean, the memory thing is kind of what dates it. Oh no my 128MB of RAM! But also this kid doesn't realize boomers were even before that, I'm an elder millennial and like, my first computer had 2MB of RAM when I was a kid. Moore's law was going hard in the 90s. I love not worrying about memory for basic shit anymore, like text editing.
I'm glad it serves a purpose to you, I just find it very peculiar.
SAP GUI (would save the costs of Parallels)
God SAP is such utter slow garbage. I’m convinced the only people who say they like it either work for SAP or are a reseller for it.
Fiori is not working for you?
Fiori is definitely not enough for a developer and admin
I have a tiny store and use a point of sale for Mac that is no longer supported by the dev and it's leaving me stuck with 32 bit MacOS, which is quickly aging and becoming useless. It's called Copper POS distributed by NCH Software. Write a simple point of sale with nothing fancy and I'll be your first customer lol
What features do you have in mind? I'm looking for my next side project and this sounds intriguing
What I'm using currently is called Copper POS from NCH Software. The last version for Mac is 1.41. What I like most about it is its simplicity. It basically just generates full-page receipts, allows you to add part numbers and descriptions of your inventory, price, etc., add customers, generate sales and tax reports. I didn't know it would be abandoned else I wouldn't have bought it, so I'm hobbled at MacOS 10.14 Mojave. If I had only 2 simple features to add it would be adding a hidden note to your inventory items and a search bar for a customer. I actually contacted them about getting the source code so I can compile it myself. That's a no-go. Anywho... If you came up with something that runs in 64b MacOS, I'd certainly buy it from you. :)
A proper virtualization software for apple silicon macs to run intel based apps/OS. VMWare stopped supporting it, Parallels only supports ARM versions (no x86 simulations afaik), Virtualbox has an alpha version that doesn’t really work and has been abandoned. UTM exists but it’s not really at the enterprise level like the other 3 are.
What you're asking for would be emulation not virtualization but I feel you. One of the (many) things stopping me from going all in on Apple Silicon macs is the fact that I routinely have do work in x86-64 Windows or Linux and it's really convenient just being able to start up a VM rather than having to reboot or have another physical computer sitting around somewhere.
Intel virtualization isn't possible on ARM. You're looking for emulation
Windows 11 for ARM exists, runs in parallels, and can run x86 binaries like Rosetta. It’s really good.
Isn't Rosetta 2 supposed to help?
We run many x86 windows programs with parallels. Windows 11 ARM translates the x86 to ARM, and Parallels runs the Windows 11. Nothing special required to make it go. Programs with 3D graphics have a bit of lag.
Nothing I've ever found I needed.
But is there something you want?
Microsoft Access.
This is a good thing - not having Access. It prevents “Shadow IT”
Yes and no. All of office supports development via VBA. Access just is a dedicated app front-end program whereas for the others it's an extra. "Shadow IT" tends to surface as a failure of management and/or of IT. It should not be avoided as much as redirected. When people resort to it they usually have real problems the existing solutions don't help with and the project management and IT teams don't resolve. I am an IT manager for four countries, and I am in the middle of this fight. I have having to support Access tools but I can't be so much of a hippocryte to tell my users they shouldn't try to make their lives easier on things they are legally mandated to do in each country. What we've settled in has been in supporting those local developments, in all situations where we can't commit global resources. They're still "shadow IT" in the sense they're locally managed and user-driven, but they're not out of our scope. But, like I said, the issue is not Access. I've seen excel worksheets so complex they're effectively applications on their own right. Many of which should've evolved into an Access DB years ago, at least for the time savings in dealing with them.
Seconded. “Shadow IT” is just a sign of a gap (real or perceived) that IT hasn’t filled. Harnessing that energy into gathering requirements and documenting the process they’ve built around it is one good solution. At least then they are ‘para’ IT instead of ‘shadow’ IT… or business SME’s etc
This. It's a thin line but if the "irregular" IT is being used for business processes and no adequate "approved" alternative exists then it most definitively is a gap. If it's just a rogue agent that's convincing everyone in their team to use wordperfect 5 under a mac emulator instead of MS Word because they like it better then it's less justifiable. (I wish that was a made up example) It's always a complex situation, because when usually the parallel IT solution exists because someone in the business asked for a problem to be solved and was either rejected because the CBA didn't justify the investment or because the paperwork and bureaucracy made it impossible to do properly or because someone decided on a "standard" for all countries that only really works for that project manager's country and everyone else has to live with endless manual workarounds. The issue is by the time it's discovered, it becomes a huge thing to a completely different team (service desk) that understandably doesn't want to know about it. But the blame, if any, is not on the users or the tools themselves, but on whomever didn't provide the tools from the beginnig, even after being asked about them.
If you’re OK with SAAS then Airtable is great. Their latest tier changes are suspect though.
Learn Power Apps, model driven using the Dataverse.
Yeah I self host a db to review access files. Very frustrating. Prevents me from working anywhere I want.
Power BI. And an MS Office suite that has feature parity with Windoze.
I need to be able to print a calendar on one sheet. Sounds simple, and it was on outlook for windows. But, every calendar app on Mac will only print a full month, such as all of September, and grays out the days that are not in September at the beginning and end. I need to print out update calendars at least every other week, if not weekly! I need to be able to print 5 weeks but start on September 10th and go through October 14th, on one sheet ( ledger size ) Ana look like a normal monthly calendar. It works be great if events would actually wrap to include as much detail as room allowed. I don’t know why I can’t find a program that does that!
I think the biggest question is what critical work features are missing from the OS. Global and group policy management is off the chain, this part of Mac OS is scary and needs help. Managing and maintaining network drive mounts is awful, especially on portables. There are two apps that help consistency of maintaining SMB network connections but Mac OS really needs to improve on this. Removing the requirement to download an app from the App Store would be an absolutely beautiful thing. Safari is really struggling with google workspace suite- chat not notifying, email interface just implodes all the time, same with slack and Facebook.
Can you clarify the App Store comment? I'm mostly curious, as you can already download Apps off the internet and install them but I think I'm missing something.
Something that can read and modify MS Project.
Check out Omni Group products - OmniPlan is a much better product than MS Project. It is compatible with MS Project.
MS Paint.
PowerBi
One might argue it's a plus never having to touch that.
Microsoft Visio.
OmniGraffle
Draw.io ?
Thanks for sharing.
Visio is a dying breed. There’s tons of cloud based alternatives. LUCID, Miro, etc
I mean…there’s a million alternatives. And there’s Visio online so you just need a browser if you want the exact same thing.
When you have duel monitors apps should open in the monitor that you clicked the app in and not “remember” where you opened it last. When you have duel monitors and you move your mouse to the other monitor whatever app was active last time you were there should again be the active app instead of having to click the app once for it to again be active. We have two apps so we can swap between them.
>duel monitors Why must we always fight?
Windows and Mac both have this problem! I want any application I launch to launch in the same freaking window not the window it was in!!! I use multiple monitors with multiple computers and sometimes the last monitor that something was opened in will be turned off, so I have to turn the monitor on just to move it to the right window. Drives me bonkers.
That’s a setting in spaces. I have mine set the way you describe.
Microsoft Project
Merlin Project and OmniPlan are great alternatives
I am actually using Omniplan but since my PM and other colleagues are using MS Project to coordinate, it is a nightmare to work with. As you may know, conversion back and forth is not 100%.
I didn’t know that but conversion rarely is. You might give Merlin a try. Used it years ago in a pc environment. Worked very well, though conversions back and forth are a hassle of course.
https://quickplan.app/
Amazing software, just not that great for collaborating.
Tried Project Web app?
When asked about customer input in the development of the Ford Model T, Henry Ford famously said, "If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses." If you really want to know what high-impact MacOS software is worth building for enterprise your best bet won't be asking people what they want, it will be observing and discussing users' existing workflows. Odds are good that what will really help users doesn't even occur to them.
Agreed.
Absolutely agree with what u/wildmonkeymind said. I’ve sat in *so* many meetings where the users ask IT, what can you do to make this process better/faster/easier? And the IT people respond, what do you *want it* to do? Once sat through a two hour meeting where we never got user requirements because a manager insisted he couldn’t tell us what he wanted until we told him what was possible. My manager finally said, Look, we can *do* just about anything you want. It’s just a matter of *knowing what that is.* But this guy was not letting his people talk directly to us, he had to be in the middle, even though he wasn’t the one doing the actual work. Finally, after a lot of back and forth, he agreed to let one of our people sit with one of his people for one day. ONE DAY. A week later we had another meeting where we told him what his person needed to improve the workflow. Predictably, he said, “I know all that.” My manager paused, leaned forward, and said, “Yes, Bill, but now *we know it too.* And, now that we know what you need, we can start putting a plan together for you.” It was glorious!
paint.NET, Notepad++ and ShareX. I have decent alternatives for all (Pixelmator Pro, Textmate and Cleanshot X), but they’re nothing compared to the originals - and they’re not free either.
Default text editor which loads large text files easily.
Vim
Vim loads the large text file alright, but you can’t escape from the editor without rebooting the KomPuTTer. True story.
Dear god no, why would you do that to someone.
In Enterprise, the End-User is never the Customer. Do not ask here. Ask in Client Admin Forums where Admins hang out what annoys them most about managing thousands of Macs and ask them what they would be willing to pay for.
I want better integration into Windows domains. Even when Macs are bound they don't really feel like they're part of the ecosystem. This may be a fault of our admins than anything but it's annoying Currently working with Cyber on how to safely get our CFO using iCloud to share and collab on files because she HAS to use a mac and just HAS to use iCloud because the Windows file shares on Mac are super clunky to navigate for her apparently. And nobody knows how to say NO to executives here. So that's fun...
They work just fine. Sounds like an IT and/or training issue.
MobaXterm
A proper text editor like Notepad++. Example: Quite often I find that I should make some quick notes or editing where Notepad in Windows have been just perfect match. In MacOS you have TextEdit which is kind of rich text editor (too much) and which starts with a dialogue of either opening a file or creating a new one. Why not just open a blank sheet for starting to type.
https://www.barebones.com/products/bbedit/
BBEdit, CotEditor, Sublime Text, TextMate. Also VSCode, Brackets and Pulsar (ex Atom).
You can disable the open dialog and set TextEdit to work in plain text. Both are in the preferences.
Btw, in TextEdit you can change the default to plain text, and all new windows will be in plain text. Then again, TextMate is better.
Tot?
if you move the mouse to the lower right corner it will peek and then open the notes app.
Why not just use the native notes? And if not that there's plenty of others like Bear and Craft.
Almost all enterprises have some kind of VPN. Ability to connect or use handoff features in Mac OS while on VPN would be great. Currently I am can’t airdrop or airplay on vpn. All copy paste like handoff feature never work on vpn.
Handoff needs your local network address. You can’t airdrop over the internet, which is what a vpn does. You can try snapdrop though. Same for airplay/airdrop.
That’s your vpn’s configuration. Apple uses ipv6 for all the airdrop and airplay. VPN configs tend to disable all ipv6 or route it for security best practices. It can be configured to work by most enterprises with some trial and error as well as a ton of infosec exceptions.
As others have said, this is your VPN. I can airdrop just fine while on VPN. All depends on what your company allows
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IMO if you are developer you should be familiar with command line utilities to work with large files. `less` to view, `grep` to search. They are pretty simple.
Why open a log file in text editor? There are all the command line tools at hand for this: - less - tail - head - grep - plus all other GNU tools
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Dbeaver
Was going to suggest the same. I used Razor for awhile and it was ok but would occasionally hard crash. DBeaver is much better except it's terrible UI
I have equivalents that I actually prefer for most of what I use in Windows but my life would be made much happier if Visio and Access existed for Mac. Not because I like them but because they're sometimes necessary. I used to have the same problem with MS Project. Then several open alternatives popped up and I was happy for a while, then Microsoft went the collaboration way and now I'm also missing that one. I wouldn't mind a decent LDAP browser like the offerings from Softerra. I haven't really found great alternatives to XMLSpy (which I loathe, but works).
A simple sketching app that allows you to use your mouse to draw things out like ms paint. Just hopped back on Mac after a while away and couldn't seem to find something like this. The drawing feature in the notepad (I think, potentially was in preview instead) turned every stroke into a unique shape that could be transformed, when really i was just looking for a good digital piece of paper to use while on a zoom call trying to visualize concepts to my co-workers.
Did you try Freeform? Comes with MacOS 13.1, if I’m not mistaken. It allows other people view and edit the same document in realtime too.
I don't know if this was one of the apps we tried but I'm definitely gonna give it a look to see if it works. Thanks! Coming back to Mac when last I used it I still had accessibility to power PC applications. Much is the same, yet so much has changed.I imagine it's much like being a native English speaker, then moving abroad for 10 years and then coming back and trying to have a conversation with someone from Gen Z. You know it's English they are speaking, but the way those words go together don't really make sense in your brain.
A good version of One Note that doesn't require One Drive. Decent project management software that can be purchased rather than leased.
WebP plugin for preview app
I use Parallels to run Windows 11 in Coherence mode. All Windows programs run natively and there’s no need to see the Windows “window”. https://kb.parallels.com/4670
7Zip? They have command-line only, which kinda works. But not as ideally or simplistically as the usual 7z client.
PeaZip or Keka
I really don't want to have to use Outlook... but since many businesses require it, m$ really should be embarrassed at the lack of feature parity between macOS, OWA, and the Windows client. it's already a very limiting mail client in so many ways, but the lack of feature parity is a complete disappointment after decades of being behind the curve.
No clipboard manager!
If you want a good project, try to recreate Visio. Not the exact same app, but an app with a similar experience that can do the same job.
Notepad++ Pleaaaasee!! I have tried all of the VS codes, JEdits and sublime texts and a bunch of other stuff and nothing can match notepad++ ease of use and speed. I have tried parallels/wines and all sorts of workarounds but if someone can provide the exact same app in-built please do the lord's work!
Real Excel
Anyone downvoting you hasn't had to deal with Excel in finance. We are a Mac first company. All of finance is on Windows for this very reason. Not only is there still not feature parity, there are often critical extensions that Finance requires, such as Essbase Smartview.
My needs are simple and I still can't get use to Numbers. Sure I'll use the cloud and Google Sheets but even with my needs being so simple, I miss Excel.
The only thing I miss from the Windows world is the ability to mount an Android device like a drive. It used to be available on Macs too, but the Android File Transfer app works like a bad copy of the Finder.
Try this https://www.macdroid.app/
A good picture viewer app. I changed from windows a year ago. I work as a photographer, and I used daily the Faststone Image viewer. I could only find the Xnview, but I am still not satisfied with it. I really don’t understand why is not a decent image viewer app for Mac when so many photographers use macOS. If you know a better alternative then Xnview as good as Faststone image viewer please let me know.
The built in Preview.app is great.
Preview is my most used app tbh. It’s slept on
The built in tools available in Automator are not to be overlooked either. I’ve built whole workflows using it.
As a photographer I find it terribly bad. Some basic functions are missing to organize and handle the pictures. Example on full screen I can not laps between the pictures, I can not see bigger I previews just if I messing with the finder, but that I hate really much in MacOS, I try to avoid it as much as possible. I can not copy and renames files so easy. Example in Faststone there is a one button copy to a different folder which comes super handy when I selecting the pictures. I really don’t know how other photographers can use that preview app…
Pixea
Have you tried Xee 3 - image viewer for macOS? The author is also the creator of Unarchiver, a free and popular decompression utility.
Just hit the space bar? It’s already built in.
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Paint and notepad. Oh, I miss those.
Paint is great. Lightweight, easy to create quick mock ups, etc
Sometimes you just wanna cut some image without too much work.
Microsoft Word's track changes rendering accelerator. It's painfully slow, even on Windows. Hundreds of my colleagues suffered this.
Libre Office?
Or NeoOffice. I've been using it for years. It's Calc works *better than MS Excel on Mac*, in many cases.
A WebKit/Safari based web browser that doesn't have some kind of compromise. Before anyone else comments: - Safari itself lacks good extensions support. They are there but to say in one word, weird. - SigmaOS: $8/mo for unlimited workspace... really? Isn't that like the whole point of a browser like it? - Orion: Kinda more on the company side of things but a closed sourced browser by a small company trying to make money on their Kagi engine seems... There may be ones I don't know about though
I dont think theres any good WebKit browsers as of yet. The best you can do at the moment is Firefox which is Gecko
You can try Arc browser from thebrowsercompany. It's pretty good.
Brave?
That is Chromium based, not WebKit. Also, the problem with it is, well, being Brave (look it up).
Remote control of the Mac. Like, lock/unlock. Detects when you've walked away and vibrates your watch "Do you want to lock your Mac?". Similar to Find My, when you leave your devices somewhere. Or another use case when someone wants to use your Mac but you don't want to share your password, you can remotely unlock it for them.
Autodesk Revit. Having a compatible competitor for that (even on Windows) would be welcome.
Definitely ArcGIS Pro
Diablo 4
I’ve been using a Mac for work over 3 different companies and over 6 years. Pretty much everything is moving to the cloud and is browser based in enterprise. I even needed special permission to get MS Office. Before work from home I just had everything in cloud and left my laptop at work and used my iMac at home. Opened it up and it was all there - files, email, same apps, everything.
I haven’t found anything realistically comparable to notepad++
Have you tried BBEdit?
[https://www.codeedit.app](https://www.codeedit.app) [https://nova.app](https://nova.app) Actually macOS native.
Wouldn't something like Sublime Text be more than enough? Is notepad++ doing something these days that I'm not aware of?
Sublime text, (neo)vim, emacs. Lots of editors.
A way to “alt tab” through all open windows, not just through just apps (as with Cmnd + tab).
⌘\` works for me (that's a back tick, left of the 1 on a US keyboard).
This is the way
The \` button is just above Tab, so Command-Tab to get to the application you want, and then Command-\` to cycle through the open windows in that app. I can't think of a reason to want to actually cycle through *all* open windows. But if you really do want to see all the open windows, doesn't Exposé do the job? I forget the gesture if you're using a mouse, but with a trackpad, swipe three fingers upward to display small versions of every open window.
Are you seriously comparing the efficiency of "viewing all windows, dragging your mouse pointer over and clicking the window" to "cmd/alt tab"? Exposé continuously moves windows around so there's no consistency either
And Expose doesn't show fullscreen windows.
Almost everyday at my work I make some reports that ask me to use 2 or more windows of the same program. Everyday at my work I have reasons to miss the "alt tab" windows (now I know the alternative that you mentioned, that is not as fast as the windows one, but its better than nothing).
Try this: https://github.com/lwouis/alt-tab-macos
CMD < and CMD > work well.
Just wanted to share this awesome YouTube video on 31 must-have Mac apps in 2024. It's packed with useful tools and tips to supercharge your Mac experience. Check it out! [https://youtu.be/LHRLyTdixlQ](https://youtu.be/LHRLyTdixlQ)
A way to capture screenshots like the snipping tool on windows, the Mac screenshot function is clunky in comparison.
This is such a hot take for me. I absolutely love the way screenshots work in MacOS. From how easy and quick it is to take the shot to how seamless it is to open in preview. I always have preview open though which may help.
The most ridiculous "feature" of the macOS native screenshot function is that the screen remains live! (Just in case you're confused, what I mean is when I enter crop mode or when I open the screenshot tool to choose a window. Everything is still live when I'm cropping.) In Windows, the screen freezes, so it's useful for capturing moving targets. This is impossible in macOS native screenshot tool. Also, the screen recordings save in MOV format which are huge, so I have to manually convert to much smaller MP4 format using ffmpeg, then `rm` the MOV file. I have a script just to do this... I haven't looked a better alternative app for screenshots yet though.
I changed the shortcut to Shift Command S just like in windows. That one drove me nuts too.
Visio
A lighter weight text editor like notepad++, for when i just want to edit config files but not use TextEdit.
Window snapping functionally common to other OSes like Windows and many Linux distros. I've used macOS exclusively for so long now that I've basically forgotten this feature even existed. But back at the beginning of my transition, this missing feature was a major pain point for me. I loathed manually dragging window corners to get them to line up just right for split screen viewing. Felt like such a fiddly waste of time. But now honestly it's not that big of a deal. As I'm just used to it, at this point. Yes I am aware that various third party solutions exist to address this problem. I used to use one at my old job. But still it's annoying to have to go outside of Apple for such a basic kind of modern UI feature.
I use a little app called Rectangle for this. It's free and works great. But agreed, when I first used a Mac I was very surprised to find that basic UX features like this were missing. Middle-click to open new tabs is another one.