I didn’t know that command difference (Alt Vs. Ctrl) that makes Haiku less user friendly when all the other OS I know (Linux, OS/X and WIndows) use Ctrl c and Ctrl v (even Ctrl Shilf v in a Linux terminal session).
So, yes now selecting a small portion of text and using Alt, the sharing option works within the tiny StyleEdit applet, but… not for a file from/to any window (e.g. trying to copy/past an image from my host to the Haiku guest)!
Am I wrong?
BTW, I want to clearly repeat that this is not a critic since Haiku still is in its early development stage.
I recommend installing the “QuickTour” from HaikuDepot. It presents some of Haiku’s main features and pitfalls that esp. new users are prone to stumbling into.
macOS, by default, does not use CTRL-C, it uses Command-C. I guess you can say it’s less friendly but it doesn’t matter all that much to me.
You are probably correct. I haven’t tried images or files.
This has nothing to do with Haiku, Beta or otherwise. It has everything to do with the implementation of VMware Tools for Haiku. It’s like saying Windows is at fault because the Windows VMware tools aren’t doing something that they should.
On Github, the last commit appears to have been made in August of 2014, so it’s been a while since it’s been updated. If you’re lucky, some kind soul with get back to it and add missing features.
I found Alt+C / Alt+V annoying for the first week, then I got to really liking the fact that Alt is a lot nearer to both those keys, and resulted in less finger reach than the Ctrl alternative… Now I’m hooked on the Alt key, for better or worse. (I keep accidentally closing Firefox in Windows now…)
I’m sympathetic. I used BeOS as my main OS for a long time and, even now, I find myself reaching for the A key instead of CTRL. Although that may also have to do with the fact that the Apple keyboards have the Command key where the Alt key sits.
But, yeah, I’d say the Alt key is actually more user friendly given the proximity.
I will since I think Haiku is an interesting and promising OS.
However, I’ll be back regularly to see how it evolves.
Meanwhile, if the devs don’t enhance the VM tools (whatever for VMware Workstation, VMware Fusion, Virtaulbox or Parallels), I think I’ll wait few weeks, months or even years before to try to play again with Haiku.
I always do respect the dev team of any project for their efforts, but since I’m not a “coder”, I can’t spend more useful time since I don’t want to be considered as a hindrance critic of turner in round.
Anyhow, I’ll be back regularly to check the Haiku evolution since I’d like to port different tools to this amazing OS.
Just one more question: does Haiku devs plan to support the strict equivalent of the:
“Debian” mesa-common-dev, libglu1-mesa-dev, and libasound2-dev api?
or “CentOS and Fedora” mesa-libGLU-devel and alsa-lib-devel api?
or “RedHat” mesa-libGLU and alsa-lib api?
If so, a amazing open source BASIC IDE (editor and compiler) plus both a real time debugger and an event driven GDE (à la Visual Basic), the three of these tools being available for Linux, OS/X and WIndows, could quickly be available for Haiku, that would drive a bunch of “Old Dos and Windows Lovers and developers” to rapidly jump, endorse and promote Haiku with a lot of applications and games.
But on Windows as well as OS/X, the VMware tools are developed and supported directly by the VMware dev team… and they work or are quickly fixed.
As well as when for most of the Linux distros the open-vmware add on proposals doen’t respond to all the promises, you still have the official VMware Tools to install.
So, almost 6 years to get this Haiku beta r1 and over 4 years to not see a better VMware Add On package only make me think it’s better to wait some more time to continue testing this very interesting and highly promising OS.
Right. But that’s not the case here. With Haiku, it’s a volunteer effort. VMware is not writing the tools for Haiku. It’s all down to volunteers who decide to take it on and fix it. Other than Haiku not being a large enough target for VMware to devote resources to, it doesn’t have anything to do with the OS.
That’s fine and entirely up to you. I don’t understand it, myself, but that’s all right. Also, if fewer people make it known they would like to have the Add-Ons brought up to current standards, the less likely anyone will pick it up (unless they personally have a need for it).
You’re right but I am just expressing here a point of view that seems to me very defensible but which is not a direct criticism of Haiku.
So, since Haiku is only at a pre-release stage, it seems to me that most people who want to try it will do it in a virtual machine and not on bare metal.
Therefore, it seems to me that a great attention to VM Addon packages (whatever VMware or others) is essential to give the best experience to these users and potential promoters to attract the most new possible developers quickly.
Now, although these addons are not actually part of the OS (and you’re right about that point too), they are directly linked to it and depend on the available APIs.
Why VMWare? Why not VirtualBox (or another open source solution)? Each time I’ve tried Haiku Nightly or Beta in VBox it works nearly as well as on supported (real) hardware I also run Haiku on.
Probably because Vmware has a big market share on OSx and Windows. I just had it installed in windows and used it for testing as first try. VirtualBox works good, but the shadow of Oracle is something not so great.
I agree somehow on needing addons being done someday, but having copy/paste and screen grab automatically isnt going to attract developers.
I just spent like 95% of the time developing and coding things, but I do through ssh, where i can paste from the host OS and that.
For end-users wanting to test the OS… then that might be better.
Regarding the key combos… i find the ALT + XYZ weird, but understandable (and was changeable in some preferences, wasnt it?). Even some terminals in Linux have custom keybinds (Lxterminal has Shift Ctrl C for copy).
