fasola

It seems like the author and you actually agree. You described the custom in “customary”; I understood “there’s nothing inherently better” to be in the context of screens.

It isn’t Apple’s fault (their keys predate Windows), and it isn’t really Microsoft’s fault either – when they were adding Windows key, the Alt key and its scancode already existed, too. Both companies were doing rational things that benefitted the users at the time.

Ah, I see. Windows does something very similar, except if you select by e.g. double clicking (which doesn’t have any “edge preference”), Shift+left/right arrow always immediately extends/contracts from the right edge (vs. on a Mac when the first Shift+arrow decides which edge will be used).

Other interactions seem the same on Mac and on Windows.

I swap between Mac and Windows and they both seem to do the same? (Always extending seems like it would be torture.)

Except in many apps Return submits forms and Shift+Return inserts a new line, and in many other places Return and Enter do the same thing, showing to me that those labels are already pretty meaningless. It feels like a transition a good design team could figure out, keeping the distinction for those who want it, but simplifying for the rest. I believe Windows calls these Enter and Numpad Enter, or something like that? That feels better to me.

I would love for Apple to move from Return to Enter as the default label, indeed.

No. He calls the big one Enter presumably in recognition that’s what people know it as (check how any cross-platform web app calls it), and the numpad one Return/Enter because that’s what it is collectively known as across all the platforms. This all makes sense to me. Since the keys on the photos don’t have labels, this feels better for a reader in 2026 than being overly pedantic.

Enter appropriated the same “arrow returning” symbol long ago, and the key is colloquially known more often as Enter these days.

??? This isn’t on the linked page.

The mea culpa covers the (accidental?) app copying part, but doesn’t cover the lying to Gruber part, which seems worse.

> You continue to use it for something else? How is it different from any other default shortcut you don't like and change?

It’s different because “you” in this context is the keyboard manufacturer, not the user.

I saw the argument more as: Gorton begat Leroy and that became the defacto technical drawing standard through the widespread adoption of drawing templates. The differences between Leroy and the standards you mentioned seem very small to me.

The article has a link to the licensing agreement between Taylor Hobson and Gorton, links to other posts explaining how Leroy bought Gorton machines, an interactive comparison where you can see the similarity of the letters, and dozens of photos and scans of docs where you can compare them yourself, too. I would say that is a lot of evidence presented.