Apologies all round if I’m missing something within the previous comments, but I am also a Windows user since 3.1, and while I don’t recall actually suffering any losses due to rash use of the ‘Cut’ feature, clicking ‘Cut’ always induces a sense of foreboding.

I don’t find the ‘belt and braces’ approach that Apple has adopted at all arrogant.

Mac is awful at file-manipulation processes, such as those you talk about here. Another Windows feature I miss on my mac is the ‘Paste shortcut’ option. On a Mac, the process is painfully laborious, requiring the evil necessity of the drag-drop facility.

I disagree with you on the requirement of building right-mouse-buttons (RMB) into Macs though. The OSX RMB menu includes no useful features, so why build the button?

Seamless integration you see

Some of the forums are downright nasty when people ask about this, too! Hardcore Mac users from way back when have no clue what converts are talking about. They act as if these are dumb questions. Tonight I saw the response, “Why would you want to do that? This is a problem, not a feature, if you cut something and forget to paste it, well, then, you’ve lost your file!” Not so in Windows. In Windows, cut greys out the file until you paste it OR DO SOMETHING ELSE. It is essentially a “move” command. I’ve never lost a file by neglecting to complete the process.

Another response: “You could lose your file that way. Dragging and dropping is more visually aware.” First, you can’t drag and drop if you start with a file “a” and want it to go to folder “z” because dragging won’t scroll down for you. You need to open two Finder windows to accomplish this if the folder’s in the same folder as the file and there are enough to cause scrolling necessity. Second, I’ve never liked mice for file care, and even less so with the Mac. I have to constantly re-highlight items when I try to drag them around because… well, I don’t know why, but it’s inconsistent and nothing I’m doing, that’s for sure. So, for me, dragging and dropping means “Oh crap, after rehighlighting a few times it finally grabbed them and then it dropped them before I let go of the mouse button and EGADS WHERE DID THEY GOOOO???” instead of “Right-click. Cut. Look for folder. Right-click. Yep, folder’s highlight. Paste. Ah, there it is.”

There’s MY ranting addendum to your rant. I hope Apple reads these and decides to add said “feature.” I don’t care what they call it. “Move someday” and “Paste the last thing you click ‘move someday’” is fine with me.

On the other subject – not everyone who owns a Mac has an IQ lower than a slice of bread. Before I owned one, I had that concept embedded in my head because to a PC user, things are so sleek-looking and pretty that they can’t possibly be for any technological sort. These days there’s a lot under the hood that techies can play with, but the stigma is still there.

It’s little funtions such as those you describe that I believe keeps some pc users away. They don’t like to consider themselves too stupid to switch over. I think each has its perks, personally. Macs are great for creative types (like me) and horrible for the control freaks who want to organize things manually and not depend on the OS to find everything for them (like me).

Anywho, rants over on my side.

http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20060626085238931

So you don’t have to do command click every time you want to right click. It’s much easier just to right click.

I sympathize with the idea of trying to protect ‘unthinking’ computer users, but what about the thinking ones who can’t do something that’s absolutely fundamental on any other OS? It’s like taking the knives out of your kitchen and chopping everything with a spoon in case you cut yourself.