Panther Analysis Getting Underway 463
Durin_Deathless writes "Think Secret has posted their first article analyzing the changes from Mac OS X 10.2 to 10.3. In this first installment, they look at the changes to the Installation, System Requirements, the Finder, and some other things.
They have some nice images available too."
"They have some nice images available too." (Score:3, Funny)
Re:"They have some nice images available too." (Score:2, Funny)
Re:"They have some nice images available too." (Score:5, Funny)
Re:"They have some nice images available too." (Score:3, Insightful)
The right one is: Did anyone mirror the images and is dumb enough to post link on slashdot?
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
The New Un-Aqua (Score:5, Insightful)
OS X versions reflect hardware (Score:5, Insightful)
Apple went out of its chromatic phase in a blaze of glory with the regrettable "Blue Dalmatian" and "Flower Power" iMacs. Ever since then they've moved in a more elegant direction, with no more dramatic change than the shift from colorful, purse-like iBooks to today's snowy variant. OS X has looked dated in comparison -- it did its job too well. It's no coincidence that as brushed metal themes are emerging more and more often, especially in the new Finder, that the new G5's following suit.
bring back the purse (Score:4, Insightful)
Panther before LongHorn?? (Score:5, Funny)
Brushed metal (Score:3, Informative)
Isn't Apple violating it's own HIG by making the Finder metal? I though you could only make programs that emulate physical devices metal.
Re:Brushed metal (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Brushed metal (Score:4, Insightful)
But you know, the Human Interface Guidelines are just that--guidelines. They aren't scripture.
Then again, where are we without rules to follow? UI consistency is worth the effort, right?
I find these both interesting ideas, not really subscribing to the HIG as the Bible and not really seeing them as something to look at but not pay attention to.
Thoughts?
Because, As We All Know... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Because, As We All Know... (Score:4, Informative)
Sure, QuickTime 4's UI was kind of bad, but have youy checked out Windows Media Player 9 lately? Talk about bad interface -- they didn't even include the ability to fast forward or rewind!
~jeff
Relax; it's only DRM (Score:3, Interesting)
Talk about bad interface -- [WMP9] didn't even include the ability to fast forward or rewind!
Relax; it's only digital restrictions management.
Rewind, and you view something several times that you paid to view only once, transforming a "public performance" of a copyrighted audiovisual work into a "public display". The streaming video provider may not have been licensed to offer public displays.
Fast-forward, and you skip the commercials that you are obligated to have displayed by the TOS you signed
Re:Because, As We All Know... (Score:3, Insightful)
No, it wasnt' a disaster. Not everyone agrees.
In fact, as someone who's read virtually every UI book I can get my hands on, I'd like to point out that it works as a metaphor. And that's what UIs are supposed to do.
I don't know why people hate brushed metal so much, it doesn't make sense to me.
And you don't hear people going on and on about he garish clash of colors in Windows, or Linux... ugh, the best things in the Linux and Windows LaF (which are pretty similar to begin with) are still worse than the
Re:Because, As We All Know... (Score:3, Interesting)
Intiutive? Clicking the timecode in the window to get to balance, treble, and bass controls is
You can accomplish all of the things you do with 6.2's Player
Re:Because, As We All Know... (Score:4, Insightful)
Now we're getting somewhere. You find the size of the buttons offensive. That doesn't make them bad UI. The most noticeable button is also the most frequently used one. You know--the one mapped to the space-bar. I can't really argue with the fact, that there is a minimum size the player window will have. That means you can't realistically display more than 6 windows at the same time on a 1024x768 screen. I have no idea how many users feel that this is a problem. If we stay as unscientific as humanly possible and take you and me as sample group, then I would guess that it could be about 50%. If the problem is about having the movie playing in the background then I don't see how player size keeps anyone from doing that.
Intiutive? Clicking the timecode in the window to get to balance, treble, and bass controls is
You're right. Clicking on the icon (and even though it is animated, it still is an icon) displaying the sound levels of the movie you are watching should not display the controls for modifying sound properties. What where they thinking?
LOL (Score:5, Funny)
So the physical device the Finder emulates... is your computer
Re:LOL (Score:2)
Aren't they? (Score:2)
Oh, you mean the eMac, iBook, iPod, and iMac?
Well, hrm, I guess the Finder is supposed to be 'pro' and not 'consumer'? I dunno, I guess the analogy has to break somewhere, and I guess it's with the consumer level hardware.
Re:LOL (Score:3, Funny)
So why not indicate that through a more appropriate name than "Finder".
How about, say, "My Computer"...
(ducks and runs)
Re:Brushed metal (Score:2)
Re:Brushed metal (Score:2)
Brushed metal and laptops (Score:5, Interesting)
Specifically, unless your screen is fairly far forward, you can't read the metal tab title names in Safari. Those titles are just the system font on top of the metal look, so this hassle is not limited to Safari.
Given that, I think this brushed metal is an odd direction to be moving in for a company proclaiming this their year of the laptop.
Cheers,
Ian
Re:Brushed metal and laptops (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Brushed metal and laptops (Score:4, Informative)
fix your Safari (Score:4, Informative)
A very useful "no need for getting under the hood" app and worth the donation just for the Aqua.
Re:Brushed metal and laptops (Score:3, Informative)
Not Violating the HIG (Score:4, Informative)
- Are part of the digital hub
- Emulate a real world device
- Use the "playlist paradigm"
Therefore, Panther is #3, as it has the new sidebar.Not quite (Score:3, Insightful)
Personally I don't like the idea of having the "shortcuts" to the left like in windows xp. I'm pretty sure it's just something Apple created so windows switchers would feel at home. In windows the shortcuts are direly needed since everythin
Brushed Metal window frames (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Brushed Metal window frames (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Brushed Metal window frames (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Brushed Metal window frames (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Brushed Metal window frames (Score:3, Insightful)
Finder and Safari aren't single window.
This looks like a strong release (Score:5, Interesting)
Expose is a great example of the combination of Apple's design sense and what you can do with the Quartz compositing engine. Windows scale down so you can see all of your open windows, or all of the documents in an application. I don't think its even technically possible to do that on windows because they lack an alpha channel.
I've used iChat AV and it is soooo much better than windows messenger. Unlike messenger, which forces me to a single postage-stamp sized video window, I can scale my video to any size and even go full screen. Audio conferencing seems to be pretty clear and will be great for when I'm on dial-up or talking to someone w/o a camera.
I can't wait to see more.
Re:This looks like a strong release (Score:5, Insightful)
Windows had an alpha channel since windows 2000. It's just not hardware accelerated like Jaguar (and soon Panther).
From what I've seen of Longhorn, it has abilities similar to Quartz Extreme. For example, they have a rippling window demo they showed at MS's last conference.
But how useful is rippling windows? I think in general, when it comes to technology, it's not a matter of who has the best tech, but who uses their tech in the most useful way, which Apple seems to do.
Re:This looks like a strong release (Score:5, Funny)
I don't want to think about where pop-up ads are going to appear! If they can appear anywhere in my room, at least.
And the only way to deal with them will probably still involve only my middle finger!
interesting (Score:2, Funny)
Also, as cool as Panther looks, I expect Jaguar to stick around for a while yet. I haven't seen anyone mention this, but I realized the other day that since Jaguar is fully 32-bit, you should be able to take 64-bit hardware and run two full instances of Jaguar on it in parallel. Give each instance its own CPU on a dual G5 system, and you
Re:interesting (Score:5, Funny)
Hmm, I'd like to know what kind of esoteric idea of "bitness" of cpus let's you conclude that.
At least, you seem to share it with one moderator.
Re:interesting (Score:4, Funny)
And I would like to know: Is that FULL SPEED 32bit or HIGH SPEED 32 bit?
I don't think it works that way. (Score:4, Insightful)
So what you're asking is already possible with 32-bit PPC systems.
Re:interesting (Score:5, Funny)
Just like having two arms, having 64 bits is an advantage, but not for the reasons you state.
Re:interesting (Score:4, Funny)
I'm also not sure why exactly a typical user would want to run two operating systems on a single machine, especially not if it's the same OS in both cases and none is virtual. Meh.
Re:interesting (Score:5, Funny)
Re:interesting (Score:4, Informative)
Based on your post, I am assuming you are new to the techie side of things, so I hope I don't offend.
However, it doesn't work like this, a 64bit CPU is not two 32bit CPUS. Besides, running multiple copies of Jaguar would gain you what exactly?
The architecture of OSX allows for multiple process and applications already, running OSX twice would be silly and redundant.
Expose! (Score:5, Interesting)
It basically eliminates the need for multiple desktops. I'm sure you're probably saying: "Well why not just use multiple desktops in the first place." The best answer to that is, apple likes to make simple/easy to use software. Multiple desktops are too much of a poweruser feature, and are confusing to use for the first time for many -- and that first time is KEY to adoption (afterall, the first impression you get about something is most likely to be the most important). Much like apple's aversion to tabbed interfaces, though tabbed browsing is one of those exceptions apple can't get past because it's too entrenched in browsers today.
I can give you more info [otierney.net] but you're best looking at apple's preview [apple.com].
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Expose! (Score:4, Informative)
This is the kind of feature that we want to see... (Score:5, Interesting)
Features like tabbed browsing, mouse gestures, show desktop, context-sensitive help, tooltips, etc don't add to what you can acheive with your software but they do add to the richness of your user-experience by making software more flexible and user-friendly.
Very few computing tasks are truly intuitive - if you want proof of this, try putting a novice in front of a PC and watch them struggle with even the most basic concepts - but adding nice touches like this really do help users feel more at ease with their computers and more productive in the long run.
It's not earth-shattering stuff but it's stuff like this that's made today's software so much more accessible to the masses than it was 20 or even 10 years ago.
Re:Expose! (Score:2)
OTOH, don't get me wrong, Expose looks very, very nice, and would be very useful to me I think. I wish I had Expose for GNOME :)
Re:Expose! (Score:5, Funny)
(PS Slashdork hackers: fix HTML entities. Thank you).
Re:Expose! (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Don't forget that it's patented. (Score:3, Insightful)
You get to complain about apples support of open source the day you create the second most popular operating system in the world, and then choose to open source it!
There are more computers out there running OS X than Linux, and if Apple hadn't decided to pay more than lipservice to open source, that wouldn't be the case.
Microsoft pays lip service to open source. Apple has earned, and deserves, your respect.
After their technology was stolen from them for 20 years, they decided to start protecting it. Goo
Images (Score:4, Funny)
had
Some interesting questions (Score:5, Interesting)
2. The searching system - does it maintain some sort of small database in the background to keep things fast, or just start off with a "find" style command?
3. Right now, you can't seem to drag documents onto the Application Icons on the left side to have them open automatically - any chance of that changing?
Otherwise, the OS is looking pretty good. I still spend most of my time in either a development tool or the command line, so I'm not that big into Finder and the like. (A good old ~/do[TAB]/pro[TAB] gets me to my ~/Documents/Projects folder quite fast enough).
But I do like the idea of when you select an icon, the entire square around it highlights. I've had too many times I've selected image files, and since OS X makes little thumbnail images of the picture the icon symbol, sometimes it's hard to tell if you've selected it or not (especially if the picture is already composed of dark shades).
And labels - I never used OS 9 before (I'm a Linux2OSX convert), so I never got the big deal. But if they're bright and noticable like that, I can see using them to color code my personal/work/Gameforms.com stuff for quick picking.
The one thing I'm curious to look into is the Xcode development program - from the preview, it looks pretty quick and useful. Think Secret doesn't cover that here, and probably won't, but the Xcode is the #1 thing I'd like to play with.
I'd also like to see the "auto-encrypt your Home directory" talked about. From a security standpoint, I'd like to know just how that works, how much processor power it takes up in the background (hm - explains why we may need a G5, ne?). I have a group of guys at the place I work at who are into Penetration Testing, and they're thinking about going OS X - and this Encrypted Home Directory system might be useful to them. (Especially if you can tell the OS what other directories other than
Directory encryption already availiable (Score:5, Informative)
I think in Panther they just made this feature accessible "to the rest of us" with no trickery to make it work. Perhaps they wanted to wait for a journaled file system to make this feature official, lest people accidentally corrupt a whole encrypted directory bundle...
Re:Some interesting questions (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Some interesting questions (Score:2)
No, I have no class.
Re:Some interesting questions (Score:2, Interesting)
This probably uses the same mechanism that was used in OS 9 and was still used in OS X for Find By Content....Indexing. While indexing the entire hard drive was a real performance drag, in OS 9 you could schedule it to run when the computer was likely not being used (as is 2am on Sunday morning). In OS X, the Find By Content (FBC) indexin
Xcode info and discussion.. (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Some interesting questions (Score:3, Informative)
Disk Copy has supported encrypted partitions (eg: files that mount as drives when you open them) since 10.1, which is what I've been using.
I have not noticed performance issues with using them, except for when I occasionally copy a 20-50 megabyte movie onto them. Then I go "oh yeah, that's encrypted"
I'd prefer more than AES 128, and hopefully the keychain will be removable (Eg: you can put it on a flash USB device so that absent of it, the computer has no
Panther doesn't run on G5's (Score:2, Interesting)
The version of OSX that will ship with the G5's is 10.2.7, which has backwards hacks of 10.3 stuff like expose
Re:Panther doesn't run on G5's (Score:4, Insightful)
This gets my vote for funny. Apple won't ship any new features with 10.2.7, least of all Expose, but will save them for Panther when they can charge for it.
No wonder... (Score:2, Funny)
Now I know the real reason...
XCode Screencaps (Score:5, Informative)
My unanswered questions. (Score:3, Interesting)
I've seen no mention of specifics related to VPN support in Panther. Apple claims IPSec support. However, 10.2 has IPSec support, just no front-end. Is there a front-end for establishing an IPSec tunnel in Panther? It sounds like maybe this is integrated into the Internet Connect app?
Jobs touted updates to Mail.app but didn't mention whether you can actually do a more advanced search. The current search functionality stinks in comparison to other email clients which allow you to give any number of criteria. Has the search in Mail been improved?
Is X11 still a stand alone application in Panther or is more integrated with the OS?
The Apple Panther page says "support for popular Linux APIs". Any indication of what this means?
Is NetInfo still used as the centralized database for all OS resources or have they finally replaced it with LDAP?
Re: (Score:2)
Re:My unanswered questions. (mail) (Score:3, Informative)
X11 was a seperate install just like it is now. How well it is intigrated is a different thing which I didnt get a chance to play with.
OK, so you've got a new Finder... (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm a recent "switchbacker" (used Mac from Plus to early PowerMac's and just got a dual G4). Since it's a ".#" release, I wasn't expecting a ton of major changes (since that should be a "#." release). However, this is the second review I've seen that spends the majority of it's time on the Finder. Wow. A new Finder.
I know things are different in Mac land (one reason I switched back), but not being an insider or able to attend the conference (hence, no preview copy), I'd really love to start seeing more authoritative articles on what kinds of 64-bit goodness is there for the G5's or a thorough coverage of what cool parts of FreeBSD 5 made it into Darwin/X.
Granted, it's a different perspective (I'm perfectly happy cd'ing and ls'ing from a terminal). Perhaps most Mac folks will be cheering a decent upgrade to their main view of the system.
I can't help thinking, tho, that alot of Mac
1 WEEK WITH PANTHER (Score:5, Informative)
1. File browser (a la windows) is fast and can be changed back to a "normal" window.
2. Expose is brilliant. Though it may conflict with the screensaver settings when corners are used. I personally like using the f-keys for expose and the corners for the screensaver (activation and deactivation).
3. Faxing is as easy as printing and saving as PDF. You can also have received faxes mailed or printed. Faxing is very very easy in 10.3.
4. Preview.app is faster and works in a similar fashion as Acrobat Reader. Nice.
5. Fast user switching is just brilliant (graphically). It will be very useful when you have a shared machine.
6. Secure "Empty Trash" is a nice feature. I am not sure if I will use it...but someone in my office thinks it is the Holy Grail. I am not that excited about it...but it is probably useful.
7. Color Coded Folders/Files (the text is color coded in actuality) is nice and saves me time when digging for a file or group of files.
8. The "eject" menu icon in the right hand side of the menu bar is interesting. But it only worked with the drive tray. It would be nice if it would eject mounted items and servers.
9. User customization of desktop pics and colors is refined and much friendlier.
10. The print center is much improved.
This is the bad stuff...
1. The fax feature did not integrate well with the address book. BUT...you can have one machine as the dedicated fax machine and all other computers in the office can fax through it.
2. Some photoshop filter controls did not draw correctly on the screen or didn't show up at all.
3. There seemed to be some cut and paste clipboard errors. It seemed to show up in Safari and the Address Book.
4. Quicken 2003 seems to have strange behavior when used in 10.3. But it is usable.
Features that will hopefully show up in the actual release:
1. Piles. I know they seem trivial. But I would like it.
2. Themes. I really like the idea of customizing my OS and maybe tone down Aqua a bit.
3. Multiple docks. One for office apps. One for games. One for graphical/web apps. And in the darkness bind them...
I know this is a preview release...but it is very stable and usable. I cannot wait until the actual release. The fax sharing and abilities are worth the price of the upgrade. The rest is just gravy. My $.02.
Re:1 WEEK WITH PANTHER (Score:3, Interesting)
Waaay back when OS X was under development and hadn't shipped yet I read a blurb about themes on one of the reasonably reliable (haha) rumor sites. It seems that themes was something they were actually planning on but Steve played with Kalieadescope (themes for OS 9) to try the idea out and *hated* it with a passion. He thought 99.9% of the themes were amateurish, ugly and big steps backwards in terms of usability and t
Open/save dialog boxes vs Finder? (Score:5, Interesting)
I *really* want to see a screenshot of this! (would y'all please stop /.ing the article? :) One pet peeve I've had with Macs is the
disparity between the Finder and the open/save dialogs you get from
regular software. Course this problem exists on Windows and Linux
too, but the Mac finder is much nicer, and so the disparity is more
pungent on a Mac.
I've just had too many stints where a newbie saves a file (using a save dialog) and then can't find it. Because the finder looks different. Heck, I've used these things for 20 years and I sometimes lose files myself (must be getting senile).
I REALLY want better integration with open/save dialogs so my mother can find any file she happens to save!
Re:Open/save dialog boxes vs Finder? (Score:4, Informative)
Piles? (Score:4, Interesting)
Anybody know? I was looking forward to hearing more about this, but fear it's fallen by the wayside...
Re:Piles? (Score:4, Informative)
It seems that someone missed this, and that "piles" is actually the "Expose" feature in Panther. I got to play with this last night, and it is pretty cool even though it ran like shit (and was expected to) on my spare G4/350 with a feeble video card.
~Philly
Saddening (Score:5, Insightful)
It saddens me to see such so much anti-Apple sentiment in this discussion. I am mainly a PC user, and I probably will always be a PC user, for reasons I won't bring up here, but I've used Apples before and they aren't bad computers. For example, the video and multimedia capabilities on MacOS can be matched nowhere else. And my short encounters with MacOS X have been very enjoyable.
So take this anti-appleism elsewhere. You're ruining the experience for others.
What the new finder means to you (potentially) (Score:3, Insightful)
First thoughts on Panther (Score:5, Informative)
* Expose rocks. It's awesome. I couldn't imagine working without it again.
* Mail.app has been made a little bit prettier, and a little bit more functional.
* Terminal.app has become usable as my primary terminal. You can now configure it to send Page-Down and Page-Up to the session instead of to Terminal.app's scrollbars.
* I don't like the milky look. I want the pinstripes back.
* The new finder is 2048X better. It's great.
* I really wish they would either go with all brushed metal or all not - at least for the instances that go against the user interface guidelines. Either way, give me back the pinstripes.
* The activity monitor is cool. You can change the colors on those graphs we saw - why they default it with those colors that look like ass, I don't know.
* iTunes rocks. I don't know that much has changed, but that just had to be thrown out there.
* Safari 1.0 (also available for Jaguar, I know) is the best browser I've ever used. They've made some great speed improvements.
* The OS in general just feels a little bit snappier. With my aging iBook, any speed improvements get huge ++'s from me.
Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)
Reads NTFS formatted drives (Score:5, Informative)
I have a lot of drives that have been formatted as NTFS. If a computer pukes and dies, it's great to be able to back up the data to my laptop (mac) rather than having to take the drive to a PC to pull the data off.
As of yet the drives are read only, although it does have a non-functional (as of yet) authentication option so who knows.
My Panther Notes (Score:5, Interesting)
Exposé is so good that after only a day or two of using panther, I now find myself reaching for it when I am back on jaguar (or on windows/linux machines).
As always I have a few notes.
The Finder
1. The metallic interface should be optional.
2. Column view still lacks sorting by anything other than 'name' in column view. I would suggest adding sorting options via a contextual menu.
3. Fonts, HTML, EPS and any file handled by quicktime should be previewable right in the finder.
4. Contextual menus need to be smarter. For example if I click on a font or a saver file I should be able to send it to it's proper folder.
5. Lack of customizability is still a major complaint. There is still no way to change the font, to set the style of the desktop font, or to control grid spacing. Also we are limited to 10 point minimum font size.
6. Finder windows still take up too much screen real estate. If apple used small scrollbars it would save a significant # of pixels per window.
7. The finder still does not respect drag and drop locations when something is dropped on the desktop. This is a major sin in my book.
8. Minimization of fields in list view is still one of my pet peeves.
Why minimize 'Date Modified' to 'Dat..fied" when it could be "Date"
Why minimize 'Size' to "..." instead of 'Size' or 'kb'
Why does 48KB go from "4..b" to "..b" to "..." instead of "48k", "48", "48"... and so on. The kind field is especially dumb.
Also why doesn't the text get more condensed as it did in OS 9 when the field gets narrow.
9. Labels for items that one does not have permission to label should be handled more gracefully. Right now if you try to label something out of your permission range the labels are simply not selectable. This will be confusing to many users who don't understand permissions.
10. The way labels are indicated in column view is extremely confusing. Especailly if your highlight color is similar to a label, labeled items appear to have been selected.
11. The admin should be able to control what kind of finder window a user sees and they should be able to control which drives/folders are available within the finder window.
12. A new (better) folder design would be appreciated.
13. There should be an option to turn disk images into folders (this is what users normally want to do with downloaded images).
The Dock
The current dock is great for computer newbies and casual users, but it quickly breaks down when power users are in production on a big project.
1. Exposé is fantastic, but it still does not solve the problem of minimized windows (it does not show windows minimized to the dock although it probably should). While minimized windows will be used less often when users get the hang of Exposé, there is still a need for some sort of windowshading that allows for speedy one or two click window swapping. I personally miss having windowshade from OS 9 and had a haxie installed to add this behavior. Even better is minimize-in-place hack from unsanity which recently became available. I have found shading invaluable in production. The standard OS X minimize/maximize simply takes too long to swap between windows and windows get lost in the dock. Also exposé, does not solve the problem of window clutter (many of our designers are clean desktop sort of people), while some sort of shading allows for clean desktops and efficient production. 3rd party hacks are great, but having it built in would be better.
2. Grouping would really help the power user. I currently have 80 items in the dock and can never find anything. I use all my apps frequently so I want easy access to them. If instead of having them all minimized, I had springlloaded tabs in the manner of O
If you read the parent, read this, too (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree with a good deal of what you've said, but I have several major complaints (this IS Slashdot, after all):
2. Column view still lacks sorting by anything other than 'name' in column view. I would suggest adding sorting options via a contextual menu.
No. You should never have settings or options available only via contextual menus, which a TON of users never even see. If they're in a contextual menu, find a place elsewhere for them, as well.
3. Fonts, HTML, EPS and any file handled by quicktime should be previewable right in the finder.
I don't agree with this, either. Perhaps QuickTime, but why everything else? Why not let the Finder do what everyone has bitched about the Finder being bad at since the beginning of OS X, and be a good navigation tool? (I like Jag's Finder, but nothing is ever perfect.) Concentrate on making the Finder let you find shit first and foremost. It doesn't need to be a Swiss Army Knife, it just needs to pass font files to the FontBookThingy app. Bing, done.
4. Contextual menus need to be smarter. For example if I click on a font or a saver file I should be able to send it to it's proper folder.
Same thing as the first point. Contextual menus should only provide a convenient grouping of commonly used commands that pertain to the object you've clicked on to generate the contextual menu you're looking at.
This may also confuse more people, since you have your font folder and the system's font folder. How do you distinguish between the difference(s) for the average (non-geek) user?
6. Finder windows still take up too much screen real estate. If apple used small scrollbars it would save a significant # of pixels per window.
The scroll bars and window title bars are the same size in OS X and OS 9. For example, the window title bars are 22 pixels tall in both 9 and X.
11. The admin should be able to control what kind of finder window a user sees and they should be able to control which drives/folders are available within the finder window.
Hmm . . . I agree with the second half of that, as long as you're not restricting items in someone's home folder (duh), but that first part is an interesting point. Should a user be forced to see certain styles of windows for different folders? I dunno.
Perhaps only if the admin couldn't screw with the window of a folder that belonged to them. I think that's how Jaguar does it, but I'm really not sure.
12. A new (better) folder design would be appreciated.
What's wrong with the current folder icon? Get a system icon replacement thingie from ResExcellence or wherever.
13. There should be an option to turn disk images into folders (this is what users normally want to do with downloaded images).
Apple does something similar with "Internet-enabled disk images". I think they're shitty, though, since I can't look at a .dmg file and tell that it's going to delete itself once I double-click it. Some of us like to back up the things we download, and self-trashing .dmgs totally screw that up.
1. Exposé is fantastic, but it still does not solve the problem of minimized windows (it does not show windows minimized to the dock although it probably should). While minimized windows will be used less often when users get the hang of Exposé, there is still a need for some sort of windowshading that allows for speedy one or two click window swapping. I personally miss having windowshade from OS 9 and had a haxie installed to add this behavior. Even better is minimize-in-place hack from unsanity which recently became available. I have found shading invaluable in production. The standard OS X minimize/maximize simply takes too long to swap between windows and windows get lost in the dock. Also exposé, does not solve the problem of window clutter (many of our designers are clean desktop sort of people), while some s
Warning with Macintosh Manager/networking/RAID (Score:3, Informative)
I'm posting this for posterity, not to be critical. Hopefully this will be modded "informative" if anything.
Running a PowerMac G4 450MHz/1GB/2x78GB+1x28GB. The (2) 78GB drives were RAIDed to a single partition with 10.2.6 running smoothly even with heavy Classic operation. Some admin duties include Macintosh Manager and Workgroup Manager.
Installed Panther on the 28GB drive and booted onto that OS. Things were running very smoothly and fast(!). Logged into Workgroup Manager and exited. Logged into Macintosh Manager and this is when trouble started.
My theory is that, because Macintosh Manager auto-mounts the shared volume of the server you are connecting to, this set up a peculiar scenario that Panther was unfamilar with. The next action that I performed was to access a different shared volume (which had been previously mounted and operating fine). That is when I got the wheel of death.
Thinking it was Just Another Wheel, I continued working (Excel, Classic apps, and more) with little trouble. After waiting long enough, I began Force Quitting apps (including the Finder) until all that remained was the Wheel.
Rebooting didn't help, nor did Shutting Down, zapping PRAM, or Disk Utility (which consistently responded with Unknown Error (-9998).
Various efforts were fruitless. Ended up reinstalling 10.2.2, upgrading to 10.2.6. Things are back to normal less data loss.
My bad. I should be more careful.
Steve's Own Words... (Score:5, Funny)
So what now? We lick the metal-brushed windows? They'd better be nice and smooth or I'll get metal splinters in my tongue. Wait... What if they're not warm enough? I don't want to get those things frozen stuck on my tongue!
Give me my aqua, por favor.
MAC Target Audience (Score:5, Funny)
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Panther will include a final X11 window server for Unix-based apps, improved NFS/UFS, FreeBSD 5 innovations as well as support for popular Linux APIs, IPv6 and other important acronyms.
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I wish they'd lay off the acronym support until they get those vowels working properly!
Re:MAC Target Audience (Score:3, Funny)
This was a joke Jobs made during his presentation.
A pretty well recieved one at that.
New interface + speed (Score:3, Insightful)
I'd like to suggest a reason for this: the new interface seems to lack some of the transparency that was present in Jaguar. This could make it much faster, since transparency, even as handled by Quartz Extreme, still takes a bit more time than no transparency-- especially with fade-in effects.
Try it on Jaguar: Use Unsanity's Fruit Menu to turn off transparency in the menus and see that they drop down instantaneously rather than fading in.
Of course, I could be horribly mistaken...
What about the little details? (Score:3, Interesting)
They don't sound like such a big deal, perhaps, but they truly convey a great deal of valuable information when implemented.
Also poorly done is the abysmal internal truncation ('...') of text in narrow fields when in list view. (Also applies to long file names in icon view.) I really miss the condensed type that 9 used in these cases.
"Get Info" functionality is limited, as it doesn't tell you how many items are in a folder, and I find it pretty useless that getting info on multiple items can not open multiple windows, to allow for easy comparisons.
And WHY do removable volumes NOT remember open windows when remounted? If I log out (or even restart!) with the drive connected, the windows are remembered. So why not when they are manually un/remounted? This is really inconvenient, since I routinely modify the contents of many directories during a normal working day, and would like those windows to remain open when I transfer my Firewire drive between computers.
I also hope the zoom-to-fit function is less broken than it currently is. Ditto for windows correctly remembering their settings. I am tired of that damned toolbar reappearing again and again in windows where I had turned it off.
And today I narrowly averted disaster, almost overwriting the wrong file, because its modification time will not update until I click on it. Ditto for adding files to a folder with a process other than the Finder. The window must be manually brought to the foreground (or actively selected if it is already there) before the files show up. Once again, this is a disaster waiting to happen.
So, rant aside, are ANY of these things addressed in Panther? I am resigned to not being able to turn off all the cycle-stealing eye candy (including the excessive use of translucency which is anathema to visual clarity), but since my next computer will be a G5, I suppose I'll just have to live with it... But I'd be greatly appreciative if more attention was paid to fixing the broken stuff than adding more new features to debug.
My Panther experience. (Score:3, Interesting)
The only other odd thing was that I couldn't find the drive/folder encrytion feature. It was talked about at the WWDC but not shown and I don't believe it has been implemented yet. Oddly, GNU Chess was also missing. I grabbed the source code from Apple and used the new XCode to compile it and it worked flawlessly. XCode is great. Two clicks and I had a working binary. Very nicely integrated and well thought out. Kudos to Apple.
Bugs aside, Panther is an improvement. The only reservation I have is that Apple expects users to shell out another $129 to get it. Yearly OS updates at $129 are not going to be popular. I know Apple spends a lot on OS development but if they keep going back to the same well, the well will run dry.
Re:I love the Places sidebar! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I love the Places sidebar! - the Shelf! (Score:3, Informative)
Re:/.ed already (Score:3, Funny)
Well, according to NetCraft [netcraft.com], their server is running FreeBSD. Go figure ...
Re:Now with nice images! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Now with nice images! (Score:2)
It pains me to think of the number of times I've had to explain that, even to sales droids...
-1: Copyright Infringement (Score:5, Insightful)
This guy is even karma-whoring by not posting anonymously.
-Esme
Re:Serious Bluetooth Issues (Score:4, Insightful)
out of the box? there is no box to be out of. you're running a beta OS at best. they have misspelled words, non functional apps etc. of course there's stuff that doesn't work.
on the off chance that you're one of the few developers who are SUPPOSED to have this, i would expect you to shrug this off as typical in a beta build. otherwise this sucker comes with zero promises or warrenties.
Re:I don't get the Places sidebar (Score:3, Insightful)