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Zarf in Mac OS X Land
baruz writes "Andrew Plotkin (aka Zarf), award-winning interactive fiction author and Mac and Unix programmer, has not-so-recently posted a secret diary of his experiences installing and using Mac oh ess ex."
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What annoys me most is the "You don't need to know" attitude it takes to a lot of the things in it. For example, it's possible to get detailed info on startup, but they hardly make it obvious how. And the help features are incredibly annoying. One other thing: I think the designers spent too much time thinking "Feature X is cool" and not enough time on "Will feature X be incredibly annoying after a few weeks' use?"
I think this outlines a fundamental problem in switching between OSen, though. When I first installed X, I installed ASM Menu, FruitMenu, everything I could find to make it as much as possible like MacOS 9. Over time, though, I've started trimming these bits back out because they really aren't neccesary. I was just trying to force my old UI preconceptions onto what was an entirely new OS, instead of adapting to fit what the UI was designed for.
:)
:)
In general, though, this article was really on point with a lot of the interface crap Apple has piled on in recent years (I hate Sherlock!!!). Although his hatred of animations might have shown a need to move on from OS9 - does he realize OSX is preemptively multitasked, thus allowing you to do other things while the app icon slides out of the dock?
All in all, even with the occasional human interface snafu, I love MacOS X. It's still a mite bit slower than OS 9, but the overall experience and quality makes booting into 9 seem like travelling back in time 20 years. The development environment is unmatched, and it's like running 3 OS's worth of software (OS9, OSX, and GNU/Linux/BSD/OSS/Gnome/what-have-you).
Plus I like those little animations.
A friend of mine installed OS X at my urging. He's used Unix boxes in work for years, so he's computer dumb. He liked it, generally speaking.
Anyhow. He partitioned his harddrive four ways. It gave him troubles from day one. Not big ones, just little ones. The GUI didn't fit how he was using his Mac. The Application button, now was meaningless, the Documents button was meaningless, He never used his Home folder. He fought the interface to do it "his way". Looked for and downloaded shareware apps to help him OS 9ify his computer. He fought his computer for a year, changing this, changing that, trying to make his GUI work his way. That's fine as long as you don't want to get any work done.
So I tell him...."kill the partitions and use the supplied UI elements the way they are meant to be". He says no. Off and on, we have this conversation and he always wants it "his way".
Then one day, he decides that he will try my advice. I tell him how to save his mail and prefs, he backs up his "essentials" on CD. Un partitions, Reinstalls, updates, etc. For one week, he decided to actually USE the UI elements as they were meant to be used. That was 4 months ago. All that shareware he bought is now useless to him. He no longer fights his computer and has found that OS X is EASIER to use than OS 9 as long as you are willing to change a few habits. Not only that, changing those habits took very little time.
In the article, this guys first action was to ceremoniously declare (via instant format and partition, which he complains didn't go over as smoothly as he wanted) "f**k this setup, I want the set up to be TOTALLY different" and has been fighting OS X ever since. I'm willing to be if he set aside his precepts and used it the way it is set up, one week later, he would not be fighting his machine and would be back to getting work done.
Burn Hollywood Burn
I think his problem was that the interface for doing so is not intuitive, and he has a point. The text on the installer window says "Click the lock to make changes", which is rather vague; it should be something like "Click the lock to enter your password." Better yet, it should ask for your password right away.
How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
Ran through the OSX registration procedure
He complains about being forced to register... this has already been commented on. But having no true option is stupid.
Big dialogue box came up: "You need an Administrator password to install the software." Below this, icon of a padlock: "Click the lock to make changes." Totally baffled. What do I do now? No clue how to enter administrator password.
Yeah, that can be confusing. You don't know that your password is an administrator password (it never tells you about the concept of administrators, or that you're it).
Just so you know, he actually took three days to finish Alice (and that was in Easy mode and with a couple of hints on how to beat the bosses. Plus liberal use of cheat keys in final battle.)
I'm better at Alice than he is.
Getting more experience working with new Finder. No longer feel totally mummified, but still not comfortable. Column view -- bleah. (Remember using NeXT boxes in college. Didn't like column view then either.)
Bah, column view was something I always wanted in the Finder. It's good, get used to it :P It's better if you have more folders than files (it's good at finding files deeply nested, and makes it more convenient to have your files deeply nested).
Hit cmd-F to search partition. Oh, no. Sherlock. Forgot how awful Sherlock has become
Sherlock is a bane on the Mac's usefulness. Stupid Steve.
[Dock:] Can click app icon, wait for window list pop-up -- but this is slow and confusing. All Terminal windows have same name anyway
You can Get Info on a Terminal window and change the name. Very useful. Otherwise they have the ttyp# in the name.
Only missing UI element: configurable Apple menu. Or some way to do pop-up menu with hierarchical structure showing a directory tree. Needed for One True Way MacOS structure.
Well, get used to column view, and you've got it. Try this:
- Click Finder icon in the Dock.
- Hit Command-opt-F. This brings up Favorites. Set it to Column View.
- Close window now.
- Hit Command-opt-F. The finder should remember that that folder should be in Column View (it will also remember the window size, for when you open up a new window, instead of navigating from an existing window).
Here's your wonderful hierarchical list, as easy as clicking the Finder icon and hitting command-opt-f. Add folders with aliases in them as your hearts content. Alright, not as easy as the Apple menu, but people abused that thing to no end...This animation takes approximately 0.75 seconds. After approximately 0.375 seconds, I am banging on computer top, screaming "Get move on!!"
Yup, there's too much stupid animation in OS X. A lot of it is warranted and doesn't get in your way, a lot of it (like hitting Command-S(ave), return) takes too damn long as the sheets come and go.
How hard would it be to write a freeware Dock item which navigates folder tree, without delays?
Dock menus pop up instantly if you control-click. Or if you have a two button mouse and right click. He finds that out later, but not the two-button thing. I'm happy with one button... I use two at work because I got one there.
Spent more time selecting fonts. Font selection is annoying.
Font selection is pretty awesome, the Font panel resizes. When the panel is small you get popup menus for your fonts. At a bigger size you get scrollable lists. You can organize fonts into your favorite groups (like Monospace fonts, it doesn't do it for you). And you can set your Favorite fonts, and while you're browsing your favs you get a nice little custom UI for it (favs include bold/point size in one click).
More generally: Carbon and Cocoa apps have different font-rendering.
Actually, CoreGraphics (Quartz 2D) and QuickDraw have different font rendering. The Finder is a Carbon app. Some (many) Carbon apps don't want to jump to Quartz because (a) the developers know QuickDraw and (b) Quartz 2D isn't on OS 9, so the app won't run on both platforms.
(Five minutes later: Selected "Get Mac OS X Software..." from Apple menu. Nothing happened. The hell? I've got menu option eating space in Apple menu, can't get rid of it, and it doesn't work? Stupid Steve!)
He deleted IE, and has not set his default web browser (IE is always the fallback browser if it can't find the preferred web browser). Until he goes to Internet prefs and sets his browser of choice, it (and anything else that wants to launch an http url) won't work.
I've deleted IE, the OS X version is an amazing pile of do-do; absolutely busted functionality. OmniWeb, Mozilla, and Chimera rulez.
On the other hand, have sworn off using Help system anyhow, due to annoying animations.
And it takes about 30 seconds to load.
Moderators should have to take a reading comprehension test.
Because they (or rather the user interface designers that work for them) most likely know more about user interfaces than you do. Contrary to popular belief (particularly with Linux users) customisability is very poor user interface design and this is pointed out in Jeff Raskin's book "The Humane Interface".
When it comes down to it, you are far better off adjusting your habits to something that is more productive instead of continuing to use less efficient techniques to save relearning time. A new OS doesn't come out that often, take some time to appreciate it's new features and benefit from them or there's simply no point in upgrading.
Actually, Zarf does not appear to be brain dead at all. He is complaining about bad things it the UI that Apple learned about 15 years ago, and forgot when NeXT was paid to buy them out. Things like "Icons should be nouns, and not verbs."
He was spot on with the problems with the Installation dialog. It doesn't matter how long it too to figure it out, it is that he had to figure it out in the first place. I'm not complaining about the fact that you need authorization to install an app. I am complaining about the fact that the UI expects you to know that the little lock, inside a circle, is a button, and the only way to install the software. It would have been _much_ better UI to have an authenticate and install, rather than a quit button.
This is not to mention that the installer does not have an authenticate option in the menus. Remember, in a good UI, icons are nouns, menus are verbs and buttons. Therefore having an authenticate button (not an icon) and a authenticate menu item would be much better than the current situation.
The fact that you cannot delete a deleted user's home folder is stupid and _must_ be remedied. I would suggest that the folder needs to be moved to the admin's folder, and him given full privs to everything. Of course this should only be able to be given to certain admins.
He also complains about the restore disks, and how it is not customizable. Having searched for the iTunes sampler that I accidentally deleted from my Wife's iBook, I understand his pain.
Sherlock sucks, 'nuff said.
Again Apple learned years ago that translucency sucks, yet they insist that all Macs come with translucency.
Apple learned years ago how to make files and folders not rely on file paths, yet they insist on using an installer that requires things to be where the installer thinks they should be. My computer is MINE. I can understand a change to "the home folder and applications folder is MINE" but then we learn that the apps folder is not really yours either. Oh, and if I want to put other apps in my home folder, they won't register services either. Of course, if there was anything as infinitely cool as services for Mac OS 9, it would register at startup, and be done with it.
I hope that Apple did enough UI testing to time the animations for optimum usage. I like the animations, especially the genie effect. They aid in assisting clueless users. Testing should have found the optimum speed for animations to not hinder most users. Oh, and it doesn't matter than you can do something else in the meantime if everything you are doing requires that app to be functional.