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Mac OS X 'Panther': User at the Center

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the piling-it-on dept.

MatthewRothenberg writes "Over at eWEEK, we believe we've got the drop on the much-discussed interface enhancements to Mac OS X 10.3, a k a Panther: The theme of this September release will be 'User at the Center,' an umbrella term for a variety of new features aimed at leapfrogging Microsoft when it comes to pervasive, user-focused computing. Niceties include user-configurable 'piles,' a fast-user-switching-type feature, and easy transferral of home directories among devices and the Web. Oh, and it's mo' definitely 64-bit-complete, too."

64 of 534 comments (clear)

  1. OS X is based on BSD and BSD rules! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    How can BSD be dying when it has a mascot like this?! Linux needs to get its act together if it's going to compete with the kind of hot chicks and gorgeous babes that BSD has to offer!

    You just can't take Linux seriously when its fronted by losers like these. You Linux groupies need to find some sexy girls like her! I mean just look at this girl! Doesn't she make you hard? I know this little hottie floats my boat! This guy looks like he is about to cream his pants standing next to such a fox. As you can see, no man can resist this sexy little cock teaser. Even this old bearded Unix guru is apparently unable to take his eyes off her!

    Join the campaign for more cute open source babes today!

    1. Re:OS X is based on BSD and BSD rules! by MisterSquid · · Score: 4, Funny

      You forgot the best one!, definitely not your average teenage chick celebrity.

      ::fumbles OS X in a frenzied rush to BSD::

      --
      blog
    2. Re:OS X is based on BSD and BSD rules! by Billly+Gates · · Score: 3, Funny
      I was under the impression that this is sco's new model after the recent lawsuit fiasco.

      --
      http://saveie6.com/
  2. Did he say... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    piles?

    I'm not touching those things.....

    Yuck!

  3. drop, what? by Dg93 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Got the drop? There was nothing in this article that hasn't been floating around the mac rumor sites for weeks now.

    --
    --Dg
  4. Leapfrogging? by Brento · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ...new features aimed at leapfrogging Microsoft.... Niceties include...a fast-user-switching-type feature, and easy transferral of home directories among devices and the Web.

    Not to troll, but if they're thinking they can leapfrog with user switching and roaming home directories, they need to jump a lot higher than that. User switching came with XP, and roaming home directories has been in since 2000. My home directory syncs automatically between my desktop & laptop & other home workstation, and it's been brain-free for years with Windows 2000 Server.

    --
    What's your damage, Heather?
    1. Re:Leapfrogging? by alernon · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Well, that sentence was most likely the work of the articles author and not any source at Apple. I think it's just badly written/researched. The author probably just picked a couple of features out without even checking if these were the ones that were meant to surpass Windows in usability.

    2. Re:Leapfrogging? by Otter · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Actually, the submitter said that. The article specifically mentions that the features are intended to catch up with XP.

      --
      What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
    3. Re:Leapfrogging? by feldsteins · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I don't think anyone at Apple would say they're "leapfrogging" Windows with a "fast user switching" work-alike feature. I think they would say, however, that they're going to do it better. And I bet they do.

      Well maybe not better by nerd standards. Better in the sense that a lot more of the user base actually finds the feature understandable and easy enough to actually use instead of being one of those wierd "did you know?" features of windows that only nerds use.

      Actually I hope they hide the feature away in some rarely-looked at place. Your average user who doesn't know the difference between a document and a program certainly doesn't know the difference between logging out and logging out while leaving applications running. I mean just think of the people who have come to you and said "mydocument is gone!" because it no longer appeared in the "recently used" list.

      --
      You like your Macintosh better than me, don't you Dave? Dave? Can you hear me Dave?
    4. Re:Leapfrogging? by nadador · · Score: 5, Insightful

      > Not to troll, but if they're thinking they can
      > leapfrog with user switching and roaming home
      > directories, they need to jump a lot higher than
      > that. User switching came with XP, and roaming
      > home directories has been in since 2000. My home
      > directory syncs automatically between my desktop
      > laptop & other home workstation, and it's been
      > brain-free for years with Windows 2000 Server.

      Not to troll, but NFS has been letting my home directory roam from station to station since it made it out of the lab at Sun in 1984.
      Thanks to Google:
      http://classes.csumb.edu/CST/CST434-01/wo rld/WEBSI TES/NFS/nfshistory.html

      But you are correct. Fast user switching and roaming home directories do not an intuitive desktop make. (Actually, that sounds like UNIX, cerca 1984. But I digress.)

      The point the eWeek writer was trying (badly) to make is that Apple is rumored to be implementing the foundations of intuitive, pervasive computing that Microsoft is likely to shoehorn into Longhorn.

      From Microsoft's perspective, computer's always existed as disconnected nodes, hence their late (and rather loud) entry into all things internet-enabled. (Speaking of which, naming something ".Net" was the epitomy of this internet obsession that is Microsoft's reaction to how they missed the burgeoning of the internet and allowed someone else - Netscape - to challenge their strangle hold on personal computing. But I digress again.)

      So, in Microsoft's mind, the only way to have "pervasive" computing is to extend the PC experience, so that your PC can follow you around. Its not so much that data lives on the network (as a properly NFSed or even better, AFSed, network might work on a corporate plant site), but that your data will follow you around from PC to PC, if you so choose.

      Apple, by way of its BSD folk, understands that this is silly, and that data should just live on the network, hence iDisk is a main selling point of .Mac, and iDisks can be mounted as a normal drive under Mac OS and Windows, and seen as folders on the web, etc.

      Apple also understands that whatever decision Microsoft makes, it will be held liable in the court of public tech opinion if it doesn't do it the same way.

      So, this is just a long way of saying that what the eWeek write meant to say is that Apple is going to implement a boat load of stuff that Microsoft is planning for Longhorn, so as to make those "features" a moot point.

      --

      Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside a dog, its too dark to read.
    5. Re:Leapfrogging? by TrackDaddy · · Score: 5, Informative
      Let's deal with "roaming home directories" for a moment. As another reader pointed out, this feature has been around since NT4 (maybe even sooner). But you left out a few of the niggling details that make it a "less than ideal solution".

      To have a roaming profile, what MS calls roaming home directory, you must authenticate into a domain and have a domain controller available. This is fine in a corporate environment, but most Windows users (other than my esteemed colleagues here on Slashdot) wouldn't know what those terms mean, let alone how to implement them. Then there is the matter of how roaming profiles are actually implemented. When you log onto a system, your home directory, preferences, registry settings, and everything else that makes up your profile is copied from a Windows share to your local host. And when you log off, it is copied back to that share. Notice, I didn't say changes were copied. That's right Sparky, the WHOLE thing gets copied back to the server. And the next time you log on, it does it all over again. Now considering how things like Outlook OST files tend to get large, or as we in the industry like to say, "F*$&@%G HUGE", that means that you get to slog this data back and forth across your network each time a user logs on/off their system. Now, do that for a 5000 user company. Have fun.

      So, apple has the opportunity here to do it MUCH better. After all, when you only have to aim as high as "I think I'll just copy everything on my computer every time I log on/off", its pretty easy. So yeah, maybe they will "leapfrog".

      - Peace

      --
      Run! There's a lobster loose!
    6. Re:Leapfrogging? by Ryan+Amos · · Score: 5, Insightful

      What Apple seems to be doing is taking all the really good ideas that came out of the dot-com era (p2p, home media creation, etc) and making them marketable and usable. All these great things we've been promised (home burning of DVDs, the iPod, internet purchase of music, the "computer of the future") have been what Apple is delivering. They basically make products that are almost sci-fi cool. Except they're real and you can buy them now if you can afford them. Apple's big thing is the "digital lifestyle," the iPod was only the first step (and why you keep hearing rumors of Apple branded cell phones and PDAs) Apple, while not free computing, gives me exactly the kind of things I want without sacrificing the cool little touches (lots of blue blinky LEDS on a rackmount server? woo) that make Apple's stuff REALLY cool. You have to use OS X for a good period of time before you realize exactly how much thought went into making things work the way they do, but once you do, it's like "Wow, that makes sense, why didn't I think of that?" It looks cool, it's powerful as all hell, yet easy enough for a child to use. Apple makes products for the masses, but they leave enough power under the hood for us geeks to tinker with. That's something hard to do. :)

    7. Re:Leapfrogging? by feldsteins · · Score: 4, Insightful

      you might want to get your head out of Steve Job's ass

      Whoah there buddy. Is that really necessary?

      And I use "did you know" with my Mac users far more often than I do with my Windows users.

      I agree that most computer users don't know what they are doing, regardless of platform. But there's no use in denying that when Apple does something they usually don't bother until/unless they have made it highly accessible to novices. Take DV editing. Sure you could do it before, but it was so complicated that almost nobody did. Now it's different.

      And why would you want them to hide a wonderful feature?

      Primarily because I have no desire to field the support calls from people who need to be told that their computer is slower today because their son logged out leaving a Quake III server running. Because most people will not understand the consequences of this feature.

      calling OS X new and original is a load of crap. It's new to the Mac hardware, but it's all old ideas.

      Well I'd say the main "new" thing about OS X is the fact that nobody has ever had a unix GUI worth a damn before. That's new enough.

      --
      You like your Macintosh better than me, don't you Dave? Dave? Can you hear me Dave?
    8. Re:Leapfrogging? by gig · · Score: 5, Interesting

      OS X - Yeah it's cool, but it's not that cool. And besides, most of the features Apple is putting in OS X are things Microsoft did with Windows many years ago. That's not to say Windows is some amazing product, but calling OS X new and original is a load of crap. It's new to the Mac hardware, but it's all old ideas.

      No, you're wrong. Mac OS X is much more than the sum of its parts. You can compare feature lists and say smart-sounding things, but if you have truly used both Mac OS X and MS Windows you don't defend MS Windows after that. It's like when you hear someone say that Hitler built good roads, it is easy to point out that good roads or not, that doesn't make up for the other stuff. It's not a question of politics or opinion, but just that people don't go "Hitler ... good roads". You have to ignore so many deal-breaker features of MS Windows (no security, no reliability) to point out "you could do feature Y on Windows two years ago". Who cares? Not Mac OS X users. Truly, we don't care. We have the best of everything with very few exceptions and it's cheap ($999 iBook, $1299 flat-panel iMac) and the stuff you can do is next-generation not because it's possible for a geek to do it but because everyone can do it. A whole range of things that you can't do with MS Windows without someone to hand-hold it and clean its viruses and update its miserable design flaws and workaround its broken features and battle installation-entropy.

      Also, the creative media tools on MS Windows are crap. Even where there are ports of Mac titles, the ports are missing professional features in many, many cases. And adding hardware or software is a misery, so the fact is that people don't use as many tools on their MS Windows systems unless they have a full-time computer geek to play roulette with DOS day by day. As I said, you can compare this stuff on paper and it looks OK, but it's not the same at all in the real world.

    9. Re:Leapfrogging? by gig · · Score: 3, Interesting

      On Mac OS X it is common to represent some folders in the GUI as single icons. You use them that way, and if you want to "open the hood" you can go inside and there are individual files in there. It's a convenient way to have a less-complex interface and still work with lots of data.

      As of Logic 6, there is a new "project" file format for Logic which is the same old file, but sitting in a standard folder structure with folders for audio files, plug-in settings and such always in the same place. In 10.3 these project folders could easily be represented as a single document, or as a single item with child items.

      Suitcases? It's the 21st century, man. Suitcases are early 1990's Mac platform stuff ported badly to MS Windows and repurposed as a way to sync two folders. The history of bundles is all Mac and NeXT. On the old Mac OS they were forked files with "resources" stored in the resource fork. On NeXT they were folders that appeared to be single icons most of the time, and that's how they work on Mac OS X.

      Speaking of syncronization, that's what this article is about, too. Mac OS X will sync your contacts and such across your phone, PDA, iPod, and their Web services. Now they are adding the whole home folder, basically.

      All the tech for this stuff is already in Mac OS X. They are in a phase now where they are just building on the solid foundation that they worked so hard on for the past five years. They don't have to do a bunch of hacking and trickery to make a UI feature like this happen. It makes sense along with other features, like the way you can easily manipulate disk images in Mac OS X, even encrypted ones, even your grandmother. The whole platform gets better because when they build a feature in they do it right and then it is a problem that's taken care of. We all build on top of it.

      Apple's software is the best desktop software there is. This is widely, widely accepted in the industry. People buy Macs often to run just one great app, like iPhoto or Final Cut Pro or Logic or Pro Tools, and that software is so good, so perfectly realized, so easy to use, so reliable, it's worth getting the Mac just for that. The creative tools are a generation and sometimes two ahead of what's on MS Windows.

  5. Cat got your tongue? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    What's next? The "Cougar"?

    1. Re: Cat got your tongue? by Hamster+Lover · · Score: 4, Funny

      Only when OS X ten hits 30+.

    2. Re: Cat got your tongue? by porkchop_d_clown · · Score: 5, Funny

      Nope, in honor of certain new Safari features, 10.4 will be called "Tabby".

      --
      Clear, Dark Skies
    3. Re: Cat got your tongue? by wazzzup · · Score: 5, Funny

      10.4 "Pussy" will be the next installment of the Mac OS using the cat-themed naming convention.

      Rumour has it they will really emphasise the lickable interface and of course change the color of all the buttons to pink. Since Steve Jobs announced this year as "The year of the laptop" for Apple, the ad slogan will be "Put a Pussy on your lap for the greatest user experience yet."

      They'll also announce that the new 64-bit processor designed to run this OS is not the long-awaited G5 but instead the relatively unknown G-Spot manufactured by Cervix...errr, I mean Cyrix.

      How sexy does Longhorn sound now? I expect a doubling of Apple's market share in 3 months after release.

  6. Panth-ire? by dschuetz · · Score: 5, Funny

    Anyone know how Jobs pronounces "Panther"?

    1. Re:Panth-ire? by The+Placid+Casual · · Score: 3, Funny

      My money is on 'Pant Her' for sheer comedy value...

      But will Steve even be heard form behind the bullet proof glass, needed for when he announces there is no 970 for Apple, and Moto have a neat new chip out? ;-)

  7. Holy Unavoidable Lawsuit Batman! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    WTF? What on earth are they thinking making Apple's marketing campaign public over four months before it starts? Speculate on the hardware or software, fine. Make that public for page counts, for a little while. But can you imagine what it would be like if the Mini-me/Yao commercial was leaked this far before the laptops availability?!

    They might actually be able to meet the demand by now.

  8. hm? by Neophytus · · Score: 4, Insightful

    easy transferral of home directories among devices and the Web

    Keeping copies of your home directory on the web at the moment would seem to me impractical as many/most 'home users' still use a 56k modem which would make synchronisation of anything more than your office documents a bit of a joke.

    Once you have broadband then you encounter the problem of web storage and assosiated costs. Most providers won't let you host illegal files to cover their own arses, and more than a few hundred MB is rare on most traditional web hosting packages. I see a market for a premium file mirroring monopoly here, jump onboard before AOL takes over!

    1. Re:hm? by mrpuffypants · · Score: 4, Insightful

      hell, even over broadband it'd be annoying to have to sync my home directory with the .mac server... I've got at least 1GB of things in my Documents folder, almost 10GB in music, and god knows how much in the movies dir.

      on another note, has anybody else noticed how much /. is reporting Apple news lately? I sense that this company is going to come back and really, really big...

    2. Re:hm? by Wesley+Felter · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I suspect by "the Web" they mean .Mac.

    3. Re:hm? by anthonyclark · · Score: 4, Informative

      Actually, the reason /. is reporting Apple news a lot is that all the /. crew bought powerbooks and have become born-again Mac users ;-)

      --
      ----- Documentation is worth it just to be able to answer all your mail with 'RTFM' - Alan Cox.
    4. Re:hm? by RestiffBard · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I believe you'll find the reason for Mac's broadband centricity (i think thats a new word) is that while the majority of Computer people are still on dial-up (me), a majority of mac people are on broadband. I saw a poll somewhere.

      --
      - /* dead coders leave no comments */
    5. Re:hm? by gig · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Who else is making news in computers these days? Everywhere else it is all lawyers and poor excuses for the same old half-assed shit.

      The Apple platform has made more progress in the past two years than MS Windows has made in the last eight years since Windows 95. The Mac stopped crashing altogether, is UNIX-compatible, Java2 with all the trimmings, an updated API and a new object-oriented API, next-generation graphics system and so much more, while you can receive an email and lose your MS Windows system at any time. From top to bottom the Windows platform looks like a joke right now after all these years of "it will be stable soon". Remember when they delayed Windows 2000 and left out features just to "concentrate on fixing bugs and improving reliability" because people were demanding it. Now, a really advanced user can set up a halfway-decent Windows XP machine, but even they can't get close to the quality of a Mac, and for regular users, they are in a completely different world if they get a Gateway instead of an iMac as far as what they can do with it, and what they will have to do to admin it (almost nothing for the iMac, even adding hardware and apps is dead easy, just drag and drop at the most, and often it just works even without that.

  9. Piles by Squidgee · · Score: 5, Interesting
    I have to say I like the concept of piles; it's the type of intuitive idea I like to see coming from UI design. In fact, it reminds a lot of another awesome UI idea, Clutter, an interface for iTunes. It shows all of the CDs you have as CD cases/covers on your desktop. Double click, and you've got your CD running in iTunes.

    This seems like an awesome UI concept, and one which will (Once again) put the Mac GUI head and shoulders above the rest.

  10. Piles? by LippyTheLip · · Score: 4, Insightful

    From the article: In addition, sources said Panther will finally mark the debut of the much-discussed "piles" GUI design concept, which Apple patented in June 2001. According to the patent, piles comprise collections of documents represented graphically in stacks. Users can browse the "piled" documents dynamically by pointing at them with the cursor; the filing system can then divide a pile into subpiles based on each document's content. At the user's request, the filing system can automatically file away documents into existing piles with similar content.

    I must have missed the "much-discussed" piles conecpt on /. Can someone enlighten me, please?

    How does this differ from a hierarchical filing system? Aren't my directories "piles of related documents"? Does ths just automate filing by indexing the content or am I missing something?

  11. OS X font smoothing kicks `Cleartype`s ass by diatonic · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Apple does a much better job at font smoothing than Microsoft's Cleartype. Even though my main display is the 1280x854 hi-res PowerBook display, even when I mirror it to a CRT it looks a lot better than Cleartype in XP. I do think that Cleartype is (imnsho) superb to the anti-aliasing in xfs however.

    .:diatonic:.

  12. Re:Will Font Smoothing be less horrid? by BluGuy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Dude, lighten up. You're using equiptment that is at the bottom end of the spectrum for OS X. You're complaining about smoothing on an old LCD, and speed on an old CPU. If you want compare the two, try running XP on a sub gigahertz PC with a 15" CRT. I'm sure you're complain about it being Really Slow and hurting your eyes.

  13. Re:Will Font Smoothing be less horrid? by cmoney · · Score: 5, Informative

    It's the Bronze G3 that's giving you a problem with font smoothing. I know because I have that same computer. I also have a PBG4 and it's so much better, it's unbelievable. Font smoothing on the Bronze G3 is so horrid it makes OS X unusable for me.

  14. 'Panther' retires Sherlock by napa1m · · Score: 5, Funny

    Rumor has it that in 'Panther' they have replaced the Sherlock application with the new bumbling 'Inspector'

    here is a preview of their new ad campaign.

    (credit where due: my friend andy is a hopeless mac addict with apparently too much time on his hands, this is his handiwork)

    ---
    ^nA - my daily illustrations

    --
    ^nA! Creatures in my Head
  15. The question I can't find an answer to anywhere... by BDew · · Score: 5, Interesting

    is how much is this new cat gonna cost?

    Will we get to upgrade for free? Or is this our yearly $100 for an OS upgrade? Why not just have people who know they will want to upgrade subscribe to the OS (say, at a reduced rate maybe)?

    --
    "Fifty million Americans can't be wrong," said Rep. Billy Tauzin. Gore - 50,999,897 Bush - 50,456,002
  16. Re:Piles? by michaelggreer · · Score: 5, Informative

    With piles, you don't have to go "inside" the folder, just pick out the doc you want frm the pile. Take a look here:

    http://homepage.mac.com/rdas7/piles.html

  17. It's "slow" for a reason by mdw162 · · Score: 3, Interesting
    People are constantly griping about how Mac OSX is slow (as well as with KDE and Gnome for Linux) compared to Windows. And they're right. Windows is faster for a lot of GUI applications -- but there's a reason for the difference.

    The biggest thing that helps Windows' speed is the registry. It's basically a database and so it's faster in searching for settings and library links. However, there are two big problems with the registry that in my opinion do not offset its speed advantage. First, the registry slows down a lot as it grows and software is installed and removed. After a certain size, the registry actually makes things slower. Second, anyone who's used Regclean knows that it is almost NEVER in a clean state and eventually program installations get corrupted, "cruft factor" sets in, and people concede it's time to reinstall. You don't have this problem in OSX.

    1. Re:It's "slow" for a reason by be-fan · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Hmm. I've never heard this before. The slowness of OS X has zippo to do with the configuration mechanism and everything to do with Mach and Quartz. Quartz is largely done in software (even in QE, where OpenGL is only used for the final compositing step) and Mach is just plain slow. In lmbench numbers (measure of the speed of basic kernel primitives like IPC, mmap(), etc) OS X 10.1 ws shown to be about half as fast as NetBSD on the same machine. It's probably improved since then, but even 10.3 is (optimistically) probably 25% slower than NetBSD on lmbench.

      --
      A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
  18. Hype? by Obiwan+Kenobi · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Um, where's the content? Where's the screenshots? Looks like a press release in sheeps clothing to me.

    "Yeah, it's got this feature and this one too...and it's gonna whoop up on Longhorn! Woohoo!"

    Other than a feature list, which can be found in many other places, and some that aren't confirmed yet, this look like hype to me with little to back it up...

  19. New Journaling System by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    The journaling technology extends OS X's HFS+ file system and can be applied to current Mac OS volumes without reformatting. Users of Mac OS X Server can activate journaling by clicking on a "Make journaled" button within the Disk Utility application; they can also access it via the command line or remotely via a Secure Shell (SSH) connection.

    1. Re:New Journaling System by porkchop_d_clown · · Score: 4, Informative

      It's also already available on regular OS X, you just have to use the command line.

      --
      Clear, Dark Skies
    2. Re:New Journaling System by tbmaddux · · Score: 3, Informative
      It's also already available on regular OS X, you just have to use the command line.
      Tease. Here it is. "sudo" will prompt you for your password (you must be an Administrator user for it to accept your password to do this):
      sudo diskutil enableJournal /

      Replace "/" with other volumes (/Volumes/foo/ and /Volumes/bar/ for example) if you have them on your system.

      --
      Can't you see that everyone is buying station wagons?
  20. Piles vs. Folders by Amoeba+Protozoa · · Score: 4, Interesting

    So I did a quick search for piles, and just about every article I read echoed this one. So, basically piles are folders (directories) that are non-nestable.

    About the only use I can see for this feature is that it will help certain users who are fuzzy on how folder hierarchies are supposed to work...but heck, if that makes the user's computing experience all the more rich and it keeps people like my mother from calling me asking how to find her documents, why not?

    Has anybody else reached a different conclusion than I have?

    -AP

  21. Re:Piles system by Daniel_Staal · · Score: 5, Informative

    Of course if you want to use this OS you will have to shell out $100 to upgrade .1 of a version number. Sheesh!

    I actually think Apple's switched to a new version numbering sceme: 10.x.x. The 10 is constant (a marketing number basically), and the x.x is the 'real' version number.

    So basically the current version is 2.5, and Panther is version 3.0.

    --
    'Sensible' is a curse word.
  22. Re:Will Font Smoothing be less horrid? by addaon · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I suspect that the subpixel algorithm assumes that an LCD has stripes in the order RGB... and, IIRC, the bronze G3 has GRB stripes, meaning that it's setting the wrong subpixels. What they really need is an algorithm that can adapt to this situation... but apparently it's a small enough population of their market that it's not worth the effort, and (AFAIK) /every/ color LCD is RGB order right now.

    --

    I've had this sig for three days.
  23. Panzer by Kenshin · · Score: 4, Funny

    I'm hoping for a German-like "Panzer". That would just be perfect.

    --

    Does it make you happy you're so strange?

    1. Re:Panzer by Kenshin · · Score: 3, Funny

      Honestly, picture Steve Jobs in his usual black turtleneck, plus a monocle, shaking his fist!

      "Panza vill roll over ze enemy, and crush it!"

      --

      Does it make you happy you're so strange?

  24. Re:Piles by Squidgee · · Score: 5, Informative
    For those of you who are unclear on piles, read this:

    "Apple holds a patent on this one. Developed by Gitta Salomon and her team close to a decade ago, a pile is a loose grouping of documents. Its visual representation is an overlay of all the documents within the pile, one on top of the other, rotated to varying degrees. In other words, a pile on the desktop looked just like a pile on your real desktop.

    To view the documents within the pile, you clicked on the top of the pile and drew the mouse up the screen. As you did so, one document after another would appear as a thumbnail next to the pile. When you found the one you were looking for, you would release the mouse and the current document would open.

    Piles, unlike today's folders, gave you a lot of hints as to their contents. You could judge the number of documents in the pile by its height. You could judge its composition very rapidly by pulling through it."

  25. Other info on Panther by iJed · · Score: 4, Insightful

    There is currently very little real information on Panther at this point. The only thing we really know for a fact is that it will be called 10.3 (since Jordan Hubbard said so in an interview). Other than this the only information comes from LoopRumors, MacOSRumors (dodgy), Mac Rumors and maybe one or two others. The information from these sites can range from dead on to absolute rubbish.

  26. Re:Piles by Squidgee · · Score: 4, Informative

    And, for those of you who want a visual interpretation of how this could work, I got this off of google. It's an interactive flash animation which shows one possible design of how it could work; and, if it works close to this, it's gonna be really cool.

  27. Re:Doesn't matter by scrotch · · Score: 5, Funny

    I'll never drive a Mercedes until they lower their hardware costs.

    Those fascists.

  28. My understanding is that piles don't... by porkchop_d_clown · · Score: 4, Informative

    replace folders - they are strictly an organizational metaphor, nothing to do with how files are actaully stashed away.

    --
    Clear, Dark Skies
    1. Re:My understanding is that piles don't... by Moofie · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Who the hell cares about how the files are ACTUALLY stashed away? Should I remember the cylinder address of whatever file I want to start modifying?

      OF COURSE it's an organizational metaphor. What on a GUI screen isn't? The only question is whether it's more or less useful than other metaphors for more or less humans.

      --
      Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
  29. mirror by MisterSquid · · Score: 3, Informative

    Oh, dear. Looks like I'll have to mirror the original.

    heh.

    --
    blog
  30. Orthogonal, baby! by Gorimek · · Score: 3, Informative

    But they're independent of folders. All files will still belong to a folder, but they can also be in one (or more?) piles, organized after whatever scheme makes sense to the user.

    Also, you can browse through your pile effectively, and you can tell by looking at the pile roughly how much stuff is in it, and possibly (it's been talked about) how old it is or how long since it's been touched by how much dust and spider web it's collected.

    A lot of people are excited by this and have talked about it for a long time, so I hope it will be good. Only actual use will tell though.

  31. Re:What should be improved to beat others by Fred+IV · · Score: 3, Informative

    The bizarre removal of the capacity for me to have a heirarchal list of more rarely used applications (the Applications Apple menu in prior versions/a Windows Start menu/A KDE/Gnome start panel menu) is not user-centered.

    Drag your "Applications" folder into the dock.

    Click-and-hold for a second

    Blammo, instant "Start Menu"...and you can do it for any folder you want.

  32. live views? by otis+wildflower · · Score: 3, Interesting

    This article on discusses many interesting UI possibilities, but the one I'm most interested in is the 'live search folder' concept, where you declare a 'folder' to contain the continually-updated contents of a search.

    iTunes has this (Smart Playlists), and I'm quite smitten by it, and I'd like to see something similar rolled out across the UI (and, possibly, done as a framework for other apps to hook into).

    Combined with 'piles', you could have your smart pile of apps, pile of word docs, pile of porn divx, etc.. Makes some sense to me..

  33. Not Piles, Stacks! by Michael_Burton · · Score: 3, Funny

    I would prefer to call piles "stacks." It sounds neater.

    You could put all kinds of content in them, including pictures, text, sounds, video, user-programmable buttons, etc. And you could link items to other items in the same stack--or even items in different stacks! And if you could attach some sort of script to any item in a stack, that would be hyper cool!

    I know... I know... that idea's waaaay too far ahead of its time.

    --
    When all you have is an axe, everything looks like a grindstone.
  34. Re:Will Font Smoothing be less horrid? by Capt.+DrunkenBum · · Score: 3, Informative

    How to make OSX more useable on low end hardware.

    1. Add RAM.
    2. Newer, faster HDD.
    3. Add RAM.
    4. The dock settings:
    Shrink the dock down as small as you can, and still use it.
    Magnification off
    Possition whatever you like.
    Minimize using Scale Effect.
    Uncheck Animate opening applications.
    Uncheck Automaticly hide and show the dock.

    5. Did I mention add RAM.

    This is what I did to my 266Mhz Wallstreet, 192Meg RAM, 20 Gig HDD, and it is quite useable. A little slow opening apps, but quite useable otherwise.

    With all the Dock eye candy turned on, it was unusable.

    --

    Not everyone deserves a 320i

  35. OS X Icons by pneuma_66 · · Score: 3, Informative

    OS X icons are not vector images, they are a collection of 128x128, 64x64, and 32x32 bitmaps. The smooth scaling is just regular old bitmap scaling.

  36. Re:I just want... by pressman · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I'd ignore you as well if you reported it as a bug. "click to focus" has been the standard on the mac for almost 20 years. I'm a very experienced computer user and "focus follows mouse" drives me absolutely batty. That's just my preference and the preference of the vast majority of computer users.

    That said... maybe if you put it in as a feature request that could be activated as a system preference... well then you might just get somewhere. If you're not snide about these things, you just might find that they'll take you a bit more seriously.

    And yes, i realize this was probably intended to be a humorous post, but even as a joke, there are probably people who seriously take such stupidly non-diplomatic approaches to dealing with Apple or any other software developer.

    --
    Pooty tweet
  37. Re:People are too stupid for new file management by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    That's some profound logic you got there. "No point in trying something new because the old way doesn't work."

  38. Re:I just want... by MojoMonkey · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You have to remember there is a MAJOR problem with focus follows mouse concept in OS X. The menu bar is at the top of the SCREEN not the top of the window. This means if you want to select a menu item, you move to the top of the screen... guess what, the mouse cursor just popped out of the window, and possibly onto another window. And now the menu that you were moving to is no longer the one you want.

    --

    ----- "Blame the guy who doesn't speak English." -- Homer J. Simpson
  39. Roming Home Directories by JohnsonWax · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Can someone explain how I'm not currently doing this with Mac OS X - and have been since 10.0 shipped?

    Each of the client machines in my office are essentially identical. Users sign on and their l/p are authenticated against our Xserve, their home directory (plus appropriate groups, etc) are mounted locally, and they go about their work. Everything runs out of their account on the server. We mount via AFP, but we could do NFS if we opted.

    Users have no idea that they aren't working locally until they need to walk up to some other machine, log in, and everything is exactly the same. Users can run multiple sessions from their account as well. Network traffic isn't too bad since it's generally only reading config files and prefs and hitting the server on demand.

    BTW, this is a pretty straightforward setup on OS X Server. If the server is on your subnet (mine isn't) then you hang the entire thing off of DHCP - plug in a brand new machine out of the box and you can hit your user account with no configuration. That's cool...