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Panther Analysis Getting Underway
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."
Translation: It'll only take 5 seconds to slashdot 'em.
That really was the only worry I had. I don't have strong views on Brushed Metal, I like the lower-key stripes I've seen, so I'll almost certainly upgrade.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Looks like reverse bio-engineering. Predators normally come after the prey!
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
I'm disappointed that Apple has forced the extremely ugly brushed metal on us. Aqua is beautiful; why dilute that beauty by replacing it with some ugly, unrealistic looking texture?
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.
fsck -u
I just hope Apple makes the brushed metal window frames optional/themeable/skinable etc. Apparently (as per a recent /. article as this one's /.'ed) they are not customizable and more importantly they are not just limited to Apple apps the way that Safari, et al is today in 10.2. All apps pick up the new look and some of us are not into that new look as much.
Who are you? The new #2 Who is #1? You are #617565. I am not a number, I am a free man! Muhahaha.
I'm really excited about Panther. The finder screen shots make it look like they have really gotten file navigation right. Previous iterations were too geeky, exposing the average user to /Library, /System, and /Users when most people just want to get to their documents and applications.
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.
I see that they don't touch on the 64- vs. 32-bit issue. Not surprising, since the 64-bit G5s aren't available yet. I'm curious as to how much of an impact that will make.
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 have two fully functional OS X systems running in real time on a single boxen!
I wouldn't even be surprised to see Apple start shipping systems in this configuration. It's great for companies on a budget (and who isn't these days?).
Boromir, son of Faramir, King of Gondor and Minas Tirith
I've been using the Panther preview for about a week now. and I have to say that Expose is one of the coolest ideas in the past few years I've seen come out of apple.
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 but you're best looking at apple's preview.
- tristan
"They have some nice images available too."
had
1. Since the filesystem is journaled by default, can you turn it off later for a speed increase, or is this part of Panther's necessary tweaks?
/User/username to encrypt.)
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
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
Copy and paste works great. I've been using this forever with OS X.
-- oldthinkers unbellyfeel ingsoc
have word from apple that the reason G5's aren't being rolled out yet is that Panther won't run on them. The machines are ready to go but there's no OS to run on them.
... which is an incredible trick btw.
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
Now I know the real reason...
In case you didn't realize it, the Finder is supposed to be the computer, in a user-centric model.
:)
So the physical device the Finder emulates... is your computer
GPL Deconstructed
Well, according to NetCraft, their server is running FreeBSD. Go figure ...
Alison
"It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education." - Albert Einstein
This Funmac.com thread has a bunch of shots of the new XCode development package. Both Project Builder and Interface Builder are featured at great length.
I am not who I say you are.
I haven't found the answer to these questions regarding panther:
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?
I don't think it really works that way, but running two instances of any PPC OS should be easy with Mac-On-Linux. MOL is like VMWare for the PPC, you can open a full-speed non-emulated Classic session INSIDE Linux, you can also boot it to OSX. I'm pretty sure you could boot multiple sessions as well. With XFree you could even use a mac running linux as a multi-client Mac OS terminal server.
So what you're asking is already possible with 32-bit PPC systems.
"Sometimes, I think Trent just needs a cup of hot chocolate and a blankie." -Tori Amos on Nine Inch Nails
Here's at least one way do encrypt your home directory in Jaguar - a little less tricky is encrypting only particular directories like you speak of. I believe it is done by mounting an encrypted volume, so if you don't log in no other user will be able to see the directory contents.
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...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
As the rest of the song goes "that don't impress me much".
/.'ers will want the inside skinny as opposed to hearing that the Finder can't be skinned (tho that's a fun complaint since I'd rather not stare at brushed metal all the time either).
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
Mind the gap...
Pretty pictures are better than white, monospaced error text on a big blue background. ;-)
Mikey-San
Karma: +Eleventy billion (mostly affected by watching Celebrity Jeopardy)
I've not seen it in action, but Expose strikes me as being the kind of feature that we want to see in our operating systems and applications - like most real software innovations, it's quick, simple and does something useful.
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.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
I have been using Panther for a week and have found many good improvements.
;-P Just being silly.
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.
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!
Practice Kind Randomness and Beautiful Acts of Nonsense.
What happened to the "piles" document management system that was mentioned previously?
Anybody know? I was looking forward to hearing more about this, but fear it's fallen by the wayside...
ooooooh! What does this button do? - DeeDee, Dexters Lab.
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.
/usr/bin/complain >
"Stuff... In my home!? NEVER!" - Zim on Invader Zim
"I want the toilet seat!" - Little Dog on Two Stupid Dogs
I am posting this from a late 2001 iBook running Panther. It's the last iBook with the crappy 8mb Rage video (so no Quartz Extreme). I like Panther. I like it a lot. Some nuggets:
* 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.
When are they going to make the dock useful like the windowmaker dock? It has some neat visual effects, but all it really does is act like a half-assed task bar right now.
Need Free Juniper/NetScreen Support? JuniperForum
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
To me this was the best part of the Panther update, after Expose.
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.
The real world device metaphor always works well.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
..Can be found in a forum thread here (linked from a MacRumors article)
I don't know if it was mentioned in the article (down), but Guido van Rossom just mentioned that apple is planning to update their Python to version 2.3.
.
y th on-dev/1690127
It sounds like Apple has begun using Python for more of their core features. For now all we know it will be used for "PDF Generation Workflow".
This is great news as the Python 2.2 included with OSX 10.2 was a bit broken on the OSX platform.
I've never used OSX, but I am impressed that they ship Python with the standard release. I sure wish Windows would do this too, then there really would be a sweet crossplatform development language
http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/Mail/Message/p
- 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."When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won..." ~ Mohandas K. Gandhi
It seems to me that the 'lickable' version of the Aqua UI was meant as a marketing promo for the new OS. I say that because with every new version (starting with Public Beta --> 10.0) the obtrusive and overly eye candy elements are being steadily removed. Looking at the new finder window theme _almost_ reminds me of Platinum OS9 - clean and simple (aside from the overuse of brushed metal). Not to say that OSX isnt the most beautiful interface ive ever seen or that 10.3 wont continue on that scale, but it does seem that after the initial fanfare the Aqua UI is evolving into what it should have been from 10.0..... Easy on the eyes, unobtrusive, easy to use and absolutely gorgeous to look at.
---- The real Slashdot is still here. You just have to browse at -1 to read the comments.
Seriously, I think Taco needs to make the whole meta-mod thing maybe topic-specific - so if the mac-heads keep modding everything mac related as troll, then they lose the ability to mod mac-threads.
Note that I'm posting as AC as I have no doubt that this will, in fact, be modded into oblivion by a mac-head.
This guy is even karma-whoring by not posting anonymously.
-Esme
Panther has serious bluetooth issues out of the box
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.
Overall the enhancements make Panther a must have upgrade. I'm especially keen on the Finder's live sorting and the overall speed (even when dealing with huge folders).
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
The new Finder is metal now so it looks more like the other iApps, especially iTunes. I don't think it's a problem since most of the Finder is whitespace anyway. It's not there now, but I really hope Apple makes it easy to choose different interfaces in the full release.
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 everything is so difficult to find. In OS X the stuff are placed logically, no shortcuts needed. Plus, you can already in Jaguar place shortcuts in the top menu.
Ciryon
A very useful "no need for getting under the hood" app and worth the donation just for the Aqua.
You know what?
I don't have the bandwidth to flushout this problem, but, after running Panther (and LOVING IT!), I lost a two drive RAID partition.
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.
"We call it aqua because it looks so good, you want to lick it." -Steve Jobs. MacWorld San Francisco Keynote. OS X's first big demo.
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.
I had a sucky sig.
64 bit means numbers can be bigger, and address sizes can be bigger. But numbers and addresses must
still occupy contiguous bytes in memory, so there is no provision for multiple instances. Now, the OS may provide as many instances of itself as it wants providing that the OS is written to do this.
Oh, and Boromir was Faramir's Brother. Not his son.
Denethor was their father.
A quick glace of Apple's Panther Preview Page reveals to me the level of techical ability that Apple sees in its target market.
-------
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.
-------
I wish they'd lay off the acronym support until they get those vowels working properly!
OK, what if you want to:
(Admittedly doable after a bit of under-the-hood hacking, but you've just stretched your metaphor rather thin.)
I suppose Apple could implement the cut'n paste metaphor and restrict its use to intra-volume files. But they didn't want newbies worrying their pretty little heads about volumes, partitions, and networks. So is Mr Newbie going to use cut'n paste (which only works within this here 'volume' thingy), or is Mr Newbie going to use move 'n duplicate, which doesn't require any knowledge about volumes?
Practice Kind Randomness and Beautiful Acts of Nonsense.
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. Good for them.
Open source isn't about pirating technology- it is about the creators of innovations freely sharing that technology.
Hell, if Apple had been awarded the patent they'd applie for way back when, we wouldn't have the Microsoft goliath making our lives miserable today. (And if you think Apple is just as bad, or worse than Microsoft, your living in your own reality distortion field.)
Yeah, and you guys panned the ipod too: http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/23
I've seen several comments about how the new interface isn't as pretty as Aqua, and also how Panther feels snappier than Jaguar.
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...
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
Mikey-San
Karma: +Eleventy billion (mostly affected by watching Celebrity Jeopardy)
Ok, well I should be able to answer the mail one. When I was poking arround with it, the only thing I *noticed* that changed was that the spam filtering, threads, and how they did the preferences (atleast it stood out to me as different). I didnt notice anything different with searching, but then again, I didnt try either.
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.
We don't need an "overrated" so much as we need a "you completely missed the parent's point, dumbass..."
The Places sidebar also shows up in Open/Save windows. Try getting stuff from the Dock to show up in file dialogs...
TANSTAAFI: There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free iPod.
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 with the streaming video provider.
Will I retire or break 10K?
How about this? Install it on a plastic computer (gumdrop iMac, lamp iMac, eMac, iBook, or older G3/G4), and you get Aqua controls by default. Install it on a pre-Ti PowerBook, and you get Dark Aqua. Install it on a metal computer (TiBook, HgMac, Power Mac G5), and you get brushed metal.
Would setting the default appearance for on-screen controls to match the appearance of the computer's case prove too confusing to users?
Will I retire or break 10K?
The original "lickable" OS X interface -- right down to the thin horizontal gray lines on menu bars and window borders -- almost certainly was designed to resemble the original iMac and Blue-and-White G3. The design aesthetics reinforced each other, and even extended to Microsoft's Internet Explorer, which gives you the choice of browser chrome to match your hardware (including the venerable Bondi Blue).
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.
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.
Theory and practice are the same in theory, but different in practice.
I totally agree about the design aesthetic matching on the hardware and software. I do wish they would bring back the purse design laptop though, or make something new like it. The clamshell enclosure was great -- spacious; my fingers always feel cramped on notebook keyboards, but not that one. More importantly, it was rugged as hell. I've seen them dropped with no harm done; try that with a tibook. The new 12" Tibook is better in terms of being rugged but doesn't have that space. And I know everyone laughed at the purse thing but that handle was damn convenient for carrying your machine across the room! I would love to see a new clamshell enclosure from apple with a G4 or G5 in it. It doesn't have to be fruity looking; surely their designers can create an elegant but toned down design that retains the functionality of the clamshell....
You still can.
I've been using panther for a few days, and just thought I'd share some observations that no one else has yet mentioned:
;)
:^D
* Fonts on brushed metal are a lot more solid. Especially at small font sizes, with smoothing off (on a powerbook's screen) the fonts are very crisp. I think some of the fonts are more "inset" in the metal than they were before
* Extremely cool searching in preview.app. A drawer is opened and search results come up as you type, per iTunes and now Finder. The drawer has little summaries of the surrounding text and page number... so useful! Just like a search eninge on the web.
* The new finder's icon: had to mention it: looks like it was drawn by a child. Yuck!
* Breaks uControl, which gave me virtual scrolling on my touchpad: so frickin hard to live without! Shall I have to buy a mouse?
* the menu item separators are now inset, like the aqua gel buttons: very slick, everything looks more solid, and less stuck on as an afterthought.
* iChat AV's voice feature is so great. I don't have video, while it would be cool, I'd have to look interested when talking to my parents (and not surf the web
* All the updates to the finder and system put together means that aside from the dock not having multiple tabs or some such, I can finally use my computer as efficiently and _intuitively_ as I could ever wish:
- expose lets me see my desktop quickly for my commonly used items
- find in the finder window finally is usable and useful
- with the places holder on the left, it's somehow a lot easier to use the column view and jump to required place than when the icons were up in the toolbar (separation of concerns perhaps?
- everything just fits, like it was a handcrafted piece of woodwork: Beautiful =)
* This has been mentioned, but I'll mention it again: milk and brushed metal: I like both of them: in isolation. Thrown all together my machine now kinda looks like a badly designed KDE theme... all these different ways of viewing things mushed together. Even the volume level in iChat AV is out of place. As I say, they all look great in isolation, so hopefully the full release will meld these elements a bit better!
* To reply to themexican: I agree that customisability is lacking, especially if apple keeps changing its own ideas of how its computer should look.
* Also agree with themexican that it would be very cool if the action menu could auto send files like screensavers, etc to the right folder, but remember there's more than one "right folder"; ie: all users or just for this one, not that that couldn't be overcome of course!
* Disagree: Finder windows still take up too much screen real estate. If apple used small scrollbars it would save a significant # of pixels per window.
Make scrollbars too thin and they get hard to use: they take up space, but they are necessarily large so they are easy to use.
* Dock should act more like dragthing/tabbed windows pre-X. Or at least it should allow the use of separators a la toolbar
* Scrolling in Safari is much nicer. Smooth and all
* themexican: My suggestion to enhance the multiple user experience would be to have an easy way for families to share iApp libraries between users.
Hell yes!!
Pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will! - Antonio Gramsci.
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.