Slashdot Mirror
Tog Takes on Mac OS X 10.3
Rick Zeman writes "Bruce 'Tog' Tognazzini, founder of Apple's Human Interface Group years ago, has finally pointed his electrons to Mac OS X 10.3. He's been dormant for while, and hasn't said anything since the early days of Mac OS X. His new articles include 'Panther: The Good, The Bad and the Ugly' and 'The Top Nine Reasons why the Dock Sucks,' all coming from A Guy Who Knows."
I don't.
sulli
RTFJ.
I agree with him on the Finder. Apple has followed in Microsoft's footsteps by making finder window was too much space, al though they aren't as bad. At least they didn't turn the finder into a web browser.
Apple should've never gotten rid of its HCI group, and Tog once again shows why. For all of its advancement in underlying technologies and reliability, Mac OS X has been a huge leap backwards in useability compared to the Classic Mas OS as designed by people who cared more about useability than "lickability."
...Not that Apple will listen, of course.
I really think that Apple forgot why a lot of its users so tenaciously stuck with the platform in the first place despite higher prices and the little irritations of cooperative multitasking. The interface matters as more than just a pretty show. Classic Mac OS pundits have been kicking the Dock for years now, and it's good to hear one of the experts chime in.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
...to his web server.
That's what you get for talking bad about OS X. Punkass.
I prefer a void in conversation to a vacuous one.
I agree with him on the Dock issues on almost all of them. Some may be too nit picky.
:)
But for the most part he is right. All documents look the same, no tagging, trash can in the dock, dragging from the dock erases what you drag. It's dangerous.
I don't agree with the dock taking too much space. If you make it the smallest you can still make out what programs are which.
Plus, if the dock bothers you so much, HIDE it
Now I find this curious. I've been told by quite a few people (some of whom use OSX, some who don't) and many who're opinionated about it state it as -fact-.
"The Dock Sucks trust me I know, the KDE/Windows/BeOS/AmigaOS solution is better."
Now, that's well and good for them. Really good in fact, that they have the choice between one thing and the other. Personally, I find the dock simple, transparent, to me it sits invisibly, I never notice I'm using it, and it performs admirably. For others obviously, it's sucky. Duh. we're not all clones.
But to say, as many do, "This is why it sucks and why X, Y or Z is better and your opinion is wrong" is priceless, when clearly for me that isn't the case. It's like saying "You're such a fuckwit if you think Chocolate is better than caramel, here's why"
(Just so y'all know, when it comes to MY computing experience I do like to go with what works for me, and I WILL be opinionated about what works for me)
He hates it. I think he is pining for the days of Microsoft Office Manager and Balloon Help.
...of System's 7, 8 or 9, it wouldn't have made it, not even as freeware.
Tog's right. It is the most inane UI feature to have made it in *any* OS, let alone Macintosh.
And what's especially frustrating is that they replaced two very workable UI gadgets, the Application Menu and the Process Menu (which Tog confuses with the former) without so much as bothering to elicit feedback from the users.
I found this to be really arrogant. It was like the boys from NeXT came in and simply assumed they knew better than everybody else, that a UI that had survived for over a decade-and-a-half and have been continually honed during that time was something to just throw away.
I mean, to not even give us the option of having those menus... inexcusable.
Before OS X I had to switch over to Windows for my development work, but it was the OS X dock that made me switch to Windows (and alternately, Linux) for my personal stuff.
Bad.
Is this truly the only Earth I can live on?
May day, may day! Mirror down too.
is that you don't have to trip through countless menus and windows to get to something a few keystrokes in a terminal window will do faster.
Pretty pictures for those who want it done easily, a terminal for those who want it done now (or more easily by a program). I like graphical interfaces for what they do well. I like command lines for what they do well.
With OS X, as with most other *nix implementations, I can have the best of both worlds.
Maybe you didn't notice, but when you point to one, you DO get a floating label above to tell which window/document it is.
Most of TOG's suggestions weren't my cup of tea ( I like the Dock, but hey, I used to be a NEXTSTEP developer), but WindowShade is a wonderful program.
http://www.unsanity.com/haxies/wsx/
Actually, these guys make a lot of cool, useful little app's, but WindowShade's "minimize in place" is wonderful. When you click on the 'minimize' control for a window, it's minimized down to an icon. But unlike the dock it's minimized right where the window was, so you can arrange the icons yourself. Also, the icon is a live version of the document's contents (so you can see a progress bar's progress, differentiate between two different Photoshop images, etc.) and has the application icon superimposed (so you know what kind of window it is). Apple should at least use these icons in the Dock.
Enable 3D printed prosthetics!
"I found this to be really arrogant. It was like the boys from NeXT came in and simply assumed they knew better than everybody else"
Not arrogant at all. The guys at NeXT DID know better and so therefore it was right to take over Apple's former UI staff. Guys like TOG are just bitter about it.
You actually swiched OS's because of the Dock? Seriously? I'm impressed.
Tog knew a lot in his day, but his complaints about the dock are clearly from a I-wish-it-were-still-the-old-way mentality.
The beauty of the Dock is that normal people can use it right away. Power users that need more should just use something else. No one complains that iMovie is limited or that iPhoto is slow, they just get a clue and use something else. (Actually, people do complain, but anyhow...) Yes, the Dock is part of the OS, but it can be substituted/replaced at the will of the user.
Only if by powerful you mean power over the end user. I especially love the way XP neatly reboots itself ever so often. I'll be working along when all of a sudden the OS will decide it wants to reboot and I'm completely powerless to stop the all powerful OS from doing as it pleases. That's power!
Together, we will drive the rats from the tundra.
I have used every single Mac OS since system 7.1 in 1993 and I think that Torg does have several good points.
1. I have to agree that the open and save dialogs are a bit obstrusive, I remember being able to move around the open and save dialog to see what was going on behind it at times. Now when I get an ICQ add request I can't see the request because the dialog box is sticking in the way. Perhaps Apple needs to implent ment a "Rip" button that gives you the option of ripping the dialog box off the window on a case by case basis.
2. I disagree with the trash can issue. I like it in the Dock and find it pretty usefull there. Not to mention the fact that I just rather hit apple+delete to trash things anyway.
3. Ok, so the UI is differant, but honestly I think it is the best one that apple has designed since I have used the mac. They removed a lot of the issues that plagued it in it's infancy. I love the single window option and I have not had an issue with screen density at all. Quite frankly I think the new finder is the most functional they have had since 7.5 (yeah it's flame bait but II loved 7.5). It provides everything that you would want to access quickly right there for you with minimal problems. Yeah things may be bigger, but I like that.
So I take it the Mac community FORGOT to send Tog the memo that his views on UI design are wholly irrelevant and have been for some years now?
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
*putting my flame proof jacket on* I like OS X's user interface, and I hated OS 9's user interface. I bought my iBook because OS X is based on FreeBSD (and I need a shell prompt and assorted other goodies), but I enjoy the user interface now that I've had time to adjust.
I think most of the problem is centered around "But the Dock is stupid because OS 9 did this instead." We have a natural tendency to resist change, and Finder and the Dock are huge changes to the Mac interface.
And yes, I did RTFA, and I do agree that there are some missteps (like all the Dock widgets looking the same) but a lot of the complaints here are "OS 9 is better! OS X sux!"
I can't believe he didn't list DefaultFolder and Ittec with his "superduper gotta have" shareware. Nobody can live without DefaultFolder; Ittec replaces FinderPop, and sure speeds up folder surfing.
As to his Dock comments: yeah it could have been done better (to say the least). In particular, when you pull an icon out of the dock, I'd like to see it "minimize" its way back into the target file's folder or hard drive icon. Then it looks like a "put away" instead of a "oops, you just destroyed that app."
https://app.box.com/WitthoftResume Code: https://github.com/cellocgw
My counterargument: "It's the way *I* want it to be! Therefore, it is God!"
You don't hate God, do you?
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."
Sigh. System 6! I love you!
Dock Article
Panther Article
The problem is that you can't just look at the dock and know what's in it. You have to "scrub" the mouse over the icons in the dock in order to cause them to display their names.
WindowShade's approach, where they create an icon that is an image of the document's contents, with the application icon superimposed, is much better. You can easily see all Photoshop documents, and tell the difference between them, in a natural, intuitive way.
Check out http://www.unsanity.com/haxies/wsx/.
Enable 3D printed prosthetics!
When he talks about interface design, it's clear that TOG is in his element. When he starts talking about what applications should do, he seems more like he's just ranting.
I think this comments about the new Finder are right on target. When he complains about needing export from iPhoto, It makes me wonder if he's ever bothered to select a bunch of pictures and just drag them somewhere.
A.
...bringing you cynical quips since 1998
Apple Sales is in love with the Dock. You can't go into an Apple store without seeing it splayed across the bottom of the screen, in the very configuration least conducive to computing on a Macintosh. Why? Because it's sexy and it sells. It makes that bright, shiny new Apple look simple, approachable, and beautiful. It makes for a great demo.
The problem does not lie with the Dock itself?if it makes a great demo, leave it in?but with Apple's apparent belief that it is a complete solution. The Dock is akin to a brightly-colored set of children's blocks, ideal for your first words?dog, cat, run, Spot, run?but not too effective for displaying the contents of War and Peace.
Contrary to my previously-held position, I no longer believe Apple should get rid of the Dock. It's just too pretty there in the store, and it does help set Mac apart from the more utilitarian appearance of Windows (although Windows grows more attractive with every release). You want that in sales. You want a visibly-apparent manifestation of the personality of the underlying technology. That's why automakers spend milliions making the outside of the car project an image of what's underneath the skin.
A certain class of Apple users?those who check their email once or twice a week and sometimes need to print an attached photo?may need nothing more than the Dock.
The rest of us need more powerful tools, so, Apple, leave the Dock as the smashing demo it is, but also supply some serious, information-dense tools. You have the talent and wherewithal to make such tools as attractive as the Dock if only you will cease seeing this one single object as a complete solution.
Apple has made a few improvements to the Dock in the last three years. Items no longer jump around seemingly at random, although the size of the Dock continues to "wheeze" in and out without user control.. Items alsoi act like buttons, so clicking anywhere within their confines will open them. Apple also quickly gave us the ability to turn off magnification, a major improvement in day-to-day usability.
The other good news is that independent solutions now exist for getting around every limitation of the Dock. Read Make Your Mac a Monster Machine to learn how to turn your Mac into a high-productivity, but still fun workhorse. Meanwhile, here are eight continuing problems with the Dock, plus a new one, a decided lack of color. Most of these are inherent, and the solution is more and varied tools. A few can be directly addressed by design tweaks.
9. The Dock is big and clumsy
The Dock by default sucks up around 70 pixels square minimum, more than four times as much vertical space as either the Windows task bar or the Macintosh menu bar. (Yes, you can set it much smaller, but then you make it progressively more difficult to identify an icon without "scrubbing" the screen with your mouse to reveal its label.) Couple that with Apple's move to 16:9 wide screens (read: short screens), and you have a real problem. For good measure, add in the Dock's habit of floating on top of working windows, and you have little choice but to hide it.
8. Identical icons look identical
This was originally entitled "Identical pictures look identical." I pointed out that the Dock's use of thumnails in small sizes made all normal text documents look pretty much alike. Apple has now dumped thumbnails in return for identical icons. My original advice still holds: "We need information on data types, file sizes (as represented by the thickness of the icon), age, etc." They've now given us data type. We need more?any attribute that can help differentiate one object from another.
The better solution to this and many of these other limitations is to supplant the Dock with additional objects that are designed for representing groups of non-application objects, so that people aren't even attempting to put folders and documents in this already overloaded single object.
Predictive text is shiv!
I never used OS 9; I pretty much went from Desktop Linux to Desktop OS X so that I could run some apps (like MS Office and Warcraft) without a lot of muss and fuss.
I've been using OS X for about, oh, 12 months or so now. Never saw the OS 9 tabs and the like - went straight to Finder and Dock world.
I use Another Launcher 99% of the time - Control-Space, type in a few letters, and I'm done. The Dock hardly ever gets used, but I've never really hated it - if anything, I liked it more than most of the other "Windows Application Line" solutions I've seen.
Combined with Expose, and I can get to pretty much any window on the screen I need. Now, I do agree with the gentleman in his article about how it would be nice if the Dock featured a way to have more unique displays for files.
But I can't help but wonder: How much of this is "Well, we liked OS 9 and it did it this way, and now you change it!" Not to say he doesn't have some good point - but as a guy who uses his keyboard a lot more than his mouse (Terminal and Another Launcher get a huge workout from me daily), maybe I'm just missing a lot of the complaints.
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
The best feature about the dock, is the ability to drag a file to an application that sits in the dock. Even if the app is not currently running, the drag and drop action will load the app and the file that was dropped on top of it. I found my self doing this in Windows with apps on the quick launch... but... it doesn't work... :)
Long live the Dock!!!
PS. It's also fun to run the mouse quickly back and forth on it when you are extremely bored, but not as fun as shift+F9 (by default).
Apple Sales is in love with the Dock. You can't go into an Apple store without seeing it splayed across the bottom of the screen, in the very configuration least conducive to computing on a Macintosh. Why? Because it's sexy and it sells. It makes that bright, shiny new Apple look simple, approachable, and beautiful. It makes for a great demo.
The problem does not lie with the Dock itself--if it makes a great demo, leave it in--but with Apple's apparent belief that it is a complete solution. The Dock is akin to a brightly-colored set of children's blocks, ideal for your first words--dog, cat, run, Spot, run--but not too effective for displaying the contents of War and Peace.
Contrary to my previously-held position, I no longer believe Apple should get rid of the Dock. It's just too pretty there in the store, and it does help set Mac apart from the more utilitarian appearance of Windows (although Windows grows more attractive with every release). You want that in sales. You want a visibly-apparent manifestation of the personality of the underlying technology. That's why automakers spend milliions making the outside of the car project an image of what's underneath the skin.
A certain class of Apple users--those who check their email once or twice a week and sometimes need to print an attached photo--may need nothing more than the Dock.
The rest of us need more powerful tools, so, Apple, leave the Dock as the smashing demo it is, but also supply some serious, information-dense tools. You have the talent and wherewithal to make such tools as attractive as the Dock if only you will cease seeing this one single object as a complete solution.
Apple has made a few improvements to the Dock in the last three years. Items no longer jump around seemingly at random, although the size of the Dock continues to "wheeze" in and out without user control.. Items alsoi act like buttons, so clicking anywhere within their confines will open them. Apple also quickly gave us the ability to turn off magnification, a major improvement in day-to-day usability.
The other good news is that independent solutions now exist for getting around every limitation of the Dock. Read Make Your Mac a Monster Machine to learn how to turn your Mac into a high-productivity, but still fun workhorse. Meanwhile, here are eight continuing problems with the Dock, plus a new one, a decided lack of color. Most of these are inherent, and the solution is more and varied tools. A few can be directly addressed by design tweaks.
9. The Dock is big and clumsy
The Dock by default sucks up around 70 pixels square minimum, more than four times as much vertical space as either the Windows task bar or the Macintosh menu bar. (Yes, you can set it much smaller, but then you make it progressively more difficult to identify an icon without "scrubbing" the screen with your mouse to reveal its label.) Couple that with Apple's move to 16:9 wide screens (read: short screens), and you have a real problem. For good measure, add in the Dock's habit of floating on top of working windows, and you have little choice but to hide it.
8. Identical icons look identical
This was originally entitled "Identical pictures look identical." I pointed out that the Dock's use of thumnails in small sizes made all normal text documents look pretty much alike. Apple has now dumped thumbnails in return for identical icons. My original advice still holds: "We need information on data types, file sizes (as represented by the thickness of the icon), age, etc." They've now given us data type. We need more--any attribute that can help differentiate one object from another.
The better solution to this and many of these other limitations is to supplant the Dock with additional objects that are designed for representing groups of non-application objects, so that people aren't even attempting to put folders and documents in this already overloaded single object.
7. Dock objects have no labels
The objects in
Perhaps you should learn what a monopoly is. Apple has a monopoly on Apple hardware and software. Nothing wrong with that. Microsoft has a monopoly on PCs because of the overwhelming market share of their OS. Not necessarily bad, except that Microsoft has on numerous occasions chosen to abuse their monopoly.
"A Guy Who Knows"
is that his official title? What's with the Capitalization?
OK...
Bruce is historically very right about lots of things - mostly about how damaged Windows had to be to not infringe upon Apple's look-and-feel too much in those heady lawsuit-happy years...
But...
I'm not in agreement with his prolonged high-horse about Aqua/Finder and especially Dock.
If there were prime directive(s?) in those days, it was that modes are bad, and a good GUI is permissive and forgiving. OSX expands those and 99% abides by them.
However...
Yes, Aqua interface details do need to be smaller - Classic screen space seems gigantic compared to OSX, largely due to smaller controls. We hit them just fine before, and it's creeping towards Xp cartooniness;
The dock is still better than the Launcher or the Taskbar in that it does solve the problems of (1) real estate of floating things and (2) kinesthetic problems of aiming inherent in window-bound menus;
Dragging from the dock doesn't erase what you drag in the newbie/panic sense, it deletes the alias (which yes, is enough to invoke a newbie/panic) - your original is fine, MAYBE dragging it should place it on the desktop (or an alias or copy? what is wanted here?
I've been using MacOS since the 128K and have 17 years experinece in pre-OSX and three in OSX - I have to say that Classic now feels like Bambi-on-ice compared to what now can be done easier and with more forgiveness in OSX.
*sigh* ok - I do miss the Chooser.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
Direct Links:
The Top Nine Reasons why the Dock Sucks
Panther: The Good, The Bad and the Ugly
Google Cache Links:
The Top Nine Reasons why the Dock Sucks
Panther: The Good, The Bad and the Ugly
"If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?" - Albert Einstein
You can have your application menu. To me it was a complete failure as a good UI device.
I'm assuming that you mean the menu that the multi-finder brought us, the menu in the upper right hand corner that lets you switch applications.
It was a pain then and still is a pain.
The dock is much better for switching applications, as you only need to click once on an icon to switch applications rather then click->drag. And the order of the applications was dependent on the order in which you opened your applications which generated many rituals I'm sure of opening your applications in the same order so they would always appear in the same order on that menu.
The only problem with the dock is that it can'h handle more then 15-20 applications.
No way man, System 5 is where it's at!
hmm...on my iBook running 10.3.2 when I minimize a window to the dock it displays that Window's contents as the icon on the Dock. This looks esp. cool when I minimize a movie and it keeps playing visibly on the Dock.
P.S. I've already tried that program, looks neat, but I have a neurotic compulsion to have aa barren desktop, so all those mini-windows would bug me, but it is a nice solution.
-WinXP has most of the programs and games out there
-linux/unix has the most customizable gui (40+ different window managers, each having 'very customizable' as a feature)
-MacClassic has the easiest to use interface (if you didn't have much windows experiance)
-MacOSX - like unix (is unix) but with only one WM choice...
WinXP 'most powerful OS' meaning?
desktop market share? - you would be correct
cpu market share? - incorrect
stability? - getting better
cpu overhead? - getting worse (but so is everyone else)
fewest tools/programs per install CD - clear winner
I'm not even a mac guy, but I've run OSX (10.2.3) and Safari, and I know that Safari stores its bookmarks in XML. Thus any asshole who can write a little perl can get the bookmarks out, and exchange them with (say) Netscape, which stores them in an HTML file - nearly the same thing, as far as we're concerned.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I hated the old Mac interface that he seems to love (Process Menu and Applications Menu). Too out of the way for things you need. The dock can easily be positioned where you need it, and there are labels for those pesky documents which "look all the same" (WindowShade, anyone? Anyone?). I don't like the gun metal interface so much either (though it's growing on me) but to gripe about such messy little issues and say that OS X is inferior to 9... that just shows a lack of understanding about the power of OS X. Was there the Darwin core in 9? No CLI? No OSS apps just waiting to be compiled and used? No Fink, even? GUI preference issues aside, OS X is ten times (HAR!) the operating system of any previous Mac OS incarnation.
IAALS.
I don't have time to configure my computer, read manuals, and waste time on other stuff. I want a superior computing experience, I want solutions to pragmatic problems, and I'm willing to pay.
I've done computing stuff since the mid-80s (so I could easily do this with Linux), but i'm an adult now with a life. I don't want to waste it screwing around with a box.
That's it.
Do you drive the absolute cheapest car you can find? Buy the cheapest house? Get the cheapest video card and monitor? For some of us, Apple is higher quality than Wintel, and we're more than willing to pay more for it.
It's like saying "You're such a fuckwit if you think Chocolate is better than caramel, here's why"
To further extend and utterly mangle your analogy, it's more like Apple took away the Mint, Strawberry, and Chocolate that users had come to love and use regularly and replaced it with a big block of food-colored Vanilla, saying that the rainbow swirls of dyed Vanilla more than adequately serves all the functions of Mint, Strawberry, and Chocolate despite losing a lot of the specific flavors the former solutions that made them so loved by their former users for getting the same things done differently.
Then, they make it so that you can never really get rid of Vanilla despite running third party Chocolate on your computer so that the big block of Vanilla keeps splatting itself against your screen everytime you move your spoon to the wrong place.
The analogy then falls apart because there's no good ice cream metaphor for the fact that they threw several years of HCI research out the window by ignoring the effects of muscle memory and Fitt's Law by having elements slide around as you opened and closed new applications and by no longer using the corners of the screen as a useful fixed reference. Nor can I really relate the fact that it's impossible to tell similar items apart without hunting and pecking to a banana split or to whipped cream topping.
(Just so y'all know, when it comes to MY computing experience I do like to go with what works for me, and I WILL be opinionated about what works for me)
Yeah, so what are you complaning about when others do the same? The Dock DOESN'T work for most of us. I've just gotten resigned to keyboard navigation between apps and to hunting and pecking for new applications when I want them.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
they replaced two very workable UI gadgets, the Application Menu and the Process Menu
I'm sorry, but as bad as the Dock is, it's better than that stupid Application Menu:
1. It hides important information (what programs can be switched to)
2. It requires two clicks to perform an operation that takes 1 click on every other GUI.
The entire premise of the App Menu was that changing your running application was a rare event - which probably made sense back in the System 6 MultiFinder days, but certainly doesn't refect today's reality.
And Adobe has a monopoly on Adobe software! For shame!
http://www.asktog.com/columns/044top10docksucks.ht ml
Top Ten^H^H^H Nine Reasons the Apple Dock Still Sucks
by Bruce Tognazzini
Apple Employee #66, Apple's first Interaction Designer and only Human Interface Evangelist, weighs in on the scientific evidence against the Dock and the sales reality that keeps it in place.
Apple Sales is in love with the Dock. You can't go into an Apple store without seeing it splayed across the bottom of the screen, in the very configuration least conducive to computing on a Macintosh. Why? Because it's sexy and it sells. It makes that bright, shiny new Apple look simple, approachable, and beautiful. It makes for a great demo.
The problem does not lie with the Dock itself--if it makes a great demo, leave it in--but with Apple's apparent belief that it is a complete solution. The Dock is akin to a brightly-colored set of children's blocks, ideal for your first words--dog, cat, run, Spot, run--but not too effective for displaying the contents of War and Peace.
Contrary to my previously-held position, I no longer believe Apple should get rid of the Dock. It's just too pretty there in the store, and it does help set Mac apart from the more utilitarian appearance of Windows (although Windows grows more attractive with every release). You want that in sales. You want a visibly-apparent manifestation of the personality of the underlying technology. That's why automakers spend milliions making the outside of the car project an image of what's underneath the skin.
A certain class of Apple users--those who check their email once or twice a week and sometimes need to print an attached photo--may need nothing more than the Dock.
The rest of us need more powerful tools, so,
Apple, leave the Dock as the smashing demo it is, but also supply some serious, information-dense tools. You have the talent and wherewithal to make such tools as attractive as the Dock if only you will cease seeing this one single object as a complete solution.
Apple has made a few improvements to the Dock in the last three years. Items no longer jump around seemingly at random, although the size of the Dock continues to "wheeze" in and out without user control.. Items also act like buttons, so clicking anywhere within their confines will open them. Apple also quickly gave us the ability to turn off magnification, a major improvement in day-to-day usability.
The other good news is that independent solutions now exist for getting around every limitation of the Dock. Read Make Your Mac a Monster Machine to learn how to turn your Mac into a high-productivity, but still fun workhorse. Meanwhile, here are eight continuing problems with the Dock, plus a new one, a decided lack of color. Most of these are inherent, and the solution is more and varied tools. A few can be directly addressed by design tweaks.
9. The Dock is big and clumsy
The Dock by default sucks up around 70 pixels square minimum, more than four times as much vertical space as either the Windows task bar or the Macintosh menu bar. (Yes, you can set it much smaller, but then you make it progressively more difficult to identify an icon without "scrubbing" the screen with your mouse to reveal its label.) Couple that with Apple's move to 16:9 wide screens (read: short screens), and you have a real problem. For good measure, add in the Dock's habit of floating on top of working windows, and you have little choice but to hide it.
8. Identical icons look identical
This was originally entitled "Identical pictures look identical." I pointed out that the Dock's use of thumnails in small sizes made all normal text documents look pretty much alike. Apple has now dumped thumbnails in return for identical icons. My original advice still holds: "We need information on data types, file sizes (
No matter how many of my rights are taken away, somehow I still don't feel safe. -Frigid Monkey
I don't agree with you. Apple isn't a monopoly, as Apple has to compete with Microsoft and all PC builders. If you don't want to pay that much for a computer with a OS that's completely built for the hardware it runs on, than you should just buy a PC, no one forces you to buy a Mac.
Personally I don't think Mac's are that expensive. I'm just a student, but I've bought 3 Mac's in the last 4 years.
I think you have to consider more than the cost of the hardware when comparing Apples to PCs.
I spend far less time maintaining my Mac than my PC for an equal amount of work. Overall, the return you get from the extra effort Apple has gone to to make the Mac an easy-to-use platform is far greater than what you pay for it.
And then there's the whole crashing issue...A OS X-based Mac crashing is a rarity while a PC crashing is a commonplace occurance. I think you can put a cost on reliability as well. How long did it take you to edit that last document? how much is keeping it worth to you?
homepage
How to make your Mac a Monster Machine
Panther: The good, the bad, and the ugly
Top 10 reasons why the dock still sucks
I don't think anyone rips MS for "being" a monopoly, not even the DOJ. What people dislike (and what is illegal) is the abuse of their "special monopolistic powers." You know, forcing OEMs to put your web browser on the desktop, etc. I can all but assure you that if the situtation were reversed, that is, if Apple were on 96% of all desktops and Bill Gates was seen as this young CEO of a relatively small SW Company, people would be describing XP as the greatest thing since sliced bread and loathe anything put out by Apple.
that was the best application launcher of all time.
Drag Thing would be FINE if you could have tiny icons like Malph had.
oh, nevermind... Drag Thing lets you make small icons.
Hmmm.. maybe i will give drag thing a swing...
guns kill people like spoons make Rosie O'Donnell fat.
I wouldn't even be using OS X if it still had that crap application/process menu. I think the dock is a good way to handle things and in comparison to Windows and KDE/GNOME, my opinion is that it's the best idea.
I have tried to use OS 9 on occassion and I must say the handling of open applications is horrid. I'm rather suprised that anyone liked it and even more so that people defend it.
But like we all say, we all have opinions and should respect others. In any case, the idea that this guy is blasting something that replaced his technology that he no doubt spent alot of blood, sweat and tears to create is no shocker at all.
I just wasted your mod points! HA!
Way over-priced and well-paid are highly subjective. I'm adequately paid and do not think Apple's products are expensive for the value provided. So, I imagine there are people that think Kia's are over-priced and those who think that Ferrari's are not. How can your question not be considered flame-bait?
P.S.
"Everyone" rips up Microsoft for abusing monopoly power, outright denial of wrongdoing, killing any attempts at competition, and megalomaniacal executives. Apple has done many stupid things but the scope and breadth isn't comparable.
Apple is not a monopoly, you are free to use other solutions.
Apple is not that expensive compared to other manufacturers. Price Apple laptops against Sony and Toashiba's. Price their high end towers against Dells. If you're comparing against building your own system, then yes they will seem expensive; but then so will Sony, Dell, etc.
I think this is an overstatement. Most of the functionality of OS 9 (and previous) is still there. The desktop, icons, windows, and applications' interface all behave essentially the same way. You can ding it for the dock and other such changes, but the truth is that many people (myself included) actually prefer those changes.
Now add improvements like centralizing control panels into the System Preferences (you could put many OS 9 control panels *anywhere*), the services menu (which is an awesome idea still highly underutilized), and greater uniformity in applications' menus (how many different places can you find an application's preferences in OS 9?) and you get some significant gains. That is not the end of list of changes for the better.
My point, I guess, is that OS X is progress, contrary to the small group of critics that is getting smaller as OS X continues to improve. In my opinion Panther is ahead of OS 9 in usability and the worst you can really call it is a trade-off.
Boom Shanka
Drill baby drill - on Mars
Think about it: we yelled about those damn docklings in OS X PB - 10.0 and things moved back into the menu bar; the configuration apps are now accessible from the Apple Menu; there are numerous ways to configure the Dock and the Finder now, allowing a user to have the machine he/she wants.
I, personally, use the Dock as a waystation for: apps that I use regularly, or use regularly right now (like Keynote, which I use every six or seven weeks or so); for my staff schedule spreadsheet; and for my desktop printers.
Do I think it needs to evolve? Hell, yes. I want to see multiple desktops or workspaces (no, Expose is nice, but it doesn't serve my needs). On spanned displays I would like to see multiple Docks. Basically, I think Apple needs to make the Dock much more configurable so we can make the Dock our Dock...
The Dock is not perfect, but his ranting against it comes across as just so much hyperbole. I get along with it just fine. The problem of identical icons is gone now that I can put my project folders in the Finder's side bar, and I don't minimize folders and documents much anymore thanks to Expose.
He may be a Guy Who Knows (or was at one time), but he's flat out wrong here, and there definitely a hint of an axe being ground. It also comes across as simply "I got used to this way. I never want to change. Whaaaaa!"
Some of the reasons can be combined (6, 7 and 8, for example). Some are purely subjective, like 5. I have zero problem trashing things.
The rest seem to read like "people's hands have minds of their own, and those minds are retarded, so they can never get used to the Dock. It's Fitt's Law, which is as immutable and perfect as the Laws Of Thermodynamics, dammit!".
And I love "Oh! I dragged something out of the dock and it puffed into smoke!" Wow. So call 911, you silly man, and tell them you need an IV with Zoloft or something. Sheesh.
--- Ban humanity.
JESUS FUCKING CHRIST! A troll on slashdot??? nooooo way!!!!!!!!11111
isn't that what expose is for?
It would be really nice if you could easily configure Finder so it showed the _real_ structure, instead of showing the user-friendly structure (i.e. it hides the real UNIX file structure). I mean it may not be a problem for the _office_ user. But for some power users (i.e. people that use the UNIX part of Mac OS X for something useful), it would be a great feature to be able to configure Finder so it shows the structure in an UNIX kind of way, and IMO it would improve the UI. Does the Finder "hide" the real file structure in the server version of Mac OS X?
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Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 10:22:56 -0800 (PST)
From: Krested Guy
Subject: BUSINESS PROPOSAL
To: michael@nospam.slashdot.org
MIME-Version: 1.0
I think you need to understand one thing first.
Apple isn't the same as MS.
Apple are a hardware company unlike MS who are a software company. Some may say Apple is a solutions company, very different and puts Apple in a different light to MS.
Another thing to make clear is that you have choice with Apple, unlike MS who force their products onto you. If say i didn't want to use ANY of Apples software products then all I have to do is delete them, nothing is stopping me. Not so true with MS, everything is integrated and linked therefore abusing its position because competitors cannot compete and lets not forget who owns the OS as well and forces the likes of DELL, HP to use soley their OS otherwise be penalised in OS discounts.
Apple however have always owned everything from the hardware to the software so its all theirs and they are not a monopoly even in their own OS environment, its neutral. No applications are trying to control your system or subvert itself onto you. If i want to delete something then I do it. All programming langauges are equal on OSX, none are favoured and dual booting is welcome, infact instead of dual booting one could install X11 and simply run UNIX and Linux environments ontop of OSX.
Just because they control the whole system doesn't make them a monopoly, its when you control the market. So what if they are overpriced you would think they shouldn't survive in a cut throat market as the PC market but they do and they are not going out of business or "dying" as some would have it.
Lastly, Apple use standards that everyone can use on other machines or platforms. MS use their own standards and forces lock-in when people use them, again a difference, enough to widen the difference from being a monopoly.
Finally, where have you been when slashdot discusses pricing with Apple systems? The Xserve IS the cheapest server solution on the planet with NO per seat licensing, the G5 in its class is also competitive and its only the aging G4 which is bumping up the price of those macs that use those processors. I'm not rich, i'm a student and i'm on my second mac, to stereotype people using OSX as being rich is plain wrong. Apple also offer developer discounts (20%) besides the student discounts (10%), who else does this and provide developer tools worth $$$$ for free with the OS? Try that with an MS system. you as a developer should understand the importance of this. While i agree they cost more initially, over a period of time they work out cheaper, as mentioned the per seat licensing with Xserves and the free developer tools with every purchase (after discount). Software isn't an issue either, from what i have seen its actually cheaper so i don't understand that point
Without sounding callous, i think you should have a look at one of the systems Apple offers and REALLY read about it, plus you would be doing yourself a favour by updating on what you don't know because your argument went out of date last year.
Jonathanjk.com
At the risk of being called flamebait - I have to say that Mr. Tognazzini thinks a little too highly about himself. Yes, he makes some valid points - but he refuses to recognise that there is not One Universal Soltuion to design. One example - he loves the use of corners to activate Expose windows, and loves having active Konfabulator widgets. I think expose is great - but I would never activate it by mousnig to the corner when there is a single key assigned to it. And while I think Konfabulator makes an amazing demo, (much as Mr. Tognazzini says the dock does) after a few hours having a massive analog clock in the center of your screen gets old, no matter how neat it once looked. What works for one person does not work for everyone, even if they have done amazing work in the past. This is also a problem of someone who was intimately involved with a company at one point, doing groundbreaking work on a groundbreaking product - but now he can only critisize from the outside. He has a vested interest in romantisizing the "good old days" of OS 1-9.
Everyone who knew the simplest thing about OS9 knew you could customise the Apple Menu to hold cascading menues of applications, files etc, and the OSx Apple Menu completely sucks in that regard.
Luckily, the fine folks at Unsanity also figured that out, and wrote a Haxie that I recommend:
Fruit Menu
With Fruit Menu I can develop quick and easy ways to get at any range of apps and documents and folders without resorting to the idiocy of the Dock.
I find it odd that Tog missed that. Oh well, that's why /. was invented, I suppose.
RS
If GWB is re-elected there is a 50-50 chance there won't be an election in 2008.
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
This is like accusing Ferrari of being a monopoply because they won't release their formula for their special red paint so you can use it on a Toyota.
;-)
"Monopoly" is a legal term. Apple is not a monopoly, as they do not control any market in which they participate.
Take the iPod as an example. Apple dominates, but cannot control, the market for portable music players. Apple has no power to dictate terms to the rest of the industry; they are competing solely by putting out a product that more people are willing to pay for than all their competitors combined. Apple's recent licensing deal with HP will not prevent you from buying an HP machine and installing a different music player and software. A deal with the iTunes store does not prevent a label from releasing the same song in mp3 format to a different service.
A monopoly is only found to exist when a company controls so much of the market that they can stifle competition. A company can be a monopoly without being guilty of illegal behaviour. In the US, a monopoly is not itself illegal, but a monopoly player does have different rules to follow than other companies.
Microsoft was found to be a monopoly in the eyes of the law because they could prevent a vendor from including a competing office suite, for example, and it was also found that they used their monopoly status to muscle out competitors.
The most harm Apple can do is make you feel a little jealous that you can't afford their machines, and that's not illegal. Apple fans can also make you mad by saying, for example, that if you did spend the extra money, you would be more productive and lower the time you spend on the care and feeding of your computer, but then, nobody's stopping you from using the wrong computer
You think the NeXT UI didn't have >10 years of work put into it?
Besides Tog seems to like at least one item brought over from NeXT: Dialog Box Drawers.
Right. Which is why Next was such a commercial and popular success and the Mac... wait...
Now before I get modded down, I be to remind whoever might read this that what I am saying is FACT. - bogaboga
. They need to have some sort of customizable chooser type deal. I have a bunch of apps that I want to categorize in folders and keep out of the dock. I also want to be able to access them through a menu rather than digging through my applications folder. The chooser (sort of like a start menu on windows) would be great for this.
Have you tried creating a folder in your home directory. Create folers inside that one for your categories (Development, Graphics...) add an alias for each app into the correct folder. Drop that folder into your dock, right(ctrl)-click on it and you have your start menu style app launcher.
I'm sure there are many ways to do this, just a suggestion.
I still can't figure out why they didn't put Applications in the dock by default.
Your second item sounds like Expose fits failry nicely, but I'm not you so I could be wrong.
Next!
there are two methods that address point2
1) command-tab. this gives you a (selectable) list of all running apps, whether they have open (or hidden) windows or not
2) expose. gives you a view of everything
i often find command-tab to be the easiest way to switch between apps
His complaints with the Dock are pretty much true for me, but miss my number one complaint: lack of organization. Sure, you can place icons by similar icons, but I want more...I want pop-up windows back!
My OS9 setup has 7 pop-up windows at the bottom of the screen, organized into categories. I can either click on a tab to get at every program for a certain function (like Internet or MP3s), or have easy drag-and-drop access for other programs. Even the lowly Apple Menu allowed for hierarchial folders so *everything* didn't have to be in the main list....how about the same thing for the Dock?
Workaround: command-drag the object. (Works from the Dock but not from the Finder side bar, though.)
Before this quote from Tog's article becomes another item of Urban Myth FUD for the Mac-bashing crowd, I'd like to clarify something:
From the article:
The Dock adds a whole new behavior: Object annihilation. Drag an object off the dock and it disappears in a virtual puff of smoke. This is the single scariest idea introduced to the Macintosh since the original bomb icon. How would you feel if you spent eight hours working on your first Macintosh document, only to have it disappear entirely when you try to move it from the dock to the desktop? Pretty disorienting, no? This is a completely unnecessary concept for the user to have to learn, particularly in such a painful way. Makes for a "hot demo" though, doesn't it?
Whatever you drag off the dock does NOT get deleted, disappear, or is uninstalled! All the icons in the Dock are simply aliases or shortcuts to items in your hard drive or network, the original item is left untouched.
Dragging something off the Dock only removes that shortcut. I don't see where he gets the idea that your document "disappears entirely". If he wants to he can save his documents straight to the desktop, if he wants it on the desktop.
FUD is FUD, and FUD coming from a Mac person who should know better is just plain sad.
Anonymous Joe
The chooser in classic Mac OS wasn't "like a start menu." The "Apple Menu" was what the start menu was cribbed from. The chooser was on it, but you used it to "choose" your printer and to mount network drives, and that was it.
You could try dropping an alias (or the originals) for all these things you want to categorize into some sort of folder structure, organized as you like it, and then put the top level folder on the dock. Right-(or option-) click on the dock item, you get your menu. Hoop-de-doo. For a big set of documents, it'd be just fine. Most people seem to have their Apps folder this way, don't they?
If you want something that's sort of a combo of the dock behavior and the menus you say you want, I personally think DragThing is a decent choice. Dragthing also includes a process dock that shows you open apps at all times.
(As far as "Windows does this by shoving every window title into the taskbar," well, no, it doesn't for me. On W2k, here, individual Apps behave differently. DreamWeaver pre-MX showed every open page as a task bar icon; from MX on it's just got one item on the bar at all times. Sometimes Windows will open several instances of a given app on me, depending on how I chose the documents I wanted to open. Highly idiosyncratic behavior for a very basic function.)
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
It completely depends on the functionality you're trying to achieve. One of my favorite applications is konqueror. I don't care much for the rest of KDE (no offense), but I love konqueror. I wish I could run it natively on windows (which I have to use at work) but I sometimes run it through cygwin simply because it's a better browser. And it browsers EVERYTHING. It's probably a bit too much of a "power tool" for the average user, but for me, it's great. Of course, this is coming from someone who prefers emacs over just about everything else too. :)
Who said Freedom was Fair?
Before OS X I had to switch over to Windows for my development work, but it was the OS X dock that made me switch to Windows (and alternately, Linux) for my personal stuff.
HUH? Hide it. Please...you change personal platforms over the dock?! I supose you change wives over a bad hair day too?
Tog: Get over it. Start living in the present. Classic OS is gone, kaput. 3 years ago, I had many of the same reservations about OS X as the majority of long-time Mac users.
However, having solely used OS X for the past 2 years or so, I can safely say my reservations have been 95% unfounded. As it turned out, it was more a case of "I fear change" than anything substantial. My overall productivity is still much higher as a result of the whole of OS X's new features.
His Panther review reads more like a list of rants simply because Apple didn't do it exactly like he wanted.
Don't believe me? If you minimize a safari window, you get exactly what you describe---a thumbnail of the document's contents with an application icon superimposed. In fact, I don't remember the last time I saw a minimzed window icon that wasn't a thumbnail of the document window with a badge superimposed. But then, I don't use MS Office, which is the app that several folks seem to be complaining about.
If you're seeing an application displaying a generic document icon with no details, blame the application's author(s).
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Why is it that everyone rips up Microsoft for being a monopoly, yet in the same breath praises Apple?
Because there are monopolies, and there are Monopolies. Apple has no more of a monopoly on Apple computers than Ford has on Ford automobiles or Nike has on Nike footwear. By definition, every company is a monopoly of its brand.
A company becomes a Monopoly with negative connotations when there are few viable alternatives and they use financial/political pressure against any for attempting to circumvent them. For example, when Microsoft put pressure on Intel to stop multimedia chip designs, presumably from fears that alternative OS's would use them to catch up to Windows capabilities. Or when they forced computer makers to pay per-pc licenses whether or not the pc's shipped with Windows.
In summary: simply being a monopoly isn't bad; it's using a monopoly in one area to affect another that gives a company a bad reputation.
As for your other comment, that's really a non-sequitur, isn't it? To you find it hard to understand why people buy BMW's or Mercedes? After all, they could have just bought a Hyundai. Or going to a tailor when there's a Walmart down the street. A company has the right to charge what they want for their products, and in a free market consumers will decide if they're worth the price. (Though if you're talking overpriced software and complaining about Apple, you definitely haven't been involved in licensing that much Windows software.)
R: That voice. Where have I heard that voice before? B: In about 365 other episodes. But I don't know who it is either.
The dock tells you:
What programs you have open, but that have no client windows left (without having to check the Application menu, which took up space in the already crowded program bar and had no keyboard shortcuts other than option tab)
Which programs are open, but hidden, again without having to check a menu.
Informs you when (and often why) a certain program needs your attention in a very noticable but inobtrusive way. And the bouncing can be seen even when the dock is hidden (the icon bounds up at the bottom/sides of the screen).
Programatic control of icons can offer all KINDS of useful information at a glance without needing to switch programs...everything from the date in iCal's icon to full memory and process indicators.
The dock allows you:
An easy way to start, stop and switch programs without having to browse the hard drive. Most programs have useful controls added to their dock icon as well...and you can access these functions with a single interface.
An easy way to access the trash bin without having to expose the desktop at all times (so annoying)
Access to the discs in a convenient cascading manner. This has allowed me to access common files and PROGRAMS without taking up resources at all times.
In short: The dock accomplishes all of the functions of most OS' taskbars, menus and so forth in a much simpler, much more powerful, much more intuitive and above all CUSTOMIZABLE fashion. It kicks ass.
And you're griping about the loss of the two most useless UI controls ever invented...oh my god, i just responded to a TROLL, didn't I?!?
Hey freaks: now you're ju
"9. The Dock is big and clumsy ...
The Dock by default sucks up around 70 pixels square minimum, more than four times as much
Couple that with Apple's move to 16:9 wide screens (read: short screens), and you have a real problem. For good measure, add in the Dock's habit of floating on top of working windows, and you have little choice but to hide it."
Yes, the "short screen" problem is significant, and, yes, while the funky magnification looks cool, it gets in the way.
My solution: 1) make the dock vertical on the left or right side, and 2) turn off the stupid magnification animation. It is all in System Preferences (at least in 10.2). Then make it as small or large as you want, and it stays that way.
The side works better, because most page-sized windows tend to be long vertically and narrow horizontally (e.g., a web browser window), and screens are wider than tall, so the left-right sides are often empty and occupied by the desktop peeking through anyway.
Now, if only the desktop would pay some attention to the position of the dock (e.g., not dropping default icon positions partially beneath it), and I had an OPTION for using vertical, tear-off NextStep-style menus, I would be completely happy.
a UI that had survived for over a decade-and-a-half
So that makes it good? I have some Egg-Nog that has survived a few years, you want it?
Thats the reason I don't buy an apple. I would never buy a Dell or a Sony I will also never buy an Apple. There is a good chance I would buy the Apple OS if they made it Hardware independent. I like Apples OS just the Hardware is hugely overpriced for me. I can build twice the machine for the price if i DIM.
I would like to salute the ashes of american flags, and all the fallen leaves filling up shopping bags.
which is based on BSD. I guess in a round-about way OSX and BSD have a common root but it is not based on it. Chickens and cows have a common root if you trace it back far enough. I don't ever say I like chicken because it is based on beef though.
Totally off topic but hold down shift while you Expose away, similar effect as on the minimize to dock functions (Genie). Then hit F9 Expose with several apps open and then hit tab. Cool.
I have no problems with the Dock whatsoever. It sits there, hidden until I use it, and tells me whats going on with my system. I like that. I don't need anything else.
Of course, I've registered and use Launchbar.
And I tell you what: I *hate* going back to my Linux box (KDE) after a few hours working on my tiBook
Just today someone was complaining "no right mouse button?!!" on their new Mac, and I realized (and told them) that I rarely ever use the Mouse for anything other than dragging/dropping
Being a Unix lover, this is important to me. To have such a nice looking GUI experience (hey, Jaguar -is- nice looking) and total control from the keys, well
But, I suppose, "keyboard only control" isn't sexy any more, and I guess you -have- to use the mouse to be a 'modern user experience', eh?
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
and Windows is far more popular than Linux then it must be better.
You can't have it both ways. Claim popular opinion when you like, and then deny it when you don't.
I've used every single Mac OS since the Lisa. :-)
Yes, Tog has a number of good points. But he misses the fact that for every problem the UI changes to Mac OS X introduces, it *fixes* at least as many, if not more, problems that existed in previous iterations of Mac OS X.
Sheets are about the only area I do agree with, but they *do* need to be attached to their windows, otherwise there's no way to associate their functionality with the right document, espeically if you use lots of windows. I'd love to see a "roll up the sheet" button which would allow seeing what is underneath temporarily, but I wouldn't want them to detach. OTOH, I note that most Open dialogs *are* dialogs intstead of sheets. Which is as it should be.
The Dock has it's issues, but it also solves much more than the problems it caused. Particularly in the area of notifications and being able to drag documents to a specific application. (I don't even have it autohiding unless I'm starved for real estate, like on my laptop...)
As for Finder... Since 10.0, I got used to keeping two finder windows open all the time, side by side, in Column View, and it's awesome. I do almost everything in those two windows, and only occationally open another window (usually to show package contents...).
I'm not, however, fond of the Panther change to add the volumes and known folders to the left side of the window -- it eats up a column, and I'd rather have that stuff back in the toolbar. But I could switch to having my two windows positioned vertically -- it's not so much a problem as a change in user behavior.
Even though I disagree with Tog on these issues, I'll point out that he is mostly positive to Mac OS X, and is only being a squeaky wheel about those areas he's not fond of. Which is how it should be.
-->Zgwortz
Point 9: Bottom of the screen does suck for placement. that's why mine is on the left hand side of the screen.
Point 8: I never have had a problem with this. My folders have custom icons, so I can differentiate between them on the doc. I don't keep files in the Dock (doesn't make sense, I put my document folders in and then select files from in those folders).
Point 7: There isn't a single identical icon in my Dock (with over 25 icons present). See my reply to point 8.
Point 6: That'd be nice.
Point 5: My trash can is in the corner, it is never hidden, and never shifts position. It's called preferences. Turn off magnification, turn off auto-hiding and put the Dock along one side. Takes care of all of this point.
Point 4: Turn off Auto-hiding. It's a horrible option. And once again, use folders not documents (unless you only work with a few documents, it's a bad idea to put them on the dock individually, put folders with your files in them).
Point 3: No. Auto. hide.
Point 2: Um, Apple took two (good) features, and combined them into one, preserving the best features of both. Totally off base on this one.
Point 1: This guy has never used the Dock. You can't put a file in the Dock. When you drag one to it, you are creating an alias. Drag it off and you delete the alias. The original file is never touched.
Especially after reading the last point, I realized he has never used the Dock. All of his points are either (a) invalid or (b) entirely fixable (preferences) except for the one about the color. And I challenge anyone to show me how you can "accidently" delete a file because of the dock.
Ryan Stultz
I have found few of the changes to the Mac OS GUI to even be steps backwards compared to Classic. In fact, I find OSX's GUI to be much more usable than Classic's. I cringe at using Classic's GUI in the few times I've had to boot back to Classic.
I've been a fan of the Dock since I first saw it. For me, it's an indispensible piece of the GUI that really works. I always felt that the window-shading was a terrible solution in that each window STILL took up space, even when you didn't want it to. OSX, click the yellow minimize button to send the window to the Dock, and the whole window is out of sight until I want to see it again. (I have the Dock set to hide, obviously.) Granted, I could use the Hide Application option, but that always felt bad to me since I often have multiple documents open with each application.
Yes, OSX has some usability issues that I'd like resolved, but at least, from what I've seen, I find OSX to be the most usable of all the GUIs I've used (or am using on a daily basis like OSX, Gnome, Windows XP, KDE, and Windows 98). OSX looks good, works well and fairly consistently, and does things in a way that feels comfortable to me.
As for the articles, here's my rebuttal to Tog's nine points against the Dock:
9. The Dock is big and clumsy: Considering what it does, wouldn't it HAVE to be? And set to hide, it takes up no screen space until I want it to. The old Application menu still does that!
8. Identical icons look identical: DUH! Aren't they supposed to? New things are new, after all... and red things are red. The point he makes is easily countered by the fact that the dock will pop up textual information about the icon once you roll over it. And, sorry, few other GUI tools do any better, including the majority (maybe, all?) of the Classic ones.
7. Dock icons have no labels: This is an actual concern, but, again, rather than complain, how about propose a solution that works in the setup? I have little trouble with this, since I set up my Dock to such a point that I never have that problem. I have custom folder icons on important folders (which SHOULD BE the only folders to be in the Dock!). It's simple, and you'd have to use the same work-around in almost every other tool out there.
6. Dock objects need color: This would be a solution to #7, and, in fact, when you think about it, is only a more specific argument for #7. Thus, he should consolidate #6 and #7, then attack that. Again, this is a point that I agree with.
5. Trash Can belongs in the corner: Excuse me while I play a sad song on the world's smallest violin. My Trash Can, even in Classic days, was NEVER in the corner. I hated that position for it. Still do to this day. And, Tog... I use Command-Delete because it's FASTER and EASIER and makes more sense than the iconic Trash-drag to my mind... not because the Trash is in a "bad" position.
4. The Dock's locations are unpredictable: Excuse me, what? You minimize a document, it minimizes as the RIGHTMOST icon in the document side of the Dock (for a bottom Dock, that is). What's so hard about THAT? A little use of the Dock shows exactly how predictable things are there. And a new application that isn't in the Dock will pop up in the RIGHTMOST spot of the Application side of it. Is this THAT hard to comprehend?
3. The Dock is a sprawler: Yes, it is. Is that a truly bad thing? Instead of having to tell people that they have to move to a specific set of spots, I can just say, "Move your mouse to the bottom of the screen." Simple instructions, simple idea, simple implementation, and simple response. I don't have to tell them to sweep along the bottom until the Dock appears, or aim for a corner. Just go to one side and everything comes up.
2. The Dock replaced better objects: Huh? Tab menus were nice, but what did I do with them? Yeah, I had a folder with links to all my programs and document folders. It worked much like a static Dock. Only, it was a bit more of a p
I used to read everything he wrote, but it seems lately he's becoming less focused.
The article on Panther is a case in point. He spends a good part of the article arguing for multiple windows instead of a single window interface, then spends a good part of what's left complaining about the multiple windows on his desktop. Wouldn't it be great if they closed as you opened a new one?
Well, you dumb ****, turn the option you were just bitching about back to its default setting. See? Problem gone.
Tog is back, and is so bitchy, he's ready for Straight eye right now....
He liked the Application menu from 9 - i have to admit that i don't even use the Dock for application switching - all i use it for is launching apps.
But for application switching - its called Command-Tab - and not only does each press of Tab (what a beuatiful drink) give you the next app - you can even interact with it using your mouse! You can even quit whatever app is highlighted when hitting command-tab by hitting - horrors - Command-Q! Put that in your ASM and smoke it, Toggy.
Tog is right about some things, but holy shit...80% of the time, he just comes off as whiny and stupid because its obvious he doesn't know what he's talking about sometimes.
I mean - this guy has his own cult following (of which a close friend of mine is a follower) - yet he's so obviously Koresh and not the real King David at all.
For example - his rant on iPhoto? Where the hell did this come from?
iPhoto does what no photo organization app before it ever did - iPhoto makes photo organization EASY! That should be a big "holy shit, that's amazing!", because even after it being out for almost 2 years, NO ONE has made anything near as nice and easy to use as iPhoto.
HOW it does it - well, to be honest, i can't believe they could do it without a database. That Apple pulled it off with Finder-based organization is really impressive. All the other apps that "manage" pictures suck - as he obviously admits when he says something so SCO as "I'm sticking with Canon ImageBrowser. It's not as nice, but ImageBrowser is a view onto the Finder"
That's like bitching about how Keynote uses XML instead of HTML for its file format...
Note to Tog - the reason Canon's software is not as nice is because it DOESN'T ORGANIZE you're fscking pictures, numbnuts! That's what iPhoto does!
Exporting your photos and "losing all organization"? What the hell does that even mean? What app are you going to take 20,000 pictures to that organizes them better for you? And if you want to export 500 pictures into a folder - you can do that in iPhoto without any issue at all.
What makes all other photo "orginization apps" suck is that they don't do anything to help you organize your pictures... they depend on plain old folders... and so, any organization you want, you have to do manually.
And that's why all of us who had thousands of pictures HATED about Finder folder organization.. WE had to organize our pictures - instead of the software.
In his braindead rant, Tog uses the word "proprietary", but he uses it to stir emotion, not because its acurate... The organization of folders in iPhoto is not "proprietary" at all - its very obvious HOW it works whe you look around at it - and its not closed in any way. He knows that the word "proprietary" will get Mac users' panties in a bunch, though.
Hey Tog - you bitchy tit - i'll put 500 of your photos and Canon imagebrowser against 10,000 of my photos in iPhoto 04, and i'll race your whiny ass on ANY photo organization task you want. And i'll kick your ass EVERY TIME.
Just stick to Fitts' Law and crying about the dock, and your followers will always love you.
guns kill people like spoons make Rosie O'Donnell fat.
I'm not going to say you're incorrect, but you're not exactly correct either, as that was a completely subjective statement. That said, I'd love to see some stats on people who like the new OS more/less compared to the old one, broken down into old Mac fans and those who came on the scene after the advent of OS X.
Personally, I love OS X and find it extremely usable. Additionally, I avoided previous iterations of Mac OS like a plague, and would have rather used an abacus than a mac back then. Bascially, the lack of a good foundation (compared to the BSD-based guts it has now) and a terminal was a killer.
That said, I guarantee that Apple will sell out its core fans to get new markets (ie, people like me). As you say, what else are you going to use? Windows?
(If there's one thing I can't stand more than anything else, it's the whole "like it or leave it" attitude. NOTHING would ever get improved if all people were like that.)
I do agree with your sentiment there. People usually do that when they can think of nothing intelligent to say. It's most commonly found among nationalistic morons (ie, America: love it or leave it!). As if criticizing features of one's government (or favorite OS) somehow means one should abandon it.
My one greatest compliment to OS X is that it has come so far (mind-blowing, really) in so little time. It's ceased being a toy OS for artsy people (so was the stereotype) and has become incredibly powerful. And I'll admit, there are some UI issues. I guess I'd say to give it time
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
Drill baby drill - on Mars
Does the Mac allow for these type mice to be used? Is the wheel functional on them?
I've only played with the powerbooks in the store at this point, but, so far, I like the UI...I think the Dock is just fine, although I didn't know dragging from it would make things disappear...my first guess from other OSes would be that it would put them on the desktop.
Anyway, any insight out there about the mouse questions?
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
That's it. Your Launch folder can be organized with shortcuts however you want, and your dock contains only running applications (plus the launch folder and the trash).
[panther] Try dragging docs or apps off the dock using the command key as a modifier. That moves the original item to the target window (including the desktop). You retain your dock icon that way, then you can drag it off to see the cool 'poof' effect (which justifies the whole thing if you ask me) :-) Pretty consistent, actually (the command key is a forceful modifier).
The trash stays where it is, need a haxie for getting it on the desktop.
Damn those pesky terrorists
People are upset by the fact that Microsoft has abused its monopoly power by playing many, many dirty tricks to drive competitors out of business. For example, they pressured OEMs to prevent them from optionally shipping BeOS on new machines. They stole code from QuickTime and then pressured Apple into dropping the lawsuit by threatening to cancel Office for Mac. They prevent OEMs from pre-loading certain software so they can kill competitors (like they did Netscape.)
People hate Microsoft because of their dirty tricks, not because they are a monopoly.
For whatever reason, you hate Apple. Fine. You have other choices. Since Apple is only 5% of the market, can't you just ignore it?
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
t was like the boys from NeXT came in and simply assumed they knew better than everybody else,
hah, have you ever used that piece of shit they call a programming enviornment, webobjects? It's piss poor.
Im not trying to troll here, but Tog really likes OS 9, doesn't he? Its as if he's taken personal offense for every change, and just to make it more powerful, you can add these utilities to make it just like 9 again!
Middle-button text editing, a popular staple of Linux geeks, is not present, but the drag & drop features are powerful enough that you will never miss it, once you get used to the new OS.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Apple in their infinite wisdom, only ships 1 button mice and trackpads, but the OS has full support for 3 buttons and more mice. Just plug in your favorite 3rd party mouse and it will work.
Moving a file from one location to the next should never create an alias.
This statement clearly illustrates the problem: you see the Dock as a location, where files can exist separately, when it is not. It can only hold links/aliases/shortcuts to documents, folders, and applications.
Let me say it one more time, to make it perfectly clear. The Dock is not a place you can store documents. Therefore, moving them from the Dock should not move the document. Creating an alias is, in fact, the most sensible thing to do, since that is what, in essence, it already is. The document is not "in the Dock." There is a reference to it in the Dock.
I have a couple of minor (largely conceptual, since I find it perfectly easy and useful to work with) problems with the Dock. However, that is not in the least one of them. It is a problem with your perception of what the Dock is/should be, not a problem with the Dock itself.
Dan Aris
Fun. Free. Online. RPG. BattleMaster.
Yes. At least the 2-button/scrollwheel mouse I've got (macally) and every other one I've tried work fine. Not sure what the third button on a three-button mouse (or scrollwheel click) is supposed to do so I can't test that, but contextual menus are on the right button, and the scrollwheel works in apps that support it.
Creating aliases may be what appears to happen, but it's not. It however, is a useful metaphor for what is happening so continue to use it; but for correctness I thought I would throw out what is actually happening
When you drag something into the dock, it creates an XML entry in the ~\Library\Preferences\com.apple.dock.plist file. This is actually better than creating aliases if you are on a Open Directory domain, as you can then have the dock point at a location on multiple machines, rather than having an alias break because the inode doesn't match up.
Did I also mention that some of the other behaviors people want to change are in here? This is what the dock preferences pane sets.
Property List Editor is your friend!
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
Why put in a "make my interface less usable" checkbox?
Because, hard as it may be to believe, not all of us have the same opinions as you!! (shock, horror) For some of us, far from making the dock less useful, having the dock move makes it more usable. You seem to have missed the point of "options"--they are there so that people with different tastes can make their computers work the way they please. Currently, there is, in fact, a way to get your dock to do that (I think): set the dock's magnification to "off", and use TinkerTool to pin it to a corner. Yes, the latter is not accessible through Apple's GUI, and I don't know why, but you can do it.
What you are advocating is pushing your particular view on the rest of the Mac-using world. Why should we want to do things your way? Make it customizable! Give me checkboxes! That way, we can all be happy.
Except for you, apparently, since you don't want anyone else to have any choice.
Dan Aris
Fun. Free. Online. RPG. BattleMaster.
i like to keep the dock tidy. so i tried to use the app folder in the dock approach long ago when i first switched to os x. the problem is that you can't drag & drop icons onto the applications that way. if they allowed pop-up drilling into dock folders for drag and drop then it would be nearly perfect.
Yeah, but remember Tog is not pointing out what's good about the dock. He's pointing out what's BAD. I'm sure he'd agree with you on most of your points.
:-) The problems Tog is talking about are very minor and are ways to bump productivity just a little more here and there).
It's like saying "the Yugo is awesome, it comes with FOUR wheels. An ENGINE! And a key to start it (no more crank)!" But in reality the Yugo has some flaws.
(Note, I'm a not comparing OSX to a Yugo.
Been saying this for years--
I hate accidentally clicking the dock and launching/opening something when reaching for a scrollbar. It happens a lot, usually resulting in a mad scramble for the "FORCE QUIT" option.
All that's needed is a preference that says:
"Use Double-Clicking on Dock"
Give me that and windowshade (not the hack version), and I'll be a happy user.
W
-------------------
This is my SIG. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
Correlation is not causation, moron.
And to that I say, Helloooo Expose!
It's cool to see Mac zealots turning on each other!
Well I can't read the article as it seems to have been /.ed, but the main thing I don't like about the dock is that everything is basically an icon.
That's fine if you mainly do graphic design, where you can see what minimised photoshop windows are, but if you do a lot of text/html work then the only way to see what minimised windows contain is to mouse over them one by one.
Windows XP, despite its hideous default theme has the best "taskbar" I've seen on any OS. Say I've got a load of dreamweaver files open as well as some folders open, they're grouped neatly into 2 items on the bar that I can expand to see a list of all the html files or folders that I have open.
Of course as Macs were (and still are?) considered to specialise as graphic design workstations this feature at least seems to make some sense.
The Application Menu!? Come ON. When I first started using the Mac OS (OS 8) it took me FOREVER to figure out where to stick stuff so it appears in the apple menu. It makes absolutely no sense to climb into the System folder just to add an application shortcut.
The Dock may not be perfect, but it's a hell of an improvement. Drag and drop. Plus the finder has the Applications button always visible by default (even better with the Panther sidebar) so it's easy to get to non-dock applications. This makes SO much more sense than the application menu.
Tog's got some great points, but a lot of his complaints these days have been more "greybeard" than objective.
Tog has some very valid points on some aspects of OSX's interface. On the other hand it is obvious he really liked the way OS9's interface worked. His favorite interface hacks are ones that bring back elements from OS9. While Classic MacOS has some very good interface elements not all of them need to be ported to OSX.
Window shades were a good idea when there was nowhere else for the windows to go. In OSX the Dock is the out of the way window repository and for the better I think. Since the Dock now adds an ownership icon to windows it is easy to see what is in the window and what it belongs to. If you've got a Word document and Safari window in the Dock you can easily tell which is the one you want to bring back up by the ownership icon. With window shades it was easy to lose a shaded window behind other windows or not be able to find the particular window you were looking for. The Dock keeps the windows in a common area and gives a visual representation of them.
I agree with Tog on white space to a degree. Some widgets in Classic MacOS were in desperate of added white space. Then other widgets were given too much white space. The white space added to windows controls was a very good idea in my opinion. The Platinum window controls were ridiculously close to one another which made it easy to be sloppy and close a window without meaning to. The added space is also good on tools windows. At 1280x960 the close button on tool windows was teeny tiny. Its Aqua counterpart is much easier to hit and more noticable. The amount of space given to buttons and labels however is bordering on absurdity. Interface builder suggests no less than four miles between buttons and labels on an interface. Too many small developers are using the suggested window metrics and ending up with horribly spaced windows.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
On my 12" inch Powerbook screen, the dock at 70 pixels is a disaster. There's not enough screen real estate to spare.
And Tog is right on about how the hiding dock is problematic due to dock reappear if the mouse pointer gets anywhere near the bottom on the screen. The dock's usable but not great on larger screens but on small ones, it's needs major improvement.
Yeah, you should have heard me when Sys 7 came out!
What the heck do we need all this eye candy for? 3D buttons just soak up CPU cycles and don't do anything useful...
It was like the boys from NeXT came in and simply assumed they knew better than everybody else
I wish they had done it, rather than the compromise they came up with. With 10.3, the finder window is now pretty decent. I remember the NeXT browser being a bit more elegant, but this will work. The dock is not as good as the NeXT dock. Especially with the widescreen displays the macs have these days, the original NeXT dock would've rocked.
"Sometimes a woman is a kind of religion, she can save your soul & set you free from all your sins" - Bad Examples
ABSURDITY, n.: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.
Tog writes "The same problem is plaguing the Safari browser. You can't elect to import bookmarks into Safari, and there's no way to get them back out. No corporation would support a single-source supplier, and no individual should either"
...
...
...
There's a hidden Safari feature which allows you to import bookmarks
Type the following command in Terminal (while Safari is NOT running):
Quit Safari. Enter the following command in Terminal
defaults write com.apple.safari IncludeDebugMenu 1
Launch Safari -- you'll have a Debug menu added to the application's bar. Amongst the Debug menu options are two ways to import bookmarks.
To get rid of Debug, quit Safari and enter the following command in Terminal
defaults write com.apple.safari IncludeDebugMenu 0
In the article he claims that Panther is as "crisp... as OS 9.2.2". In my experience, 9.2.x was just kludged together to make it forwards-compatible with OS X, and introduced a lot of undesirable behavior.
In fact, I found this to be true with MacOS 9, period. 8.5 seemed a lot more stable and user-friendly. What did 9 have that 8.5 didn't?
My only problem with the Dock is dragging, say, 20 or 30 picture files on to Preview so you can look through them all; if you miss the Preview icon and the button slips-- WHAM!-- 20 more icons added to the Dock. Well, that and accidentally clicking on a program that takes a while to boot.
When did the future switch from being a promise to a threat? -C. Palahniuk
No. The article was "The Top Nine Reasons the Dock Sucks," and consists of nine petty things. Petty things don't make a control "suck. Maybe they make it less useful, but come on. After the first time you drag an icon representing a program out of the dock, you never again think that you just deleted it. Instead, you realize that there's a difference between the program and its representation, and without a long winded dialog (try deleting a shortcut in Windows to see the opposite). Plus, the grandparent post was waxing poetic about the APPLICATION MENU. If the dock is a Yugo, this guy's pining for the halcyon days of the rickshaw.
I don't think the Dock is a yugo...if anything, its flaws are a cause of its ambition and usefulness. Using the Dock, if anything, is like drivinga Cadillac with a 4/6/8. And Tog is sitting on the sidewalk complaining about my cruise controls.
Hey freaks: now you're ju
Chill out, grandparent wasn't trolling, just expressing a strong opinion, like you.
Thing is, you're BOTH right. In 8.x on, I found ways to approximate what I use the dock for now, including BeHierarchic for awesome apple menu access to anything, customized for speed. I used the application switcher tearoff for awhile on larger screened machines, though eventually, I went heavily into using the control strip (extension strip, actually) for process management, disk access, hardware control (oh how I MISS that functionality), and a slew of other features.
The control strip combined with the apple menu was immensely productive, clean, and powerful (jaw dropping to winTel users, sometimes). Now I use the dock similarly... though does anyone know how to put control strip like features into the dock? (You know, networking, sleep/screen, laptop keyboard add-ons, etc.)
Damn those pesky terrorists
Seems to me that Launchbar pretty much addresses Tog's concerns with Dock. Maybe Apple should start including it in their native software suite.
I personally find the Dock to be very annoying. I positioned mine on the right hand side of the screen, shrank it to the smallest possible size, only enabled a tiny amount of magnifcation, and made the dock automatically disappear. That's the only way I can make it somewhat useful. I still find that it's always in my way when I have a couple dozen windows open. I'll mouse over to the right hand side of the screen to scroll up or down in a window only to have the dock popup under my arrow. If I'm not paying attention or moving to fast I may switch to another running application or launch a new instance of an app in my dock. This is annoying as hell. It's almost as annoying as the bastardized Apple menu which now has no function whatsoever. With the Classic Mac OS I fly. I can out work even my G4. With OS X I find I have to hunt and peck around all the little annoyances that I can't get used to.
IMHO OS X is a great OS for a newbie, or at least someone that's not terribly familiar with the ways of the Classic Mac OS. OS X is a royal pain in the ass for a Classic Mac OS guru though.
By this logic, Windows 3.1 had the best UI on the market, in its day.
Tool!
No, things really are more expensive for mac users. Hardware is a bigger offender, but software, too. ATI charges on average $100 more for the mac versions of their cards. Its currently $350+ for a single G4/1ghz CPU (upgrade). New games usually cost $10-20 more, even from the same store.
My biggest personal gripe, is the extortionist prices you pay for upgrades, not the original price on the machines. Full system prices are usually in line, if just a little more expensive at the low end than other major system builders. It really pisses me off, having several older macs that will never get upraded because it just makes no sense economically. I'd rather buy one machine and have it last me basically as long as I want by upgrading the parts that need it, than buy a whole new machine when I want more speed. Its also easier to pawn off an old mobo, cpu, video card, or whatever, than a whole system, in my experience. It would be hard to say any of this is directly Apple's fault, but it still affects them negatively.
Point by point:
9. It is possible to do the same things as the Dock with less screen real-estate taken up. Take a look at the Windows task bar. Wasting space in the Dock only compounds the problem of wasted space in larger widgets for all apps and widely spaced Finder windows.
7 & 8. A single data point to distinguish files from one another is bad. More information can be presented there, but Apple doesn't take advantage of it. This forces users to hunt and peck for seemingly randomly reordered documents in the Dock which is inherently bad because it forces them to waste time mousing over icons. With more information, they could zero in on the proper target with a glance. Minimal action by the user to accomplish any task is the number one goal of UI design. The Dock violates this by making people hunt.
6. Actually, this is only one solution to 7-8, and it's not a complete one since Mac OS X only allows a handful of colors. This doesn't help distinguish between similar documents (which should often be labelled the same color if you're using a sane classification scheme). His point, really, is that they didn't fully implement a new feature like they should've.
5. The purpose of putting the Trash in the corner instead of the Dock is twofold. First, you want to have it in a consistent place so that you always know how to perform a common operation without a need for hunting as on the ever-shifting dock. This allows you to do it unconsciously without having to devote attention to it -- another good UI goal. Second, you want to use the corner because it's one of the easiest points on the screen to get to. You can't overshoot it easily since two edges of the screen act as a guide to direct your movement towards it.
Using Command-Delete shows that you are dependent on a keyboard/mouse interface rather than a purely mouse-based one. A system with multiple redundant ways of accomplishing the same task is more useful, and a system that allows a task to be done quickly using only a single input device is more useable because it does not require your hands to travel from one input device to another. Apple should've had a keyboard method for doing the Trash a long time ago, but having one now does not excuse making the purely mouse-based navigation system more difficult.
4. That's good if you are only having to deal with a mental stack size of 1. However, as you work with minimizing and maximizing multiple documents, you constantly reorder the Dock. Unless you have perfect memory of what order you last touched all the documents, you have to go hunting. Also, the documents and applications do not consistently follow the same order between different work session. This prevents you from unconsciously taking advantage of "muscle memory" to navigate to the icons without looking at them. This slows one down and is thusly bad UI design.
3. Wait -- you use the Dock in hidden mode all the time, and you never ever have to deal with it popping up when you drag your mouse down towards the bottom of an app that you're working with? I call BS. That or else you work with a far larger desktop than my pitiful 1280 X 1024. The Dock could accomplish the auto-hide feature the same way the Windows task bar does -- it could provide a small, visible zone to hover over to get access to. That would accomplish the same goal with far less irritation and far less screen real estate walled-off by its pop-up behavior.
2. I honestly can't see how tabbed folders were harder to work with than the dock. They were drag-and-drop just like any other folder window and just like the Dock. Plus, by being static, you could once again take advantage of muscle memory. The fixed, alphabetical order of the Apple menu was a flaw, but it was at least CONSISTENT. All the icons were where they were the last time you used them, irregardless of what apps you currently have open. This allowed people to effectively memorize their locations and not have to hunt. Your common apps in th
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Makes cutting and pasting lightening fast in that you do it with one hand....would love it if Mac has this capability. Does it exist? I was hoping so since I read they now work with X windows and applications....
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Tog writes "The same problem is plaguing the Safari browser. You can't elect to import bookmarks into Safari ..." There is a hidden Safari feature which allows you to import bookmarks. Quit Safari. Enter the following command in Terminal ...
...
defaults write com.apple.safari IncludeDebugMenu 1
Launch Safari -- you'll have a Debug menu added to the application's bar. Amongst the Debug menu options are two ways to import bookmarks. To get rid of Debug, quit Safari and enter the following command in Terminal
defaults write com.apple.safari IncludeDebugMenu 0
If this guy loves OS 9 so much why don't he just run that and not recommend people to use those crappy shareware utilities?? Apple employee #66 or not.. He is an asshole!
No. A "locked" state would prvent accidental removal of dock icons. It would not be possible for ignorant friends using your laptop without your permission/cats/etc to accidently remove icons.
I have never accidentally removed dock items as it's not that easy... and a cat certainly would not as they have yet to master drag-n-drop.
As for friends, why would you let them use your account instead of a guest account? Do you make a habit or turning over an admin account and keychain to your friends, never mind the dock? I'll bet your "friend" is a lot more interested in posting some embrassing article to Slashdot using your identity that removing Mail from your dock.
Oh please, can we have a little less conceptual zealotry?
Well, that's a nice petard you have placed in the air for hositing sir!
It's funny to hear a usability fanatic calling someone *else* a zealot as if it were a terrible thing. Admit you are one as well and move on.
The reason why this would be an improvement is that, in its current incarnation, it's very easy to accidently carry out an irreversable operation; removing an item from the dock. When this happens there is no quick intuitive undo... the user is forced to hunt down whatever was accidently removed and readd it if they so desire... and this provided they actually saw what they removed by accident and therefore know immediately what needs to be replaced.
Moving the icons onto the desktop would make for a simple undo... it would also provide a sensible counterpart operation to dragging something onto the dock in the first place.
All I can say is that I would detest such a change (yes, I have feelings on the matter so I am also a zealot). The reason? I drag stuff out of the dock all the time - on purpose!! I don't want it on the desktop as what is in the dock is not real and at most I'm moving a link. I use the dock as a shortcut bar of favorite apps/docs, and when I'm not using them as much I don't want them on the dock. I am very picky about what goes on my desktop, and would find it far more annoying to have things created on my desktop (which I might not even be able to see to know it went there). Even worse than a slightly hard to reverse action is an action that has consequences the user does not see!!
Or, if you're really such a conceptual fanatic, how about simply having icons return to the dock unless they're dragged explicitly into the trash?
That's not a good idea because you are not "trashing" anything - you are removing the dock's knowledge of that item. Trashing a dock item is what would really be scary! The trash is meant to remove an item from the system altogether, and should only be used to say "I never want to see that item again".
"The Dock adds a whole new behavior: Object annihilation. Drag an object off the dock and it disappears in a virtual puff of smoke. This is the single scariest idea introduced to the Macintosh since the original bomb icon. How would you feel if you spent eight hours working on your first Macintosh document, only to have it disappear entirely when you try to move it from the dock to the desktop? Pretty disorienting, no? This is a completely unnecessary concept for the user to have to learn, particularly in such a painful way. Makes for a 'hot demo' though, doesn't it?"
Well Tog strikes me as not having thought this point out. You cannot "save to the dock", Indeed, the only way something gets there is if a user drags it. Presumably given that they are the one who placed the link there they would also remember where it was from... again, the dock is for things you use most often so you know where they really are. The dock is meant to change all the time and is built to make that easy. The vision you and Tog have is of an app that is not the dock, it is something else that third parties provide.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
After RTFA I thought a bit about his remark on how you never know where an app will be when you make the dock appear. He's right, I used to hover a bit and adjust for the cute scaling effect, and well, it indeed bugged me - albeit in a small way.
.1 % of gui frustration reduced. Tatadataaaaa tatataaaa (think A-Team)
So what I did was, I disengaged hiding, disengaged scaling and put the dock to the right of the screen - a bit like a classical NeXT menu.
This actually works great. I always know where my apps are and don't have to second-guess where an app will be after the scaling effect kicks in. Another
I like Togg for his thoughtfulness and prissy usability zealotism, even if I don't completely agree or sometimes don't even bother to think anything else than "So F... What!?"
I think, therefore I am...I think.
Do you drive the absolute cheapest car you can find? Buy the cheapest house? Get the cheapest video card and monitor? For some of us, Apple is higher quality than Wintel, and we're more than willing to pay more for it.
How is a sentiment expressed on absolutely every damned Mac thread in existence insightful?
In the interests of full disclosure, people taking "Tog" seriously should also read this article, in which Tog tells us why the web and everything on it should be written in BASIC.
I haven't been able to take his rantings even half-seriously since reading that load of garbage.
OK, enough whinging, so how do we make this Dock thing work better for us?
I'll start: I immediately drag my Home, Applications folder and Utilities folder to the right side. There, just about anything I need to browse to in a hurry. One click = the window in question, click-hold-for-a-second and you can navigate a popup menu.
Then there's the fun stuff like guages and my RSS-eater, or a weather monitor.
I pin mine to the bottom right side to make up for my crusty old system 1.0 user muscle memory fixation on the trash. But then, as so many people note, command delete (and Cmd-Z!!) is what I use anyway.
Your turn.
Damn those pesky terrorists
I read the article you linked to, and I agree with some of the things in it.
The others, having apps in the Apple menu and an application menu, I can do without. That's what the Dock does well, IMHO.
As for the OS X Finder, I have to say that the Panther version is way ahead of the Jaguar version. I like the network integration, and the sidebar is constantly useful. I don't debate that there are better ways of doing things, but the Finder is pretty good and getting better. At some point, I'm sure that there will be some drastic changes just like the original MultiFinder was for Classic Mac OS. (Mac OS XI?) And I will jump right in there and offer my Cdn$200 to Steve and say "Thanks, Mr. Jobs!".
"Smart is sexy." -- D. Scully ("War of the Coprophages")
Technically, he's right: if the Dock had been introduced as "shareware" it wouldn't have flown because it couldn't have done half that stuff.
It's not a troll: what people like Tog don't understand is that some aspects of the Dock represent features that take advantage of certain completely new capabilities in OS X.
First off, the Dock would have looked like a solid block to due limitations in Quickdraw, much like Windows' taskbar.
Second, because you'd have to use tiny 32x32 icons, you couldn't look at the Dock with peripheral vision the way you can with larger icons. (Mine are at 48x48, at least.) The larger icons mean that any change to a live Dock icon, such as new mail arriving, is instantly obvious.
Background processes never worked well with OS 9, so live icons wouldn't have worked. And forget being able to Force Quit a process from the Dock!
Many blasphemous new features in OS X arrived because the folks at Apple decided to take advantage of their new technology. You have to experiment to see if things really work, and you can't do that with an OS until there are apps that use the new features.
It occurs to me that I gnerally want to be several levels deep in finger, plus one or two more. So I'd like all windows more than 2 levels deep to automaticly close. I dont care about /usr /usr/home, or /usr/home/bluGill, but instead /usr/home/bluGill/jobs and subfolders /usr/home/bluGill/jobs/resumes /usr/home/bluGill/jobs/coverleaders, and /usr/home/bluGill/jobs/leads.
YMMV, but I think I normally work like that: I care about a lot of folders close to each other, and not about others. (In school it was ~/cs4601 or some such) Once in a while I need to move things between far apart folders, but not often, and normally then there are so many folders opened that I can't find them when I want to. (of course I often use the command line for that, but that is a different story)
In OS X:
Dragging something to the trash no longer requires you to clear some windows out of the way to reveal the trash can on your desktop. The trash is always on top, always available, and never hidden or covered by something else you're doing.
Changing betwen running applications is now, at worst, a one click operation. Click the icon in the dock, app comes to the front. The OS 9 Applications Menu made me click twice - once to open the menu, once to choose the app.
I can get to any document in my file system with two clicks, at most, by just putting my HD in the dock. Right click (ctrl click, whatever) the HD in the dock, navigate nested folders, select application or file, done. Two clicks. In OS 9 I would have to double click the HD, double click the folder I wanted, and drill down to the thing I was looking for. OS 9 tabbed folders do not provide this sort of easy access to everything on the file system, since if I wanted to open something in a tabbed folder I would still have to open the tabbed folder, open the subfolder, etc etc. At best, I can have many tabbed folders, one for applications, one for documents, etc etc, and then get at most of the things I commonly want with three clicks (one to open the tab, two to open the thing). But again, the dock does this better because I can keep many folders in the dock (one for applications, one for documents, etc etc) and it only takes me two clicks to get at what I want (one right click to open the folder, one to select what I want). Alternatively, I could keep an alias to my HD in my Apple Menu Items folder, but this (a) necessarily creates one extra 'level' to navigate, as I have to navigate the Apple Menu to get to the HD icon and (b) means digging through my System Folder, which is less intuitive than just dragging a folder into the Dock.
Keeping aliases to commonly used applications in the Dock is better than keeping them on the desktop, and better than keeping them in a tabbed folder. If they're on the desktop I have to move windows out of the way to get at them. If they're in a tabbed folder I have to click three times to get at them - once to open the tab, and twice to launch the app. Launching an app in the dock is a one click operation. It's faster and easier.
Column view makes quickly browsing to a particular file or directory easier than icon view or list view. In OS 9, icon view makes you double click continuously as you drill down to what you're looking for, and it (optionally) litters your screen with intermediate windows. In OS 9, list view makes you click the triangle to open the folder, scroll the window down to show the directory contents, click the next triangle, scroll down, and so on. Column view has advantages over both icon view and list view in that it (a) only requires a single click to open a directory and (b) automatically scrolls the window to show the new directory contents. It is faster and easier.
Dragging things between windows in different apps is easier because application windows can be interleaved. So I no longer have to clear all of the windows in a particular app out of the way to reveal the window of the other app that I want to drag into
I can get at any window in any running application with two clicks, at most. Right click (ctrl click, whatever) the dock icon, pick the window I want, done. OS 9 had no equivalent. I had to switch to the application I wanted, and then try to pick out the window I was after. If I was lucky the application had a menu I could choose open documents from.
True, the OS X GUI isn't perfect. But neither was the OS 9 GUI. It most certainly cannot be said though that OS X is a 'leap backwards' in terms of functionality. In many respects, getting work done is easier in OS X than it is in OS 9. There is usually less clicking, less moving windows around to 'get at' windows below, and fewer Finder windows open cluttering up my screen.
"Belief means not wanting to know what is true." [Nietzche, The Anti-Christ, 1889]
Tab, Tab Cola, for beautiful people. oh man, that riff brought back memories!
Tog wants the dock to be OS X- he wants it to give you lots of info, and be the virtual swiss army knife of the mac. But perhaps that is not it's purpose- it is not the center of computing on the mac and it shouldn't be- it's just a simple retrieval tool for commonly used apps.
It is not the replacement for the finder, and it is not the replacement for the apple menu. I personally do not want to see the dock become this bloated piece of crap that Tog wants it to become- that is the problem with most modern user interfaces- information overload.
I like using keyboard commands, I don't mind going into the Apple menu and clicking file and save- and I'm glad that Apple has been consistent on what the dock can and cannot do- as well as what the apple menu does like save and open documents.
Tog- use the finder more, use the apple menu more, bloat is bad.
The Mac Way: (for right-handers)
Left thumb on the command key, right hand on the mouse. Command Z, X, C, and V are the same in any app that offers text editing.
If you must cut/paste using the mouse, the right button will give you a contextual menu for that.
If you have to move text on the screen (or within reasonably scrollable reach) just highlight, click-hold to grab, then drag/drop.
Usually (but not always): double click to select word, triple-click to select sentence, quad-click to select paragraph.
No mouse? Select using the arrow and shift keys. Large text block to select? Click to an insertion point, then shift-click at the other end of the selection.
But keep your left thumb near that command key. Even when I used a 6-button trackball, the left hand did the cutting and pasting--much faster for me.
Damn those pesky terrorists
The world is strange. Microsoft takes about 3 months to steal the OS X look with Xp. Does it poorly, and somehow, the criticism is that Os X is approaching Xp's bad "cartoon" implimentation of Os X? Classic case of what came first, the chicken or the bad smelling egg if you ask me.
"He who laughs last, didn't get the joke."-Cap
harveybirdman wrote "I rarely heed the word of grown adults who still use the word "sucks"
:) Oh, and I think the doc is ok. Will you take me seriously? I hope so, I so love your show, Mr. Birdman.
How about:
My turbomolecular pump sucks more than yours. Mine pumps at 240 L/sec and yours is a mere 60 L/sec.
"He who laughs last, didn't get the joke."-Cap
It was like the boys from NeXT came in and simply assumed they knew better than everybody else
As a windowmaker user I can assure you that you WISH the next people had designed the OS X gui. I don't know what inspired the abomination that is the dock. I guess it's the desire to think different.
And what's especially frustrating is that they replaced two very workable UI gadgets, the Application Menu and the Process Menu
try this: drag your Applications folder to the document area of the dock. now you have an application menu! (right-click or click-and-hold)
was that so hard? i tend to keep my home directory there too, so i can access my apps & files in a similar fashion.
As far as I'm concerned, replacing two UI gadgets with one isn't a blunder -- it's efficency. (really, its 3 widgets -- because it's more like Launcher than anything else) you now have one device that keeps track of your processes, using the same icons you use to launch frequently used programs. programs you use less frequently you can launch from the aforementioned in-dock applications folder.
"Before OS X I had to switch over to Windows for my development work, but it was the OS X dock that made me switch to Windows (and alternately, Linux) for my personal stuff."
You have your principles, I'll grant you that.
1. The OSX elements could be as small as Classic elements and still work - we had big screens back then too.
2. The whole thing could be variable - a slider for control sizes seems workable.
3. The chooser had no RL analogue, but somehow worked once you got it - you were peeking thru a portal at the sorts of things you actually had to peek at - physical printers, servers, etc...
4. The 'cartoonie' observation is that since they have tweaked OSX UI elements for other reasons (aqua vs. brushed, the brilliance and shadows of window controls, etc.) that they could lose some puffiness which would distinguish them from the chunkier Playskool style of XP. To paraphrase Einstein, everything should be as small as it needs to be - but no smaller.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
Doesn't expose address the criticisms of the dock? It doesn't get in the way of those that love the dock and provides an alternative to those that don't.
Don't like using the dock to switch applications? Use expose to show all open windows - or command+tab for that matter.
Don't like it when you have 7 Word documents open and you can't tell one document from the other by its icon in the dock? Use expose's show windows by application.
Don't like getting to a desktop buried by open windows by minimizing windows or hiding applications in the dock? Use expose to move all the windows offscreen.
As a longtime Mac user, I think the dock is clunky but expose and command+tab have been a dream. My friend that recently switched from Windows to the Mac loves the dock and can't understand why people hate it. With Panther, everyone is happy.
Tog's arguments and this thread would be valid in a pre-10.3 timeframe but Apple listened and provided a wonderful alternative in expose. Are people just not using it or are these people complaining about an OS that is a generation (or four if you count OS 9) old? Hell, let's start a thread about Windows for Worgroups shortcomings.
...what Tog would make of this. It takes advantage of Fitts's Law in a way I haven't seen before, and the author claims that some Mac users think one of its task switching methods is faster than Mac OS Xs Expose. While the window resizing is a little odd (apparently the author's aware of this and is working on it), hopefully he'd approve.
I've never understood this surprisingly popular opinion. Nobody complains that printers have too high resolution. Why do they look at high resolution in a monitor as a bad thing?
Scalable fonts and vector graphics (both of which are used pervasively in OS/X) work even better at higher resolutions than they do at low ones. In other words, when you have more pixels per inch, you don't have to keep drawing your fonts at 13 pixels tall, making them too tiny to see. Instead, draw them at the same 12 point (1/6 of an inch) tall, but with more detail.
To answer your question, a 12 inch diagonal, 1200 dpi screen would be sheer bliss for me, and far preferable to something larger but with lower resolution.
But my grandest creation, as history will tell,
Was Firefrorefiddle, the Fiend of the Fell.
Well, they do suck up your unused CPU cycles - that is useful.
Where would you stash all those cycles anyway?
Your analogy is misleading. It attempts to mislead the reader while using anology as a misdirection to make a reader think that an argument was being made that was not being made (that the cheapest computer is the best). Your analogy is not about VALUE, but instead about COST. They are not the same thing. A more honset analogy which would still align with your ideas would be: Do you drive a cheaper car with less quality just because it is cheaper? Please use anology in a more honest way in the future. Thank you.
- The Analogy Police
I think the average Mac user on Slashdot ought to be able to back up their Dock, so they wouldn't have to worry about "ignorant friends" or "cats."
Follow this mini-tutorial (using Terminal.app):
cd ~/Library/Preferences
cp com.apple.dock.plist ~/Desktop/
Now, move your backup of the plist file to a convenient location.
Should your dock ever get fsck'ed up, do the following:
cp ~/Desktop/com.apple.dock.plist ~/Library/Preferences/
ps -auwwx | grep "Dock" | grep -v grep
kill -HUP the_pid_for_the_Dock.app
With that, the Dock relaunches, and your custom setup is restored.
Sleep easy!
quiquid id est, timeo puellas et oscula dantes.
I'm using a Microsoft IntelliMouse Explorer with my Mac. With Microsoft's mouse settings preference panel you can set each button to any of a number of actions including undo, cut, copy, or paste.
So yes, Mac has that capability if you use 3rd party hardware and software.
I've read countless critiques of the various esoteric design "problems" of OS X and whatnot and none of them have proven useful to me, nor have many of them turned out to be true. I recall reading (probably Tog) that the position of the destructive close button, next to the non-destructive minimize and expand buttons in OS X windows would lead to constant confusion and data loss. I've never once clicked the wrong button. Silly.
--Rick "If it isn't broken, take it apart and find out why."
I'll tell ya the truth, I really do like the Dock. However, I do think it can be improved.
I think it does too much for one bar. Honestly, I think that the Dock should be split into an open application/document(window) palette and a favorites application/document palette. You should be able to place these two palettes to any side of the screen, pinned to a corner of that side.
The trash should appear on the open items palette, closest to the corner. Applications and documents should be split like they currently are in the Doc. If you put both palettes on the same side of the screen then they have to be pinned to opposite corners, if they grow large enough to touch then they will stay separated by a decent amount of space and they will shrink as items are added to them, just like the Dock does now.
Make both of these Dock palettes appear by user preference and allow both of them to hide and appear just as the Dock does currently. You could also add a user preference that causes an icon to come up onto either palette which calls up the other palette if it is hidden. That way you could, for example, only have the open items palette visible but if you drag an item onto the "unhide" icon the favorites palette will pop up and you can drop the object you are dragging onto it or an item in it.
By separating the Dock into its two different functions you will reduce clutter and confusion. Right now I have a lot of favorite applications, folders, and documents in the Dock for convenience but they clutter up the dock and make it hard to see what is running or minimized. If the Dock was split into these two palettes then it would definitely make life simpler.
Sapere aude!
There is a Secure Empty Trash option in the Finder Menu the last time I checked.
I have to wonder whether it's a good idea to start messing with virtual memory in use by applications. How is the Finder supposed to know if that data is still in VM considering the program likely to be viewing it has already given up that space to free resources. Even if you do have a static VM are you sure that those resources are not being shuffled to various sectors on the disk?
Do you want to zero data when resources are released? Do you want to have the hard drive sitting there until the residual magnetic field has shifted to match your new dataset?...lol
--"It's Bradford Company, slash your last name, dot your first name"
_did_ know better than everyone else. Go use an original NeXt system. It's delicious.
:)
:)
Problem is, OS X isn't NeXT step. it's this goofy hybrid thing that often manages to take the worst of OS9 and NeXTStep
See, in NS the dock was on the SIDE of the screen. Thats because most documents are PAGE shaped, which run in a portrait orientation. vertical real estate is at a premium.
OS X shat all over that - sure you can move the dock to the side, but the damn apple bar is a permanant vertical space hog.
The keyboard navigation - something OS9 at least did some places, is pretty crappy in OSX. My personal favorite is how you can hti the power button on a mac, but have to use the mouse to actually shut the thing off. No arrow keys or tab keys work on that dialog
My opinions are my own, and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.
Go into System Preferences -> Accounts
Select your account, hit Capabilities.
Uncheck "Remove items from dock" in the "Users can" area.
You can also disable the Dock system panel.
Only problem is that when a user launches an Application, they can still right-lick (control-click) and "Keep Application in Dock."
Of course, a single Lock checkbox would be handy too.
I use a Logictech Mouseman Duel-Optical (four buttons counting the scroll wheel) on all my Macs. With it you can use Mouseware to map the buttons any way you see fit.
... just for an example.
...puhleeez!
My scroll wheel is mapped to command-q to quickly close a program (no kidding, and I love it too) and the side button is mapped to F9 for Expose bliss
Don't EVER let the one-button mouse scare you out of buying a Mac
Have fun with yer new Mac!
Four weeks, Twenty papers, that's two dollars
My comments here are a little late in the game, but hopefully someone will find them interesting anyway :
9. Make it smaller if it gets in the way.
It's easy to make it smaller. I thought HCI guys liked big click targets, I'm confused by the complaint...
8. Minimized windows look different if they are, and things dragged from the Finder look like they do in the Finder.
Minimized windows DO show differences ( they're images of what the window looks like )- in this bullet point he's only refering to documents you place on the dock, which get the exact same icon they have in the finder... he wants that different why?? What would it be??
In general, this point seems a bit confused, and really, if you're keeping more than one or two documents of the same type in the dock, you're doing something a bit odd- you should use a folder in the Finder. Maybe your Documents folder, or a correctly named folder inside of Documents?? In the Finder, you can set your view preferences to show all of the file size and other info he's asking to see in the dock ( why there? What a mess that would be! ).
7. The dock has labels for items, you just have to move your mouse over them.
In many of these points, Tog wants something other than the Dock... and without realizing it, what he wants is the Finder! So use the Finder, Tog!! The dock has labels, just not all of the time. If you have similar items and don't want to give them different icons. I have 3 folders I wanted in my dock, so to tell them appart a bit easier, I gave them different icons... easy. Does "scrubing" for the titles really take that much time ?? Again, if you have a bunch of items of the same type and icon in the Dock, you probably really want to use the Finder instead.
6. Dock objects do not need color.
Again, Tog wants the Dock to be just like the Finder. It serves a completely different purpose. It's for Applications, minimized windows and frequently used folders, and *maybe* one or two current high-use documents. If you're storing lots of document links here, you maybe really want them on the Desktop or somewhere else in the actual Finder where you can look at all of the various attributes?? Maybe, just maybe, having the dock use the Finder color label in it's text is a good enough idea, but is it a big deal, or even necesarily a good idea? I don't actually think so.
5. The trash can is pretty close to the corner.
I mean, close enough, right? My Dock is usually full ( 9 oft-used apps and 5 oft-visited folders ), so the trash is actually always in the corner, right where he wants it. I know an office full of OS X users, none of whom complains that they can't find the trash or miss it. I'm not sure this is more than a pet peeve... Tog, did you decide to put the trash there? Besides, since you can't remove the trash can ( I'd like to, actually ) you always know where to look for it on any machine... it's at the end of the dock! If someone moved it under OS 9, do you know where to find it? No. So you could as easily argue that the Dock trash is *better* than the OS 9 trash using the same arguments. Sigh.
4. The dock's locations are entirely predictable. The applications and other icons that stay in the dock are always where you left them. Running apps and minimized windows are placed after the permanent set in the order they were placed. Sure it's dynamic... but if you start looking for documents from the left and apps from the right, you'll find what you're lookng for quickly, the dynamic nature of the dock is more useful than problematic.
3. This is the same as #9?? Pathetic.
2. Use ASM, if command-tab is too complicated for you or you just miss the Application Switcher Menu.
Oddly enough, he says as much. Not actually a complaint about the Dock, is this? Not in 10.3, anyway... as for the Tab-menu, that sucked even more than the dock, and even Tog says it sucked. Applications or folders placed in the dock do a better and more reliable job than the Tab menu...
The Dock can be locked.
Open System Preferences. Click on Accounts. You are shown a list of users accounts. Select the user account that you want to change. Click the Capabilities button. A pane will slide down reveiling options to limit a users capabilities. Under the section, "This user can," uncheck the box labeled, "Remove items from the Dock."
This works in 10.2. I haven't installed 10.3 yet.
This probably is not the solution you were looking for but I thought I would post it anyways. This option is more for machine admins. It enables them to place aliases on the dock for clueless users and then lock it so it doesn't get messed up.
I'm guessing (I'm not a developer, I'm just a "poweruser") a script could be written to quickly lock and unlock the dock. If you lock a users dock and then look at the users settings in netinfo you will notice a property called mcx_settings. The value for that setting is an xml plist file that locks the dock. Hack up a script that will change that setting then relaunch the dock then that should do it.
I found his arguments very odd, as I have none of the problems he outlined - my apps stay in the same place, and frankly I love having common apps grouped the way I like them rather than alphabetically. Apps should be grouped by functionaly BUT I likehaving the set flat and not in subfolders.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Point 4 specifically...
No, it's not hard, and it's easy to comprehend. But you still have to think about it. If things never moved, you could just unconsciously do it without even thinking, much as you don't think about how to move your feet when walking.
It's a small thing, but all the small things add up.
iPhoto does what no photo organization app before it ever did - iPhoto makes photo organization EASY! That should be a big "holy shit, that's amazing!", because even after it being out for almost 2 years, NO ONE has made anything near as nice and easy to use as iPhoto.
Try iView, which has been going since 1995. I've been using it 4 years for all my work. I don't use iPhoto because it treats me like a 5 year old. I want to store things like tearsheets, low-res pics, processsed pics, text, book dummies, press clippings, sound clips, and notes together project by project. For people used to keeping pics in a shoebox, I can see the use of iPhoto. But for people whose pics are worth money, who would never store a photo as a jpeg, whose negatives are filed and stored under controlled conditions, iPhoto is not the answer.
Apart from not even working, it is so much less easy to use.
I'm surprised no one has brought this up yet, as it has made networking in OS X as much of a pain as OS 9.
It's the biggest step backwards I have seen Apple make. I'd point out the posts on the Apple boards, but they are down for maint.
That reminds me of the old saying:
"Hey, if we had some ice cream we could have some pie and ice cream, if we had some pie."
(Sorry, I just thought that line in the parent post was hilarious.)
Any sufficiently simple magic can be passed off as mere advanced technology.
So did this guy work on the old Mac OS GUI. That was the most awfful GUI I ever seen. OS 7, 8 and 9 pure junk. That was one of the main reasons I went with Windows in the mid 90s. Windows 95 rocked comapred the MacOS. If this guy did work on the old MacOS he has no right to say anything about OS X.
People are whinging about Tog's remarks because "the Dock works and has never done anything wrong to me."
That's not his point. Every behavior he criticizes requires you to take your mind off your work and concentrate on the UI for a few seconds. That time away is a painless little vampire sucking on your productivity. It's nontrivial.
Tog isn't daydreaming or bitter. HCI isn't voodoo. Many of its precepts are supported by empiric research. Go. Read some of it!
You list 3rd party upgrades for pricing their products to high. Yeah I do agree with that but that isn't Apples fault. On the subject of upgradability, alot of people don't want that, they just want something that works and buy an Apple with that in mind.
Don't forget Apple machines have a higher resale value as well.
Jonathanjk.com
I did point out that it was not Apple's fault, yet it affects them just the same. Its a pretty major disadvantage to the platform as a whole. Apple machines do have a higher resale value, but that can be a curse, as well, if you like to buy your tech like me.
Sidenote: NeXTStep, from day one, was multi-user compatible, and ran many more than one application at a time in perfect multitasking under a mach-based kernel. Mac OS, in any incarnation, did not support any kind of 'multi-application usage' which required things like notification when background apps needed your attention, and the like, until the MultiFinder hacks and the official release of MultiFinder. Far from being a decade and a half old, Apple released MultiFinder in 1987. Now, as Jobs had been kicked out by then, you'll find that NeXT was founded one year before this, and NeXTStep's revolutionary dock was basically part-and-parcel a part of the system as of its release, with that beautiful black cube, in 1988. So not only has MacOS not really been doing it longer - but MacOS wasn't designed, really, for multiple applications to be used anything like simultaneously, to a degree where it might actually need this kind of UI design. And in the version of MultiFinder that was released at the time, open applications where in the *APPLE* menu. Only Mac OS 8 added, through an *extension*, the Application Switcher. Erm. So, maybe it wasn't so new. Matter of fact, maybe the NeXT boys *did* get there first after all. And, erm, maybe, in fact, they got it right. :)
-- A mind is a terrible thing.
I really still miss the Control Bar - that initially came along with the Powerbooks but was later released to everyone. It was a snazzzy little metallic icon that sat generally to the bottom left
http://toastytech.com/guis/macos9logout.png
Combined with the Finder Folder tabs it really felt better than the Dock. Dont get me wrong, I actually like the Dock a LOT, but I wish these two UI features were still there.
My menubar is crowded with little controls.
That fuction doesn't exist natively (sad to say) however, many thirdparty drivers for mice do include those and many other options.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
Balloon Help was a fantastic invention, badly served by those who misunderstood its true value.
... "You cannot add a user now because File Sharing is not turned on. Turn it on in the Chooser" or the like.
Brain-dead balloons like those now served by tooltips (This is your hard disk. This is a window. This saves your work) might have been OK for Grandma, but were of no use to the power user and weren't the real advantage.
What was of use to the power user was the fact that it gave stateful feedback in a stateless environment. Like say the button to add a new File sharing user was greyed out. You couldn't click it, and there's no obvious reason why. Balloon Help on, mouse over
Gave you the feedback of CLi-style error messages with the do-anything statelessness of GUI. I miss it.
I noted what you said by agreeing with it. I wasn't nitpicking or anything. I use to buy my tech like you but now i cannot be bothered with setting up a system and getting it to work, whether it be windows or linux. I actually had fun with linux but in the end i didn't use the system, i kept trying to get the system to work and iron small issues out. In the end i bought a mac and i don't do anything but use it. But if i want to upgrade I'd rather get an external drive and be done with it. I have a laptop anyway so its hard doing 'some' upgrades! ;)
Jonathanjk.com
Off the dock. I don't care where it goes, because it's nothing!
I seriously treat real things this way at times. I'll move something off a shelf, because my goal is to not have it on the shelf. Then I forget what happened to it, because I did not care.
Because the thing in the dock is not real, I don't want it to do anything when I drag it out. I really don't want the move of my imaginary thing to have some random side effect, like accidentally going into a folder. I'll take the real app and drop it there, thanks. All I can see placing the link somewhere is cluttering up my desktop.
At this point, to chage it to do anything than what it does would be far worse than have it do what it does already. That is not the Dock app, that is some other app - I want a dock where it's super easy to take things in or out and re-organize. I don't want it to lock and I don't want to have to deal with artifacts from dock removial.
Perhaps they could add that in as a feature you could disable, but I sure woulnd't think it should be shipped on by default.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
In X11, the scrollwheel button pastes (with all the precison that one would expect a scrollwheel button to have).
In Safari, it functions as an option click--so that the clicked link opens in a new tab.
Q1-> It's just a question of behaviour, boy, nothing more... If MS was playing by the rules and behaving nice, nobody would bash them. Indeed, there are companies with bad behaviour (Real Networks ?) and bad reputation, even though they're not a monopoly.
Q2-> I'm a not well paid PhD student, and I still prefer the Mac. Just a question of priorities in your life, and absolutely not a question of wealth. Some very rich people don't even own a car.
Remark about monopolies: you are a bit confused, really. You mix up controlling a platform and being a monopoly. What if I tell you that Nintendo controls their gaming platform, but that they're not a monopoly ? What about Sun ? What about SGI ? See what I mean ?
I like windowshadex and will probobly buy it.
He is too hard on the dock. I don't minimize stuff ( hence why i like shading and expose). I will minimize vnc connections that wll go untouched for days at a time, but that's it. I hated the old OS9 apple menu, though i do wish that go > Applications was expandable and accessable everywhere. I never have the problems he mentins withh the dock, though. It's not ideal, but imo it's an improvement over os9.
I see OS X lovers every day and this is what they do when they need to find something:
... and if I have seen new versions of iCal and Keynote?
1. Move window to the left.
2. Move window to the right.
3. Double-click on a folder.
4. Move window up.
5. Make window bigger.
6. Make window a bit smaller.
7. Maximize window.
8. Move window so half of it is off the scereen.
9. Scrach their head.
10. Move window back.
11. Make window a bit smaller.
12. Double-click on a folder.
13. Go back to parent folder.
14. Minimize to the dock.
15. Unhide dock.
16. Find the window just beeing minimized.
17. Restore it.
18. Reposition & resize the window so it takes
2/3s of screen size in both dimensions.
19. Look back and ask me if I really, really need damned file right now?
20.
***
It was fun to be able to buy new iBook and have old desktop from old one (all shortcuts, folders and background pic), move all TCP/IP configurations, modem prefs, Internet prefs, all things in Stickies, Scrapbook and NotePad... all apps and docs and all the prefs and bookmarks, cache and history and extensions and evirything else just moved from old machine in few hours and work in the evening on faster/better machine as if nothing happend.
It was fun to buy 12 or so Macs in 12 years and never, ever need to reinstall the OS on any of them. Just keep a copy of it on another volume and copy it all or parts of it back if somethineg goes wrong.
It was fun to read Tog on Interface 10 yrs ago,
and it was fun to use THINK C and later CodeWarrior. It was fun to come anywhere
(within Mac World) with your notebook, plug the wire and see everything on the network.
(or just come - AirPort).
And all of this is forever gone with OS X.
****
After all, PCs are cheapper as people allways said.
No, you have to type "open " before the name of the document.
I think he was talking about Windows there - you can just type a document name and it opens the file with the default app, or asks you what to use if you do not know.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I'm impressed that people really didn't like the way systems 7-9 worked. Everything win95 does you can do in system 9 (and earlier). Maybe some elements were in slightly different places, but alt-tab [apple-tab], the task-bar [removable task menu you can put anywhere on screen you like], windows little 'control-strip' style buttons. The great thing about the mac was you didn't need to read the manual to figure out how to configure all of this to just the way you wanted. The start menu is just a straight (upside-down) copy of the apple menu. You even go to the same place to find the control panels. The desktop metaphor (my computer [mac hard disk], recycle [trash]) you see in windows 95 is pretty much a direct copy of something apple invented in 1984. Still waiting for windows to come with speech recognition and text to speech straight out of the box.
...and ran many more than one application at a time in perfect multitasking under a mach-based kernel.
:)
Hard to know that for a fact given that NeXTStep didn't have more than one application.
Only Mac OS 8 added, through an *extension*, the Application Switcher.
System 7 actually, and the application menu was with the Mac all the way (indeed, all the way back to Lisa) and a major component of the UI I'm talking about, so we're not talking about a decade-and-a-half, it's really more like two decades.
In any event, it doesn't explain why Apple excised these two features. Why not just make them an option? The unwashed masses can have their dock, with all of its UI hideousness, and the rest of us can use menus. I don't see what would have been wrong with this solution.
I mean, the guys at NeXT can code menus, right?
Is this truly the only Earth I can live on?
I don't know if this has always been in OS X but I found a very helpful little area in the system preferences called "keyboard shortcuts" in the "keyboard & mouse" system preference panel. It allows you to assign keyboard shortcuts to any (menu?) command in any program including the Finder. Unfortunately it doesn't allow you to override the existing shortcuts that are already set up (very well that is ... read on).
Shortcuts are very helpful for someone anyone with a laptop and some sort of trackpad device as it gets tiresome to do many simple or repetitive tasks... same as with a mouse but worse. With this internal keyboard shortcuts thingy Ive managed to set up my "f12" key as my "move to trash" key and have also set "Option + left arrow or right arrow" as my "page forward / page back" commands in Safari which comes in very handy. One bug ive noticed is that the new Opt+arrow key command in Safari gets disabled whenever you use the "History" menu. ???
Anyway, I wish I could change more of my keyboard this way without an expensive third party utility as it can make life much better for us powerbook users and I'm not one of those -powerusers- that uses the keyboard for just about everything. For instance ... maybe it would be cool to assign the "Tab" key in finder to close windows (like Command + W does)? Too dangerous perhaps?
FWIW, I think the NeXT browser is elegant too. I do from time to time still use OS X, and the browser totally saves the otherwise miserable experience I have with the Finder (on Jaguar, haven't paid for Panther yet.)
Is this truly the only Earth I can live on?
In Mac OS 8 there was an item in the Finder's File menu that would let you stick an alias of a file/application in the Apple menu.
It even had a command-key equivalent if memory serves.
It couldn't be easier.
Is this truly the only Earth I can live on?
The whole point to the Macintosh experience is the interface. Lose that, and you lose a good deal of the incentive for shelling out the big bucks for these machines.
I mean, I love Apple hardware, but to pay a premium for it just to use an interface I find horribly flawed? And when Sony has hardware that's just as elegant, that lets me run my choice of OS?
Using Windows NT 4 was tolerable, and I enjoyed going back to classic Mac for my personal stuff.
Then came (for me) Windows 2000, at about the same time OS X was coming out. I was pretty much on the fence at this point, largely because I couldn't believe Apple would stick with the dock.
Finally, with Windows XP, which was extremely usable, and an OS X that had the worst imaginable implementation of the Finder--and still had the dock as the primary application/process UI--the choice was really quite clear.
Is this truly the only Earth I can live on?
People in 1) generally love the Mac OS <=9 desktop and way of doing things, and don't like anything else as much, not even OS X. People in 2) usually can't see what the fuss was about earlier Mac OS, and tend to like Mac OS X a lot.
I'm firmly in 2), loving X and finding 9 frustrating. I grew up with GEM and MagiC, and used X/Motif and various Windows a lot at work, though I'd also used RISC OS and other systems too. I then spent about a year largely using Mac OS 9, and it felt like a fight all the way. Nothing behaved as I expected or wanted: folder windows never opened where I wanted, files kept opening with the wrong app, managing many windows at once just wasn't intuitive (especially with several apps), and there was no comfortable command line to escape to. I did try to get the hang of it, but even after many months when I knew what to expect, it still felt like hard work. OS X, on the other hand, just felt natural right from the start; it felt like it was working for me, not for itself.
I'm not saying X is better or worse than 9 (partly coz I don't want to be modded down as Troll :), but 9, with its 'spatial metaphor' does seem to work in a fundamentally different way from, well, every other GUI I know, and the ease with which people from other OSs can switch to OS X and love it does tend to indicate that it's not fundamentally worse as an OS from 9, just different.
The point here is that Tog, like many reviewers, has a Mac OS 9 mindset, so he'll naturally find it harder to get into the OS X mindset than non-Mac-OS-9-users. So we should bear that in mind when reading his thoughts.
Ceterum censeo subscriptionem esse delendam.
There are certain things I prefer in OS 9 over OS X... for example the finder windows were a lot simpler. Opening an OSX finder window feels like opening a huge window with all those silly stuffon the side.
Finder
-----
Regardless, I wish Apple would add the capablity type in the file path in Finder windows... at least as an option that is intially turned off.
Abilty to open a finder window like the Windows key combination (windows key + E in Windows)
Should be able to maintain the color you pick in icon view for other views as well.
The Finder windows side icons should be resizeble as well... hate the big icons on the side.
Dock
----
Would definitely like an Application Menu... the Dock just dosent cut it.
System Preferences
----------------
Can't we haver a Cancel/Save button in Preferences? Some times I might change a value then change my mind about the change...
Seems like OS X forgot about the simplicity for the user... but I still like some of it.
SuSE has allowed creation of loopback encrypted images from YaST for the past few releases, AFAIR. Mandrake too, and hopefully soon Red Hat/Fedora once the new util-linux 2.12 hits Rawhide.
OS X is the first mass-market OS that does it, true, especially at that level of integration - after all, OS X 10.2 already could create encrypted images.
Michel
Fedora Project Contribut
... has great solutions to interface design.
I think my favorite way to get rid of docks and taskbars in one integrated tool is the IRIX Desktops. IRIX has the only desktop switcher that I ever get around to using. KDE, Gnome, etc. all have desktops that I tend to ignore because you can't see what's in them really.
IRIX Desktop gives you a window with a row of desktop images that are large enough to represent each window and icon in each desktop with a little appropriately-sized rectangle. They didn't try to paint the windows and icons as thumbnails but if you hover your mouse it tells you the app name and the file that is open.
You can drag the liitle windows acoss to any desktop, you can iconify or axpand windows in the Desktop tool! There is always one root desktop to put windows that should be visible in all desktops.
I found the useability and information density of this tool to be very useful. you can name the windows and pick the background for each one too.
Their window manager is 4Dwm. I wish they would open source their wm.
I do not get the gripe people have with the dock, it's an incredible tool. Having one menu located at the right end of the menu bar, another one at the left end, no quick launch tool (ok let's pretend the launcher was usefull) and no quick access to some of your open applications functions is not more convenient than having the dock. The dock is one central place for many things and it's pretty well designed, the amount of feedback it gives (opening apps, apps requirring attention, label appearing on mouse over, magnification...) surpases the feedbacks given by classic. Plus I think the guy just doesn't get the point of having a finder as a browser, it does take more space for one item but less item at once on the screen plus it's configurable so it acts like a classic window (more or less), but the most usefull feature is the quick navigation widgets and the search textbox.
Fitt's Law!
MacOS 9 rulez!
--
Fitt's Law!
The order of the icons is not the issue, though I understand where one could assume this is what is meant by "position".
The real issue is the actual placement on the screen of any given element of the UI, not the relative position of the element. This is something people who don't breathe UI design will often overlook.
No, I am quite into design and understand what was meant my "position". I am stating that to me, order is simply more important than position as position hardly alters at all with the dock to the right.
Now that is true because where I have the dock (right side of the screen) all that happens when I iconify a few things is that the icons shrink a bit, but the position is about the same. THAT is OK because actually I do not go for an icon, I generally go for a group of icons and drift to the one I want. That is why order is more important, because it allows for an easy refined visual search based on a small group of like items (which in turn are more easily found than a single one) rather than the whole set of all icons.
Furthermore this is why I am happy there are no labels there. Labels would only mess with the visual purity of the search by requiring me to process text and slow me down.
People are overly focused on single issues of UI (like "position") seemingly without considering the system as a whole or even updates to knowledge about UI and what makes an effective and pleasing interface.
This is pretty much the crux of the "Trash should pick a corner" arguement. As it stands you have to pause and locate where the Trash has slid to before you can use it as a target. The corner is a great target since it is so huge (infinitely large in both axes once you hit the edges of the screen), but in reality ANY fixed position, even away from the edge, would likely be more optimal than the current shifting Dock-bound Trash.
My trash just sits in the same place all day long and I have no trouble hitting it. And as others have pointed out it never was in the exact corner. At least being in the dock nothing can overlap the trash, which is more handy I think. Again, my taskbar is on the right of the screen... now there's something to bitch about. Why default to the bottom? I agree with complaints of it taking up valuable space at the bottom but over to the right it's perfectly acceptable.
On my Windows system I actually launch all the apps I use every day in the same order to get them all in the same spot on the task bar every day. Further, I have a series of web pages that tie to queries I need to access several times a day, and thanks to the miracle of Firebird tabs I get them all open in a set order in one of the application windows, too.
I do about the same thing. But then Windows goes and spoils your whole day by having an app (say Outlook for instance) freak out and you have to kill it - there goes the order you had and all the position of the rest. Plus of course I open a lot of windows and the icons I want are all in the part of the taskbar scrolled off the screen. Damn, I hate the taskbar. At least with OS X even if an app does go wild (and it happens to the best of them) I don't loose any position or order data. I don't have to go to any trouble to position apps where I want - even if that changes hourly. That's what I love about it. I certainly don't have so many icons pile up that it goes to two lines and hides the ones I want most.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
By comparison, on my desktop box running Win XP, the taskbar is much more efficient. It does not become cluttered with additional icons representing open documents. It uses color effectively. And so on: basically, all the things that Tognazzini bemoans the OS X dock lacking, the Win XP taskbar has. Sure, it's visually plain. But, as some wise ugly dude once said, looks aren't everything. ;-)
I think pretty much all the comments people are making are in regards to the simple screen real estate that OS X requires. On a Cinema Display OS X "feels" just as "spatial" as OS 9 with all the benefits of the new features that people are defending. On an iBook with 1028 resolution OS X feels like a Japanese casket hotel room. The size of all the UI, including the dock just gets in the way more than OS 9 so it can't feel good spatially - there isn't enough space.
I think if you divided up the comments into those that like the new interface vs those who don't, it would be those with small screens and those with large ones.
The rather important difference is that Next and the various MacOS incarnations have both been targeted at a common community with a lot of interest in usability. In this case the popular opinion of that community has some meaning, I think.
Now before I get modded down, I be to remind whoever might read this that what I am saying is FACT. - bogaboga
Some of the things you would like to see in OSX are already implemented:
>Ability to open a finder window like the Windows key combination
> (windows key + E in Windows)
Apple Key + N will open a new Finder window. Clicking the Finder icon in the Dock does the same.
>Should be able to maintain the color you pick in icon view for other views as well.
Panther does this.
The article states that "iPhoto takes your pictures and stores them in a proprietary format". This is not true.
/year/month/...). similar to iTunes. it doesn't delete anything on import. the images are kept in their original format.
iPhoto manages the files in ~/Pictures/iPhoto/... it copies new images there (whether you import them from HD or camera) and arranges them in folders (
Buy a third party mouse with a widget, and set the middle mouse button to Option-Click.
When you select the text, don't copy it. Just middle-button-drag it to its new home, and it'll be copied.
I supose you change wives over a bad hair day too?
Doesn't everyone?
/utah resident
Your comment about the trash being hidden is I think a major reason that WindowShade was invented. So that you could actually access the trash while you had a large window open.
Think about it, in OS 9 or below, lets say you had some large window in the finder (like your main hard drive window like so many had). Then you explore deep into your hard drive (opening lots of little windows), find a file you want to delete. then oh no, you can't delete it because you have to drag it to the trash (forget about keyboard shortcuts for a minute, were talking about the trash). So WindowShade was invented to temporarly hide a window (since mac didn't have the minimize feature that windows has only shade, close and maximize). Thus you could uncover the trash.
I like the new trash system in OSX, wish that Windows supported is OOTB as well.
Wheel mouse buttons work in OS X by default. Just plug in nearly any USB wheel mouse, and you're scrolling away.
Middle-button text editing, a popular staple of Linux geeks, is not present, but the drag & drop features are powerful enough that you will never miss it, once you get used to the new OS.
Actually, that is not entirely true. Since you can map the keys of a multibutton mouse to any keystroke and/or key-click combination in most Mac mouse drivers, you can get the middle button to work. I usually configure the right mouse button to ctrl-click and the middle button to ctrl-v. Now middle button pastes and right mouse button does context menus. Now you still don't get the X11 "selecting is copying" functionality, IIRC unless you are using X11 apps, but it still is useful.
> No mouse? Select using the arrow and shift keys. >Large text block to select? Click to an insertion ?>point, then shift-clickat the other end of the ?>selection.
How the heck do you click with no mouse?
Get me a meat pie floater!
This, is of course, where the Windows aficianados are allowed to laugh at us a little. See, we have engineered all of these complex solutions to allow people to drag icons to the trashcan, which represents the concept of deletion.
On Windows, you just hit the key that says "delete" on it.
Hey freaks: now you're ju
Sorry, grammatical ambiguity. [shift] Click with mouse, use arrow keys and shift key with no mouse. Should've been a different paragraph. Try it and see for yourself, you're on a Mac if you're bothering to read this, right?
Damn those pesky terrorists
And that's his point. If you build it yourself, it'll be cheaper. However, just as Sony and Dell can't compete with DIY, Apple can't either. Don't accuse Apple of selling overpriced hardware - by these standards, any major PC OEM is doing the same thing.
Previous Windows versions didn't have that feature - you could drag the taskbar around to various positions, normally by accident when you're trying to grab the edge of some window :-) I hated that! So thanks for the information.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Tog has basically one complaint, and that is based in Fitt's Law, which is about as objective as you can get.
Noone has suggested that you should always buy the absolute cheapest parts available.
What people have suggested is that with open, competitive x86-hardware you have a large choise of suppliers, in different price and quality-categories, the practical offshot of which is that you get more for your money.
That is, for the same money, you get better hardware if you buy it in a competitive market (such as for example x86-computers) rather than a market controlled by a single entity. This is hardly surprising.
You also make the classical mistake of comparing apple wintel as if "Wintel" was a single company, comparable to apple.
Thing is, it isn't. And it never was. There are a multitude of suppliers for every single component in a x86-machine. You're free to pick and choose to your liking. There are also multiple suppliers of software for these machines. Windows is by far the most popular OS (and *does* suffer from monopoly-pricing like Macs do), but that's not particularily relevant for all of us who choose not to use Windows.
Sure, you could run Linux on a Mac. It'd cost double for comparable performance and quality. But atleast you'd get a pretty box for it.