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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."
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").
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)
...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?
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.
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.
Never mind about wasted screen space.
Why oh why they have to stick brushed metal look everywhere? It was sort of tolerable in QuickTime Player and iTunes, since those aren't too "serious" applications, but... Finder???? I didn't know my files and directories were supposed to be eXXtrEME steel-molded things!
Wish the next iteration would look like Nautilus with some tweaks - that is, retractable or possibly even detachable sidebar, possibly with the locations, and the ability to use dynamic window resizing (or zooming) depending on how many items the folder has. And no brushed metal kewliness.
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.
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.
*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 find the new Finder (10.3) to be better and actually take less space.
In Jaguar, I had to customize the toolbar to put buttons for my Documents, Pictures, Music, etc folders. This made the finder require more room vertically and horizontally. (I could save the horizontal space by clicking the button which shows a fly out menu of hidden tool buttons, but I don't like that)
Now, in Panther, it actually takes less space vertically and horizontally. The vertical space comes from the fact that the toolbar buttons are smaller in size. And, I don't have to have 5 different buttons taking up horizontal room for my most used folders. Those go in a convienient sidebar for access.
Granted, the folder sidebar may take up horizontal room if you don't use it much, but Apple is pushing widescreen displays, so it makes more sense to use horizontal area than vertical area. The finder does this well.
-- Fighting mediocrity one bad post at a time.
Sigh. System 6! I love you!
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!
Actually, the finder's side-bar icons makes OS X 10.3 feel more like NeXT to me than it ever has. It may look kind of goofy, but I find it to be extremely useful. (Certainly more useful than any "explore" navigation window in any flavor of MS-Windows!)
YMMV
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
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."
Unless you own a 12" powerbook or ibook; as both are strangled by 1024*768 max resolutions.
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").
If the sidebar is too wide for your taste, you can make it smaller by dragging the separator bar, down to the size of the icons. If you hover over them the names will popup immediately. (This handy tip came from http://www.macosxhints.com)
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
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.
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.
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?
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.
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
It is pretty sad that you call yourself a "power user" but you can't even figure out how to turn off the Finder's hiding of files.
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. --
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
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'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
[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
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.
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.
Q: How do I transfer my bookmarks from Safari to Netscape?
A: It's quite simple. Just write a small perl script to parse the xml file that Safari uses (dtd can be found here) and, upon parsing the file into an associative array, walk through the array and create a Netscape-compliant HTML file. Things couldn't be easier.
I can't get the articles up, so I'm just taking your post in its own context, but I think you're expecting too many people to be able to write perl.
I really hate signatures, but go to my website.
I think the main reason is because steve thinks it looks cool.
-1 (Troll) is antihammer
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.
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
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
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.
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").
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.
You can turn off the sidebar.
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
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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"
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!
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.
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.
The whole point is that you HAVE to hit the command key to get the desired/expected behavior. The desired/expected behavior should be the default.
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?
What kind of people do you hang you with?
Tell them:
1-go to any finder window
2-click on "computer" or your home directory depending on the depth of your search
3-locate the "search" textbox in the top right corner of your finder window
4-type the name or part of the name of the file you are looking for, result will appear in realtime so its not long
5-double-click on the item you want to open or drag it where you want it to be or do whatever you wish with it
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 (