Mac OS X 10.5.2 Update Brings Welcome Fixes

jetpack writes to make sure we're aware that Apple's OS X 10.5.2 update is available and that it contains plenty of improvements and fixes that users have been asking for. Macworld enumerates some of the big ones, saying that the update "shows Apple listens to users" (sometimes). A couple of the new features simply restore Tiger (10.4) capabilities that Leopard (10.5) had inexplicably withdrawn. You can now shut off the much-maligned transparency of the menu bar, and organize your Dock stacks hierarchically and display them as folders. And Apple has provided welcome access to common Time Machine functions in the menu bar.

Comments

Menubar! how to make it not completely obnoxious

[acrobg]

granted I'd like the dock to look like it did in 10.4, but turning the glass effect off with the following 2 script lines: defaults write com.apple.dock no-glass -boolean YES killall Dock (to turn back on change YES to NO). It makes the dock be side-style while still on he bottom. If your'e lazy and have eitehr cocktail or onyx, you can do it in there with the force to side-style mode option.

Re:AEBS backups

[Muzzarelli]

Tried doing an initial time machine backup to a directly connected drive, then moving the drive to the AEBS? Works for me.

Re:AEBS backups

[appleguru]

You have two options... (Though only the first will help you with backing up to an airdisk)

1) defaults write com.apple.systempreferences TMShowUnsupportedNetworkVolumes 1

2) Buy leopard server ;-)

Re:What about the Parental Controls/Dashboard bug?

[the_proton]

To quote the release notes:

Addresses an issue in which Dashboard widgets may no longer be accessible after switching to or from an account that has Parental Controls enabled.

Re:AEBS backups

[0100010001010011]

I believe the functionality has been there since 10.5.

I have an external drive hooked up to my debian box (Formatted HFS+, RW). I have it shared via SMB as smb://debian.local/TimeMachine.

After running the command on my machine to backup to 'unauthorized' shares and enabling time machine on the drive, time machine works great.

I hadn't planned on this when I started, but time machine knows that it's a network drive and will mount it in the background to do the backup. Even if I've rebooted, taken my computer out for a while, etc. As soon as I come back the Time Machine drive will mount and start the backup.

The only thing 10.5.2 added was a fancy new icon for it.

Re:Without reading the reversion list

[singularity]

Wow, that took some research to figure out what in the world you were talking about.

You do not want "two-way copying of MP3 (non-AAC, really) songs in iTunes", you are talking about bidirectional iPod syncing in iTunes. That is to say if there is a song on an iPod that is not in the iTunes Library, iTunes would copy the song from the iPod onto the computer.

That got yanked a while ago, and it's an irritating functionality loss.

Huh? I still have my (still functional) 2nd. Generation iPod. I have been syncing iPods with iTunes for a long time and I can assure you that "feature" was never in iTunes.

Apple has to walk a fine line with the recording industry, and cannot do anything too blatant to piss off the record labels.

Having my friend walk over with his 160GB iPod and give me his entire music collection, facilitated by Apple themselves? Yeah, I can see some issues with that.

There are plenty of very capable third-party programs out there that do exactly what you are talking about (Senuti being the big one on the Mac right now). They do what you are talking about, and Apple does not get into trouble for it. I do not see the issue here.

And please stop saying it was functionality that was dropped from iTunes. It was never there.

Re:MIA: Tiger's split Terminal window

[BlacKat]

Just copy Terminal.app from Tiger and run it on Leopard.

Trust me, it works great, especially in conjunction with Visor, which provides a "Quake like" terminal window that pops down from the top of the screen.

Re:MIA: Tiger's split Terminal window

[AntEater]

"Now I'm back to opening up two Terminal windows..."

You have a couple of other options. Leopard's Terminal lets you use tabs. That's not quite as nice but it saves you some screen real estate. Another option (my favourite) is to use GNU Screen in a single terminal. This gives you multiple tabs and the ability to split the screen in two (or more) windows within the terminal and use those windows for any combination of terminal sessions you want. Ten or fifteen minutes of learning gives you an incredibly useful tool at your disposal. Screen is included with OS X and most Linux distributions.

Re:Without reading the reversion list

[shawnce]

You can however sync purchased songs in both directions since if music is purchased Apple knows what account it is associated with and will let you sync in both directions with authorized iTunes libraries (under the same account).

http://www.apple.com/support/ipod/tutorials/beyondthebasics.html

Copy your purchases to another computer
1. Connect your iPod to your computer and open iTunes.
2. Choose File > "Transfer Purchases from iPod".
3. If you need to authorize your computer to play these purchases, select Store > "Authorize Computer".

http://www.apple.com/itunes/sync/ipod.html

Sync both ways.
When you sync your iPod with iTunes, you do exactly that: Keep your iPod and your computer synchronized. That means anything you've purchased from the iTunes Store (even on the go from your iPod touch), your ratings, on-the-go playlists, and even bookmarks from podcasts and audiobooks all sync back to your Mac or PC.[1]

1. Music and media not purchased from the iTunes Store sync only one way, from your computer to your iPod. To transfer non-purchased music from computer to computer, read this tutorial.

Re:right direction

[ToastyKen]

I'm assuming he means that if you put, say, your Documents folders in the Dock, and you open it in column view, you can't scroll left to its parent. The Documents folder becomes the "root" of the column view, forcing you to find your home directory somewhere else if you want to get to something else in your home directory.

Re:Does it bring back the "Windows Shade"?

[evand]

If you hit F8, you get a zoomed out view of all of your desktops, with live previews of the windows on them included. You can drag and drop windows between spaces in this view, as well, if you like.

Re:Any New drivers in it for hardware that is not

[Christopher Rogers]

Once you install 10.5.2 another update becomes available that updates various video drivers. Some animations seem "snappier" now, particularly Expose and Spaces.

Re:right direction

[Spheniscus]

You can navigate to the parent folder at lest four different ways:

1. Command-click (or right click) on the folder name in the title of the window.
2. Press command-up (or select Go/Enclosing Folder from the menu)
3. Turn on the Path Bar (view / show path bar)
4. Customize the toolbar and add the path button to the toolbar

Re:Does it bring back the "Windows Shade"?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, WindowShadeX has not been updated for Leopard. http://unsanity.com/haxies/wsx

Re:AEBS backups

[sjf]

>> Will Time Machine do differential backups now?
>Well, it has been for the last two months and I doubt they disabled it.

If the unit of back up is the entire file system, then you are of course correct. I suspect the parent poster was looking for differences within files...that is, only backing up the 'diff' between two files, not the entire file when it changes.

I doubt we'll see this until zfs.

Re:How about fixing Finder?

[amake]

* Restore the ability to have folders remember their views.

You can still make them remember views by clicking the checkbox in the View Options (Command-J) window. I agree that this is annoying.

* Run each Finder window in a separate process, so it doesn't lock everything up when one window gets busy. Particularly when hitting network shares.

You mean break the entire application model that Mac OS has used since forever, which is that each window is not its own process? How about just making the Finder more multithreaded, which they've been doing fairly well. I haven't had the Finder in Leopard hang on me relating to network shares.

* Move the "FTP" support from Finder to Safari, so we don't have the overhead and security issues of file-system-like operations when accessing remote high-latency servers.

You could just not use FTP in the Finder. There are plenty of good, free FTP clients out there, like Cyberduck.

* Bring back the Shelf from NeXTSTeP.

What? Have you ever actually used the Shelf from NeXTSTEP? I haven't, but I've never heard anyone who had anything good to say about it. I think we've moved well beyond the need for such a feature, what with Expose and all. What specific problem would you like the Shelf to solve?

* Add "Cut" as well as "Copy". There's a "Cut" option in the edit menu but it's always greyed out. If there's some obscure option key that will enable this, well...

You can't Cut files or folders because what you're expecting to happen (based probably on similar functionality in Windows or other systems) is fundamentally different from what Cut actually is. Cut (for text, the original and default context for this feature) erases the selection entirely and puts a copy in the pasteboard. The copy in the pasteboard is lost as soon as you copy or cut something else. "Cut for text" is also undoable. "Cut for files," on the other hand, does not erase the selection until you paste. It does not delete the selection in the pasteboard if you copy something else. It is sometimes undoable, but is rarely guaranteed to be so. It's also not obvious what happens if you Cut, then modify the selection, and then paste (which version is pasted, the old or the new?)In other words, you don't want Cut; you want a copy of the Windows feature that is inappropriately named Cut. Well, it's not there, and probably shouldn't be (since it hasn't been implemented "correctly" in any system I've seen). I know, I know, who cares about nit-picky crap like this? Well, Steve cares.

Re:Does it bring back the "Windows Shade"?

[Phroggy]

- Open a folder in a listview should be one button (i.e. enter, which currenty goes to rename, really??) not Command-O
- Screenshotting needs to be waaaay easier (i.e. single key rather than shift-command-3 or whatever) Both of these go back DECADES.

Do not take away my quick renaming keystroke.

I agree that Command-O is cumbersome, but were you aware that Command-Down arrow works too? I find this easier, and it's perfectly logical if you also use Command-Up arrow frequently.

Screenshotting isn't a single button, because there are several ways to do it. They are:

• Cmd-Shift-3: take a snapshot of the entire screen and save it to a PNG file on the desktop
  
• Cmd-Shift-Ctrl-3: take a snapshot of the entire screen and copy it to the clipboard
  
• Cmd-Shift-4, then drag a box: take a snapshot of a particular area of the screen and save it to a PNG file on the desktop
  
• Cmd-Shift-Ctrl-4, then drag a box: take a snapshot of a particular area of the screen and copy it to the clipboard
  
• Cmd-Shift-4, then spacebar, then click: take a snapshot of a single window and save it to a PNG file on the desktop
  
• Cmd-Shift-Ctrl-4, then spacebar, then click: take a snapshot of a single window and copy it to the clipboard
  
• Open /Utilities/Grab for additional options like taking a snapshot of the entire screen after a time delay and saving the result in different formats
  

I agree that these are not intuitive, but it's what we've been using for years, and I certainly don't want to dedicate any extra buttons on the keyboard to something most people never use. Besides, as someone else pointed out, you can remap a different keyboard shortcut in System Preferences if you don't like the default.

Re:Bah

[Anonymous Coward]

I too run an OS X 10.5 Server at work and I have found it equally as frustrating. However, just one correction about VNC. You can enable standard VNC viewing by going to System Prefs > Sharing > Remote Management > Computer Settings... > VNC viewers...

Also, krdc is 10x faster than the standard vnc-viewer in Ubuntu.

Here's to another 1-week of uptime with OS X Server.

What's included?

[djupedal]

What's included?

This update delivers several improvements for both PowerPC- and Intel-based Macs (as well as improvements provided in the Mac OS X 10.5.1 update.)

Active Directory

* Addresses issues which could hinder or prevent binding Mac OS X 10.5.x clients to Active Directory domains.

AirPort

* Improves connection reliability and stability
* Includes 802.1X improvements.
* Resolves certain kernel panics.

Back to my Mac

* Adds support for more third-party routers, as detailed in this article.

Dashboard

* Improves performance of certain Apple Dashboard widgets (such as Dictionary).
* Addresses an issue in which Dashboard widgets may no longer be accessible after switching to or from an account that has Parental Controls enabled.

Dock

* Updates Stacks with a List view option, a Folder view option, and an updated background for Grid view.

Desktop

* Addresses legibility issues with the menu bar with an option to turn off transparency in Desktop & Screen Saver preferences.
* Adjusts menus to be slightly-less translucent overall.

iCal

* Improves iCal so that it accurately reflects responses to recurring meetings.
* Addresses an issue in which a meeting may remain on the calendar after being cancelled.
* Addresses stability issues related to .Mac syncing of iCal calendars.
* Resolves an intermittent issue in which editing an event with attendees would cause the event to shrink and not register that the event was updated.

iChat

* Addresses an issue with simultaneously-logged in accounts in which iChat sounds generated from one account might be heard in another account.
* Fixes an issue in which iChat idle time is affected by Time Machine backups.
* Improves connectivity when running iChat behind a router that doesn't preserve ports.
* Enables logged chats from previous versions of iChat to open faster and more reliably.
* Addresses an issue with text chats in which users may be unable to receive messages from the sender.
* Addresses an issue that may prevent rejoining an AIM chat room without reopening iChat.
* Addresses video chat compatibility issues with AIM 6 and third-party routers.
* Fixes an issue with case-sensitivity of AIM handles.

iSync

* Adds support for Samsung D600E and D900i phones.

Finder

* Addresses an issue in which Finder could unexpectedly quit when displaying folder contents in Column view.
* Addresses an issue in which Finder could unexpectedly quit when accessing Users and Groups in a Get Info pane.
* Resolves an issue that prevented setting permissions on a folder alias.
* Resolves an issue in which the Eject command could write to a disc in the optical drive.
* Fixes an issue in which the scroll bar might disappear when deleting a file within a folder that includes files that are out of view.
* Fixes an issue in the Sharing & Permissions section of Get Info windows, in which the gear icon appears to be gray/disabled after authentication.
* Addresses an issue in which the Show Icon Preview preference might not be not sa

Re:AEBS backups

[jchillerup]

1a) Wait. 1b) When your drive is full, watch the fireworks. TMShowUnsupportedNetworkVolumes does NOT work correctly and is NOT supported (hence the "Unsupported"...)

Don't overwrite your Leopard copy of Terminal.app

[the JoshMeister]

Great tip, but make sure that you don't overwrite your Leopard copy of Terminal. When you copy the Tiger version, be sure to rename it from "Terminal.app" to something else like "Terminal (Tiger).app". If you don't do this, you could potentially have issues with future patches that are released for Terminal (bug fixes, security updates, etc.) and the installer will naturally look for the Leopard version and might cause problems if the Tiger version was there instead.

Re:Send window to back? please?

[theurge14]

In the meantime, the following may help you:

You can Command-drag a window by the titlebar that is not in the focus without bringing it to the front.
You can also Command-drag to resize a window that is not in the focus without bring it to the front.
You can press Command-` to cycle through all the open windows in the current application.
You can press Command-H to Hide the current window in focus.
You can press Command-M to Minimize the current window in focus.
Command-Tab will bring up a list of all open applications. You can use your mouse while holding Command-Tab to select an application to switch to, and furthermore while you have your mouse pointer over the application you can press H to Hide that particular application or Q to close that particular application.

Per Apple's Developer Connection applications do have an API in Cocoa to use methods to manipulate the Window Z-order, so I would imagine there might be some applications out there already that could perform more specifically what you're looking for.

Re:AEBS backups

[NMerriam]

I suspect this is not fixed, but I don't know. Anyone?

It's not broken, so don't ever expect it to be "fixed". When designing the backup system, they chose to use fewer real-time computing resources so that it was essentially invisible to the users (and thus wouldn't get turned off by everyone for "slowing down the computer") and make restoration trivially simple and fast, at the expense of disk space. You can disagree with their choices, but they're the same tradeoffs every backup system designer has to make.

I use rdiff-backup for some of my data where frequent small updates of large files are an issue, but I'm under no illusions that running a CPU at 100% for 30 minutes for every backup would be acceptable out-of-the-box behavior for most consumers. It especially wouldn't be acceptable to spend days or weeks calculating deltas when restoring a hard drive full of files that have been modified over the course of months or years.

It's a lot easier and cheaper to add disk space than processing power, as much as I'd love to see deltas offered I think I would have made the same choices Apple did if I were in charge of designing TM.

Re:Fonts fixed yet?

[GaryPatterson]

Please.

George Ou is not a good person to quote as an authority on fonts. He's not a graphic designer and he happily uses the wrong information whenever it makes his point.

His examples of OS X font rendering are just poor. There's an update which shows something, but none of the images reflect the default font smoothing on OS X.

Nice troll though. You link to a Dvorak-wannabe, use his bile to spit on OS X and say how good your "humble" Linux box is. You've missed the chance to slap Windows though, so your troll is a bit weaker than it could've been.

Re:Hey !

[GaryPatterson]

Now I've not done this specifically, but I do have a Dock shortcut for an Applescript that connects to my backup drive (an AFP share). I can't find the original code I used, but you should find something at http://www.macosxhints.com/ - they've got people who actually know stuff (ie not me) there.

Have a look here or here to start with.

Good luck.

Re:Without reading the reversion list

[OOSCARR]

There is an option to avoid that. iTunes > Preferences > Advanced > General > Copy files to iTunes Music folder then adding to library (uncheck)

Re:AEBS backups

[wodgy7]

You can get around this by periodically running "hdiutil compact" on the backup disk image. This reclaims deleted space properly and allows you to use TMShowUnsupportedNetworkVolumes safely.

Re:AEBS backups

[Buran]

You have to be under NDA to read a public website? Read this link -- it was on Apple's own website!

AppleInsider | Apple yanks wireless backup from Leopard last minute

I guess now you'll want to scream "illegal" when people pass along something they read on the front page of the paper.

Re:I was immune :)

[Ilgaz]

I would just like to take this time to rub in the fact I never once had to see that transparent menu. At first I just thought that it might only be slightly transparent, and that the beta users were just exaggerating the problem, so I tried it with a checked background, and sure enough it was completely solid. The reflective doc was there in all it's shinyness, but no pixel were leaking through my menu bar. I don't if it was a PPC/Intel thing or if Apple just deemed my video card too pathetic to get the see-through goodness, by my Leopard install has had an opaque menu since the day I installed it.

So, neener-neener :P It is not a thing to be happy about :) It means Leopard decided your graphics card is weak to do transparent menu opengl thing. It is same deal on my Mac Mini G4 too and guess what G4 is connected to? A Plasma HDTV.

A logical explanation to transparent menu bar: Apple had reports of "screen burn" because of a white menu on top of the screen 24/7, decided to do it so as wallpaper changes hourly (generally on plasmas, good trick), the menu bar will change too.

You also notice the top menu bar is dark grey, it is the most friendly thing to Plasma and LCD if you have to display a thing 24/7.

Deal with Plasma is: It is good with moving images but if you show an image at exact location with exact colours for a long time, there is a huge possibility to get "burn in". Burn in can be recovered by full white or moving grey pattern but... If you really meet with the "real", evil burn in, there is no recovering back. No guarantee cover either.

LCD has the same problem but it must be days or weeks to occur. Also their "move image 4 pixels" trick is designed for TV station logos (see below), it is near worthless for Apple menu.

Your TV station doesn't do "colour cycle" or "slightly animated" or "almost transparent" logo for nothing, they do especially for Plasma owners so they won't be watching "same channel" in case logo burns there. :)