OS X bugs and/or annoyances
New member here; sorry if my post|rant|diatribe is in the wrong place. This seemed like a pretty good forum with some smart people in it. If there's a better place for this kind of thing, feel free to let me know.
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There are a few troubling things about OS X that I haven't seen adequately addressed anywhere. I've seen a few of these problems mentioned, but no fixes as far as I can see. Apple seems to omit open bugs and annoyances from their support pages, or at least they have them well-hidden.
#1 Views
List view seems to be extremely buggy. It frequently gets confused about what size I want columns to be, and if I try to argue with it, it gets mad and stops responding or even vaporizes the header. I've had to go as far as replacing a folder with a new one, because it was saving its bugged out prefs, even on reboot. Also, when I move up and down in the hierarchy, I frequently find myself at the bottom of a very tall empty window. Granted that typing "a" or "." gets me back up, it really seems like an unnecessary annoyance. This was a bug in earlier Mac OSs too. Furthermore, column view doesn't seem to respond at all to typing the first letter of a filename to navigate to it.
The reason this is important to me is that I've always found the icon view extremely annoying (perhaps a bit self-absorbed: "Aren't I pretty?") without being at all useful. Column view is a nice idea, but not when you're navigating a lot of windows on a laptop using a trackpad. Way too much horizontal scrolling and the columns get squashed and unreadable. If I make it wider it usually moves me away from where I'm working, so yet again more horizontal scrolling.
And for chrissakes, why the heck can't you set views globally? All I want is to tell this beast that I want every folder set to list view sorted ascending by name. This is one this the M$ 'dozers got right, and Apple has yet to figure out (or allow). I currently have about 38000 folders on this little thing. Do I really want 38000 sets of prefs? I think not. I can think of maybe a half dozen I'd like to set to something special, but 99% of the time I just want to find something by its name or date.
#2 Privileges
It's strange that it would be necessary to login as root or type cryptic commands in the terminal just to throw away a file that thinks it's more important than I am. I don't mind a warning, but it sure would be nice if there was an "I know what I'm doing" button. Or a keychain that will warn me, but then do what I tell it. There are obviously plenty of good reasons to have various levels of permissions, but why make it so tedious to turn on and off for a single-user box? It's not a big issue, but it doesn't really fit with the whole Apple Vision of simplicity and ease of use.
#3 Cmd-N
What is the point of having Cmd-N open the root folder? Maybe I'm just weird, but I create at least 100 new folders for every time I want to open the root folder. And why would I want to open it anyway? Just so I can see how pretty my bleeding 128 bit custom disk icon is?
#4 Help
This is perhaps a mindset problem. Learning on DOS and Windoze made me appreciate help files. People who grew up with the Mac often don't know there is such a thing. Unfortunately, the days when you could figure out a program by opening it up and looking at it are long gone. So after all these years, why is Apple's help system so crappy? Okay, you can search for a word. But when you get to the page that the word is on you have to read through most of it just to find the blasted word. How exactly is this better than paper? Is the only way to find text to take apart the *.help file and dump it into a browser? It's not exactly a productivity-enhancing feature.
But the cherry on top of this little ice cream sundae of a tool is the all-new friggin awful flying word animated splashes at the top of every one of these little stinkers. Pardon my intolerance, but whoever came up with this little nugget should be taken out back and shot. What's next? Streaming ads telling us what a swell guy Steve is? Blech.
One more thing while I'm annoyed. Why did they put the "back" button at the bottom right, while the folder back button (and most browsers') is at the top left. This kind of thinking wouldn't hack it for a mediocre web site.
---------
Before you get out your torches I have to say that despite all this, I think it's really a great OS. I wouldn't be wasting time trying to figure it out if I didn't think it was worth it. OS X makes it harder than Mac-ville used to be, but there are a lot of benefits. IMHO, the problems that remain have less to do with technology than ego.
--
A good question is never answered. It is not a bolt to be tightened into
place but a seed to be planted and to bear more seed toward the hope of
greening the landscape of idea. -John Ciardi
-----------
There are a few troubling things about OS X that I haven't seen adequately addressed anywhere. I've seen a few of these problems mentioned, but no fixes as far as I can see. Apple seems to omit open bugs and annoyances from their support pages, or at least they have them well-hidden.
#1 Views
List view seems to be extremely buggy. It frequently gets confused about what size I want columns to be, and if I try to argue with it, it gets mad and stops responding or even vaporizes the header. I've had to go as far as replacing a folder with a new one, because it was saving its bugged out prefs, even on reboot. Also, when I move up and down in the hierarchy, I frequently find myself at the bottom of a very tall empty window. Granted that typing "a" or "." gets me back up, it really seems like an unnecessary annoyance. This was a bug in earlier Mac OSs too. Furthermore, column view doesn't seem to respond at all to typing the first letter of a filename to navigate to it.
The reason this is important to me is that I've always found the icon view extremely annoying (perhaps a bit self-absorbed: "Aren't I pretty?") without being at all useful. Column view is a nice idea, but not when you're navigating a lot of windows on a laptop using a trackpad. Way too much horizontal scrolling and the columns get squashed and unreadable. If I make it wider it usually moves me away from where I'm working, so yet again more horizontal scrolling.
And for chrissakes, why the heck can't you set views globally? All I want is to tell this beast that I want every folder set to list view sorted ascending by name. This is one this the M$ 'dozers got right, and Apple has yet to figure out (or allow). I currently have about 38000 folders on this little thing. Do I really want 38000 sets of prefs? I think not. I can think of maybe a half dozen I'd like to set to something special, but 99% of the time I just want to find something by its name or date.
#2 Privileges
It's strange that it would be necessary to login as root or type cryptic commands in the terminal just to throw away a file that thinks it's more important than I am. I don't mind a warning, but it sure would be nice if there was an "I know what I'm doing" button. Or a keychain that will warn me, but then do what I tell it. There are obviously plenty of good reasons to have various levels of permissions, but why make it so tedious to turn on and off for a single-user box? It's not a big issue, but it doesn't really fit with the whole Apple Vision of simplicity and ease of use.
#3 Cmd-N
What is the point of having Cmd-N open the root folder? Maybe I'm just weird, but I create at least 100 new folders for every time I want to open the root folder. And why would I want to open it anyway? Just so I can see how pretty my bleeding 128 bit custom disk icon is?
#4 Help
This is perhaps a mindset problem. Learning on DOS and Windoze made me appreciate help files. People who grew up with the Mac often don't know there is such a thing. Unfortunately, the days when you could figure out a program by opening it up and looking at it are long gone. So after all these years, why is Apple's help system so crappy? Okay, you can search for a word. But when you get to the page that the word is on you have to read through most of it just to find the blasted word. How exactly is this better than paper? Is the only way to find text to take apart the *.help file and dump it into a browser? It's not exactly a productivity-enhancing feature.
But the cherry on top of this little ice cream sundae of a tool is the all-new friggin awful flying word animated splashes at the top of every one of these little stinkers. Pardon my intolerance, but whoever came up with this little nugget should be taken out back and shot. What's next? Streaming ads telling us what a swell guy Steve is? Blech.
One more thing while I'm annoyed. Why did they put the "back" button at the bottom right, while the folder back button (and most browsers') is at the top left. This kind of thinking wouldn't hack it for a mediocre web site.
---------
Before you get out your torches I have to say that despite all this, I think it's really a great OS. I wouldn't be wasting time trying to figure it out if I didn't think it was worth it. OS X makes it harder than Mac-ville used to be, but there are a lot of benefits. IMHO, the problems that remain have less to do with technology than ego.
--
A good question is never answered. It is not a bolt to be tightened into
place but a seed to be planted and to bear more seed toward the hope of
greening the landscape of idea. -John Ciardi
Comments
1.) sometimes (I have a scroll wheel mouse) it seems that IE gets stuck scrolling down.
2.) sometimes IE's window jumps across the screen. usual happens when opening and loading multiple pages at once
2. Apple Menu should be customizable. Favorites Menu and Empty Trash belong here also because the Apple Menu can be accessed from any open program.
3. Put Trash Can back on Desktop so by using the Favorites Menu(back in Apple Menu), the Dock can be used only for open apps if we so choose. Its sometimes difficult to put things in the trash or eject disks when the dock is hidden.
4. Fonts are fuzzy-fix it!
5. Scrolling is herky jerky.
6. Put back Notepad
7. Bring back Windowshade.
Do all of the above and OSX is killer............................................ .....
[ 05-27-2002: Message edited by: steve666 ]</p>
<strong>(...)
The reason this is important to me is that I've always found the icon view extremely annoying (perhaps a bit self-absorbed: "Aren't I pretty?") without being at all useful. Column view is a nice idea, but not when you're navigating a lot of windows on a laptop using a trackpad. Way too much horizontal scrolling and the columns get squashed and unreadable. If I make it wider it usually moves me away from where I'm working, so yet again more horizontal scrolling.</strong><hr></blockquote>
try navigating with the cursor-buttons.
its fast - and fun!
but its true. apple has some work to with colume-views.
[quote]<strong>And for chrissakes, why the heck can't you set views globally? All I want is to tell this beast that I want every folder set to list view sorted ascending by name. This is one this the M$ 'dozers got right, and Apple has yet to figure out (or allow). I currently have about 38000 folders on this little thing. Do I really want 38000 sets of prefs? I think not. I can think of maybe a half dozen I'd like to set to something special, but 99% of the time I just want to find something by its name or date.</strong><hr></blockquote>
yep!
i once had an app to do just that.
once again - apple has work to do.
[quote]<strong>#2 Privileges
It's strange that it would be necessary to login as root or type cryptic commands in the terminal just to throw away a file that thinks it's more important than I am. I don't mind a warning, but it sure would be nice if there was an "I know what I'm doing" button.
[QB]
famous last words "i know what i am doing".
</strong><hr></blockquote>Or a keychain that will warn me, but then do what I tell it. There are obviously plenty of good reasons to have various levels of permissions, but why make it so tedious to turn on and off for a single-user box? It's not a big issue, but it doesn't really fit with the whole Apple Vision of simplicity and ease of use.[/QB]
i think apple has done a good job with permissions.
if the standart-user dosn't have to edit a file: the file is locked
if a admin wants to support the box: he will log on as root and be able to do whatever he wants.
if you are user and admin/root in one person: work along as a standart-user and if you get to a file that needs root-permission to be killed - logon as root - kill the file - logon as standart-user.
or: allways logon as root - but don't blaim apple if your box gets buggy.
[quote]<strong>#3 Cmd-N
What is the point of having Cmd-N open the root folder? Maybe I'm just weird, but I create at least 100 new folders for every time I want to open the root folder. And why would I want to open it anyway? Just so I can see how pretty my bleeding 128 bit custom disk icon is?</strong><hr></blockquote>
it's just gettin' used to it.
[quote]<strong>#4 Help
This is perhaps a mindset problem. Learning on DOS and Windoze made me appreciate help files. People who grew up with the Mac often don't know there is such a thing. Unfortunately, the days when you could figure out a program by opening it up and looking at it are long gone. So after all these years, why is Apple's help system so crappy? Okay, you can search for a word. But when you get to the page that the word is on you have to read through most of it just to find the blasted word. How exactly is this better than paper? Is the only way to find text to take apart the *.help file and dump it into a browser? It's not exactly a productivity-enhancing feature.</strong><hr></blockquote>
help?
who needs help?
(joke)
[quote]<strong>But the cherry on top of this little ice cream sundae of a tool is the all-new friggin awful flying word animated splashes at the top of every one of these little stinkers. Pardon my intolerance, but whoever came up with this little nugget should be taken out back and shot. What's next? Streaming ads telling us what a swell guy Steve is? Blech.</strong><hr></blockquote>
;-)
[quote]<strong>One more thing while I'm annoyed. Why did they put the "back" button at the bottom right, while the folder back button (and most browsers') is at the top left. This kind of thinking wouldn't hack it for a mediocre web site.</strong><hr></blockquote>
yep!
and why can't i navigate with the cursor-buttons?
[quote]<strong>Before you get out your torches I have to say that despite all this, I think it's really a great OS. I wouldn't be wasting time trying to figure it out if I didn't think it was worth it. OS X makes it harder than Mac-ville used to be, but there are a lot of benefits. IMHO, the problems that remain have less to do with technology than ego.</strong><hr></blockquote>
they built this baby from scratch (more or less).
let's give em some time to stomp the bugs.
And BTW, I certainly didn't mean to imply that I know what I'm doing. I just want a button that says I do.
[ 05-28-2002: Message edited by: BKasaar ]</p>
2. the iTunes window sometimes jerks away from me when I move it\t
i still think jaquar ownz
2. the iTunes window sometimes jerks away from me when I move it <hr></blockquote>
I get both of those bugs in 10.1.4. OSX still rocks though, whatever version you run - and I only have a rubbish 350MHz iMac!