Apple taps developers to test new Snow Leopard beta

[AppleInsider]

Apple on Thursday notified developers by email that they could begin downloading and testing a new pre-release build of the Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard operating system, the second beta of the software released this month.

As was predicted by AppleInsider on Tuesday, the distribution is indeed labeled Mac OS X 10.6 build 10A335. It arrives just three weeks after the last external test release, a sign that Apple may start requesting feedback on new builds more frequently as it strives to wrap up development of the software by the summer.

The Cupertino-based company reportedly made no mention of any significant changes in Thursday's beta but continued encouraging developers to start working on and testing any 64-bit kernel extensions that their third-party products will require under Snow Leopard.

Apple did list a handful of bugs affecting build 10A335, people familiar with the matter say. Among them were crashes in QuickTime X player, application crashes under Rosetta, problems with Migration Assistant and odd errors being spit out by the new version of Disk Utility.

Arriving in tandem with new client beta of Snow Leopard was an identically labeled build of Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard Server, those same people say. And unlike the client release, Apple is reported to have mentioned a handful of advances new to the build.

In particular, an easier to use and configure version of Podcast Producer is said to pave the way for picture-in-picture podcasts and allow remote management of cameras over the web using a Mac, PC or iPhone. Other notable changes reportedly include new junk mail filters in Mail Server, better automated account creation in Calendar Server, and completely re-written certificate management code.

Readers interested in keeping track of Snow Leopard developments can do so by subscribing to AppleInsider's Mac OS X 10.6 topics page.

[ View this article at AppleInsider.com ]

[Fast Fred 1]

OOOOH...... goodie!

[solipsism]

MB's are still a no go with the 64-bit kernel on IGPs.

[theBigD23]

Does the rewritten Finder in Cocoa show any changes? Does it crash less often than the Finder we are using now?
I remember a new Finder in SL was a big deal. Living up to the hype in these early stages?

[solipsism]

Originally Posted by theBigD23

Does the rewritten Finder in Cocoa show any changes? Does it crash less often than the Finder we are using now?
I remember a new Finder in SL was a big deal. Living up to the hype in these early stages?

There are some changes but nothing that acutely noticeable. There are a few slight visual tweaks but it doesn't seem any less or more responsive at this point.

As for stability, I haven't had any issues with Leopard's Finder, in fact it hasn't been since Tiger's Finder freezing up when drives disconnected that I have had any problem with Finder.

[kim kap sol]

I don't know what the fuck is wrong with Apple. They supposedly rewrote the Finder but they left it looking and feeling exactly the same as the Carbon Finder (or so I've gathered looking at the screenshots of it.)

They could reinvent the way people search and browse their files but they're sticking to old 1984 metaphors that make little sense today with the growing number of files on HDs that are thousands of times larger than in 1984.

[bobertoq]

Originally Posted by kim kap sol

I don't know what the fuck is wrong with Apple. They supposedly rewrote the Finder but they left it looking and feeling exactly the same as the Carbon Finder (or so I've gathered looking at the screenshots of it.)

They could reinvent the way people search and browse their files but they're sticking to old 1984 metaphors that make little sense today with the growing number of files on HDs that are thousands of times larger than in 1984.

I hear you! I made me really mad when Apple rewrote Tiger for the Intel processor, but they left it looking and feeling exactly the same as the PPC Tiger! /sarcasm

[solipsism]

Originally Posted by kim kap sol

I don't know what the fuck is wrong with Apple. They supposedly rewrote the Finder but they left it looking and feeling exactly the same as the Carbon Finder (or so I've gathered looking at the screenshots of it.)

They could reinvent the way people search and browse their files but they're sticking to old 1984 metaphors that make little sense today with the growing number of files on HDs that are thousands of times larger than in 1984.

What parts do you have problems with? Personally, I like the way Finder looks and like the incremental additions and changes that it has gotten over the years. If they make it Cocoa and it's more responsive and as stable then I'm okay with the change. Regarding large files they have included Spotlight with also searches Metadata.

[8CoreWhore]

It's gonna snow this summer!

[hmurchison]

Originally Posted by solipsism

What parts do you have problems with? Personally, I like the way Finder looks and like the incremental additions and changes that it has gotten over the years. If they make it Cocoa and it's more responsive and as stable then I'm okay with the change. Regarding large files they have included Spotlight with also searches Metadata.

Allow me to insert my incessant bleating but I think systemwide tagging is the key to not replacing the finder but making it far more powerful than it is today.

I'm hoping that we get that for 10.7 nestled in a bunch of other goodness.

[kim kap sol]

Originally Posted by solipsism

What parts do you have problems with? Personally, I like the way Finder looks and like the incremental additions and changes that it has gotten over the years. If they make it Cocoa and it's more responsive and as stable then I'm okay with the change. Regarding large files they have included Spotlight with also searches Metadata.

The Spotlight interface is somewhat lacking in the Finder. It's decent if you want to spend some time fine-tuning a search...however, Spotlight could be much more user-friendly in the Finder.

See, I've always known Spotlight to be near-instantaneous in its searches. I don't understand why Apple isn't fully leveraging Spotlight's power.

The "Search for" are in the Finder's sidebar is a good start but it could be expanded. It could become the primary way to browse files if it was more powerful. There should be an easier way, for example, to apply filters. iTunes makes it easy to narrow down on a song, so should the Finder. When you select "All Images", there should be options to narrow it down. Perhaps the "All" part of the description could be dropped...call it "Images" then choices to narrow the search...the user should be able to easily choose which type of image file he's searching for. Perhaps the user is just looking for a Photoshop image file. Perhaps he's looking for a tiff. He doesn't need to see all the jpg files on his computer. Same with documents. The user could know he's looking for a Word document or a Pages document. These drilldown options should be easily accessible.

The Finder should be more clear how the "Search" field works. Right now it defaults to searching the entire computer or "This Mac" as they call it...you have to click the second option which is usually the folder or smart folder your were in when the search was typed. The search field should at least default to filter files within the folder you're in. Afterall, the Spotlight menu is already a good default "This Mac" interface. When I'm in the Finder and I'm in a folder or a smart folder, I'm typing stuff into the search field to further filter the search. Apple should make this clearer and more intuitive.

[kim kap sol]

Originally Posted by hmurchison

Allow me to insert my incessant bleating but I think systemwide tagging is the key to not replacing the finder but making it far more powerful than it is today.

I'm hoping that we get that for 10.7 nestled in a bunch of other goodness.

Exactly.

First, the save dialog should become more powerful and allow users to easily tag their saved documents/files. File name is good metadata but there should be ways to easily add more metadata. Apps in particular could be tagged with keywords such as "productivity", "internet", "utility".

All this tagging can be done today by slapping keywords into the the Spotlight Comment field but it's not very user-friendly.

[hmurchison]

Originally Posted by kim kap sol

Exactly.

First, the save dialog should become more powerful and allow users to easily tag their saved documents/files. File name is good metadata but there should be ways to easily add more metadata. Apps in particular could be tagged with keywords such as "productivity", "internet", "utility".

All this tagging can be done today by slapping keywords into the the Spotlight Comment field but it's not very user-friendly.

Yup I'm doing that right now with Default Folder X and it works well. I echo your sentiments on how to improve Spotlight. Right now it's still "Spotlight for Dummies" and more experienced users need setting like.

1. Choosing to engage the search only after we've entered in all criteria
2. Allowing us to choose which volumes or folders we wish to search
3. Searching by Tag and not arbitrary metadata
4. Being able to pull of search results into their own window and do more searches.

[solipsism]

Originally Posted by kim kap sol

The "Search for" are in the Finder's sidebar is a good start but it could be expanded. It could become the primary way to browse files if it was more powerful. There should be an easier way, for example, to apply filters. iTunes makes it easy to narrow down on a song, so should the Finder. When you select "All Images", there should be options to narrow it down. Perhaps the "All" part of the description could be dropped...call it "Images" then choices to narrow the search...the user should be able to easily choose which type of image file he's searching for. Perhaps the user is just looking for a Photoshop image file. Perhaps he's looking for a tiff. He doesn't need to see all the jpg files on his computer. Same with documents. The user could know he's looking for a Word document or a Pages document. These drilldown options should be easily accessible.

Those are just the default smart searches that Finder comes with. You can remove those and add your own. Just start a search and then choose the parameters you wish. You can even choose to search system files. Then you just save it and it even has a per-selected check box to add to side bar. There are so many options under Other that I can't think of anything that is missing.

The search field should at least default to filter files within the folder you're in.

This won't be an issue after Leopard.

[solipsism]

Originally Posted by kim kap sol

All this tagging can be done today by slapping keywords into the the Spotlight Comment field but it's not very user-friendly.

When you hold down the Option key Get Info turns into Inspector. It would be nice if Inspector had the Spotlight Comment section as this can be used for multiple items. This way you can add the same metadata tag to multiple items at once.

[hmurchison]

Originally Posted by solipsism

When you hold down the Option key Get Info turns into Inspector. It would be nice if Inspector had the Spotlight Comment section as this can be used for multiple items. This way you can add the same metadata tag to multiple items at once.

Spotlight Comments are flaky and in the past Adobe apps had a penchant for erasing them.

I did notice that some 64-bit apps are already showing up.

http://www.publicspace.net/ABetterFi...e/version.html


This release takes A Better Finder Rename 8 to a 64-bit garbage collected architecture and prepares the ground for important scalability and performance improvements that we hope to deliver in the next two releases.

Nice. When I move to Snow Leopard I certainly will be harassing all developers to move their apps to 64-bit no matter how small.

[mdriftmeyer]

Originally Posted by kim kap sol

I don't know what the fuck is wrong with Apple. They supposedly rewrote the Finder but they left it looking and feeling exactly the same as the Carbon Finder (or so I've gathered looking at the screenshots of it.)

They could reinvent the way people search and browse their files but they're sticking to old 1984 metaphors that make little sense today with the growing number of files on HDs that are thousands of times larger than in 1984.

Don't be so dense. First is to duplicate functionality in Cocoa and then to augment it to meet the goals for Snow Leopard and beyond.

[MartiNZ]

Originally Posted by kim kap sol

Exactly.

First, the save dialog should become more powerful and allow users to easily tag their saved documents/files. File name is good metadata but there should be ways to easily add more metadata. Apps in particular could be tagged with keywords such as "productivity", "internet", "utility".

All this tagging can be done today by slapping keywords into the the Spotlight Comment field but it's not very user-friendly.

All I want from the open/save dialog is the ability to sort by type, by far the most likely way that anyone is going to want to sort and yet somehow still lacking!

I'm not a fan of the whole keywording/tagging culture simply because I don't think about things in those terms and don't want to be made to. I like how Finder works for the most part; I'd like it to be easier to set global window geometry than on a per window basis, so that things like cover view might actually become useful. I'd like to see some of the Get Info information incorporated into the main view à la Vista, which makes working with files much easier than Finder, with only the curiosity of the removal of the 'up' button against it.

[kaiwai]

Originally Posted by MartiNZ

All I want from the open/save dialog is the ability to sort by type, by far the most likely way that anyone is going to want to sort and yet somehow still lacking!

I'm not a fan of the whole keywording/tagging culture simply because I don't think about things in those terms and don't want to be made to. I like how Finder works for the most part; I'd like it to be easier to set global window geometry than on a per window basis, so that things like cover view might actually become useful. I'd like to see some of the Get Info information incorporated into the main view à la Vista, which makes working with files much easier than Finder, with only the curiosity of the removal of the 'up' button against it.

I agree. When changing it to list mode one can see date modified and the name, why not allow the user to right click and choose - like on iTunes how you can choose what information want displayed.

[melgross]

Originally Posted by kim kap sol

The Spotlight interface is somewhat lacking in the Finder. It's decent if you want to spend some time fine-tuning a search...however, Spotlight could be much more user-friendly in the Finder.

See, I've always known Spotlight to be near-instantaneous in its searches. I don't understand why Apple isn't fully leveraging Spotlight's power.

The "Search for" are in the Finder's sidebar is a good start but it could be expanded. It could become the primary way to browse files if it was more powerful. There should be an easier way, for example, to apply filters. iTunes makes it easy to narrow down on a song, so should the Finder. When you select "All Images", there should be options to narrow it down. Perhaps the "All" part of the description could be dropped...call it "Images" then choices to narrow the search...the user should be able to easily choose which type of image file he's searching for. Perhaps the user is just looking for a Photoshop image file. Perhaps he's looking for a tiff. He doesn't need to see all the jpg files on his computer. Same with documents. The user could know he's looking for a Word document or a Pages document. These drilldown options should be easily accessible.

The Finder should be more clear how the "Search" field works. Right now it defaults to searching the entire computer or "This Mac" as they call it...you have to click the second option which is usually the folder or smart folder your were in when the search was typed. The search field should at least default to filter files within the folder you're in. Afterall, the Spotlight menu is already a good default "This Mac" interface. When I'm in the Finder and I'm in a folder or a smart folder, I'm typing stuff into the search field to further filter the search. Apple should make this clearer and more intuitive.

That makes sense. It knows all the file types in the machine as well as any other criteria. It should use what it knows to let us select between them, if we also know some of this.

It's like twenty questions, except that most of the time it would be more like two to four.

[melgross]

Originally Posted by hmurchison

Spotlight Comments are flaky and in the past Adobe apps had a penchant for erasing them.

I did notice that some 64-bit apps are already showing up.

http://www.publicspace.net/ABetterFi...e/version.html


This release takes A Better Finder Rename 8 to a 64-bit garbage collected architecture and prepares the ground for important scalability and performance improvements that we hope to deliver in the next two releases.

Nice. When I move to Snow Leopard I certainly will be harassing all developers to move their apps to 64-bit no matter how small.

Now if my 32 bit version would get the menu to work properly I'll be happy.

[melgross]

Originally Posted by MartiNZ

I'm not a fan of the whole keywording/tagging culture simply because I don't think about things in those terms and don't want to be made to.

You wouldn't have to.

[shadow]

Originally Posted by kaiwai

I agree. When changing it to list mode one can see date modified and the name, why not allow the user to right click and choose - like on iTunes how you can choose what information want displayed.

I have some memory that this was reported to be possible, buy right-clicking the column header in the list view in the open dialog or something. Not sure though. Someone with access to SL - could you enlighten us?

[columbus]

Originally Posted by solipsism

There are some changes but nothing that acutely noticeable. There are a few slight visual tweaks but it doesn't seem any less or more responsive at this point.

As for stability, I haven't had any issues with Leopard's Finder, in fact it hasn't been since Tiger's Finder freezing up when drives disconnected that I have had any problem with Finder.

I'd echo this. Whilst Leopard FInder is far from perfect, I wouldn't say I have encountered any show stopping stability issues.

The Spotlight search results view actually regressed when we went to Leopard (And yes, I have let my thoughts know to Apple and I'd encourage you to do the same if you feel the same way).

Whilst the 10.4 results was not consistent with the rest of the Finder UI, I still felt it was sufficiently Mac like and made it far easier to drill down searches.

Personally I think the usage of Metadata on Leap is awesome. They just need to get performance sorted out.

[stonefree]

Originally Posted by solipsism

When you hold down the Option key Get Info turns into Inspector. It would be nice if Inspector had the Spotlight Comment section as this can be used for multiple items. This way you can add the same metadata tag to multiple items at once.

That's a great tip. When I bought my first Mac in December I spent a couple weeks going through various Apple tips websites and don't remember seeing that.

[ascii]

Originally Posted by stonefree

That's a great tip. When I bought my first Mac in December I spent a couple weeks going through various Apple tips websites and don't remember seeing that.

In general, if you open the menus for any program and press Option, a lot of the menus will change to different things. You can discover a lot of cool features this way.

[Saxo]

Hi everyone.

Since I've heard about the new Finder rewritten in Cocoa, I was excited. However, for what I've seen on previous builds (previous thant 10A335 we're talking about here), I haven't seen much differences.

There was a news one day, about a new build of SL (I don't remember which one), that was revealing that new Cocoa Finder. It was supposed to be new in that peculiar build of SL, but I couldn't see anything different than the Finder in earlier builds.

For what I've seen in SL, the Finder is a 64bit process, but there's still a Finder.rsrc file in the Finder.app... like the actual Leopard's one. So there's still some Carbon somewhere, I suppose.

Can someone explain me how peoples said that it was a Cocoa Finder, in that peculiar builds?

I know that there's a command that can scan the binary file and look for the methods name, but I don't remember it. That could prove that there's at least some Objective-C.

[Abster2core]

Originally Posted by shadow

I have some memory that this was reported to be possible, buy right-clicking the column header in the list view in the open dialog or something. Not sure though. Someone with access to SL - could you enlighten us?

Responding would contravene the non-disclosure agreement.

[noirdesir]

Originally Posted by kim kap sol

Perhaps the "All" part of the description could be dropped...call it "Images" then choices to narrow the search...the user should be able to easily choose which type of image file he's searching for.

I agree, in addition to the location options directly accessible via buttons (My Mac, This Folder) and to the 'where' options (filename or content), kind buttons could be useful.

Perhaps the user is just looking for a Photoshop image file. Perhaps he's looking for a tiff. He doesn't need to see all the jpg files on his computer. Same with documents. The user could know he's looking for a Word document or a Pages document. These drilldown options should be easily accessible.

Opening the 'Other' options takes around five seconds and always involves the spinning beach ball, that really should be easier.

The Finder should be more clear how the "Search" field works. Right now it defaults to searching the entire computer or "This Mac" as they call it...you have to click the second option which is usually the folder or smart folder your were in when the search was typed. The search field should at least default to filter files within the folder you're in. Afterall, the Spotlight menu is already a good default "This Mac" interface. When I'm in the Finder and I'm in a folder or a smart folder, I'm typing stuff into the search field to further filter the search. Apple should make this clearer and more intuitive.

That is one of my favourite pet peeves, in Tiger (and possibly Panther) it was the inverse, it defaulted to the current folder. It was very useful to find a file in a folder with lots of items. Even with hundreds or thousands of items, typing a few letters, and the file would show up. Now it is type a few letters, having to wait a second or so while the computer first starts searching the whole drive until you manage to click the current folder button.

[shadow]

Originally Posted by Abster2core

Responding would contravene the non-disclosure agreement.

Well, you could try like this:

I heard a bastard in the bar saying that <your answer here>

[Macintox]

Originally Posted by kim kap sol

I don't know what the fuck is wrong with Apple. They supposedly rewrote the Finder but they left it looking and feeling exactly the same as the Carbon Finder (or so I've gathered looking at the screenshots of it.)
1984.

Do you think that adding f..k to your post will make any more relevant ? Why don't you keep this kind of vulgarity aside . It is no adding one bit of interest to the question but makes it indigestible to most of us .

[bonch]

Tagging is useless. Nobody wants to go through their thousands of files tagging them. What tag supporters are essentially saying is, "I want to do what Spotlight automatically does for me--manually index my files."

[solipsism]

Originally Posted by bonch

Tagging is useless.

Tagging isn't useless, I've used it many times with great effect, but it is far from ideal in its current form.

[hmurchison]

Originally Posted by bonch

Tagging is useless. Nobody wants to go through their thousands of files tagging them. What tag supporters are essentially saying is, "I want to do what Spotlight automatically does for me--manually index my files."

If nobody wants to do it then why are many developers supporting tags in their application? Why is there an effort to develop a systemwide tagging framework to share tagging information?

Your assumption is that every file needs to be tagged and thus there are thousands of files creating a big chore. You only need tag the relevant information to complete your job. If you're an attorney you only need to tag correspondence, documents, contacts or whatever aggregate data you need for your case.

Spotlight automatically indexes metadata for you but it cannot add specific company or personal metadata for you unless you add Spotlight comments which has been done but is flakey. Spotlight will never know the my case file number for client John Doe is ATC54694 just based on the arbitrary metadata it collects in files. But with tagging I can group disparate data underneath the "aTC54694" tag and search Spotlight and find all relevant tagged files with a simple

"tag: ATC54694" search in the Spotlight window.

Will my grandmother need to use it? No But tagging is a powerful way of organizing your system without relying on folder hierarchy which invites difficult decisions

"do I group my data by client or by datatype?"

Systemwide tagging is the next evolutionary step in dealing with metadata and eventually Apple will get there but not before 10.7 is my guess.

[guinness]

I'd be happy if they just added cut and paste to Finder, as well as the ability to merge files of the same name and type, but subsequently automatically rename the new files, rather than strictly overwrite the old files. It's the one major gripe I have with Finder.

As far as tagging, meh, it's OK for new files, or photos I'm importing, but I've got thousands and thousands of files on each of my computers. It's a nice idea, but manually tagging files sucks.

[hmurchison]

Originally Posted by guinness

As far as tagging, meh, it's OK for new files, or photos I'm importing, but I've got thousands and thousands of files on each of my computers. It's a nice idea, but manually tagging files sucks.

I don't see where the distinction between new files or old files is relevant to tagging. Even someone with a fantastic folder hierarchy system can move to tagging easily. Each folder can easily represent a tag. Tagging some of my PDF files were easy because I had a root level folder named "PDF" and sub folders broken down into categories. For me to tag some of the PDF with "HP" I simply navigated to the HP subfolder from within Leap did a "control A" and add the HP tag. Later if necessary with even more specific tags.

Tagging is a way to view your data in a more flexible way beyond a folder. Let's make no bones about it people the GUI has done wonders for bringing computers to the masses but it has hobbled people as well with the need to have a graphical workflow for doing even the most basic computing tasks. For instance there was no problem with cut and paste 30+ years ago because a simple command line entry would move a file or files from one directory to another with speed.

Tagging is for the thinking computer user because it forces the user to think about what is relevant to them about said documents and how these documents fit into the whole schema of their computing ecosystem.

[Kickaha]

Okay, I'll post this *again*...

Moving to tagging from folders is *TRIVIAL*. Showing tags as folders is almost as trivial. The two are really quite compatible.

Folders to tagging: Walk the folder tree. Any time you hit a file, tag it with the chain of folders you got to it in. Done. Think about it, that's what you're doing when you file in folders, isn't it? "This is a user file (Users). This is my file (kickaha). This is a document I made (Documents). This is a file about finances (Finances). This is a file from 2008 (2008). This is a file about taxes (Taxes)." So files found in /Users/kickaha/Documents/Finances/2008/Taxes would be tagged with the above collection of tags. Doing a tag search is then like saying "give me all the files that would be in a folder named BLAH".

Done. This can be done with a trivial script. So moving from folders to a tagging system is not only solvable, it's basically a no-op.

Showing a tag soup as folders is a little more interesting, but not unsolvable. It requires the user to indicate which tags are 'important' and how they should be hierarchically nested - but we already have that in the folders themselves. A user saves a file with say three tags of (2006) (Finances) (Bills), and a folder walk shows a folder at /Users/thatuser/Documents/Finances/Bills/2006, it would offer to place it in there for them. Or they tag it with (2006) (Bills) and it finds the above folder, but also /Users/thatuser/Documents/Sports/NFL/Bills/2006, it would let them pick one. Now the system is helping the use augment with further tags... in the first case, (Finances), in the second case (Sports) and (NFL). Or, let them leave the tags as is, and just plop it into a catchall folder/bin "Tagged Files". Now it's tagged to exactly the level they want, and not sitting in a folder hierarchy that would imbue it with further tags. If a user moves a file from one folder to another, the tags based on the folder hierarchy can change automatically to reflect that. Heck, ask the user if they want to modify the tags, add the new hierarchy tags, or leave as is.

So... continue to show the folder hierarchy as now. Pull in the folder names as tags. Have Smart Folders/Searches that are "tag = BLAH". That's pretty much it. You've solved moving from folders to tags and back.

There really isn't any discussion to *have* about this... the distinction is kind of artificial. Folders *are* tags... just very very primitive ones.