Apple strengthens Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard with new build - Page 2

I'd rather deal with the Finder any day of the week. What really sucks is Windows Explorer. You just have to love the way it doesn't live update available disk space. You have to highlight a folder or file then click back on blank space to update that, and only when you're at the volume's root. Not to mention the way it can't seem to remember my window prefs. I set all windows to detail view but some still come up in other ways. Craptastic.

Quartz and Quartz Extreme are the same library from an objective-c standpoint. Do yourself a favor. Open up XCode. Go to help->documentation. Type in Core Image. The first two lines on the first page are....

Framework\t Library/Frameworks/QuartzCore.framework
Header file directories\tLibrary/Frameworks/QuartzCore.framework/Headers

Err this page is probably online too. But this page is similar...

http://developer.apple.com/documenta...age_intro.html

You can not use the Core Image classes / library without the Quartz library, which is the same library as Quartz extreme.

Um, yeah, duh. We're talking about Quartz Extreme, not Quartz.

Um yah duh, quartz extreme and quartz are the same framework, just different functions within that framework.

You have a very strange understanding of Quartz Extreme.

I will just implement a mental filter for your future posts of s=Quartz Extreme=Quartz=g; then they're at least somewhat accurate.

But in the future, you should really read up a little more on what Quartz Extreme is, how it differs from Quartz, and what it is not.

And no, there is no such thing as a Quartz Extreme library.

Agreed. Unfortunately though, Windows Explorer being shitter than shit doesn't stop the Finder being shit.

Quartz Extreme is Quartz with more abilities. It's the same freakin' library! Funny you tell me I need to read up on it, you obviously aren't getting that through your head.
When I'm the one that has been posting the proof. You have yet to post one article / reference that shows they are different.

This discussion is over.

Oh, it is, is it? You need to rewind back to the beginning of the discussion where you claimed that Core Image requires Quartz Extreme. It does not.

Yes, if you want to use Core Image, you need to use Quartz instead of QuickDraw. The implementation of Core Image means that if the processing isn't possible on the GPU, the CPU will be used instead. In this way, Core Image will work on any Mac running OS X 10.4, regardless of GPU. In other words, it is possible to use Core Image on a Mac that doesn't support Quartz Extreme.

You need to go and understand the difference between Quartz, Quartz Extreme and Quartz 2D Extreme.

Having to "refresh" the window kills me! You save a file to a location but since you're looking at it in Explorer already it doesn't show, that is until you choose view -> refresh. Simply annoying.

Yes, Core Image uses Quartz.


No, it's not. Quartz Extreme is a bitmap-compositing method used by the Quartz Compositor when a supported GPU is available. Quartz itself is a CPU-bound drawing framework.


Quartz and Quartz Extreme are not the "same freakin' library" because they're not the same thing. Quartz is a software-based drawing library, while Quartz Extreme is an extension to WindowServer's compositor for putting together window bitmaps by overlaying them as OpenGL textures. You don't make drawing calls to Quartz Extreme; you make calls to Quartz, and the window you're drawing to is composited by Quartz Extreme.

Quartz 2D Extreme will hardware-accelerate the drawing functions, but the framework calls will be the same. The drawing operations will simply be handled by the GPU whenever possible instead of the CPU.

None of this has to do with Core Image other than the fact it makes Quartz/Core Graphics calls like everything else. Image Units are OpenGL shader programs, but Core Image has a CPU fallback mechanism in the event the GPU isn't supported or available. The reason the Dashboard ripple effect doesn't appear on Macs with unsupported GPUs is that Apple disable the effect because it would slow the CPU considerably to render it in software.

I remember that now... but they are still the same framework, which is what I was trying to prove to chucker. You can't have Quartz Extreme without Quartz. Which is what I was getting at.

And yah, i was totally wrong about Quartz 2d Extreme.

Well I guess I was wrong. Let's move on... Sorry to divert the thread.

Actually, Windows does refresh the window, but by default it puts the file at the bottom of the list. You have to refresh the window in order for the file to be resorted in the list. I don't know why it can't add the file to the list in the proper place in the list.

That is something that drives me nuts with windows. We can compare windows downfalls to os x all day. But that doesn't mean they shouldn't be innovating any more... Or fixing things users complain about like they fixed (supposedly) the finder / network hang. My buddy was claiming that if you have over 1500 files in a network folder, and access that folder a 30 second hang will happen sometimes.

No worries. And kudos to you for sticking your hand up and declaring "my bad".

Your window still gets composited by Quartz Extreme if you're a QuickDraw or OpenGL application.

But they aren't.

Anyway.


Yes, let's.

And just what great creative innovation could you develop for the finder. Oh, my apologies. I didn't realize that you have 10 billion in the bank because of your accomplishments.

Some things which irritate me about Windows explorer:

Try the following:

1) Select a bunch of files on the desktop. You'll notice that the files are all duly highlighted to indicate that they are selected.
2) Select a file which is in an open window. This file is highlighted, as you'd expect. The files on the desktop are no longer highlighted, so you think "fine, those files are no longer selected".
3) Drill through some more folders in the open window for a while.
4) By this point I want to drag one of the files on the desktop into my open window, so I click and drag the file in one motion.
5) Oh! It turns out all of the files on the desktop were selected, even though they all looked unselected and the lot ends up in my open window. Yay!

Other than that, I constantly get problems with files refusing to auto-arrange themselves even though that's the view I use.

I delete files and they still show up on screen making me try to delete them again, which gives me wonderful error messages.

Moving files around in the Start menu requires me to exit the Start menu and click on it again to see the changes. Even though I dragged a file into a specific position it usually ends up at the bottom of which ever directory it resides in.

The drill-down function of the Windows Explorer wastes a huge amount of horizontal space as soon as I go through more than 3 sub-directories. Also, the expand "+" buttons are ludicrously small and nearly indistinguishable from an un-expanded button when using a resolution higher than 1024x768.

The close, minimise and maximise buttons are jammed so close together I usually end up maximising a window instead of closing it or vice-versa.

Windows forget the view settings I applied to them at random. Sure this happens in Mac OS X too, particularly during the 10.1 and 10.2 days, but Windows XP (and 2000) is many times worse in my experience.

Lack of keyboard shortcuts - there is no keyboard shortcut for creating a new folder (AFAIK), and no way of getting "properties" without using a right-click.

Speaking of properties, it really irks me that this is usually the only way to make any useful changes in almost all applications. There are usually no direct menu equivalents.

Completely inconsistent save/open dialogue box windows; some are res-izable, some are not; some have shortcuts to the desktop/my documents/etc, some do not; some remember the last folder you were in, some do not. etc...

Preferences dialogue boxes which use dozens of tabs - so many that they stack on top of each other. This leads to awesome confusion when you click on a tab on the top row and all the tabs in that row drop to the bottom of the window, shuffling all the other rows around. Then it's time to "guess where the hell that other tab went".

And the one thing which really sums up the shitty design of the Windows UI has to be the way you edit your TCP/IP settings. As follows:

1) Start menu -> Network Connections
2) Right-click on the relevant network you want to configure.
3) Use the pointlessly tiny little scrollbar to show TCP/IP at the bottom of the list and highlight it.
4) Choose properties (again!)

That's about 7 or 8 mouse clicks. I can do the same in Mac OS X in 3 mouse clicks. I should also mention that at this point I'd have about 3 windows open, none of which show up in the task bar.



Okay, rant over.

So everything we use is shit, and we all here know how to do it better?

yama, you are really, really exxagarating on Windows Explorer

Sounds like Apple are getting the foundations right for Leopard. And well they might.


I'd say 'as is'? This is a rock solid release. The best yet.

iChat AV is the best version yet.
Time machine is awesome. Probably the best feature ever included in OS X. Implementation looks first rate. Totally Apple.
64 bit. And done right M$. :P
X-Code 3.
Love the auto arrange text and graphics from emails into Mail templates.
Core Animation looks fantastic. Looks cutting edge to me.
Open GL 2.
...and plenty more.

What's not to like?

And it will probably be running on an 8 Core Mac Pro with an Nividia G80 by next Spring.

What more do we want?

A new Finder?

I speculate thus: The reason for the 'multi-graphical' inconsistencies of Apple's finder is to throw or has been to throw M$ off the scent while working on Vista. Copy. Copy. Copy. Copy. To avoid M$ pinching teh 'new aqua' (like many PC web developers did over night when Apple showed Aqua for the 1st time to Apple's ire...), Apple are rightly keeping the Finder close to their chest.

For years the inconsistencies have been awaiting Vista. Ergo: in the background I speculate Apple have been re-writing the Finder from the ground up to be more like the iTunes 'finder' with maybe a CD Album view and many other 'whooooo' visual innovations.

If Core Animation is anything to go by? It could be awesome.

Just look at Time Machine. Expose. Dashboard. Widgets etc. Cube spin log in another user.

This is just the beginning...

Lemon Bon Bon

No. He's not.

It is THAT bad.

Lemon Bon Bon

Sometimes it's sluggish and has quirky behavior. For example, sometimes if I am at the bottom of a list of files in icon view, I would delete a lot of files and the finder won't display a scroll bar or the remaining files, the folder looks empty despite having fifteen files left. I've seen Finder just stall out when dragging a file to a folder with a lot of files.

I would like Finder to offer a mode where folders are listed first like Windows Explorer does because more likely than not, I need to traverse directories than anything else. Listing the folders first would be a time saver. I would like a way to move files between drives rather than copy and then delete the old copy.

Actually Alt+Enter works just fine.

I hope you're right lemon.

I can picture apple keeping the lid on the the finder project until vista is to come out. I think apple can really push the limit if they wanted to. Hell, look at pathfinder for ideas. I think pathfinder is huge bloatware, but there are some things it does right.

It's somewhat annoying, but F5 is the hot key for refresh. I don't think it's a debilitating problem.

Then I think you should try holding the "command" key down while dragging your file from drive to drive !

Never forget that :
"Option" copies the file
"Command + Option" makes an alias of the file
"Command" moves the file if that's not the default behavior !

pah, i scoff at keyboard controls. always forget. and when you use 3 different operating systems, it all goes out the windows (sic).

This is why Windows sucks so bad. People expect major life altering OS improvements between major OS cycles. Apple has taken the path that gives us a little at a time but when you look back two releases you say, dang, how did we live back then!!

Slow and steady wins the race.

Don't be an ass. I don't think one needs to be a coder to know that a program can use major improvements.

"I would like a way to move files between drives rather than copy and then delete the old copy."

Dumb! Dumb! Dumb! Think about it!

Huh? Why shouldn't it be one operation that hides both operations? I don't think it should be two separate operations that I have to manually perform. I'd also rather have it a one-button operation than have to hold down a keyboard key while dragging.

What? Why is that dumb? As has been pointed out, using the "command" key while dragging solves the problem.

The only thing that you need to remember is that "command", "option", "shift" and "cntrl" are called "modifier keys" for a reason - they modify behaviours/actions.

The Finder uses small icons to indicate what a drag & drop action is going to do. Start to drag and drop an icon from one directory to another on the same disk, and just a faint icon of the file you are dragging appears, indicating that the file will be moved. Hold down the "option" key, and a "plus" sign appears, indicating a copy will occur. Hold down "option" and "command" together, and an arrow appears, indicating that an alias will be created.

If dragging a file from one disk to another, then the default drag has a plus sign, indicating a copy will occur. Hold down "command", and the plus disappears, indicating a move will occur instead.

Now you're just being picky. You don't have to hold down the command key for the whole drag, you just have to make sure it's pressed before releasing the mouse button. Pressing "command" for a second is still quicker than having to go back and manually delete the files you've copied.

First of all, being able to simply drag a file to another drive without leaving a copy of the original could have disastrous effects. I personally would not recommend it. Even after copying a file to another drive, I will check to ensure that the copy is valid before tossing the original. I may sound paranoid, but most of my data information is highly sensitive programming code.

Using the command-key as part of the operation is better, as it requires an additional purposeful action. Much like using a button than a check box in database management programs that require you hold down the shift key to un-select a button that was previously marked as selected.

Perhaps they haven't fixed those major problems yet, only the minor ones they have reported on.

Set the view options to keep the files arranged.

Compared to Windows Explorer Finder is slow, very slow! On Windows folders open instantly and it's a much more fluid process. I think this is due to the thumbnails Finder loads. Also Windows has some nice see through folder features, which although implemented in a bad way, make for a more intuitive experience. However, Apple's column view is second to none. Right clicking on folders in the dock is also insanely slow.

I personally think Apple is developing these exclusive features in parallel with the builds they're releasing. I want to see some exciting improvements! Although the Finder has been changed slightly since Tiger in the Leopard builds which implies maybe that wont be seeing the overhaul. I hope Time Machine can roll back OS installs.