QuickLook feature, Dashboard tweaks in latest Leopard builds - Page 2

So I guess Quickview is one of Steve's secret features...

It does seem like a few too many views to me though
1. Icon preview
2. Quickview
3. Preview.app
4. The actual program you open the file in

Also maybe Quickview should activate as a mouseover not as a menu item, ala Vista.

What do you think, will they show us the final Leopard in January? All features in? All cosmetics in? The Leopard that is out for developers is probably just about testing the mac os x core.

[QUOTE=Chucker]That's another worry. When Apple introduced Fast User Switching, they did so with a wide, silly and unnecessary menu extra displaying the entire name, causing a whole bunch of hacks to appear to make it a little shorter. They mostly fixed this in 10.4, allowing you to use the shorter name instead, or just an icon.

But the menu doesn't really belong there at all; it belongs right next to the Log Out menu item in the Apple menu.

Why did they place it there? For marketing and newbie purposes: to make people aware of this new feature.

I think that, in the long run, that's a very problematic strategy. It works well with Dock icons, because it's rather subtle there, i.e., new applications and features get their new Dock icon, and if you don't like it, you throw it out, but you can still use it. But conversely, if you don't like the Fast User Switching menu, and throw it out, you can't use it any more at all; once you want to use it again, the menu is back.[/quotr]

Apple has problems introducing new features. They are caught between writing a large manual, that covers everything, like the one I got with my 950, and writing one that only covers the main features in a quick, and not very detailed way.

They have taken the second route. Because of that, they have to make these features shout in your face.

I'm not thrilled with it either. But, what we would want, and what new users might need is a line that Apple has to walk. Sometimes they walk it better than others.


Of course.


It will leave you alone in 10.5 if the drive has data on it as well, I would imagine. I would think that this dialog would only come up with a new (empty) drive. If not, that could be a problem for a newbe as well. They might be erasing the very data they need to save!

Being that I'm not a member of the developer connection, I haven't seen these features work. I would hope that Apple has thought them out to cover these eventualities.

I don't know how responsive Apple is to developers and beta testers. If they are like Adobe, they will be responsive to ideas in the process. And, again, there is still five months to go.

Final? Likely not. There are probably features they are working on but have not yet decided upon for the final release. This happens in every release. Look at 10.4. We were told about features that never made it. They might be more careful this time around.

It was shown at WWDC, so it is not one of the secret features

Well, even if I do like Quick View, I don't like the way it is implemented: contextual menu should be avoided (by the way, am I the only one who thinks contextual menus in OS X are terrible and so unfriendly?).

Oh, sure. But people like you and me are there to point out when they're at risk of making a mistake. It's in their interest as well as our very own.


Hopefully.


What if this dialog leads to an assistant that partitions the drive to split between existing data and a Time Machine backup file system?


Me neither. As such, this discussion is moot to a degree, since we're both basing it off a vague screenshot. I'm mostly expressing my somewhat premature worries.


The pre-releases are primarily seeded to let developers work with new APIs, not to receive feedback on new features. Their responsiveness to feedback probably depends on how high-profile the sender is.

OK, I guess - but it's the start of clutter. next?: "Safari has blocked 3 pop-ups" [X] never tell me again...."

My basic gripe is that it requires a "F@%$ off" interaction. I'm working away and 'new feautre' suggests to do something else or not, or never ask again (looks like you're writing a letter.....). It makes you interupt your process. read. click. which isn't elegant. Nor useful in my opinion. Want to use Time Machine: CLICK TIME MACHINE. Want to get into a HD, PLUG IN HARD DRIVE. Simple.

EDIT: It doesn't serve design or ease of use, this feature advertises Time Machine. Actuall nusance to me: one click. ever. But the principle is teh UI moving away from simple, elegant, intuitive design.

Although Motion's windows were not glossy - I'm not keen on the glossy black look. It is a little tacky. Maybe Apple should stick to Platinum! Nice features though, quicklook isn't massively different from the Finder Slideshow view - just not full-screen. It is, however, a welcome addition to Finder's features. Now fix the finder Apple!

Why??

They are seen as hidden commands and not very intuitive, menus are under the same brush. However, in the case of the Finder where else could it be put other than some kind of pop-up HUD. I personally have no problems with contextual menus as long as the interface is still intuitive.

No, you're not working away, you have stopped for a moment and plugged in a new hard drive that has never been connected to this computer before. The Word analogy only works if your job involves mounting, unmounting, and then throwing away 500 hard drives a day, and your boss has let you know you will be publicly humiliated and then fired if you click the "do not ask me again" button.

Bunch of whiney bi*ches on this board . . . (5 points to whoever calls me an apple apologist first).

Assumption #1.


Assumption #2.


No thanks.

sorry about your job and boss.

I really don't understand where they are heading with this quick look feature. I hope what we see now is only the beginning. Would I rather right click on a jpg, mouse over and down, and click again (this requires use of dexterity) or just double click on it to open it in Preview? I'd go for the double click. Also, I tried Leopard very briefly and Quick Look was no faster than Preview is. Maybe it does support viewing more types of info like movies but when I double-click on a video it opens quickly as well and in a format that doesn't hog the screen space.

I think it should be used as a feature of Spotlight. As you arrow down the list, you see a preview of each file selected and it automatically dissapears if you hit esc to cancel the search. If it is used in any other way than this then I don't see the point.

1) I don't see a reason for the Time Machine dialogue box to appear if you already have a HDD setup for use with Time Machine.

2) I expect Apple will include (in about 2 years) a second, internal HDD option it's iMac line.

So true.

Slightly off-topic, but can you hook a hard drive up to an airport base station and have it available to computers on the network? In other words, could you just tuck a hard drive away in the closet, but still have your MacBook hooked up to a TimeMachine backup drive whenever you're at home? I'd like to use TimeMachine, but I have no interest in lugging an external hard drive all around the house.

Agreed.



Apple had better be thinking about that.


With the direction drives are going, as to size, I would like that. But, if a partition would work at all, you might have to do it yourself first. So far, we have heard NO details about this.


It's true of most discussions here, ain't it?


I've never beta tested for Apple. Most other companies I have beta tested for, do ask.

I'm not sure I can understand the attitude.

Do you constantly plug new, empty, hd's into your machine?

I have lot's of hd's. I really don't mind if a dialog box pops up if I connect a new unit in. I just have to click "ignore" once to make it go away. If the drive isn't formatted to begin with, I'll get a dialog box anyway.

Is this uber lazyness?

Contextual menus have been considered to be a breakthrough in ease of use. It's true that they might require just the smallest bit of attention on the part of the user the first time they are used. But, after that, it becomes all too obvious that only what you need for a particular function will show up. That is so much easier than having to sift through unnecessary menus. If my CAD programs weren't contextually based, it would be a nightmare.

But that is exactly the assumption we are getting from Apple, if it is true, as we have been discussing.


As above.


Me too.

There's your entire post.

Until we learn more we have NO idea where they are going with this, or even what it is.

This is what we've been saying.

If it's a network drive, yes. A standard drive might work if plugged into the USB port, or it might not. Eevn if it did, it would be slow. Network drives come with Ethernet ports.

It's how Time Machine displays previews while you're flying through time.

"Reason" wasn't a good choice of words. What I meant was, I doubt Apple will make the dialogue box appear with every drive you connect once you already have a dedicated Time Machine drive configured.

midget porn widget

...

...

I mean, little people porn widget...no wait, it doesn't have the same ring to it,

Right, that's what we've been saying.

I don't think the AirPort Express has any support for USB mass storage devices. It'll deliver power (e.g., charge an iPod), but it won't share the device to computers.

But yeah, network drives will work, of course.

I think it's for printers. I've never had one myself.

I'd love to see a Preferences option to make all windows be those black transparent windows. That's the slickest look I've seen yet.

Yeah, it's intended for printers. (I don't have one either, though.)

Would be interesting to have support extended for other types of devices. Say, uh, scanners.

I think res. independence will be the next big transition for developers. First it was OS9->OS X, then PowerPC to Intel, now high DPI.

Will probably break a lot of GUIs, and once again we will be waiting forever for MS and Adobe.

I often thought this but as they can't even sell AirPort's in the EU any more; and the fact this technology is really old I doubt Apple would bother to implement. AirPort needs to include a broadband modem to be competitive with the extremely good Netgear routers.

It's probably just a firmware update away. But, that's a long way away.

It's just a matter of ROH compliance. Units in the stores can still be sold. All that has to be done is to replace the non-compliant components with compliant ones. My component catalogs have been offering both for a while now.

It's just firmware. No big deal, if Apple wanted to bother.

Oh I know it's not difficult to implement the EU regulations, Apple obviously don't see the need to. I'm just curious as to whether we see a new AirPort in the next year or so.

I'm pretty sure we'll see something. but whether that something is the iTv, which seems to have gotten a name, though I already forgot what that is, or something else, is a question as well.

QuickLook *could* be useful if it was toggleable and you'd get an Aperture-type loupe that would follow your cursor around, and when you're hovering over documents, the actual document would display in the loupe...

...otherwise it would be garbage.

The other problem is getting this thing to preview documents at a reasonable speed...which is probably never gonna happen unless some small portion of the document was captured to PDF and cached. But still...a folder with 200 documents would slow to a crawl as the Finder attempts to cache all document previews.