Latest Leopard build from Apple suggests much work ahead - Page 5

The files which accompany the CoreUI framework pretty much confirm that. At least some keys in XML files inside it directly correspond to the patent listings. There's also Aqua.bundle in there which contains a lot of standard icons (mainly button icons) in PDF. It looks like Aqua-style widgets (e.g. a push button shape) are indeed rendered on the fly and vector images (e.g. a plus sign for "Add") are composited on top of them. The framework is private and, I'm sure, will remain private forever. The Aqua.bundle has lead some people to believe that Leopard is going to bring back themes, but I'm not sure. If they introduce themes, most custom widgets which 3rd party developers currently draw will be Aqua-only-compatible, stylistically. Either Apple exposes CoreUI API or gives away the tools described in the patent or chooses to still not use or provide any themes.

Well said. Does anybody worry about vector fonts rendering performance these days? On my Mac almost every UI element has some text...

Dont you think too much eye-candy would be distracting?

I my humble opinion, no. Some people don't want anything distracting them. I'm not someone worried about distractions. I prefer distractions. I use my Mac for fun, not for business. I like flashy eye-candy whenever I can get it, but I don't want to use Haxies in order to achieve that. The link I provided above amazed me. It showed many OS X features and yet blew away Tiger visually. I'd love to have those features available to us in Leopard. For those stuffy people out there that want boring gray screens with absolutely nothing interesting on them at all, the features ought to be able to be turned off in Preferences.

I have this great MacBook Pro that doesn't use it's muscle most of the time when I'm not editing video, playing the occasional game, or working with photos. Most of the time it's rarely using much at all. We ought to be able to have the option to put it to work and make it look cool like the video showed.

Tiger is pretty boring visually. There's nothing exciting visually aside from Dashboard. We've had enough boring looks in OS X. How about one that looks amazing without being boring?

The problem is that your type of use is only part of the diverse user base. I'm not sure if a glitzy UI is even beneficial except to its own end. So far that I've seen, Apple only does that sort of thing if it can be justified to help make the UI make sense.

Exactly. The Genie effect when minimizing windows is a good example of this - it gives the user feedback that "your window is going *here*, okay?" instead of just disappearing. (There's no difference in feedback at the window location in Windows between minimizing and closing it. It just goes away. If the user doesn't know to look in the Taskbar, they're likely to think it's gone.)

Eye candy that gives the user useful feedback is good. Eye candy that doesn't is just a waste of cycles, unless you're playing a game, of course.

It's a waste of cycles to YOU. I have tons of free cycles to play with. I ought to be able to have the cool eye-candy if I so choose. What's the point in buying a more powerful laptop if the activity monitor shows next to no activity? It's not being used.

I know you all hate anyone that thinks Tiger is stuffy and boring. I love the OS, but come on. Make the thing LOOK GOOD rather than be all conservative and boring. That clip showed animated backgrounds. If Linux can do it, why can't Macs?

Whilst I don't have anything against Apple providing the option (by default off) for overkill eyecandy per se, there are other things I'd rather they spent their time on. Like making the Finder not shit.

And this is where we see people with different priorities. I have yet to find anything wrong with the Finder. I want to find something, it finds it. Simple. Tells the story. But for some people, they think it's not able to find what they need.

You think the Finder needs more work, I think the visual side of things needs more work. It depends on what you use your computer for I would guess.

I think you'll find, however, that there are more people who get pissed off on a daily basis by the Finder, whereas there aren't that many that are pissed off that OS X doesn't have more eye candy.

In terms of the number of people who would benefit, a revamped Finder that's not shit far outweighs more eye candy.

I'll give you that. I hear a lot of people complaining about the Finder, though I never understood why - probably the same reason why most can't understand my complaints about the visual side of OS X.

My guess is that they have a technician or two working on Finder. I doubt they have many working on the look of Leopard. If iTunes is any indication, I'm not close to being impressed.

So what's the verdict? We'll both be miserable.

No, not at all. It's that Apple has limited resources, and needs to concentrate on adding features that provide *value*, not bling. If you want bling, Windows is a *fantastic* choice for you. If you want bling, Linux is also great. Neither will get you the easy-to-use functionality though. For me, I'll take that over purposeless eye candy, any day. Been there, done that, ready to move past the ZOMG! customizations to get work done.


Er, they can. Go forth and scratch that itch.

I think what you're running into is a design philosophy difference. Apple has a minimalist aesthetic, while Windows and most Linux UIs simply try and pile on the eye candy in lieu of usability. Options != ease of use.

There are Haxies and such to do what you want, or at least give you the hooks so *you* can write what you want it to do.

But as for putting purposeless eye candy in the basic OS? Not gonna happen, with the current team in charge in Cupertino.

Check out this thread and this thread. My posts (providing a list of things that I think need fixing) from said threads are here, here and here.

I thing I love about Jobs' Apple is the tension between minimalism and the desire to wow.

And if that sounds like a paradox to some, it's not. It can be done -- just check out the iPhone UI. You can use a ton of animation (watch the demos and count up all the effects) in a way that feels integrated, natural, and drop-dead gorgeous.... instead of glossed on, like sadly a great number do, in Vista's design.

That's what I'm expecting from Leopard's updated UI.

Kickaha, I already find OS X usable. I am just amazed that I am such a minority in all of this. Like I'm the only one that looks at the OS and sees that it's bland visually speaking. Furthermore, please don't direct me to other operating systems to get what I want in this one. I'm well aware that the other operating systems are far more visually appealing than what Tiger provides. I understand, as you stated above that the current team in Cupertino is only focused on a minimalistic aesthetic.

To use a metaphor, the car drives great, it just doesn't appeal to me visually.

Mr. H, having read your posts, I agree with what you said, though I've never been bothered by the things you pointed out in Spotlight. I hope they fix them all for you though in Leopard.

I'd like to see significant change to the look of OS X, and I agree that the iPhone would be a great step in the right direction (I'll own one when they come out). Most on this thread don't seem to mind the way it looks and have lists of other things they want done to the OS instead of UI's looking good. I, for one, hope that both get addressed. Apple employs a person or two. I just hope that some of them are interested in visual improvements because they didn't provide much in Tiger.

Cheers, Brian. I think you'll get your wish for visual changes, I'm just not sure how far they'll go.

I found another post of mine with another list later in one of the threads. It is here. Honestly, I'm a bit dumbfounded by the number of stupid little bugs in the Finder. I haven't bothered filing bug reports on all of them because 10.5 is around the corner. Once it's out, I'll see if any bugs remain (I expect they probably all will ) and report them then.

The moving background appears to be a modified version of xsnow, which has been done on unix systems before Linux came along. I think a Cocoa app can do that, it's just a matter of finding a developer that wants to do it.

I really don't know what those Beryl effects will do for people other than induce motion sickness. I think they look cartoony and gimmicky. I know it's easy to enable or disable effects, but I think Apple keeps it minimal because it's easier to maintain and involves fewer things that are likely to break.

I think I understand what you mean, but frankly, you are the only person I've come across that calls OS X "bland". To abuse a metaphor, the squeaky wheel gets the grease, but you need to find more squeaky wheels.

Frankly, if I were you, I'd advocate a bigger leap ahead by asking that the OS integrate multitouch, then maybe adding some more effects would make sense, and it would probably help push a major overhaul in the appearance. I want multitouch such that I'd be willing to install Linux to get it if that's what it takes, or install it on my Windows system, just to experiment with it.

JeffDM, I just don't like being limited by the OS in terms of what the desktop is. I can rotate pictures and all that fun stuff, but the animation in Beryl looked amazing to me. As for the motion sickness, I don't get motion sickness. Bring it on.

I do call OS X bland. I mean, take a good look at it without your heart on the line. We all love the OS. We all know that. But look at it. It's totally conservative in the same way my grandmothers car is conservative. The brushed metal theme that is used is completely bland in my eyes. What that Beryl video showed me is that far more can be done to make an OS visually stimulating. I've got the free cycles, my CPU is barely being used, let me put them to work if I so choose. Sadly, I just don't think people care. They'd rather have this look, and that's depressing.

My interpretation is not that people don't care, it's that in my experience, they would generally disagree with you. Also in my experience, most people mac and non Mac users do think it's very nice. I don't think that's bad on either side, they are simply opinions of taste. Aesthetics is always about matters of taste, and that differs between people.

You have discounted people's complaints about other technologies in OS X, but the difference is that those complaints are echoed far more widely than yours, and for much longer, and those complaints still haven't been addressed that we can see, so how can you expect Apple to cater to your opinion? Apple can't be everything for everyone, which is why there are so many third party developers, both commercial and hobbyist, to extend the system in the way that users desire. If you want to call them haxies, that's your business, but there are options you can use now without depending solely on Apple to grant your wish.

And that's fair. Mr. H put together several lists of things that are wrong with OS X. Those all ought to be addressed. If Apple doesn't have enough people now to make that happen, they ought to keep hiring until they do. I agree with all of that. I didn't intend to discount someone's complaints in regard to the OS. If that's the way it read, I apologize for that. I'll just go on being disappointed in the aesthetic of Tiger, while others continue to be disappointed with functionality issues they face. As things are going, we'll all probably continue to have our lists of disappointments.

I think it would be nice if all the secret features addressed all the complaints listed here.

To be honest about this, I would expect that the list of complaints would remain, though what is on the list might change. No business of any size, much less one with a large customer base, is going to please everyone completely, it is simply impossible. The best thing they can hope is to try their best to improve the system's experience for most people such that their update sells. I really don't think that the typical members of any Mac forum properly represent the user base, I'm going to be honest in saying that I'm on the fringe there as well.

I have a feeling that it's going to be a long time yet before Leopard sees the light of day. We still haven't had 10.4.9 get released yet, and as this thread is named, "Latest Leopard build from Apple suggests much work ahead" I'm not holding my breath for it to be released this Spring. Seems to me that WWDC is where they'd show the rest of these secret features because the developers would need to be clued in to them for their own products. I think they are all silently shooting for September when the kids go back to school and the parents are buying all new school computers. I hope everyones complaints get addressed with Finder and I hope they do something to improve the look far beyond what they've done in iTunes.

Er, why not? If a tool doesn't meet what you need, then you choose another tool. I wasn't being flip, or sarcastic. If eye candy really is that important to you, then another OS that leans more in that direction might make you happier, that's all. I wasn't being dismissive, but pointing out that there are options.


Yup. You see more visually appealing, I see clutter and annoyances. *shrug* I'll take minimalist any day of the week. It flows with the general philosophy of the Mac - do what I say, don't try and be overly helpful, only get in my face when something goes wrong, and basically be my technological butler. UIs that are less interface and more in-yer-face just seem like hyper children on espresso trying to prove how much they're helping you by never leaving you alone. (cf. XP - god I hate using that at work.)


Fair enough. Luckily, just as with cars, there *are* 'body shops' out there willing to help you do custom work via haxies and such. Like I said, knock yourself out having fun with them, that's what they're for, after all, right?

It's difficult to make major changes in an OS's interface all at once. While you might want to see them, most people won't. Having to re-learn the OS's daily tasks isn't something most people want to do.

I'm hoping that there will be major improvements under the hood that will eliminate most of the problems that, quite frankly, should have been fixed long ago.

But, in so far as the desktop itself goes, unless a change makes for a much better usability factor, I'd rather they left it alone.

Even going to rez independence won't make for a different visual experience, other than to make it easier to read.

I'm all for fixing the problems documented on the various threads here. I will go the modification route if Leopard doesn't offer significant visual changes. The OS already works fine for me, I just want to push it a little and make it work for me. Because as it is, Tiger isn't coming close to challenging my MBP.

Kickaha,
I haven't used XP so I'll take your word for it. I'm not going to use another OS because this is the one I like using the most. That doesn't mean I find it visually appealing. I'll hold off for Leopard, but if there aren't changes that are more appealing to me, I'll go the modification route.

It seems like they'll be working on Leopard forever so who knows, we all might get our wish.

Ok. But, you just said that it works fine for you, but you want to make it work for you. Which is it?

How is it supposed to challange you MBP? That isn't its purpose.

I find it to be amusing that when X came out, right after 2000, PC users accused us of having "eye candy", and that X wasn't a serious OS partly because of that. When XP came out, and its "eye candy" came closer to X, but didn't quite match it in the visuals, PC users still degraded X because of it, especially because you could turn most of the effects in XP off for slower computers, or if you simply hated it.

Now that Vista has much more of what Apple itself is slowly moderating, and for the most part can't be turned of, though the $99 version doesn't have it at all, their tone is changing out of necessity.

I find too much diddly things in a desktop to be not only distracting, but also subject to abuse.

An OS should disappear in your mind when you're using it. If it constantly brings itself to your attention, then it's failing in its purpose.

More things mean more beta testing, which means more bugs, which means poorer security, etc.

Apple seems to try hard to walk the tightrope between features and simplicity. We know Job's design goal with every product is to KISS.

If you really want to add those diddly things, then you can get them for free, or buy them for little money. Do so at your own risk!

But, while Apple should add items that integrate seamlessly, and add important features, and security, they shouldn't add those that just make things unnecessarily complex for most users, just for the purpose of adding them.

It looks to be the way various Linux distro's are going. They can't seem to get it together on the big things, so they are adding little things which just degrade the experience, but give the talking points.

I'd rather Apple not go in that direction.

The OS works fine for me. It does everything I want it to do. That doesn't mean that it looks the way I want it to. I want it to be far more graphically stimulating (in a very G-Rated sense). If I want to have a forest on the desktop and see the branches sway in the breeze, or a field with a stream running through it and see the water moving and grass swaying, I already have a computer with the power to do it, but I don't have the ability for something like that. I dislike a static desktop. I understand that there are folks out there, namely http://mydreamapp.com/ working on something similar to what I'm looking for. I'll probably buy their product when they are done with it.

The challenge to the MBP I mentioned above is just such a challenge. Animated desktops, different color schemes. I'm a firefighter, so I think it'd be cool to have the page burst into flames and turn to ash that blows away when I close a window or quit an app. I just like that kind of thing. Or why not have the page visually crumple up when I'm going to Trash a document and then have it drop into trash? Why not have the trash can turn into a shredder and see paper shredding if you secure delete the trash? It's stuff like that that I'm trying to explain to you all. Stuff that is visually appealing. The Genie Effect is a great first step, but that's all it was in that regard.

I can't possibly understand why you would want a constantly moving desktop. That would be very distracting, and make it difficult to read anything on the desktop.

But, I don't see your problem in doing it.

My 15 year old daughter has put movies on her desktop years ago. No problem there. I believe that there is even a way to put a live feed as your desktop, should you really want to do that.


Very few people want to go that far. Even the normal effects are too much much of the time.

It shouldn't challange the machine though. It won't be doing anything else while the effect is playing. It's just a canned effect. It's not being done in realtime.

Going back to System 8 and 9, I used to leave the sound effects on, and even installed my own. But after a short time, they became so annoying, that I turned them all off.

Why do you want all of these tacky effects? Won't they become annoying after the first few times?

Consider yourself lucky.


Perhaps. My guess is that the best you can wish for from Cupertino is supported hooks for modification by third parties, not the modifications themselves. Who knows, they may surprise both of us.

Those of us who were around in the '90's remember the themes that Apple released, as well as those of other parties. For a while, when Windows had little customization other than color changes from the Control Panel, Apple seemed to want to show how much friendlier they were to the user.

Apple seems to have lost interest in them because of its more serious customers. Business, government, universities, and the sciences aren't interested in that. Actually, they don't want it. They want uniform desktops. They don't like each user having something else floating around on the screen.

By all means, enlighten me about the movies on my desktop. What's the max resolution? I've never heard anything about this option. I'll have a forest movie running in no time flat unless it can't handle High Definition.

I don't consider them to be tacky in the least. You do. My guess is you don't want anything changed, and you probably don't use the scant features offered now because you see anything not directly related to what your doing as a distraction. And that's cool if you need everything buttoned down. I want all of the special features, and I wouldn't want them canned either. The burning of the pages shouldn't look the same everytime. We have awesome CPUs and GPUs to handle the rendering there. Let them burn and let it be unique each time. I agree with you on the sounds though. I never have been big with the sounds. It's the visuals I like.

Gee, what a lousy reason to be a conformist. I'd much rather have the ability to be an individual and have my computer reflect that.

Damn the man!

I can hope. The more customization I can do, the better I'll like it. I want to do my own thing, not be limited by what is provided. I love cool visual effects. The more the merrier. But that said, if there are issues with the OS, then they ought to get all of those nailed down first. I'm in agreement that looks shouldn't be the priority, but they ought to be attended to eventually. We're soon to be at 10.5. It's time to start focusing on the visual side of the house a bit more than they have been.

Speaking of MS fanboys attacking Apple with shortsided, slanted opinions: I love how they refer to Apple's new OS versions as merely service packs that MS dishes out for free and Apple charges $129 for. It just amazes me that people can actually relish the fact that MS is so slow to update it's software.

Yeah, it's called the Stockholm Effect.

You can already have fully animated desktop backgrounds. Anything that is written as a screensaver can also be made to run as the desktop. There are several small apps like Backlight that will automate launching the animated desktops without having to invoke the one terminal command that does the same. That's been around since 10.2!



Writing almost anything into a screensaver is terribly simple if you have any Cocoa programming work at all. Even a live feed is easy, just dump it to the GL context in the screensaver and bang! That might take an extra few minutes but not too long.




Now we have to ask: If this capability has been around for more than three and almost four years (in OS X) and got a bit of buzz at the start, where did the interest go???

We all got bored with it after the first couple weeks because it just sucked up cycles and wasn't sexy anymore.

haha, I actually think you may have something there.

Back in the day when I did tech support, I discovered that there is a type of Munchausen Syndrome where one goes out of there way to be techtarded--and purposely hose their system--just to get assistance. Or maybe it was just to get out of working.

This isn't as straightfoward. I haven't done it for a while myself. I'll get back to you on it.


I don't mind having things change. It's just as I said though. Having things change for the sake of play isn't something most people are interested in. Apple even gives us a way to turn off most of the animations that the OS does now, because people don't like the second here and there that it takes, or gives the impression that it takes.

I think that if third parties want to have these things, it's fine. I don't want to see Apple spend time on them though.