A glimpse at Snow Leopards more subtle refinements - Page 3

Originally Posted by hezekiahb

The "Installed Software" might also be a hint at some sort of uninstaller built into OS X?

Originally Posted by hillstones

Doubtful and unnecessary. Drag the App to the trash and it is uninstalled. If you want to go further, go to your Library folder and trash the pref files in Preferences and Application Support (if any present). You don't need an uninstaller like Windows does.

Originally Posted by MTO

FUNK! Apple you stopped making the clear plastic colored computers years ago! Update your freaking UI!! Aqua is old, out of date! I mean are you kidding me? Do you make any hardware that remotely matches the clear colored buttons on your finder boxes? Or the status bar for operations and progress? The iPhone has no problem looking modern and up to date. Is it that hard to draw a couple new animations and buttons out? It's really only a couple changes to the close/minimize/hide to the radial buttons/check boxes and tabs.. Yes it's a couple little things but how long can you go without modernizing them?
I always thought the three dots on the top left of windows would look cool if they matched the power buttons on the late model MacBook Pro and Mac Pro but hell those are already being phased out to not shine like a compact disk for a plain metal surface.

Small gripe, sorry but it's time!

Originally Posted by wobegon

Would you say it's akin to the effect of moving a file from a Stack in the Dock to the Trash in Leopard?

I also noticed in a previous build in a video leak that when clicking the little button in the upper right-hand corner of a Finder window, the window changes with a transition, rather than jumping to it as in Leopard.

Originally Posted by godrifle

Dear Job,

Please give me resize handles on both left and right sides of windows, as if usability were a consideration.

Amen.

Originally Posted by MartiNZ

Awesome stuff inewton, getting into some of the details that interest and are important to a lot of us ... the stuff that seems determined not to leak usually ><.

Awesome job on answering questions too! Hopefully you can go a few more:

1. Does the iTunes dashboard widget work? In Leopard you have never been able to select a playlist from the flip side of it - the drop box is there but refuses to activate. The widget also crashes pretty reliably. While there, any other changes to Dashboard?

2. I note QuickTime prefs are gone from System Preferences! They've always been pretty arcane - are the same settings accessible from within QT Player now? Personally I wonder why they persist in calling it 'Player'.

3. In Finder, if you change the toolbar to 'text only' does it still only say 'Back' for the 'Back/Forward' command?

4. I like the look of the new Time Zones prefs map - does it perchance know more cities now? If you select over by New Zealand, does it finally know Auckland as well as Wellington? Hopefully this would be true of the dashboard clock as well.

5. Anything new in open/save dialogs? The ability to 'view by kind' would be really nice - imo it would be the most likely desirable sort for navigating in those.

That'll do for now .

I really like the recycled paper look of Leopard folders, especially vis Ã* vis the earlier OS X icons with the old pinstripes. The recycled look is at least in line with Apple's attitude towards 'green' machines.

I don't have many issues with the current Aqua. Something changing with scrollbars would be interesting - some sort of consistency! If they go hidden & transparent like on the iPhone, the implementation needs to be a lot better. Scrolling to the bottom of a page on the iPhone can be truly painful. What I really hope doesn't happen is 'evolution' in the direction of Safari 4's interface .

I agree that Finder needs work in the area of moving files.

Originally Posted by el3ktro

I'd go even further - what about some kind of App Store for OS X? You would browse all the apps available for OS X, free apps as well as paid apps, if youlike one, you click on it, you pay via iTunes, it's downloaded to your computer and installed automatically. Would be a great thing imho.

Originally Posted by teckstud

They've finally got rid of the FUGLY recycled paper folders of Leopard and have gone back to their Jaguar transluscent roots. Thank you , thank you.
Many may think these look like Vista but we are back to the jellies.

Originally Posted by AppleInsider

The Finder also present an slider control for resizing icons in the lower right-hand corner of windows displayed in icon mode, as can be seen in the first screenshot below.

Originally Posted by godrifle

Please give me resize handles on both left and right sides of windows, as if usability were a consideration.

Originally Posted by AppleInsider

For instance, you could set your screen to dim after 10 minutes of inactivity but not lock down the system and require a password prompt for 45 minutes. In current versions of the Mac OS, there's no separation of these features.

Originally Posted by brucep

Suppose i own 200 legally bought dvd's . And i want to put them on my hard drive . Only on hard drives i own .

can i do that .

Originally Posted by hillstones

Doubtful and unnecessary. Drag the App to the trash and it is uninstalled. If you want to go further, go to your Library folder and trash the pref files in Preferences and Application Support (if any present). You don't need an uninstaller like Windows does.

Originally Posted by federmoose

yes, yes you can. just not entirely legally.

Originally Posted by MartiNZ

I agree that Finder needs work in the area of moving files.

Originally Posted by MTO

FUNK! Apple you stopped making the clear plastic colored computers years ago! Update your freaking UI!! Aqua is old, out of date! I mean are you kidding me? Do you make any hardware that remotely matches the clear colored buttons on your finder boxes? Or the status bar for operations and progress? The iPhone has no problem looking modern and up to date. Is it that hard to draw a couple new animations and buttons out? It's really only a couple changes to the close/minimize/hide to the radial buttons/check boxes and tabs.. Yes it's a couple little things but how long can you go without modernizing them?
I always thought the three dots on the top left of windows would look cool if they matched the power buttons on the late model MacBook Pro and Mac Pro but hell those are already being phased out to not shine like a compact disk for a plain metal surface.

Small gripe, sorry but it's time!

Originally Posted by snookie

I use Clean App for deleting apps. When you drop something in the trash Clean App opens and shows all the associated files and folders and gives you the option to delete everything. You would be surprised how many apps have alot more than just .plists. This really should be built into the OS. It's not anywhere near as bad as Windows with a zillion registry entires but it's not as clean and simple as Apple says it is either.

Originally Posted by johnmcboston

Seeing change in date & time - I wonder if they've improved the timekeeping? A while ago the 'set time now' went away, and the current logic is the hidden mystery logic that has your computer "Check with the timeserver as often as you need to in order to keep decent time". In 10.4.11 this doesn't really work, as my computer was way off in timekeeping (almost a full minute off). Not sure if 10.5 keeps better time, but with the other date & time changes in 10.6, I'm curious if they've made the mac a better clock...

Originally Posted by MacTripper

Although I applaud the screen/audio record function of Snow Leopard, it won't most likely be available for copyrighted material.
I'm a believer in fair use, if you buy a movie you should be allowed to alter it and show others, long as your not denying the copyright holder of returns on their investment.
People have done some funny things, like this video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5blbv4WFriM
So with that, if Apple denies copyright screen recording, then that delegates software like SnapzProX to being only needed for illegal purposes, instead of dual use (legal and illegal)
Sort of like a baseball bat, take away the game of baseball and the only thing a baseball bat is good for is no good. (why would you need such a heavy club for anyway? right?)
So I'm wondering now that Apple will be essentially controlling the screen/audio recording on OS X with their own product, will this open the door for the MIAA/RIAA to go after third party OS X companies that offer a total recording package?
Its like Apple is stepping into these grey areas in order to police things, deny cool third party companies a income source. First Time Machine to thwart people from cloning their boot drives (the best boot drive backup method), now screen/audio recording to thwart people from making funny alterations to popular videos.
Where will this slow creep of control end?

Originally Posted by Mario

Can you give us a listing of (Apple) apps that have been converted to 64 bit. Also, it looks like the default Terminal font is now Deja Vu or Bitstream Vera Sans Mono?

Did you experience any apps not working with SL? Does it break backward compatibility?

Originally Posted by Londor

You can already do that in any version of OSX.

Originally Posted by inewton1974

So... any more questions I can help answer before I get nailed by Apple?

Originally Posted by macFanDave

See my post #38, my response to Zandros.

That is what I DO do, except without the Expose trickery. I do it often enough that I would like to see a good solution built in to Finder.

One of OS X's fundamental aims was to never require a normal user to use the Terminal.

Originally Posted by minderbinder

But that is still just speculation. I assume there's still no new info saying for sure that it's intel only?

Originally Posted by hillstones

Doubtful and unnecessary. Drag the App to the trash and it is uninstalled. If you want to go further, go to your Library folder and trash the pref files in Preferences and Application Support (if any present). You don't need an uninstaller like Windows does.

Originally Posted by Londor

You can already do that in any version of OSX.

Originally Posted by MartiNZ

3. In Finder, if you change the toolbar to 'text only' does it still only say 'Back' for the 'Back/Forward' command?

Originally Posted by inewton1974

I expect the so-called "Marble" UI to be shown off at WWDC. It will be black, glossy, glass-like in places.

Originally Posted by solipsism

I disagree. Having to direct a user where to go to delete every part of an app is not very Mac-like.

Originally Posted by Stormchild

Not exactly correct. In Leopard, you can't set the interval, but there is a short delay between when the screen saver activates, and when the password is required to unlock it (if you have that enabled). Next time you see your screen saver start (or you can just start it immediately with a hot corner), immediately move your mouse and you will not be prompted for a password. Not sure exactly how long it is (probably 30-60 seconds at the most), but there's already some "grace period" between the two events.

Originally Posted by inewton1974

1. No changes to Dashboard that I can see. The iTunes widget is still broken as you describe. Bummer.

2. There are no preferences for the QuickTime Player application. I doubt there will be in the final build.

3. Yes, it still just says "Back." I actually never noticed this before... odd behavior.

4. Actually, yes! Thank you for getting me to check that. What happens is that you can click in any time zone (zones are highlighted as you hover over them). Once you select one, you can pick your closest city from the dropdown. It looks like many more cities have been added. You can also just start typing a city name in that box and you get a really cool interface where the world map goes dark and the city you're typing lights up. It looks pretty neat, I'll have to upload a shot of that.

5. Nothing new except that Quick Look now works in them... which is a huge improvement, in my opinion.

Originally Posted by elroth

I don't understand this statement - In Tiger's Energy Saver Preference I can set the screen to dim in 10 minutes, and the computer to sleep in 45 minutes. Since I have it set to require a password to wake from sleep, it does exactly what the article says you can't do. Is this different in Leopard?

Originally Posted by snookie

I use Clean App for deleting apps. When you drop something in the trash Clean App opens and shows all the associated files and folders and gives you the option to delete everything. You would be surprised how many apps have alot more than just .plists. This really should be built into the OS. It's not anywhere near as bad as Windows with a zillion registry entires but it's not as clean and simple as Apple says it is either.

Originally Posted by hillstones

Don't count on any PowerPC support. Snow Leopard was mainly to optimize the OS for Intel. The PowerPC G5 is now 6 years old. Why would Apple waste resources supporting it when they have no intention of using the PowerPC (and hasn't been used for 3 years)? Same transition occurred with the 68040 to PowerPC. Apple cut off the 68040 processor with Mac OS 8.5 to concentrate on optimizing the OS for PowerPC.

Originally Posted by erikvdo

I do QA for a widely-known app that installs a fair number of components into different directories, and it would be nice not to have to make and update my own Applescript-based uninstaller, to completely clean out old builds before installing new ones.