A glimpse at Snow Leopard's more subtle refinements

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  • Reply 141 of 179
    solipsismsolipsism Posts: 25,726member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Hobbes View Post


    I believe this is now possible.



    See here.



    You are correct. I didn?t even think to check that out. Other subtle changes that I haven?t seen mentioned are the more convenient naming of screenshots which append the date and time to the file name and the use of Base-10 instead Base-2 for drive and file sizes.







  • Reply 142 of 179
    jragostajragosta Posts: 10,473member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by skittlebrau79 View Post


    This is a pretty ridiculous statement--there's so many things wrong I don't know where to begin. Installers are not unique to Carbon, and in fact many Cocoa applications use them. As was stated earlier, Apple requires some components to be installed in certain places, outside of your application's bundle. Want to provide a contextual menu plug-in? Has to go into [~]/Library/Contextual Menu Items. Want to provide a QuickLook importer? Has to go into [~]/Library/QuickLook. Want to add an Input Method, WebKit plug-in, PreferencePane or ScreenSaver (all Foundation/AppKit/"Cocoa" based plug-ins)....have to install them in special folders. Some of those items will not work unless they are in /Library, so you need root priviledges to install them--something drag & drop install is not good for at all. Others don't require root privileges, but they won't be available to other users of the computer if you don't install them to /Library (what retarded software would want to install a QuickLook importer only for the current user instead of all users)? To make it available to all users you need root privileges. Then there's drivers and kernel modules, which require even more special handling.



    There is another alternative. What if it did this: when you drag an application folder to the trash, the systems asks if you want to remove all related files? In principle, it could check to see if any other apps have used a given kext or font or whatever and warn you (or maybe only remove the ones that are not used by other applications).



    That would give the benefits of an uninstaller without requiring a separate app. And it shouldn't be that much harder to implement - it wouldn't require any more information than a good uninstaller would require.



    Of course, it's really a moot point because all those extra files tend to be fairly small and it doesn't do any harm to leave them where they are, but for the truly anal-retentive....
  • Reply 143 of 179
    solipsismsolipsism Posts: 25,726member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by jragosta View Post


    There is another alternative. What if it did this: when you drag an application folder to the trash, the systems asks if you want to remove all related files? In principle, it could check to see if any other apps have used a given kext or font or whatever and warn you (or maybe only remove the ones that are not used by other applications).



    That would give the benefits of an uninstaller without requiring a separate app. And it shouldn't be that much harder to implement - it wouldn't require any more information than a good uninstaller would require.



    Of course, it's really a moot point because all those extra files tend to be fairly small and it doesn't do any harm to leave them where they are, but for the truly anal-retentive....



    These feature would only appear when it?s a *.app file being sent to the trash and Apple could include an option to have it off by default, if they wish.



    All Apple would have to do is add the locations of the files to the application package upon install and/or first run, depending on the app type. This could be part of the SDK, so that it?s automatic and transparent to developers.



    The files are small, but these small files are sometimes the culprit for wonkly programs or programs that immediately quit after launching. If I could tell someone to simple do a complete uninstall of the app instead of walking them through the library to hunt down associated files I?d happy.



    I don?t see any technical or logistical reason why this would not be possible.
  • Reply 144 of 179
    emig647emig647 Posts: 2,455member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by hillstones View Post


    Why waste time with that? Do you really need 64-bit versions of TextEdit, Address Book, Calculator, etc?



    No but you need 64bit QuickTime and iTunes..... why those aren't 64bit yet is unbelievable to me.
  • Reply 145 of 179
    hmurchisonhmurchison Posts: 12,439member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by emig647 View Post


    No but you need 64bit QuickTime and iTunes..... why those aren't 64bit yet is unbelievable to me.



    Isn't Apple going to expose 64-bit Quicktime support through QTkit?
  • Reply 146 of 179
    pg4gpg4g Posts: 383member
    Guys, just to throw something out at you, when uninstalling the latest iPhone SDK beta, I already had the new iTunes 8.2 installed.



    Something in there seemed fishy when Terminal told me it was analysing iTunes X, not iTunes 8...



    iTunes X - 64bit Cocoa iTunes maybe???
  • Reply 147 of 179
    wobegonwobegon Posts: 764member
    ...do we think they'll change the title bar theme of all windows to something darker as well?



    But just as the Menu Bar in Leopard has a different theme from all window title bars, I don't see Snow Leopard window title bars all resembling QTX Player.



    Look at the "theme" of the clicked "Mac" link from Apple's website (ignore the others as they mimic Leopard's current title bar theme):







    We've all heard rumors that SL is moving more to a white-text-on-black aesthetic. For that matter, there's already some white-text-on-black in Leopard: the labels that show up on mouse-over of apps in the Dock, iTunes 8's Grid View theme, iPhoto's Faces labeler, etc.).



    If that's true, the above seems like a reasonable substitute. Thoughts?
  • Reply 148 of 179
    jragostajragosta Posts: 10,473member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by emig647 View Post


    No but you need 64bit QuickTime and iTunes..... why those aren't 64bit yet is unbelievable to me.



    Maybe because there's no value? Who cares if an audio-playing app is 64 bit? Do you have a few billion songs in your folder?



    They will be converted to 64 bit when it's worth the trouble - which is presumably with Snow Leopard - at least by the time it's ready to release. At that time, it should be possible to run ONLY 64 bit apps- making it desirable to get rid of 32 bit apps from the system. Until then, there's no real value for apps like that.
  • Reply 149 of 179
    adjeiadjei Posts: 738member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by wobegon View Post


    Well, I've already said this in the past but they already have the groundwork for a Mac App Store here:

    http://www.apple.com/downloads/



    Just put a pretty face on it within the iTunes App Store. I'm not sure if they'd screen Mac apps like they have iPhone apps. They could do it more like iTunes' podcast directory where the content, while visible in iTunes, is actually stored on the podcaster's server.



    This would be a nice alternative to downloading apps from the web, though you would still have the freedom to go that route as well. While they've stressed that SL won't ship with any "new features", this wouldn't qualify as a feature in the traditional sense.



    Separately, I wonder if another UI change we'll see is predictive text. Yes, we have auto-correct and grammar now, but what about a menu that comes up as you type, essentially modeled off the iPhone's system? Use arrow keys to pick the right word (basically like the ctrl-clicking menu), then hit space to select the desired word.



    I think you guys are taking this too literally and they never even said it won't ship with any "new features".
  • Reply 150 of 179
    solipsismsolipsism Posts: 25,726member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Adjei View Post


    I think you guys are taking this too literally and they never even said it won't ship with any "new features".



    I believe that Jobs actually did state “no new features”… right before showing us some new features, like native ActiveSync support in Mail.







    edit:

    My memory is, in fact, falable… luckily I’ll forget that I forgot soon enough and all will be right with the world again. According to a quote in an AI article from the SL developer preview conference:
    Quote:

    “We have delivered more than a thousand new features to OS X in just seven years and Snow Leopard lays the foundation for thousands more,” said Bertrand Serlet, Apple’s senior vice president of Software Engineering. “In our continued effort to deliver the best user experience, we hit the pause button on new features to focus on perfecting the world’s most advanced operating system.”



  • Reply 151 of 179
    bertpbertp Posts: 274member
    We've all heard rumors that SL is moving more to a white-text-on-black aesthetic. For that matter, there's already some white-text-on-black in Leopard: the labels that show up on mouse-over of apps in the Dock, iTunes 8's Grid View theme, iPhoto's Faces labeler, etc.).



    I hope the above is true. Why? White-text-on-black is more legible for many people on a monitor. As I understand it, historically, black-text-on-white in a GUI was to represent a sheet of typed paper in a mechanical typewriter. But note that your TV has basically a white-text-on-black theme overlay ? as in titles, credits, or captions. Or title, credits, and captions in a movie for that matter.
  • Reply 152 of 179
    Regarding SL speed on old(er) MBPs, if there's not a significant shift in disc footprint AND in CPU-intensive apps AND in task-switching responsiveness, I may begin to wonder what the fuss was about - I expect encoding/compressing/converting of all sorts to be noticeably improved by the GPU-enablieng code, I expect a functional increase in discspace (*at least* on my boot/internal) - and I expect they'll take a lot of flack if they fail to deliver on these points.
  • Reply 153 of 179
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by solipsism View Post


    I believe that Jobs actually did state ?no new features??



    IIRC he said they weren't focusing on features but on internals (though I felt at the time that much of what he was describing - Grand Central, OpenCL, Quicktime X - qualified as features)
  • Reply 154 of 179
    solipsismsolipsism Posts: 25,726member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Capt. Obvious View Post


    Regarding SL speed on old(er) MBPs, if there's not a significant shift in disc footprint AND in CPU-intensive apps AND in task-switching responsiveness, I may begin to wonder what the fuss was about - I expect encoding/compressing/converting of all sorts to be noticeably improved by the GPU-enablieng code, I expect a functional increase in discspace (*at least* on my boot/internal) - and I expect they'll take a lot of flack if they fail to deliver on these points.



    A lot will depend on the HW you have, but there will be improvements in benchmarking, though you may not actually notice the difference in your everyday usage. As they have stated, this really does seem like they are really just cleaning house and redoing the foundation for the future of OS X for the multicore systems. It?s a great longterm move and I think Apple was smart not state that they features will be on hold for this version. If you are in doubt that your Mac will benefit from the update or if the new UI or user features aren?t appealing I?d just wait until you?re ready for a new Mac.
  • Reply 155 of 179
    solipsismsolipsism Posts: 25,726member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Capt. Obvious View Post


    IIRC he said they weren't focusing on features but on internals (though I felt at the time that much of what he was describing - Grand Central, OpenCL, Quicktime X - qualified as features)



    Why did you remove the 2nd half of my post where I point out what was actually stated?
  • Reply 156 of 179
    martinzmartinz Posts: 92member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by solipsism View Post


    You are correct. I didn?t even think to check that out. Other subtle changes that I haven?t seen mentioned are the more convenient naming of screenshots which append the date and time to the file name and the use of Base-10 instead Base-2 for drive and file sizes.



    Awesome, thanks for that & the pics, that'll be really nice. It's funny what we would each check up front. Open/save dialogs have been high on my wishlist for improvement since 10.1 - and they have improved with most paid upgrades but not to this extent! Thanks Hobbes for the other link also!
  • Reply 157 of 179
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by solipsism View Post


    A lot will depend on the HW you have, but there will be improvements in benchmarking, though you may not actually notice the difference in your everyday usage. As they have stated, this really does seem like they are really just cleaning house and redoing the foundation for the future of OS X for the multicore systems. It’s a great longterm move and I think Apple was smart not state that they features will be on hold for this version. If you are in doubt that your Mac will benefit from the update or if the new UI or user features aren’t appealing I’d just wait until you’re ready for a new Mac.



    I hope whoever you wrote this for gets it - however, you don't actually seem to be referencing MY post, so I'll skip a detailed response to yours.
  • Reply 158 of 179
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by solipsism View Post


    Why did you remove the 2nd half of my post where I point out what was actually stated?



    Didn't read it in the IP, didn't *have* it to read in the reply box.

    That said: you're bitching about my not disagreeing with you?
  • Reply 159 of 179
    solipsismsolipsism Posts: 25,726member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Capt. Obvious View Post


    Didn't read it in the IP, didn't *have* it to read in the reply box.

    That said: you're bitching about my not disagreeing with you?



    Just wondering why such a thing would happen. If I were bitching I wouldn?t be questioning your motives, I?d instead be making statements about them.
  • Reply 160 of 179
    mdriftmeyermdriftmeyer Posts: 7,503member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by jragosta View Post


    Maybe because there's no value? Who cares if an audio-playing app is 64 bit? Do you have a few billion songs in your folder?



    They will be converted to 64 bit when it's worth the trouble - which is presumably with Snow Leopard - at least by the time it's ready to release. At that time, it should be possible to run ONLY 64 bit apps- making it desirable to get rid of 32 bit apps from the system. Until then, there's no real value for apps like that.



    Windows 7 is moving to 64bit. You can bet iTunes will be 64bit for OS X and Windows. It's one less code base to maintain.



    That means, future versions of iTunes will require a Mac Intel 64bit system to use.
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