Inside Mac OS X Lion: New Window Controls & Gestures

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  • Reply 61 of 127
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by bigpics View Post


    Those of you who started on Apple (pre- or post-Mac), especially those who didn't come over from Win and haven't used it much, likely think your interface is more intuitive and less quirk-ridden than it really is in some small ways, especially when you're trying to attract the rest of the world to join you.



    And I believe some of this may go back not only to OS 9 but even to the Apple II.



    Speaking as a previous and current Win user and proud owner of an old iBook (which will be replaced either when Lion comes out or at the next MBP rev), I'm betting the "Klingon symbols" for the CMD, Option (or is it Control) and Shift keys - which aren't on the keys, except for CMD, and which there's no simple way to type ON a Mac (that I've found in 7 years, tho' I haven't looked lately) - i.e., the ones which are used in the menus to indicate the short cuts - are still there in Lion. After all, the base has been using 'em for a long time.



    However, they're totally non-intuitive for new (and even many long-time) users (whereas Windows' file menu short-cuts are totally clear first pass through). Does this go back to OS9 or to the A-II? Whatever, I still wish they'd simplify it already!! (I'll blush if this happened a few years ago and I don't know it, but whatever....)



    I memorize a lot of technical things, but because at least that one symbol looks like nothing, has no name or sound, etc., I still haven't fully memorized 'em after all this time.... ...I mean, I got the infinity/cloverleaf and Shift didn't take long - but when that other common one comes up I still don't know if it's Option or Control, tho' I guess my hands kinda do.



    And on my keycaps, I still don't know what the little "alt" above "option" means (you'd think it involved the fn key on a notebook), nor why there's an extra little enter key to the right of the space bar and how it's different than the return key, nor what the little "enter" on the return key means (another fn-key like thing or in both cases just telling Win users what it's equivalent to?).



    Also it was two years before someone taught me I could delete forward instead of only to the left by invoking fn-Delete! Which had always frustrated the hell out of me. Much prefer the separate delete and backspace keys 90+% of the world uses. Not to mention Apple going it alone on calling backspacing deleting. I'm guessing this convention was another bone to the base when Apple decided to ditch the past and go with the NeXtStep code.



    And on Tiger and my apps at least, there's a lot of inconsistency on what the Nav/cursor key combos do when paired with the controller keys (CMD, etc.) between apps. Windows seems much more consistent on this, e.g., getting to the end of a line or a doc or to the beginnings of same.



    Apple faced a set of major decisions when it went to OS X. I believe they'd have gained market share at a slightly incrementally faster rate had they adopted the rest of the world's keyboard conventions at that time (keeping Command, but adopting the more common use of Ctrl and Alt for Option and Control - again something else Win switchers have to UN-learn as well as RE-learn), as they still would've kept their base (after a round of hissy fits) AND made life easier for switchers.



    Even if they'd moved the window buttons to the right side - another place I have muscle memory issues moving back and forth between Macs and Win PCs - the true belivers (who were about all were left) would've gotten used to it and switching would be that much simpler today.



    But this is probably academic as this historical legacy is likely set in stone (and I don't mean Rosetta) until we evolve away from these interface elements altogether over time.





    the one with a line, that then has a split of the line is "alt/option" like you have an option going down the line. the one thats shaped like a carrot symbol is control - as thats been the symbol for control in unix land going back long before Windows.
  • Reply 62 of 127
    irelandireland Posts: 17,798member
  • Reply 63 of 127
    bigpicsbigpics Posts: 1,397member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by revilre View Post


    the one with a line, that then has a split of the line is "alt/option" like you have an option going down the line. the one thats shaped like a carrot symbol is control - as thats been the symbol for control in unix land going back long before Windows.



    Ahhh-ha! I'll probably still forget the symbols again, but thanks for that bit of history!
  • Reply 64 of 127
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by guch20 View Post


    I love that I'm on an Apple fansite with my iPod and can't view the videos because they're in Flash.



    Are you missing out on something?
  • Reply 65 of 127
    macrulezmacrulez Posts: 2,455member
    deleted
  • Reply 66 of 127
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Wovel View Post


    But you did register an account in January and the vast majority of your 83 posts are critiques on the authors rather than discussion of the topics.



    Makes people wonder who you are..



    One guess... if that guess is "teckstud".
  • Reply 67 of 127
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Ireland View Post






    Interesting...
  • Reply 68 of 127
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Ireland View Post






    Very nice.



    I'd think of something other than grey for the latter two, though.
  • Reply 69 of 127
    It all looks great to me, including the existing window buttons. Looking forward to Lion!
  • Reply 70 of 127
    Lauchpad isn't very useful in it's current state. I'd want to assign this to the 'F4' Key which is assigned currently to Dashboard, which incidentally, i've never used. I'd want every app including those in the utilities directory to be displayed. I'd prefer to have a filtered text field so I can immediately type 'mai' for Mail.app to selected, then hit 'Return' key to launch the app. Launchpad in it's current state wastes too much of the users time clicking the icon in the dock, identifying where the app is on the display then clicking the app, even slower if its something like Terminal.app in the utilities directory.



    NeXSTEP had left sided scrollbars, bring those back. There was also a shelf in the workspace manager in NeXTSTEP. Finder has always needed a shelf like Path Finder's Drop Stack. Finder needs dual pane mode, Tabs and the ability to reorder 'DEVICES' back to the TOP of the Sidebar - Favourites (ex Places) back to the bottom thanks, this ain't Windows 7.



    In Lion '~/Library' is hidden, WTF is this invisible?? Stop trying to hide shit like this, we need access to Library all the time.



    Finder's Column View needs not be plane white, option for the same blue/white alternative row colors like List View.



    Bring back color icons, even as a toggle in Appearance Pref pane. This monotone reminds me of Atari's TOS and Apple's System 6, not cool.



    Safari needs a Sidebar for vertical Tabs like OmniWeb as horizontal tabs are only good for about 6 tabs. Please add Site Preferences.



    The New Tab design is confusing, difficult to know which is actually active, since we click on buttons and they look depressed when active, but in Lion the active tab the one that is is click actually looks like its NOT selected. This slider bizniz is fine for ON/OFF toggles but Tabs in preference panes are not ON or OFF. This wouldn't even make sense on a touch screen because a tab is just touched to be selected why waste the effort trying to slide thru several tabs to select the correct one. Also too much white, bring back soem blue for the active Tabs and buttons.
  • Reply 71 of 127
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by stokessd View Post


    Hidden scrollbars and some of these other "new features" violate apple's own human interface Guidlines. One of the important ones is not to hide controls. I totally understand why they do it on a small screen like the iPhone, but for big screens it doesn't make sense.



    Full screen apps? What's next MDI?



    Sheldon



    Apple has long violated its own HIG, although they have evolved as someone else pointed out. iTunes has long violated the HIG because Apple seems to use it as a "testing group" for future OS ideas. Things like the personal sidebar in Panther, the enhanced sidebar in Leopard, the non-Aqua scroll bars and even the beginnings of Spotlight all began as features of iTunes.

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Ireland View Post


    This reverse-scroling in the OS is MEGA-annoying. Great OS though.



    As long as you have a multi-touch trackpad, you can uncheck an option in Trackpad (or Mouse) and use traditional scrolling.

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Ireland View Post






    I actually prefer the traffic lights only because of their consistent size and shape.
  • Reply 72 of 127
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by HahaHaha321 View Post


    Really? Because I would suggest that to the author of the instead of me. Seriously, what kind of person is strange enough to post under a second name? It says a lot.



    Really? What kind of person follows another around posting trollish shit about him and never contributes to the thread?
  • Reply 73 of 127
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Targon View Post


    Lauchpad isn't very useful in it's current state. I'd want to assign this to the 'F4' Key which is assigned currently to Dashboard, which incidentally, i've never used. I'd want every app including those in the utilities directory to be displayed. I'd prefer to have a filtered text field so I can immediately type 'mai' for Mail.app to selected, then hit 'Return' key to launch the app. Launchpad in it's current state wastes too much of the users time clicking the icon in the dock, identifying where the app is on the display then clicking the app, even slower if its something like Terminal.app in the utilities directory.



    NeXSTEP had left sided scrollbars, bring those back.....



    You are old enough to be familiar with NeXSTEP... and don't know how to Google for Mac utilities like LaunchBar? Great Mac OS extender and I couldn't live without it, nor DefaultFolders. You might also consider a keyboard macro creation utility like iKeys.



    Um... also BTW... you should know that if you're in a list view, any menu or finder window, you DO only need to type the first couple of letters to select the item, then hit return (or Cmd-Down Arrow in the Finder).



    @Bigpics - hopefully you know that Apple introduced the modern GUI interface well before Windows. One of the things that MS did to try and skirt the copyright issue of flat out copying the Mac, was to rearrange the close/min/max buttons, and use a different control-key.



    I've been using a Mac since 84 when they first hit the streets, and there is nothing more comfortable than hovering your thumb slightly over the Cmd key and using the Q, W, Z, X, C, V keys. Actually I never use the mouse at all for the functions that those keys provide,



    @Ireland - that's why I and my staff could really care less about your buttons. One of the first requirements for my staff and my client's, is to see that people are productive. We will beat you by more than a half an hour a day by using common keyboard shortcuts, rather than mousing around all day, whether in menus, or the finder.



    General observation: funny how people diss on the iPad that you can't possible be productive on it and need a real desktop OS to do serious work... and then on those desktop OSes, they don't have the time to memorize a few keyboard shortcuts to really maximize their productivity.



    Just sayin'....
  • Reply 74 of 127
    asciiascii Posts: 5,936member
    This OS is going to *blow people away* when it is released. I think it's amazing and kudos to the developers.
  • Reply 75 of 127
    nkhmnkhm Posts: 928member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by guch20 View Post


    I love that I'm on an Apple fansite with my iPod and can't view the videos because they're in Flash.



    The video plays fine on iOS, unless yr referring to a video elsewhere?
  • Reply 76 of 127
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by axual View Post


    All of these are excellent improvements to the UI and whole experience. Apple continues to fire on all cylinders, including the fundamentals of using your computer.



    I'm quite excited. Apple continues to refine even the basic things - scrolling, choosing windows, organizing apps, saving (or not saving, really), and shaving away all excesses.



    However, I wish they would leave the color in the Finder sidebar (as well as iTunes). The color helps my eye differentiate between the tiny icons. At least, make it an option!
  • Reply 77 of 127
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by stokessd View Post


    Hidden scrollbars and some of these other "new features" violate apple's own human interface Guidlines. One of the important ones is not to hide controls. I totally understand why they do it on a small screen like the iPhone, but for big screens it doesn't make sense.



    Full screen apps? What's next MDI?



    Sheldon



    I welcome these changes, as long as you can still interact with the scroll bar if needed. I personally hate content shifting to the left when a scroll bar appears especially in safari, so having scroll bars as an overlay is much better in my opinion.
  • Reply 78 of 127
    bigpicsbigpics Posts: 1,397member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by ThePixelDoc View Post


    @Bigpics - hopefully you know that Apple introduced the modern GUI interface well before Windows. One of the things that MS did to try and skirt the copyright issue of flat out copying the Mac, was to rearrange the close/min/max buttons, and use a different control-key.



    I've been using a Mac since 84 when they first hit the streets, and there is nothing more comfortable than hovering your thumb slightly over the Cmd key and using the Q, W, Z, X, C, V keys. Actually I never use the mouse at all for the functions that those keys provide,



    I remember the period. MS was futzing around with something hideous called Windows 1.0 while still pretending to cooperate with IBM on OS/2. And were also working on lifting the ideas that Apple had gathered from Xerox at Parc which, with a ton of added engineering and software development became the Mac.



    (I used to believe Apple "lifted" the key ideas from Xerox too as much as Redmond copied Apple, but finally read recently that in fact Xerox was compensated - not for much, but I can't say whose fault that was).



    My job started me off with a Commodore 64, and then MS-DOS 3.0-6.1 before Win 3.1, 95, 98 and finally XP. And then I bought an iBook for myself. I barely saw an Apple II outside of a magazine, nor a Mac before System 8 (but I was a fan and still have my copies of Apple oriented mags from before the Mac and the first issue of MacWorld plus the official magazine length brochures for the Apple III and Lisa).



    Your explanation of why the Windows window buttons - a UI matter - were on the other side makes sense, tho' I see no inherent superiority in either side and wish both had been the same.



    And I really do still think the behavior of the Nav/Arrow keys varies more between apps on the Mac - which is also a UI matter that could have been cleaned up at the adoption of OSX. However, living inside of browsers much of the time these days, where browsers treat Mac and Win as equivalent hosts makes this more and more irrelevant.



    But my main focus here was on the KB's themselves. I believe the IBM DOS keyboard - mostly evolved from IBM's own earlier keyboards was the basis of the IBM-compatible industry KB, with the later addition of the Windows key - which I seldom use to this day.



    And while the Mac's CMD-Q has been its own and don't know why Win never adopted it too, CTRL-Z, X, C, V - and P and A work the same on Windows and are mainstays of mine on both machines.



    So I'm talking more about the Mac keyboard's differences and the very un-"for the rest of us" geeky short cut symbols on the keyboard (and the layout and different-meaning names of Control (alt) Option and Command vs. Ctrol-Windows-Alt).



    Until I read this WikiP article just now, I didn't know early Apple KB's - nor what changes occurred between Apple II and Mac or if any more keyboard changes happened during the switch from OS9 to OSX (tho' the article says the 1986 Mac Plus basically set the parameters of all Apple KB's since) - and was suggesting that the latter switch - well after that design, when Apple was betting the store on a remake of its OS and a marketing strategy for switchers - was the last opportunity to better harmonize the KB's and get rid of the 'Klingon' stuff in an effort to attract and help switchers switch.



    Nobody was about to sue Apple for anti-trust violatons if they had done so - at least THEN, lolz.



    So as it stands, I mostly feel the Apple KB just carries a (slightly) unfortunate legacy of being different mostly because it was always.... ...different.... ...and a few unanswered Q's yet about whether it was partly different to BE different. As in, to quote Apple at from that era, when they updated IBM's old "Think" slogan to "Think different."
  • Reply 79 of 127
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Wiggin View Post


    I really have to agree. It's like the old web sites that would hide easter eggs on their pages. If you hoover your pointer over just the right spot you could click and unveil the surprise. I shouldn't have to wiggle my mouse just to get scroll bars so I can see how far through a document I am or figure out which direction to move the mouse to get to the scroll thumb. Glance at your scroll bar right now on this page. You can instantly tell how far down you are on the page, how long the page is overall, and how much more of these asinine comment you have to read before you get to the end of the page. All just by glancing and seeing the position and size of the scroll thumb, And you didn't have to wiggle your mouse to see that.



    How long will it take for users to realize they can hide the folder source list sections if they don't just happen to move their mouse near the section headers? Or that you can resize windows using the window frame that doesn't exist. Personally, I dislike the absence of window edges even in Snow Leopard. The screen looks even more cluttered to me because there is no clear boundary between windows of information.



    Not that it's bad, it's all really minor stuff. It's just not as efficient. It's hard enough to learn all the little ins and outs of OS X as it is. You have to go buy books to figure out all the little tricks and shortcuts. Now we are going to need books to show us where all the hidden interface elements are if we can't find them on our own.



    I couldn't agree more, exactly what I think. Who wants to go hovering all over the place looking for possible buttons/options, this is stupid. And removing window edges seems unnecessary.

  • Reply 80 of 127
    jnjnjnjnjnjn Posts: 588member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by PaulMJohnson View Post


    It's not just NeXTSTEP that had that, Windows has had it for donkeys years, and I would go so far as to say this is probably the only thing Windows has, that I wanted brought to the Mac! Seems like a trivial thing, but when you have to use a PC and a Mac on a day to day basis, it's surprising how irritating not having it on the Mac is.



    All unixes I know of support the 'feature' I think from the start of X windows (not to be confused with either Mac OS X or Windows).



    J.
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