Alright ya little whiners, maybe it's the fact that I'm overdue for my painkillers, or maybe it's becuase I'm stuck typing one-handed for *no* good reason, but one more snide comment and this puppy is locked, m'kay?
kick my friend, there is only one good reason to type one handed...but children are present so i will neither mention it nor will i add the diagram that illustrates that one good reason so well...
My point is that the Finder needs to be rewritten because it's crippled beyond repair. And if it's going to be rewritten, it should be rewritten in Cocoa because they'll get the Finder working in less time. If Apple really wants to WOW me, they'll have to re-engineer a whole shitload of stuff in the Finder. Right now it looks like 1984 with 128x128 pixel icons, color, and a few gizmos here and there.
Hmmm. Maybe. But where's the Vitamin C...the 'feel' of Classic? The 'snap'. The 'Fizz'.
Seriously. I agree with your point. I do think the Finder needs to do some soul searching. It doesn't seem fast enough or responsive enough. More over...it seems to lose some of its heritage. Too much?
Or. It's a tarted up old banga...that needs to be binned and re-built from the ground up?
I can't help but feel we should be much further along than this in terms of the GUI experience. Much of it is pure tarted up Windows catch-up. It kinda feels awkward. Like 3 OS approachs kludged into one. I use 'X'. But I don't love it like I loved Classic. I hope Panther takes us some where really new and special but also takes us 'home' at the same time. There's nothing really radical in 'X' yet.
The Finder, IMO, is what makes OS X. It's the first app you see after you install OS X. It's the app 99% of the people have to use. And possibly one of the most important app. Yet...it's one of the worst Apple app.
Like you said, Lemon Bon Bon, instead of innovating and crushing competing OS file browsers, the Finder simply copies/borrows from them, all the while dropping some of the better features of the previous Finder.
It's slow...it's buggy...it's boring. I honestly can't see anything good in the Finder compared to the classic Finder or other OS's file browser.
If 10.3 doesn't bring some huge improvements to the Finder's speed and usability, I'm ready to put my wallet back in my pocket regardless of the other goodies 10.3 might bring.
The Finder should be the main 'feature' in 10.3. Retarded features such as 'piles' tacked on to the current Finder isn't gonna do it.
Unless there's some major tweaking of the current Finder or a complete rewrite, this computer will stick with 10.2 until Apple decides to do something about the, IMO, most important app.
The Finder, IMO, is what makes OS X. It's the first app you see after you install OS X. It's the app 99% of the people have to use. And possibly one of the most important app. Yet...it's one of the worst Apple app.
Agreed.
Quote:
It's slow...it's buggy...it's boring. I honestly can't see anything good in the Finder compared to the classic Finder or other OS's file browser.
Agreed again, except from column view the current finder is no better than the os9 finder. And to the "boring" part, the finder doesn't need to be "exiting", it just has to be intuitive, clever and fast.
Quote:
If 10.3 doesn't bring some huge improvements to the Finder's speed and usability, I'm ready to put my wallet back in my pocket regardless of the other goodies 10.3 might bring.
I think Apple knows about the "peoples" opinion of the finder, and has been working hard to get it right. At, least that is my hope. We haven't seen much improvements to it in the last few years, and I honestly hope, and believe, that Apple has been working on it.
Quote:
The Finder should be the main 'feature' in 10.3. Retarded features such as 'piles' tacked on to the current Finder isn't gonna do it.
Agree again. Piles may seem cool, but it remains a feature that most people don't need, and it does not add something to the "feel" of the os than it is a toy. Apple really should focus on the important things, and right now the finder is number ONE in my opinion.
Quote:
Unless there's some major tweaking of the current Finder or a complete rewrite, this computer will stick with 10.2 until Apple decides to do something about the, IMO, most important app.
I'm sure I will upgrade no matter what improvements or lack of improvements to the finder Apple provides, and hopefully the finders speed will improve with a new dual 1.8 970. But it could be so much better, and they now have the possibility to make a opearting system that leaves every other os in the dust. I hope they'll take the torch and show us the way. We simply deserve better. We've all been using it for years, and there's no reason why we should keep looking back. Now is the time to leave os9 behind a full year after the burial of the os 9 box.
I think the building escalation about the OS X Finder being "the worst Apple app" is getting a bit out of hand.
I think we all agree that the Finder in OS X has some frustrating performance problems -- esp. involving anything with multithreading, or using an iDisk, or even navigating a very large number of files. (I can't help but notice that the Windows XP Explorer doesn't do such a great job handling large numbers of files either.)
These need to be fixed in 10.3. No argument.
The question of the design of the OS X Finder though, isn't so clear-cut. Most, I think, find it very good, and a good introduction for a less spatial design to come. It's much easier for new users, with easily accesssed one-click toolbars and browse-in-place. And Column view works brilliantly. (And yes, Apple needs to figure out how to integrate view-by-date into that in an elegant way. I'm sure they're working on it.)
People need to take a step back and seperate technical frustrations from design frustrations. Demanding something new and innovative is certainly tempting, but not very interesting. It's much more interesting to discuss specific problems where you feel the Finder lets you down.
I can't help but feel we should be much further along than this in terms of the GUI experience. Much of it is pure tarted up Windows catch-up.
Well, there was more than a little bit of resistance to doing anything but the Classic GUI grafted onto unix when OS X premiered. It's nice to say that we want new/more GUI "innovations," but in practice I think we've seen what happens when Apple even thinks about making such changes. Then of course everyone screams for the "both-and" solution to include any and all options available to users's tastes under the sun, which is no real solution at all. Witness the Finder. Also, I'm not convinced that Apple has just been grafting the Windows UI onto OS X, unless you're using Adobe apps of course, where you might as well use XP in that case. I mean, we've gone over the origins of the Dock, column view and other features in NeXTstep that predate Windows for some time, and I get tired of the "If it's anything less than perfect, I might as well be using Windows" rant. I think that's a cop-out. It's like anything that doesn't fall under the Classic Mac OS umbrella gets labelled as Windows-like.
So people love Classic and want that -- what? - spit and polish back in OS X. I think we have it save poor threading in the Finder. Anything else about permissions or other "complexities" of the system can easily be traded with the kludges and hacks we dealt with in Classic Mac OS. Frankly, I don't think most people know what they want. They want something new and jazzy and exciting, a la piles, but they they hate it because it's a) Windows-like, b) nothing that the desktop metaphor doesn't provide to some degree now, or c) it's eye-candy.
And I don't care what people say about the validity of Carbon vs. Cocoa. As it currently stands, the Cocoa apps I use are far more polished and forward-looking in terms of their UE than the ported crap in Carbon. I think people using Carbon apps only are being cheated from the full potential of OS X both under the hood and in the user experience. People always pull iPhoto or iCal out and point to them as a bad Cocoa apps, but for every 1 poor performer (notice it's not the UI that's the big problem), there about 5 Cocoa apps that are superior to anything in Classic or done in Carbon. Besides, I'm not saying that you can't make bad Cocoa apps. I'm saying there simply aren't that many for whatever reasons. If all you use is Photoshop, Word and the Finder (aka, that app that tries to make everyone happy and as a result satisfies no one), you are probably not fully aware of what Aqua and Quartz can provide nor how powerful and flexibile in the OS is. How many people use services or take advantage of the Cocoa plug-in structure with utilities such as FontSight, Cocoa Gestures or TextExtras?
Even if Apple gets everything from Cocoa and Carbon libraries unified under CoreFoundation, the big developers writing those clumsy carbon apps that just mimic the UI in XP are the weak link and you will continue to see inferior Carbon apps because they simply are not (and maybe cannot ) keeping up with the ease with which Cocoa developers can implement features and try these new ideas.
(I can't help but notice that the Windows XP Explorer doesn't do such a great job handling large numbers of files either.)
The only problem being that the measure of exellence is the OS9 Finder, which manages to handle thousands of files--browsing, copying etc with ease. Apple has its own set of "switchers" to answer to.
On the Classic Finder, I'd like to point out that it wasn't the jewel people recall it to be until fairly recently. As recently as Mac OS 8.1, it was a dog... better than Windows 3.1/95/98 but still a dog. It was slow, didn't have a good Find command and had UI inconsistencies (transition from 7.x UI to Platinum).
It wasn't until the release of 8.5 that the Finder really became the Golden Finder that everyone speaks of so highly. If you'll take a moment, the Finder would often hiccup and reload itself. Finder copy was awful and wasn't multi-threaded.
Finally, please recall that the Find command had sucked FOREVER until Jaguar was released. This had been a complaint about the Finder ("that can't find anything") for as long as I haved used Macs (beginning with System 6.0.7)
We have several sources claiming a new 'journaled' file system.
We also have talks of iPhoto Pro, Appleworks 7 (coming out in about a year), a cocoa Finder, brushed metal everywhere, revamped dock, Mac built WMP, modification of Rendezvous (iCal & AddressBook), revision of Grab.app and lastly an audio suite (circa same release date as Appleworks)
So it's not that we don't know ANYTHING. Someone take the torch of one of these and go bang some heads for info. Perhaps we can find somebody working on some aspect of these which can confirm something. (*hint* *hint*)
It was slow, didn't have a good Find command and had UI inconsistencies (transition from 7.x UI to Platinum).
Can you point me to an example of an UI inconsistency?
Quote:
It wasn't until the release of 8.5 that the Finder really became the Golden Finder that everyone speaks of so highly. If you'll take a moment, the Finder would often hiccup and reload itself. Finder copy was awful and wasn't multi-threaded.
Finder was multi-threaded from 8.0 on, including copy commands.
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Finally, please recall that the Find command had sucked FOREVER until Jaguar was released. This had been a complaint about the Finder ("that can't find anything") for as long as I haved used Macs (beginning with System 6.0.7)
Finder from 7.5 through 10.1.x didn't even have its own Find command; it would use File Find or (from 8.5 on) Sherlock. So I don't know what you're talking about.
The toolbar. A better search function. FTP. Descriptive cursors. Better sounds. Column view. Fantastic Get Info. Recent Folders. Need I go on?
Barto
Toolbar is neat but not amazing. Search function is good. FTP is broken. Descriptive cursor...whooptee-ding, all OSs have it.. Better sounds? Column view is great but not amazing. Get Info sucks. OS 9 had Recents folders.
These are all ok but not great additions. Should I make you a list of things that didn't make it to the OS X Finder that are in OS 9? The list is bigger, I assure you.
These are all ok but not great additions. Should I make you a list of things that didn't make it to the OS X Finder that are in OS 9? The list is bigger, I assure you.
The toolbar makes me wonder why they don't switch to CFToolbar, thus fixing lots of bugs in the Finder custom toolbar. Also, why don't CFToolbar / NSToolbar have the Dock's "remove from toolbar" scissors icon?
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Descriptive cursors.
8.5 had that.
Quote:
Better sounds.
I must be doing something wrong, because 8.5's sounds always worked, whereas I hardly ever hear a sound from the OS X Finder.
Quote:
Recent Folders.
Not sure what you mean.
Other than that, you're right - Column View is great. Get Info is far superior. Etc.
Quote:
Yes, make the list, and then we can discuss it.
1. Move something to the System Folder, and the Classic Finder asks whether it should move it to the appropriate location.
2. Move is actually called move, not "copy first, then remove".
3. The progress dialogs are a lot cleaner.
4. The error messages are much more descriptive. Try replacing a running application with a new version.
"The operation cannot be completed because you do not have sufficient privileges for 'OmniWeb'."
Hell no, that ain't true.
"Couldn't replace 'OmniWeb' because it is currently running."
Expect to see the use of impressive, high-resolution 3D interface elements in Panther, from what we've seen recently. It may not be extremely pervasive so that Panther will still run with acceptable performance on every officially supported G3 and G4 system even as it expands to the new PowerPC 970-driven Macs....but it will be a very clear look-and-feel advance from any previous operating system Apple has ever delivered.
Even now, any system that supports 10.2's basic implementation of Quartz Extreme can pull off Aqua's animations and transparency surprisingly well. Panther will flesh out Quartz Extreme significantly, and make much better use of it. Don't be surprised to see more and more of Mac OS X -- the Dock, Finder, System Preferences, Startup Display, et cetera -- employing icons and interface elements that rotate, ripple, expand, contract, and react to user activity or input in a number of ways.
We've only seen a demonstration of this functionality, and our recent look at developmental builds of Panther only included a few examples of it -- despite the numerous others we saw in a demonstration that included use of a new version of Interface Builder that may be distributed at WWDC in June so that third-party developers can update their applications. In fact, it's looking more and more like developers will probably come away from the Worldwide Developer's Conference with a complete Developer Release and Toolkit for building and testing their applications on Panther.
Of course the Developer Release will be incomplete, still a good two months short of its likeliest date of completion to become the retail release of Panther, but it may prove very interesting indeed. Apple fully intends to make its biggest grab yet for the computing world's attention with its feature set. Now that Microsoft is following very closely in Mac OS X's footsteps with its Longhorn operating system project, Apple is looking to quite specifically trump Longhorn across the board -- starting with its very smooth, seamless, and rapidly beneficial move to IBM's 64-bit POWER family of processors.
If you think the POWER4-based PowerPC 970 is impressive, just wait for its cousin from the POWER5 family -- the IBM PowerPC 980. It will reach 4.5GHz-5.0GHz+, support system busses even more incredible than the 970's 6.4GB/s FSB, include a much more powerful Altivec unit, a high-performance on-board memory controller, and countless other improvements that will mean performance levels well in excess of ten times today's. The best part is, the 980 is currently scheduled for only a little over a year from now. Of course that could very well slip...but so far, IBM has executed its timetables for the 970 extremely well -- no more opposite a story could be imagined from what we have seen out of Motorola for the past five years. Expect IBM to deliver very well on its promises to Apple to lift the company out of its hardware performance quagmire in the next two years. There can be no question, based on the very happy mood we've seen in Cupertino recently....the performance equation is going to be tipping quite rapidly and quite clearly in Apple's direction post-haste.
Speaking of Motorola, reliable sources there have said that Apple is now expecting to deliver at least two different Macs that use 200MHz DDR memory and 200MHz SDR frontside busses in the near future with the company's G4 processors. This may mean that Motorola is still having trouble with its PowerPC 7470 chips which support a DDR Frontside Bus (FSB) that could take full advantage of the DDR SDRAM memory Apple has been putting in its systems to little performance benefit (thanks to the PPC 7455's Single Data Rate FSB, which Apple runs at either 133 or 167MHz currently) for over a year now -- and are planning to ship 7455-based systems on slightly faster FSB's for the iMac or perhaps the Powerbook.
If anything in the MOSR reports turn out to be correct it's gonna be nothing more than pure luck... and THAT I have 'confirmed'!!! In fact someone I know (who knows the skinny wrt panther but likes his job and doesn't usually talk at all) had a great laugh at the MOSR May 19th panther report.
In short... the day we should start putting any faith in MOSR is the day Apple designs a QUAD processor G3 box.
edit...
Heh.. I should have read that report before I made my comment...
"PPC 7470"? ... "PPC 7470'?!?! What planet are those guys living on?!?! - Someone should be kind enough to explain to them that the 7470 is nothing more than a number... If they wanna come off sounding like the know what's going on they need to know that the 7457 is the .10nm G4 w/o DDR support and the 7457RM is the .10nm G4 WITH DDR support.
Not that any of that matters either since MOT has delayed the 7457 and I think the 7457RM has been axed...
Can you point me to an example of an UI inconsistency?
Finder was multi-threaded from 8.0 on, including copy commands.
Finder from 7.5 through 10.1.x didn't even have its own Find command; it would use File Find or (from 8.5 on) Sherlock. So I don't know what you're talking about.
Thank you for making point. Everyone claims that Mac OS 9.x was better at this or that... I'm pointing out that it took a long time for it to get there.
To answer your questions:
In Mac OS 8, run ClarisWorks 4, Netscape 4.5 and many other apps. Platinum would not display properly. Apple blamed it on the developers. The developers said that there were way many more 7.x users than 8.x users. Moot point after the transition was completed.
Finder multi-threaded? Yes, in theory... in reality, 8.0 Finder would become unusable after a few tasks (Copy, Network access).
Finding Files? You guys are talking about the current Finder still being inadequate. I'm pointing out that it's better at FINDING files than any previous Finder. What do you say about that?
Comments
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My point is that the Finder needs to be rewritten because it's crippled beyond repair. And if it's going to be rewritten, it should be rewritten in Cocoa because they'll get the Finder working in less time. If Apple really wants to WOW me, they'll have to re-engineer a whole shitload of stuff in the Finder. Right now it looks like 1984 with 128x128 pixel icons, color, and a few gizmos here and there.
Hmmm. Maybe. But where's the Vitamin C...the 'feel' of Classic? The 'snap'. The 'Fizz'.
Seriously. I agree with your point. I do think the Finder needs to do some soul searching. It doesn't seem fast enough or responsive enough. More over...it seems to lose some of its heritage. Too much?
Or. It's a tarted up old banga...that needs to be binned and re-built from the ground up?
I can't help but feel we should be much further along than this in terms of the GUI experience. Much of it is pure tarted up Windows catch-up. It kinda feels awkward. Like 3 OS approachs kludged into one. I use 'X'. But I don't love it like I loved Classic. I hope Panther takes us some where really new and special but also takes us 'home' at the same time. There's nothing really radical in 'X' yet.
Show me the money, Apple!
Lemon Bon Bon
Like you said, Lemon Bon Bon, instead of innovating and crushing competing OS file browsers, the Finder simply copies/borrows from them, all the while dropping some of the better features of the previous Finder.
It's slow...it's buggy...it's boring. I honestly can't see anything good in the Finder compared to the classic Finder or other OS's file browser.
If 10.3 doesn't bring some huge improvements to the Finder's speed and usability, I'm ready to put my wallet back in my pocket regardless of the other goodies 10.3 might bring.
The Finder should be the main 'feature' in 10.3. Retarded features such as 'piles' tacked on to the current Finder isn't gonna do it.
Unless there's some major tweaking of the current Finder or a complete rewrite, this computer will stick with 10.2 until Apple decides to do something about the, IMO, most important app.
Originally posted by kim kap sol
The Finder, IMO, is what makes OS X. It's the first app you see after you install OS X. It's the app 99% of the people have to use. And possibly one of the most important app. Yet...it's one of the worst Apple app.
Agreed.
It's slow...it's buggy...it's boring. I honestly can't see anything good in the Finder compared to the classic Finder or other OS's file browser.
Agreed again, except from column view the current finder is no better than the os9 finder. And to the "boring" part, the finder doesn't need to be "exiting", it just has to be intuitive, clever and fast.
If 10.3 doesn't bring some huge improvements to the Finder's speed and usability, I'm ready to put my wallet back in my pocket regardless of the other goodies 10.3 might bring.
I think Apple knows about the "peoples" opinion of the finder, and has been working hard to get it right. At, least that is my hope. We haven't seen much improvements to it in the last few years, and I honestly hope, and believe, that Apple has been working on it.
The Finder should be the main 'feature' in 10.3. Retarded features such as 'piles' tacked on to the current Finder isn't gonna do it.
Agree again. Piles may seem cool, but it remains a feature that most people don't need, and it does not add something to the "feel" of the os than it is a toy. Apple really should focus on the important things, and right now the finder is number ONE in my opinion.
Unless there's some major tweaking of the current Finder or a complete rewrite, this computer will stick with 10.2 until Apple decides to do something about the, IMO, most important app.
I'm sure I will upgrade no matter what improvements or lack of improvements to the finder Apple provides, and hopefully the finders speed will improve with a new dual 1.8 970. But it could be so much better, and they now have the possibility to make a opearting system that leaves every other os in the dust. I hope they'll take the torch and show us the way. We simply deserve better. We've all been using it for years, and there's no reason why we should keep looking back. Now is the time to leave os9 behind a full year after the burial of the os 9 box.
I think we all agree that the Finder in OS X has some frustrating performance problems -- esp. involving anything with multithreading, or using an iDisk, or even navigating a very large number of files. (I can't help but notice that the Windows XP Explorer doesn't do such a great job handling large numbers of files either.)
These need to be fixed in 10.3. No argument.
The question of the design of the OS X Finder though, isn't so clear-cut. Most, I think, find it very good, and a good introduction for a less spatial design to come. It's much easier for new users, with easily accesssed one-click toolbars and browse-in-place. And Column view works brilliantly. (And yes, Apple needs to figure out how to integrate view-by-date into that in an elegant way. I'm sure they're working on it.)
People need to take a step back and seperate technical frustrations from design frustrations. Demanding something new and innovative is certainly tempting, but not very interesting. It's much more interesting to discuss specific problems where you feel the Finder lets you down.
I can't help but feel we should be much further along than this in terms of the GUI experience. Much of it is pure tarted up Windows catch-up.
Well, there was more than a little bit of resistance to doing anything but the Classic GUI grafted onto unix when OS X premiered. It's nice to say that we want new/more GUI "innovations," but in practice I think we've seen what happens when Apple even thinks about making such changes. Then of course everyone screams for the "both-and" solution to include any and all options available to users's tastes under the sun, which is no real solution at all. Witness the Finder. Also, I'm not convinced that Apple has just been grafting the Windows UI onto OS X, unless you're using Adobe apps of course, where you might as well use XP in that case. I mean, we've gone over the origins of the Dock, column view and other features in NeXTstep that predate Windows for some time, and I get tired of the "If it's anything less than perfect, I might as well be using Windows" rant. I think that's a cop-out. It's like anything that doesn't fall under the Classic Mac OS umbrella gets labelled as Windows-like.
So people love Classic and want that -- what? - spit and polish back in OS X. I think we have it save poor threading in the Finder. Anything else about permissions or other "complexities" of the system can easily be traded with the kludges and hacks we dealt with in Classic Mac OS. Frankly, I don't think most people know what they want. They want something new and jazzy and exciting, a la piles, but they they hate it because it's a) Windows-like, b) nothing that the desktop metaphor doesn't provide to some degree now, or c) it's eye-candy.
And I don't care what people say about the validity of Carbon vs. Cocoa. As it currently stands, the Cocoa apps I use are far more polished and forward-looking in terms of their UE than the ported crap in Carbon. I think people using Carbon apps only are being cheated from the full potential of OS X both under the hood and in the user experience. People always pull iPhoto or iCal out and point to them as a bad Cocoa apps, but for every 1 poor performer (notice it's not the UI that's the big problem), there about 5 Cocoa apps that are superior to anything in Classic or done in Carbon. Besides, I'm not saying that you can't make bad Cocoa apps. I'm saying there simply aren't that many for whatever reasons. If all you use is Photoshop, Word and the Finder (aka, that app that tries to make everyone happy and as a result satisfies no one), you are probably not fully aware of what Aqua and Quartz can provide nor how powerful and flexibile in the OS is. How many people use services or take advantage of the Cocoa plug-in structure with utilities such as FontSight, Cocoa Gestures or TextExtras?
Even if Apple gets everything from Cocoa and Carbon libraries unified under CoreFoundation, the big developers writing those clumsy carbon apps that just mimic the UI in XP are the weak link and you will continue to see inferior Carbon apps because they simply are not (and maybe cannot ) keeping up with the ease with which Cocoa developers can implement features and try these new ideas.
(I can't help but notice that the Windows XP Explorer doesn't do such a great job handling large numbers of files either.)
The only problem being that the measure of exellence is the OS9 Finder, which manages to handle thousands of files--browsing, copying etc with ease. Apple has its own set of "switchers" to answer to.
It wasn't until the release of 8.5 that the Finder really became the Golden Finder that everyone speaks of so highly. If you'll take a moment, the Finder would often hiccup and reload itself. Finder copy was awful and wasn't multi-threaded.
Mac OS 8.5 Tech Notes
http://developer.apple.com/technotes/tn/tn1142.html
Finally, please recall that the Find command had sucked FOREVER until Jaguar was released. This had been a complaint about the Finder ("that can't find anything") for as long as I haved used Macs (beginning with System 6.0.7)
cheers,
na
Originally posted by Not Unlike Myself
I wouldn't go that far.
We have several sources claiming a new 'journaled' file system.
We also have talks of iPhoto Pro, Appleworks 7 (coming out in about a year), a cocoa Finder, brushed metal everywhere, revamped dock, Mac built WMP, modification of Rendezvous (iCal & AddressBook), revision of Grab.app and lastly an audio suite (circa same release date as Appleworks)
So it's not that we don't know ANYTHING. Someone take the torch of one of these and go bang some heads for info. Perhaps we can find somebody working on some aspect of these which can confirm something. (*hint* *hint*)
the audio suite is coming.
*confirmed*: https://jobs.apple.com/cgi-bin/WebOb...2.22.9.2.0.1.3
or maye an iVersion of FinalCut Pro's audio editor?
Originally posted by kim kap sol
It's slow...it's buggy...it's boring. I honestly can't see anything good in the Finder compared to the classic Finder or other OS's file browser.
The toolbar. A better search function. FTP. Descriptive cursors. Better sounds. Column view. Fantastic Get Info. Recent Folders. Need I go on?
Barto
Originally posted by nagha
It was slow, didn't have a good Find command and had UI inconsistencies (transition from 7.x UI to Platinum).
Can you point me to an example of an UI inconsistency?
It wasn't until the release of 8.5 that the Finder really became the Golden Finder that everyone speaks of so highly. If you'll take a moment, the Finder would often hiccup and reload itself. Finder copy was awful and wasn't multi-threaded.
Finder was multi-threaded from 8.0 on, including copy commands.
Finally, please recall that the Find command had sucked FOREVER until Jaguar was released. This had been a complaint about the Finder ("that can't find anything") for as long as I haved used Macs (beginning with System 6.0.7)
Finder from 7.5 through 10.1.x didn't even have its own Find command; it would use File Find or (from 8.5 on) Sherlock. So I don't know what you're talking about.
Originally posted by Barto
The toolbar. A better search function. FTP. Descriptive cursors. Better sounds. Column view. Fantastic Get Info. Recent Folders. Need I go on?
Barto
Toolbar is neat but not amazing. Search function is good. FTP is broken. Descriptive cursor...whooptee-ding, all OSs have it.. Better sounds? Column view is great but not amazing. Get Info sucks. OS 9 had Recents folders.
These are all ok but not great additions. Should I make you a list of things that didn't make it to the OS X Finder that are in OS 9? The list is bigger, I assure you.
Originally posted by kim kap sol
These are all ok but not great additions. Should I make you a list of things that didn't make it to the OS X Finder that are in OS 9? The list is bigger, I assure you.
Yes, make the list, and then we can discuss it.
Originally posted by Barto
The toolbar.
The toolbar makes me wonder why they don't switch to CFToolbar, thus fixing lots of bugs in the Finder custom toolbar. Also, why don't CFToolbar / NSToolbar have the Dock's "remove from toolbar" scissors icon?
Descriptive cursors.
8.5 had that.
Better sounds.
I must be doing something wrong, because 8.5's sounds always worked, whereas I hardly ever hear a sound from the OS X Finder.
Recent Folders.
Not sure what you mean.
Other than that, you're right - Column View is great. Get Info is far superior. Etc.
Yes, make the list, and then we can discuss it.
1. Move something to the System Folder, and the Classic Finder asks whether it should move it to the appropriate location.
2. Move is actually called move, not "copy first, then remove".
3. The progress dialogs are a lot cleaner.
4. The error messages are much more descriptive. Try replacing a running application with a new version.
"The operation cannot be completed because you do not have sufficient privileges for 'OmniWeb'."
Hell no, that ain't true.
"Couldn't replace 'OmniWeb' because it is currently running."
is thrice as useful.
Do you want more reasons?
Thursday, May 29
Expect to see the use of impressive, high-resolution 3D interface elements in Panther, from what we've seen recently. It may not be extremely pervasive so that Panther will still run with acceptable performance on every officially supported G3 and G4 system even as it expands to the new PowerPC 970-driven Macs....but it will be a very clear look-and-feel advance from any previous operating system Apple has ever delivered.
Even now, any system that supports 10.2's basic implementation of Quartz Extreme can pull off Aqua's animations and transparency surprisingly well. Panther will flesh out Quartz Extreme significantly, and make much better use of it. Don't be surprised to see more and more of Mac OS X -- the Dock, Finder, System Preferences, Startup Display, et cetera -- employing icons and interface elements that rotate, ripple, expand, contract, and react to user activity or input in a number of ways.
We've only seen a demonstration of this functionality, and our recent look at developmental builds of Panther only included a few examples of it -- despite the numerous others we saw in a demonstration that included use of a new version of Interface Builder that may be distributed at WWDC in June so that third-party developers can update their applications. In fact, it's looking more and more like developers will probably come away from the Worldwide Developer's Conference with a complete Developer Release and Toolkit for building and testing their applications on Panther.
Of course the Developer Release will be incomplete, still a good two months short of its likeliest date of completion to become the retail release of Panther, but it may prove very interesting indeed. Apple fully intends to make its biggest grab yet for the computing world's attention with its feature set. Now that Microsoft is following very closely in Mac OS X's footsteps with its Longhorn operating system project, Apple is looking to quite specifically trump Longhorn across the board -- starting with its very smooth, seamless, and rapidly beneficial move to IBM's 64-bit POWER family of processors.
If you think the POWER4-based PowerPC 970 is impressive, just wait for its cousin from the POWER5 family -- the IBM PowerPC 980. It will reach 4.5GHz-5.0GHz+, support system busses even more incredible than the 970's 6.4GB/s FSB, include a much more powerful Altivec unit, a high-performance on-board memory controller, and countless other improvements that will mean performance levels well in excess of ten times today's. The best part is, the 980 is currently scheduled for only a little over a year from now. Of course that could very well slip...but so far, IBM has executed its timetables for the 970 extremely well -- no more opposite a story could be imagined from what we have seen out of Motorola for the past five years. Expect IBM to deliver very well on its promises to Apple to lift the company out of its hardware performance quagmire in the next two years. There can be no question, based on the very happy mood we've seen in Cupertino recently....the performance equation is going to be tipping quite rapidly and quite clearly in Apple's direction post-haste.
Speaking of Motorola, reliable sources there have said that Apple is now expecting to deliver at least two different Macs that use 200MHz DDR memory and 200MHz SDR frontside busses in the near future with the company's G4 processors. This may mean that Motorola is still having trouble with its PowerPC 7470 chips which support a DDR Frontside Bus (FSB) that could take full advantage of the DDR SDRAM memory Apple has been putting in its systems to little performance benefit (thanks to the PPC 7455's Single Data Rate FSB, which Apple runs at either 133 or 167MHz currently) for over a year now -- and are planning to ship 7455-based systems on slightly faster FSB's for the iMac or perhaps the Powerbook.
In short... the day we should start putting any faith in MOSR is the day Apple designs a QUAD processor G3 box.
edit...
Heh.. I should have read that report before I made my comment...
"PPC 7470"? ... "PPC 7470'?!?! What planet are those guys living on?!?!
Not that any of that matters either since MOT has delayed the 7457 and I think the 7457RM has been axed...
D
Originally posted by Chucker
Can you point me to an example of an UI inconsistency?
Finder was multi-threaded from 8.0 on, including copy commands.
Finder from 7.5 through 10.1.x didn't even have its own Find command; it would use File Find or (from 8.5 on) Sherlock. So I don't know what you're talking about.
Thank you for making point. Everyone claims that Mac OS 9.x was better at this or that... I'm pointing out that it took a long time for it to get there.
To answer your questions:
In Mac OS 8, run ClarisWorks 4, Netscape 4.5 and many other apps. Platinum would not display properly. Apple blamed it on the developers. The developers said that there were way many more 7.x users than 8.x users. Moot point after the transition was completed.
Finder multi-threaded? Yes, in theory... in reality, 8.0 Finder would become unusable after a few tasks (Copy, Network access).
Finding Files? You guys are talking about the current Finder still being inadequate. I'm pointing out that it's better at FINDING files than any previous Finder. What do you say about that?
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