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John Siracusa examines OS X Finder

updated 09:00 pm EST, Wed April 2, 2003

John Siracusa of Ars Technica has published a on Mac OS X's Finder interface. "It's no secret that I don't like the Mac OS X Finder," says Siracusa, who has expressed this feeling throughout a number of articles on Mac OS X. "The topic has never been given the thorough treatment that I believe it deserves," he says, "In this article, I will attempt to rectify the situation." Mr. Siracusa outlines what he believes is a "fairly conservative vision of what the Finder could be."

by MacNN Staff

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04/02, 09:44pm | report spam | close Reply |
Who Cares...

really - why did I read this article - same old, same old - and WHO CARES whether this guy likes OSX or not -

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04/02, 09:53pm | report spam | close Reply |
take care of you own

his articles are always long and detailed. But white type face on a black background, i feel dizzy after reading 2 paragraphs...

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04/02, 09:58pm | report spam | close Reply |
All just theories

Theory, schmeory. All this nonsense about spatial finders and muscle memory. While it's great to acknowledge the fact, it really isn't so cut in dry in real life. Hierarchical arrangement of files is the easiest way to manage hundreds of thousands of files and the OS9 finder was NOT CUTTING IT.

The metadata segment is interesting, but I'd rather have "specialized finders" like iPhoto and iTunes for such specific file types.

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04/02, 10:25pm | report spam | close Reply |
Go John...

Look, the fact is that all of you people who claim OSX is the greatest thing since sliced white bread are stupid incompetant morons that do not use their computer to its fullest. Fact is that people who think OSX is great are people who contribute not to the world and society.

The fact is that the Mac OS 9 Finder was a far superior product and Mac OS X is a horrible flawed piece of JUNK that disgusts competent computer users.

Apple is a monopoly run by an ignorant moron named Steve Jobs and its unwilling to change or to give end users the product they want need and desire.

Be a fruit cake and blame weak computer sales on the economy but the reality is that sales are weak across the board because Apple and other manufacturers are not producing product that people want.

More than half of the veteran Mac Community HATES Mac OS X and the other half are a bunch of morons screaming switch to windows if you don't like this stuff. Well some will switch. Others will continue to use their same computers for 10 or more years. And there frankly will NEVER be enough switchers to make up the losses that are being incurred because of the complete disrepsect that Apple has shown the Mac Community.

The only reason to buy a Mac is because you make media. And finally we are having some breakthroughs that are allowing more people to switch away from Apple and onto cheaper better performing platforms.

But the reality is that none of the OSes out there are very good any more. Mac OS X is simply a knock off of all the bad Windows interfaces. Mac OS X is a great idea shrouded in a horrible slow moving interface that does not meet the needs of Apples base market, the media professional.

So perhaps its time for some more competition, something better than this horrible Mac OS X product, something better than the tremendously improved Microsoft Windows XP interface, something better than Linux.

Keep in mind its not the disrespectful jerks at Apple that drive computer sales, its not the out of touch people at Microsoft. Its us, me you and everyone who buys computers. And we are not buying and the reason for this has nothing to do with the economy.

It has everything to do with the fact that these new products are alien and ill equipped to help us do our jobs better than the tools we already have. It has to do with the fact that there is NO innovation in Mac OS X. h*** X is not even a real Apple product, ITS BSD!

Wanna help the computer industry, send Apple some hate mail. They deserve it. And with out real valid criticism of their ignorant actions and behaviors they will not change and will fail like so many others.

If you think Apple is #1, you better learn your history because at this pace Apple is poised to go the way of the Amiga. Amiga was a great platform for Video. And with a few exception

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04/02, 10:35pm | report spam | close Reply |
Go John... Pt 2

Wanna help the computer industry, send Apple some hate mail. They deserve it. And with out real valid criticism of their ignorant actions and behaviors they will not change and will fail like so many others.

If you think Apple is #1, you better learn your history because at this pace Apple is poised to go the way of the Amiga. Amiga was a great platform for Video. And with a few exceptions from hold backs, it is a dead product (remember when it was all the rage for making Babylon 5?)

Until Apple does right by all if its uses it will not succeed.

I curse you Apple: I curse you to failure and pain until you do right by ALL Mac users, I curse you until you do right by the MUGs in the USA that you disrespect. Everything you touch will fail until you change your attitude and treat your customers and supporters with the respect and consideration they deserve. Until that time, no matter how great the ideas you have, YOU WILL FAIL. Everything you touch will die. Nothing you make will sell. And everyone will open their eyes and see the evil that you spread then punish you for your misdeeds.

Yowalla, Yogambi, Yabing.

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04/02, 10:46pm | report spam | close Reply |
Really?

Then why has Apple's market share increased over the past two quarters?

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04/02, 10:54pm | report spam | close Reply |
re: Go John

You Sir better get your facts straight before you get a new hole ripped in your A**, How is it that MacOsx X is a knock off of Windows XP!if you remeber correctly( which appearently you cant remember jack about anything computer related it was XP that ripped off MacOS X's interface not even a month after MacOSX was initially released, and no its not more than half the veteran mac community that hates OSX, moron! Your the one that is the utter moron if you thonk that Apple is a monopoly, Last time heard it was Microsoft!Your post was so completely ignorant and stupid and tactless it should have never been posted here on MNN, Its one of the most tactless I have ever seen on a mac related website! you sir are a complete waste to society!

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04/02, 11:00pm | report spam | close Reply |
be nice :)

I read this article earlier, and i think we do NEED the metadata or XML/database file system. it makes sense, and would certainly be the backend of such proxy find folders that he discusses. which I might use once. the 'find' he proposes isnt that useful outside of a lab setting. BUT the file system needs to be similar to BeOS, and who knows these days, since Apple hired one of the key guys behind that technology.

All in all, this is just a matter of preference, as I love column view. my only problem really is that with 2 column windows, i often confuse from where, to where I am copying. I would LOVE the shelf he talks about. a little pit stop for files while you navigate more smoothly. saves on those long mouse drags, saves on having to use the horrible spring loaded folders. GREAT IDEA!

as far as his file 'browser' again, thats preference, and I would probably never use such a beast. sounds too wonky for my likes.
no thanks, XP MAY have an edge there, but again, preference.

as far as pop up folders, YES! a million times yes! why hasn't this been put in?

still he offers no truly convincing reasons why these things should be so...but i dont mind him voicing his opinion, it will only aid in apple making X the most stable and useable system for real people.

and NO, i do not like all the folder clutter from OS 9 that he wants to bring back, Jobs is right, I do not want to be the janitor of my computer.

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04/02, 11:06pm | report spam | close Reply |
Really?

"Then why has Apple's market share increased over the past two quarters?"

Because it hasn't.

Worldwide marketshare has been down both of the last two quarters to the current 1.94%. US Marketshare is up slightly last quarter (like .1%) but obviously Worldwide marketshare is the most important as it reflects all the Apple computers sold overall.

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04/02, 11:20pm | report spam | close Reply |
my goodness...

...that was pathetic [re: Go John]. I thought you had to be joking. At any rate, please don't try to speak for everyone or insult anyone who disagrees with your position. I'm a LONG-time Mac user and media pro, and I LOVE OS X. Granted, it is slower than 9. But it is so much better in every way (including interface) that I find any argument to the contrary simply foolish.

Maybe you were among the many that cried out for a modern Mac OS in the mid-90s, citing the decrepit OS 7.6 or 8.1 for the rapid decline in Mac sales. The need for SMP, protected memory, multi-threading, multi-tasking, and a number of other buzzwords you didn't understand but thought you needed. Now Apple has provided all that in an industrial package, and all you can do is whine about the good old OS 9 (what a cobbled-together POS, btw).

Look, Macs have almost always been slower than PCs, and they've always carried an overhead for their interface. The original Mac was roundly citicised for it's pokey performance and unnecessary, silly graphical interface. OS X has been built with features that just aren't designed for machines of the past. It's forward-thinking, like the original Mac OS, and it will take awhile before the hardware carries the overhead effortlessly (unfortunately, Motorola hasn't helped in this matter).

You're obviously angry and fed up. Fine. You're also in error (OS X is like Windows because Windows is like the neXt OS) and making some pretty foolish statements ("...there is NO innovation in Mac OS X. h*** X is not even a real Apple product, ITS BSD" - that's simply a hoot). But cursing Apple and insulting anyone who sees value in OS X? That's really pretty pathetic - you take this stuff a little too much to heart, I'm afraid.

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04/02, 11:25pm | report spam | close Reply |
Sucky Article

Like all software, one can always envision some improvements, the finder is no exception. It is pretty solid and functional from my point of view. OS9 people, come on get a grip and quit the nostalgic c***.

Anyway, that article is so full of it. That guy is quite the clown with one heck of an ego. He needs a girl friend or boy friend.

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04/02, 11:40pm | report spam | close Reply |
Use AppleScript

The suggested "improvements" can all be done with AppleScript.
Some of the suggested features are quite attractive. But I'm not ready to bash Apple. I have to use an XP laptop for part of my work, and still prefer OS X to Windows hands down.

I like OS X because of the stability, multitasking, and opening up of the Mac platform to open source for programming. I'm willing to let go of some of those OS 8/9 features in order to get these benefits.

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04/02, 11:44pm | report spam | close Reply |
Re: Re: Go John

These two clowns must be John C. Dvorak wanna-bes'.

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04/02, 11:51pm | report spam | close Reply |
Re: Go John

Why do you post such long a** kissing derivative drivel?

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04/02, 11:57pm | report spam | close Reply |
Blah Blah

This entire article boils down to

1. bring back labels
2. bring back pop up folders
3. get rid of the column view
4. Hey! Use the Windows Explorer as the Mac finder!
5. Psst. Did you notice how there aren't HISTORIES in the back/forward toolbar buttons!!!
6. Long live OS 9

This is the same guy who tested X by watching a movie clip under a transparent terminal (you know, the way everyone watches a video clip) and then said, you know, the finder's slow, when I shook the transparent terminal, the video underneath jerked some. Gimme a f****** break.

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04/03, 12:29am | report spam | close Reply |
re: Go John

and I should pay the slightest attention to a troll who doesn't even have the courage of his convictions to SIGN HIS NAME to his drivel ... why exactly?

_Chas_
Maitland, FL

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04/03, 12:48am | report spam | close Reply |
Go John...

See... Stupid morons have posted here!

Apples Market Share is going down because they are failing to give the majority what they want.

You like Mac OS X, great. Its still c***. (Yes I use it. YUCK)

Apple invents Mac OS X? NOT, each and every one of you who has a mind (small percentage) directly understands that Apple did not write anything but a horrible interface on top of BSD Unix. And they are not even up to the latest one which means that the next version we have to pay for is going to break our current software collections.

Rah Rah Rah - Apple is great. NOT. Stop being cheerleaders for a company that disrespect you and does not care about any person, steals from people and abuses opensource. Wake UP! See the truth. Apple is destroying a community that was once great.

Mac OS X will never hold a candle to earlier versions of the OS which are far superior in every way from User Productivity to File Management to Speed and many things in between.

As for Mac OS X, only a fool with no knowledge of Microsoft products would say that Microsoft stole from Apple. The exact opposite is true with Mac OS X! Those icky finder windows are the Microsoft My Computer Window. The Dock is simply the windows task bar.

Again, Apple is a failing company. We need a better alternative to this trash they call a computer!

A thousand curses upon those who will not see the truth!

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04/03, 12:59am | report spam | close Reply |
UGH..

Please do not put the 1000 curses on me!

When I first saw Mac OS X was in 1997 and it was the Mac OS X server product. I knew then that we were heading down a road that would not be pleasant. The whole thing was to NeXT Like. It did not look right, it did not act right, and it definitely did not feel right.

Still I kept my mouth shut. But knew that a bad road was on the horizon for US Mac Users.

**SIGH**

And low doth the time pass and what I have is a computer that I really do not like. Thats me, not speaking for anyone else. But I really do not like Mac OS X at all. And I am interested in upgrading. So I look around. I like the hardware Apple has, especially the wide screens but Mac OS X does not function very well for me when I am designing.

I have been playing with my boyfriends Windows XP PC and it has a far superior user interface to me than Mac OS X does. XP has made some leaps and bounds and I can upgrade my computer and my software for the cost of just a Mac.

So what do I do? Nothing at the moment. But the thousand curse person is right - I am not happy with Apple and I am their prime market. I may not buy Apple in the future because Apple really does not respect me as an end user and potential client.

Oh and btw, don't assume that everyone is a Mr. Could be a Ms. Could be a Mrs. Or even a Ms. Thing! ;)

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04/03, 01:02am | report spam | close Reply |
Well...

First, for the guy saying how much better OS9 is over OSX, your argument might work better if you actually brought up a REASON or two. Give solid reasons why you think OS9 is better, then people might care.

As for the article, I have to say, beyond his extended Spartial Finder comments - which I can understand, and don't go against him for, but also don't absolutely agree with - and his dislike for the Dock, he makes some pretty good suggestions and statements. I love OSX, give me it over OS9 anyday, but indeed, Apple has been amazingly unimaginative with what they have done with the OSX Finder. It is horribly under-developed, and does indeed show a great lack of vision. Live search folders are a fabulous idea. The idea of Metadata is something that I 100% agree with should be done, and hope the rumors that these elements are indeed coming thanks to the BeOS guy are in fact true.

Yes, I can do meta searches for my music in iTunes. But being able to do this with ANY file, straight from the Finder, would give the Finder so much more power. You wouldn't NEED a seperate program just to filter out and search for specific types of images, music, or whatnot, and the files that don't have programs to do that would suddenly gain that benefit. As well, the NeXT style shelf is also a great idea. One of my biggest complaints about OSX is moving files from one place to another (which I also thought was a royal pain under OS9 and those before it). The addition of Copy and Paste for files is great, but without Cut to back them up, and the inability to grab things from more than one place for the move, the feature is horribly crippled.

So, I do disgree with him on certain points, but I very much back his belief that when Apple rebuilt the Mac OS from the ground up, they should have taken that opportunity to put more of that Apple innovation into it.

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04/03, 01:02am | report spam | close Reply |
Hate Mac OS X

Hey, just wanted to point out that even WOZ has said on several occassions in articles and publically that he does not like Mac OS X either.

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04/03, 01:04am | report spam | close Reply |
Opinions Count...

I think there is 'some' meat in the Article.

I've yet to say to myself that working in the finder compared to the Windows Explorer seems snappier on similarily powered machines ... if truth around all the memory it takes to have layered windows, it makes sense. I've been using both since 1994 ... even if it is perception.

If I ever ran Apple ... I'm sure I'd have a small team that listened to all critics and if a consensus on an opinion warranted ... I'd order the OS to be beefed up in that area ... isn't Apple doing this?

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04/03, 01:15am | report spam | close Reply |
hmf..

Someone said "Apple has been amazingly unimaginative with what they have done with the OSX Finder. It is horribly under-developed, and does indeed show a great lack of vision."

Here here!!! I totally agree with this statement!

Mac OS X had so much potential but the reality is a grossly unusable product. Its like expecting a dozen roses and getting a box of fertilizer.

BTW Everything about Mac OS 9 is better. Its faster, everything works, you can actually buy a scanner that works out of the box (still have never found a scanner that works with OS X out of the box with no additional expense or extra utilities).

Mac OS X is made for left handed people. Yet most of the world (something like 96% of the world) is right handed. So the whole interface is really hard to operate.

Apple mice suck! NO Scroll wheel.

You can not seem to turn the computer on from the keyboard anymore (how sad, Apple innovates and then they go backwards).

They have these totally dumb "application menus" which is a messed up version of the old finder that really used to work well.

When me Mum calls and asks about her computer and I try to explain how to quit an application because Apple shifted the menus around with no real useful reasoning behind it, I have to wonder if there is anyone out in Cupertino who understands anything about human beings, Mac Users and interface design.

Its all just so sad. But the sadest part is not the fact that Mac OS X desperately needs sorting out. What is totally sad is the complete ignorance and disrespect from the Mac OS X rah rah crowd as was said earlier! All of you who disrespect people Mac Users who feel that have lost something in this transitions deserve a kick in the a**.

Show some respect. Its not all about you. Its about US. And some of us need help. Some of us want Labels, button views, and pop up folders.

And at least one of us wants the return of the application switcher menu on the right side of the menu bar.

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04/03, 01:17am | report spam | close Reply |
Re: Go John

You said: "The Dock is simply the windows task bar." Get your facts straight. The Dock is as old as NeXT OS -- late 80's. In fact, the OSX dock and the NeXT dock are far more alike than the Windows taskbar. Microsoft swiped the idea from NeXT. Please check your facts before opening your mouth!

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04/03, 01:21am | report spam | close Reply |
Opinions Count?

"If I ever ran Apple ... I'm sure I'd have a small team that listened to all critics and if a consensus on an opinion warranted ... I'd order the OS to be beefed up in that area ... isn't Apple doing this?"

Our user group does not see this. There has not been a significant upgrade to the Mac OS X interface since the Public Beta.

We have suffered with this to long!

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04/03, 01:25am | report spam | close Reply |
NeXT?

NeXT was as complete failure. A has been that never was. Maybe Microsoft will switch to BSD too but give us a decent user interface so we can all "switch" to a superior platform.

You jerky NeXT Cronies where baby pants!

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04/03, 01:32am | report spam | close Reply |
Consensus

A true professional will tell you that consensus is the worst way to design and interface because the vast majority of users do not even have a clue (including the engineers at Apple) what an end user needs or wants.

Apple needs a to put a true interface designer like TOG back in charge of the OS X interface. There is some good stuff in there but until it is sorted out so everyone can use it and feel comfortable with it, this new OS will never be a success.

Heck its desperately hard to get software for your Mac before and now its a total pain. When you can go to Walmart and buy a game for your Mac then Apple will be able to increase its market share. Until then we are two isolated islands in a vast sea of controversy.

The Island of Mac OS 9 and earlier Users who are kind and accepting and the Island of creepy disrespectful Mac OS X Ogres who treat everyone like dirt. Clean up your act OS X people. You suck. You are mean, abusive and just plain ignorant!

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04/03, 01:36am | report spam | close Reply |
Scanner

This hit home: Where exactly can I get a Mac OS X compatible scanner for my G4 that works out of the box? I have been looking and can not find one that works.

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04/03, 01:40am | report spam | close Reply |
How about games?

Hey, I like to play games on my Mac but since switching to Mac OS X I am also having a hard time finding accessories.

I have gone through _FOUR_ game controllers and not a single one of them works. Someone said something about HID being built in (what ever the h*** HID is) but it has not worked with any of the name brand joysticks I have purchased.

Everyone is touting Mac OS X, but I regret upgrading because nothing seems to work with it or be compatible.

God only knows whats going to happen to us NeXT. I just hope its not as aweful as this game situation is right now.

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04/03, 01:46am | report spam | close Reply |
Thoughts

What I like about X:
1. Stability
2. UNIX (but so is Linux)

What I don't like:
1. Slow, even on newer systems (but this can be remedied)
2. The dock is not too efficient (bouncing icons, a visual mess)
3. Harder on the eyes (at least on my CRT)
4. Takes up more real estate than 9
5. You have to pay for updates often that restore the features they left out that were in 9 to begin with.

OS X does have a lot of non-intuitve features. They hired some firm to come up with the new interface, but they spent too much time making it pretty and forgetting about integrating intuitve features. We'll see.

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04/03, 01:58am | report spam | close Reply |
Face it!

OK folks, fact is:
OS 9 = past
OS X = future

What are you going to do about it?
Switch? Good luck!
Keep on using your G3 with OS 9 until one day it dies? Say goodbye to computer evolution!

Cheers!

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04/03, 02:05am | report spam | close Reply |
G3

I'll keep my G3 until it no longer meets my needs, then upgrade. Apple's not going to get any more money from me than absolutely necessary until I see them showing me and other veteran Mac Users the respect we deserve.

Until then, lets hope Apple cleans up both its act and what it is trying to push on consumers.

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04/03, 02:09am | report spam | close Reply |
Stability?

Holy Cow Batman! These Mac OS X morons keep touting stability but Mac OS X has far more crashes, kernel panics, inabilities and shortcomings than Mac OS 9 ever did.

In fact, my OS 9 configuration never crashes but Mac OS X crashes all the time.

Stability? This is a lie! Especially if you are a poweruser. Mac OS X is a crashprone piece of junk. Stop lieing. Tell the truth.

Just like all those dummies who say, oh you do not need to restart when you install new software. The last 4 Mac OS X Updates made me restart.

Tell the truth. Stop lieing. Mac OS X is terrible, unstable and hard to use.

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04/03, 02:10am | report spam | close Reply |
Get a grip

OS X is different. Not a disaster, not an insult, not grossly unusable. It's different. A GUI is just a tool. Learn it, use it, make it work for you. If a user interface makes you emotional, GET A LIFE! Take a walk, smell some flowers, meet some people, move something besides your index finger. Your computer is a machine, not a friend.

Apple markets its products to geeks, not your basic WalMart consumer who walks up to a pimply 16-year-old and asks, "What computer should I buy?" The emphasis on open source shows that Apple IS listening. They'll get it right. RELAX.

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04/03, 02:11am | report spam | close Reply |
right

Mac OS 9=current existance for 90% of Mac Users
Mac OS X=a non functional OS that is a failing user experience

Windows & Linux=the future of computing for people who live in the real world or 99% of us.

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04/03, 02:12am | report spam | close Reply |
Get a Life

Abandon the Mac and buy a real computer.

Dude, you are getting a Dell!

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04/03, 02:13am | report spam | close Reply |
OS X rocks

I don't understand all the hate around here. Yeah the Finder has some faults, and it's not OS X's greatest strength, but overall OS X is an amazing OS.

Just one example of the genius of OS X's finder is the file browsing window design. On top one has icon-shortcuts to common destinations, fully customizable. A field for the "find" command is easly available. And collumn view is simply unparalled when it comes to file browsing. Even better, it's entirely customizable!

Many others abound. Yes, OS X is slower, but it makes sense that Apple designed it for tomorrow's computer, this way it has room to grow (unlike Mac OS)

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04/03, 02:16am | report spam | close Reply |
Finder and scanner

Scanner first. I just recently bought an Epson Perfection 2400 Photo and it runs just fine with the supplied TWAIN driver.

Finder. I like column view - but I was frustrated with it at first, because it was a pain to move files from one folder to another in a different tree. So what I did was open two finder windows, one on top of the other and spread them wide so I get 4-5 columns in each. This scheme uses most of the screen real estate, but it's now easy to move files around - and it's also handy for keeping two separate business file areas open at the same time.

The other thing that gives me the same functionality as OS9's tabbed folders at the bottom of the screen is to drag a folder or document you need frequent access to up to the top of a finder window. That creates an alias to the folder or document that, when clicked once, causes the column view to pop to that folder or file. This makes for very quick navigating through the finder. I also like the little find command box at the top of the finder window. Very handy.

There's lots of good little tricks in OSX. It's different than OS9, but I prefer OSX's finder over OS9's.

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04/03, 02:18am | report spam | close Reply |
Zero Understanding

Some of you are really out there in left field.

1. If your life is about playing the latest games, then buy a PC. This was also true during OS9 era.

2. Buying Mac software at Walmart? What could you possibly be looking for at a Walmart? A label maker, Deer Hunter? Anyway, buy on-line there's plenty to choose from.

3. OS9 is behind the times in terms of what a modern OS should be. I NEVER had a single Jaguar crash, and I can run a butt load of stuff simultaneously and not have to worry about virtual memory. I could go on...

4. OS9's finder's does not accomodate for different work habits.
Not everyone enjoy's having a mess of windows floating around or pop folders at bottom of the screen or a mess in the Apple menu.

Bottom line, get with the times. We finally have an industrial strength OS that can power any corporate site and is freaking easy to work with. These are two very tough goals and it's only going get better.

Most of the complainers that I've met just don't want to spend the time on MacOSX or are instantly annoyed not having the Apple menu or the application menu as they did before. I had the same issues. It took about a week of stumbling and then I NEVER WANTED TO GO BACK TO OS9.

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04/03, 02:20am | report spam | close Reply |
Apple Markets?

You got some of it right. Apple does not market to geeks, (they use Linux). They market to stupid morons dumb enough to buy the line of c*** the push. Only an idiot would put down Walmart. Apple fell in its corporate ratings while Walmart went up. So who is really succeeding? Walmart and every consumer who goes there to buy software, etc. Who is failing? Apple and everyone who buys Apple products. They pay more, they get less and it does not work correctly out of the box.

You say relax, Apple will get it right. Well maybe (probably not but I will give you the benefit of the doubt) but the real issue is that it should have been right right out of the box. But it still is not right even some 3 years into this devistating experience and there are no signs of improvement.

Oh and yes, to the person who said that these Mac OS X facist are destroying the Mac Community: KUDOS!

They are. They are hurting all of us.

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04/03, 02:22am | report spam | close Reply |
Re: Go John & more

I pretty much agree with the criticisms about Mac OS X. It's still too far to be considered a good OS at this point but I sure look forward to see a much more evolved version which will fullfill my needs and expectations. What's wrong about OS X is that the transition from OS 9 to a fully functional OS X is very long. Granted the task is not easy but I always feel like Apple pushed things forward a little too fast. BTW, color labels are a great feature which should be reintroduced in OS X. We could always find another way to replace them but why throw away something that turned out to be very handy ?

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04/03, 02:28am | report spam | close Reply |
um getting a Dell!

wow cool!!!

now i can go almost anywhere and buy thing for my computer cheap! i can get a pvr card for less than $100 bucks. i can exchange files with ease and not have to worry about mac file bull hocky.

the world is good when things work together, cool toys can be found and i can have fun with out dealing with mac snobbery.

geez i though people who used mac 9 were bad but these X people are real cretans.

LONG LIVE LINUX

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04/03, 02:28am | report spam | close Reply |
Re: Stability?

Cool, it only crashes on your box! That's awesome! I couldn't be happier!

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04/03, 02:29am | report spam | close Reply |
Remember OS 8

Was a big thing ... 8.6 was finally a 'GOOD' OS.

OSX is a much larger change ... figure OSX v11 (what's going to be the versioning? OSXI ?) will be the 'one to have'.

It's not that Apple isn't doing a good job ... it's just a monumental task and keeping up on Hardware is slipping (design nice, cpu stinks) as well as spitting out all these iApps.

If they build a better hardware box for a reasonable price ... they will come. (er .. or switch?)

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04/03, 02:34am | report spam | close Reply |
re:Amiga Comment

Apple could go the way of the Amiga ...

It's slightly different, but yes ... a LOT can change quickly and even a short 2 Years when Apple looses more and more education (because of price) and loses more and more in the basic graphics design (photoshop, etc.) that I see happening ...

Apple is pushing XServe, Remote Desktop, etc, hopefully 970 chip comes across the line 'soon' and makes a difference so believe this will not happen .... but stranger things have happened.

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04/03, 02:35am | report spam | close Reply |
Go John & More

"I pretty much agree with the criticisms about Mac OS X. It's still too far to be considered a good OS at this point but I sure look forward to see a much more evolved version"

Agreed. Its like they threw the baby out with the bathwater. There were so many great things in Mac OS 9, heck in Mac OS 8.5, 8, 7.5, 7 that are gone from X that would make people feel really good to have back.

Why in the name of Allah do we have to wait to get labels back? Why did they take away the pop up folders? Why is grid spacing so wide? Why do icons move on their own to a different location when the finder crashes? Why did they make a calculator that can not even calculate the billions Steve Jerk makes with out using a power? Show me those damn Zeros! I wanna know how much money that creep is cheating me and everyone else out of with his friggin plane and stock options.

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04/03, 02:40am | report spam | close Reply |
p***

bough my mac to look at p***.

just a hobby.

but it does not even do p*** websites well and our MUG pres told me that i needed to spend $150 to upgrade the OS in order to look at naked pix.

sorry but it was a mistake to buy a mac and now i have to pay out of pocket more money to have a computer that works the way it should have when i bought it.

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04/03, 02:43am | report spam | close Reply |
About Folder Labels Etc.

Freaking unbelievable... Some folk's idea of a good OS revolves around the ability to have color labels for folders and other interface "enhancements".

The stereotypical Mac users is creative, well educated, hip etc. By some of the comments made here, it's quite clear that some were just plain morons.

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04/03, 02:50am | report spam | close Reply |
???

What is this thing that Mac OS X people have about defending Apple no matter what the expense is?

I like my computer and I run Mac OS 9. I do not like Mac OS X. Have it, use it, don't like it. Does not meet my needs and it makes me feel unhappy each time I boot into X. But thats me.

Yet when I look at lists like this and see people bitterly defending Apple when clearly Apple has made so many dramatic mistakes with this new system that have alienated me and so many other people.

Now we are contending with a group of X people who continue to put us down saying we do not know what we are talking about. Clearly I know my situation. Its not yours, its mine. And X does not in its current iteration work for me.

I do not think its my future, at least in this current state and I also think its a huge mistake for Apple to make iApps because it kills any possibility for a diversity in the developer community as Apple is now far more repressive than Microsoft ever was.

Yet I am getting put down in my community for not switching - well actually going back to Mac OS 9. Thats not right.

We do have a huge and painful split in the community and Apple is making it worse. This is not helpful people.

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04/03, 02:54am | report spam | close Reply |
Long-winded

Jesus, that guy is the most long-winded writer I've ever read in my entire life. What a waste of reading time.

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04/03, 02:55am | report spam | close Reply |
X vs. 9

I use both OS X and OS 9 regularly, but I find myself preferring OS X's interface over OS 9's. Let me break it down by OS:

OS X Likes:
- Column view makes it easy to tunnel to files I want
- Toolbars, when customized properly, are a godsend
- The Finder is more flexible. It can work the new way (toolbars, big icons, single window mode) or you can set it the old way (no toolbars, smaller icons, folders spawn new windows) or even better, you can make it a hybrid of the two.
- When I want a window out of the way, it gets sucked into the dock, it doesn't leave its title bar floating around the screen
- Menu extras don't leave controls hanging off an edge of the screen by a small tab many novice users never figure out what it does.
- Quartz text looks amazing on LCD screens
- Finder can be killed and a replacement used (like PathFinder)
- Many lost features can be restored via third party program (windowshading, labels, system sounds, apple menu items, etc.)
- File searches integrated into Finder
- You can select a printer on-the-fly, no more Chooser
- Automatically generates thumbnail icons for image files; works great in conjunction with the wide range of icon sizes.
OS X Dislikes:
- Yes the interface is slow
- Theme options are limited to variants of the Aqua layout (unlike Kaleidoscope free-form schemes)
- Popup windows were nice

OS 9 Likes:
- Zippy interface
- More mature customization tools (Kaleidoscope again)
- Less restrictive file system
OS 9 Dislikes:
- Collapsing via windowshade leaves lots of titlebars on the screen
- No way to dock application switcher without using third party utility for constant view of running programs
- Launching programs or performing certain actions grinds the OS to a halt (hard to get used to after using a fully multitasked OS)
- Rigid interface. You can customize little things (fonts, colors), but there's no real way to dramatically change the way the Finder works to the degree of, say, picking between single window mode and folders-open-new-window mode
- Difficult for novices to figure out how to easily launch and application; users must always burrow whereever the application is installed.

Neither OS is perfect, I can't use either out of the box without adding some customizations. But I've noticed you can do a lot more with OS as more people are beginning to realize how powerful it can be (Konfabulator for example). Give Apple your feedback if you don't like it, but also take the time to explore the new features and ways of doing things. If you don't like it, odds are you can make it go back to almost exactly how it was before, either through tinkering with the preferences or with third party utilities. Choice is a good thing!

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04/03, 02:56am | report spam | close Reply |
bout Folder Labels Etc

Its more than labels - the article clearly shares that to the average user, the finder is the computer. This seems a correct concept to me.

End users have expectations that have been developed over some 20 years and those expectations have been destroyed. People are upset about it. They are upset at having to pay more for upgrades and not getting the tools they need.

Its a real issue.

Please do not put other Mac Users down because they are expressing frustration at having needs that are not met.

Not everyone has the kind of money that Steve Jobs makes. Not all of us can afford every little shareware application in order to replace the functionality we expect in our computer.

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04/03, 02:59am | report spam | close Reply |
Folder in Dock

Yea, you can do that but it take SOOOOOO LOOOONNNNNG to pop up and navigate that its easier to tunnel through those ugly finder windows.

Oh and yes, the article was SOOO LONG too!

And it has some extremely legitimate points.

Apple is not doing a very good job.

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04/03, 03:00am | report spam | close Reply |
Re: Go John...

Wow, looks like someone forgot to take his happy pill today. That mindless rant reminded me of the bogus Saddam speeches we've been seeing on the news lately.

To the guy who wrote that: you need some professional help, man. Seriously. Make the call.

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04/03, 03:04am | report spam | close Reply |
OS9

i think OS 9 is far easier to learn and use for novice users than X will ever be. Make a pop up folder with all the novice's apps and boom you have something far better than that crummy dock.

death to x..

Long live Mac OS 9!!

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04/03, 03:09am | report spam | close Reply |
who cares?

my mac works great in 8.5

meets my needs

not upgrading until Apple makes a decent computer with a better operating system

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04/03, 03:13am | report spam | close Reply |
Groups

Mac OS 7, 7.5, 8, 8.5, 9... Users = Productive creative interesting people

Mac OS X Users = time wasting abusive snotsuckers who think they are better than everyone else

Windows Users = People who live in the real world and pay the Mac OS 9 people for their creative work and laugh at the slow moving x time wasters

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04/03, 03:14am | report spam | close Reply |
Internal Culture Clash

Macs were always popular in higher education and scientific disciplines. For most in that community segment, MacOSX is just the greatest thing becuase it's a Mac and becuase it's a Unix. This crowd used OS9 but needed much more.

The other important market is the creative arts, graphic designers etc. These folks are at a disavantage since all they needed was OS9 -despite the crashes. For many in this segment, MacOSX is quite foreign.

What can we do to mend the riff??

1. Keep an open mind.
2. Agree to disagree.
3. The unix folks need to be more humble and more accepting.
4. The OS9 folks need to be less arrogant and more accepting.
5. Learn from each other.

Sometimes a good riff is necessary to understand each other. The feud will continue because the cultures are passionate about their OS and both of these groups have been with the Mac from day one -make no mistake about it.

Also there's no going back to OS9. Apple would have been dead if they stayed with OS9. MacOSX breathes new life into the platform and it will get better and better and better and better...

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04/03, 03:16am | report spam | close Reply |
Linux

Linux Users = the true geniuses in the crowd

They laugh at everyone (especially Mac OS X users) and are usually pretty fun to party with - well at least they are more fun to spend time with than people who advocate Mac OS X.

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04/03, 03:18am | report spam | close Reply |
Ars Technica is a bunch

of a windows weenies. That's not to say the guy doesn't have some good points, but he could make his "article" a lot less long-winded. The sum total of his content is somewhere about 15 sentences.

He might like the cluttered, inefficient UI of Windows Explorer. I don't.

The finder is not the computer. Anyone who believes the the computer is the file browser is stuck in the mid-80s. Boring, boring, boring.

Future generations of the "finder", if you'd like to call it that, aren't going to be centered around displaying files. They'll be centered around developing content in a mostly application-less environment, where the executables are generally going to be as transparent, interactive, and scriptable as commands and pipes are in a shell.

Imagine a finder that doesn't require you to open an app in order to modify a graphic file or text document. Imagine a computing environment in which you pick "widgets" that act as tools and customize them to fit the content you are working on: a text block in one part of the screen, an XML import block here, a crop and resize tool here, a real-time terminal output here - all aware of each other, interactive, and working cohesively within the same workflow and product "document".

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04/03, 03:21am | report spam | close Reply |
Higher Education?

Thats a total oxymoron.

1. Education on any level is filled with corrupt thinking idiots who destroy our civilisation with their stupidity

2. The entire education market is abandoning Mac totally never to return to a closed system governed my a egomaniac who does not know the differenc between what he wants and what his customers want

3. Everyone is abandoning the Mac - Apple = there is no future here

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04/03, 03:30am | report spam | close Reply |
Failure...

"Imagine a finder that doesn't require you to open an app in order to modify a graphic file"

Which is exactly why Apple is doomed to completely fail and go the way of Amiga. Instead of doing what they do best which is make great computers with tightly integrated Operating Systems they are trying to corner the entire market and be all things to all people.

Apple will never succeed at this task. No one can be great at all things. Sure, you can be a generalist and handle a lot of things but then you do nothing well. Which is a good statement about Mac OS X. It does nothing well.

And in trying to do everything, Apple is alienating everyone who writes code for the Mac. Apple shifted the WWDC. Well I am not going. I see the writing on the wall. Apple will not be a viable platform for any developer because Apple will steal your ideas and make them part of this new system.

A system if I might add is a total joke. A widget to manipulate photos and text. If I were Adobe I would completely stop making products for the Mac. Their choice not mine.

Its depressing for me to say this but Apple has killed my future Mac developement. If you were smart you would realise they are doing the same to you and everyone.

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04/03, 03:36am | report spam | close Reply |
Random Comments

- Compare to Windows Explorer, the finder in MacOSX is SUPERB!!

- The finder is not computer. Do you spend more time in the finder than in applications? I sure don't.

- The Linux community is full of posers, beware.

- Linux doesn't have ANYTHING on macosx. Since it only has a subset of the functionality and not the other way around. Having no firm direction guarantees that Linux will be behind MacOSX.

- MacOSX needs modern hardware and lots of memory. If you do not have this then I can understand your frustration but don't blame the OS. Look at your hardware and perhaps its time to move up. Surely, you cannot expect Apple to design their OS based on what a 233 iMac can handle. This would be stupid in so many ways.

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04/03, 03:36am | report spam | close Reply |
Re: Face it!

>OK folks, fact is:
>OS 9 = past
>OS X = future
>What are you going to do about it? Switch? Good luck!
>Keep on using your G3 with OS 9 until one day it dies?
>Say goodbye to computer evolution!

Yes, that's true, and that's the saddest part of the whole plot. It makes me sad to think that the future of the once most innovative platform is slow, bulky, inneficient and repressive. I really really really hope I'm wrong =(

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04/03, 03:42am | report spam | close Reply |
repressive

thanks, agreed. i feel repressed by mac os x and i have had to use it 100% the time for the past 2 years. am very unhappy.

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04/03, 03:43am | report spam | close Reply |
Off Base

Apple does listen... Could it be that complainers are just a handful and not significant in numbers? Could it be that this forum is being pounded by a handful of loosers who have nothing better to do?

This forum is anonymous it's hard to tell who is posting. My guess is that we have two or three of those loosers on board just posting like mad.

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04/03, 03:51am | report spam | close Reply |
Go to a MUG

Nope, I think you are wrong the rift is huge and involves millions of people.

If Apple listened we would not have this rift between x and 9 users. I've been to quite a few MUG meetings lately as I try to transition and its become crystal clear that there is a significant problem and if its not solved quickly the user base will go from 3% to 1.5%!

Grow up you poser. There's a big world out there with millions of people. If even a million people (and the number of disgruntled Mac Users is far higher) are unhappy thats to many.

1 million people x $999 iBook = $999,000,000 in gross sales that Apple could make and would make if they would do their job correctly.

Maybe Al Gore can slap some sense into that worthless Jobs jerk.

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04/03, 03:51am | report spam | close Reply |
RE: repressive

MacOSX is the second most open platform out there today. Linux is obviously first. So what's repressive about that?

Again, this is probably about the user experience...

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04/03, 03:52am | report spam | close Reply |
Re: Failure

Apple shifted the WWDC. Well I am not going. I see the writing on the wall.

What does the writing say?

Apple will not be a viable platform for any developer because Apple will steal your ideas and make them part of this new system.

As opposed to, say, Microsoft?

If I were Adobe I would completely stop making products for the Mac.

I wouldn't miss 'em. For that matter, I wouldn't miss Office if MS stopped making it for the mac, too.

Its depressing for me to say this but Apple has killed my future Mac developement.

Development of what?

If you were smart you would realise they are doing the same to you and everyone.

The industry has changed. More and more features are becoming part of the OS. The long-term convergency is in total hardware-software-development. If you don't like it, start your own OS for your own hardware for your own product purposes. Everything else will be a more diluted, mainstream version of what a specialist needs.

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04/03, 03:53am | report spam | close Reply |
One Button Mouse

MacOSX still supports a one button mouse, how complicated can the interface be??????

If you are totally new to the platform, when there are no old habits to break then MacOSX is way much easier than OS9. I have a few switcher friends as evidence.

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04/03, 03:54am | report spam | close Reply |
Al Gore

Al Gore is a poser and most of us have given up on complaining and sending feedback to Apple. It just does not work. MOst of us are looking at our options and trying to decide where to go because the current direction has destroyed all our useable software and obsoleted our hardware unless we stay with prior versions of the mac.

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04/03, 03:54am | report spam | close Reply |
Al Gore

Yea, but he is a funny poser. Did you see him on the Lettermen show after the election? He was a riot!

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04/03, 03:55am | report spam | close Reply |
Re: Higher Education?

For the idiot above that thinks Apple is dead: it doesn't matter even if it were true. Microsoft's closed standards are even deader. Give me a choice between a company that forces me to buy hardware from them while retaining open standards on my work vs. a company that provides their software for lots of hardware vendors but locks me into using their tools and I'll pick the company that preserves my work and keeps it portable, not the company that saves me a few bucks on disposable hardware.
Higher education? Try it, buddy.

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04/03, 03:59am | report spam | close Reply |
One Button Mouse

People who use one button mice are simpletons.

Mac OS X has native two button + scroll wheel capability right out of the box. Its just that Apple is so incompetant they can not design a scroll mouse. Long live Logitech!

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04/03, 04:06am | report spam | close Reply |
I like the 1-button mouse

What do I need a two-button mouse for?

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04/03, 04:08am | report spam | close Reply |
Re: Go to a MUG

I love to but don't have the time...

I work doing full blown enterprise level applications using Macromedia's JRUN, Coldfusion, Oracle 9i, Sybase, J2EE and all the latest open source software.

Don't try any of the above on OS9, the system was to unstable to be taken seriously. So none of these apps saw the light of day. I had to work on two different machines to that kind of work. OSX handles all of them simultaneously and without a hitch.

Most people don't need this? True, Apple needs to keep the other crowd happy and for the most part they have and I'm sure they will continue to do so i.e., the iLife package and evolving OS.

Have faith. The world is a better place -except for that stupid war, but let's not get into that now...

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04/03, 05:01am | report spam | close Reply |
He's right

Siracusa's article is well argued, coherent and emminently sensible. Apple, take note.

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04/03, 05:29am | report spam | close Reply |
Gollum

"They are. They are hurting all of us."

Stop hurting us. We need our precioussss Mac Ossssss.

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04/03, 05:56am | report spam | close Reply |
My view

My view of OSX is two-folded. I like the fact that the OS is built on BSD and you can have more threads going. I hate the fact that it's built on Next. This is one reason why we have such a crappy mail applet. Apples iMovie is slow and prone to crash. OSX is slownly evolving but can it get there fast enough?

- Compare to Windows Explorer, the finder in MacOSX is SUPERB!!

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04/03, 05:58am | report spam | close Reply |
yeahh

most of you have seperated the mac community not realizing we use the same computers.
it is good to critique, but it turns to the sour side when a person preaches. I didn't buy Mac OS X for its command line interface but for the graphical user interface. Which i am satisfied because i finally have a operating system that makes sense.
Don't get me wrong, i loved mac os 7.5-8.6 but when 9 came around the corner i knew it wouldn't be around for long. As long as Apple updates their software and doesn't use, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" motto, i am alright.
Windows XP is a good example of a company listening to the public. Unfortunetly,�it's painful to look at without cringing.
As a current mac os x user, i just don't care.

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04/03, 05:58am | report spam | close Reply |
My view - 2

What was lost in editing: The windows explorer is far better that the current version of the OSX finder.

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04/03, 07:13am | report spam | close Reply |
If it ain't broke...

"...why throw away something that turned out to be very handy ?"

This one comment summarizes everything Apple did wrong with the OS X Finder. People keep arguing about the tradeoffs between OS 9 and OS X. The point being missed here is that it wasn't necessary to have tradeoffs. The only reason the interface changed (not augmented but changed) was because Jobs and the 1500 NeXT users of the world didn't like it, and didn't think choice was necessary. And who knows if the NeXT crowd even got what they wanted, since the current UI is some weird hybrid.

If you look at the interface of Win2K vs. XP, there are many changes, and many of the changes that MS made to "improve" the user experience are very annoying (imo). On the other hand, MS was smart enough to allow the user to configure almost everything (if not everything) back to Win2K-style usage.

Most of the stuff people cite as missing -- labels, the app menu, the old apple menu and its sub-menus, etc., could easily be there, right along with the new stuff, and who would complain about having choices? OS 9 allowed the App menu to become a (primitive) Dock, and no one was outraged at having it as an option. All Apple really had to do to prevent all the complaining going on, was to leave the old features in, and put one button in the Finder preferences dialog -- "Configure finder to behave like OS 9". "Disable transparency" and "Disable live window resizing" buttons probably wouldn't hurt either.

Keeping old UI features and behaviors, and adding new ones as time goes on, makes sense to me. Instead we have spring loaded folders reappearing in the 10.2 release. Go figure.

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04/03, 07:28am | report spam | close Reply |
OS 9:Put a fork in it

I'm really perplexed by these OS 9 weenies who want to go back to the days of extension conflicts, messy system folders, single user operation, no enterprise apps, cooperative multitasking (*puke*), and the dreaded system bomb. I swear, if I had to see "Sorry, a system error has occured: Continue, Reset" with the continue greyed out, I was going to kill someone.

And for the people saying long live Linux. Get real. Yeah, ANOTHER clone of Unix. If SCO suddenly changed licensing for Unix and made it free, Linux would cease to be relevant. That right there speaks for Linux's innovation. (Hint, it has something to do with the fact that corporations are getting something for free.)

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04/03, 07:41am | report spam | close Reply |
wow

this guy has never been laid.

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04/03, 07:48am | report spam | close Reply |
Re: Thoughts

"What I don't like:
1. Slow, even on newer systems (but this can be remedied)"

Bull. Try opening one app and go to another while the first is launching. QUick in OS X, slow in OS 9. I don't scroll from the top to bottom of windows very often. OS X is fast where it counts.
"2. The dock is not too efficient (bouncing icons, a visual mess)"
Then turn off bouncing.
"3. Harder on the eyes (at least on my CRT)"
Get a theme and install it then. That's very subjective.
"4. Takes up more real estate than 9"
You may have a point, but not by much. I can still use it on an 800x600 screen.
"5. You have to pay for updates often that restore the features they left out that were in 9 to begin with."
No, you don't have to pay. You can stick with 9 and stop whining. If you have some real tips, then submit them. But you haven't said anything substantial, just like everyone else who posted here.

"OS X does have a lot of non-intuitve features. They hired some firm to come up with the new interface, but they spent too much time making it pretty and forgetting about integrating intuitve features. We'll see."

Perhaps you are just used to 9. Anything different and you would have called it "non-intuitive". Which is a complete falsehood. Cmd-N makes more sense now. The trash can changing to an eject icon makes more sense. Column-view is much more intuitive for navigating through nested folders. Even the toolbar icons make it easer to find your apps and documents. How is that non-intuitive.

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04/03, 07:48am | report spam | close Reply |
Apple Divide

This whole "OS 9 vs. OS X" debacle reminds me of the mid-80's, when Apple II users and Macintosh users argued about which platform was better. Apple users were divided into a couple of groups, and most of it was caused be people being too lazy to try something new. Are there any Apple II users left today? What happened to "Apple II Forever?" You OS 9 people are going to look pretty foolish in a couple years, when nobody even remembers what that hacked together POS "System 7 plus platinum" junk OS even was. Stop being afraid and lock yourself into OS X for a month, and you'll forget you even have OS 9 on your Mac. (Unless you are a Quark weenie or you are dumb enough to run OS X on some 300Mhz G3.) When I boot up a couple of my old Macs that are incapable of running OS X, I cringe at the nasty old world boot screen and wonder how many minutes until a single application takes down the whole thing. Yuck - get me back to OS X!

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04/03, 07:49am | report spam | close Reply |
Apple Divide

This whole "OS 9 vs. OS X" debacle reminds me of the mid-80's, when Apple II users and Macintosh users argued about which platform was better. Apple users were divided into a couple of groups, and most of it was caused be people being too lazy to try something new. Are there any Apple II users left today? What happened to "Apple II Forever?" You OS 9 people are going to look pretty foolish in a couple years, when nobody even remembers what that hacked together POS "System 7 plus platinum" junk OS even was. Stop being afraid and lock yourself into OS X for a month, and you'll forget you even have OS 9 on your Mac. (Unless you are a Quark weenie or you are dumb enough to run OS X on some 300Mhz G3.) When I boot up a couple of my old Macs that are incapable of running OS X, I cringe at the nasty old world boot screen and wonder how many minutes until a single application takes down the whole thing. Yuck - get me back to OS X!

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04/03, 08:06am | report spam | close Reply |
Re: If it ain't broke...

" This one comment summarizes everything Apple did wrong with the OS X Finder. People keep arguing about the tradeoffs between OS 9 and OS X. The point being missed here is that it wasn't necessary to have tradeoffs. The only reason the interface changed (not augmented but changed) was because Jobs and the 1500 NeXT users of the world didn't like it, "

One thing that nobody has mentioned is that the Aqua interface along with the Finder and Dock has gotten a lot of Windows users to wake up and notice the Mac. Before MacOS X, people didn't even notice. Now when they see Aqua they think "Wow! I gotta try this." I've talked to many former Windows users that wouldn't even touch a Mac, let alone buy one. And sorry people, Windows users looking to switch carries more weight than MacOS 9 users afraid of change. If you think about it, these people are less likely to upgrade to newer Macs, since OS 9 on their current machines is plenty fast and has everything they ever need.

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04/03, 08:14am | report spam | close Reply |
Some good points...

After all the whining and rabid foaming in the mouth of anti-OS X users here, I have something to say:

John Siracusa makes some good points. Now, instead of writing a bazillion words harping on it, why doesn't he (or all you anti-OS X whiners) grab Apple's developer tools and write a Finder replacement. Make it just like MacOS 9's Finder. Since that was the mecca of user interface design, everyone will flock to it and you'll become a millionaire. Right?

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04/03, 08:22am | report spam | close Reply |
Search folders

He lost me on the search folders. He goes on and on about hopw the spatial finder has to work because people see folders as folders and files as files, then goes and takes a left turn with these folders that aren't folders (we'll just put a different icon on them, people will understand the difference), but act like folders in every way, except you can't drag in files and do a few other things. (And then he goes on talking about proxies vs. aliases like anyone would know the difference.) But then he really loses me because he says "You'd be able to copy it to another drive...". Wouldn't most users who are into this whole spatial finder thing think that copying this folder to a drive was actually copying all the files inside it to a drive, not just the freaking 'search folder' itself?

Oh, and then he has his silly rant about the shelf and how copy/paste of files sucks so bad. Yet, there's only one 'problem' with copy/paste of files. The paste copies the file at that moment in time, not when the copy was done. That's it. Yet he rails off on this thing (in a prev. article) like it was the most broken design concept ever made. Wouldn't it be easier to just fix the copy/paste part so when you copy the file, it puts it in the clipboard right then, and then the whole thing is moot. But, nope, got to have a complex and stupid-a** shelf, but not in the finder, in a finder browser.

Oh, and one of his complaints on the finder is you can have two windows open on the same folder. Well, some people might actually consider this a feature (large folder, lots of files and folders, you want to organize stuff, but don't want to be scrolling up and down, up and down, trying to get the files to the folders).

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04/03, 08:27am | report spam | close Reply |
open/save as browser

i dont understand how people can defend osx's FINDER (note this is different from AQUA which is what many ppl seem to refer to when they talk about "interface")... sure some may find the osx finder "good enough" for the basic use they make of it... but the limitations of the finder for content creators and the myriad of small inconsistencies and bugs for those used to the reliable structure of the os9 finder can't possibly be a GOOD thing.

and if that article was too "theoretical" i shudder to think of what you'd call a "down to earth" article. that was about as concrete, conservative, and back to basics set of improvements for the osx finder as can be. personally i think they would need a more ground up rewrite to make the elegant simple interface for beginners which seamlessly scales into a powerhouse of metadata and iapp style functionality that nobody could complain about.

also, one point he didnt make is that the macos already has a browser, the open/save dialog... my opinion would be to make this finder browser thing he talks of one and the same, so that every app, including the finder, would access that same browser interface when browsing was what you wanted to do... when you want to really get down and dirty with file organization, nothing but a spatial finder will do and he is absolutely correct in saying it should be the basis upon which the entire experience of computing is built.

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04/03, 09:11am | report spam | close Reply |
OS X Finder is pretty bad

The OS X Finder is pretty bad. He's right. Not about all of his points, but at least he is looking at a real weak point of OS X. The Finder is really crummy.

Even worse, though, is the related interface of "Open..." dialogue boxes. Horrendous! Try typing in a few letters to jump to the file you want. You can't. Makes directories with a lot of files a nightmare.

Here's something really annoying... Why can't I manually change the number of culumns in a column view. In the Finder (and elsewhere) it just seems to guess based on the size of the window. If I make the window wider to read longer filenames, it gives me another column. No way I know of to force it.

Also annoying is that Classic hasn't upgraded it's open boxes to match OS X. It makes using Classic apps seem like too separate an environment. Why not bring Classic into the Mac OS era, so its more transparent?

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04/03, 09:12am | report spam | close Reply |
Re:

The article is a long winded version of, "Give me OS 9!!"

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04/03, 09:32am | report spam | close Reply |
Really that different?

Wow, this really seems a dividing point among mac users. I must admit that, as a recent switcher, I'm a bit oblivious to the debate. I'm still making the adjustment from Windows Explorer to the Finder, and I have to say that overall I like the OSX Finder and find it easy to use and navigate. If I have any problem it is with the open/save dialog boxes, where a few times I have saved things to the wrong location even though I swore I did it right (this never happened under Windows, and I'm not sure what's going on, but I did purchase Default Folder X, and that has improved things a bit).

To be honest, I don't see much difference between the OS9 and the OSX Finders. I do think the "spatial" orientation of the OS9 Finder is superior, so I set my OSX Finder preferences to always open a new window (instead of opening in the same window). So if I can do that, and I can get rid of the toolbar (although I wouldn't), and I can mount disks on the desktop, it doesn't seem like OSX is working all that differently. Is it? Am I missing something?

Doug

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04/03, 09:43am | report spam | close Reply |
Re: Really that different

Yes, you are missing something. You're missing 1) that right now the PC-loving Ars crowd has posted alot of junk on here, it's always nice to see them come out of their playground isn't it?, and 2) that some Mac users just don't like OS 9.

The first point is not relevant at all, so let's skip to number 2. X is the future of the platform. Development of 9 has stopped. The X finder, as you point out, works just fine. The Siracusa article is just so much hooey.

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04/03, 09:45am | report spam | close Reply |
missing?

What I think you are missing Doug, is that there are some really really sad people out there,

Z.

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04/03, 10:03am | report spam | close Reply |
Spatial and spring loaded

After reading the article, one thing comes to mind. One feature people clamored for was spring-loaded folders. But isn't this like twelve different violations of the spatial finder? First, it requires you to know the heirarchy of the folders your looking for/drop on. Second, the windows do NOT open where you left them. They open under the cursor. So I think what he's really trying to say is Apple needs to get rid of spring-loaded folders!

BTW, on another point, he talks about how column view shouldn't be included, needs to be a seprate program, etc. But then, as he talks about certain features like find folders and the shelf, he says "and if users don't want to use these, they can ignore them" or something to that affect. But can't you say the same thing about the column view?

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04/03, 10:04am | report spam | close Reply |
Change # of columns

To change the number of columns in column view, grab the bottom of any column divider and move it right or left. This widens/narrows all the columns and decreases/increases the column count.

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04/03, 10:11am | report spam | close Reply |
Bright Future

From reading some of the ramblings it's clear that there are a lot of trolls that respond to stories only to get a reaction. It's clear that many of these anti X responses are written by people that have either never used X or have only used it for a very short time. I was surprised how easy it was for me to talk a friend thru the process of moving his old files and programs from his old OS 9 system to his new computer. It's true that there is an extra layer of complexity involved in setting things up on the classic side. The advantage is that once it's set up right it works fine and lets you gradually move your Apps to X native applications.
People like to say that 9 is faster but I think that this is only skin deep. Once you start running more programs at the same time you can start to see the advantages to OS X. It's nice to be able to download and install applications without having to stop your work while you wait for the installer to finish.
It's often difficult for people to accept change. It would be more productive for these people to stop harping on the few useful 9 features that aren't included and learn the new ways. The fact is that Apples current OS is OS X. Those that stick with 9 will find themselves left behind as more and more developers put there efforts into X applications. Despite what some people like to say the future for Apple and OS X is bright.

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04/03, 10:21am | report spam | close Reply |
Wow, lots of crazy talk

As someone who has been using Apple's computers since before the Mac, I am amazed at a lot of the postings here.

I now use OS X 100% of the time, have for about 2 years. As for OS X being slow, no it isn't. Some Aqua functions may be slow compared to MacOS 9 but that is because they are abstracted from the hardware so they can't kill the OS every 10 minutes like in OS 9. I can go onto an original iMac with 128MB ram and launch every Apple application, every buggy Office application, and have the system still work well. What is slow is non-optimized interface elements and as developers get the hang of cocoa programming many applications are getting significant speed increases from being optimized.

From the end user perspective, Apple is booming right now. How many articles in PC mags praised the Mac OS before OS X? Was doing a switch compain even thinkable? UNIX/Linux people are moving to Apple in mass because they get the ease of use and the power. Windows users are moving to Apple because of things like the iApps and easy application management (and not having to reinstall the OS once a year to keep it running smoothly). Almost every Mac OS 9 person I know has switched to OS X and been much happier by their increase in productivity (working in more than one application at once). In fact the only people I know who don't use OS X at least 75% of the time or more are Quark users, well simply because Quark dropped the ball here.

OS X is fairly easy to customize into something very close to OS 9, just look on versiontracker for the tools to do it. But why limit yourself when new tools go beyond those limitations and can expand your functionality. Who would have ever thought you would be able to Have Apache, Photoshop, a couple web browsers, running happily in the background while burning a DVD and you coded in the foreground on a Mac? Trying to run anything alongside Photoshop before brought the system to its knees if not a system bomb.

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04/03, 10:26am | report spam | close Reply |
?

It is funny I heard all the same c*** when apple went from 6 to 7. Which ended up being os 9. It is the same thing and the same people going oh poor me. It you think you are so good at OS design then I suggest you design one. I am more than willing to wait and see were this can take us. Me I have my office with around 50 machines 20 run X the rest 9. The 9 machines I have had to reload about every 3 months the X machines... So do as you like but please try and write something other than oh poor me c***. Like about the article and the writer of that article.

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04/03, 10:57am | report spam | close Reply |
OS X Rox

I have been using the Mac OS since system 7.1 and I LOVE Mac OS X. The finder is simple and easy to use. No more window clutter and files all over the place. My Mac OS X system has NEVER crashed. Not once. Cant say that about all the years on Mac OS 7-9...

I do not miss Mac OS 9 one single bit. I do not even have classic on my system anymore. Good riddance to Mac OS 9.

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04/03, 11:07am | report spam | close Reply |
Adjust to changes........

It's all a matter of adjustment to changes. Sure when I first worked on OSX I didn't like it. Maybe it was the fact that it ran too slow on my previous machine.

I always wanted to get a laptop (less noise, portability). My pismo is not a speed demon, but handles OSX nicely, especially if you up the RAM. Certainly the system requirements of X are heavier than 9, but that was the case with every operating system upgrade.

When I go back to 9 the snappiness of the GUI compared to X is immediately felt. However, there are other things that matter most on the X setup that make me stick there, like Unix foundation (Postgres, X11 apps etc I can't get on 9).

Different people have different ways of working, and different systems require different ways of working with them. At the end I think users will adjust on the system of choice, which is dictated by functionality on certain tasks. I've adjusted at work on the PC I use. Sure sometimes I miss the Macs functionality but that happens the other way around as well. Now I'm used in the X way, and I can't stand when launching an app not to be able to do anything else, or being afraid to burn a CD while doing something else on the same time.

The fact is that people prefer X or 9 or Windows or Linux because of a set of applications they like using.
IMHO the GUI on the filesystem (finder, explorer) is not as relevant as the GUI on apps or in between apps, but then other people spend all day moving files.

I get a feeling though that the OS 9 way of filesystem navigation would have been a problem in X, because of the deeper filesystem. I'm sure people will bash X, as they will have to open 20 windows every now and then. So maybe the current implementation is not that bad. However, I don't think it hurts to offer both worlds.

For me the most important problem with the current finder is: the threading (performance wise) and the metadata issue. I think the performance will be getting better with time, however the metadata is a delicate point. If the rumors are true and we get in the next versions a BFS like system that would be great, and it opens the path for great things. On the other hand maybe Apple will just follow the Unix crowd for compatibility reasons.

All in all I like X. I think it came into the market quite unfinished and that lead to the controversy. If live window resising and transparency was possible to be deactivated in the first versions, I don't think we would have that division now. But X is the most promising operating system currently on the market. It's not perfect but it's positioned in such a way to accomplish what BeOS didn't manage.

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04/03, 11:10am | report spam | close Reply |
Classic???

What's classic? As soon I download some software that tries to use Classic, I hit cancel button on the Classic's startup window. Nothing against Classic but OSX is a much better experience and I don't crave going back to the days of OS9.

MacOSX is a profound step forward not just for Apple but whole industry. Can't wait for Panther and see what it brings. I'm hoping for workspaces Apple style.

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04/03, 12:05pm | report spam | close Reply |
Go John, indeed.

As always, John Siracusa is right on the money.
I don't expect those who've never really used OS 9 enough to understand the deep meaning of "The Finder IS the computer. The Computer IS the Finder." Unix fans, Windows switchers and filepath suckers will never be able to grasp this fundamental concept. The Finder IS the Mac. Or WAS, better. That is essentially why every discerning user can tell that OS X is NOT a Mac from a mile away.
And that is essentially why most of us are not switching over or buying new machines.
Which is exactly why Apple will fail in the same way NeXT did. "'Great' product, yeah, but NOBODY wants to use it". Reasons abound.
Adobe is already inviting us media creators to switch to Windows. OS X too.

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04/03, 12:11pm | report spam | close Reply |
MacOS X Finder

While there are some great features in MacOS X, the Finder is not one of them, and neither is the Aqua interface. Ask yourself, do you really want a slower interface for the sake of some drop shadows and flashy icons?

For me the answer is simple: no.

Why is the antialiased text so bad, why do I need stripes under text boxes that make the text difficult to read, what's the benefit in having inactive window title bars semi-transparent so that the title bar text is difficult to read?

Why do we have an OS that relies on filename extensions for association with applications (just about the stupidest idea ever)?

Why do we have column views for open/save dialogues? This has to be just about the most confusing piece of UI design I've ever seen.

The other thing holding back X is the state of some of the applications, which just plain suck. Now it's easy to blame the app vendors - but Apple isn't helping.

So, MacOS 9.x stays on my desktop when I have to work, X is on some servers and on my 12" PowerBook - so you can't label me a Luddite. But at the end of the day the feature-set and speed of the 9.x Finder help me get my work done, whereas the X Finder just gets in the way.

Some of you will think different... it happens.

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04/03, 12:12pm | report spam | close Reply |
MacOS X finder comments

"all of you people who claim OSX is the greatest thing since sliced white bread are stupid incompetant morons"

I didn't even read the rest of this guys (overly long) polemic. This statement reflects a closed mind. And someone who can't spell incompetent.

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04/03, 12:29pm | report spam | close Reply |
Re: Go John, Indeed

"I don't expect those who've never really used OS 9 enough to understand the deep meaning of "The Finder IS the computer. The Computer IS the Finder."

Man. That is so deep.

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04/03, 12:50pm | report spam | close Reply |
More Comments

"Ask yourself, do you really want a slower interface for the sake of some drop shadows and flashy icons?"

No, but I do like this feature for creating PDF screenshots which print out nicely and scale well to put in presentations. Remember that it's not just for eye candy in the interfact, it allows system level calls to all of Quartz' (DPS) features. This means app developers get a lot of that stuff for free.

"Why is the antialiased text so bad, why do I need stripes under text boxes that make the text difficult to read, what's the benefit in having inactive window title bars semi-transparent so that the title bar text is difficult to read?"

Antialiased text is quite good in X. Maybe you should adjust your font smoothing preferences so that it matches what you need for your display environment. Everyone raves about the text in X. And I can always read the title bars.

"Why do we have an OS that relies on filename extensions for association with applications (just about the stupidest idea ever)?"

Over 95% of computer users rely on an operating system that relies on file extensions. With the advent of the Internet, sending those users files with absolutely NO identifying characteristics about what file format it is just perpetuates Macs being incompatible with the rest of the world. Yes, metadata a la OS 9 would be more elegant but face it, we live in a networked world now and if we weren't forced to put an extension on a file most of us wouldn't (and didn't during the pre-X days).

"Why do we have column views for open/save dialogues? This has to be just about the most confusing piece of UI design I've ever seen."

Column view, IMO, makes it easier to navigate the filesystem hierarchy quickly. You get a view of multiple paths without having to move back through one branch of the tree (as you did with OS 9's drop down box).

"But at the end of the day the feature-set and speed of the 9.x Finder help me get my work done, whereas the X Finder just gets in the way."

Do crashes, reboots, inability for programs to share the processor, and setting your memory allocation for apps manually help this too? Let's face it, you can get by for a while with classic but all app development is going to be done in X from now on. Eventually, there's going to be a feature or an app that you need and it's not going to be there in OS 9. You're only going to get left behind.

Now that that's out of the way...I do agree that Apple needs to work some of the more spatial features of the pre-X Finder back into the X Finder. But, I don't think we need to move back to purely using the same methodology as OS 9. Yes, maybe some features, but no, not the whole shebang. Interface element customization and location/state persistance within the Finder would be a good thing. Labels would be nice

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04/03, 01:20pm | report spam | close Reply |
Guys ! (And Gals :-)

Let me say that I love OS X. I started with Commodore 64, switched to Amiga 500 and later to Win 3.1. I soon looked for an alternative to Windows and discovered NeXT it was an expensive system, but academic licensing enabled me to buy the OS and some greatest apps I have ever used. I never gave Apple a thought. Their computers were expensive and foreign. Then NeXT got bought by Apple. It was the first time that I took serious notice of Apple. The promisse of new OS that would be built on NeXT and provide all the hoopla of a mainstream OS was just too incredible to believe. I started looking for a Mac right away and bought my Pismo even before Mac OS X was actually released.

I was afraid I wouldn't like OS 9 while waiting for X to come out. But we got along quite well. I do understand all the people missing 9. It was a very different way to "get" a computer and work with it and I believe that it enabled power users to acquire lots of individual ways of working with and relating to their computer, that just got broken in OS X. I am symphatetic with them being forced to give up the way they used their computer. Change can be frightening even when things suck and so much so when nothing seems to be broke. But one has to understand that classic reached its limits with 9. It just couldn't keep with the developments and it kept Mac users on a secluded island. A nice and cosy one, but isolated nevertheles. I know that being crude and just dismissing that people with "get on board or get lost" helps no one. On the other hand it's also a bit "unmature" to sulk and try to stick to a sinking ship just because one is insulted by change. I believe that besides insanely great computers, OS and applications (which of course do have their share of problems), Mac also brings you into this wonderful, sometimes unmature community that is willing to give a hand to a sincere need for help. It's tough to be forced into change, but give it a try and accept a helping hand. It just gets great.

As for the original topic, the Finder. Yes, it could be faster and more optimised and some additional features would help, but it is a good start. I would never ever give the column view away. I do appretiate the spatial metaphor. I use it on the desktop, I use it in some folders, but column view just rocks. And NeXT like shelf to put files temporary on would indeed be great. As for OS X in general. I could never live again without its TRUE multitasking abilities. Working on a number of apps seamlesly, being able to switch to something else while a big file is processed - how could one live without that. I am soooo more productive with it. Imagine bringing together some 100 text files with experimental results. A nightmare in Windows, a managable task in OS 9 with a litle help from some nice utilities, a simple "cat *.txt > results.dat" in OS X. I could go on and on. About Apache, PHP, MySQL, OmniOutiner, OmniGraffle and hundreds of new cre

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04/03, 01:22pm | report spam | close Reply |
Guys cont..

About Apache, PHP, MySQL, OmniOutiner, OmniGraffle and hundreds of new creative and breakthrough apps that new OS X technologies enabled. About the power of UNIX available with a few clicks of a mouse. About simplicity and transparancy of the system. Everyhing is so damn easy and intuitive to configure. Do you even realise that!!! ADSL, sharing, dialup, ...

And as Finder vs. Windows goes. First has anybody noticed how Windows Explorer gets more and more hidden from the user in every new version of Windows? Not on the desktop but under START -> Programes -> Accessories... But to get back to the point. Besides column view the one single most important distinction between OS X and Windows is the level of transparency and the level of remotedness from the actual stuff. In OS X you have direct access and transparent view to (most) of your hard disk. You know where your files are in the file sistem hirarchy and you deal with them directly. What Windows does is build a whole virtual environment on top of the actual architecture. The hierarchy in Windows Explorer is all messed up. Desktop and My Documents are basically on top, but what they really are, is a folder hidden and stashed deep in the actual file system hierarchy, providing great chances for a recursive copy of files. Try to burn your user folder on Win XP with included CD burning abilities. The temporary file gets stored in another folder in your home folder that you're trying to burn, making it impossible! Computers are difficult to get in the first place, adding some Z layers of complexity on top of that, enforcing the use of wizards that make them even less understandable and managable just makes things worse. Transparency!

I could go on and on, but I guess not many will even get this far reading my outburst ...

Grega

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04/03, 01:28pm | report spam | close Reply |
Zealots

What needs to be understood about the rabies-infected group of posters that defend X by telling you to quit whining, get laid, get a life, etc., is that the actual topic doesn't even matter. They will support anything Steve decides to do. If tomorrow Steve said "change it back to 9" you know these same people would be there applauding it and telling you to go start your own company, buy a Dell, get a life, get laid, quit whining...

Some people are just easily led, and think that everything that comes out of Steve's a** is gold. Just don't mention the Cube fiasco around them, they might start having seizures.

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04/03, 02:08pm | report spam | close Reply |
Re: Zealots

I wouldn't go back to OS 9. No way, no how. I'd switch to Windows first. At least I wouldn't crash. h***, I might even go and buy an old NeXTstation.

The sole reason I bought another Apple machine was because after the purchase of NeXT, I knew there was going to be a stable OS that would provide a nice user experience. So, I sold my Solaris box and bought an iBook. Now granted, if Copeland (along with NuKernel) had actually been produced or if Apple had decided on BeOS, I might have thought differently too. But if Apple stuck with OS 9, I'd jump ship. It was just too unstable.

And remember, Steve came back to us from NeXT. People that really thought Steve's a** was gold probably would have been NeXT users to begin with, dontcha think?

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04/03, 02:28pm | report spam | close Reply |
Finder

"Do crashes, reboots, inability for programs to share the processor, and setting your memory allocation for apps manually help this too?"

I've not really got a multi-threaded brain, do you? I do pretty much one thing at a time, so it's not really of any consequence to me that multiple apps can slow down the process that I want the machine to concentrate on.

My machine crashed today, that's the first time in about a month - no one really ever crashes X, right? Perhaps they don't, but all those crappy apps that don't quite work how they should, or like the 9.x versions, don't help me out either.

So, somethings you may gain on, but overall X, on the desktop, is a net loser for me.

Resetting my application memory? How often to I need to do that? Like once every six months?

"Let's face it, you can get by for a while with classic but all app development is going to be done in X from now on."

True enough, and X will one day be a great system, but it's not there yet.

"Eventually, there's going to be a feature or an app that you need and it's not going to be there in OS 9. You're only going to get left behind."

Wrong again, you should have read my post properly. I've got machines running X: 12" PowerBook, servers, web stuff running PHP/MySQL - I'm further ahead of the curve than you are most probably.

But, when it comes to day-to-day getting my work done, sorry, 9.x wins.

As to setting up my anti-aliasing settings, really , you should know what you're talking about before chipping in. The anti-aliasing in MacOS X is universally derided, the text and spacing engin is just awful. It's a derivative of Adobe's CoolType, which was designed specifically to represent "printed" type well on screen. This is a totally different thing from rendering text for reading on screen.

So from a design/layout perspective, yeah the type rendering works well - but from the point of view of actually trying to read type on screen, it sucks. If you don't believe this you should perhaps take a look at clunky old 9.x sometime.

"Column view, IMO, makes it easier to navigate the filesystem hierarchy quickly. You get a view of multiple paths without having to move back through one branch of the tree (as you did with OS 9's drop down box)."

C'mon, how do you view multiple paths simultaneously? It cannot be done. You can move up the hierarchy and choose a different fork, but you cannot see two forks simultaneously.

Additionally, the method does not work anyway - where you have deep listings and vertical scrolls come into play you cannot see the heirarchy path anyway, because the highlighted folder is below the area shown.

In the standard "classic" open/save box you had a number of keyboard strokes and shortcuts you could use for navig

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04/03, 03:21pm | report spam | close Reply |
Re: Finder

"Wrong again, you should have read my post properly. I've got machines running X: 12" PowerBook, servers, web stuff running PHP/MySQL - I'm further ahead of the curve than you are most probably."

Actually, I do J2EE web app development using WebSphere on top of Informix and ASP.NET development in C# using IIS on top of SQL Server and Oracle. Scripting schmipting.

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Re: Re: Finder

Actually, I do J2EE web app development using WebSphere on top of Informix and ASP.NET development in C# using IIS on top of SQL Server and Oracle. Scripting schmipting.

You're using Windows and IIS on the web?

That ought to be a hoot! Are you keeping up to date with your security patches?

If you're running a website with online ordering, could you please post a warning? I wouldn't want to send you my CC number!

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04/03, 04:48pm | report spam | close Reply |
findervent

i think classic made an impact on the design world a long time ago and we have Apple to thank for that. Companies like Adobe, Quark and Macromedia came first to our platform. However, with extensions, control panels, and restarting to install an application it got repetitious. Sometimes i couldn't figure out what extension was causing my system to stop booting. The error codes guide book was helpful but there was no real solution to bus errors or the random bomb in internet explorer.
I still have to worry about the beachball spinning, applications not wanting to quit, and a rare rare kernal panic i got from editing a visual basic document. Yet, the edge over the original finder is that you can relaunch it and have itunes playing in the background. I also have the option to keep my computer on for months or all day. Maybe some people don't value these attributes but i find them helpful when i am converting a 26 song cd.
Perhaps you are a designer, there are still applications available for your system that work and you can't switch because of budget. However, when applications are updated people will complain. What is the point though? Your not using mac os x currently and might never until it is Mac OS 8-9.
Forutunetly, you are human and have choices.
I won't switch to another system because i am a freelance artist. I feel the need to grow with the industry as it changes. Can you imagine cubism as the main art form everyone uses? Too stale.
oh well.

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OSX won me over

I came with OSX to the platform so I have no lost love to MacOS9. My comment is really just as an info regarding text copy on the windows platform. Give the old dos command copy file1+file2+fil3 file4 a try. It's better implemented though in BSD/OSX.

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Windows and IIS

" You're using Windows and IIS on the web?

That ought to be a hoot! Are you keeping up to date with your security patches?

If you're running a website with online ordering, could you please post a warning? I wouldn't want to send you my CC number!"

Most are enterprise apps that are Intranet deployed. However, one app in particular exposes via the Intranet to a limited user set. It's not online ordering but contains some sensitive information. We've never had an exploit on an IIS server in our corporation over about three years of this type of deployment. However, we do keep track of patches for both Windows 2k and IIS 5 as they become available.

IIS vulnerability isn't really as much of a problem as is poor app design. If you move most of your security down into the database layer by restricting database objects (even down to the row level) based on login, an unauthorized user isn't going to get very far. When exploits happen, it's usually in the case (that happens all too often) that the web application has global db access by using a common dbo type login (which is bad) or that each user login has access to things that they really don't have any business looking at.

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Re Finder - Clive

"I've not really got a multi-threaded brain, do you? I do pretty much one thing at a time, so it's not really of any consequence to me that multiple apps can slow down the process that I want the machine to concentrate on."

So you never get interrupted and suddenly have to look at and work on some totally different data for a while before you finish what you were originally working on? That's one circumstance when multitasking becomes quite handy - just jump into the interrupting task, even in the middle of doing a major rendering job, for instance, finish the new work, then jump back to the render job which actually may have finished in the background. I think every human has to multitask. Some may not be good at it and forget what they were originally working on - but some are good at it.

"C'mon, how do you view multiple paths simultaneously? It cannot be done. You can move up the hierarchy and choose a different fork, but you cannot see two forks simultaneously.
"

Yes you can. Open a second finder window in column view and stack the windows one high on the screen and the other low. Now you can view two entirely independent hierarchy trees and drag and drop files between them. Depending on screen real estate, you can open even more finder windows.

"Additionally, the method does not work anyway - where you have deep listings and vertical scrolls come into play you cannot see the heirarchy path anyway, because the highlighted folder is below the area shown."

Again, yes you can. Just use the scroll arrows for the column to show the hidden file; or, if you have a mouse with a scroll wheel, hover your cursor over the column with the hidden file and then just spin the scroll wheel up or down until you see the hidden folder.

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Back to 9?

Nobody wants that. What sane folks want is OS X with most of OS 9's interface.

And kill that damn Aqua! Fugly, folks, fugly. Themes good, Aqua bad ...

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Aqua Cool and Innovative

Things that it needs are:

1. Speed, can always use some more.
2. Some subtle theme variations. It's important to keep a consistent look.
3. Workspaces

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04/07, 01:38am | report spam | close Reply |
DIY

I guess I won't bother reading the article this thread is supposed to be about, either.

As a creative, I rely on myself to solve problems, and find everything easier with X than anything ever was with 9 (I stopped using it and Classic long ago). At first my transition was disorienting due to reliance on my own habits from 9. Losing those habits required me to explore X inside and out and PLAY WITH IT for a while to discover how I am most likely to develop correct, productive habits.

I cannot BELIEVE the rants here. Every complaint about X here that I've stumbled through myself was managabled thanks to X, iApps, shareware, and a little patience with myself.

I now have zero problems because, thanks to X, iApps, and shareware, I've freed my mind in the process.

The following enhancements are available to me all the time. Most features provided by each are used constantly. Worth every penny are a few of their rarely needed tricks: Default Folder X, DragThing, Dock Detox, Labels X, FruitMenu, SuperGetInfo, WindowShade X, ShowDesktop, Macaroni, uControl, and Carbon Copy Cloner. X's Character Pallette and AppleScripts are also populating my menubar.

If it sounds like I have some residual need for 9's features, sure. Depends on what I'm doing. There is still more than one way to sXin a cat.

My Favorites Folder is my Apple Menu. It contains all the Aliases I use in my ToolBar (basically anything I want can be in either place), and more. I dragged my Favorites folder to the Dock. Boom. Popup folders. Old-school. With FruitMenu, Favorites is also under the Apple.

Spring-loaded folders can be turned off. I set the delay to long so they don't bother me until I want them to.

Contextual Menu delay is set to Short in i believe FruitMenu, so no waiting there.

With DragThing I've created more custom docks AND more custom tabbed drawers with more pop-up folders.

One Column View window allows me to visualize multiple ways of working without scrolling it. I just see it already. Done.

uControl allows my trackpad to function as a scroll wheel that goes up/down, left/right, and also diagonally. Eeek!

Scanner: Epson Perfection 1650 with a free, working TWAIN download called Epson10588.sea

It's not unusual for me to have Final Cut, iMovie, iTunes, LimeWire, Word, Keynote, AudioHijack Pro, Software Update, a couple Safaris and a Camino, iChat, Photoshop, iPhoto, inDesign, Illustrator, AACelerator, FileMaker Pro, a few FireWire drives, and a remote afp server all running various processes simultaneously, with no problems!

The only thing that seems to stop other processes is Stuffit Deluxe.

Other than the remote server, I have and use one machine. It all just works. TiBook 667mhz/1GB/X v.10.2.4

The OS allows

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04/07, 01:41am | report spam | close Reply |
DIY cont...

...Other than the remote server, I have and use one machine. It all just works. TiBook 667mhz/1GB/X v.10.2.4

The OS allows you to create your own work environment. But you have to use it first in order to do that. To depend on one vendor, Apple, to have already done more than they have now done, to have already gone farther than they have now come, is asking them to read YOUR mind. Instead, they collectively provide for us all, knowing most of us possess the shred of ingenuity necessary to explore the menus, learn and understand GUI commands, and surprise ourselves in exceeding our own changing needs as we adapt and grow as individual users, dreamers, designers, and coders alike.

With this in mind, it helps knowing Windows, too, but I sometimes shudder, cringe, and then get that work done. Kinda like working two jobs?

Thanks, Apple, for helping me find my own way to a much-improved life.

Never, EVER, RTFM.

-rockhaus

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Who needs Marketshare?

I hate to break it to you, but I can recall a few years ago revelling in the notion that Apple had nearly 8% of the marketshare.
According to Bloomberg Information Systems, Macs now only account for 2.8% of the Market-we're slowly catching up with LINUX-in reverse!
Any other reliable figures?

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John Siracusa examines OS X Finder

updated 09:00 pm EST, Wed April 2, 2003

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