[-ap-]

Since the release of XP a couple of weeks ago there has been off-again, on-again debate on this board about what beats what in WinXP and OS X. Unfortunately, nobody here seems to be able to get past the finer points of user interface decoration, such as window resizing, the positioning of scroll thumbs, some marketing dohickeys, and other issues as though these were the things that make or break an operating system. While i'm sure they're important in some way, these factors seem to make people lose sight of the bigger picture as far as behaviours that affect the user are concerned. That's why we have the term "user experience." It would be nice if everybody here, since they're going to be comparing XP to OS X anyway, got to thinking more about the behaviours of each that are not so cosmetic and obvious but affect the user nonetheless. I think you'll find that the more you get beyond window resizing and menu fading (ultimately silly things to get worked about, sorry folks) you might get a better sense of the good and bad of each platform.

Here are some things to think about:

• Bundles: OSX software increasingly is being distributed on disk images (have you seen much of those in Windows?) as bundles. For those who don't know, bundles are those special directories that contain the executable for an application as well as its supporting files (icons, resources, etc.) in a standardized directory structure. This results in a vastly simplified software installation process: you drag one icon off the disk image onto your desired location on the hard disk. No installer to deal with, your file structure does not get infested with files all over the place, and nothing winds up being placed in a catch-all directory like CWINDOWS\SYSTEM32 (for instance.) Whenever I demonstrate to a PC user the magic of bundles they are positively blown away by their elegance.
• The Holy Trinity of Library/ : Mac OS X uses the Library/ directory in three different locations to achieve a unified effect. Your System folder uses Library/ to keep all the files necessary for the operating system to run, such as fonts, extensions (which are bundles, might I add, rather than a zillion files all stored in one place as they are on Windows). It uses Library/ at the top level of your hard drive to keep files that are necessary for applications to run and that should be accessible to all, but separate from the System folder so as not to munge your OS install. For instance, if you install a bigger application that wants to place more fonts on your drive, it would place them in /Library/Fonts. Finally, every user's home folder has a Library folder wherein personal versions of the same things are kept. If you have your own personal fonts you can put them in there. This is where your Preferences folder is kept (containing, might I add, simple text files that are far less susceptible to corruption than a monolithic binary database known on Windows as the registry), your own screen saver modules (more bundles... you can see the beauty of this now) and so on. In the case of fonts, when a Mac OS X application is asked by the user to build a font list it goes and gets all the fonts from each of these three locations and strips out the duplicates. Think about that.

OK, so there are two things to get you started. I'd love to see who can come up with more of these more subtle behaviours that aren't so cosmetic in nature, mostly because I want to believe that Mac users care about more than looks, as Windows fans commonly believe. Alternately, if you can think of something in XP that is nice but X doesn't have, that's cool too. As long as it's some discussion of more than window resizing, for Pete's sake.

[OverclockedHomoSapien]

I like how Windows has a system registry that gets modified everytime you install something or change something, or just for kicks by some processes. Then it's changed forever and over time it degrades into a mismash of crap that can't be sorted out from other crap. The beauty of it is that it gives the user POWER, because they can go into the registry and change it, hone it, into a powerful tool to be used at their will.

On Mac OS X, when you install an app, it's just draggin a package onto the HD. Not even a directory, just a damn package, like a single file! No changes in other obscure places in the system, no permanence. The user has no power over their system, they cannot open some hidden file and muck around with it to change how their video card is clocked, for example.


You see, Mac OS X is like a toy, and real men use Windows, because of it's power. Windows empowers the user...and if the user isn't exploiting this power through modifications to the registry, then some wise old wizard is helping them to accomplish a daunting task. Wizards abound in Windows, they are there to help the user through all the hoops and hurdles of the OS, and to look over the user and suggest when they are erring. Wizards of Windows are like guardian angels (or backseat drivers?), guiding their users towards the infinite wisdome of Micro$oft.

[grok420]

Originally posted by OverclockedHomoSapien:
<STRONG>I like how Windows has a system registry that gets modified everytime you install something or change something, or just for kicks by some processes. Then it's changed forever and over time it degrades into a mismash of crap that can't be sorted out from other crap. The beauty of it is that it gives the user POWER, because they can go into the registry and change it, hone it, into a powerful tool to be used at their will.

On Mac OS X, when you install an app, it's just draggin a package onto the HD. Not even a directory, just a damn package, like a single file! No changes in other obscure places in the system, no permanence. The user has no power over their system, they cannot open some hidden file and muck around with it to change how their video card is clocked, for example.


You see, Mac OS X is like a toy, and real men use Windows, because of it's power. Windows empowers the user...and if the user isn't exploiting this power through modifications to the registry, then some wise old wizard is helping them to accomplish a daunting task. Wizards abound in Windows, they are there to help the user through all the hoops and hurdles of the OS, and to look over the user and suggest when they are erring. Wizards of Windows are like guardian angels (or backseat drivers?), guiding their users towards the infinite wisdome of Micro$oft.</STRONG>

OS X bundles are completely capable of being edited. The bundle appears as an opaque directory to anyone who doesn't have access to see otherwise. To someone with permission, each and every file of the bundle can be altered to your hearts content. In fact, since most of them are flat files you can easily open, understand and edit them. The application can be completey customized simply and neatly. And since there is standardization and rigidity to how the files are stored in the bundle, anyone can make sense of changes made and undo them if necessary.

That is very different the Windows registry which is incredibly simplistic and most settings are in the form of integer codes that may or may not be published. There might be no way of knowing what codes are available or do what. "Did 0 mean verbose logging or did 3?"

Not to mention how most Uninstallers don't remove registry settings like they should so it can easily become corrupt or prevent upgrades from working properly.

The Registry is much more stable than it used to be, but its a far cry from the brilliance of Cocoa bundles.

MMMMMMM, cocoa bundles........

[sadie]

If a user really does want to fiddle around in what appears to be a Registry, they have access to defaults in the command line for Application settings (user-specific), and the NetInfo editor tool for system settings. But the underlying system still keeps the settings themselves in the various bits of ~/Library where they should be. Eventually there may even be a graphical tool for the Defaults editing.

So OS X does provide the power to customise your system like the registry, it just doesn't have to cripple its beautiful layout to do it.

[Gee4orce]

I can't work out if OverclockedHomoSapien is being sarcastic or not...

I love the directory structure that OS X enforces on users - I know a lot of dyed in the wool Mac users think it's restrictive, but it's not really, if you treat '~' as 'Macintosh HD' in Mac OS 9. It keeps all the other user's crap out of my way, and vice versa

I love the way that another user can log onto my machine and it looks like a different computer entirely (this goes back to the /Library thing). No version of Windows I'vbe used has ever done this as well - you always get broken shortcuts left on the desktop, or login items that fail to work, or drives that fail to mount...

I like the fact that I can lock settings to prevent them from messing around with things.

[undotwa]

Well, I think the library folder in the System folder is pointless. Can't they just store all that junk on the root level of the System folder? And gosh, Apple needs to put some icons on all those folders.

[cpt kangarooski]

Hm...
Generally I like the Mac, though OS X is missing some Mac UI that I had enjoyed. There's a little good stuff in XP, but not too much. Generally I think that the best ideas will come not from looking at anything modern, because there simply hasn't been much progress for years.

However, I like the layout and customization of the Start Menu -- particularly being able to drag and drop the items, right click on them, and rearrange them w/o having to screw around with the names. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to offer the ability to create true spaces or seperators yet.

The installation process on the Mac (single-file Applications predate OS X -- that's what forks are for) could stand to see some distinct improvement. Drag and drop _is_ good, but adding a button'ed script (remember those) on the disk image that could launch an installer program would not be a bad thing for people who simply haven't learned about the DnD thing yet, or those who don't want to do it. Realizing that users may each have different preferred methods of accomplishing the same thing, and working with that understanding, is a core part of the Mac ethos, and it's missing here.

An uninstaller -- even if it did something that anyone could easily do -- would also not be a bad thing, if only to make Windows users more comfortable. The worst that would happen would be that people that don't like it wouldn't have to use it.

Better editing for bundles (perhaps in combination with an integrated browser for formatting purposes -- see below) would be nice. At present, it's no better, and perhaps worse, than under MacOS or Windows; a big directory filled with plenty of strangeness. It'd be nice to have behaviors like the MacOS System Folder drag and drop be commonplace, and for there to be a simple, clearly labeled, helpful UI for modifying the interior, rather than folders upon folders, and flat text files.

Although it is more complex to implement, I still think that a virtualized file system for each user is more sensible than restricting them to a single folder. Neither OS has this at present, so Apple could do a lot of good by bringing it out. You'd probably want to combine it with a better security model, e.g. capabilities, than the ACL stuff that hasn't seen serious innovation since the 60's.

The integration of a web browser with the file manager in Windows was of course done for anticompetitive reasons, but it's actually a pretty good idea. Fortunately, they didn't integrate them all that well. Apple could make quite a strong showing here, if they tried. It permits a lot more freedom for formatting files in useful ways than the present Finder does, but it would be essential to make the formats trivial to adjust.

[Millennium]

Well, I think the library folder in the System folder is pointless. Can't they just store all that junk on the root level of the System folder?

There are two reasons for them not to, as far as I can see:

• Consistency. The things you find in /System/Library are the same sorts of things that you'd find in /Library and ~/Library. So they put them in a folder of the same name, to keep the naming convention simple.
• At some point, they may want to put other things in /System that don't really belong in a /Library folder.

And gosh, Apple needs to put some icons on all those folders.

OK, you've got me there. They really do need a nice set of icons for the Library folders. Some of these carry over pretty easily from OS9, like the Fonts and Preferences folders. But what about things like "Application Support" (which had no icon in OS9)? We need an icon for that; what would be a good idea for that one?

And a final note: In the Public Beta, OSX put each user's Desktop folder inside ~/Library. Now it's loose inside ~. Which do people think is better? On one hand, ~ is easier to get at inside a directory structure, but then again, since everything in ~ is visible on the Desktop anyway, perhaps it should migrate back into ~/Library, where it would be out of the way for ordinary tasks and leave ~ less cluttered. Opinions?

[Subzero Diesel949]

I think the desktop folders should remain inside the user's home directory. Sometimes pulling up a Finder directory (I have it set to go to my home) is easier when there's a lot of windows open. I can simply navigate to the desktop folder.


Also I think the reason Apple moved the desktop folder into home directories were to add to the notion that desktops are PERSONAL preferences, and not something of the system itself.