[fat mac moron]

Hi all,

Recently, I've been working on an OS X site that's been coming along at a fairly decent pace. The whole point of the site is basically to "define" the Mac OS "look and feel" through screenshots and videos (thankfully my provider has lots of bandwidth for my movies). I'm no where NEAR complete, but I'm just trying to get some initial reaction towards the site.

First Question: Do you like the layout? What would you change? What stands out? I'm trying to do the best job possible with my limited resourses.

One thing I need to mention, is that I'm trying to maintain this site as an OBJECETIVE overview of the OS. I'm a Mac user and I enjoy using Apple computers, but there are quite a few things that annoy me, things I wish Apple would address (FTP in the Finder, broken widgets, etc). On the site I'm not trying to advocate the OS as some holy grail, I'm simply trying to show OS X in it's true form.

Second Question: What do you LIKE about OS X (be specific, ie: Open textedit. Change font to Zapfino, large font size. Start typing "Zapfino"; watch letters being changed to contextual ligature glyphs as you type, until ultimately the whole word has been changed into a beautiful single Zapfino custom glyph)

Third Question: What bothers you about OS X? What would you change? What do you percieve as broken?

I'd appreciate some constructive critisism on this, and someone tell moki to hurry up on that new version of Snapz so I can generate some better videos!

http://www.splatq.com

[Arkham_c]

The biggest thing I dislike about OSX is that you can have the same window contents in two different windows open at the same time. OS9 didn't ever do that, and it seems so Windows-esque to me.

[zachs]

Great site, lookin' good, and it'll be even better once you get some content in.

I've been working on a site, but it's more of a new site for general Apple & techy stuff. Check it out and lemme know what you think.

So:

1.) I like the layout. Clean and simple. Maybe the News should be a bit wider. Also, perhaps you could create an accompanying forum thread for each news item, then stick in a link (like, "Click here for updates & discussions").

2.) What do I like about OS X? Hmmm...Definately a lot stabler. I love the font panel, and I love column view in the Finder.

3.) A couple of things bother me. First of all...lack of good theme support. C'mon...just have themes in the Themes folder show up in Appearance (or General, for 10.2), and have on-the-fly switching. Better yet, include a theme creation app with the Apple touch in the DevTools. Also, I want tabbed folders!

Good luck on the site!

[fat mac moron]

Originally posted by zachs:
1.) I like the layout. Clean and simple. Maybe the News should be a bit wider. Also, perhaps you could create an accompanying forum thread for each news item, then stick in a link (like, "Click here for updates & discussions").

I've actually been toying with that idea, thanks for the input!

[captiva]

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until ultimately the whole word has been changed into a beautiful single Zapfino custom glyph
-----

This is VERY COOL. Thanks! I'm doing an OS X seminar for designers and will use that... sure to make their eyes pop.

How did you discover the custom glyph, by accident, days of investigating, or do you have a secret source of OS X font knowledge?

cap

[Synotic]

Originally posted by captiva:
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until ultimately the whole word has been changed into a beautiful single Zapfino custom glyph
-----

This is VERY COOL. Thanks! I'm doing an OS X seminar for designers and will use that... sure to make their eyes pop.

How did you discover the custom glyph, by accident, days of investigating, or do you have a secret source of OS X font knowledge?

cap

It's common knowledge However what if you actually want to edit what you wrote?...

As for the site, it's a good site but it doesn't have the feel of a news site. More like a blog or a phpBB forum type thing. Perhaps something more like ThinkSecret.com? You have your main stories, older stories. Then you can have permanent content like videos etc... The navigation really needs to stand out more, maybe use tabs or buttons at LEAST separators. The whole "encompass the entire thing in a box" thing is what makes me think of a blog. Most news sites you see are not encompassed in a box. Maybe a more logo like logo if that's possible. Something that I've found really makes it look like a news site is instead of having everything be linear top to bottom, is splitting parts into boxes and having them next to each other. Again like how ThinkSecret.com has their Top Stories.

If you had different sections of news such as recent news, archives etc... then you could use the current news item block as a news section block. Unlike with most blogs, each news item isn't really a separate entity. Then you can use some creative typography to signify headers and paragraphs.

A lot of suggestions... but I hope this helps

Edit: Oh and I forgot, that's some pretty crazy CSS you're using If you're going to use CSS might as well go all out and use it for layout as well, instead of tables.

[fat mac moron]

Originally posted by Synotic:
As for the site, it's a good site but it doesn't have the feel of a news site.

Actually, it's not a news site. I kept the interface / comment system simple because that's not the area I wanted to focus on. The most news I will be posting is updates to the site, updates to the OS, updates to functonality of the OS, and maybe a few misc items.

You're right about the CSS, what a nightmare it is... I should clean it up a bit.

[- - e r i k - -]

Looks more like the default theme of that BBS-software than a site related to OS X.

If you want a site dealing with the look and feel of OS X, wouldn't you want that site to at least emulate the look of OS X?

[fat mac moron]

Bumping, added a TON of content. Still some sections that need updates, but slowly progressing.

Any feedback?