[moki]

...the automatic or "recommended" Text Smoothing choices for LCDs looks horrible. I wonder why the text on my monitor looked so nasty after installing Tiger... sure enough, the Text Smoothing was set to Automatic (in this case, LCD).

I switched it back to CRT and everything looks much nicer, IMHO.

[JLL]

I too hate sub pixel rendering, and the worst thing is that dialogs brought up by the system (admin verification, log in window and so on) are Automatic no matter what.

[Superchicken]

I use Medium...

[Todd Madson]

Where can this be switched off?

[Big Mac]

System Preferences: General

[osxisfun]

Originally Posted by moki

...the automatic or "recommended" Text Smoothing choices for LCDs looks horrible. I wonder why the text on my monitor looked so nasty after installing Tiger... sure enough, the Text Smoothing was set to Automatic (in this case, LCD).

I switched it back to CRT and everything looks much nicer, IMHO.

in the first couple of days i was using automatic. i was flat out amazed at how crappy it looks.

luckily i switched to CRT and my life is good again.

[OAW]

Strange. I hear people going back and forth about these settings all the time but for some reason I can't see the difference between the settings. So I just leave it on automatic and call it a day.

OAW

[analogika]

I'm not a graphic designer or typesetter, but I *really* like the text smoothing on my 15" Powerbook (Automatic setting).

Very crisp, IMO.

I can even read 5-pt. type clearly.

[TETENAL]

Originally Posted by analogika

I'm not a graphic designer or typesetter, but I *really* like the text smoothing on my 15" Powerbook (Automatic setting).

Very crisp, IMO.

Most of those trolls refer to the overbolding bug of bright text on dark background in sub-pixel anti-aliasing. You can see this bug if you have Photoshop:

Type "Text" into TextEdit and make a screenshot of it. Then make the text colour white and the document background black and make a screenshot of it. Open the screenshots in Photoshop and zoom in 500%. Now invert the screenshot with white text on black background (⌘I).

If you do this without subpixel anti-aliasing (best for CRT) both texts will look exactly the same as expected. If you do with subpixel anti-aliasing turned on (best for LCD) you see that the white on black text was rendered much bolder.

For them the whole OS is useless because of one bug.

[mAxximo]

You just don't get it TETENAL. Never mind. Go back to the Terminal, I'll let you know when text rendering in OS X stops being sub-par.

[MartiNZ]

Amazed, again, that people are against OS X's text smoothing. IMO, not only did they improve the LCD/medium setting with Tiger, but adding the Automatic option makes it so those people who don't know about those settings won't be disadvantaged with the default CRT setting!

[osxisfun]

be sure to quit your app and restart. otherwise you will not see the changes. i messed with my settings and said. hey no difference. but i was not quitting and restarting safari between changes.

[mAxximo]

In all fairness, font blurring got a little better in Tiger. I mean, text looks slightly less blurry. But still not as good as it should be.

[OAW]

Originally Posted by osxisfun

be sure to quit your app and restart. otherwise you will not see the changes. i messed with my settings and said. hey no difference. but i was not quitting and restarting safari between changes.

Ahhhh. So that's how it works! Well I finally saw the changes. "Strong" made text seem a little bolder .... "Light" did the opposite. I didn't see an appreciable difference between "Automatic" and "Standard" on my PowerBook G4 so when it was all said and done I put it back on "Automatic" and called it a day. None of the settings made the text seem "blurry" or difficult to read. Thanks for the tip!

OAW

[CaptainHaddock]

I like "light" myself - at least on my bright iMac screen. The text is very crisp.

Sub-pixel anti-aliasing rules! Especially OS X's. I can't stand looking at Windows or Linux any more.

[CharlesS]

Throw in my vote for OS X's sub-pixel rendering. It looks beautiful, to my color-blind eyes anyway. It seems much crisper than the CRT setting on my Mac.

[subego]

Throw in one more yes vote for Automatic (medium).

And throw in one more for CRT looks blurry.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by mAxximo

In all fairness, font blurring got a little better in Tiger. I mean, text looks slightly less blurry. But still not as good as it should be.

Very general comments about most of your posts:

What is your metric? Your points would be made much stronger if you shared with us your metric you use to measure what is good and bad... you say things like "not as good as it should be". What is "should be"? Compared to another product, or compared to something in your head?

If the former, could you name that product? If the latter, could you backup your opinion with some justification and perhaps share your rationale behind your opinion? Otherwise, what are we to say?

E.g.:

hypothetical maxximo: Chevrolet cars aren't as good as they should be.

hypothetical me: ... Okay....

See what I mean?

[loki74]

Originally Posted by TETENAL

Most of those trolls refer to the overbolding bug of bright text on dark background in sub-pixel anti-aliasing. You can see this bug if you have Photoshop:

Type "Text" into TextEdit and make a screenshot of it. Then make the text colour white and the document background black and make a screenshot of it. Open the screenshots in Photoshop and zoom in 500%. Now invert the screenshot with white text on black background (⌘I).

If you do this without subpixel anti-aliasing (best for CRT) both texts will look exactly the same as expected. If you do with subpixel anti-aliasing turned on (best for LCD) you see that the white on black text was rendered much bolder.

For them the whole OS is useless because of one bug.

Hmm... It seems to me that your demonstration is inherently flawed. Because the sub-pixel render relies on the physical order of the red, green, and blue components of each pixel (RGB versus BGR) inverting the text would cause the sub-pixel render to be inaccurate. (or accurate if it was inaccurate in the first place) My guess is that OSX renders the subpixels under the assumption of the use of a certain type of monitor, lets just say that uses the RGB order. My guess is that the people who have bad results from it probably use the opposite order, BGR. (note that, those could of course be reversed)

[TETENAL]

Originally Posted by besson3c

What is your metric?

Well, first there is the white on black overbolding bug. This is an objective issue and you can clearly see it if you follow the steps I posted above.

Second, if you have Windows ClearType there is some hinting going on. If you have the the letter l or N or so, you can see that the vertical lines will fall onto the pixels. They are therefore always sharp at the cost of the letters or the letter spacing a little bit stretched or squeezed. Mac OS X on the other hand always exactly preserves the metrics of the letters. The text is therefore an exact preview of what you are going to see when you print in high resolution. Text rendering is absolutely resolution independent. As a downside it is coincidental whether a letter falls exactly on a pixel or not. Some letters are sharp and others are blurred. For example here in Safari in the text "MacNN" I see one sharp and one blurred N. Or just look at all the small l characters in this text by zooming in and note they are different.

The second point is a design decision, but the first one is objectively a bug and therefore "not as good as it should be".

[analogika]

Originally Posted by besson3c

Very general comments about most of your posts:

What is your metric? Your points would be made much stronger if you shared with us your metric you use to measure what is good and bad... you say things like "not as good as it should be". What is "should be"? Compared to another product, or compared to something in your head?

If the former, could you name that product? If the latter, could you backup your opinion with some justification and perhaps share your rationale behind your opinion? Otherwise, what are we to say?

You've nailed it.

There's actually TWO statements:

Mac OS X isn't as good as
a) Mac OS 8.6.
b) it could be.

He switches between those two at will, depending upon how badly he's losing the "argument".

-s*

[TETENAL]

Originally Posted by loki74

Hmm... It seems to me that your demonstration is inherently flawed. Because the sub-pixel render relies on the physical order of the red, green, and blue components of each pixel (RGB versus BGR) inverting the text would cause the sub-pixel render to be inaccurate.

I'm aware of this. But am asking you to evaluate the boldness of the text while zooming in. When zoomed in sub-pixel antialiasing doesn't work anyway. You can clearly see that the white on black text is overbolded anyway. It's an obvious bug.

But you seem to be wrong that the test is flawed with regard to breaking subpixel anti-aliasing. Let's say a black text takes the right third of a RGB pixel. The pixel would then light up RG. It it's white text on black background the same pixel would light up B. Invert this pixel in Photoshop and it would be RG again. White text on black background when inverted in Photoshop should look pixel identical than black text on white background does. It does not. I looks much bolder. There is clearly a bug.

Originally Posted by loki74

My guess is that OSX renders the subpixels under the assumption of the use of a certain type of monitor, lets just say that uses the RGB order. My guess is that the people who have bad results from it probably use the opposite order, BGR. (note that, those could of course be reversed)

Max OS X reads the pixel order from the display ROM. It's not that.

[michaelb]

I think it's what your eyes get used to.

I run an XP box via Remote Desktop and have all font smoothing on it turned off. It's sometimes a culture shock coming back to OS X's smoothed fonts, but after a few minutes it feels comfortable again.

However, I do believe that if you're short sighted, antialiased fonts and sub-pixel rendering don't work as well for you as completely un-antialiased fonts.

If they have to be antialiased (as under OS X), making them strong would probably feel more comfortable. Ophthalmologists will tell you that the best reading conditions are the ones that create easily discernible, high contrast letters that you can see easily without straining.

[JLL]

Originally Posted by michaelb

However, I do believe that if you're short sighted, antialiased fonts and sub-pixel rendering don't work as well for you as completely un-antialiased fonts.

I like antialiasing but I can't stand sub pixel rendering as the green and red pixels stand out too much.

[Appleman]

Originally Posted by Big Mac

System Preferences: General

At least in Tiger you change it in
System preferences -> Appearance

[Severed Hand of Skywalker]

I love sub pixel smoothing.

[Big Mac]

Originally Posted by Appleman

At least in Tiger you change it in
System preferences -> Appearance

Sorry, my bad. I think my mistake was engendered by the fact that OS X's "appearance" settings are so limited, it's still difficult for me to call that pane Appearance.

[Eug Wanker]

Originally Posted by moki

...the automatic or "recommended" Text Smoothing choices for LCDs looks horrible. I wonder why the text on my monitor looked so nasty after installing Tiger... sure enough, the Text Smoothing was set to Automatic (in this case, LCD).

I switched it back to CRT and everything looks much nicer, IMHO.

Agreed. It's most obvious on certain webpages, like Think Secret. It's like the headlines were printed with an inkjet printer on cheap paper, and the text is bleeding into the paper.

I'm on the CRT setting too on my LCDs.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by TETENAL

Well, first there is the white on black overbolding bug. This is an objective issue and you can clearly see it if you follow the steps I posted above.

So this big is visible at very small font sizes and when you do the Photoshop demonstration? How else does this translate to real-life? A bug is something that impacts people. I'm not saying that there isn't a bug, but so far I just don't get it.

Second, if you have Windows ClearType there is some hinting going on. If you have the the letter l or N or so, you can see that the vertical lines will fall onto the pixels. They are therefore always sharp at the cost of the letters or the letter spacing a little bit stretched or squeezed. Mac OS X on the other hand always exactly preserves the metrics of the letters. The text is therefore an exact preview of what you are going to see when you print in high resolution. Text rendering is absolutely resolution independent. As a downside it is coincidental whether a letter falls exactly on a pixel or not. Some letters are sharp and others are blurred. For example here in Safari in the text "MacNN" I see one sharp and one blurred N. Or just look at all the small l characters in this text by zooming in and note they are different.

The second point is a design decision, but the first one is objectively a bug and therefore "not as good as it should be".

So you're saying that the OS X implementation is better? Are you complaining that OS X doesn't match an implementation that doesn't exist yet, or that there shouldn't be sub-pixel rendering at all? I also fail to see how this translates to real life.

[Don Pickett]

Never had a problem with OS X's font smoothing.

[Millennium]

Originally Posted by besson3c

What is your metric? Your points would be made much stronger if you shared with us your metric you use to measure what is good and bad... you say things like "not as good as it should be". What is "should be"? Compared to another product, or compared to something in your head?

Besson, one thing you need to understand about mAxximo is that his sole metric is OS8 -not OS9, which was too 'transitional'- and his sole definition of "good enough" when it comes to antialiasing is none at all. Anything which is not just like OS8 is bad, and OS8 (not "anything like OS8", because nothing except the mythical godlike status attributed to OS8 can be "OS8" in his eyes) is good. UI research was perfected in 1984, as written down in the holy scriptures known as the Apple Human Interface Guidelines, and it will never get any better; any attempt to deviate from it is by definition Bad and Wrong. Apple killed the Mac when they killed OS9, and Steve Jobs is a con man trying to sell us NeXTStep (the worst UI ever, even worse than Windows) by calling it "Mac".

I only wish I were exaggerating. Here's a site where he helps run the forums (though I notice he hasn't posted there in a while). Basic theme of the site: OS8-fundamentalism, and particularly Platinum-fundamentalism, at its finest.

[OreoCookie]

Originally Posted by mAxximo

You just don't get it TETENAL. Never mind. Go back to the Terminal, I'll let you know when text rendering in OS X stops being sub-par.

I have font smoothing enabled in Terminal, too

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by Millennium

Besson, one thing you need to understand about mAxximo is that his sole metric is OS8 -not OS9, which was too 'transitional'- and his sole definition of "good enough" when it comes to antialiasing is none at all. Anything which is not just like OS8 is bad, and OS8 (not "anything like OS8", because nothing except the mythical godlike status attributed to OS8 can be "OS8" in his eyes) is good. UI research was perfected in 1984, as written down in the holy scriptures known as the Apple Human Interface Guidelines, and it will never get any better; any attempt to deviate from it is by definition Bad and Wrong. Apple killed the Mac when they killed OS9, and Steve Jobs is a con man trying to sell us NeXTStep (the worst UI ever, even worse than Windows) by calling it "Mac".

I only wish I were exaggerating. Here's a site where he helps run the forums (though I notice he hasn't posted there in a while). Basic theme of the site: OS8-fundamentalism, and particularly Platinum-fundamentalism, at its finest.

I'm cool with hearing about the inferiorities of OS X through the lens of an HCI (human computer interaction) designer. However, HCI designers can justify their claims based on usability studies, or at least some sort of research pointing to an impact on a large enough sample of users within a target population.

However, when there is only this "wannabe designer" thing going on based on a set of knee jerk reactions that are entirely personal, not based within HCID, and really can't be justified to a large audience, I wonder when the line is crossed between contributions to a discussion on UI, and flat-out trolling?

What always seems inevitable is the argument goes two ways:

1) we are apologists, we just don't get it
2) maximmo is a luddite

On his site, the tagline is:

Welcome, my brothers and sisters, to THALO.net. A site founded on one overarching principle: arguing is not a bad thing. There's an important debate in the Mac community—especially among graphic design professionals—as our beloved platform evolves, and the transition to a Unix-based operating system is unavoidable. That debate centers around form and function, legacy and technology, interface and user base. But don't take my word for it, listen to what the Mac Faithful are saying...

The banner at the top also says "critical discourse...".

Where is this critical discourse? All I've ever seen is cable-news style "yelling" disguised as debate. Maxximo, if you want to throw out provocative claims and inflammatory statements (this applies to both here and thalo.net), please understand that the onus is on you to make your case (to those who are interested in a "debate" given these sort of terms for discussion). Build your case off of principles of user-centered design, not just Maximmo design theory if you are going to try to make a general-sweeping claim rather than simply stating your opinion and making it clear that it is only your opinion. Otherwise, you may be considered a troll.

I'm not advocating that we gang up on or ban him or anything like that, just that we put him in his place to actually make his case, and don't react the way he wants us to to his inflammatory knee-jerk diatribes.

[Fusion]

Something tells me that a lot of you that have problems with the rendering are not using great monitors. Just a guess though. Everything looks great here, and I love OS X's aliasing.

[Don Pickett]

Originally Posted by besson3c

Sayeth Maxximo:

There's an important debate in the Mac community—especially among graphic design professionals—as our beloved platform evolves. . .

Actually, there is almost no debate in the professional community – OS X kicks OS 8 or 9's butt. It is a STABLE, powerful, extensible operating system which gets out of the way so you can do the work. In the professional community there is one metric – productivity. The system which allows one to maximize productivity while minimizing down and wasted time is the winner. in this aspect there is no way the classic Mac OS will ever compete.

The IT people love it because you can administer an entire shop from one machine running Terminal, and you can set up real, live user accounts which lock people out of things better left alone. No more downtime because someone had to install his or her favorite IM app, whose extensions conflict with Quark, (hey, AIM, I'm talking to you!). The production people love it because it's very easy to script or program tedious, repetitive tasks. The graphics people love it because the OS is MP aware and multi-processor aware: I can work in Photoshop, print from Quark and make PDFs all at the same time with almost no slowdown.

I could go on, but I think the point is made: no one I know – and I know a lot of people in the business – would ever go back to OS 8 or 9. People who spend all their time obsessing about UI minutiae are, by definition, not professionals. We don't have time for that.

[Don Pickett]

More thots:

The great problem with the classic Mac operating systems was that you were always having to work around the system. The use of shared memory pool and the nature of extension memory management made the system fragile, and it required very careful system management to make the OS truly robust. In addition, the lack of cooperative multi-tasking was a tremendous disadvantage, as it rendered even dual processor system ineffective.

Focusing on the nature of anti-aliasing is, to me, indicative of someone whose experience is that of a hobbyist or an amateur, as the things which are truly important in the professional arena are logistical in nature – how much productivity does a particular application/system/procedure provide when compared to other options, and how expensive is the application/system/procedure in relation to the gain in productivity and the costs of the old system. In this sense OS X is leaps and bounds better than the classic Mac OSes, as it allows a far greater level of productivity at an equal or lower cost. Machines which do not suffer from frequent system-level crashes and whose internals are built on a modern, robust architecture are far superior to machines running an over-extended legacy OS, no matter how fond we are were of that legacy OS.

As an example, these are the questions driving the serverside success of Linux versus Windows. Lower TCO and higher productivity will win out any time.

[TETENAL]

Originally Posted by besson3c

So this big is visible at very small font sizes and when you do the Photoshop demonstration?

Who said this is visible at small font sizes only. I said this bug happens for bright coloured text on dark backgrounds. It affects all font sizes and is clearly visible. I need Photoshop…

Originally Posted by besson3c

I just don't get it.

…because some people refuse to admit that there is a problem for some weird reason. Take a screenshot of white on black text, make a screenshot and invert it (doesn't necessarily need to be Photoshop just a graphics program that can invert pictures). Compare with black text on white background.
Or don't do that an continue to pretend there is no problem. Ignorance is bliss.

Originally Posted by besson3c

A bug is something that impacts people.

A bug is something that doesn't behave as intended. This is a bug that affects many people. Especially in web pages bright text on dark backgrounds is very common. This text looks smeary because of that.

Other point, regarding the difference in rendering on Windows and Mac:

Originally Posted by besson3c

So you're saying that the OS X implementation is better?

No, I was just outlining the difference. Both approaches have advantages and disadvantages.

Originally Posted by besson3c

I also fail to see how this translates to real life.

In real life some people will like the one or the other type better depending on how important the advantages/disadvantages of each are for one personally. I like the font rendering of Mac OS X, but there are people who prefer that of Windows and they do so with good reason and the same right that I like the Macs. Ideally both systems would allow the option for both types of rendering. So arguably font rendering on Mac is "not as good as it could be".

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by Don Pickett

More thots:

The great problem with the classic Mac operating systems was that you were always having to work around the system. The use of shared memory pool and the nature of extension memory management made the system fragile, and it required very careful system management to make the OS truly robust. In addition, the lack of cooperative multi-tasking was a tremendous disadvantage, as it rendered even dual processor system ineffective.

Focusing on the nature of anti-aliasing is, to me, indicative of someone whose experience is that of a hobbyist or an amateur, as the things which are truly important in the professional arena are logistical in nature – how much productivity does a particular application/system/procedure provide when compared to other options, and how expensive is the application/system/procedure in relation to the gain in productivity and the costs of the old system. In this sense OS X is leaps and bounds better than the classic Mac OSes, as it allows a far greater level of productivity at an equal or lower cost. Machines which do not suffer from frequent system-level crashes and whose internals are built on a modern, robust architecture are far superior to machines running an over-extended legacy OS, no matter how fond we are were of that legacy OS.

As an example, these are the questions driving the serverside success of Linux versus Windows. Lower TCO and higher productivity will win out any time.

Don,

I don't get the sense that Maxximo disputes the technical superiority of OS X over 9 - I don't think anybody can. I think, correct me if I"m wrong if you're still reading this thread Maxximo, that he disputes the UI and design of the OS X user experience.

To that end, OS X isn't perfect, but I could point out several significant flaws with the OS 9 GUI too (even given all those years of refining). Many of these carry over today (e.g. drag removable media to the trash to eject). This is partially why I fail to resonate with people who vehemently advocate the "Mac way" - whatever that is.

That being said, this does not invalidate shortcomings of OS X. It just leaves us without a better example to point to, and makes us wonder how much these shortcomings are actually shortcomings with computing in a very general sense.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by TETENAL

Who said this is visible at small font sizes only. I said this bug happens for bright coloured text on dark backgrounds. It affects all font sizes and is clearly visible. I need Photoshop……because some people refuse to admit that there is a problem for some weird reason. Take a screenshot of white on black text, make a screenshot and invert it (doesn't necessarily need to be Photoshop just a graphics program that can invert pictures). Compare with black text on white background.
Or don't do that an continue to pretend there is no problem. Ignorance is bliss.
A bug is something that doesn't behave as intended. This is a bug that affects many people. Especially in web pages bright text on dark backgrounds is very common. This text looks smeary because of that.

Thank you for explaining this problem to me. So you're saying that white text on a black background appears more bolded and therefore blurry?

Funny, I'm not disputing the existence of this bug, but I actually set iTerm to a black background with anti-aliased Monoco size 12 and prefer this over anything else... =)

I can agree with my flawed definition of a bug too...

Ideally both systems would allow the option for both types of rendering. So arguably font rendering on Mac is "not as good as it could be".

Fair enough.. I was just asking him to qualify "could be". Still, meshing this bug in with arguments relating to the design of Apple's UI seems odd. HCI designers are concerned with user-centered design principles, not esoteric technical failings. It is hard to justify a change in design that isn't backed by an identifiable user need. This may explain why this bug (or whatever you want to call it) still remains... Perhaps usability studies indicated that users prefer it this way too, you never know!

[TETENAL]

Originally Posted by besson3c

Funny, I'm not disputing the existence of this bug, but I actually set iTerm to a black background with anti-aliased Monoco size 12 and prefer this over anything else... =)

Maybe it's a coincidence that it looks good with this font. Please do me a favour and just try it with a normal font like Times Roman or Helvetica in TextEdit and compare them when rendered in black on white and white on black. Maybe once you have seen it in comparison you will notice that text like "Search this Thread" in the blue bar above smeared in Safari when subpixel anti-aliasing is on. The world does not go under if we acknowledge there is a bug with the subpixel anti-aliasing that is not there with regular anti-aliasing.

Originally Posted by besson3c

This may explain why this bug (or whatever you want to call it) still remains... Perhaps usability studies indicated that users prefer it this way too, you never know!

What are you talking about now? The overbolding bug is certainly nothing any user would "prefer". It doesn't make any sense to want text change its boldness depending on the colour it is rendered in.
The lack of hinting issue I didn't call bug; I called this a design decision. We don't know whether it is the result of usability testing or because of technical reasons.

I mentioned those two issues because they are the underlying issues for the discussion of font rendering in OS X. It seems important to me to understand what is talked about.

[MartiNZ]

Originally Posted by besson3c

Thank you for explaining this problem to me. So you're saying that white text on a black background appears more bolded and therefore blurry?

Funny, I'm not disputing the existence of this bug, but I actually set iTerm to a black background with anti-aliased Monaco size 12 and prefer this over anything else... =)

Interesting - I use this combination in Terminal as well, and really like it . I also like white on black with other fonts ... even microsoft word's 'white text on blue background' looks really good with Times New Roman, Arial ... anything really - I would even say the smoothing of white text is better than that of black - this was certainly the case pre-Tiger when 'Help' in the menubar would often have a very thing 'l' while black but a thicker one when selected.

[midwinter]

Originally Posted by besson3c

Don,

I don't get the sense that Maxximo disputes the technical superiority of OS X over 9 - I don't think anybody can. I think, correct me if I"m wrong if you're still reading this thread Maxximo, that he disputes the UI and design of the OS X user experience.

Actually, the Thalo-ites—who by the way are all refugees from the MFI forums where this debate began (although technically it began with Thalo's frustration on the Apple discussions)—make several points worth considering:

1) The UI design of X is in many, many ways inferior to pre OS X. Stripes through text. The smoothing bug. The trash in the dock makes for a moving target. The absence of any native ability to customize appearance (i.e. themes).

2) Technical glitches with networking, with the finder updating, and so on. It's been a long time since I've engaged any of them, but basically they see many of the technical flaws/bugs as symptomatic of a less detail-oriented Apple and, by extension, of an Apple that has sold its soul.

3) That OS X is an attempt to capture market share from non-professional users of the Mac, and as a result, many of the features that get added are less than useful and emphasize eye candy to attract these kids and which either do not help or actually interfere with professional (i.e. design) usage. This also applies to the UI of OS X—specifically, the use of bright colors as opposed to platinum. It is the equivalent of your favorite car company suddenly only offering cars with those neon lights under them, ugly spoilers on the back, and fur lined interiors with no other options from the manufacturer.

4) Finally, and this is the most important of their arguments, Mac OS X represents the death of Apple and its philosophies and the rebirth of NeXT. That, in short, Mac OS X is NextStep and not the Mac OS.

5) Their primary position is that Mac users should not have to settle for a product with bugs, with simple capabilities that were present in previous versions (such as theming), or with features that only work halfway (such as the Finder update issue).

The problem with them coming here to troll is that they've been living in an echo chamber for so long that they don't really operate well in polite company and their arguments seem weak.

Anyway. That's pretty much it.

Cheers
Scott

[Don Pickett]

Originally Posted by besson3c

Don,

I don't get the sense that Maxximo disputes the technical superiority of OS X over 9 - I don't think anybody can. I think, correct me if I"m wrong if you're still reading this thread Maxximo, that he disputes the UI and design of the OS X user experience.

Could be. I have read his posts, and the threads at Thalo, in a different light. Namely, the logic seems to me to be giving precedence to UI design over all other aspects of the OS experience, which, as I said, is the mark of someone who has not worked widely in the professional arena. I could be wrong in my reading of the logic, tho.

To that end, OS X isn't perfect, but I could point out several significant flaws with the OS 9 GUI too (even given all those years of refining). Many of these carry over today (e.g. drag removable media to the trash to eject). This is partially why I fail to resonate with people who vehemently advocate the "Mac way" - whatever that is.

That being said, this does not invalidate shortcomings of OS X. It just leaves us without a better example to point to, and makes us wonder how much these shortcomings are actually shortcomings with computing in a very general sense.

I mostly agree with you. OS 9 had some serious shortcomings. The Chooser was a very bad thing from a usability standpoint and was one of the biggest hurdles encountered when trainig people who came from the Windows world to work in the Mac world. Although, coming from the Mac world myself I accepted the Chooser as natural, I eventually saw how badly implemented it was.

Dragging disks to the trash does point out a general usability flaw, IMO, as no GUI offers a way to eject removable media which is truly intuitive. That said, my experience is that when teaching people with no computer experience to use a GUI it is the Macintosh GUI, in its various incarnations, which is the most easily mastered.

[CharlesS]

Originally Posted by Don Pickett

I mostly agree with you. OS 9 had some serious shortcomings. The Chooser was a very bad thing from a usability standpoint and was one of the biggest hurdles encountered when trainig people who came from the Windows world to work in the Mac world. Although, coming from the Mac world myself I accepted the Chooser as natural, I eventually saw how badly implemented it was.

The last time mAxximo decided to start a Thaloite shout-fest on here, I posted a really long list of stupid things about the OS 9 UI that are better in OS X. The Chooser was but one of them. I don't feel like going back to dredge it up right now, but you could do a search to find it.

[Don Pickett]

Originally Posted by midwinter

2) Technical glitches with networking, with the finder updating, and so on. It's been a long time since I've engaged any of them, but basically they see many of the technical flaws/bugs as symptomatic of a less detail-oriented Apple and, by extension, of an Apple that has sold its soul.

To me this position is impossible to defend. The classic Mac OS was full of usability problems and technological shortcomings. The Chooser was, as I have said, a bad, over-extended design which was actually outclassed by the options offered in Windows. Technological problems abounded which stemmed largely from the need to graft modern services onto an old OS core. HTML and Java performance were abysmal, efficient use of multiple processors were impossible, TCP/IP implementation was problematic, etc. To me the statement is merely the preference of a familiar way of doing things over the new way and a willful blindness to the problems of the classic Mac OS.

3) That OS X is an attempt to capture market share from non-professional users of the Mac, and as a result, many of the features that get added are less than useful and emphasize eye candy to attract these kids and which either do not help or actually interfere with professional (i.e. design) usage. This also applies to the UI of OS X—specifically, the use of bright colors as opposed to platinum. It is the equivalent of your favorite car company suddenly only offering cars with those neon lights under them, ugly spoilers on the back, and fur lined interiors with no other options from the manufacturer.

There is absolutely no proof that OS X is an attempt to capture market share from non-professional users of the Mac, and anyone making that statement seems to be ignorant of the history of the Mac in general. It has always been the "computer for the rest of us". I have also never understood the comments about the UI's bright colors, as all that is required is to set your desktop background to a 15% gray and change the appearance to Platinum to make it color neutral. Neither I, nor anyone else I know who does retouching work, has ever had a problem.

4) Finally, and this is the most important of their arguments, Mac OS X represents the death of Apple and its philosophies and the rebirth of NeXT. That, in short, Mac OS X is NextStep and not the Mac OS.

More silly elitism.

5) Their primary position is that Mac users should not have to settle for a product with bugs, with simple capabilities that were present in previous versions (such as theming), or with features that only work halfway (such as the Finder update issue).

As I have said, this statement requires a willful blindness to the many problems of the classic Mac OS.

The problem with them coming here to troll is that they've been living in an echo chamber for so long that they don't really operate well in polite company and their arguments seem weak.

Agreed.

[Don Pickett]

Originally Posted by CharlesS

The last time mAxximo decided to start a Thaloite shout-fest on here, I posted a really long list of stupid things about the OS 9 UI that are better in OS X. The Chooser was but one of them. I don't feel like going back to dredge it up right now, but you could do a search to find it.

Gimme a keyword, yo.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by TETENAL

Maybe it's a coincidence that it looks good with this font. Please do me a favour and just try it with a normal font like Times Roman or Helvetica in TextEdit and compare them when rendered in black on white and white on black. Maybe once you have seen it in comparison you will notice that text like "Search this Thread" in the blue bar above smeared in Safari when subpixel anti-aliasing is on. The world does not go under if we acknowledge there is a bug with the subpixel anti-aliasing that is not there with regular anti-aliasing.

What are you talking about now? The overbolding bug is certainly nothing any user would "prefer". It doesn't make any sense to want text change its boldness depending on the colour it is rendered in.
The lack of hinting issue I didn't call bug; I called this a design decision. We don't know whether it is the result of usability testing or because of technical reasons.

I mentioned those two issues because they are the underlying issues for the discussion of font rendering in OS X. It seems important to me to understand what is talked about.

I honestly do believe you that there is a bug...

I guess I just don't care. Don't certain fonts and certain sizes look bad against certain backgrounds at certain screen resolutions on certain monitors on any computer? Again, I know it sounds like I'm being defensive here, but I just don't see why something like this would evoke so much passion.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by midwinter

1) The UI design of X is in many, many ways inferior to pre OS X. Stripes through text. The smoothing bug. The trash in the dock makes for a moving target. The absence of any native ability to customize appearance (i.e. themes).

There is an important decision between the user experience which is created by eye pleasing aesthetics, and the merits of a UI design from a usability standpoint. The trash in the dock being a moving target (I can see how this would be a problem) are really the only thing in here that could be considered a design shortcoming.

When it comes to aesthetics, it is more difficult to create a relationship between an interface that communicates less effectively due to something like stripes. This quickly becomes a graphic design issue, and a subjective issue (although from this vantage point, I'd agree, I wasn't huge on the stripes).

2) Technical glitches with networking, with the finder updating, and so on. It's been a long time since I've engaged any of them, but basically they see many of the technical flaws/bugs as symptomatic of a less detail-oriented Apple and, by extension, of an Apple that has sold its soul.

I can't defend the performance of the Finder, but I thought we were talking about UI design and usability here? I'd take points off of OS X for what you described, but I think this is a different discussion.

3) That OS X is an attempt to capture market share from non-professional users of the Mac, and as a result, many of the features that get added are less than useful and emphasize eye candy to attract these kids and which either do not help or actually interfere with professional (i.e. design) usage. This also applies to the UI of OS X—specifically, the use of bright colors as opposed to platinum. It is the equivalent of your favorite car company suddenly only offering cars with those neon lights under them, ugly spoilers on the back, and fur lined interiors with no other options from the manufacturer.

Designers build products based on assumptions and an analysis of the needs of their target market. Why should a UI design be limited to professional use (or, more specifically, graphic designers and creative people?) Can you see how this population would represent a small number of total computer users that Apple is wanting to attract? Besides, there are ways to disable eye candy and customize things to the user's liking (which professional users are better suited to do anyway). We could discuss whether or not Apple made it easy enough for expert users to make these customizations, but I think that's a different discussion.

4) Finally, and this is the most important of their arguments, Mac OS X represents the death of Apple and its philosophies and the rebirth of NeXT. That, in short, Mac OS X is NextStep and not the Mac OS.

I don't know what this means, exactly... is this some political principle? How does this actually affect us?

5) Their primary position is that Mac users should not have to settle for a product with bugs, with simple capabilities that were present in previous versions (such as theming), or with features that only work halfway (such as the Finder update issue).

What percentage of Apple's target audience actually themed their OS in OS 9? Any speculation?

As far as the bugs, I can appreciate this sort of frustration, but I don't see how this problem is unique to OS X. I remember all sorts of problems with type x errors, bombs, trash cans that wouldn't empty, broken aliases, whatever else. I really don't want to get into a discussion about how this was the fault of third party control panels/extensions, I realize this had a hand in it. However, you could still easily make the argument that these were bugs, no?

Thanks for trying to explain the Thalo people... I don't mean to sound like I'm jumping down your throat for playing devil's advocate. I'm just hoping to better understand this. I'm beginning to, but frankly a lot of this still seems flimsy to me.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by Don Pickett

Could be. I have read his posts, and the threads at Thalo, in a different light. Namely, the logic seems to me to be giving precedence to UI design over all other aspects of the OS experience, which, as I said, is the mark of someone who has not worked widely in the professional arena. I could be wrong in my reading of the logic, tho.

I disagree whole-heartedly. Frankly, I'm not sure that you understand we are discussing, exactly. We aren't discussing cosmetic/aesthetic issues and niggily issues that are peeves to a few. We are talking about the user experience, how people interact with their computer, the ability for the UI to communicate in a meaningful way to users.

If by "professional arena" you are referring to repetitive tasks within a workflow, then sure, once a user has learned how to do x or y or z, the importance of a clear and communicate UI is less important - the user "gets it", but what about when somebody in the professional arena is working in unfamiliar territory?

If technical merits were all that mattered, anybody in the professional arena would be just as fine using Linux/BSD (and save some bucks in the process, right)? We all benefit from a truly user-friendly system (even though the term "user-friendly" has become cliche).

Dragging disks to the trash does point out a general usability flaw, IMO, as no GUI offers a way to eject removable media which is truly intuitive. That said, my experience is that when teaching people with no computer experience to use a GUI it is the Macintosh GUI, in its various incarnations, which is the most easily mastered.

Maybe no other GUI offers a better way to eject removable media, but that's not my point. How intuitive is it to eject something by dragging something to the trash? The whole Desktop concept relies on a series of metaphors to an actual desktop in order to reduce the learning curve for new users. When you want something out of your site while working in an actual desktop (i.e. one with paper and pencils), do you throw it into the trash?

[midwinter]

Originally Posted by besson3c

Thanks for trying to explain the Thalo people... I don't mean to sound like I'm jumping down your throat for playing devil's advocate. I'm just hoping to better understand this. I'm beginning to, but frankly a lot of this still seems flimsy to me.

No worries. Personally, I think they're all like those people who go on shooting sprees about the control for their car window being a rocker versus a toggle versus a button. I'm just saying that, despite the lack of social graces, there is a method to the madness. The problem is that the madness has been so amplified by literally years in an echo chamber where 9 people talk to one another, not to mention years honing their trolling skills on other fora.