[besson3c]

This is a thread where we can discuss advanced features that are missing, and perhaps cross items off our lists with solutions brought to our attention by others here, or by various additions to Leopards being revealed over time...

Please leave all eye candy and aesthetic/cosmetic stuff for other threads, and try to limit this to actual features, not resolution of outstanding bugs. In other words, "make the Finder not perform like ass" is not really a feature


Here is my list:

Mail

- Multiple identity support
- Folder subscription support
- Selection of what folders to check for new mail
- Selection of folders to Spotlight index
- Although not for me, full Exchange support would be great, and possible since Entourage is not MAPI based
- Better iCal integration. With enough Groupware support, Microsoft would probably be glad to drop Entourage. It appears as if Leopard's iCal will support delegates and free/busy info, so we are already on our way

Finder

- SSH (SSHfs) as a Connect to Server option (I'm using MacFUSE now, but since I need custom connect options I have to come up with command line connect scripts)
- Improve on the shortcomings of Appleshare or phase it out (e.g. single account/home directory mounted on a server at any given time, slow performance, metadata littering, etc.)
- Support of read/writes of other file systems (formating local drives with other file systems would be nice too)

Unix

- Apple's own support/implementation of Fink or Macports so that these products are stronger and more reliable. OS integration like in Ubuntu would be a great thing
- Make it so that metadata is not a major PITA. I don't want to use custom rsync binaries and have to take special considerations into account when transferring files to and from the Mac with other OSes with activities such as backups. It seems like we can't do much here until Windows supports extended file system attributes/xattr, but...
- Make iTerm the replacement Terminal app

Safari

- More easily extended. I don't want plug-ins to break across updates like PithHelmet and Saft do in Safari now. How about an API and software update mechanism like Firefox has?
- Session support if missing in Safari 3
- Better Flash performance. Watching a baseball game with the MLB Gameday applet brings the machine to its knees. Same with some YouTube and other Flash based stuff

X11

- Needs major upgrade to xorg, replacing XFree86

iSync

- It would be fantastic if iSync could be used with other servers other than .Mac (probably not going to happen, I know)

Time Machine

- Would be great if it handled revision control in addition to full backups/snapshots. This could be a useful tool in any project development

Quicktime

- I think QT could be far more helpful in offering to download and install necessary third-party codecs

Other

- LVM support might be nice
- Growl support (or something like Growl) in all apps

[lpkmckenna]

Finder:
- browse Smart Folders in Column View.
- metadata browsing and tagging

Safari:
- Live Bookmarks

[besson3c]

Is live bookmarks something like Foxmarks?

[hmurchison2001]

Live Bookmarks seem a bit redundant to me with RSS becoming such a hot commodity.

[besson3c]

I know this isn't a feature, but along the lines of "better Flash performance", I'll also add "better web browser responsiveness" in general. When I restore a session in Firefox, I can click on anything in the browser immediately after initiating the session reload. In Firefox on the Mac, I get beachballs. It's the same sort of thing in Safari - if you are loading stuff into tabs, you sometimes have to deal with a temporary lack of responsiveness.

How about this: no more beachballs...

[Curiosity]

besson3c,

Finder

- SSH (SSHfs) as a Connect to Server option (I'm using MacFUSE now, but since I need custom connect options I have to come up with command line connect scripts)

You mean that you want to connect the shell to the Internet? I do not see that as being very secure. Internet Explorer in Windows is the shell and it has all sorts of security flaws.

[shinji]

ipfw

-GUI for setting outbound traffic rules, sort of like Little Snitch, but integrated in the OS

Finder

-Ability to ctrl+click an image and have an option to make it the desktop background.
-I know this is sort of windowsy, but I should be able to cut a file. It's just the way many people think about moving files. If I forget to paste, then nothing should happen...the file is only actually moved once I do the paste...it just gets greyed out when I do cut, and if I add something else to the clipboard, then it cancels the cut.
-Multiple clipboards

Activity Monitor

-Show temperatures

Safari

-Saving an image/movie/etc. should have an option of where to save, not just the location I specify in preferences
-Should be able to make an image the desktop background in a contextual menu
-Should stop using absurd amounts of RAM

iMovie

-Batch watermarking (ie always watermark the bottom right corner with whatever image or text)

[P]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

This is a thread where we can discuss advanced features that are missing, and perhaps cross items off our lists with solutions brought to our attention by others here, or by various additions to Leopards being revealed over time...

Please leave all eye candy and aesthetic/cosmetic stuff for other threads, and try to limit this to actual features, not resolution of outstanding bugs. In other words, "make the Finder not perform like ass" is not really a feature

I much prefer crossing items off, so I'll do that...

Originally Posted by besson3c 

Mail

- Multiple identity support

Please no. That was a hack to support multiple users on top of single user systems like Win 95 and System 7. We have true multi-user support now - with fast user switching. Just use that.

Originally Posted by besson3c 

- Selection of folders to Spotlight index

That almost falls below your own rules - very minor thing.

Originally Posted by besson3c 

Finder

- SSH (SSHfs) as a Connect to Server option (I'm using MacFUSE now, but since I need custom connect options I have to come up with command line connect scripts)

With autofs, it will hopefully be easier to implement your own network filesystems. Don't know that, but i can hope.

Originally Posted by besson3c 

- Improve on the shortcomings of Appleshare or phase it out (e.g. single account/home directory mounted on a server at any given time, slow performance, metadata littering, etc.)

"Make Appleshare not perform like ass."

Originally Posted by besson3c 

- Support of read/writes of other file systems (formating local drives with other file systems would be nice too)

This should also be easier with the changes to the kernel in Leopard, or so I heard. Remember, that's how ZFS came on the map for OS X - the person responsible for filesystem development made a plug-in to support ZFS to evaluate what was missing in the filesystem API.

Originally Posted by besson3c 

Safari

- More easily extended. I don't want plug-ins to break across updates like PithHelmet and Saft do in Safari now. How about an API and software update mechanism like Firefox has?

That's NEVER going to happen, and you know it.

Originally Posted by besson3c 

- Session support if missing in Safari 3

Not really. It's just not automatic, you can restore the last session manually.

Originally Posted by besson3c 

- Better Flash performance. Watching a baseball game with the MLB Gameday applet brings the machine to its knees. Same with some YouTube and other Flash based stuff

"Make Flash not perform like ass."

Originally Posted by besson3c 

- Growl support (or something like Growl) in all apps

I thought that was in there, actually.

If I didn't mention it, I probably agreed with it.

[- - e r i k - -]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

T
Mail

- Multiple identity support

I'm confused. Between multiple accounts and FUS, what would this be good for?

[- - e r i k - -]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

- More easily extended. I don't want plug-ins to break across updates like PithHelmet and Saft do in Safari now. How about an API and software update mechanism like Firefox has?

Having plugins break is actually up to the developers of the plugins themselves. Inquisitor worked fine between updates. It's just that PithHelmet and SAFT have built in version checkers to avoid having to support users if newer updates break with their plugins. It's a on-the-safe-side solution, but as said it is completely up to the plug-in authors to implement it.

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by Curiosity 

besson3c,

You mean that you want to connect the shell to the Internet? I do not see that as being very secure. Internet Explorer in Windows is the shell and it has all sorts of security flaws.

What are you talking about the shell to the Internet? He wants SSHfs. It basically allows you to mount a network share over SSH so you can transfer files with normal file commands (e.g., drag-and-drop in the Finder).

[analogika]

Originally Posted by shinji 

-I know this is sort of windowsy, but I should be able to cut a file. It's just the way many people think about moving files. If I forget to paste, then nothing should happen...the file is only actually moved once I do the paste...it just gets greyed out when I do cut, and if I add something else to the clipboard, then it cancels the cut.

This has been discussed to death for years, and the situation is this:

Implement it the way you suggest (and the way it works on Windows), and you CANNOT call it "Cut and Paste", because it completely breaks the way cut and paste work in every other application on every mainstream operating system on the planet - i.e. cut something, and cut or copy something else, and the originally cut section is replaced on the clipboard and is GONE.
Also, a "cut" selection can be pasted multiple times all over the place. Should "Cut/Paste" of files work this way as well?

I also see problems with the default behavior for moving stuff to a different volume (it's copied by default, rather than moved). How do you handle that with "move file - insert file" to provide a "safe" default - as the concept of Macintosh mandates -, so that people don't accidentally delete stuff off their drives? Pop up an annoying dialog box every time?

I'd rather the feature go missing than it be Windows-like both in the sense of broken interface AND highest-possible annoyance factor.

[chris v]

Originally Posted by lpkmckenna 

Finder:
- browse Smart Folders in Column View.

Kind of impossible, since a smart folder can contain items in many different directories, so there's no way to show the parent directory (to the left of, in Column view) of items in a smart folder. Some means of dsplaying a preview other thn icon view would be useful, ala Pathfinder. Maybe the new Coverflow finder-thingy will be of use here.

[peeb]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

I know this isn't a feature, but along the lines of "better Flash performance", I'll also add "better web browser responsiveness" in general. When I restore a session in Firefox, I can click on anything in the browser immediately after initiating the session reload. In Firefox on the Mac, I get beachballs. It's the same sort of thing in Safari - if you are loading stuff into tabs, you sometimes have to deal with a temporary lack of responsiveness.

How about this: no more beachballs...

Too right - why can't browsers be set up to NEVER take all the available processor power to render background tabs?

[peeb]

Originally Posted by analogika 

This has been discussed to death for years, and the situation is this:

Implement it the way you suggest (and the way it works on Windows), and you CANNOT call it "Cut and Paste", because it completely breaks the way cut and paste work in every other application on every mainstream operating system on the planet - i.e. cut something, and cut or copy something else, and the originally cut section is replaced on the clipboard and is GONE.
Also, a "cut" selection can be pasted multiple times all over the place. Should "Cut/Paste" of files work this way as well?

I also see problems with the default behavior for moving stuff to a different volume (it's copied by default, rather than moved). How do you handle that with "move file - insert file" to provide a "safe" default - as the concept of Macintosh mandates -, so that people don't accidentally delete stuff off their drives? Pop up an annoying dialog box every time?

I'd rather the feature go missing than it be Windows-like both in the sense of broken interface AND highest-possible annoyance factor.

I'm not sure I buy the interface consistency thing, files are not the same as pieces of text in a wp, having a cut and paste that works slightly differently in different contexts would be ok. It sucks that this feature is missing.

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by peeb 

I'm not sure I buy the interface consistency thing, files are not the same as pieces of text in a wp, having a cut and paste that works slightly differently in different contexts would be ok.

That's not slightly different, it's completely different. The only reason you even think of it as the same function is because that's how you've been trained by Windows.

Cut and paste: Delete something, place it on the pasteboard. It can now be pasted to anyplace that takes that filetype.

File "cut and paste": Turn the file light grey. When the faux paste command is used, move the file.

[peeb]

Right, I agree.

[analogika]

You now agree that it is completely different - i.e. broken - behavior?