[Zemrec]

Hi, I love OS X, but I'm also a big Linux/X11 & KDE/Gnome fan. There's a few user-interface elements in X11 that I really wish I could put in OS X, and I don't know of any utilities off hand.

1.) I've always hated the MacOS's menubar. I much prefer having menus within application windows themselves. The MacOS menubar is especially annoying if you use multiple monitors, since you may have an application on a secondary monitor but have to move all the way to the main monitor to get the menus.

Plus, my menu bar at least is very crowded with the ordinary menus in addition to status icons and clock. And then there's the dock taking up space too. I'd rather have them on one line.

2.) I love highlight-to-copy and middle-button-to-paste in X11. Seems like a trivial thing to reproduce, but I haven't seen a program that'll do it in OS X.

3.) The Dock. I hate it. It tries to be too much (application launcher, as well as telling you which programs are running, and which windows are minimized, and trash. Plus its a moving target. Even if you turn zoom off, it gets crowded and icons move around.

I've been using Dragthing for years under OS 8 & 9, and put it back on under OS X recently. I just don't understand why Apple didn't integrate Dragthing's functionality into the OS. I use it as my launcher, and I love the tabs and roll-away drawer feature.

But I can't get rid of the Dock completely, you can't turn it off, so instead I just have it really small and use it to show running programs, but I'd rather it disappeared.

[Millennium]

1) There is nothing you can do about the menubar. Learn to love it: a single menubar is The Way It Should Be, anyway, simply from an interface standpoint. It's a great shame that everyone has copied Microsoft's poor imitation on this one. Unlearn what you have learned, and you shall see the light .

On a sidenote, this is a common complaint for recent converts. It's well known that quite a few people requested that Apple incorporate this usability nightmare into OSX. Fortunately, they refused.

2) This feature of X11 is actually quite useful. Unfortunately, I don't know of anything which emulates it in OSX. You could program the middle button of most mice to press Command-V (which would cause a paste in almost any program out there), but that doesn't get the highlight-to-copy behavior, without which the middle-click-to-paste is kind of pointless.

3.) There is no software to kill the Dock completely, but there are hacks out there to replace it with other programs (including DragThing, if I am not mistaken). I don't know them off the top of my head, but someone in here should.

[iTron]

On a sidenote, this is a common complaint for recent converts. It's well known that quite a few people requested that Apple incorporate this usability nightmare into OSX. Fortunately, they refused.

I'm curious, could you explain why having the menubar on the app instead of at the top is a "usability nightmare" ? I can't think of a single reason. Infact in Millenniums situation where he uses dual monitors it's definately a hassle. Now i don't think either way is a big deal, but you seem so against having it on the app because it kill usability i wonder why. I doubt apple made this choice for usability purposes at all( i could be mistaken), if i had to guess i would say it's there for the look of the apps, by removing the menubar from each app it cleans up the look, but the look doesn't affect usability.

[redJag]

Well originally it was done to keep the menu in the same place, all the time. I think something needs to be done about multiple monitors though, like an option to "extend" the menubar to this screen, or just duplicate the menubar onto that screen. I prefer it the Mac OS way, and I really don't think Apple will allow it the Windows-like way, not to mention to totally switch to that!

[Developer]

The Windows way isn't really a usability nightmare. It has its advantages (proximity and it's obvious to which window the menu belongs).

The advantage of the Mac menu bar is that it is much easier to hit since it's an infinitely large target on the y axis.

It was originally chosen because nothing else makes much sense for a single tasking operating system on a 9" screen.

[DP Roberts]

Originally posted by iTron:
I'm curious, could you explain why having the menubar on the app instead of at the top is a "usability nightmare" ?

It's been awhile since I read "TOG On Interface" (Bruce Tognazzini, one of the original Apple User Interface Engineers) but I'll try to relate the major reason I remember. Usability studies revealed what was known as an "infinately large target." A target is what you are trying to click on. In the case of the menubar, the user doesn't have to stop the cursor vertically on the menu, just point it correctly left or right as you carelessly move it upwards to the very top of the screen. On average--regardless of where on the screen you started--choosing a menu was MUCH faster than if you had to choose a menu attached to a window. Try it--works for the dock, also.

...and as you pointed out, you reduce the size of each window.

[CharlesS]

On Windows, you have a menu bar inside each window. And what do its users always do? They maximize the window so it fills up the whole screen, effectively making it like the Mac with the menu bar at the top. Except, of course, that it doesn't extend all the way to the top of the screen, so you don't have the infinite height advantage.

When the menu bar's in a window, the window needs to be really wide to fit it. You have to waste a lot of screen real estate because of this. IMHO.

[Graymalkin]

The reasoning Tof uses is Fits' law. The size and distance of an object on the screen are inversely related to find the ease of hitting an object on-screen. Increasing the size or decreasing the distance to an object will make it easier to hit. Making the distance zero or size infinite makes the object infinitely easy to hit.

On the Mac the designers made the menu bar infinitely large by stopping the mouse at the top of the bar. If you can move the cursor up all day long and never get passed the menu bar it is effectively infinite and thus infinitely easy to hit.

Interestingly the concept of a contextual menu (right click menu) tries for the opposite effect. It makes the distance to the menu zero to effectively make the ease of hitting the menu infinite. This would work as well as the menu bar if it weren't for the fact contextual menus are invisible until activated and as their name implies contextual. So not only can you not see these menus but their contents change depending on where your cursor is. The only way to know what is on these menus is to activate them and memorize them by rote. Contextual menus are little more effective at speeding up the user experience than keyboard shortcuts, a prime reason for MacOS shunning them until about OS8's introduction.

[suthercd]

Why not just use X11 in full screen mode. Then you can design your own interface.

Craig

[kertong]

I want sloppy focus mouse pointer, but can't find a single utility to do this in OSX

[theolein]

Originally posted by kertong:
I want sloppy focus mouse pointer, but can't find a single utility to do this in OSX

This is a bug of mine as well. In safari, new windows don't get focus, which can be confusing about being able to discern what is a link and what is not (The mouse cursor only changes to a hand and mouse over events only happen when the window has focus).

[Sven G]

Originally posted by Graymalkin:
Interestingly the concept of a contextual menu (right click menu) tries for the opposite effect. It makes the distance to the menu zero to effectively make the ease of hitting the menu infinite. This would work as well as the menu bar if it weren't for the fact contextual menus are invisible until activated and as their name implies contextual. [...]

Actually, there is an OS X utility which also gives you the whole menu bar in a contextual menu - DejaMenu:



Interesting, and also quite NeXTSTEP-like: