[Spheric Harlot]

Originally Posted by cwkmacuser 

I don't like Windoze, but that's how it should be. Maximize should maximize. I shouldn't have to drag the windows to make them take up my entire screen. Otherwise, delete the Maximize button entirely.

Except it's not a maximize button.

It's a "resize this window to best fit its contents without wasting screen space" button.

Or rather, that's what it always has been, which is why what iTunes does is so stupid.

[besson3c]

I definitely don't think that the maximize button should behave like it does in Windows, but I actually think that the usefulness of this button has run its course, it should be removed altogether - less is more. The occasions where I would use this button are so rare that I habitually wouldn't think to click it anyway.

[Simon]

I agree with Besson. I'd do away with the button too. It's simply not necessary in OS X.

[besson3c]

Maybe it was left in to pacify some of the OS 9 users that were reluctant to switch to OS X? With them converted and/or no longer relevant, maybe it's time to move on. I personally think that the finder labels scheme is pretty weak too, but obviously it too is a feature that made the jump from OS 9 to X.

[P]

No, it was left in to complete the Red-Yellow-Green traffic light. Red-Yellow looks so out of place.

Zoom to fit is not a terribly useful feature, but it's OK, and option+zoom button is already maximize. Has been so since System 7 in 1991, before which it actually was a maximize button without option, and at least back then the HIG said that it should be a regular maximize button if zoom to fit did not make sense in that context.

As for the topic: Resolution Independence and a new file system, but this topic needs to be a poll.

[CharlesS]

I find the "zoom to fit" button useful if a window somehow becomes larger than the screen, so that the resize widget is somewhere below the bottom of the screen and thus not reachable, which can happen a lot if you have a larger screen connected to your laptop, which you occasionally disconnect.

That's about it, though.

[OreoCookie]

@besson
Thanks for your post. I agree that Apple will take a conservative approach. I'm semi-concerned about the future of ZFS as Oracle officially supports btrfs and its networking brother (forgot the acronym). On the other hand, from people who have been toying with btrfs, I have come to understand it's much less complete than ZFS.

Apple's behavior is similar to its work on a resolution independent interface first announced in 10.4 (or perhaps even 10.3?): we know they're working on it

[Judge_Fire]

System level
- Resolution independence
- Support for 3D depth throughout GUI and Cocoa/AppKit for stereo displays
- Better controls for audio output (systemwide EQ etc.) and a user-friendly standard panel for developers to add to their app for audio input/output effects, like we have with camera capture now.

UI Design
- More coherence in the Finder/Desktop/Dock/System Preferences to streamline app launching and file browsing, especially in the default setup for new users. Newbies still struggle to find the semi-hidden 'Finder preferences' and 'View options', and 'Applications' needlessly. (The icon size slider at the bottom of 10.6 Finder windows is a step in that direction.) Learn a few things from the iPhone, too and see what can be streamlined.

Hardware to suit
- Mighty Mouse replaced by a stand-alone TrackPad product to bring iMac and Mac Pro users gestures and multi-touch (Time to drop mice, isn't it)
- 200 PPI displays that make resolution independence really shine
- Stereographics (3D), freeviewable without headsets so that there really is no mistaking which damn window is the top one

[cwkmacuser]

Originally Posted by Big Mac 

But it's not Maximize. It's not WIndows you're dealing with. It's Mac OS X, and there are differences.

Yes, there are differences, but what's the point of that button being there? I don't ever use it, and it's a pain to make things take up the entire screen.

[0157988944]

Ok, this is why people get frustrated with you. The first time you asked this, more than one person explained to you what the button is for.

Secondly, just because you don't use it and seem hellbent on having everything be fullscreen doesn't mean everyone does, and you really shouldn't need someone else to tell you that.

Back on topic, standardized tabs and toolbars. (Why are there three different types of toolbar buttons?!)

[OreoCookie]

Originally Posted by cwkmacuser 

Yes, there are differences, but what's the point of that button being there?

To make the window large enough for the content. I use it quite a bit (mainly for viewing pdfs). What you have is a switcher reflex (my father does the same): just because Microsoft (once upon a time before widescreen displays) thought it was a good idea, it became popular and expected behavior.

[mduell]

The green button as "resize to fit content" is a great idea, but it has no credibility after Apple has failed to deliver on it in their own apps after nearly a decade of OS X.

Originally Posted by OreoCookie 

@besson
Thanks for your post. I agree that Apple will take a conservative approach. I'm semi-concerned about the future of ZFS as Oracle officially supports btrfs and its networking brother (forgot the acronym).

CRFS

[Salty]

I used to be like that on OS 9, I found an extension that auto hid things when I switched to another app. It was pretty useful. Spaces kinda does that but I find Spaces kinda broken. IE with a dual monitor setup you can't assign spaces to just one monitor, which sucks since if I wanna watch a movie while working in both Photoshop and Illustrator and checking my IMs, I don't want my movie to fly away when I change apps.

Oh and resolution independence would be great, as would be the option of making the dock not lame. I actually killed the 3D dock as soon as I got leopard.

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally Posted by Salty 

I used to be like that on OS 9, I found an extension that auto hid things when I switched to another app. It was pretty useful. Spaces kinda does that but I find Spaces kinda broken. IE with a dual monitor setup you can't assign spaces to just one monitor, which sucks since if I wanna watch a movie while working in both Photoshop and Illustrator and checking my IMs, I don't want my movie to fly away when I change apps.

Assign your movie player to "all" Spaces.

[Salty]

Really? Hmmmmmmm, I retract my ignorance...

[JKT]

However, Spaces is still fundamentally broken in Leopard (window focus constantly changing, dialogues getting trapped behind windows, etc)... so if they could fix all its absurd failures in Snow Leopard, that would be great.

[CharlesS]

Originally Posted by OreoCookie 

To make the window large enough for the content. I use it quite a bit (mainly for viewing pdfs).

Ah, you're right, come to think of it I do use the green button now and again to size Preview windows to the right size for PDFs. I'd forgotten about that.

[moonmonkey]

I think we need something completely new, a completely new concept in desktop computing, like the iPhone changed palmtop computing.

WIMP is so 80's.

[headbirth]

Kill the "desktop model" and develop something new and modern and innovative!!!!!!!

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by moonmonkey 

I think we need something completely new, a completely new concept in desktop computing, like the iPhone changed palmtop computing.

WIMP is so 80's.

New ≠ Better

[headbirth]

Exactly ... simple and intuitive. Apple is just the company to do it too.

[olePigeon]

Originally Posted by turtle777 

By network storage, do you also mean remote servers?
I'd agree, that would be nice to see in TM.

You can always use Carbon Copy Cloner. It's not as nifty as Time Machine, but it's still ASR and it works with any server provided you have a login/password, or, any UNIX or Linux server with the appropriate shell account. If you're using OS X it can auto-generate a simple installer for automating the shell account.

But yeah, Time Machine has a nifty easy-to-use GUI.

Originally Posted by turtle777 

Other than that, I hope that some of the unresponsiveness is gone with SL.

I just don't freaking understand why I sometimes get the beachball with a 2.4GHz C2C and 4 GB of RAM, w/o running any processor intensive tasks.
It's really annoying and embarrassing.

Agreed. Judging from the WWDC demo, though, that should be a thing of the past. They did a whole thing on thread management.

[CharlesS]

Originally Posted by olePigeon 

You can always use Carbon Copy Cloner. It's not as nifty as Time Machine, but it's still ASR

I think CCC only uses ASR if you use it to do a block copy (correct me if my info is out of date), which isn't going to happen over a network.

[Simon]

Yeah, screw CCC. If you're looking for a GUI to asr it's in Disk Utility > Restore.

[Salty]

Honestly I think it'd be great if we could turn on auto hiding of apps so that unless you WANT to keep open the other apps they'd auto hide when you switch.

[Big Mac]

That would harm multitasking for very little benefit, IMO.

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by Salty 

Honestly I think it'd be great if we could turn on auto hiding of apps so that unless you WANT to keep open the other apps they'd auto hide when you switch.

There are programs that do that.

[Salty]

Really? I don't imagine it'd happen now but it'd be nice if it was something that got turned on by default. I haven't seen any apps that did that since OS 9 but i stopped looking. These days I'm always working in a few apps at a time and I just leave most of my windows for my graphic apps at full screen anyway.

[Big Mac]

Oh here's a huge 10.7 feature for me: Multiple Clipboards!!!!!

[Salty]

Multiple Clipboads would be AWESOME! It'd probably have to be a dock icon or a keyboard shortcut or something but yah that'd be sweet! Or better yet the ability to copy and paste ANYTHING just by dragging it to the desktop or between apps.

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by Salty 

Really? I don't imagine it'd happen now but it'd be nice if it was something that got turned on by default. I haven't seen any apps that did that since OS 9 but i stopped looking. These days I'm always working in a few apps at a time and I just leave most of my windows for my graphic apps at full screen anyway.

Why on earth would you need such a feature to be the default? Its mere availability isn't enough for you?

[Big Mac]

Originally Posted by Salty 

Multiple Clipboads would be AWESOME! It'd probably have to be a dock icon or a keyboard shortcut or something but yah that'd be sweet! Or better yet the ability to copy and paste ANYTHING just by dragging it to the desktop or between apps.

If you think about it, the clipboard is one of the only Mac system features that hasn't gotten a substantial upgrade in decades (spanning Mac OS to Mac OS X). Multiple cliboards should have been around from day one in OS X. I use the clipboard to copy posts in progress in browsers or to copy code snippets I'm using. It's so infuriating to realize that I've copied something else in the place of what I needed to go back to and paste. It means either a loss of time or lost work. All the third party clipboard utilities I've used prove to be unreliable themselves. It's one of the most annoying things in my daily work flow. I wonder how many others experience the same problems and are as annoyed as I.

[Salty]

True. Putting it into place might be difficult for new users, but I imagine the more advanced features could just be hidden for more advanced users to find/use. It'd be nice if you had something kinda like the history panel in a lot of apps. IE the last 5 things you copied and pasted will appear there. That would not be bad.

[Big Mac]

Exactly! All Apple would need to do would be to have a clipboard history window. Otherwise, the clipboard would function exactly like it does now.

[mdc]

Originally Posted by slugslugslug 

Have you tried turning on iDisk sync? It's pretty close, though you have to use your iDisk's folders instead of any old arbitrary ones. But once you've turned it on, you can make aliases to iDisk subfolders inside any of your local folders.

For some reason that never occurred to me. I'll give it a try by moving a bunch of documents over to it and seeing how it works out.

Thanks.

Originally Posted by Big Mac 

If you think about it, the clipboard is one of the only Mac system features that hasn't gotten a substantial upgrade in decades (spanning Mac OS to Mac OS X). Multiple cliboards should have been around from day one in OS X. I use the clipboard to copy posts in progress in browsers or to copy code snippets I'm using. It's so infuriating to realize that I've copied something else in the place of what I needed to go back to and paste. It means either a loss of time or lost work. All the third party clipboard utilities I've used prove to be unreliable themselves. It's one of the most annoying things in my daily work flow. I wonder how many others experience the same problems and are as annoyed as I.

I think if multiple clipboards could be done in a very simple way it'd be amazing.

To get around what you mentioned I tend to make text clippings of multiple things, drop them where ever I need them to be, and then delete the text clippings. It's not perfect, but it works well enough.

Originally Posted by adamfishercox 

Back on topic, standardized tabs and toolbars. (Why are there three different types of toolbar buttons?!)

And why are there many different scrollbars? I can understand the small white ones that we see in mail and dashboard widgets, but why do iTunes and other iLife apps have different scrollbars?

[Salty]

To let developers know that they're apple's bitches

[P]

Originally Posted by Big Mac 

Exactly! All Apple would need to do would be to have a clipboard history window. Otherwise, the clipboard would function exactly like it does now.

PTHPasteboard works like that. It's free, has worked since 10.1 or so, runs in its own process rather than using APE or SIMBL or similar hacks and I don't know how I ever lived without it.

[Big Mac]

Wowzers. If it's free, has been around since 10.1 and works as well as you say, I don't know how I could have missed it all these years. Thank you very much P. You've got me salivating over freeware!

I installed it. Seems terrific. If it holds up as well as you say, it will have solved the problem that so frustrated me. I could have saved me hours of lost work and aggravation with PTHPasteboard. Why hasn't Apple purchased the software and made it standard?

[moep]

Ad multiple clipboards: Launchbar 5 also has a Clipboard History built in now.

[Big Mac]

I've never used Launchbar, but that's good to know.

[slugslugslug]

I just remembered something that I've been wanting since Fast User Switching: background autologin. That is, when I restart my Mac, I want it to automatically log in as me, but I'd like it to keep the login window showing. This way I can, say, start a software update and leave the house. Then when I'm gone, my mail rules will still be running (which I guess wouldn't matter if all my accounts had server-side filtering); and when I come home and want to use my computer, I won't have to wait for login.

[Big Mac]

That's a very particular feature request that I don't see many users benefiting from, slug^3. Aside from eliminating one trip to the FUS menu, I don't see how your suggestion would increase user productivity. And why would you need to switch users to use Software Update anyway? A non-administrator can still run Software Update and authenticate as an administrator when prompted.

[slugslugslug]

I just want the convenience of having all my login processes launched without interaction when I reboot, without the security compromise of autologin as it is now.

And sorry if I was a bit unclear, but I don't switch users for Software Update. I barely switch users ever, for that matter. But until FUS showed up, seeing the login window implied that nobody was logged in, so what I'm talking about wouldn't have made sense.

Anyway, SU was just an example of a context in which I might reboot. Main point is, that when I restart, I often walk away from my Mac. But most times that I sit down to it, I expect it to be already logged in. But I don't want to turn on autologin as it is now, because if somebody gets a hold of it, I don't want them to reboot and see all my e-mail, browser history, etc.

[Big Mac]

Ah, I see. But why restart that often anyway?

[slugslugslug]

Who said I restart often? I restart whenever SU requires it, and occasionally for other reasons. But when I do, I want my user account to log in while keeping the screen locked.

[shifuimam]

Ugh - it must be Friday...I forgot I already posted in this thread.

[shifuimam]

Originally Posted by OreoCookie 

Big, big no, no. This is, by far, the worst aspect of Windows: even though you have beautiful 16:10 screens, a browser window takes up full width. Maximize should maximize with respect to the content in the windown and not take up all your screen space.

Not really. If it's a fluid-width layout, why would you NOT want it to take up more space? These very forums are a great example - I'd much rather be able to see as much content on 'NN as possible at one time, rather than being restricted to an arbitrary size that OS X chooses for me.

You can't reliably choose an appropriate size to maximize a window "based on content". It makes a hell of a lot more sense for maximize to actually maximize, and if you prefer a different window size, to simply resize it yourself. I've found that OS X's half-assed implementation of maximization is too unpredictable to use regularly.

I doubt that I'm the only OS X user who wants the ability to maximize windows normally. If you don't like it, you don't have to use it - but it's not a good reason to not include the option at all.

[Spheric Harlot]

Actually, I *much* prefer to keep the forums LEGIBLE, i.e. NOT in full-screen mode.

Written language is separated into paragraphs and blocks for easier legibility and comprehension - assuming you're dealing with people capable of composing them.

Having to read lines of text spread out across the entire screen at 11-point size is annoying as ****.

[shifuimam]

But do you think that the global functionality of an operating system should accommodate only certain users, or attempt to accommodate as many users as possible?

You don't ever have to use the maximize button - hell, you could even make an app that makes it disappear entirely. But making the not-exactly-maximize button behave as erratically as it does in OS X makes no sense at all.

[CharlesS]

Well, it depends. Can you think of a logical argument why a maximize button would be a useful thing on a wide-screen monitor other than just "I want it"? Because if it's not useful, then it's a waste of time to implement it, and a waste of space to have the widget on the window bar.

I admit that on Windows I end up maximizing windows, but only so that I can have a full-width menu bar pinned to the top of the screen, like Mac OS X has already anyway. When you've already got that, I don't see why you'd need to maximize a window unless you're on a tiny netbook screen or something.