[C.A.T.S. CEO]

Originally Posted by OAW 

Agreed. I hope you can turn off the transparency in the Menu Bar.

If you read the rest of the thread you would know that by now.

And as for the scroll bars, why change it in iTunes and leave it Aqua everywhere else? Personally I think the "raised gel" look of Aqua scroll bars and buttons should go. It's not the color that I don't like ... it's the fact that they are raised to a much larger degree than the other UI elements. I like the "flattened" look of the scroll bars in iTunes better.

OAW

Agreed.

[Mrjinglesusa]

Originally Posted by Chuckit 

I certainly would have liked to see some cool secret features that Microsoft would have liked to have copied.

Me too. But honestly, there's only so much "innovation" that can go into a single OS release.

10.0 - huge step forward (compared to OS 9)
10.1 -- not so much
10.2 -- another big step
10.3 -- not so much
10.4 -- big step
10.5 -- not so much?

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by Mrjinglesusa 

Me too. But honestly, there's only so much "innovation" that can go into a single OS release.

10.0 - huge step forward (compared to OS 9)
10.1 -- not so much
10.2 -- another big step
10.3 -- not so much
10.4 -- big step
10.5 -- not so much?

You think 10.4 had more innovation than 10.3? Expose and Fast User Switching were way more compelling than…what? Dashboard?

Anyway, I still say 10.5 will actually be a huge step forward. The keynote just sucked.

[wr11]

I'll have to agree with the crowd. Most of what I saw was very welcome and needed. I am not too worried about the memory usage of coverflow in the finder - since I will not be using it much. The transparent menu bar is interesting - and hopefully adjustable. The odd thing is when you select a menu its drop-down is opaque which is a bit jarring really.

My #1 wish is that the finder will be properly threaded especially when connecting / disconnecting networked shares. If they finally fix that then perhaps I could live with the funny menu bar.

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by wr11 

My #1 wish is that the finder will be properly threaded especially when connecting / disconnecting networked shares. If they finally fix that then perhaps I could live with the funny menu bar.

According to the Technology part of the Leopard site, they've heavily revamped the multithreading for networking.

[CharlesS]

Originally Posted by P 

Since Jobs came back, Apple threw out the old Human Interface Guidelines without really replacing them with anything

Apple Human Interface Guidelines

[PhilH]

I was a little disappointed by the keynote and what was demonstrated. I don't think it lived up to the 'Top Secret' hype he gave it last year. He was hinting that we'd see something really groundbreaking in Leopard above and beyond the Spaces/Time Machine/Core Animation stuff we already knew about.

HOWEVER, the best design comes through evolution, not revolution, and I think the new finder and stacks are welcome additions. As has already been said, no matter how disappointed you feel with the announcement, it'll probably work out that the reality sucks nowhere near as hard, and you find yourself liking it. That's what Apple do.

Meanwhile, there's still plenty we don't know -- like what are all these developers doing to their software that's Leopard-only. Is TextMate going to fly round the screen at 10% opacity? There's still excitement to be had.

[:dragonflypro:]

I think that QuickLook is probably going to be the biggest feature that most people use. Col view plus QL would be huge.

No word yet, but if QL would 'flip' like a widget and have all the file info and space for meta tags that would be huge.

I am surprised that they have made it a separate thing feature-wise from the Finder as I really see it as part of it.

As for all those FTFF types, I don't really feel it was lacking in any critical capacity, maybe just confused. Pathfinder was/is just a over featured version of the same thing.

New Finder is potentially elegant and simple, yet powerful. But… there are always those who want a checkbox and setting for everything. Sounds like a fine idea, but it can often come to the app looking like the Homer car.

[mitchell_pgh]

I guess I would have liked seeing a few additional things in Leopard, but it seems like a nice upgrade. Well worth the $129 if you ask me.

[OAW]

Originally Posted by C.A.T.S. CEO 

If you read the rest of the thread you would know that by now.

And how exactly would I know that? Because of this particular comment?

Originally Posted by - - e r i k - - 

For FCUKs sake people. The transparent menu bar is OPTIONAL. How many times have this been mentioned already?

Well for one, nowhere in this thread was it mentioned that this was optional prior to his statement. If such a comment is there then it's doing a helluva job at hiding! Additionally, no link to any thing official from Apple was provided. So with all due respect to --- e r i k ----, he is the only one that has stated this so far and I'd like a little bit more to go on than his word on this issue. At a minimum some widespread confirmation of this ability by those who actually have the Leopard Beta in hand would be helpful.

OAW

[Kerrigan]

As Erik has pointed out a zillion times, you can turn off the translucency. Who knows, I'm sure we'll grow to like it.

[parsec_kadets]

Originally Posted by Mrjinglesusa 

Me too. But honestly, there's only so much "innovation" that can go into a single OS release.

10.0 - huge step forward (compared to OS 9)
10.1 -- not so much
10.2 -- another big step
10.3 -- not so much
10.4 -- big step
10.5 -- not so much?

I think it falls more along the lines of this:
10.0 - Visionary, but so buggy that you couldn't use it all day every day.
10.1 - Big step forward because it fixed 10.0
10.2 - another big step
10.3 - another big step
10.4 - not so much
10.5 - Big step.

A lot of people are letting their underwhelmment with the "Top Secret" features taint their impression of the entire update. The mistake here is that you act as if we've already got all the things that were announced last year. You have to take the new things from yesterday and combine them with the new things from last year. When you do that you get quite a list:
Stacks, new Finder/Quick Look, Spaces, updated Mail, updated iChat, updated iCal, Front Row 2, Time Machine, updated Safari, and Boot Camp.

Out of all of those, we only have access to two of them right now. Yet those are all things that I'll be happy to use every day.

[- - e r i k - -]

Originally Posted by OAW 

And how exactly would I know that? Because of this particular comment?

No, because I have generously posted in several WWDC and Leopard related threads information coming directly from the Moscone centre. Allow me to direct you to this page where I have compiled all of the first-hand information placed at the top of the page.

[- - e r i k - -]

I posted this in another thread, but it seems to be even more applicable in this thread:

Spaces and Stacks will be definitive general usability improvements, just like Exposé did. Time Machine on the other hand is going to be a genuine life-saver for a lot of people. So yes, I'd say that Leopard will be the biggest and most refined release of Mac OS X so far.

I think what we are seeing here is a bit of a feature-fatigue. People simply aren't as excited about new things still. Mac OS X is a mature operating system, and for new features to be perceived as cool anymore, they have to be more radical than before. Would people go mental for stacks if it had been introduced before Exposé? You bet!

So instead of people complaining, simply because they have been spoiled by previous innovations by Apple, they should take a step back and look at what Apple really is giving us here: A solid, refined operating system that will actually help you get your work done in the most pleasant manner possible. After all, an OS is just something that enables you to do your productive stuff (or be entertained by games, music and movies) without getting too much in your way.

[C.A.T.S. CEO]

Originally Posted by - - e r i k - - 

I posted this in another thread, but it seems to be even more applicable in this thread:

Spaces and Stacks will be definitive general usability improvements, just like Exposé did. Time Machine on the other hand is going to be a genuine life-saver for a lot of people. So yes, I'd say that Leopard will be the biggest and most refined release of Mac OS X so far.

I think what we are seeing here is a bit of a feature-fatigue. People simply aren't as excited about new things still. Mac OS X is a mature operating system, and for new features to be perceived as cool anymore, they have to be more radical than before. Would people go mental for stacks if it had been introduced before Exposé? You bet!

So instead of people complaining, simply because they have been spoiled by previous innovations by Apple, they should take a step back and look at what Apple really is giving us here: A solid, refined operating system that will actually help you get your work done in the most pleasant manner possible. After all, an OS is just something that enables you to do your productive stuff (or be entertained by games, music and movies) without getting too much in your way.

[Don Pickett]

Originally Posted by - - e r i k - - 

II think what we are seeing here is a bit of a feature-fatigue. People simply aren't as excited about new things still.

I think we're also seeing people who, for some reason, decided their pet feature was critical for OS Xs success and, when it's not there, bitch up a storm. One of the things I've seen mentioned more than once was the idea that Apple would include some kind of built-in virtualization environment for Windows/Linux. Where this idea came from I don't know, but several people seem to be upset that a "feature" Apple never discussed (or even hinted at) wasn't included. You might as well be upset Leopard doesn't include free ponies for everyone.

[- - e r i k - -]

I don't see why virtualisation should be something that Apple should provide. Steve stated that they are already working with Parallels and VMWare to make their lives easier, and it's much better to have a focused effort in that department by people who know what they are doing. Parallels is truly great, and offers constant updates. I'm amazed at how far they have come in just a year.

People are already complaining about Apple losing focus what with the iPhone, the Apple TV and the iPod. Most of those complaints are unfounded, but in a very real sense we got that with Leopard being pushed forward to focus on OS X on the iPhone.

[xe0]

I like the Menubar.

And I think Leopard is shaping up very nicely indeed. Bring on October.

[pyrite]

some of you guys may have been expecting too much.. personally, everything i saw, i liked. i like stacks, i like the new finder, i like the idea of easier network shares (even though they didn't really show us much), i personally like the theme (glossy black would have been way too vista), no problem from where i'm sitting. i was looking forward to more info on resolution independence, but apart from that leopard looks hot

[voodoo]

My gripes on the interface and Finder:

* I don't like the translucent menubar at all and will turn it off as soon as I install Leopard.

* The Finder is not very inspiring, but it may work ok.. we shall see.

* The Finder is *again* being inspired by iTunes. The 10.3 Finder was also an iTunes inspiration and a 're-written Finder' according to Jobs at the time. I'd like to see some rewriting on the spacial Finder side.

* The Aqua scroll-bars are annoying, but I'm confident they'll have disappeared in the final release. It's just one of those details that wasn't fixed for the public beta.

* Also there is some inconsistency with buttons, some are the old Aqua 'pill buttons' and some are flat square buttons



* That you have to pay for .Mac to get a simple and server-light feature such as 'Back to My Mac', i.e. holding a static placeholder IP for your Mac just like no-ip.com and probably others do for free. I am always annoyed when Apple wants people to pay for otherwise free things that would enhance the OS experience. In other words "an extra feature if you pay". Sounds like Mac OS X Leopard the 'Ultimate edition' costs $129+$99 per year. We only get the 'basic' out of the box.

* That QuickTime pro is requiered for full screen playback in the QT player, but comes for free in QuickLook. Oh how inconistent (and retarded).


That's all I can think of by watching the Keynote and reading about Leopard on the net. Gripes aside I think there are many marvellous additions to the Mac OS in this release. Time Machine, Stacks, Spaces, the new Mail, new Safari (I'm already using the beta), improved multithreading in the Finder, better Spotlight, QuickView etc etc.

My gripes still stand though and I hope some of them will be addressed before the final release. I guess some of them have to, since this is a beta and bugs and irregularities will be ironed out. While it is feature complete already, and the new look interface is certainly a feature it doesn't mean *this* exact new look will be the 'new look feature'. Everything is subject to change, as is said in the disclaimer at the bottom of every Leopard feature page at apple.com

V

[tiger]

Originally Posted by Peter 

just lame, totally rushed. n:

Could not agree more.

[- - e r i k - -]

Originally Posted by tiger 

Could not agree more.

Why?

It just seem that people have this irrational backlash to this keynote, even more so than earlier. Leopard is great. It will be for all forseeable future still the best operating system out there. It finally has a fixed f'n finder. It finally has a unified interface (resolution independence ready). It even has quite a few new cool productivity enhancing features. What is it with all this hostility?

[- - e r i k - -]

Originally Posted by Peter 

just lame, totally rushed. n:

Post and run.

Do you have anything to back this up other than your own disappointment?

I'd expect to see some rationality coming from the mods at least. Sheesh.

[krove]

Originally Posted by Chuckit 

According to the Technology part of the Leopard site, they've heavily revamped the multithreading for networking.

This plus AutoFS should completely unbork the Finder in dealing with network shares, drive mounting, etc. No more beachballing!

That's one small step for a man ... oh nevermind.

But seriously, this is big and really ought to fix at least one of the biggest outstanding complaints against the current Finder: performance.

[Peter]

Originally Posted by - - e r i k - - 

Post and run.

Do you have anything to back this up other than your own disappointment?

I'd expect to see some rationality coming from the mods at least. Sheesh.

yes, I'm fleeing from a thread
and really, what does me being a mod have to do with my opinion on Leopard? Besides baiting, that is.
The keynote was underwhelming, but if they've re-written the Finder has much as they claim they have, then its worth the upgrade fee (If the "Disconnect from AFP and crash your machine" bug is fixed, then I'm sold)

At the end of the day, the ten features Jobs 'unveiled' were nothing new, there was no amazing UI, no stunning ZFS integration, nada, zip.
Apple never claimed to be working on these, they're just a victim of their own success - but they could have stemmed the rumours slightly.

Hence why their stock dropped. Yes my post was irrational and spur of the moment, I think its a thing called first impressions. On deeper inspection, I'm impressed, but also disappointed they haven't added some of the stuff I loved the idea of.

[dn15]

Originally Posted by parsec_kadets 

I think it falls more along the lines of this:
10.0 - Visionary, but so buggy that you couldn't use it all day every day.
10.1 - Big step forward because it fixed 10.0
10.2 - another big step
10.3 - another big step
10.4 - not so much
10.5 - Big step.

That's what I was thinking, too. Each version after 10.0 was a huge improvement on the previous by making the OS perform significantly better and refining the interface by adding things like Expose -- up until 10.4, which was nice but felt much more gradual. As of 10.3, Mac OS X no longer felt pokey the way it used to, and it didn't have any real outstanding annoyances. The only thing 10.4 introduced that I felt really improved the way I use my computer was Spotlight. The rest (Dashboard in particular) was impressive but was basically a new toy tacked onto Panther.

At first I was a little underwhelmed that Leopard didn't have more secret features (after all the hype they gave it I was expecting it to be something huge.) But I have come to feel that the the addition of Stacks, the reworked Finder, QuickLook, and Time Machine are going to make this a very significant update in terms of usability and the ease with which you find and manipulate the information on your computer. In fact, it seems like it might be one of the most significant releases yet thanks to the improvements it's making to core functionality of the OS.

I admit I don't love the new menu bar look and I'm torn on the new shelf-like look of the Dock, but those are cosmetic and easily modified. They don't really change how you work with your computer.

[davecom]

I want to play this game too!

Public Beta - Well I enjoyed messing with it.
10.0 Welcome to the new world.
10.1 Usable
10.2 Production Ready
10.3 We finally reach a nice blend of rock solidness and uber cool to attract Windows users.
10.4 Evolutionary, missed potential. While Spotlight and Dashboard are heavily used, the other major features - core image, core video, and automator (my big underused app! This should be getting much more excitement from the userbase, but I admit myself that I don't use it) - are under appreciated.
10.5 We'll see I think this is more of a 10.4 type release. New interface tweaks and OS services similar in nature to dashboard and spotlight (time machine and finder/desktop stuff) + a whole bunch of features which are hit or miss depending on if app developers adopt them and users actually use them.

[analogika]

I think you underestimate the importance of Spaces, and Time Machine in particular, to the general populace.

Time Machine is *huge*.

In case you've missed just how simple it sets up: The first time you attach an external or network hard drive - ANY new external drive - Leopard automatically asks you if that drive is going to be used as a backup drive.

When you install Leopard from the Install disk, the first thing it asks you is whether you have a Time Machine disk attached. If you say "yes", your freshly-upgraded/-replaced internal hard drive is restored to exactly the condition it was before from the backup drive. That's a single click.

[- - e r i k - -]

Originally Posted by Peter 

yes, I'm fleeing from a thread
and really, what does me being a mod have to do with my opinion on Leopard? Besides baiting, that is.

It has absolutely nothing to do with having an opinion on Leopard and everything to do about thinking before posting. I'm sorry I have such high expectations

[krove]

Automator is a pain without if/else constructs to take you down different paths based on evaluation of some previous action. How many times I've tried to use automator to do something, only to figure out that I need it to do different things based on the outcome of an action.

That said, automator is great for dealing with "objects," like extracting images and passing them through a series of processing steps.

If they were to add in some basic logic blocks (if/else, variable comparison) etc, automator would be awesome.

[C.A.T.S. CEO]

Originally Posted by krove 

Automator is a pain without if/else constructs to take you down different paths based on evaluation of some previous action. How many times I've tried to use automator to do something, only to figure out that I need it to do different things based on the outcome of an action.

That said, automator is great for dealing with "objects," like extracting images and passing them through a series of processing steps.

If they were to add in some basic logic blocks (if/else, variable comparison) etc, automator would be awesome.

Yeah, I would hope so.

[OAW]

Originally Posted by - - e r i k - - 

No, because I have generously posted in several WWDC and Leopard related threads information coming directly from the Moscone centre. Allow me to direct you to this page where I have compiled all of the first-hand information placed at the top of the page.

Thanks Erik! I hadn't read that particular thread yet. I was only going on what I had seen in this thread. It's good to see that this feature is optional. We'll see if I turn it off after I use it for a bit. As the guy in the other thread stated, it might turn out to be nice in use. I suppose it will all depend on if Leopard can manage to automatically adjust the transparency to make the menu text legible even when using dark colored desktop pictures.

OAW

[shinykaro]

Yeah, enabling simple boolean stuff would be awesome and make Automator a lot more useful.

[ginoledesma]

So far, each release of Mac OS X has shown some speed gains over its predecessor (some argue with 10.3->10.4 with dashboard), and the initial reports regarding performance sound promising. For that alone I don't mind upgrading, since in almost all cases the newer OS is better (at least I've become more productive with each release).

Though the keynote may have been underwhelming, I appreciate the under-the-hood changes that Leopard is bringing. AutoFS alone will be a redeeming grace for Mac OS X users who frequently use remote shares, especially mobile users. Then there are other niceties such as NSOperation. I guess a number of people were so keen on getting ZFS as a trump card, but it's not like we lost anything without it (Time Machine and others will still work, maybe not as elegantly as with ZFS and its advanced features, but more than likely it will deliver as promised).

[mpancha]

I"m neither happy nor disappointed with the keynote. I didn't expect too much excitement given everythin Apple has on its plate right now. I think the desktop "features" are just eye candy, I think the Finder is going to eat up a ton of RAM and it sounds like its just eye candy, I'm tired of Cover Flow, I like the idea of quick look... however it doesn't seem like any underlying problems with the Finder have been fixed. All in all, I think it will look pretty, but that's about it.

The .mac features sound great, but still doesn't justify the pricetag to me. I don' tknow if they have fixed any speed issues I experienced whenI paid for .mac the first time around, but if its as slow as I remember, I don't think the remote searching of my other macs is goin gto work well enough to be of any use. Then again, that's just speculation based on my experiences with .Mac a year ago.

I'm still going to go out and buy 10.5, but honestly, I'm only buying it for Time Machine. NOt b/c I think Time Machine is a great "new" feature, but just b/c it allows me to be lazy and not backup on my own. Other than that, nothing in Leopard to me is worth paying for an upgrade, just Time Machine aiding in my laziness.

[CatOne]

Originally Posted by mpancha 

... I'm tired of Cover Flow, I like the idea of quick look... however it doesn't seem like any underlying problems with the Finder have been fixed. All in all, I think it will look pretty, but that's about it.

...

Cover Flow is *GREAT* for Spotlight.

Spotlight in 10.4 has limited practicality -- you search for some terms, and you get back 47 documents. Which one is the right one? Who knows?

With Cover Flow, you get the list (which, thankfully, is a SMALLER list given that there is now support for binary search), and you then use cover flow to flip through the documents quickly to see which one is the *right* one. WAY WAY WAY better.

[USNA91]

Originally Posted by Visnaut 

Now does anyone else notice in this screenshot that the reflections in the dock don't appear to be reflecting the shadows in the icons? You can notice it in the GarageBand most of all. It looks like it's just reflecting the icon content, not the shadow.

Good grief. Picky much?

[moonmonkey]

Originally Posted by Visnaut 

Now does anyone else notice in this screenshot that the reflections in the dock don't appear to be reflecting the shadows in the icons? You can notice it in the GarageBand most of all. It looks like it's just reflecting the icon content, not the shadow.

The icon format in Leopard has not changed, they have only added 512x512 resources, so the shadow is being reflected, you just can't see it in that shot.

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by moonmonkey 

The icon format in Leopard has not changed, they have only added 512x512 resources, so the shadow is being reflected, you just can't see it in that shot.

The shadow isn't part of the icon; I think it's generated by Core Image.

[Kerrigan]

What, no dock-reflected icon shadows? I'm switching to Vista

[krove]

Seriously. If a modern operating system can give me my reflections proper, I'm outta here!

[TETENAL]

The shadows are part of the icon.

The real question is: Where is the Dock separator? And without it, how do you resize the Dock?

[Super Mario]

Originally Posted by Chuckit 

The shadow isn't part of the icon; I think it's generated by Core Image.

The icons and shadows are still traditional bitmaps. No change there. You can't see the shadows in the dock reflection because the transparency value is even lower.

[JLL]

Originally Posted by TETENAL 

The shadows are part of the icon.

No they are not.

Btw. the reflections are wrong. Look at the trash can. A trash can standing on a mirror like surface wouldn't make a reflection like that.

[Super Mario]

Originally Posted by JLL 

No they are not.

Yes they are. The icon format hasn't changed. If you want evidence for that look at the Keynote icon. For a shadow to fall like that using a filter like CoreImage there would have to be three dimensional data supplied to the filter. It's not happening. The icons and shadows are still based off png artwork.

There are some oddities in the screenshot of the Dock. Some reflections touch the icon and some don't. It has to be a mock up or bug. A mock up would explain why the Trash's reflection is bent.

Whoever thought having a shadow cast on Dock AND Wallpaper had to be mad.

[krove]

Touching or not touching has to do with whether an icon touches the bounds of its 512x512 px canvas. Obviously iMovie and Keynote do touch the edge while iPhoto does not.

Now, after taking a closer look at that trash can, i see the problem. The reflections are two dimensional in nature. Take and icon, flip it vertically, fade it out, make it transparent = fake reflection. The problem with the trash can is that it tries to represent a 3D object, but when it's 2D canvas undergoes the just-mentioned algorithm, it fails to look like a 3D object's reflection. To accomplish that, the reflected 2D image would have to translated up.

Satisfied?

[JLL]

Originally Posted by Super Mario 

Yes they are. The icon format hasn't changed. If you want evidence for that look at the Keynote icon. For a shadow to fall like that using a filter like CoreImage there would have to be three dimensional data supplied to the filter. It's not happening. The icons and shadows are still based off png artwork.

Then how does my own homemade icons that have no shadows whatsoever suddenly have shadows when in the dock?

[Super Mario]

Originally Posted by JLL 

Then how does my own homemade icons that have no shadows whatsoever suddenly have shadows when in the dock?

That's not CoreImage generated. That has been there long before CoreImage. And if you create an icon like the GarageBand or Keynote one without shadows they will not look the same as the ones created with shadows like you see in 10.5's Dock snapshots.

[JLL]

They do!!! I am writing this from Leopard!!

The shadows are NOT part of the icon!

[ginoledesma]

Just saw the Leopard videos at Apple's website... One thing I'll have a hard time determining from the dock is which apps are currently running (the color effect is too subtle from casual glance). Not that I'll mind much since my dock is hidden all the time.