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KellyHogan · Mar 27, 2002, 05:58 AM

OK, another problem here.

I went to Version Tracker and noticed Watson 1.5 is out. I read the reviews, one person stated that Sherlock could do all the same things (although not as well).

So I launched Sherlock to do a test. As soon as I clicked on one of the internet icons I got a spinning wheel that would not go away at all yet no search has been made and there is no logical reason for it.

I force quit and launch it again. The first pane, for searching local content, is fine. But clicking on any of the web options results in a spinning wheel.

Again, I'm only complaining so that Apple does something to get rid of that damn thing. It's simply not the world's most advanced operating system is this type of thing keeps happening.

JLL · Mar 27, 2002, 06:31 AM

There's nothing wrong with the spinning wheel - blame Sherlock.

The wheel appears when the system haven't "heard" from the app the last two seconds.

chris_h · Mar 27, 2002, 06:32 AM

Originally posted by KellyHogan:

It's simply not the world's most advanced operating system

seriously?
wow, do go on!

starfleetX · Mar 27, 2002, 06:34 AM

Would you rather it just sit there and stare blankly at you?

There's a good reason for having the spinning disc cursor: to show that the frontmost app has stopped responding. You just happened to pick one of the worst apps for OSX to complain about. I think it's fair to say that no one likes Sherlock any more. I, for one, always use the 'find' command in the Terminal. But to the topic at hand, the only way to eliminate that cursor altogether would be to make sure EVERY SINGLE app was so thoroughly threaded and perfectly stable that it would never freeze up. That's not realistic.

Think of the spinning disc cursor as the new version of the stopwatch. Did you whine and bitch when you got the stopwatch cursor on older Macs and couldn't do anything AT ALL? At least with Mac OS X you can switch to another working app while the stalled one eases up or you can just force-quit said app.

smeger · Mar 27, 2002, 08:20 AM

I know you're not really looking for why it happens, but somebody might be and I posted this to a different forum and liked it, so...

I don't know why any one program in particular is doing this, but I'm pretty sure that I know "why" it happens. This is the technical reason...

When one writes a mac program, one doesn't write all of the code that handles displaying windows, fetching data from the internet, drawing menus, etc. Instead, one writes the "logic" of the program and lets the operating system (Mac OS X) do the rest. One accomplishes this by using Application Programming Interfaces (APIs - these are the Carbon and Cocoa things you may have heard of).

For example, if one wants to create a new window, one asks the operating system to create a new window with this title, at that location on the screen, etc.

Getting back to the original question, Mac OS X is set up so that if you ask the operating system to do something and it doesn't finish within a certain amount of time, you get the spinning cursor. Also, if the operating system wants to tell your program that the user has performed some action like a keypress and your program doesn't respond within a certain amount of time, you get the spinner.

Of course, this doesn't tell you why certain programs do it all the time - it just says that the program's authors need to spend more time multithreading and Apple needs to spend more time optimizing. Which shouldn't come as a shock to anyone...

Hope the techtalk was helpful

Developer · Mar 27, 2002, 09:36 AM

Originally posted by JLL:

There's nothing wrong with the spinning wheel.

Technically there's nothing wrong with it, but it's ugly.

Millennium · Mar 27, 2002, 09:55 AM

Kelly, "advanced" doesn't mean "completely and totally bug-free". If that were true, then no software would ever be able to be considered advanced.

That said, this is a bug, and it should be fixed. I hate the SPROD (SPinning Rainbow of Despair) myself. But to go on this "this isn't the world's most advanced OS" thing because of a minor detail like that is just whining. Particularly from the same crowd which demanded that Apple rush OSX out the door instead of actually taking the time to do it right.

edddeduck · Mar 27, 2002, 10:58 AM

Question

Why does the wheel/CD/ball have to spin?

Answer

To let you know the program is not accepting input at the moment....

This happens if it is doing a calculation...

To make this easy enough for you to understand I will come up with an easy analogy.

If you as the computer for the result of (2+3) + (2*5*5).

The processor is asked to solve the problem and return it when this is happening the program is waiting for an answer.

If the application is not multithreaded (Can do another thing while waiting for another thread to return a result) the spinning wheel appears coz nothing can be done till the thread replies.

Making an application multithreaded is not easy also it will slow down the application because you have to have more than one thread running at once thus they share processor time.

It most cases this is OK as the advantage of doing two things at once outweighs the speed drop. But for Photoshop you want rendering speed so multithreading is not wanted in certain functions.

BTW your version of Sherlock looks and sounds busted to me I have never had that happen.

Here is my advice, you seem to always break things. Create an normal (Not admin) account and always use this for your work. At least that way you can cause less accidental damage. Never touch the terminal su or sudo commands.
Always properly shut down your machine. Don't install any hacks or system based shareware apps. This is not because they are bad it's just this is the only way you could be messing up your machine.

Your either are the most unlucky person in the world, or very technically challenged as I have never heard of anyone rejecting honest help and comments with cheap comments back then bleating when they get flamed back.

When anything goes wrong count to ten b4 you do anything its a good rule.

Good luck in the future Edd

[EDIT] UBB code messed up.... [/EDIT]
[EDIT2] Spelling well != when [/EDIT2]

[ 03-27-2002: Message edited by: edddeduck ]

[ 03-27-2002: Message edited by: edddeduck ]

jguidroz · Mar 27, 2002, 11:15 AM

My B&W G3/300 runs Sherlock and the rest of OS X great.

I'll trade computers with you.

[ 03-27-2002: Message edited by: jguidroz ]

::maroma:: · Mar 27, 2002, 01:16 PM

Out of all the sorry suckers out there, you would think that Kelly would know all too well what the 'SPROD' is and why it's there!

and FWIW, Watson BLOWS SHERLOCK OUT OF THE WATER!

[ 03-27-2002: Message edited by: ::maroma:: ]

theMacDude · Mar 27, 2002, 03:53 PM

FWIW, the "wheel" isn't spinning. It's a smiple graphic that changes slightly to give the illusion of a spinning "wheel". It's actually not a wheel either.

;-)

Adam Betts · Mar 27, 2002, 04:42 PM

Technicolor · Mar 27, 2002, 04:47 PM

hehehehe

KidRed · Mar 27, 2002, 04:49 PM

What is flamebait and why does it happen?

Jim Paradise · Mar 27, 2002, 05:32 PM

ha ha ha ha ha!!! Adam, that's *solid* gold! ****, that's gold for a million reasons... it'd be gold even if it wasn't used as a brilliant flame. ****... I want one for myself!! *jealous* ha ha ha

KellyHogan · Mar 27, 2002, 05:48 PM

Originally posted by Adam Betts:

That's nice. It's PHAT.

But seriously, if the Finder and iDisk weren't bad enough, Apple wrote Sherlock. I've seen it run fine before so why should it be doing that shit now?

edddeduck · Mar 27, 2002, 05:51 PM

Originally posted by KellyHogan:


That's nice. It's PHAT.

But seriously, if the Finder and iDisk weren't bad enough, Apple wrote Sherlock. I've seen it run fine before so why should it be doing that shit now?

Dunno try an new user if it does not happen with that then it might be your sherlock prefs file...

Cheers Edd

JLL · Mar 27, 2002, 06:00 PM

Originally posted by theMacDude:
FWIW, the "wheel" isn't spinning. It's a smiple graphic that changes slightly to give the illusion of a spinning "wheel".

Oh, really? And my mouse isn't really a mouse - it's just called a mouse?

JLL · Mar 27, 2002, 06:01 PM

Originally posted by KellyHogan:


That's nice. It's PHAT.

But seriously, if the Finder and iDisk weren't bad enough, Apple wrote Sherlock. I've seen it run fine before so why should it be doing that shit now?

There's nothing wrong with iDisk - try and access with Goliath.

Diggory Laycock · Mar 27, 2002, 07:50 PM

Sherlock is cack because it was a quick and dirty carbon port. (nb the bad part of that sentence was quick not carbon

)

There was no way apple could re-write every utility in OS 9 so that it was perfectly optimised for OS X. They simply didn't have enough time. Airport admin didn't even make it into 10.0

Sherlock was probably (relatively) easy to carbonise - therefore it could be done quickly and engineers were freed for other more pressing tasks.

Hopefully it'll be tweaked in the future (I personally prefer "locate" & it's GUI conter-part locator)Locator

[ 03-27-2002: Message edited by: Diggory Laycock ]

Brass · Mar 27, 2002, 09:15 PM

Sherlock is crud... even in OS 9. I miss the good old "Find" command before Sherlock was created (OS 7 or 8?).

With "Find", the find window appeared instantly as soon as you hit CMD-F (was it part of Finder itself? I don't know). With Sherlock, even in OS 9, you've got to wait a considerable time before it's window appears. And in OS X it's even worse than in OS 9.

Bring back "Find"!!!

mrtew · Mar 27, 2002, 10:05 PM

Originally posted by Brass:
Sherlock is crud... Bring back "Find"!!!

Hear Hear!!! Who has used Sherlock for anything besides the find function in the last year. Bloatware extroardinaire!

KellyHogan · Mar 28, 2002, 04:31 AM

Originally posted by Brass:
Sherlock is crud... even in OS 9. I miss the good old "Find" command before Sherlock was created (OS 7 or 8?).

With "Find", the find window appeared instantly as soon as you hit CMD-F (was it part of Finder itself? I don't know). With Sherlock, even in OS 9, you've got to wait a considerable time before it's window appears. And in OS X it's even worse than in OS 9.

Bring back "Find"!!!

Exactly. Windows users laugh when they see the tool Mac users have to use to find files.

JLL · Mar 28, 2002, 05:38 AM

Originally posted by KellyHogan:


Exactly. Windows users laugh when they see the tool Mac users have to use to find files.

We don't have to. We can use Locator and SpeedSearch (to search in text files).

Hopefully those technologies will replace Sherlock.

rlmorel · Mar 28, 2002, 07:19 AM

KellyHogan- You NEED XP. You WANT XP. Why use OSX, when you can use and OS that will really make you fly. When you are up there, with your arms spread out, and a big grin on your face, you can laugh at all the poor, earthbound, OSX users. You can even fly around the office...darn, I should get XP. It is just sad to hear of all your problems, glued to your chair, watching the SWOD...I get all teary eyed just thinking of it. Gawd.

daftpig · Mar 28, 2002, 08:48 AM

Originally posted by KellyHogan:


That's nice. It's PHAT.

But seriously, if the Finder and iDisk weren't bad enough, Apple wrote Sherlock. I've seen it run fine before so why should it be doing that shit now?

And have you tasted shit before?

daftpig · Mar 28, 2002, 08:52 AM

Originally posted by KellyHogan:


Exactly. Windows users laugh when they see the tool Mac users have to use to find files.

Yah we know. But they laugh most of the time when they see us using a mac anyway. So if you feel the urging pissing need to conform... we won't blame you.

If you don't like X, then don't use it, use 9. I believe a number of macnn posters do still use 9.

Mediaman_12 · Mar 28, 2002, 09:02 AM

Originally posted by KellyHogan:


Exactly. Windows users laugh when they see the tool Mac users have to use to find files.

What?
Even the 'busted' Sherlock is beter than the dumb 'find files or folders' on this win98 box. When I find something I generaly want to do something with it.

Apple was on to a winner with the 'a search field in the toolbar' idea thay had in one of the developer versions of X.

kennethmac2000 · Mar 28, 2002, 05:55 PM

One of the main reasons for the spinning beachball of death is the serialization problems caused by the bolting of 3 or 4 different OS technologies together that was done to make Mac OS X.

There's a lot of difficult optimization needed on Apple's part to get shot of these, but until this happens, Mac OS X, will remain in many ways a less mature OS than Windows 2000/XP.

KellyHogan · Mar 28, 2002, 06:10 PM

I do think 9 is still lovely and completely usable. It just doesn't have proper PMT. Thats all it needed along with SMP and some other bits. Not a whole new interface and kernal panics!

But we all know how Apple tried and say they failed.

Adam Betts · Mar 28, 2002, 06:46 PM

Originally posted by KellyHogan:
But we all know how Apple tried and say they failed.

Yea, we all know how you tried to be troll and you failed

KellyHogan · Mar 28, 2002, 07:08 PM

Originally posted by Adam Betts:


Yea, we all know how you tried to be troll and you failed

Look who's trolling. Apparently you don't like people having their freedom to complain about their Mac problems. That either makes you the biggest troll ever or just another fascist fanatic who really should have been breast fed by a female and not a male.

OverclockedHomoSapien · Mar 28, 2002, 07:43 PM

Originally posted by KellyHogan:
OK, another problem here.

I went to Version Tracker and noticed Watson 1.5 is out. I read the reviews, one person stated that Sherlock could do all the same things (although not as well).

So I launched Sherlock to do a test. As soon as I clicked on one of the internet icons I got a spinning wheel that would not go away at all yet no search has been made and there is no logical reason for it.

I force quit and launch it again. The first pane, for searching local content, is fine. But clicking on any of the web options results in a spinning wheel.

Again, I'm only complaining so that Apple does something to get rid of that damn thing. It's simply not the world's most advanced operating system is this type of thing keeps happening.

Maybe you weren't connected to the net, troll.

idjeff · Mar 28, 2002, 08:00 PM

Originally posted by KellyHogan:


Look who's trolling. Apparently you don't like people having their freedom to complain about their Mac problems. That either makes you the biggest troll ever or just another fascist fanatic who really should have been breast fed by a female and not a male.

That's the thing Hogan, YOU complain more than anyone I've ever heard. And yes, you're trolling because you can't just say "thanks" to someone when they answer your question. You just keep on going and going, on and on how bad OSX has treated you.

And who the hell is breastfed by a man? Geez, what does that even mean?

Adam Betts · Mar 29, 2002, 03:16 AM

Originally posted by KellyHogan:
Look who's trolling. Apparently you don't like people having their freedom to complain about their Mac problems. That either makes you the biggest troll ever or just another fascist fanatic who really should have been breast fed by a female and not a male.

yawn...

maroma · Mar 29, 2002, 03:27 AM

yawn...

LMFAO!!

KellyHogan · Mar 29, 2002, 03:36 AM

Originally posted by idjeff:


That's the thing Hogan, YOU complain more than anyone I've ever heard. And yes, you're trolling because you can't just say "thanks" to someone when they answer your question. You just keep on going and going, on and on how bad OSX has treated you.

And who the hell is breastfed by a man? Geez, what does that even mean?

Thats bullshit. I have had all the same OSX problems that Apple has admitted to. I had the Powerbook misaligned DVD drive that was famous. The DP/PPP bug that was famous. And now I have a problem with my iMac which Mac User has reported. I also have a clear right to complain about this Sherlock/wheel thing. You don't like it then **** off and troll another thread.

It is even more amazing how flaming juvenile trolls like you conveniently forget my praise for Apple's digital hub and my great experiences with digital cameras, Airport and now iPod.

maroma · Mar 29, 2002, 03:59 AM

FUC@%ING back button!

[ 03-29-2002: Message edited by: maroma ]

idjeff · Mar 29, 2002, 04:55 AM

Originally posted by KellyHogan:


Thats bullshit. I have had all the same OSX problems that Apple has admitted to. I had the Powerbook misaligned DVD drive that was famous. The DP/PPP bug that was famous. And now I have a problem with my iMac which Mac User has reported. I also have a clear right to complain about this Sherlock/wheel thing. You don't like it then **** off and troll another thread.

It is even more amazing how flaming juvenile trolls like you conveniently forget my praise for Apple's digital hub and my great experiences with digital cameras, Airport and now iPod.

Well, I'm truly sorry that you're having all of these problems that you're having. BUT, if Apple has admitted to all of these problems, why are you bitchin' about them? EVERYONE has seen the spinning wheel here. Nobody likes it....it's just part of the system at the moment, sheesh. But you do complain, admit it....A LOT. All of your forum topics bash the hell out of OSX. Can't you tell that most of the people here are getting sick and tired of the stuff that you're shoveling?

Telling me to Fux off eh? Whatever prick.

Yes, my post was juvenile

Oh, and I don't need you to tell me how great your experience with the iPod was. I just hope it didn't get stuck too far up your arse. And no, I've never seen a positive post by you in THIS forum....and never done a search for posts by you, why would I want to?

eno · Mar 29, 2002, 05:05 AM

And I re-iterate, once again:

KellyHogan sucks sweaty dogs' balls and enjoys it.

It always a laugh to come here and get my daily dose of "Kelly Misery", whether it be a disk that Kelly voluntarily initialised and is upset about, or a spinning beachball.

And way to go, AdamBetts. That was funny.

stepson · Mar 29, 2002, 11:04 AM

As we all probably know, when you first turn on your mac, and start to boot up OSX, you get a few seconds of the rainbow wheel. At least I always do, i think its fairly common ....

Well, the other day my boss brought in his NeXT cube running NeXTSTEP 3.2 or thereabouts (it wasn't openstep) ... and woudln't you know it, his machine did the exact same thing! I think the rainbow wheel was inherited from next, but you'd think over all the years they'd get rid of it, or replace it with something that fits with the system a little better...

On another note, the NeXT cube is ... well, friggin' huge. No where near as cool (or quiet) as my cube ... now one of these days I need to get my turbo slab up and running ... (no monitor)

noisefloor · Mar 29, 2002, 01:10 PM

Would you prefer if they brought back the spinning clock or spinning black and white wheel from OS9?

KellyHogan · Mar 29, 2002, 05:10 PM

Originally posted by noisefloor:
Would you prefer if they brought back the spinning clock or spinning black and white wheel from OS9?

That actually does appear from time to time! How come the wheel sometimes changes from a colorful one to a Classic one?

edddeduck · Mar 29, 2002, 06:52 PM

Originally posted by KellyHogan:


That actually does appear from time to time! How come the wheel sometimes changes from a colorful one to a Classic one?

mmm..

1. Apple has not failed.....
2. In answer to the above question legacy code in the Carbon API's
3. I answered the Spinning wheel question as well so why keep bitchin?
4. Are you a Bloke or Woman?
5. Last question was pointless but what one more in this thread?

Cheers Edd

Developer · Mar 29, 2002, 08:45 PM

Originally posted by KellyHogan:


That actually does appear from time to time! How come the wheel sometimes changes from a colorful one to a Classic one?

Because the app displaying the "Classic" busy cursor asked for an event thereby proving the OS that it is not dead. It just does so in intervals larger than 2 seconds (or whatever the threshold for displaying the color wheel is), so it changes between the two.

TheGreatButcher · Mar 30, 2002, 05:09 AM

I don't like the beach ball - I still prefer the old watch with the hand moving

divehammie · Mar 30, 2002, 07:17 AM

Well ... I haven't really been following all the previous messages in other fora, but I can kind of sympathize with Kelly. I held out as long as I could but finally got "forced" to migrate to OS X. I like it but I miss the amount of control I used to have in OS 9. I don't know unix so initially I felt really lost and annoyed. But I'm getting used to OS X now. I love the stability. The only reason why I'm having any problems at all is that two software I use, Endnote and SPSS, still haven't come out with OS X versions. So in addition to those two, I still use Microsoft Office in classic mode. What I miss about OS 9 are Notepad (tried a few faux notepads for OS X but none of them quite cut it ... sigh), pop up windows, and Finder. I agree with a lot of you who are really frustrated with Sherlock. I never use Sherlock except to search on my computer. I've proven beyond a reasonable doubt that google is much better for searching stuff on the Net, for instance.

Anyway, somebody mentioned Locator, Speedsearch, and Watson. First time I'd heard of 'em, and I can't find Locator in Versiontracker. Anybody wanna give their two cents in terms of a comparison? Basically, I just want the same speed and simple functionality of Finder searching in OS 9. Thanks!

Hash · Mar 30, 2002, 09:01 AM

Originally posted by KellyHogan:
I do think 9 is still lovely and completely usable. It just doesn't have proper PMT. Thats all it needed along with SMP and some other bits. Not a whole new interface and kernal panics!

But we all know how Apple tried and say they failed.

Now i see your point. Well, I love OS9 too and use it now as well. With 440 Mb of ram it runs well, I can have iTunes, Dreamweaver, Fireworks, Explorer and Word or Excel running simultaneously and without freezes. Almost as well as under X. 9.2.2 is quite stable, compared to older OS9 predecessor, I especially hate 8.6.

That said, with such good hardware as yours iMacG4 u should not have much problems running X. Try reformatting and reinstall everything. If you encounter problems with X, you dont have to run it. Seriously, I do all my serious stuff on OS9, it just faster. I do occasioinally use X, but dont see any additional benefit of running 20 apps instead of 5.

People will hate u for blaming on OSX, but then its OSX forum. Frankly, we have right to criticize OSX as well as OS9. Its basis of democracy, after all. I will wait for 10.2 to bring back the speed and responsiveness. X is great system, just not mature yet.

Adam Betts · Mar 30, 2002, 03:08 PM

Originally posted by Hash:
People will hate u for blaming on OSX, but then its OSX forum. Frankly, we have right to criticize OSX as well as OS9. Its basis of democracy, after all. I will wait for 10.2 to bring back the speed and responsiveness. X is great system, just not mature yet.

Whoa! Hold your horse! We are not hating KellyHogan just because he blame everything on OS X, it's because Kelly show no respect and mannerism to those who tried to help. All he'd done was whining and whining. In most situation, he just made it worser than before.

A nice "Thank you for trying to help" note would be nice but Kelly doesn't give a sh!t about us.

dbergstrom · Mar 30, 2002, 04:32 PM

Originally posted by noisefloor:
Would you prefer if they brought back the spinning clock or spinning black and white wheel from OS9?

Windows hasn't even made it into the mechanized era - they still have a freakin' HOURGLASS!