[- - e r i k - -]

Let's see if we can list all the ones too minor for Apple to publish, yet combined will make our lives so much better:

1. QuickLook supports text clippings (although it appears existing third party QL plugins need to be rewritten)
   
2. Exposé fades out the menubar and Dock, and has a little animation for hiding non-Exposable windows.
   
3. Exposé has a stricter grid layout and includes window titles below each window instead of needing to mouse over. If titles are abbreviated, mousing over the window will expand it.
   
4. Space to QuickLook in Exposé.
   
5. Finder has a context menu for disc burning.
   
6. LCD font smoothing is improved. Text seems crisper in many cases.
   
7. Mail automatically configures Gmail accounts with IMAP instead of POP
   
8. Switching between keyboard layouts now has a bezel:
   
   
9. If you draw boxes on your Desktop, they fade out smoothly.
   
10. After setting up syncing between iCal and my Google Calender, Safari automatically fills out the login form for gmail (should be the same if you add a GMail Account to Mail)
    
11. When you minize a windows you can set it to minimize in the app icon instead of to the left of the trash. System Preferences -> Dock, check "minimize windows into application icon".
    
12. Finder animation between normal and single window mode (upper right pillbutton).
    
13. CoverFlow windows resizes the list portion instead of the CF portion
    
14. Saved Searches in Open dialogs!
    
15. External drives animate to light grey when ejecting, then disappears!
    
16. Sync menu item now informs you what it's syncing when running.
    
17. There's no longer a lag when scrolling a filled Applications folder (or any other folder with lots of custom icons) . Now apps show a default icon before the app icon gets loaded.

Thanks to Ephilei, moridinbg, CryzHiss, getyourcarwash, SticMAC for some of these.

[CharlesS]

You're breaking your NDA...

[- - e r i k - -]

I have no NDA as I've stated multiple times.

[olePigeon]

I haven't been excited about an OS X release since Panther (could've just been that 10.0-10.2 were so miserable.) Snow Leopard is looking good.

[CharlesS]

Originally Posted by - - e r i k - - 

I have no NDA as I've stated multiple times.

Well then, you're admitting to piracy in a publicly accessible forum where your name can be easily looked up. Still not necessarily a good idea.

[RAILhead]

Or he's just repeating things he's read elsewhere...

[besson3c]

Yeah, why don't we let Apple be the NDA police?

[- - e r i k - -]

Originally Posted by RAILhead 

Or he's just repeating things he's read elsewhere...

*ding ding ding*

Those names weren't thanked for no reason.

And besides "admitting to piracy on a public forum" isn't exactly enough for someone to launch an international criminal investigation

Back on topic, what other titbits have you found? I just found that tidbits gets autocorrected to titbits.

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally Posted by CharlesS 

Well then, you're admitting to piracy in a publicly accessible forum where your name can be easily looked up. Still not necessarily a good idea.

Do we really need this finger-wagging *every* time a new OS is released?

[- - e r i k - -]

Oh let him play forum police. It's what he's best at after all…

[- - e r i k - -]

18. AirPort menu now has a little animation when you are connecting to a network
19. Finder "menutasks", no more halting the emptying trash progress bar just because you are looking at a menu
20. Keyboard preferences lists percentage of battery left in BT keyboards
21. You can select which services appear in the menu and their shortcuts from the Keyboard panel
22. Keyboard Shortcuts panel is now vastly improved overall with categorisations for shortcuts
23. Links in Mail now have a default shortcut: ⌘-K
24. Character palette seems much faster.

[OreoCookie]

… we already know who is and who isn't forum police

[CharlesS]

Originally Posted by - - e r i k - - 

19. Finder "menutasks", no more halting of emptying trash just because you are looking at a menu

It doesn't halt the emptying of the trash in Leopard - the actual emptying continues normally, regardless of what the progress bar looks like.

20. Keyboard preferences lists percentage of battery left in BT keyboards

Leopard already does this one too.

[- - e r i k - -]

Originally Posted by CharlesS 

It doesn't halt the emptying of the trash in Leopard - the actual emptying continues normally, regardless of what the progress bar looks like.

I meant halting of the UI, but thanks for clarifying.

Originally Posted by CharlesS 

Leopard already does this one too.

I thought so, and I went to check, but there was no other macs running Leopard and BT keyboards nearby.

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally Posted by - - e r i k - - 

23. Links in Mail now have a default shortcut: ⌘-K

What does this mean, and if Cmd-K is now reassigned, what's the command for permanently deleting trashed e-mail?

[CharlesS]

Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot 

What does this mean,

My guess is that he means adding hyperlinks to HTML e-mail, like in iChat.

[kylef]

25. You can see the strength of all wireless networks

..about time.

[P]

Originally Posted by - - e r i k - - 

[*]Exposé has a stricter grid layout and includes window titles below each window instead of needing to mouse over. If titles are abbreviated, mousing over the window will expand it.[/SIZE][/I]

Any hope that the Dock this as well (showing the names of all icons in it when mousing over one)?

[Sal]

As is mentioned on the Refinements page of the Mac OS X pages at Apple.com: http://www.apple.com/macosx/refinements/

Services are contextual, configurable, AND customizable. You can create your own services using Automator, based on a specific type of input data, such as URLs, addresses, or file type, and then assign them individual keyboard shortcuts. Services are contextual because a service will only appear on a menu when the type of text or file data it supports, is selected.

[64stang06]

In Mail, you can customize a new message window with a link icon. Clicking it allows you to enter the address of a website.

[Thinine]

I've noticed that while black-on-white text rendering may be improved, white-on-black, like I like in Terminal, isn't. Though it may just be my crappy iMac monitor.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot 

What does this mean, and if Cmd-K is now reassigned, what's the command for permanently deleting trashed e-mail?

That depends on whether you use a trash mailbox or not. There are two ways to manually delete messages in an IMAP client.

[Simon]

So will cmd-k still permanently delete email messages in SL or not?

[besson3c]

If it does, it will either purge deleted items or delete from the trash folder, but not both.

[Jasoco]

If you draw boxes on your Desktop, they fade out smoothly.

First thing I noticed in the WWDC build. Very cool.

Exposé fades out the menubar and Dock, and has a little animation for hiding non-Exposable windows.

No it doesn't. The Dock and menubar are still visible. In fact, this is to allow the Dock to be clickable to switch to App Exposé mode. (Also known as Dock Exposé)

Exposé has a stricter grid layout and includes window titles below each window instead of needing to mouse over. If titles are abbreviated, mousing over the window will expand it.

It bugs me though that windows are scalled inproportionately. Tall windows that are narrow make wide windows that are shorter vertically harder to read. At least they all have labels now.

Space to QuickLook in Exposé.

Oh.. My... God... I forgot about seeing this at WWDC!
Edit: And once you press Space, you can use the arrows or move the mouse to resize all the others one at a time. Holy crap!!!

When you minize a windows you can set it to minimize in the app icon instead of to the left of the trash. System Preferences -> Dock, check "minimize windows into application icon".

I'd use this if it gave visual notification that there were windows belonging to an application. Like Windows has.

Finder animation between normal and single window mode (upper right pillbutton).

Sometimes it delays too long. And I hate hate hate sidebar mode expecially since it keeps defaulting to it when I don't want it to and resizes my specifically arranged windows. Boooo!! DOWN WITH SIDEBAR SINGLE WINDOW MODE IN THE FINDER! Or at least stop defaulting to it! The ONLY time I want the sidebar to appear is when I press Command+N to create a fresh window. NEVER EVER ANY OTHER TIME.

External drives animate to light grey when ejecting, then disappears!

So useful The greying out notifies you that the disc is being processed so you don't think nothing is happening or remove it too soon.


I'll add one or more.

Finder windows now resize with the green button correctly instead of leaving too much space or resizing one or two pixels too little causing wrapping. About time! Only took 9 years to get back to OS 9!

[- - e r i k - -]

Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot 

What does this mean, and if Cmd-K is now reassigned, what's the command for permanently deleting trashed e-mail?

Yes. That is now ⇧-⌘-⌫

[- - e r i k - -]

Originally Posted by kylef 

25. You can see the strength of all wireless networks

..about time.

Yeah. That was one of the touted features by Apple so I didn't include it

[besson3c]

Virtually the only thing I care about with SL is performance... Any comments on how it is faring in this department, so far?

[Jasoco]

Performance is awesome. But I don't have a 64-bit capable kernel MacBook so I'm probably not getting the best I could be if I had bought my MB a few months later.

[- - e r i k - -]

Originally Posted by Jasoco 

No it doesn't. The Dock and menubar are still visible. In fact, this is to allow the Dock to be clickable to switch to App Exposé mode. (Also known as Dock Exposé)

Sorry, that's what I meant. Previously Exposé hid the Dock and menubar, now it just fades them out along with the desktop.

Originally Posted by Jasoco 

It bugs me though that windows are scalled inproportionately. Tall windows that are narrow make wide windows that are shorter vertically harder to read. At least they all have labels now.

Not sure what you mean here. That's definitely not happening in the GM build. Windows are not scaled in proportion to each other, but they are definitely scaled proportionally to their own dimensions.

I'd use this if it gave visual notification that there were windows belonging to an application. Like Windows has.

Yes, this definitely seems like an oversight.

Sometimes it delays too long. And I hate hate hate sidebar mode expecially since it keeps defaulting to it when I don't want it to and resizes my specifically arranged windows. Boooo!! DOWN WITH SIDEBAR SINGLE WINDOW MODE IN THE FINDER! Or at least stop defaulting to it! The ONLY time I want the sidebar to appear is when I press Command+N to create a fresh window. NEVER EVER ANY OTHER TIME.

I had no idea people actually used the non-sidebar mode in 2009. Thanks for enlightening me

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by Jasoco 

Performance is awesome. But I don't have a 64-bit capable kernel MacBook so I'm probably not getting the best I could be if I had bought my MB a few months later.

It all depends on what you do, not everybody is going to benefit from 64 bit computing. There is a myth that 64 bitness just magically makes everything faster. I'm not suggesting that you subscribe to this, just adding this to the thread.

[- - e r i k - -]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

Virtually the only thing I care about with SL is performance... Any comments on how it is faring in this department, so far?

I already hinted to this with the menutasking and application scrolling: Finder is much zippier. Yes, it feels exactly the same, but without any lag whatsoever. There is no magic from cocoa or 64-bit alone of course, but the rewrite sure did wonders to an old Finder

I pray that Apple does the same to iTunes, but I'm not getting my hopes up

27. Auto-correction might cause people to forget how to spell.

[Jasoco]

Originally Posted by - - e r i k - - 

27. Auto-correction might cause people to forget how to spell.

Not if you use Firefox and TextWrangler which stupidly don't take advantage of OS X's built-in Spell checking or Auto-correction.

Originally Posted by - - e r i k - - 

Not sure what you mean here. That's definitely not happening in the GM build. Windows are not scaled in proportion to each other, but they are definitely scaled proportionally to their own dimensions.

Notice the windows aren't all the same scale. The wide ones are shrunk down and the tall ones take the whole height. That "Tall Window" is the same height as the "LOVE" window, but is narrower so it ends up being scaled up while the LOVE folder is shrunk down. That "Wide Window" is really wide. But gets squeezed into a small area. And that "Square Window" is really tiny, but gets scaled up larger than the "Wide Window".

This could be done a lot better with two rows of 2 and 3 each. If you open another window, it goes into a 3x3 grid. But until you open 6, it squeezes them all onto one row for some reason. The algorithm doesn't seem to be perfect yet. But it's still a lot better than randomly scattering stuff all over I guess. I also love QuickLook in Exposé. So awesome. Why did I forget about this!?

[- - e r i k - -]

The way you worded it it sounded like windows were scaled down disproportionally to their size, i.e. resizing windows to make them fit on a square grid.

I don't mind this solution, if you are working with disproportionately wide or tall windows you will instantly recognise them by their shape even when shrunk down. The grid makes it easier to quickly compare by content and window shape, and secondary by title instead of hunting for them purely on their content like previous exposé.

[Jasoco]

It's just a peeve. No big deal.

You know what's nice? Deleting opened folders no longer leaves the window open but set to the next folder up. It now closes the window when it is deleted.

Although it still does change the window to the next folder up when you simply move it. Which is stupid and I'm sure another oversight, though I don't see it being fixed for at least another 2 years.

[- - e r i k - -]

28. Screen shots are now named "Screen shot 2009-08-18 at 9.43.19" instead of "Picture 1"

29. Rosetta is not installed by default, but fear not, even if you didn't customise it during install it will ask you this the first time you launch a PPC only app/service:

[megasad]

30. File sizes, hard drive sizes, SD Card sizes...  Everything other than RAM itself is now defined in base 10 instead of base 2.  So where before 1 Kilobyte was 1,024 bytes, in Snow Leopard 1 Kilobyte is 1,000 bytes.  And this continues up the chain; 1MB is 1,000,000 bytes (0.95MiB) instead of 1,048,576, 1GB is 1,000,000,000 bytes (0.93GiB) instead of 1,073,741,824 and 1TB is 1,000,000,000,000 bytes (0.91TiB) instead of 1,099,511,627,776. All of which means that now, when a hard drive says it's "250GB", it actually appears that way in the Finder and in Disk Utility, where before it used to be reported as ~232GB. It's strange and unusual but I'll get used to it.  The main thing to remember is that files other people give you will probably be "bigger" than they say, and files you give other people will probably be "smaller" than you say.

31. When you rearrange icons using the "Arrange By" menu, they move into place with a smooth animation rather than instantly.

32. When you rearrange a window's icons, rather than the "Arrange By" option staying as it was, it now changes to "None" and the window no longer uses your default settings if it did before.

33. The new Quicktime Player has far fewer options than version 7.  There are no "A/V Controls" anymore, so the image and sound can't be adjusted, nor is there the "Movie Properties" window, which allowed for individual track modification. The controls appear in front of the video you want to watch, rather than below it, get in the way a lot and don't fade away fast enough. The Chapters implementation is even more distracting; where before you could choose a chapter from a pull-down menu, you now have to enter a special mode, which pauses the video. Version 7 is included as an optional install on the Snow Leopard disc, is installed by default if you have QuickTime Pro already installed in Leopard, else you have to tick the box yourself.

[AKcrab]

Originally Posted by megasad 

33. The new Quicktime Player has far fewer options than version 7.  There are no "A/V Controls" anymore, so the image and sound can't be adjusted, nor is there the "Movie Properties" window, which allowed for individual track modification. The controls appear in front of the video you want to watch, rather than below it, get in the way a lot and don't fade away fast enough. The Chapters implementation is even more distracting; where before you could choose a chapter from a pull-down menu, you now have to enter a special mode, which pauses the video. Version 7 is included as an optional install on the Snow Leopard disc, is installed by default if you have QuickTime Pro already installed in Leopard, else you have to tick the box yourself.

This sounds craptastic.. Can you have both versions of QuickTime? Maybe this build really isn't the GM...

[- - e r i k - -]

Yeah, I was surprised with the new QuickTime X player. You can't even save video, you have to export it in pre-defined settings with no options. Useless for video workflows. Where's QTX Pro?

[- - e r i k - -]

Originally Posted by AKcrab 

This sounds craptastic.. Can you have both versions of QuickTime? Maybe this build really isn't the GM...

Yes. You get both versions, just like he said.

[megasad]

Originally Posted by - - e r i k - - 

Yes. You get both versions, just like he said.

Yep, and just in case it wasn't clear, you can run both at the same time, have the same file open in both if you like to compare them directly.

[CharlesS]

Originally Posted by - - e r i k - - 

29. Rosetta is not installed by default, but fear not, even if you didn't customise it during install it will ask you this the first time you launch a PPC only app/service:

It's actually probably better not to custom install it from the disc, because downloading it will cause it to get logged on Apple's servers. I get the sneaking suspicion that if all the people who know they want Rosetta install it from the disc, and Apple looks at their server logs and sees that Rosetta hasn't been downloaded much, they'll use that as an excuse to claim that no one's using it and remove it from the next OS release.

[Jasoco]

The new QuickTime X is nice. I like it. Works well for me. Y'all are picky. Just use MPEGStreamclip for exporting.

[olePigeon]

Originally Posted by megasad 

30. File sizes, hard drive sizes, SD Card sizes...  Everything other than RAM itself is now reported in base 10 instead of base 2.  So where before 1 Kilobyte was 1,024 bytes, in Snow Leopard 1 Kilobyte is 1,000 bytes.  And this continues up the chain; 1MB is 1,000,000 bytes (0.95MiB) instead of 1,048,576, 1GB is 1,000,000,000 bytes (0.93GiB) instead of 1,073,741,824 and 1TB is 1,000,000,000,000 bytes (0.91TiB) instead of 1,099,511,627,776. All of which means that now, when a hard drive says it's "250GB", it actually appears that way in the Finder and in Disk Utility, where before it used to be reported as ~232GB. It's strange and unusual but I'll get used to it.  The main thing to remember is that files other people give you will probably be "bigger" than they say, and files you give other people will probably be "smaller" than you say.

I hope they change that back before it ships.

[Jasoco]

They won't. Get over it. It's there to make the idiots who complain about their 500GB HD or 160GB iPod not actually showing 500GB or 160GB.

In other words, it's to keep the stupid people happy.

I just wish it would round up.

My two HD's say 499.76GB and 999.86GB. Couldn't they just round that up to 500GB and 1TB and save some horizontal pixels in the icon grid? At the very least automatically round them when the grid spacing is set too low instead of stupidly truncating them in the middle.

[AKcrab]

Originally Posted by olePigeon 

I hope they change that back before it ships.

Why? I have customers completely baffled (particularly re: hard drives) by this all the time. We basically "make something up" to explain it simply to them.

edit: What Jasoco said.. "it's to keep the stupid people happy."

[CharlesS]

Originally Posted by Jasoco 

They won't. Get over it. It's there to make the idiots who complain about their 500GB HD or 160GB iPod not actually showing 500GB or 160GB.

Except that now the file sizes will be inconsistent with what is reported by every other OS, and every non-Finder file browser app. All for the sake of inflating file size values a bit so that users will notice the hard drive having more free space on it after installing Snow Leopard (and here you thought that came from removing printer drivers...).

[TheoCryst]

Originally Posted by CharlesS 

All for the sake of inflating file size values a bit so that users will notice the hard drive having more free space on it after installing Snow Leopard (and here you thought that came from removing printer drivers...).

Ha, I never even thought of that. Tricky bastards...

Originally Posted by - - e r i k - -

I pray that Apple does the same to iTunes, but I'm not getting my hopes up

I'm still praying for a new iTunes this September to accompany the new iPods.

Originally Posted by - - e r i k - -

I have no NDA as I've stated multiple times.

Tragically, I do have an NDA, so no cool things from me. But I will say that Snow Leopard is smooth and snappy! Definitely worth $29 if you already have Leopard.

[sogbrightlight]

It's too bad they couldn't smooth out the GUI....oh well.

[besson3c]

Catering to non-savvy users by covering up reality is a bad idea. This is sort of like putting a Safari icon on the desktop and calling it "internet clicky thing".

Okay, bad analogy, but you get the idea...