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You are here: MacNN Forums > Software - Troubleshooting and Discussion > macOS > Resolution-Independent GUI Not In Leopard After All?

Resolution-Independent GUI Not In Leopard After All?
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Dark Goob
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Oct 16, 2007, 02:34 PM
 
Searching through the list of 300+ new features on Apple's website, I do not see a mention of a resolution-independent GUI on there anywhere. Also, I have a recent beta version of 10.5 running on my system right now, and I can't find anywhere that has resolution independence mentioned in System Preferences.

Finally, if I open TextEdit or Safari and set my font size to 9-pt., when I measure the fonts on my screen with a ruler they're... sadly... 6-pt.

WHEN IS THIS NIGHTMARE OF WRONG FONT SIZES GOING TO END... QQ...

I thought 10.5 was going to save us...
     
Mithras
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Oct 16, 2007, 02:52 PM
 
10.5 is laying the groundwork. The OS has support for it, but apps need to be updated, and it will be a gradual process. I'd expect it to be ready to turn on sometime next year. Whether that comes in a 10.5 point update, or 10.6, is anybody's guess.
     
Dark Goob  (op)
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Oct 16, 2007, 03:01 PM
 
Yeah but you'd think that at LEAST Preview.app and Safari.app would have it... sorry I'm just tired of having to set my font to 16-pt. in Preview in order to be able to read it, and then hitting "print" and having it come out gargantuan off my printer because I forgot to set it back to 12-pt. before printing!

I know, I should use a fancy word processor, but oftentimes the features of Word or Pages just get in my way, take up extra UI space I don't use, and just are annoying. I like TextEdit because it's simple and does what I want... OTHER than having fonts that show up at their stated size on the screen!

Oh yeah, and don't get me started on how illegible and small fonts are in web browsers, and how, if you increase the point-size of the font, it still shows up 4 point-sizes smaller than what you set it to, and enlarging the fonts usually completely botches everyone's page layout. Why can't there be a % zoom in the browser, like there is in Preview for PDF files??

Sigh... I really need to go work for Apple, man.

-=DG=-
     
Horsepoo!!!
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Oct 16, 2007, 03:11 PM
 
Originally Posted by Mithras View Post
10.5 is laying the groundwork. The OS has support for it, but apps need to be updated, and it will be a gradual process. I'd expect it to be ready to turn on sometime next year. Whether that comes in a 10.5 point update, or 10.6, is anybody's guess.
The groundwork was lain in 10.4. 10.5 was really supposed to bring RI but somewhere along the line it got dropped. No work was done to it since early 10.5 builds and some developers got tricked into producing RI-independent graphics elements for their apps (Panic's Coda is pretty much RI-ready and a wonder to look at). Apple itself hasn't even effin' updated their own system-wide RI graphics elements.

The default system-wide scrollbars, list headers, buttons, and every other system-wide widget all look like total **** in the last dev-released build (9A559). Unless Apple pulled a magical horseshoe out of it's little fairy ass between 9A559 and 9A581, these widgets simply cannot be shown to the public in their 9A559 state...and thus Coda, as beautiful as it is at twice the normal 72dpi resolution, simply *cannot* be shown to anyone because the scrollbar looks like some melted plastic gel capsule and the bottom right grab handle looks like effin' staircases instead 3 smooth 45 degree slopes.

If RI isn't brought to the users before 10.6, Panic will have wasted time with this since Coda will likely have a new look by the time 10.6 is out in 3-4 years from now. The time spent on RI-ifying the graphics elements will have been wasted as they'll be replaced to probably fit it with the next look of OS X coming in 10.6.

Panic isn't the only company that was coaxed into this bullshit. I betcha Delicious Monster has an RI user interface for Delicious Library 2. I bet TextMate 2 has an RI-ready interface.

Then again, I'm sure Apple will do the right thing and enable RI in a point release. They can't piss developers off like that...it would be waaaay too silly.
     
nonhuman
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Oct 16, 2007, 03:15 PM
 
The UI widgets look like **** in 9A559? What are you talking about? I'm looking at them right now and they seem perfectly fine to me.
     
Horsepoo!!!
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Oct 16, 2007, 03:20 PM
 
Originally Posted by nonhuman View Post
The UI widgets look like **** in 9A559? What are you talking about? I'm looking at them right now and they seem perfectly fine to me.
You must be blind. I'm looking at them right now with the display factor set to 2 and I feel like gouging my eyes out. The metal buttons become aqua buttons in Safari, the aqua pulldown menu at the bottom of the thread has the top piece of it lopped off, the resize widget in the bottom-right corner of the window is pixelated, and the scrollbar gel texture looks terrible...perhaps it doesn't look that bad if my monitor was truly a higher density monitor and I wasn't looking at a UI that is twice the normal size.

Anyways, I'm exagerrating a little. RI works...it's just very buggy...and lots of system-wide elements are not ready. And Apple's own apps aren't ready. Meaning that if RI were to be deployed in a point release, point release updates would be effin' huge because not only would bug fixes be pulled through Software Update, but also lots and lots of graphics files for every app and graphics files for the system-wide OS elements.
( Last edited by Horsepoo!!!; Oct 16, 2007 at 03:30 PM. )
     
nonhuman
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Oct 16, 2007, 04:02 PM
 
I have none of those display problems on my MacBook running 9A559. It looks normal, good really. There was an OS update for it available through Software Update that didn't actually up the build number. Did you run it? It definitely improved performance for me, but I didn't pay much attention to the UI prior to the update.

There are definitely other issues with this build though...
     
Chuckit
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Oct 16, 2007, 04:05 PM
 
Apple told developers right from the start that it wouldn't be in until 2008. It's not 2008 yet, so I'm not going to pretend to be surprised.
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Horsepoo!!!
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Oct 16, 2007, 04:09 PM
 
Originally Posted by nonhuman View Post
I have none of those display problems on my MacBook running 9A559. It looks normal, good really. There was an OS update for it available through Software Update that didn't actually up the build number. Did you run it? It definitely improved performance for me, but I didn't pay much attention to the UI prior to the update.

There are definitely other issues with this build though...
Do me a favor, go into Terminal and set the display factor to 2.0 with...

defaults write NSGlobalDomain AppleDisplayScaleFactor 2.0

...force quit the Finder and relaunch iTunes and other apps and post a screenshot of the Finder, iTunes and UI elements in any Cocoa apps.
     
Art Vandelay
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Oct 16, 2007, 04:10 PM
 
Originally Posted by nonhuman View Post
I have none of those display problems on my MacBook running 9A559. It looks normal, good really. There was an OS update for it available through Software Update that didn't actually up the build number. Did you run it? It definitely improved performance for me, but I didn't pay much attention to the UI prior to the update.
Sounds like you're just talking about the standard 72dpi display, not what happens when you turn on RI and change the scaling factor.
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Horsepoo!!!
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Oct 16, 2007, 04:14 PM
 
Originally Posted by Chuckit View Post
Apple told developers right from the start that it wouldn't be in until 2008. It's not 2008 yet, so I'm not going to pretend to be surprised.
That's horseshit! We're gonna have software updates weighing hundreds of megs until all the RI graphics are in place in 2008? I wouldn't mind any of this if Apple also sent down the pipes a 20 dollar PDF check that I can print out and cash at a nearby bank.

And boy do I feel sorry for people that don't have broadband. These guys will be sitting looking at a 4 hour update of RI-graphics whether they use RI or not.

edit: ok, I'm exagerating again...I'm sure there's no more than 20 megs of graphic elements to download in total.
     
Chuckit
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Oct 16, 2007, 04:21 PM
 
A vector image is not generally that much larger than an equivalent bitmap (and with compression, a larger bitmap doesn't necessarily take up that much more space). So your objection doesn't necessarily have anything to do with RI.

Also, if application size is really that much of a concern to you, maybe a modern operating system isn't right for you. They're huge. RI graphics are a drop in the bucket compared to everything else in the system. Trying to impose the requirements of 1995 on an OS released in 2007 is quite unreasonable.
( Last edited by Chuckit; Oct 16, 2007 at 04:27 PM. )
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nonhuman
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Oct 16, 2007, 05:07 PM
 
Originally Posted by Horsepoo!!! View Post
Do me a favor, go into Terminal and set the display factor to 2.0 with...

defaults write NSGlobalDomain AppleDisplayScaleFactor 2.0

...force quit the Finder and relaunch iTunes and other apps and post a screenshot of the Finder, iTunes and UI elements in any Cocoa apps.
Ok, yes with display factor of 2.0 there are definitely some issues, though I don't think it's nearly as bad as you made it out to be, and certainly doesn't look like anything that would have been difficult for them to fix by 9A581. Unfortunately I couldn't really get everything on the screen that I would have wanted to get a screenshot of because everything was too damned big, but here's what I've got:

Edit: Yowza! Apparently using PDFs as images really ****s things up.... Hang on.

http://images.nonhuman.net/9A559/Finder.png
http://images.nonhuman.net/9A559/Safari.png
http://images.nonhuman.net/9A559/iTunes.png
( Last edited by nonhuman; Oct 16, 2007 at 05:13 PM. )
     
Horsepoo!!!
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Oct 16, 2007, 05:36 PM
 
Originally Posted by Chuckit View Post
A vector image is not generally that much larger than an equivalent bitmap (and with compression, a larger bitmap doesn't necessarily take up that much more space). So your objection doesn't necessarily have anything to do with RI.

Also, if application size is really that much of a concern to you, maybe a modern operating system isn't right for you. They're huge. RI graphics are a drop in the bucket compared to everything else in the system. Trying to impose the requirements of 1995 on an OS released in 2007 is quite unreasonable.
In general, most of the applications' size in Mac OS X comes from localizations and graphics. RI won't be a drop in the bucket but I do agree it won't make a huge difference in the end. Still...it would have been nice to have an RI-ready Leopard straight from the 10.5.0 DVD. There's no real reason to disagree with me here.
     
osxpinot
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Oct 16, 2007, 06:26 PM
 
I think it's a joke that Apple doesn't have this further along. With all the time they sat on Leopard...there is no excuse for this.
     
Kevin
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Oct 16, 2007, 06:28 PM
 
I think 10.5 isn't as finished as Apple would like us to believe. By looking at the screenshots of it, unless there is some GUI changes in the final, it's a GUI mess.

There is like 4 different GUI ideas all in once place. Horrible. Just awful.
     
Kevin
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Oct 16, 2007, 06:33 PM
 
Originally Posted by Horsepoo!!! View Post
You must be blind. I'm looking at them right now with the display factor set to 2 and I feel like gouging my eyes out. The metal buttons become aqua buttons in Safari


I sure hope these are bugs not in the retail version. Or 10.5 is going to be a major disappointment. I might wait for 10.5.2
     
osxpinot
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Oct 16, 2007, 07:44 PM
 
Originally Posted by Kevin View Post
I think 10.5 isn't as finished as Apple would like us to believe. By looking at the screenshots of it, unless there is some GUI changes in the final, it's a GUI mess.

There is like 4 different GUI ideas all in once place. Horrible. Just awful.
I think it's an improvement over Tiger, but still a cluster**** of graphical ideas. The lack of well-implemented resolution independence is just killer. We are not in the days of CRT Macs where you can just change the resolution to 800x600 if it's hard to see. We've got LCDs now, and if you put the resolution down past its native point, it looks like utter crap.
     
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Oct 16, 2007, 08:01 PM
 
Originally Posted by osxpinot View Post
I think it's an improvement over Tiger, but still a cluster**** of graphical ideas. The lack of well-implemented resolution independence is just killer. We are not in the days of CRT Macs where you can just change the resolution to 800x600 if it's hard to see. We've got LCDs now, and if you put the resolution down past its native point, it looks like utter crap.
How strange that a prerelease feature without any public interface wouldn't work right. I can't imagine why that might be.
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Horsepoo!!!
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Oct 16, 2007, 10:59 PM
 
Originally Posted by Chuckit View Post
How strange that a prerelease feature without any public interface wouldn't work right. I can't imagine why that might be.
No...what's strange is Apple stabbing developers with sharp objects telling them to get their software RI-ready or die. Strange ain't it? Admit it.
     
Horsepoo!!!
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Oct 16, 2007, 11:00 PM
 
*double post* didn't think that still happened.
     
Chuckit
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Oct 16, 2007, 11:21 PM
 
Originally Posted by Horsepoo!!! View Post
No...what's strange is Apple stabbing developers with sharp objects telling them to get their software RI-ready or die. Strange ain't it? Admit it.
I don't see how that's strange. They told developers to have their apps ready for RI in 2008 — how is that strange?
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Horsepoo!!!
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Oct 16, 2007, 11:30 PM
 
Originally Posted by Chuckit View Post
I don't see how that's strange. They told developers to have their apps ready for RI in 2008 — how is that strange?
I knew you'd find it strange.
     
Chuckit
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Oct 16, 2007, 11:36 PM
 
I find knives are a very good incentive in software development.
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Simon
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Oct 17, 2007, 02:44 AM
 
Originally Posted by Kevin View Post
I think 10.5 isn't as finished as Apple would like us to believe. By looking at the screenshots of it, unless there is some GUI changes in the final, it's a GUI mess.
Ah the memories.

"There must be some debug code left in the developer builds. Its GUI just can't be so slow! Apple has surely changed that in the GM."

I agree with you about the skin mess (the mess is with the skins, not the GUIs BTW) in 10.5 Kevin and I think you've managed to make your point repeatedly in about every Leopard related thread on this board. But you are setting yourself up for a huge disappointment if you actually think Apple has secretly ironed everything out in the GM and will surprise us all with one unified consistent skin in the shipping Leopard. Even though that would be quite nice, we have absolutely no reason to believe this will happen.
     
goMac
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Oct 17, 2007, 02:47 AM
 
I wouldn't hold your breath for end user res independence in 10.5.
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JKT
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Oct 17, 2007, 03:43 AM
 
What use would RI be if the usual suspects of Adobe, Quark and Microsoft (who have the most onerous task of converting tens of thousands of icons to be RI compatible in Office) are not ready?

If RI is to appear in 10.5, don't be surprised if it isn't until after Office 2008 ships.
     
goMac
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Oct 17, 2007, 04:02 AM
 
Originally Posted by JKT View Post
What use would RI be if the usual suspects of Adobe, Quark and Microsoft (who have the most onerous task of converting tens of thousands of icons to be RI compatible in Office) are not ready?
It would honestly surprise me if those guys were ever ready for RI.
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Chuckit
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Oct 17, 2007, 04:03 AM
 
Prediction: Quark will not be ready in 2008.
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Kevin
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Oct 17, 2007, 05:49 AM
 
Originally Posted by osxpinot View Post
I think it's an improvement over Tiger, but still a cluster**** of graphical ideas. The lack of well-implemented resolution independence is just killer. We are not in the days of CRT Macs where you can just change the resolution to 800x600 if it's hard to see. We've got LCDs now, and if you put the resolution down past its native point, it looks like utter crap.
Agreed, Apple really screwed the pooch with this one graphically. Something they've been known to be on TOP of in the past.

ohwell.wav
     
nonhuman
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Oct 17, 2007, 07:49 AM
 
The GUI looks absolutely fine with RI off, no problems whatsoever. If they haven't already solved the problem in 9A581, of whatever build is actually the GM, then RI will simply be off by default and most people will never even know it's there.

I, for one, will be switching to 10.5 immediately.
     
Kevin
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Oct 17, 2007, 07:54 AM
 
Originally Posted by nonhuman View Post
The GUI looks absolutely fine with RI off
At least resolution wise. Design wise.. no.
     
tkmd
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Oct 17, 2007, 08:00 AM
 
After all the fanbois enthusiasm dies down for leopard, declaring it to be the next best thing to sliced bread, I think people will agree Leopard= Vista

bloated and features dropped because it was pushed out the door. Seriously this maybe the first OS update that I may skip on entirely.
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krove
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Oct 17, 2007, 08:38 AM
 
Bloated? All the externally-visible improvements aside, the under-the-hood stuff is worth the upgrade alone. AutoFS, Obj-C 2.0, Spotlight improvements, fully 64 bit libraries, etc.

Have you run side-by-side comparisons of benchmarks between Tiger and Leopard to make that assertion?

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Oct 17, 2007, 08:50 AM
 
Originally Posted by tkmd View Post
After all the fanbois enthusiasm dies down for leopard, declaring it to be the next best thing to sliced bread, I think people will agree Leopard= Vista

bloated and features dropped because it was pushed out the door. Seriously this maybe the first OS update that I may skip on entirely.
I disagree with the 'bloated' comment. What about it feels bloated? If anything, it's been streamlined. Apps were removed (such as Printer Setup Utility and Sherlock in favor of a the Print & Fax pref pane and Dashboard widgets), application user interfaces were simplified (iCal looks really clean now), functionality was extended without making it more complicated (Spotlight being faster and extended by AND/OR/NOT conditions and Finder live file previews that don't require custom icons), quick print preview in the print dialog sheet (instead of sending it to Preview.app).

Very little bloat in this OS. It's in fact less bloated that Tiger.

Leopard is an awesome OS...I'm just peeved that features had to be dropped. That's the one thing I agree with you about. There's no reason why any feature had to be dropped considering how late this OS was released. There's also no reason for it to be seemingly as buggy as it was in 9A559.
     
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Oct 17, 2007, 09:57 AM
 
Originally Posted by krove View Post
Have you run side-by-side comparisons of benchmarks between Tiger and Leopard to make that assertion?
Dont have to- Apple has done that for you - What were the original systems requirement for Leopard? Now its bumped up because the OS "seemed" slow. Every release of OS X has run faster on the same machine anyone want to wager that Leopard is going to be slower because of the CPU draining coverflow (now integrated in the finder) and other misc "whiz-bang" animations?



Look I'm not going to lie to you - I'm not impressed with leopard. I smelled BS when SJ took the stage and proclaimed that "there are many new features of this shiny new OS , but he cant show em because of MS" Fast forward and "new features" were just the same features he showed before.

Hey I wanted resolution independence, QE2D, reduced OS overhead too ! But it seems (at least at this point) all I got was this crumby reflective dock and coverflow...
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Horsepoo!!!
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Oct 17, 2007, 12:26 PM
 
Originally Posted by tkmd View Post
Dont have to- Apple has done that for you - What were the original systems requirement for Leopard? Now its bumped up because the OS "seemed" slow. Every release of OS X has run faster on the same machine anyone want to wager that Leopard is going to be slower because of the CPU draining coverflow (now integrated in the finder) and other misc "whiz-bang" animations?
The "whiz-bang" animations don't use up any CPU time...they use your otherwise idle GPU. Flipping through files in Cover Flow doesn't move Finder CPU usage by more than 10% and the only reason it even uses CPU is because the Finder is caching the file previews while you're flipping through the files.

Look I'm not going to lie to you - I'm not impressed with leopard. I smelled BS when SJ took the stage and proclaimed that "there are many new features of this shiny new OS , but he cant show em because of MS" Fast forward and "new features" were just the same features he showed before.
Yes, I smelled BS also. And I can't take SJ seriously anymore...but this doesn't mean Leopard's bloated.

Hey I wanted resolution independence, QE2D, reduced OS overhead too ! But it seems (at least at this point) all I got was this crumby reflective dock and coverflow...
A lot of us wanted resolution independence...I wonder if we'll see it in 2008. Apple says a lot of things. Often enough, they never materialize. QE2D never did but then again it did...under the name CoreAnimation (which is also a new API that offers more than just GPU-accelerated Quartz).

If Leopard is only giving you a crumby reflective Dock and Coverflow...then stick with Tiger.
     
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Oct 17, 2007, 12:53 PM
 
Originally Posted by Horsepoo!!! View Post
If Leopard is only giving you a crumby reflective Dock and Coverflow...then stick with Tiger.


Trust me - you don't have to tell me to stick with Tiger !
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Horsepoo!!!
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Oct 17, 2007, 01:08 PM
 
Originally Posted by tkmd View Post
Trust me - you don't have to tell me to stick with Tiger !
This is the end of the road for you. From 10.5 on Mac OS X will only get more 'bloated' and include new features just as useless as Cover Flow and Quick Look. Good luck to you.
     
Kevin
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Oct 17, 2007, 01:17 PM
 
Originally Posted by tkmd View Post
After all the fanbois enthusiasm dies down for leopard, declaring it to be the next best thing to sliced bread,
I don't see that happening.
I think people will agree Leopard= Vista
Not even close. Vista was MS attempting to catch up with an OS Apple put out in 99/2000. 10.5 pushes them even further ahead. If 10.5 ships the way it is right now, it wont be as ahead as I thought it would be, and how Job's was Hyping it to be. But it's still ahead.
bloated and features dropped because it was pushed out the door.
#1 resolution independence isn't a bloated feature. Bloatware is basically unneeded stuff that just make the application sluggish. Resolution independence doesn't follow under such examples as it is VERY useful and doesn't slow anything down. And it was never dropped. Apple never said it would be in 10.6. He said in 2008.
Seriously this maybe the first OS update that I may skip on entirely.
Did you just recently buy a newer windows box? If you wanna talk bloat, Look at Vista.

It's so bloated MS had to revert to XP and kinda support both OSs as their "new" OS

Too many people didn't like Vista and wanted XP back.

I doubt you see this with 10.5

That doesn't mean I don't have my gripes about it.
     
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Oct 17, 2007, 01:27 PM
 
I would also like to know more about the "secret features". We haven't heard squat since SJ didn't tell us about those originally.
     
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Oct 17, 2007, 01:43 PM
 
That's how I felt after this past WWDC.
Apple talked about the Dock and Finder and then I wondered if those were the secret features?

Maybe they didn't want to do what Microsoft did and overpromise and underdeliver. So they mentioned there were secret features, didn't have them ready for WWDC, decided they'll be in a point release or 10.6, showed us the Dock and Finder and hoped we'd think those were the secret features.
     
Chuckit
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Oct 17, 2007, 04:13 PM
 
Originally Posted by reader50 View Post
I would also like to know more about the "secret features".
OK. To my recollection, here are some features that were not announced when Steve mentioned the secret features:
  • Quick Look allows you to examine files quickly without opening a whole application
  • Cover Flow for files is pointless, much like the original Cover Flow, but people will probably like it just as much
  • Stacks are a lot like pop-up folders in the old Mac OS, slightly redone to fit well in the Dock
  • Pointless transparency was somehow already discovered by Microsoft's spies and incorporated into Vista — proof that Jobs was right to keep these features under wraps
Chuck
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"Instead of either 'multi-talented' or 'multitalented' use 'bisexual'."
     
Dark Goob  (op)
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Oct 17, 2007, 08:09 PM
 
I don't even CARE about the GUI elements being RI. Hell, after all, in the Pro Aps, Apple already shrank their UI elements to 1/2 the normal size anyway (inexplicably). So I'm used to dealing with tiny icons and such.

All I care about are FRICKIN FONTS. I WANT MY 9-PT. FONTS TO SHOW UP ON THE SCREEN AT FRICKING 9-PT!!!! IS THAT TOO MUCH TO ASK FOR?!?!?! IS FRICKING WYSIWYG TOO MUCH TO ASK FOR OUT OF THE MACOS?!?!?!

Even *if* they made the UI supposedly RI, all vector based and crap, big deal if fonts are still displaying at the wrong point size! Since fonts are what matter when it comes to actually reading the text that is on your screen, or trying to gauge what size it really will be when it prints.

-=DG=-
     
Kevin
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Oct 18, 2007, 06:46 AM
 
Originally Posted by reader50 View Post
I would also like to know more about the "secret features". We haven't heard squat since SJ didn't tell us about those originally.
A lot of us would. But he hasn't made any official comment on it either way.

There are however, lots of guesses in this forum being treated as fact... I don't know why people spread misinformation like that.

Not saying that someone's guess couldn't be factual. But no one here knows for a fact either way. So stating things as a fact is being dishonest.
( Last edited by Kevin; Oct 18, 2007 at 09:35 AM. )
     
P
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Oct 18, 2007, 08:54 AM
 
Originally Posted by Dark Goob View Post
I don't even CARE about the GUI elements being RI. Hell, after all, in the Pro Aps, Apple already shrank their UI elements to 1/2 the normal size anyway (inexplicably). So I'm used to dealing with tiny icons and such.

All I care about are FRICKIN FONTS. I WANT MY 9-PT. FONTS TO SHOW UP ON THE SCREEN AT FRICKING 9-PT!!!! IS THAT TOO MUCH TO ASK FOR?!?!?! IS FRICKING WYSIWYG TOO MUCH TO ASK FOR OUT OF THE MACOS?!?!?!

Even *if* they made the UI supposedly RI, all vector based and crap, big deal if fonts are still displaying at the wrong point size! Since fonts are what matter when it comes to actually reading the text that is on your screen, or trying to gauge what size it really will be when it prints.

-=DG=-
If you just want the fonts to display in the right size, I think you can do that in Leopard. Find out the actual dpi of your display - either by reading it out (I think you can using SwitchRes or similar) or by simply measuring the lit area and using the calculator. Then calculate the zoom factor you need by taking the resolution you get and dividing by 72. If your calculation gets you a dpi of 85, then take 85/72. Put this number instead of the XXX in the following terminal command (from earlier in the thread):

defaults write NSGlobalDomain AppleDisplayScaleFactor XXX

Log out and log back in. Chances are the icons will look like ass, but the fonts ought to be OK.
     
Dark Goob  (op)
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Oct 19, 2007, 06:44 AM
 
Originally Posted by P View Post
If you just want the fonts to display in the right size, I think you can do that in Leopard. Find out the actual dpi of your display - either by reading it out (I think you can using SwitchRes or similar) or by simply measuring the lit area and using the calculator. Then calculate the zoom factor you need by taking the resolution you get and dividing by 72. If your calculation gets you a dpi of 85, then take 85/72. Put this number instead of the XXX in the following terminal command (from earlier in the thread):

defaults write NSGlobalDomain AppleDisplayScaleFactor XXX

Log out and log back in. Chances are the icons will look like ass, but the fonts ought to be OK.
Any way to just do it for fonts? I could honestly give a crap if icons scale... I just want fonts only to scale. Why couldn't they just do it for fonts?

I mean, whether or not the user interface is scaled to a particular rez, the fonts should at least display at their proper size. Why is this too much to ask for? aughhhh
     
nonhuman
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Oct 19, 2007, 09:56 AM
 
Originally Posted by Dark Goob View Post
Any way to just do it for fonts? I could honestly give a crap if icons scale... I just want fonts only to scale. Why couldn't they just do it for fonts?

I mean, whether or not the user interface is scaled to a particular rez, the fonts should at least display at their proper size. Why is this too much to ask for? aughhhh
No, it matters. Look at the screenshots I linked to. When you scale the fonts up you have to scale the other UI elements. Otherwise the text will be too big for the title bar/menu bar/address bar/whatever that it's supposed to fit in. Though they may well have fixed it in the GM, prior to that it definitely caused some issues.
     
Dark Goob  (op)
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Oct 20, 2007, 09:43 PM
 
Originally Posted by nonhuman View Post
No, it matters. Look at the screenshots I linked to. When you scale the fonts up you have to scale the other UI elements. Otherwise the text will be too big for the title bar/menu bar/address bar/whatever that it's supposed to fit in. Though they may well have fixed it in the GM, prior to that it definitely caused some issues.
Well, they could distinguish between GUI text, and WYSIWYG text. I.e. text that is corresponding to some GUI element like a button or tab or whatever, would be fixed to pixel dimensions of that GUI element.

However any text that's something you might ever print, such as text in a scrolling window like the one I'm currently typing in, or that's in a DTP or WP app, like TextEdit, would display at the proper scaled size.

I mean I can see that it would, in a way, be more elegant to have the entire system scalable. But then you have to make every single interface element such as icons and buttons be scalable as well, and honestly I don't see the value in doing that. Since if you know anything about icon design, they really only look best and most legible when they are built pixel-by-pixel as opposed to being rendered all antialiased and scaled down from a larger bitmap or vector image. E.g. most of the icons in OS 9 look better than their OS X equivalents because they abided by the single-pixel black outline standard, and had a custom-designed small icon that was still intelligible at a very shrunk-down size. You shrink any modern 256x256 icon down to the tiny size, and it becomes unintelligible because it takes a human artist to make something intelligible at that size (scaling algorithms just can't do it).

To make an operating system where the entire GUI is scalable is a radical shift and extremely difficult to implement (hence, why we are not seeing it in the Leopard release).

However, just to make an OS where the text displays at the actual font size it says it is, at least where it matters (i.e. in list views for the sake of readability, web browser text, DTP and WP text windows, etc.) would not require redoing the entire interface! Just for programmers to set a flag that, hey, this is supposed to be "WYSIWYG text", scale it to the display.

There's practicality and usefulness, but then there's the Apple way, apparently which is just a sort of totalitarian insistence that there must be a sort of consistency through the entire system, even when it makes no immediate sense to do it that way. Take a look at the new MS Office interface for example: a huge step backwards from the previous version of Office. Apple's iWork-style interface is really crappy, and annoying, and a waste of GUI real-estate. The elegant button interface that we've had since MS Word 5.0 is now being eliminated in favor of the totalitarian iIzation of everything. Ugh! But I digress... that's for the other thread...

Of course on the other hand, the long-term pay-off of having a completely resolution-independent OS (from the smallest icon to the fonts to the cursor, etc.) would be that displays of ridiculous pixel density would then be supported. Which if you had it, then even small icons would still be intelligible (theoretically) due to the display size. But even a rudimentary knowledge of font scaling tells you that linear scaling does NOT lead to ingelligibility at tiny sizes; certain prime distinguishing aspects of the symbol form must be preferred in the scaling method in order to retain intelligibility, at the sacrifice of more decorative elements. ((Hell, perhaps Apple has this built into its scaling technology for all I know -- any developers want to let us know? Can you set what the smallest size should look like so when it scales down, it is not linearly scaling but is scaling along a set curves?))

-=DG=-
( Last edited by Dark Goob; Oct 20, 2007 at 09:52 PM. )
     
autumnmist
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Oct 20, 2007, 11:58 PM
 
I'll be really disappointed if RI isn't in Leopard at all. I'm about to buy a new LCD and without RI, the high resolutions (1680x1050, 1920x1200) are really a pain to use when you need to squint at tiny text on them.
     
 
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