[MadBrowser]

I see lots of posts advocating a Cocoa Finder and some people speculating that it is on the drawing board.

I seriously doubt the Finder will be rewritten in Cocoa, at least in the forseeable future and I have a couple of reasons why.

1. Dogfood

The whole reason that the Finder was written in Carbon was to show developers that Carbon is a viable development platform for complex applications.

Most of the apps that will drive OS X will be Carbon ports of classic apps for the forseeable future.

To switch to a Cocoa based Finder would be telling developers that Carbon wasn't good enough. These people are running their respective businesses. If they see wavering support from Apple for an API, they are going to get very nervous. Apple does not have the greatest track record in this department.

2. Money

In case you haven't noticed, Apple is still struggling to remain alive. The comeback they have made is incredible and Apple has the best product line up they have ever had, no question. Still, profit margins are thin and to survive they have to make smart decisions. Putting engineers on a project to re-write an app from scratch would not be a very smart thing to do. We need engineers working on DVD, speed optimizations, and most importantly, new apps that we haven't thought of that will sell even more Macs.

3. Powerplant

Apple knows the Finder has issues. Carbon is a relatively new framework. Powerplant, the Metrowerks framework that is used to build the Finder, has just recently been ported to Carbon. Both will get significantly better in the coming months. As Powerplant evolves (especially adopting CarbonEvents), the Finder will get performance boosts practically for free (recompile).

Does this mean you should stop sending feedback to Apple? Absolutely not! For the first time in as long as I can remember, they are actually listening. Take advantage!

There do seem to be threading issues inside the current Finder. I'm sure Apple is aware of these problems. To make their software development deadline they needed to make some concessions. I know a few Apple engineers. They take pride in their work and they want to make it great. I'm confident that these things will get worked out, even in the existing Carbon version of the Finder.

Sometimes I wonder if people forget that many of these decisions are business driven. Personally I wish that all apps were written in Cocoa but it's just not realistic to expect that.

Apple is running a low-margin business (at least for most of its product line, and the high margin software is dependent on low margin hardware so...). They are choosing their battles carefully and I think they have made mostly right choices so far.

I've been running versions of MacOS X since Rhapsody DR1. I'm SO impressed at how far it has come, espeically when you consider the complexity of supporting Carbon (how incredible Carbon actually is boggles the mind). Cocoa is still ahead of its time.

Personally I'm glad I have MacOS X today. It has completely replace MacOS 9 as my daily platform and the only reason I even boot Classic is for MS Entourage.

MacOS X is in its infancy but as it stands, it is still the best OS out there.

[This message has been edited by MadBrowser (edited 05-25-2001).]

[Scott_H]

Some day there will be. Someday all apps will be Cocoa.

[MacGorilla]

Apple has publicly stated it wants all apps for Mac OS X to be Cocoa apps eventually, so why would they exempt the Finder? It may not happen soon, but it will happen.

[MadBrowser]

They have publically stated that?

Do you have a URL or a quote or something?

I remember them stating that at WWDC 1998 and most developers just about had a heart attack.

[crazyjohnson]

It WILL come. I dont think it will happen as soon as you all think. Apple can make a better Carbon finder. It is also working with other things to make things faster. In the meantime just use RBrowser .

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[Severed Hand of Skywalker]

I think in 2 years the Finder will be CoCoa. Not Before.

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[havannas]

Ummm does anyone here visit the developer forum?

Tom Waters has been working on a COCOA finder for a good while. It may not be made by Apple but who says you have to use their finder?

It's a very interesting thread because it discusses reasons why some UI element we want are missing. The difficulties having 'labels' for example in a multiuser environment.

link: http://forums.macnn.com/cgi-bin/Foru...ML/000653.html

EDIT:Note this is an older image and name for the program.
picture:


[This message has been edited by havannas (edited 05-25-2001).]

[MadBrowser]

While a 3rd party Cocoa based Finder is certainly interesting, I doubt it would be a viable replacement for most users.

Anytime Apple made changes / added features / etc... they would have to play catch-up.

I've read most of that thread...

What provides the actual Desktop? The Finder? Does his app do that? Or his is app just a browser app that you run after the Finder has already launched?

[havannas]

Originally posted by MadBrowser:
While a 3rd party Cocoa based Finder is certainly interesting, I doubt it would be a viable replacement for most users.

Anytime Apple made changes / added features / etc... they would have to play catch-up.

I've read most of that thread...

What provides the actual Desktop? The Finder? Does his app do that? Or his is app just a browser app that you run after the Finder has already launched?

Well Cocoa is real nice for Rapid Application Development.
Ummm, you can always run both.... all the finder is now is a file viewer/copier/mover and the desktop. You don't have to remove the finder(though you probably could). And the desktop isn't slow as you can't resize it .

[HeatMiser]

Originally posted by MadBrowser:
In case you haven't noticed, Apple is still struggling to remain alive. ... Still, profit margins are thin and to survive they have to make smart decisions.

Wha? Huh? Apple has $4 billion in the bank, is opening retail stores to massive consumer participation, has the lowest level of inventory in the tech industry at 1 day, is selling its portable computers as fast as it can make them, and has the fattest margins of any boxmaker in the world.

Hmm.



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I am the harsh nemesis of all that is unclean!

[Severed Hand of Skywalker]

Originally posted by HeatMiser:
has the lowest level of inventory in the tech industry at 1 day.

I thought that they were up to 15 days.
1 day was over a year ago.


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[JFK2000]

Originally posted by HeatMiser:
Wha? Huh? Apple has $4 billion in the bank, is opening retail stores to massive consumer participation, has the lowest level of inventory in the tech industry at 1 day, is selling its portable computers as fast as it can make them, and has the fattest margins of any boxmaker in the world.

Hmm.

I agree. Apple is not just surviving. It's in great shape and the new ibooks are going to be great for their bottom line.

But as to the finder. It's strange that after the introduction of the ppc, we didn't get a native finder until OS 8, which was the greatest update to the OS until X came along.

It terms of strategy, this is a critical time for apple. Apple's market share is still small so in order to attract the developer support they need to make OSX truly successful, they need to get a large user base for X as quickly as possible. It would seem to me that having a good well written finder would go a long way to help that process along.



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Always go to other people's funerals or they won't come to yours.

[MacGorilla]

um..they stated to me and other developers in an email after the PB was released their intentions. Maybe I'm violating my NDA saying this but I'm sure they have stated it publicly, too, I just can't remember when.

[MadBrowser]

While Apple is doing pretty well, take a close look at the financials. Their margins are declining... Revenues are down 26% from the year ago quarter... They are profitable again but the business is shrinking, not growing. They still have a long way to go to be a no-brainer.

They are doing a GREAT job with inventory management and they aren't burning through cash like they used to...

They do have a nice bank balance, but all that means is that they can survive some more bad times, which is good. It doesn't mean the business is healthy (though it is).

I'm totally bullish about Apple's future and own a bunch of AAPL. Still, they are not in a position like Microsoft's where a couple of bad decisions are no big deal.

Look at the Cube. I think it's cool but it sure cost Apple a lot of money and put them in the red a few quarters back... They need to make all the right moves and so far, they are doing pretty well.

[This message has been edited by MadBrowser (edited 05-25-2001).]

[MadBrowser]

I'm also an ADC member and I don't remember getting an email regarding moving all apps to Cocoa... I keep all my ADC mails though so I'll have to go back and check them to see what I missed.

[itomato]

Yes, of course the Finder will be Cocoa. Remember when Steve was going on about how "the Finder is just another app?" There will be at least 1 Cocoa Finder, and at least 1 will come from Apple. Probably for an 11.0 or 12.0 release, as such a major change is worthy of a major rev #.

I agree, RBrowser is great, but if it could only handle icon scaling.. I'd really like to see a straight port of Workspace Manager... yummmmm.



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[Riemann Zeta]

For actual work, I prefer a good terminal any day...
However, the piss-poor status quo Finder is unacceptable and is contributing to the overall "lag" of the Mac OS X UI.
I think that one of Apple's greatest priorities for OS 10.1 should be recoding the Finder (whether it be in Cocoa or Carbon or even a ntive Mach-O app, I don't care, as long as it works...)

[Orbit]

Yeah, they'll eventually rewrite the Finder in Cocoa. They have to ... when the Carbon APIs are fading from our memories, Apple won't want to have to maintain a Carbon code base for such an integral system app. And if you think about it, the Finder wouldn't be that hard of a program to write in Cocoa. I mean, not easy but there aren't any huge engineering hurdles that come to mind, and development times using Cocoa are known to be very quick (for obvious reasons which I won't even go into here). If a Carbon Powerplant Finder is Apple's way of eating their own dogfood, a Cocoa Finder would be like sampling their best caviar.

Caviar's disgusting in my opinion, but you get the point.

FYI,
although there is almost no talk of it, once an application has been carbonized, it does not require a complete rewrite to port it over to cocoa.

Indeed, if the carbon app were written largely in C, the app could be easily wrapped by the application object to receive many of the cocoa UI freebees.

Of course, the underlyiing architecture of the app would fail to capitalize on the cocoa frameworks, but the key is in recognizing what code makes the app unique from the frameworks and dropping that into appropriate objects.

In a nutshell, although not trivial, moving an app from carbon to cocoa is possible to do while retaining much of the code base that makes that app unique.

Expect the next major revision 10.5 or 11 to have a cocoa finder.

[graffix]

The whole reason that the Finder was written in Carbon was to show developers that Carbon is a viable development platform for complex applications.

Well... in DP3 & DP4 the System Preferences were written in java... lo' and behold... it too was a performance monster... it is now written in cocoa...
Looks like this 'dogfood' must've tasted 'really' bad (probably Alpo), so they threw it up and ate again...

To switch to a Cocoa based Finder would be telling developers that Carbon wasn't good enough.

No, a switch to Cocoa will show the developers how much better a Cocoa finder performs than a Carbon version (i.e. make sure and get your apps updated ASAP for Cocoa compatibility).

If they see wavering support from Apple for an API, they are going to get very nervous. Apple does not have the greatest track record in this department.

Um... I highly doubt Carbon is going anywhere... most of Apple's failed plans in their development environment (QuickDraw GX, OpenDoc) died due to lack of 'developer' support, not Apple's...

In case you haven't noticed, Apple is still struggling to remain alive.

Damn... 5 Billion in liquid assets is struggling? Well paint me pink and call me a pauper... now where do I pick up my check?

Still, profit margins are thin and to survive they have to make smart decisions. Putting engineers on a project to re-write an app from scratch would not be a very smart thing to do.

Maybe you should check out the WWDC 2000 TV station over at Apple... Cocoa takes approximately 1/4 the code to program the same feature set as Carbon Apps. A quote from whoever made Oni for OSX (can't remember exactly) said that using Cocoa saved them a 'huge' amount of time, mentioning specifically that just the file saving algorithms were 800 lines of code in Cocoa, and 18,000 lines of code in Carbon...
A Cocoa finder would probably need less code than Mail.app (which uses less than 20,000 lines total).

We need engineers working on DVD, speed optimizations, and most importantly, new apps that we haven't thought of that will sell even more Macs.

I really don't think it will take shifting the entire company's focus simply to rewrite the Finder in Cocoa...

Apple knows the Finder has issues.

Finally, something I agree with...

Both will get significantly better in the coming months. As Powerplant evolves (especially adopting CarbonEvents), the Finder will get performance boosts practically for free (recompile).

I'm just hoping they can finally support my damn mouse scroll-wheel...

There do seem to be threading issues inside the current Finder. I'm sure Apple is aware of these problems.

Aware? It's the most complained about problem they see on their feedback page... with the Dock coming in close second.

To make their software development deadline they needed to make some concessions.

Well... hobbling the user interface shouldn't have been one of them...

I know a few Apple engineers.

Well, I know a couple of Train Engineers... does that help my credibility or speculation?

Sometimes I wonder if people forget that many of these decisions are business driven.

And some other people usually forget that it's the customers that drive the business... If the customers aren't happy, the business loses revenue... basic economic theory...

Personally I wish that all apps were written in Cocoa but it's just not realistic to expect that.

True (and I wish that too), but Cocoa is not an extremely difficult environment to work with... in fact, most of the time it's easier than C++, but it's just different (and we know how most geeks feel about change).

Apple is running a low-margin business

*gasp* (sorry had to catch my breath I was laughing so hard). Apple has one of the highest margins of any computer maker (in fact they like to brag about this to investors)... If you want an example of their high margins, add extra RAM or a larger HD to your purchase at the Apple store... hrm... doesn't all RAM cost $200 for a 64MB upgrade??? $200 to go from a 10 to 20GB HD??? Low margins... hehe

Well, I won't quote any more specifics, but for the rest of your post I tend to agree... I just disagree that there won't be a Cocoa finder...
Why should Apple leave it in its Carbon form now? Maybe in the beginning it was beneficial to have their system applications written in the different API's they support (as a reference to performance), but I would think that most developers are beginning to get an idea of what their 'own' apps perform like under Carbon, so where is the necessity now? In my opinion, it would definitely be in Apple's best interests to rewrite the Finder in Cocoa, so it takes advantage of all OSX's newfound abilities (and can actually use Cocoa's System Services menu).
MacOSX is an infant, but I agree that I try to make it my daily OS... as more and more time goes by I'm slowly succeeding.
cheers.
g.
[edit: minor edit of content]
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First there was man, then there was Macintosh

[This message has been edited by graffix (edited 05-26-2001).]

[harp]

In case everyone's forgot, the finder in OSX Server 1.X is written in Cocoa. In other words, much of the work is already done.

As far as the original poster making the comment about money, Writing all apps in Cocoa would *save* money as it leads to more rapid development of apps.

[This message has been edited by harp (edited 05-26-2001).]

In case everyone's forgot, the finder in OSX Server 1.X is written in Cocoa. In other words, much of the work is already done.

As far as the original poster making the comment about money, Writing all apps in Cocoa would *save* money as it leads to more rapid development of apps.

is it? didn�t know that... so did you have/hear about experiences with it? what are the differences in terms of speed/responsiveness?

however this could be a clear indication that sooner or later we�ll have an cocoa finder in the consumer x...

[kman42]

I didn't realize this either and I find it very interesting. Can someone describe the old Cocoa Finder found in early Server versions? Was it just a port of Workspace Manager or was it more similar to OS9's platinum theme? A Shelf? For whatever reason (too many iTunes visuals maybe), I can't remember much about the Server version. Was it the same as the early Rhapsody versions?

Could this Cocoa finder be spruced up quickly for release?

kman

posted 05-26-2001 11:46 AM ��� � �� ��
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quote:
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The whole reason that the Finder was written in Carbon was to show developers that Carbon is a viable development platform for complex applications.
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Well... in DP3 & DP4 the System Preferences were written in java... lo' and behold... it too was a performance monster... it is now written in cocoa...
Looks like this 'dogfood' must've tasted 'really' bad (probably Alpo), so they threw it up and ate again...


quote:
------------------------------------------------------------------------
To switch to a Cocoa based Finder would be telling developers that Carbon wasn't good enough.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
No, a switch to Cocoa will show the developers how much better a Cocoa finder performs than a Carbon version (i.e. make sure and get your apps updated ASAP for Cocoa compatibility).


quote:
------------------------------------------------------------------------
If they see wavering support from Apple for an API, they are going to get very nervous. Apple does not have the greatest track record in this department.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Um... I highly doubt Carbon is going anywhere... most of Apple's failed plans in their development environment (QuickDraw GX, OpenDoc) died due to lack of 'developer' support, not Apple's...


quote:
------------------------------------------------------------------------
In case you haven't noticed, Apple is still struggling to remain alive.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Damn... 5 Billion in liquid assets is struggling? Well paint me pink and call me a pauper... now where do I pick up my check?


quote:
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Still, profit margins are thin and to survive they have to make smart decisions. Putting engineers on a project to re-write an app from scratch would not be a very smart thing to do.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
A quote from whoever made Oni for OSX (can't remember exactly) said that using Cocoa saved them a 'huge' amount of time, mentioning specifically that just the file saving algorithms were 800 lines of code in Cocoa, and 18,000 lines of code in Carbon...
------------------------------------------------------------------------

It was Bungie
and isnt Oni a carbon app?
I can open it in both OS 9.1 and OS X and Classic
or is there another version i am missing?

[edddeduck]

I think it was OMNI version which has been written in cocoa....

just like q3 Its so. much smaller and easier to code in.



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450DP/448MB/80GB/Rage/Apple 17"/Zip250/ZipCD/Epson740

ICQ 60617180

I Took The Red Pill

[JLL]

Originally posted by graffix:
Well... in DP3 & DP4 the System Preferences were written in java... lo' and behold... it too was a performance monster... it is now written in cocoa...

You can use Java code in Cocoa apps.

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JLL

[Bouba]

Originally posted by kman42:
I didn't realize this either and I find it very interesting. Can someone describe the old Cocoa Finder found in early Server versions? Was it just a port of Workspace Manager or was it more similar to OS9's platinum theme? A Shelf? For whatever reason (too many iTunes visuals maybe), I can't remember much about the Server version. Was it the same as the early Rhapsody versions?

Could this Cocoa finder be spruced up quickly for release?

kman

was it like the DP2 DP3 versions of os X ? if so, John Siracusa made an exhaustive coverage of these on http://arstechnica.com/reviews/4q99/...s-x-dp2-2.html

If I can remember correctly, it was using the dark platinum theme... it had an apple menu succeeded by the file and edit menu but the apple menu wasn't behaving like the classic apple menu. there was no drives on the desktop... (you had to put aliases...) icons were 48x48 like the icons in netinfo (I think It's that one.. i'm currently in os 9...)

these old reports are really interesting and can be considered to analyse the future!

[graffix]

You can use Java code in Cocoa apps.

True true, but I believe the preference panel was using native Java to show how the Swing/Java2 Windowing Toolkits took on the appearance of OSX...
All I remember is it took 'forever' to load... and it's exponentially faster now...
And thanks to whoever mentioned OmniGroup as the Oni porters... I thought it was them, but didn't want to be mistaken... AFAIK the Carbon version of Oni only worked with the public beta, but I could be wrong about that too...
I just know that a Cocoa version is in the works that is greatly simplified over the Carbon version.
g.

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First there was man, then there was Macintosh

[JB72]

Originally posted by Scott_H:
Some day there will be. Someday all apps will be Cocoa.

Ahhh. Just reading that put a grin on my face and caused me to drift off to a more beautiful world, if only for a few seconds .

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JB71.39.2b

Dock Perverts still rule OK?

[JFK2000]

Originally posted by Cocoalearner:
FYI,
although there is almost no talk of it, once an application has been carbonized, it does not require a complete rewrite to port it over to cocoa.

Indeed, if the carbon app were written largely in C, the app could be easily wrapped by the application object to receive many of the cocoa UI freebees.

Of course, the underlyiing architecture of the app would fail to capitalize on the cocoa frameworks, but the key is in recognizing what code makes the app unique from the frameworks and dropping that into appropriate objects.

In a nutshell, although not trivial, moving an app from carbon to cocoa is possible to do while retaining much of the code base that makes that app unique.

Expect the next major revision 10.5 or 11 to have a cocoa finder.

That may be true with a well written app, but even apple has admitted the finder is poorly written, so just moving it to cocoa wouldn't be the answer. My guess is that we get an improved carbon finder. Apple still wants to make the point about how well carbon apps work on X.

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Always go to other people's funerals or they won't come to yours.