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typoon · Oct 29, 2003, 03:17 PM

We hear a lot of the negative what are some of the positive things that Panther has surprised you with.

I have a generic USB card which it picked up. And an USB2 card that it recognizes as well without installing any drivers. That is pretty cool. I have 7 USB 1.1 ports and 2 USB2 ports now. I also installed a SuperDrive Pioneer DV106D and it recognized that right away too and allows me to burn and reads as an Apple shipped drive. I was surprised about this after reading all the issues people were having with it in Panther.

Diggory Laycock · Oct 29, 2003, 08:36 PM

There are some very nice refinements that keep popping-up and surprising me.

e.g. Open Panels - the new UI is so much sleeker than the old cluttered panels of Jaguar.

I was just in one and thinking - damn! they've taken away the path text field. But I typed slash reflexively - and a little sheet popped out and the path tf appeared!

arekkusu · Oct 29, 2003, 08:43 PM

Mail now remembers the width of the mailbox drawer after you drag it partway in. Good.

osxisfun · Oct 29, 2003, 08:44 PM

i like the fact that when you click on the desktop from another app, it will bring forward all the finder windows.

and oh yeah. expos� is god.

Brass · Oct 29, 2003, 09:17 PM

Originally posted by Diggory Laycock:
There are some very nice refinements that keep popping-up and surprising me.

e.g. Open Panels - the new UI is so much sleeker than the old cluttered panels of Jaguar.

I was just in one and thinking - damn! they've taken away the path text field. But I typed slash reflexively - and a little sheet popped out and the path tf appeared!

Now that is a GREAT tip ! I was rather peeved that this feature was missing, as I need to navigate to hidden directories sometimes, which cannot be done without the "Go" field. Thanks for posting this tip!

dcmacdaddy · Oct 29, 2003, 09:27 PM

command-tab (The Mac equivalent of alt-tab) pops up in the middle of the screen L-A-R-G-E icons for all the running apps and you can just tab through them. One of the few windows keyboard tricks I am glad apple introduced into OS X.

osxisfun · Oct 29, 2003, 09:55 PM

i just realsized that clicking on any doc window in any app will bring all the docs and the app forward.

nice....

there was a haxie that did this in 10.2 but i don't use haxies.

CharlesS · Oct 29, 2003, 10:17 PM

disk:// URLs, such as disk://www.charlessoft.com/Pacifist.dmg now work correctly with files on virtual hosting sites.

The Cocoa table view widget now has the option to have alternating row backgrounds, like in iTunes and OS 9.

You can now add a new folder button to a Cocoa Open Panel without resorting to all sorts of dirty hacks.

Overall, life is good.

MacGorilla · Oct 29, 2003, 10:20 PM

Lots of little things. The new finder UI, the speed and the improvements to the unix subsystem.

mattyd · Oct 29, 2003, 10:41 PM

slick new stickies! they windowshade like sheets and give you creation and modification info.

also, i really love the two ways to navigate the finder. i have it set so that when i click on the finder's dock icon it opens a brushed metal window in column view. but i also have my hard drive mounted on my desktop so when i open it, i can use the spatial views a la OS 9.

vancenase · Oct 29, 2003, 11:10 PM

expose is da bomb!

besson3c · Oct 29, 2003, 11:11 PM

Expose's drag & drop support is very slick.

riverfreak · Oct 29, 2003, 11:16 PM

The "Network" control panel. Although "automatic" settings existed in the past, it didn't seem to work too effectively. Now, the status indicator makes it quite clear which type of networking you are using. For example:

I use primarily airport but occasionally ethernet at home. (I set up both network protocols to use manual addressing since I like numbers

) Sometimes I want to plug in to transfer big files. In Jaguar, I was never certain I was using ethernet unless I turned off airport. Under panther, as soon as I plug in, the network switches to ethernet, and the networkk status indicator of the network system preference shows it as such. This is very clean and well thought out.

swiz · Oct 29, 2003, 11:31 PM

Its little but I like how when you close the system prefs window it actually quits system prefs now.

nobitacu · Oct 29, 2003, 11:32 PM

Oh man, I love everything about it. The speed increase for me is really good too.

Ming

DVD Plaza · Oct 29, 2003, 11:33 PM

I love that you can set your clock to automatically "speak" the time at regular intervals - I've set mine at 30 minutes and boy, am I now finally keeping track of how quickly time flies whilst I work during the night... AND I'm remembering to do things for my partner (ie can you do "blah" at 8:30, and when my PowerBook says "it's 8:30" I'm remembering!!!). A simple thing, but coming in mighty handy for me

Arkham_c · Oct 29, 2003, 11:40 PM

1) TextEdit now rules. It can read RTF, HTML, and Word files. It writes out Word files too.

2) If you hit option-esc in any app where there is "Check Spelling As You Type", it will offer word completion. Neat!

3) I really like the new "metallic aqua" for non metal windows. Much cleaner than Jaguar's aqua. Also, group boxes now look indented, which is nice, and tabs are those neat sectioned bubbles now.

4) Printing is better. At work before I could only print to the Xerox DocuCenter with Gimp Print installed, and only through lpr on the command line (otherwise the queue would inexplicably stop). Now with panther, it works great in all apps.

5) Windows network browsing is better. It didn't suck in Jaguar, but it's much nicer now.

There are a couple of features that I'd love if I could get them to work. (1) built in VPN with a Cisco 3000 VPN concentrator and SecureID, (2) Address book synching with Exchange 2000, and (3) Mail talking to Exchange mail server. None of these work for me, but they are supposed to, and I wish they did.

KidRed · Oct 29, 2003, 11:40 PM

Sound other then speed. The sound is so much louder and crisper under Panther. iTunes is now that much more enjoyable.

besson3c · Oct 29, 2003, 11:49 PM

There are a couple of features that I'd love if I could get them to work. (1) built in VPN with a Cisco 3000 VPN concentrator and SecureID, (2) Address book synching with Exchange 2000, and (3) Mail talking to Exchange mail server. None of these work for me, but they are supposed to, and I wish they did.

To work with Exchange 2000, you'll need to authenticate to ADS, as Exchange 2000 requires ADS.

in Address Book, setup an LDAP server using your ADS domain as the server name. Authenticate using "simple", and spell out your username as:

ads\yourusername

include your password, and find out what port your LDAP server works off of. Scope = subtree and Search base blank works for me.

This should allow you to access your Exchange Global Address Listing.

If your Exchange admins have OWA setup, you can enter that in your Exchange setup config and this will make Mail savvy of the folder structure.

Other than that, Mail's Exchange support stops there. It isn't a MAPI client like Outlook.

neilw · Oct 30, 2003, 01:55 AM

I love the fact that "print in reverse order" and "print odd/even pages" are now standard in the print dialogs. This is a major convenience for me.

Especially happy that the print odd/even pages thing works correctly, in that if you're printing multiple pages on a sheet (using the "layout" pane) printing odd pages only for instance will print out odd *sheets*, which is what you want. Long overdue, but very nice anyway.

I expected Expos� to be super-cool, so that's not a surprise.

ZackS · Oct 30, 2003, 02:02 AM

Originally posted by dcmacdaddy:
command-tab (The Mac equivalent of alt-tab) pops up in the middle of the screen L-A-R-G-E icons for all the running apps and you can just tab through them. One of the few windows keyboard tricks I am glad apple introduced into OS X.

It has always been there, just not in the giant, middle of the screen thing. Before it was in the dock and in OS 9 it was in a small pop-up box.

ryaxnb · Oct 30, 2003, 02:33 AM

Originally posted by osxisfun:
i just realsized that clicking on any doc window in any app will bring all the docs and the app forward.

nice....

there was a haxie that did this in 10.2 but i don't use haxies.

doesn't work for me.

orry_main · Oct 30, 2003, 02:45 AM

Originally posted by ryaxnb:
doesn't work for me.

I've not yet purchased Panther (gotta pay me rent first!). But this is reassuring to me, since I rather like being able to call forward individual windows without calling forward ALL of the windows for a particular app.

osxisfun · Oct 30, 2003, 02:52 AM

I did a clean install.

maybe a bad pref?

d4nth3m4n · Oct 30, 2003, 03:30 AM

Originally posted by Diggory Laycock:
There are some very nice refinements that keep popping-up and surprising me.

e.g. Open Panels - the new UI is so much sleeker than the old cluttered panels of Jaguar.

I was just in one and thinking - damn! they've taken away the path text field. But I typed slash reflexively - and a little sheet popped out and the path tf appeared!

having trouble with this one... by slash you mean "/" right? hmm. wanna try the trash alias trick. oh well.

Dan.

fortepianissimo · Oct 30, 2003, 03:43 AM

Originally posted by d4nth3m4n:
having trouble with this one... by slash you mean "/" right? hmm. wanna try the trash alias trick. oh well.

Dan.

actually typing a regular letter would do too.

DVD Plaza · Oct 30, 2003, 03:54 AM

Originally posted by fortepianissimo:
actually typing a regular letter would do too.

No that'll select a file beginning with that letter

Apfhex · Oct 30, 2003, 03:56 AM

Originally posted by osxisfun:
i just realsized that clicking on any doc window in any app will bring all the docs and the app forward.

I don't believe it's supposed to do that. My install doesn't, and I'm VERY glad. That's one thing I didn't like about Classic MacOS, and was glad to find that it didn't do that in OS X.

Good things I noticed about Panther...

In the Finder, Column view spring-loaded folders finally work the way they SHOULD have. In Jaguar, a new window would pop open, often in icon view with the files mixed around all over the place (because it would often be a folder that didn't have any .DS_Store view settings), making it extremely difficult to navigate. In Panther, it slides in and out of folders that you spring open, making it very nice.

Also, the giant-icon-command-tab thing... I was skeptical of how much I'd like it. But it turns out that it's quite nice! It makes it as easy as possible to tell what app you're selecting, you can even use the mouse or keyboard (arrow keys)!

I've also notices that iTunes is a little louder now. I used to keep the slider at full, but now keep it at about 2/3 to achieve the same level of sound. I don't know why, but hey, a little added volume can't hurt.

Powaqqatsi · Oct 30, 2003, 04:56 AM

Safari is finaly a bit up to par speedwise with the lastest Camino nightlies.

Gankdawg · Oct 30, 2003, 12:17 PM

Originally posted by swiz:
Its little but I like how when you close the system prefs window it actually quits system prefs now.

I hate this feature. I also hate the animation "feature" in System Prefs. I have a 533 G4 w/ 1280 MB RAM, and a 32MB GeForce MX and it's to CPU/GPU intensive. Would be nice to just turn off the animation.

Judge_Fire · Oct 30, 2003, 01:49 PM

The menu bar slides down upon login, instead of just appearing. I sent feedback on this to Apple with DP4, so obviously they've had other things to consider in the meantime

Print center, or more correctly, the setup utility can be reached from System Preferences. I sent feedback on this at the time of 10.0, when also critisizing their choice to have the 'Desktop Picture' selection in Finder: Preferences, where few people could find it.

View Options in Finder can now be found from a window's toolbar. My feedback to them requested a shortcut icon in the Finder's toolbar as a default item. I'm not perfectly happy with the silly 'action'- menu, but it's close enough. A lot of newbies I know couldn't find (or didn't even know of) icon previews and larger icon sizes... this could help.

It's still stupid that the Finder has the preview setting off for the desktop, though.

Open with... in the contextual menu doesn't stall the menu like it did in 10.2, now you get to wait only if you actually enter the submenu.

And there are more - I'm glad to see a large number of little things fixed.

Oh and mods, STICKIFY please, this positive attitude stuff nicely balances the bad stuff in the bug threads.

J

ZackS · Oct 30, 2003, 02:00 PM

Originally posted by Gankdawg:
I hate this feature. I also hate the animation "feature" in System Prefs. I have a 533 G4 w/ 1280 MB RAM, and a 32MB GeForce MX and it's to CPU/GPU intensive. Would be nice to just turn off the animation.

Panther marks a new concept for OS X: letting the pretty animations take the back seat. Anyone with a slow machine can confirm this: all animations in Panther have gotten faster at the expense of smoothness. In System prefs on my G4/400, I see maybe 6 frames of animations in System prefs when switching panes ( I have an ATI Radeon 8500). The switching is instant. On my iMac 400 (Rage 128 Pro), switching panes isn't exactly instant but there are zero frames of animation. Panther is only as graphically intense as your system allows and for that I'm grateful; everything is faster as a result.

krove · Oct 30, 2003, 02:16 PM

As said:

1. Open/Save Dialogs - Whew! That took a while to get right, but I love the ease with which I can now place my files and find them. Namely the ability to click a file and pull the name into the text field so that I can either replace that file with my new one or rename it something very similar. (I date a lot of files so this very convenient when I want files to have similar names, just different dates.)

2. Printing - Odd/Even Pages!!! This was such a pain in the ass in the past because only one PDF app, Adobe Acrobat Reader, actually had this option, and I hate that application. Finally, I can do this from Preview!

3. Preview - A vast improvement - searching, faster performance, all around great application!

4. Desktop Picture Settings - They pull from your iPhoto albums! How sweet is it that I can now just browse my iPhoto library for desktop pictures right in that pref pane? Much more convenient that digging around the arcane iPhoto library file structure.

5. Address Book User Pictures - iChat-like setting, even the ability to snap pictures from my iSight. Greatly improved flexibility in this regard. Label printing! Sweet. I don't like the "Edit" mode, however, as I prefer to edit a single user and have it exit this mode. Currently, it will stay in this mode until you click the button again.

6. Offline iDisk access - A no brainer that greatly improves the use of this .Mac feature.

Ok, I'm done now...

wataru · Oct 30, 2003, 02:24 PM

They added a nifty popup info window in the Simplified Chinese input method. Also, cntrl-clicking on some text fields will let you choose right-to-left text direction.

On the other hand, I don't think I like how they broke up Kotoeri, the Japanese input method. It used to behave more like the Chinese ones.

BrunoBruin · Oct 30, 2003, 02:32 PM

The redesigned open/save dialogues alone were worth the upgrade price for me.

I'm really surprised at how much faster apps launch. I can't believe that the OS could have so much effect on this. But I swear, InDesign (2.0) feels like it launches in half the time it used to, and even dog-slow Illustrator launches faster. And InDesign spreads draw much more snappily, too. I can't wait to see how much faster things get with the new versions of these apps.

I also love the new Finder, and the fact that network volumes now mount SO fast! I have about six that I keep in my Favorites folder and I can access them with one click, and they mount almost instantly. MUCH improved. And I love the fact that you can unmount volumes using the new widget, and burn CDs as well, right from the Finder window. And the fact that unmounting those volumes no longer locks up the Finder for a few seconds! There are just lots of little time-saving things like this that really make the interface feel quicker.

clarkgoble · Oct 30, 2003, 03:40 PM

Originally posted by typoon:
We hear a lot of the negative what are some of the positive things that Panther has surprised you with.

I truly am surprised at how good the Finder is. I played with the latest version of Path Finder (which apes a lot of the Panther Finder) but the Finder is so elegant. Yeah it isn't perfect, but the basic UI is so great. It is one of those subtle things you can't really explain.

User switching is my second favorite thing. I knew in advance how useful it would be. But it still surprised me.

The overall speed increase (even if a lot is merely perception) is very nice as well. It just feels snappier. Yeah windows still don't move as fast and as snappy as in Linux. But overall everything has improved in subtle ways that add up to a lot.

The other big thing that is very nice is that internet sharing now is permanent and doesn't need restarted each time you reboot.

One thing I'd not seen discussed prior to the release was searching in Preview with PDFs. Very, very nice. It is actually superior to Acrobat for what I do. Since I use ghostscript to do most of my distilling of .ps -> .pdf I now have everything I need.

SavMan · Oct 30, 2003, 05:34 PM

I just bought a refurb iSub off of eBay a few weeks ago and was a little perturbed that there was no way of changing the volume of it save going into the system preferences and doing it in the sound panel everytime I turned the volume of my regular speakers up or down. Now it is simply a gain level and is tied in with the new "output volume"! I couldn't have been happier about this, as I figured that Apple probably wouldn't support the iSub much anymore, as it is no longer made as a standalone device.

Johannesburg · 06:08 AM

Some of the things in Panther I particularly enjoy:

DVD Player:
� resuming a movie from the last position
� seeing how much time remains in a chapter

Safari:
� the position of the Downloads window is remembered

Dock:
� viewing the contents of a folder buried more than 5 levels deep

booboo · Oct 30, 2003, 10:06 PM

The Good
� How well User switching works
� How Expose is so right
� That they bothered improving Classic
� Activity Monitor
� Labels

The Bad
� All my broken pro-audio app's (Cubase, Peak, Halion, Waves, ProTools . . .)
� List view drag selection
� KeyCaps AWOL
� Life without FruitMenu ;-)
� Some PrefPane consolidation has actually confused things - like rolling Login Items into Accounts - too many clicks away. In fact the whole System Preferences window is one ugly mess.

The Fugly
� The whole System Preferences window is one ugly mess.
� The schizophrenic Finder
� Icon selection (high-lighting)
� Increasing busyness of the UI
� Label selection (what's wrong with a SubMenu?)

nickm · Oct 31, 2003, 12:45 AM

Hey, hey, no bad in this thread; there's plenty of others for that.

How's this for good. When you type keyboard shortcuts the menubar gives a good solid flash. Try this in 10.2, particularly in Cocoa apps, and you'll find the menu bar hardly flashes at all, and sometimes it just doesn't. This flash is part of the Mac experience; it let's you know that your keyboard command was understood. I hate using the keyboard for copy and paste in Windows because I never know if my text was actually copied.

ZackS · Oct 31, 2003, 02:52 AM

The Good

All agreed.

The Bad
� All my broken pro-audio app's (Cubase, Peak, Halion, Waves, ProTools . . .)

They will be fixed

� List view drag selection

Agreed

� KeyCaps AWOL

I kinda like the new one. It's a floating palate, turn it on from the input menu (enable it in International)

� Life without FruitMenu ;-)

Never liked that hack

� Some PrefPane consolidation has actually confused things - like rolling Login Items into Accounts - too many clicks away. In fact the whole System Preferences window is one ugly mess.[/b]

Agreed, it's a step back

The Fugly
� The whole System Preferences window is one ugly mess.
� The schizophrenic Finder

Not sure I know what you mean

� Icon selection (high-lighting)

I like it better, easier to drag piled up files

� Increasing busyness of the UI

Brushed metal is teh s uck

� Label selection (what's wrong with a SubMenu?)

Dunno, never use labels anyway.

Jellytussle · Oct 31, 2003, 04:18 AM

Originally posted by Diggory Laycock:
There are some very nice refinements that keep popping-up and surprising me.

e.g. Open Panels - the new UI is so much sleeker than the old cluttered panels of Jaguar.

I was just in one and thinking - damn! they've taken away the path text field. But I typed slash reflexively - and a little sheet popped out and the path tf appeared!

Then try using autocomplete (F5 or alt-esc) in that tf - very cool!

kzmk · Oct 31, 2003, 06:45 AM

i got some not-so-obviuos things i like:

ColorSync Utility
it lets you set "filters" for use during printing. nice touches there, and you can use this method to reduce pdf filesize (use the pages & copies popup in the print dialogue).

Mail.app
i love the way they handle threads. with overview and all, arrow-navigation. i also love how they eliminated those freaking alerts whenever a server was "unavailable" and put icons next to the boxes instead. clicking on those little "replied" icons next to a message is also nice (used this in entourage all the time, back in the days).

AddressBook
the card merging alone is wonderful. modifying the template is a nice addition. overall better, i think.

Edit menu -> Special characters
nice to have it there, so there's no need for that extra menu item (good for small ibook screens). also love how it just gets added in every app.

lots more. panther rocks.

Jerommeke · Oct 31, 2003, 07:27 AM

Speed

Oh, I knew there was a speed bump, but hey, this beastie is screaming! Wow. And also how well Expos� runs under my config.

deathandtaxes · Oct 31, 2003, 10:31 PM

Three things not mentioned yet in this thread:

Searching by content. I could NEVER get Jag to search by content. Works well and FAST in Panther.

DVD player remembers where you were when you restart a disk. Awesome!

Help. Wow, was that ever slow in Jag! Now it's actually useful without waiting forever to load and search.

moofman · Oct 31, 2003, 10:53 PM

List view in the Open/Save dialogue would be worth the frickin' upgrade cost alone. Column view in those was the one thing that I loathed in OS X.

DigitalEl · Oct 31, 2003, 11:50 PM

Expose. I thought this was another feature I'd never use, but was delightfully surprised at how handy and intuitive it is. Even easier with the hot-corner vs. the keyboard F-keys.

Finder. The brushed metal doesn't offend me and the sidebar is a leap forward IMO.

Fast User Switching. Like Expose, I thought this was something I'd never use... But now I have my wife setup as her own user, with her own preferences and what-not. It's easy and quick. And even a "who cares" kind of computer-user like her likes the cube effect.

Open and Save Dialogue Boxes. Much much better. What more can I say?

I remember feeling very let down, almost ripped off after springing for Jaguar on Day One. I didn't learn my lesson and did the same thing with Panther. This time, I feel like both my computers are virtually new machines.

Stogieman · Nov 1, 2003, 12:34 AM

1. System Profiler - Loads 10 times faster and has a much improved layout.
2. Activity Monitor - Combines the former CPU monitor and Process viewer into one app. Simply awesome.
3. iSub not muting bug finally fixed. (Regarding the original iSub for slot loading iMacs) iSub finally shuts off when you press the mute button on the keyboard or plugin a pair of headphones. I've been waiting for this fix since 10.1!
4. One "feature" I really hated in Jaguar was how it tried to conserve battery power on a PowerBook by putting the sound card to sleep. Whenever I dragged an item into the trash or out of the dock, there would always be a 5 second delay between the animation and the sound effect. Sound effects are instantaneous under Panther.

Ganesha · Nov 1, 2003, 01:28 AM

PS --> PDF in Preview.

MPMoriarty · Nov 1, 2003, 01:30 AM

Although it is a small thing...

wvous!

The little blue orb that lets you toggle the different expose modes.

Very cool. I have an Apple mouse and it just saves me time clicking the little orb to scale the windows.

Now I know I can set it up to be activated by screen corners, but I find myself accidentally setting it off this way.