[adamwsoccer]

Thanks

[Bluebomber21XX]

I think I've seen this before...

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For great justice!
http://bluebomber.darkmazda.com/

[Xeo]

Originally posted by adamwsoccer:
When in an app like IE 5, I'd like to see all my open windows in the dock (or even a separate dock). I don't like having to go up to the windows menu (or the IE dock icon) and select the window I want up. (I know I COULD just cycle through windows with comman-~, but I'd like to be able to just cick once in a dock. I mean if all your running apps are in the dock, why now all your opened windows? (Like in the taskbar in winDOZE) Perhaps a separtate dock for all opened or collapsed windows)

The Windows taskbar gets extremely cluttered. Every time a new window is added, all the others get smaller. The more you add, the less you can see. The dock would get equally cluttered. It would be to the point of all your windows and apps being really really small.

I'm sure you know this already, but if you right-click (control-click) on an application that's open, you can choose any of the windows from that app.

The dock icon highlighted for the current app that's up front.

Did you know that you can "hack" the dock w/ terminal, or TinkerTool to make the foreground app have a blue arrow instead of a black one? If so, then I'm sure you are talking about the whole icon being "highlighted" in some way, yes? I wouldn't mind the foreground app icon having a soft glow around the perimeter.

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[plaidpjs]

I think the only thing worth mentioning was the highlighted icon in the Dock.

The speed - we've been through this already, let it die. the OS will get faster, you just have to be patient. it's primarily a Quartz thing at this point, but the underlying processes are by no means lacking speed.

Windowshade - what you call collapsing windows, I, for one, and I know there are others, hope this never sees the light of day again. if you want a quick peak at what's behind an open app window, then do a command-h, the foreground app is hidden, to get it back just click the app icon in the dock, viola.

All Windows Forward - search the forums, their is a key+click solution for this, i just can't remember what it is. However, if you mean selecting an open window in a program, like what you referred to in Windows, on the Taskbar, well... that's just not going to happen. if you think people have a problem with column view truncating file names with ... in the middle, wait until they get a Taskbar-ish Dock full with all open windows and instead of a real icon they see like a lsiver of whit (comparable to when Internet Explorer's button on the Taskbar is just the letter I in a beveled box).

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G4/500 DP, 768 MB RAM, 40GB HDD, 32MB ATI Radeon OEM, 30GB VST Firewire Drive, and an Apple Cinema Display

[Agent69]

Things I would like to see:

1. The option to be able to resize and move things in outline mode, like MacOS 9. (While dragging and menuing is okay on my Cube, live resizing sucks)

2. Internet Explorer should NOT installed by default but rather is a selectable package at install time, with OmniWeb also as an option.

3. The installer should ask if you want to auto-login to be on instead of simply defaulting to it being on.

4. A light-weight CD Player(not iTunes) should be included. Something like the CD Player Dockling on Version Tracker.

5. The Address Book does not open wide enough. (Note that there is a program to fix this on Version Tracker)

6. The option to select a different partitions for VM usage.

7. To be able to select options for the desktop background picture, such as centered, tile, fill screen (like in MacOS 9).

8. Sound Sets.

Note that I have submitted these suggestions to Apple.


Agent69

[Kosmo]

Sounds to me like you want your OS 9 back...

1. The option to be able to resize and move things in outline mode, like MacOS 9. (While dragging and menuing is okay on my Cube, live resizing sucks)
[b] This only bothers you because it's not as fast as outline mode, if it were, and it will be, you'd love it{/b]


2. Internet Explorer should NOT installed by default but rather is a selectable package at install time, with OmniWeb also as an option.
This isn't even worth exploring. Install whatever browser you want

3. The installer should ask if you want to auto-login to be on instead of simply defaulting to it being on.
[b] Yeah, this would be nice, but it's minor. You can change it on your first login [/b}
4. A light-weight CD Player(not iTunes) should be included. Something like the CD Player Dockling on Version Tracker.
iTunes is great, why would they offer something less great?

5. The Address Book does not open wide enough. (Note that there is a program to fix this on Version Tracker)

This will be fixed

6. The option to select a different partitions for VM usage.
Not worth it..it's fine the way it is. What difference would this make to you, unless your hard drive is tiny
7. To be able to select options for the desktop background picture, such as centered, tile, fill screen (like in MacOS 9).
Minor, not worth it
8. Sound Sets.
Agreed.

At least all of your wants are minor ones. Some people really would like Apple to stick to OS 9...

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[gorgonzola]

I'd like to be able to create AppleScripts to attach to Dock icons to add functionality to their Dock menus (a la Oneota, so you don't think I steal ideas ).

I'd like Carbon to have Services.

The transparent glow idea is nice. The blue arrow is a nice touch, but too hard to see to be useful.

Multiple desktops.

That cool multi-user login thing from WinXP.

Voice verification passwords.

Encrypt files.

Aqua color variants (not just blue/gray, but green, etc). Not quite themes, because that doesn't seem to be happening via Apple any time soon, but this would be nice and stick to Aqua.

A way to create a Dock Printer (the icon of your printer is in the Dock) and then you can print something by dragging it to that icon. This does not open the app that created the file.

A function in Print Center that lets you transfer jobs from one printer to another. I don't have two printers, so I haven't tried, but I don't think this capability is there. Would be useful for offices and edu places.

Remote desktop. Click an option on the login screen, and enter your login/password as normal, and a 3rd field is revealed, where you enter your IP address. Then you remote login to your X desktop from any X box assuming you're running AppleRemoteAccessServer (or whatever). This should come in a year or two when more people are on dedicated lines.

[edit: changed undotwa to oneota, so you don't think I'm a complete moron ]

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the oddball newsletter
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it's only after you lose everything that you're free to do anything

[This message has been edited by gorgonzola (edited 04-22-2001).]

[osiris]

I'd like to see:

WindowShade: There is simply no faster way to hide/expand a window for me,

Multiple desktops (with an active dockling): this would be handy, especially if it allowed full sized multiple desktops to be displayed on the desktop in real time,

A volume control for the dock that actually allows volume control from the dock,

Lastly : more SPEED, SPEED, SPEED!

[chengjt]

I like to have Classic that can save its memory to a file so that it can restart faster (like VirtualPC). Disk space is so cheap today, it makes more sense for Classic to save the virtual memory to disk image and start from saved image as if it is waking up from sleep.

Afterall, OS 9 is designed to check all its devices when waking up from sleep, so there is no real need to start all over again.

- JT -

[mindwaves]

I want four things:

1) Consistency among the GUI of the OS and apps.
2) Smaller memory requirements.
3) Faster speed
4) More options.

[wr11]

OFF TOPIC...oh well.

I just wanted to say how cool the dock is. Try Minimizing a window into the dock, now hide the windows Application. Watch the dock and the window icon in the doc flys towards the application icon. And when you unhide the app, the window flys back into its space in the dock from the app icon. I don't know if it does it normally or only if you have the dock hacks on. I have both showforeground and showhidden on...but I do like the attention to detail in having the window fly into the app icon to show where it has gone.

my 2cents

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[Agent69]

>>Sounds to me like you want your OS 9 back...
Actually, I want my NeXTStep back.

>>(retime resizing): This only bothers you because it's not as fast as outline mode, if it were, and it will be, you'd love it

But it isn't fast now. I also find it annoying and turn this off on my NT machine (which live resizes very well on my PC).

>Internet Explorer should NOT installed by default
>>This isn't even worth exploring. Install whatever browser you want

To me it is. Why install it at all if you don't want it? Forced install of a web browser is one of the reasons I don't like MS too much.

>The installer should ask if you want to auto-login to be on instead of simply defaulting to it being on.
>>Yeah, this would be nice, but it's minor. You can change it on your first login

This is indeed minor but it should be asked. Even Win2000 asks this question

>iTunes is great, why would they offer something less great?
Sorry, I hate iTunes. It is also way more then I need just to play CDs.

>The option to select a different partitions for VM usage.
>>Not worth it..it's fine the way it is. What difference would this make to you, unless your hard drive is tiny

Maybe it is to you but I prefer to have VM on a different disk entirely, that way data accesses are not competing with VM accesses. You can alreay make this happen by messing with some rc files.

>To be able to select options for the desktop background picture, such as centered, tile, fill screen (like in MacOS 9).
>>Minor, not worth it

I believe it is.

>>At least all of your wants are minor ones. Some people really would like Apple to stick to OS 9...

I think that the big things are there in MacOS X. It's the small things that make an operating system good.


Agent69


[This message has been edited by Agent69 (edited 04-22-2001).]

[This message has been edited by Agent69 (edited 04-22-2001).]

[Brad Nelson]

1) A Dock half as configurable as DragThing [Kosmos's reason why I can't have it/don't need it here ]
2) Configuration options: Finder font, anti-aliasing, transparency, drop shadow, themes, window borders, Menu bar font
3) Better than themes, build-in a theme construction set. This is not only for aesthetics but for function. I'd love to be able to individually manipulate every gui element. For example, I find the scroll bars too narrow ad the up/down arrows too small. Let me change them to my needs/monitor/resolution/you get the idea.
4) Speed
5) Contextual menus better than even Windows
6) Add labels and take them to the next step in evolution
7) CSM - yeah, it's still useful.
8) Okay, Steve, thanks for the clock in the menu bar. But isn't it about time to build-in a sophisticated calendar with it?
9) Key combo for Hide Others (along with built-in ability to manage key combos)
10) SimpleScript - a scripting language for the dummy like me to use to do very simple stuff.

[Oneota]

Originally posted by gorgonzola:
I'd like to be able to create AppleScripts to attach to Dock icons to add functionality to their Dock menus (a la undotwa, so you don't think I steal ideas ).

Undotwa?? He came up with that idea, too? Or did you confuse me with him?

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Justify my text? I'm sorry, but it has no excuse.

[morgan]

Gotta say, I miss windowshade alot. It's simply more efficient to click twice to see what's behind something than it is to do any key command sequence and then go find it in the dock. I definitely want to keep the option to put windows in the dock, but just add windowshade too. When you're really flying all the extra stuff really adds up. Also sprng-loaded folders would be nice.

[Xeo]

Agent69 said:
Sorry, I hate iTunes. It is also way more then I need just to play CDs.

This has nothing to do with what you're arguing... You should MP3 your CDs. I've MP3'd all mine. It is soo much easier to switch between albums if you don't have any hardware to fumble with. It's also easier if you're running an app that requires the CD. (I'm now repeating... this isn't about iTunes or a CD player, so you don't have to justify yourself to me. Whatever you do is fine.)

Brad Nelson said:
3) Better than themes, build-in a theme construction set. This is not only for aesthetics but for function. I'd love to be able to individually manipulate every gui element. For example, I find the scroll bars too narrow ad the up/down arrows too small. Let me change them to my needs/monitor/resolution/you get the idea.

10) SimpleScript - a scripting language for the dummy like me to use to do very simple stuff.

3) Never, ever gonna happen. At most, Apple will let us change the colors of the widgets to whatever we want, with a few presets to help us along the way. Apple is too proud of their ability to make a good UI. They don't want every user fusking it up. If they allow themes (at this point I don't see it happening), it will be Apple-made themes. Of course, people will hack it, but Apple will "discourage" it, just as they always have. Kaleidescope(sp?) is a nightmare. Aqua is just over a year old in release, and they aren't even done w/ it quite yet. They don't want to start out with multiple themes so some people never give it a chance. Steve loves it too much.

10) AppleScript is SimpleScript. It's supposed to be Apple's way of letting "dummies" like us script the simple things. AppleScript can be powerful in what we want it to do. It doesn't take too long to learn. It's definitely easier than any other language out there.

Oneota said:
Undotwa?? He came up with that idea, too? Or did you confuse me with him?

I almost said something about last night when I read it, but I decided it wasn't my job to defend you, and if you cared, you'd post. I did notice that you were the first on the forum to post anything about it (although someone said they had a similar idea but never shared it).

Phew!

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[This message has been edited by Xeo (edited 04-22-2001).]

[adamwsoccer]

Thanks

[Agent69]

>Hope Apple's listening!

I think that it is incumbent on those who have problems with (or care about) MacOS X to submit suggestions to Apple. They have provided an avenue for us to do so.

Of course, it might not actually make a difference but it is usually the squeaky wheel that gets oiled first.


Agent69

SOUNDSETS A NECESSITY!!!!!!!!!!!!!APPLE PLEASE ADD SOUNDSETS TO THE SYSTEM!!!

[adamwsoccer]

Thanks

[Agent69]

Hey Kosmo,

Great Sig!

Agent69

[booboo]

1: GUI responsiveness an order of magnitude better. (i.e. acceptable on a G4/400 - please don't post that it already is,it isn't, and I'm already well aware that some people have developed blindspots as to OS-X's shortcomings...)

2: Option to switch off anti-aliasing, and use a smaller font for menus and the Finder (which would also allow more text to be shown under icons, and get me some of my screen real estate back)

3: Easily selectable theme-switching (like Mac OS > 8.5) and a less-bright, stripe-free theme as a standard option.

4: Labels, developed to Copland-esque 'meta tag' functionality.

5: Spring-loaded Folders.

[booboo]

And on the subject of collapsible windows (Windowshade) - I used this option only occasionally, and I always felt there was something a little inelegant about seeing the disembodied menubar just kind of floating there, although useful as a quick way to see what's behind the current window.

But I wonder if there's a better way to implement Windowshade's functionality?

As I see it, the advantage of Windowshade is that you can double click to hide the window and then, without moving the mouse at all, double click to return it. But how about if, instead of collapsing to a menubar, the window collapsed to a small (maybe translucent) icon directly under the mouse's current position? (Maybe the icon-collapsed window could also appear in the Dock?) A modifier key should be used to call the behaviour (and differentiate between this and standard behaviour) Yes I know Win 3..11 did something similar (but minimised to the bottom left of the screen, I think) but that's not the point. In OS-X it could be done right ;-)

I think for newbies, simply collapsing to the Dock is definitely less messy, and for this reason I doubt that Apple will re-implement Windowshade. but perhaps an enterprising 3rd party might? Because, for power-users I agree, it is a waste of precious miliseconds to have to go look in the Dock to revert your window...


[This message has been edited by booboo (edited 04-23-2001).]

[Kate]

Originally posted by booboo:
1: GUI responsiveness an order of magnitude better. (i.e. acceptable on a G4/400 - please don't post that it already is,it isn't, and I'm already well aware that some people have developed blindspots as to OS-X's shortcomings...)

Only a magnitude? X slows down 400 per cent and you only want back 100? OS9.1 already is not the quickest, so a true X implementation could get you 600 per cent back if done properly, which I suspect Apple will not do anytime soon, if ever......because they would have to trash Quartz and some other bloat.

Originally posted by booboo:

2: Option to switch off anti-aliasing, and use a smaller font for menus and the Finder (which would also allow more text to be shown under icons, and get me some of my screen real estate back)

This is so essential, that they should have found out themselves already, but I bet they won't do it. They will not admit they get headaches too. Before that happens expect Fidel Castro to admit he's gay and step down.

Originally posted by booboo:

3: Easily selectable theme-switching (like Mac OS > 8.5) and a less-bright, stripe-free theme as a standard option.

"While we appreciate your enthusiasm as an Apple supporter, we have to request you to cease and desist from violating Apples trade dress and intellectual property by illegal want for themes. Please respond in writing that you will accept Apples right to take over control of your Mac asap. Regards, Apple Legal Dept."

Originally posted by booboo:

4: Labels, developed to Copland-esque 'meta tag' functionality.

May actually come some day by 3rd party.

Originally posted by booboo:

5: Spring-loaded Folders.

"While we are investigating how to do list-views and are reinventing the wheel ( expect a full blown square type soon) and other suchlike Finder-esque stuff, and are learning how to do something besides typing to a terminal, we have to inform you that all old-school ways will not be recoded. BTW what is spring-loaded folders anyway?- We appreciate your feature requests, regards, NEXT System Developer Division"

Did you submit your request via the feedback form to Apple? I did so, supporting each and every of your points, despite remaining extremely skeptic about Apple reading this, and if so, even remotely working on these valid concerns.

[unimacs]

Originally posted by adamwsoccer:
What I want back from OS 9:

Collapsed Windows

I would really like to have the collapse windows back. I hate having to go all the way down to the dock when I just want to hide the window for a sec to see what's behind it. Hey there's room for a button on the top right of the window bar!

I've actually been suprised to find out how many people miss window shade. It always seemed to me to be a half-baked minimize. I never thought of it as an easy way to quickly see what's behind a window.

Until Apple or a 3rd party brings it back, is clicking on the menu bar and sliding the window down, looking, and then sliding it back up a reasonable alternative?. It's pretty quick if you don't take your finger off the mouse button. You could also grab the window near the upper right corner, slide it to the left, look, and then slide it back.

I'm only suggesting this as a workaround until somebody comes up with something better.

[Terri]

Originally posted by unimacs:
You could also grab the window near the upper right corner, slide it to the left, look, and then slide it back.

I'm only suggesting this as a workaround until somebody comes up with something better.

That is what I did before windowshade came along and that is what I find myself doing again. I really dislike the way it works now. It's just such a pain to go down to the dock, plus I often find I have to scrub to find out which icon it is.



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Terri Zamore

[Boondoggle]

The funny thing about windowshade that most people forget, if they ever knew, is that it was originally shareware. Bad as it is, I'm sure some misguided genius will write a version for OS X eventually.

<sarcasm>At least with all the dock scrubbing going on in the meantime, I'm sure it is nice and clean.</sarcasm>

[Boondoggle]

The funny thing about windowshade that most people forget, if they ever knew, is that it was originally shareware. Bad as it is, I'm sure some misguided genius will write a version for OS X eventually.

<sarcasm>At least with all the dock scrubbing going on in the meantime, I'm sure it is nice and clean.</sarcasm>

[tie]

Originally posted by unimacs:
Until Apple or a 3rd party brings it back, is clicking on the menu bar and sliding the window down, looking, and then sliding it back up a reasonable alternative?. It's pretty quick if you don't take your finger off the mouse button. You could also grab the window near the upper right corner, slide it to the left, look, and then slide it back.

Yup, I do this a lot. Slide windows down to the bottom of the screen so just part of their titlebars show, for example. Almost like pop-up folders, but with the extra X annoyance we've come to expect.

A big advantage of using Classic IE as a web browser (besides that it is fast, doesn't crash, loads more pages, etc etc) is that you can window-shade! Same with BBEdit. Frankly, I like a lot of Classic apps better than native X apps. If only the UI could be made consistent I'd be happy.

[unimacs]

As a software developer I often find myself wishing people could tell me what problem it is they want to solve rather than giving me the solution to the problem. I'm sure I do the same thing and it's probably natural, but it can lead developers down the wrong path.

For example, do people really want window shade back or is it just one or two things that were better about window shade than the current mechanism for hiding windows? Apple might be able to create a method of quickly seeing what's behind a window that fits better with the OS X way of doing things.

Same with the Apple menu. Folks want to be able to add stuff to it. Again, what is the problem that these people want to solve? Is a configurable Apple menu the best way? Would some sort of change to the Dock's behavior be more appropriate?

Obviously the same is true for live window resizing. I've seen many posts about how this should be optional. Would people be that unhappy if it were just faster? Maybe Apple could take the Microsoft approach where the text reformatting may be delayed, but the window border tracks with the mouse.

At one company I worked for, users called "Subject Matter Experts" (SMEs) were heavily involved in the development process. Their input was invaluable to developers who often only had a superficial understanding of
how the users did their work.

But as developers we sometimes needed to disregard what the SMEs were telling us because we knew that not all users would have the same level of expertise. We had to "dumb down" the interface for those users who were new to the job. We also had to include things the managers wanted but the SMEs felt were useless or a waste of time. It would be nice if we would have had the time to create both expert and a newbie interface, but there were always more projects than developers so the interface had to be sort of a compromise.

Sorry, this ended up being a longer post than I intended. I just wanted to suggest to folks that when sending feedback to Apple, try not to say things like "bring window shade back". Instead focus on what the real problem is. And just because it doesn't happen, doesn't mean that Apple isn't listening. Their may be competing interests at play.

[Buzz Lightbeer]

Originally posted by chengjt:
I like to have Classic that can save its memory to a file so that it can restart faster (like VirtualPC). Disk space is so cheap today, it makes more sense for Classic to save the virtual memory to disk image and start from saved image as if it is waking up from sleep.

Excellent suggestion.

[booboo]

Originally posted by Buzz Lightbeer:
Excellent suggestion.

And while we're at it, maybe OS-X could do the same?

[unimacs]

...

[This message has been edited by unimacs (edited 04-24-2001).]