[SMacTech]

Originally posted by moonmonkey:
I do, on my iMac 700 640 Meg Finder resizing is way faster, way more responsive in all window views.

A massive noticeable improvement over Panther.

Well that is great news. I only have tested it on my ti400 PB and Cube 450, which both have mediocre video cards. Time to boot the Tiger on my dual867 and report back.

Wow, there is a big difference on the MDD867. I can see what others were talking about now. This must have to do with being Quartz Extreme capable, as both the Cube and tiBook are not.

[Horsepoo!!!]

Originally posted by SMacTech:
Well that is great news. I only have tested it on my ti400 PB and Cube 450, which both have mediocre video cards. Time to boot the Tiger on my dual867 and report back.

Wow, there is a big difference on the MDD867. I can see what others were talking about now. This must have to do with being Quartz Extreme capable, as both the Cube and tiBook are not.

Can you or someone make a Snapz Pro video (if it isn't broken under Tiger) of, say, the iCal window being resized? Try to make the video at least 30fps (does Snapz Pro allow anything higher?)

[adam1185]

Is the new mail interface that AI reported on in this build? Also, does spotlight search windows shares you currently have mounted on the network?

[Horsepoo!!!]

Don't know if this has been mentionned but Safari's context menu now has 'Back', 'Forward', and 'Reload'.

[SMacTech]

Originally posted by adam1185:
Is the new mail interface that AI reported on in this build? Also, does spotlight search windows shares you currently have mounted on the network?

Yes and No.

[Macrat]

Does Get Info finally tell you the number of items in a folder? Does it finally tell you the ip address of a connected server? Do sequentially numbered files open sequentially in a program? Is there a way of seeing who is connected to your computer through file-sharing?

[MindFad]

I've been playing with 8A294, and I have to say, I still don't like the damn endcaps. It just feels so out of place and cramped up there.

I will say that Mail has gotten even better than the last build. It's gorgeous. It's really shaping up to be a sweet upgrade to today's Mail. iChat has also shaped up nicely�the accounts pane is much nicer. I'd whined a few times to Apple about adding a coherent and simple accounts option to iChat, and they've done it.

Resolution independence is cool, though really buggy and awkward, but it's neat to see that Apple is working on it.

I'm really looking forward to Tiger now. But I still absolutely hate the endcaps. I'm not even sure I'll get much use out of Spotlight (depends, really), and I hope they give you an option to just completely get rid of it. The pulsing also sucks.

[moonmonkey]

Originally posted by MindFad:

Resolution is independent, though really buggy and awkward, but it's neat to see that Apple is working on it.

How can you tell? Examples?

[MindFad]

Originally posted by moonmonkey:
How can you tell? Examples?

Whoops. I didn't even mean to say that. Brain fart!

I meant to say:

"Resolution independence is cool, though really buggy and awkward, but it's neat to see that Apple is working on it."

You can enable it with the "Quartz Debug" performance tool. I didn't notice any performance hit when cranking it up to a high resolution (in menu performance, anyway), though resizing windows and scrolling was noticeably slower. Otherwise, it seemed very cool, though needing much more work�lots of line drawing bugs all over the place.

I wonder how things like brushed metal textures, list graphics, and toolbar graphics and buttons will be affected by this in the future when res. independence finally makes its debut. We looking at possible vector graphics for things like these? May get interesting for graphics folks.

[Disgruntled Head of C-3PO]

Originally posted by MindFad:
I've been playing with 8A294, and I have to say, I still don't like the damn endcaps. It just feels so out of place and cramped up there.

What computer do you have? I think there is plenty of room on my 20" screen.

[MindFad]

I have a dual 800, but I think you meant monitor. I have the 17" ADC CRT, and I run it at 1056x792 (damn close to 1024x768), and it feels quite cramped. This is gonna stink for iBook/12" PB users, I think. It's so awkward. The shine, too. I hate it. I think it should look just like it does in Panther, personally. The pulsing has to go, too, fo' serious.

[Simon]

Originally posted by MindFad:
It's so awkward. The shine, too. I hate it. I think it should look just like it does in Panther, personally. The pulsing has to go, too, fo' serious.

I absolutely agree. Simplicity and minimalism are two very fundamental design paradigms of the Mac OS. These end caps offer no gain in usability. All they do is attract attention. Of course that's what Apple's marketing machine wants, but no serious user wants the marketing folks to design an OS anyway.

[nsxpower]

Originally posted by SMacTech:
Speed is comparable to Panther in most areas. Some suggested windows resizing was better, but I don't see it. It may have to do with the hardware. Mail seems to be threaded better.

But the answer to your question is NO, you won't have to buy new hardware. In fact, I think you will see a speed increase with existing hardware.

Excellent news! I can see older hardware missing out on some fgeatures (Core Image) that require modern video cards, but it's good to see that Tiger wont render my current hardware useless for 90% of the tasks.

[Zadian]

Originally posted by Horsepoo!!!:
Don't know if this has been mentionned but Safari's context menu now has 'Back', 'Forward', and 'Reload'.

I've been waiting for that feature since the release of Safari 1.0. Finally I can get rid of the toolbar.
I wonder why that options weren't in the contextual menu from the beginning.

[SMacTech]

Originally posted by MindFad:
I'm not even sure I'll get much use out of Spotlight (depends, really), and I hope they give you an option to just completely get rid of it. The pulsing also sucks.

As others have noted, the pulsing stops once your disk is indexed. Spotlight rocks.

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally posted by MindFad:
The pulsing has to go, too, fo' serious.

I think it's good to have the visual feedback that indexing is happening.

Nothing like running a 24-track recording session and then wondering why the damn thing suddenly won't play back more than six tracks when indexing kicks in.

-s*

[SMacTech]

Originally posted by Spheric Harlot:
I think it's good to have the visual feedback that indexing is happening.

Nothing like running a 24-track recording session and then wondering why the damn thing suddenly won't play back more than six tracks when indexing kicks in.

-s*

I have found that the indexing yields to other processes quite well with a very small performance hit.

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally posted by SMacTech:
I have found that the indexing yields to other processes quite well with a very small performance hit.

Disk access, not CPU.

[SMacTech]

Originally posted by Spheric Harlot:
Disk access, not CPU.

Well I was referring to overall performance, not just CPU. A suspend feature might be nice for the indexing, or something that allows you to specify certain data/folders/partitions that you don't want indexed. An exclusions list would be great too, similar to what I do for Symantec AV on our XP boxes, so it isn't checking newly created files for viruses.

[Diggory Laycock]

Originally posted by Horsepoo!!!:
While I agree it's not the best solution, I don't think shoving them into System Preferences is a good idea either. What do you guys want? A pane full of "What do you want your default whatever to be?" The pane would have waaaay too cluttered.

Not too cluttered: (In my personal opinion)

[Horsepoo!!!]

Originally posted by Diggory Laycock:
Not too cluttered: (In my personal opinion)

True...but that interface is too confusing for newbies. And people that actually know what they're doing and that want total control over what apps they want to make default can just download that Pref pane.

[BuonRotto]

People have to realize that the pulsing and hours of indexing happen one time only, then everything is done incrementally. You won't see any pulsing Spotlight icon or have your CPU locked up by Spotlight after that. Once it's done, it's done.

[leperkuhn]

Originally posted by MindFad:
I have a dual 800, but I think you meant monitor. I have the 17" ADC CRT, and I run it at 1056x792 (damn close to 1024x768), and it feels quite cramped. This is gonna stink for iBook/12" PB users, I think. It's so awkward. The shine, too. I hate it. I think it should look just like it does in Panther, personally. The pulsing has to go, too, fo' serious.

Do yourself a favor. I just switched from a B&W 17" CRT to a 20" Viewsonic LCD (201b). 1600x1200 beautiful pixels for $830 from pcnation. I'm getting a second one as a christmas present to myself.

I don't know how I got anything done before. There's a good chance I didn't...

[The DJ]

<nevermind>

[-Q-]

Completely minor, but I"m curioius and didn't see it in this thread (and haven't dug thru the first Tiger threads either) so forgive me if this has been answered:

So when an application is hidden in the dock, does the contextual menu now say 'Show' instead of 'Hide'?

[TETENAL]

Originally posted by -Q-:
So when an application is hidden in the dock, does the contextual menu now say 'Show' instead of 'Hide'?

I don't think it needs to or even should. If you want to show an application just click the icon in the Dock.

[TETENAL]

Originally posted by BuonRotto:
People have to realize that the pulsing and hours of indexing happen one time only, then everything is done incrementally. You won't see any pulsing Spotlight icon or have your CPU locked up by Spotlight after that. Once it's done, it's done.

Apple claims Spotlight is built into the operating system and every time a file is changed it is automatically reindexed.

http://developer.apple.com/macosx/tiger/spotlight.html

[JCS]

You won't see any pulsing Spotlight icon or have your CPU locked up by Spotlight after that. Once it's done, it's done.

...unless it also wants to check for files that have been added to a volume while it as not connected to a Mac running Tiger. For example, removable hard disks, networked shares, etc. The indexer will have to scan those disks for new or changed files that have not been indexed if it wants to keep everything up to date.

The same is true for your Tiger boot disk if you ever boot from another disk that contains a pre-Tiger version of OS X and then modify or add files on the Tiger disk.

[BuonRotto]

I said that it indexes the whole volume once, then, it's done incrementally. By incremental, I mean that when a file is changed added or removed after that initial indexing, it indexes only that piece of the Spotlight Store. It only gathers the first 100k of metadata about a file and text data in the file, so the time needed to index even huge file should be minimal. You probably won't see any pulsing Spotlight icon once the initial index for that drive is finished.

You are right that it will have to index each separate filesystem and keep a Spotlight Store with each filesystem. So my saying it happens once was wrong. What I should have said is that it indexes each filesystem (drive, server) it encounters once, then it does mere incremental updates to its Spotlight Store. And Spotlight only does the full indexing of HFS volumes. I assume it has some fall back mechanism for non-HFS filesystems it encounters. Don't know what exactly. Again, those incremental updates for Spotlight Stores when files are changed, added or removed should require a minimal amount of time and clockcycles. So there's an up-front cost to Spotlight and very little overhead to sacrifice after that.

[Nebagakid]

I imagine the pulsing icon will be the death of us all...

Too bad the magnifying glass icon doesn't dance around in front of your screen like a bad flash animation... that would be more informative... like that "Yatta" thing.

Whateves.. I imagine after a while it will go away., just like watching the seconds change on your clock, you don''t really notice it. yatta.

[JCS]

those incremental updates for Spotlight Stores when files are changed, added or removed should require a minimal amount of time and clockcycles. So there's an up-front cost to Spotlight and very little overhead to sacrifice after that.

I think you're missing the distinction between files that are created or changed by a Mac running Tiger, and files that are created or changed by anything else.

For example, imagine copying someone's MP3 collection from their Windows PC (or non-Tiger Mac) onto a removable disk, then connecting that disk to your Tiger Mac. Your Tiger Mac is going to have to a) scan the whole disk for new/changed files past the date of last metadata database update (it has to do this for every disk or networked share that is mounted), and then b) index all of the new/changed files. The b) part can be very significant. In the worse case (entire disk contents changed since last mount on a Tiger system), it's the same thing as a full re-index.

[-Q-]

Originally posted by TETENAL:
I don't think it needs to or even should. If you want to show an application just click the icon in the Dock.

Really? It doesn't seem a bit incongruous to you that when you pull up the menu for an already hidden application, your option is still 'hide'? Seems like a silly oversite to me.

[leperkuhn]

Originally posted by -Q-:
Really? It doesn't seem a bit incongruous to you that when you pull up the menu for an already hidden application, your option is still 'hide'? Seems like a silly oversite to me.

That makes sense if you only have 1 window open. However, if you have more than a few files in the dock, and you switch away, then back, and everything comes out of the dock, it could be pretty annoying.

I dont use the dock for documents, It's way to hard to tell what's down there if you have more than 2 things. For me, anyway. I like to see everything at once, and I hide the app (not the window) if i'm done with it.

Plus with expose, why would i put anything in the dock anyway?

[TETENAL]

Originally posted by -Q-:
Really? It doesn't seem a bit incongruous to you that when you pull up the menu for an already hidden application, your option is still 'hide'? Seems like a silly oversite to me.

I think this menu should not toggle because it would then always a little bit of a surprise what command it will be. If you want to unhide click the icon; if you want to hide you know the command is in the menu. Maybe it should be disabled if the app is already hidden.

[MindFad]

Originally posted by leperkuhn:
Do yourself a favor. I just switched from a B&W 17" CRT to a 20" Viewsonic LCD (201b). 1600x1200 beautiful pixels for $830 from pcnation. I'm getting a second one as a christmas present to myself.

I don't know how I got anything done before. There's a good chance I didn't...

Hey, if I had the money, I would upgrade. I actually have my eye on the Samsung 172x LCD for sometime next year. 1280x1024 native res. would be nice (I can't stand the refresh rate on this CRT, which is why I don't use it).

This still won't alleviate the menu cramping for folks on iBooks or 12" PBs, or 15" iMacs for that matter.

Originally posted by SMacTech:
As others have noted, the pulsing stops once your disk is indexed. Spotlight rocks.

Oh, well that's good. I was playing with it for about an hour, and it never stopped pulsing. Perhaps because the drive I put it on was poo. Or maybe it spent that time indexing my other volume?

I agree, Spheric, pulsing is a good indicator for indexing. Good to know it stops, though.

[leperkuhn]

Originally posted by MindFad:
Hey, if I had the money, I would upgrade. I actually have my eye on the Samsung 172x LCD for sometime next year. 1280x1024 native res. would be nice (I can't stand the refresh rate on this CRT, which is why I don't use it).

I also have a 14" ibook - I've found I have to use each computer differently because of the screen difference. The ibook i try to only use 3 or 4 programs at once, on the tower with the 20" i have about 20-25 programs open at a given time.

Finder, Mail, Safari, Firefox, Bbedit, Photoshop, iTunes, Quicksilver, Toast, Transmit, Terminal, Fugu, Word, Address Book, iCal, and iWork are the ones I can think of off the top of my head. I can't even think about it on the iBook.

[BuonRotto]

originally posted by JCS
I think you're missing the distinction between files that are created or changed by a Mac running Tiger, and files that are created or changed by anything else.

No, what I think people don't get is that the Spotlight Store on your local drive does not keep tabs on the metadata about files on other drives or shares. That drive or share has its own Spotlight Store, it gets updated whenever someone alters its file contents, no matter if it's Tom, Dick or Harry that put the file there. It has its own database for metadata, each volume contains info only about the files on that volume. When you connect that drive or that share (after its first encounter with Spotlight and initial index), its Spotlight Store is already indexed, updated and ready for use by whomever is connected to it. When someone else alters the files on that drive, the Spotlight Store for that drive is updated as soon as the files were saved or deleted, so that person and anyone else who connects to that drive will have access to that updated Spotlight Store without any further updating required, assuming they have permission to read those files. The Spotlight Stores can talk to one another, but they do not share or exchange info. The front-end connects to any or all available Stores at any given time, but it does not ask the local hard drive to pull metadata about file xyz on your project server and ship it to your local hard drive's Spotlight Store. The diagram is this:


Spotlight search
|
-----------------
| | |
local ext HD server

It's not this:

Spotlight search
|
local Store
|
-----
| |
server ext HD

[edit: bah, I'm not good enough with UBB code to get it to look right ]

[Disgruntled Head of C-3PO]

Originally posted by MindFad:
I have a dual 800, but I think you meant monitor. I have the 17" ADC CRT, and I run it at 1056x792 (damn close to 1024x768), and it feels quite cramped.

No kidding dude, that is some sorry ****.

[diamondsw]

Originally posted by Disgruntled Head of C-3PO:
No kidding dude, that is some sorry ****.

So I suppose that means everyone with an iBook, 12" powerbook, or older LCD/CRT monitor has some sorry **** as well? Hell, most brand new PC laptops still do 1024x768 because people complain they can't read the higher resolutions.

[leperkuhn]

Originally posted by diamondsw:
So I suppose that means everyone with an iBook, 12" powerbook, or older LCD/CRT monitor has some sorry **** as well? Hell, most brand new PC laptops still do 1024x768 because people complain they can't read the higher resolutions.

Yes. 1024x768 is not even close to high enough resolution to be productive. For me, anyway.

[MindFad]

And these stupid endcaps are restricting productivity even more for folks who use these resolutions�by need or preference�by cramping the god damn menu bar. Which was my point.

[JCS]

No, what I think people don't get is that the Spotlight Store on your local drive does not keep tabs on the metadata about files on other drives or shares.

I know that. It's irrelevant.

That drive or share has its own Spotlight Store, it gets updated whenever someone alters its file contents, no matter if it's Tom, Dick or Harry that put the file there.

...unless the file was created or modified by a person using an OS other than Tiger and the disk is not on a Tiger server. This is what you're not getting.

Here, I'll try a low-level explanation: if the file i/o doesn't go through a Tiger kernel, the MD store will not be updated. When would it not go through a Tiger kernel? Some examples: it's a local disk on a non-Tiger Mac; it's a network share on a Windows server used by at least one non-Tiger client; it's a disk in a Windows PC; it's a removable disk that's been modified by anything other than a Mac running Tiger.

With this in mind, look at my earlier posts. They should make more sense now, I hope.

[BuonRotto]

I get ya. But them's the brakes. I mean, what else would happen aside from turning it off somehow altogether? Or is that what you're arguing for: some way to turn Spotlight off completely? Did I miss that point being made before?

And you're sure that Spotlight Store won't pick up on added files if a Tiger system isn't the one to do it? I guess not since it's not at the filesystem level. I keep thinking the Store itself is doing the monitoring.

[Disgruntled Head of C-3PO]

Originally posted by diamondsw:
So I suppose that means everyone with an iBook, 12" powerbook, or older LCD/CRT monitor has some sorry **** as well? Hell, most brand new PC laptops still do 1024x768 because people complain they can't read the higher resolutions.

Actually no that is not what it means. I mean having a dual 800 yet a CRT with a low res is some sorry ****.

[TETENAL]

I don't mind a little spotlight icon up there. What I do mind is that Fast User Switching insists on putting my full name into the menu bar. That wastes an incredible amount of screen estate. Fast User Switching should be in the Apple menu.

[zachs]

Originally posted by TETENAL:
I don't mind a little spotlight icon up there. What I do mind is that Fast User Switching insists on putting my full name into the menu bar. That wastes an incredible amount of screen estate. Fast User Switching should be in the Apple menu.

There's an option in Tiger to use your short name or an icon.

[MindFad]

Originally posted by diamondsw:
So I suppose that means everyone with an iBook, 12" powerbook, or older LCD/CRT monitor has some sorry **** as well? Hell, most brand new PC laptops still do 1024x768 because people complain they can't read the higher resolutions.

No, no, he was just being petty. This is nothing new; he loves me.

[JCS]

I get ya. But them's the brakes. I mean, what else would happen aside from turning it off somehow altogether? Or is that what you're arguing for: some way to turn Spotlight off completely? Did I miss that point being made before?

I was just pointing out that there is still a potentially large amount of indexing that needs to be done even to volumes that were fully indexed the last time you saw them. Who knows what has happened since, and if it has been done through a non-Tiger kernel?

My secondary point was that all disks will have to be scanned to check if any of these kinds of changes have taken place. So that Spotlight icon will certainly be throbbing every time a new volume is mounted, at least for a little while, and possibly for a long time (assuming the throbbing means that it's checking the disk or updating its index, as people have speculated here).

And you're sure that Spotlight Store won't pick up on added files if a Tiger system isn't the one to do it?

How would it? How can the MD database (which is just a bunch of plain files on disk) be updated by, say, a Panther Mac writing to its local disk? Bottom line: the only index that will be "always up to date" is one on a disk that has never been written to through a non-Tiger kernel.

[Disgruntled Head of C-3PO]

Originally posted by MindFad:
No, no, he was just being petty. This is nothing new; he loves me.

Yes I love you but not CRT's at 1024 hooked up to a dual 800. That's bonkers. Upgrade just the monitor.

[Catfish_Man]

Originally posted by Disgruntled Head of C-3PO:
Yes I love you but not CRT's at 1024 hooked up to a dual 800. That's bonkers. Upgrade just the monitor.

...or the person's eyes. I have a nice 19" CRT at home. My friend runs the same model at 1600x1200, I run it at 1344x1008, my brother at 1280x960, and my parents at 1024x768. This is hooked to a dual 867, btw.