[moonmonkey]

Originally posted by TC:
I'd like to see improvements to the dock menu.
I mentioned these ideas a long time ago but just noticed that Illustrator is almost doing one of the things I wanted to see.

Basically Illustrator has a recent items menu in it's dock menu. That is a step in the right direction but it is only available when the app is open. What I would like to see is a recent items menu even when the app isn't running. This would make it much easier to open a document quickly. For apps which aren't in the dock this could be done via a contextual menu.

The other one I would like is to have applescript menu items available in the dock. Several Apple apps have Scripts menus which allow you to add Applescripts to their menu. It would be good if we could do this and have the items appear in the dock menu. Even better would be if there could be some way to specify the menu item to display the output of the apple script. So if we wanted to we could write our own script to display the number of unread messages for a certain mailbox in mail, for example.

Great idea!

[Saul Goode]

Originally posted by Grrr:
PLEASE stop moaning about brushed metal. I'm sick of hearing people whine about it, when It REALLY isn't such a big deal. Get over it.

[cowerd]

Basically Illustrator has a recent items menu in it's dock menu. That is a step in the right direction but it is only available when the app is open.

Illustrator CS also violates one of the basic Dock rules. You can't see what windows are open and you can't switch between open windows. I'd rather see that than recent items. Leave it Adobe to make the Dock worse than it is.

Oh well at least Illustrator is the only CS app that does this. Kudos to the UI folks at Adobe for reading Apple HIG guidelines AND making all their apps so consistent.

[timmerk]

No brush metal ANYWHERE, except iTunes 5 (see below).
Brand new quicktime. It used to be the best, but they really haven't updated it. Interface is bad. Choppy, etc. Just rewrite the player (and possible the technology) and make it good once again!
New Aqua look - buy SmoothStripes theme and use that.
Add lots of NeXTSTEP features back in.
Be able to shut lid and still have computer on. Don't tell me it's bad for your computer - Apple still let's you do this if you have an external monitor plugged in, so it can't be the reason why Apple make it sleep when lid closed.
Safari: Don't have that resubmit forms thing! It's very annoying! Just have it go back to what was shown before without having to reload the data!

iTunes should use this new quicktime and be able to show videos within. For example music videos.

[clebin]

* I want Apple NOT to move 'Home' from the Finder toolbar to the left and then claim it's rewritten the desktop metaphor. The Finder is nothing for Steve Jobs to go into hyperbole about.

* Networking (+1 vote)

*I want a preview/info pane which tells me who a song is by, the dimensions of a picture, the number of pages in a PDF, etc. The Get Info also needs work, being, as it is, rubbish.

* Contextual menus in the Finder are far from being complete. More laziness!

* Bring back choice of icon-spacing on View Options.

* Access control lists. The Unix system just isn't good enough any more. I'd like to see ACLs on the filesystem that integrate with Open Directory - just like Microsoft's ActiveDirectory does.

* I want them to clear up the type & creator / file-extension problems. Just move over the Windows system. We know it's coming so let's get it over and done with. The current system is a botch.

* All windows to respect the Dock!

* Bring back 'resize disk image' (with a working interface this time!)

* My plain black screensaver still manages to cause my Powerbook fan to kick in. If I want a half-decent screensaver, my CPU goes mental.

* MORE DVD BURNERS SUPPORTED.

Chris

[osiris]

I would love to see a contextual menu item for Safari with "back/forward"....
and...

I'd like Expose to keep apps/windows minimize whilst launching/opening something else. Really, the point is to keep the desktop clear, as soon as ya select anything Expose makes a mess again. dumb.

Other than, I'm am loving 10.3.2 on a dual 1.8 G5 with 2.5 gbs of ram.

[Millennium]

Originally posted by clebin:
My plain black screensaver still manages to cause my Powerbook fan to kick in. If I want a half-decent screensaver, my CPU goes mental.

For a PowerBook or any other LCD monitor, if you want to save power you need to either turn the screen off (or put it to sleep) or use a plain white screensaver, not a plain black one.

[Millennium]

The big thing I'd want out of a 10.4 is a better metadata system based off of MIME types. Under no circumstances do I want to see file associations become chiefly done by the piece-of-trash filename-extension hack. That thing has no place in a modern OS, except as a last-ditch compatibility issue, and even then it should immediately have a proper metadata filetype associated with it.

[arekkusu]

#1: A Finder that isn't a totally broken piece of junk. See: OS 9.
#2: all my other bugs fixed.

[bkb]

Option clicking the zoom button should maximize a window, as it sort of did in 10.2. Should work in ALL applications. Isn't this the most basic thing missing in Panther?

[Moose]

Originally posted by Millennium:
The big thing I'd want out of a 10.4 is a better metadata system based off of MIME types. Under no circumstances do I want to see file associations become chiefly done by the piece-of-trash filename-extension hack. That thing has no place in a modern OS, except as a last-ditch compatibility issue, and even then it should immediately have a proper metadata filetype associated with it.

In a perfect world, you'd be right.

Apple, however, has customers who live in the real world, where pragmatic decisions have to be made, especially where interoperability is concerned. When over 90% of the computing world generates and reads documents that are created on a system that determines file type solely by filename, Apple has to support (and, sadly, encourage) users to follow suit, otherwise it creates confusion with users, and gives the platform a bad name ("I CANNOT OPEN THE FILE YOU CREATED GOD MACS ARE INCOMPATIBLE PIECES OF JUNK").

In the mid-90s, Apple thought that it could still dictate computing policy. We saw what happened. Don't try to sentence Apple to near-death again.

[chabig]

Option clicking the zoom button should maximize a window, as it sort of did in 10.2

Mac OS X has always zoomed the window to show all of its contents, as it should. If you find an app that doesn't do it correctly, speak to the application developer because that is not a system function, it's an application function. Only the application knows how much content is in the window. The system has no way to know this.

Chris

[booboo]

I really really want to see an end to the multiple concurrent and incompatible file systems views of iPhoto and iTunes versus the Finder.

I want the Finder to be extensible and have iTunes MP3 tag viewing, rating, name editing - etc. - abilities, and I want iTunes to use the Finder's ability to do this, so they both see the same File/Folder hierarchy.

The same with iPhoto. I want the Finder to have iPhoto's abilities, so that directories are consistent.

I only want to learn one file/folder structure/hierarchy, not a new one for every new iApp.

Also, I want a divorce between the Spatial View and the Browser View, with different key commands (reversible) to call a window in each view. I don't want browser view to ever be able to modify a spatial window's view. And I want the toolbar accessible in spatial view . . .

[iJed]

Here is what I'd like to see in 10.4 (in order of usefulness to me):

1) Return of the Apple Menu of the classic days. This would make a lot of Windows users, who miss their start menu, much happier as well as giving Mac users a fast access menu for whatever they like.

2) A Mac equivalent of WinFS for vastly improved metadata and to give every app developer a good RDBMS to store their data

3) Smart folders

4) Rid of menu blinking or at least make it work properly

5) Speed improvements (especially with things like open and save panels appearing)

6) Reduced menu font size

7) Vastly improved Dock. The Dock should not be a little centered thing, it should stretch the full width of the screen (either vertically or horizontally). Then there would be no more need for searching for your trash or your application since you can just click on it blindly.

8) Fix the dreadful issues with Finder performance. If this means totally rewriting it then this MUST be done. We were lead to believe that the Panther Finder was a rewrite but this turned out to be completely untrue. And how about the innovative idea of allowing view options to actually stay set!!!!

9) Let us choose our icon spacing in the Finder. It is currently ridiculous.

10) Get rid of file extensions. They are an obsolete idea that should not exist anymore.

11) More unix tools included on disk 3. I'd like to see things like LaTeX.

12) Consistent UI style. Choose metal or Aqua or even something new. Just choose one of them.

[mdc]

Originally posted by iJed:
Let us choose our icon spacing in the Finder. It is currently ridiculous.

[TC]

Originally posted by cowerd:
Illustrator CS also violates one of the basic Dock rules. You can't see what windows are open and you can't switch between open windows. I'd rather see that than recent items. Leave it Adobe to make the Dock worse than it is.

You're right, it shouldn't break the windows functionality and that isn't what I was suggesting. I would hope that you could have both of them.
I had always hoped that Apple would improve the Window display used in the dock menu. Why can't they show us mini windows in the same style as minimized windows in the dock? This would make it much easier to find an open window.
I'd like to see Apple add the dock menu functionality to the App switcher as well. That way you can easily switch directly to the right window. You can do this with Expos� but when you have a lot of apps with a lot of Windows it gets a bit trickier.

[ryaxnb]

Originally posted by theolein:
6. The Finder. Allow one always to navigate back to the root of the filesystem. The current idea of having the location in the sidebar as the root of your current navigation is just plain stupid and confusing.
7. Lables. They look ridiculous and behave inconsistently. When selected one cannot see whether a file is labeled or not. Putting all those colours in the contextual menu is idiotic.
8. Multi buttoned mouse. I know one can buy one etc, but Apple should simply offer one, even a rebranded Logitech or something, as an alternative to the one button of wrist pain device they now do.

6. Believe it or not I think it makes total sense; it's the left most column and acts like any other column.
7. Labels (not Lables.) Actually I think they're much better then OS 9's labels, because they're much clearer in List and Column view.
8. Wrist-pain? That's what you get with a three button mouse.
Other then that I pretty much agree with you.

[ryaxnb]

Originally posted by Metareye:
I would like to see safari-like tabs in the finder. Tabbed finding... ah the possibilites.

The Point?
Anyway, OmniWeb-style OmniTabs are better.

[ryaxnb]

Originally posted by Qomn:
I almost forgot:

4. In OS9 my PB15'' screen resolution of 1280*854 was perfect, but in OSX I think I'd need something like 2048*1600 to stop menus, title bars, buttons etc. eating up all the pixels on my screen. Since I can't increase my screen resolution it would be nice to have a setting that reduces the font size for menus, as well shrinking the other items I mentioned. OS9 and even Windows in VPC (eek..) look elegant in comparison to the clunky OSX interface. Aqua would be nice if it wasn't so overbearing.

Strange. Buttons are roughly the same size, menubars aren't much bigger, the big, fat Control Strip has been integrated into the menubar, and scroll bars are smaller.

[ryaxnb]

I want Safari 2, before or with 10.4.
* VisiTab option: OmniWeb 5 copy
* Session Saving: Partial OmniWeb 5 copy (no multiple workspaces functionality like OmniWeb 5 allows)
* Site Preferences: Duh, copy OmniWeb 5 again
* Flexible search: I'm Feeling Lucky, Site Search, Lycos, etc.
* User Agent control: Put the main option, IE 6, in the main menus. Explain its use in the Help.
* Flexible Color control: Allow you to specify link colors, text colors and background colors.
* Better History: Searchable History, and more intuitive History access. Edit: removed another complaint, the link was there.
* Bookmark Importing: Take it out of the Debug menu and put it in the main menu.
* Ad blocking: Implement a more stable PithHemlet, built-in.
* Full-screen: You know what I mean.
* AppleScript Improvements: Support getting tab info and controlling tabs via AppleScript, for one thing. Add script menus and such, preferably.
Edit: More stuff
* Real customizable toolbars: Use the OS X system. You'd have to get rid of the dynamically draggable search field, but oh well. Instead, Mac OS X could offer two or three preset search field sizes.
* Address bar underneath main bar option: You know what I mean.
* More flexible Bookmarks: Make an option so you can display all your bookmarks in the bookmarks menu.
* Stop/Reload separated option: Allow you to choose via the standard toolbar-customization interface, stop/reload combined or two separate buttons (or just one button, or no buttons at all, or all three.)

"We've had the fastest browser on the Mac for quite awhile now. But we want to make it feature-packed as well as fast now! Introducing Safari 2.0!"

[olePigeon]

Originally posted by Insecure bone:
I call it the function key

Function key is used on Laptops. It's like your calculators 2nd button. Bad idea to call the Command/Apple the fuction key.

[Mooga2]

Originally posted by MindFad:
PLEASE! IT'S ALL I WANT!

Menu blinking has been a minor, though constant, annoyance. Great idea, MindFad.

Integrated FTP support/bookmarking that (with functioning similar to iDisk) would also be nice.

[Brass]

Originally posted by Moose:
In a perfect world, you'd be right.

Apple, however, has customers who live in the real world, where pragmatic decisions have to be made, especially where interoperability is concerned. When over 90% of the computing world generates and reads documents that are created on a system that determines file type solely by filename, Apple has to support (and, sadly, encourage) users to follow suit, otherwise it creates confusion with users, and gives the platform a bad name ("I CANNOT OPEN THE FILE YOU CREATED GOD MACS ARE INCOMPATIBLE PIECES OF JUNK").

In the mid-90s, Apple thought that it could still dictate computing policy. We saw what happened. Don't try to sentence Apple to near-death again.

No, Apple could easily do it using metadata and still integrate with the rest of the file-extension world if they tried. It's quite simple. The Mac OS 9 approach was close, but didn't go quite far enough. It was good at translating files received with a file extension to a type/creator code (these days, we'd use a MIME type instead, or something else).

All they needed to do was encourage, or even enforce, applications to do automatica translation on outgoing files. Eg, Mail.app would automatically add file extensions to attachments by default, as would SMB services.

There could be a system preference, and/or application preferences to enable disable this for any application that could end up sending files to Windows users. Apple could provide an API to make it trivial for application developers to include the functionality.

The preferences could even allow users to strip the file extenstion off incoming files and add the appropriate MIME type (if known).

This way, Mac users really could have the best of both worlds. But unfortunately, Apple has gone with the lowest common denominator, and the easiest way out. And this is a kludge. Just because Windows, and most of the other people in the real world, use a kludge, Apple has decided to use it too, when it was entirely unnecessary, and causes problems that could have been avoided.

Sorry about the rant.

[Gankdawg]

Apple Menu brought back
Someway of knowing which apps are active in the dock other than the triangle. Whenever I use a non-solid desktop picture (i.e. a family photograph), invariably there will be a dark color somewhere in the picture that interferes with the triangle. I find myself sticking to solid background colors. I know you can change the color of the triangle to white via some program, but that doesn't solve the problem.

[lngtones]

Originally posted by Gankdawg:
Apple Menu brought back
Someway of knowing which apps are active in the dock other than the triangle. Whenever I use a non-solid desktop picture (i.e. a family photograph), invariably there will be a dark color somewhere in the picture that interferes with the triangle. I find myself sticking to solid background colors. I know you can change the color of the triangle to white via some program, but that doesn't solve the problem.

Does it really matter if an app is active and you're not using it?

[Gankdawg]

Originally posted by lngtones:
Does it really matter if an app is active and you're not using it?

Yes. Let's say I'm running Poisoned or Acquisition and downloading several things. I come back and start surfing the net. Because I have crappy DSL, surfing while download is almost impossible. I glance over and notice that one of those programs is running and figure out what's going on.

[chabig]

Whenever I use a non-solid desktop picture (i.e. a family photograph), invariably there will be a dark color somewhere in the picture that interferes with the triangle.

Not to be argumentative, but isn't that why the dock has a white background? Have you modified your own dock to be transparent, perhaps?

Chris

[Gankdawg]

Originally posted by chabig:
Not to be argumentative, but isn't that why the dock has a white background? Have you modified your own dock to be transparent, perhaps?

Chris

I have used ClearDock in the past, but with this new G5, I left it stock. It's kind of that fuzzy clear/white look. I'd prefer clear all the way though....