[besson3c]

This is a thread where we can discuss advanced features that are missing, and perhaps cross items off our lists with solutions brought to our attention by others here, or by various additions to Leopards being revealed over time...

Please leave all eye candy and aesthetic/cosmetic stuff for other threads, and try to limit this to actual features, not resolution of outstanding bugs. In other words, "make the Finder not perform like ass" is not really a feature


Here is my list:

Mail

- Multiple identity support
- Folder subscription support
- Selection of what folders to check for new mail
- Selection of folders to Spotlight index
- Although not for me, full Exchange support would be great, and possible since Entourage is not MAPI based
- Better iCal integration. With enough Groupware support, Microsoft would probably be glad to drop Entourage. It appears as if Leopard's iCal will support delegates and free/busy info, so we are already on our way

Finder

- SSH (SSHfs) as a Connect to Server option (I'm using MacFUSE now, but since I need custom connect options I have to come up with command line connect scripts)
- Improve on the shortcomings of Appleshare or phase it out (e.g. single account/home directory mounted on a server at any given time, slow performance, metadata littering, etc.)
- Support of read/writes of other file systems (formating local drives with other file systems would be nice too)

Unix

- Apple's own support/implementation of Fink or Macports so that these products are stronger and more reliable. OS integration like in Ubuntu would be a great thing
- Make it so that metadata is not a major PITA. I don't want to use custom rsync binaries and have to take special considerations into account when transferring files to and from the Mac with other OSes with activities such as backups. It seems like we can't do much here until Windows supports extended file system attributes/xattr, but...
- Make iTerm the replacement Terminal app

Safari

- More easily extended. I don't want plug-ins to break across updates like PithHelmet and Saft do in Safari now. How about an API and software update mechanism like Firefox has?
- Session support if missing in Safari 3
- Better Flash performance. Watching a baseball game with the MLB Gameday applet brings the machine to its knees. Same with some YouTube and other Flash based stuff

X11

- Needs major upgrade to xorg, replacing XFree86

iSync

- It would be fantastic if iSync could be used with other servers other than .Mac (probably not going to happen, I know)

Time Machine

- Would be great if it handled revision control in addition to full backups/snapshots. This could be a useful tool in any project development

Quicktime

- I think QT could be far more helpful in offering to download and install necessary third-party codecs

Other

- LVM support might be nice
- Growl support (or something like Growl) in all apps

[lpkmckenna]

Finder:
- browse Smart Folders in Column View.
- metadata browsing and tagging

Safari:
- Live Bookmarks

[besson3c]

Is live bookmarks something like Foxmarks?

[hmurchison2001]

Live Bookmarks seem a bit redundant to me with RSS becoming such a hot commodity.

[besson3c]

I know this isn't a feature, but along the lines of "better Flash performance", I'll also add "better web browser responsiveness" in general. When I restore a session in Firefox, I can click on anything in the browser immediately after initiating the session reload. In Firefox on the Mac, I get beachballs. It's the same sort of thing in Safari - if you are loading stuff into tabs, you sometimes have to deal with a temporary lack of responsiveness.

How about this: no more beachballs...

[Curiosity]

besson3c,

Finder

- SSH (SSHfs) as a Connect to Server option (I'm using MacFUSE now, but since I need custom connect options I have to come up with command line connect scripts)

You mean that you want to connect the shell to the Internet? I do not see that as being very secure. Internet Explorer in Windows is the shell and it has all sorts of security flaws.

[shinji]

ipfw

-GUI for setting outbound traffic rules, sort of like Little Snitch, but integrated in the OS

Finder

-Ability to ctrl+click an image and have an option to make it the desktop background.
-I know this is sort of windowsy, but I should be able to cut a file. It's just the way many people think about moving files. If I forget to paste, then nothing should happen...the file is only actually moved once I do the paste...it just gets greyed out when I do cut, and if I add something else to the clipboard, then it cancels the cut.
-Multiple clipboards

Activity Monitor

-Show temperatures

Safari

-Saving an image/movie/etc. should have an option of where to save, not just the location I specify in preferences
-Should be able to make an image the desktop background in a contextual menu
-Should stop using absurd amounts of RAM

iMovie

-Batch watermarking (ie always watermark the bottom right corner with whatever image or text)

[P]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

This is a thread where we can discuss advanced features that are missing, and perhaps cross items off our lists with solutions brought to our attention by others here, or by various additions to Leopards being revealed over time...

Please leave all eye candy and aesthetic/cosmetic stuff for other threads, and try to limit this to actual features, not resolution of outstanding bugs. In other words, "make the Finder not perform like ass" is not really a feature

I much prefer crossing items off, so I'll do that...

Originally Posted by besson3c 

Mail

- Multiple identity support

Please no. That was a hack to support multiple users on top of single user systems like Win 95 and System 7. We have true multi-user support now - with fast user switching. Just use that.

Originally Posted by besson3c 

- Selection of folders to Spotlight index

That almost falls below your own rules - very minor thing.

Originally Posted by besson3c 

Finder

- SSH (SSHfs) as a Connect to Server option (I'm using MacFUSE now, but since I need custom connect options I have to come up with command line connect scripts)

With autofs, it will hopefully be easier to implement your own network filesystems. Don't know that, but i can hope.

Originally Posted by besson3c 

- Improve on the shortcomings of Appleshare or phase it out (e.g. single account/home directory mounted on a server at any given time, slow performance, metadata littering, etc.)

"Make Appleshare not perform like ass."

Originally Posted by besson3c 

- Support of read/writes of other file systems (formating local drives with other file systems would be nice too)

This should also be easier with the changes to the kernel in Leopard, or so I heard. Remember, that's how ZFS came on the map for OS X - the person responsible for filesystem development made a plug-in to support ZFS to evaluate what was missing in the filesystem API.

Originally Posted by besson3c 

Safari

- More easily extended. I don't want plug-ins to break across updates like PithHelmet and Saft do in Safari now. How about an API and software update mechanism like Firefox has?

That's NEVER going to happen, and you know it.

Originally Posted by besson3c 

- Session support if missing in Safari 3

Not really. It's just not automatic, you can restore the last session manually.

Originally Posted by besson3c 

- Better Flash performance. Watching a baseball game with the MLB Gameday applet brings the machine to its knees. Same with some YouTube and other Flash based stuff

"Make Flash not perform like ass."

Originally Posted by besson3c 

- Growl support (or something like Growl) in all apps

I thought that was in there, actually.

If I didn't mention it, I probably agreed with it.

[- - e r i k - -]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

T
Mail

- Multiple identity support

I'm confused. Between multiple accounts and FUS, what would this be good for?

[- - e r i k - -]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

- More easily extended. I don't want plug-ins to break across updates like PithHelmet and Saft do in Safari now. How about an API and software update mechanism like Firefox has?

Having plugins break is actually up to the developers of the plugins themselves. Inquisitor worked fine between updates. It's just that PithHelmet and SAFT have built in version checkers to avoid having to support users if newer updates break with their plugins. It's a on-the-safe-side solution, but as said it is completely up to the plug-in authors to implement it.

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by Curiosity 

besson3c,

You mean that you want to connect the shell to the Internet? I do not see that as being very secure. Internet Explorer in Windows is the shell and it has all sorts of security flaws.

What are you talking about the shell to the Internet? He wants SSHfs. It basically allows you to mount a network share over SSH so you can transfer files with normal file commands (e.g., drag-and-drop in the Finder).

[analogika]

Originally Posted by shinji 

-I know this is sort of windowsy, but I should be able to cut a file. It's just the way many people think about moving files. If I forget to paste, then nothing should happen...the file is only actually moved once I do the paste...it just gets greyed out when I do cut, and if I add something else to the clipboard, then it cancels the cut.

This has been discussed to death for years, and the situation is this:

Implement it the way you suggest (and the way it works on Windows), and you CANNOT call it "Cut and Paste", because it completely breaks the way cut and paste work in every other application on every mainstream operating system on the planet - i.e. cut something, and cut or copy something else, and the originally cut section is replaced on the clipboard and is GONE.
Also, a "cut" selection can be pasted multiple times all over the place. Should "Cut/Paste" of files work this way as well?

I also see problems with the default behavior for moving stuff to a different volume (it's copied by default, rather than moved). How do you handle that with "move file - insert file" to provide a "safe" default - as the concept of Macintosh mandates -, so that people don't accidentally delete stuff off their drives? Pop up an annoying dialog box every time?

I'd rather the feature go missing than it be Windows-like both in the sense of broken interface AND highest-possible annoyance factor.

[chris v]

Originally Posted by lpkmckenna 

Finder:
- browse Smart Folders in Column View.

Kind of impossible, since a smart folder can contain items in many different directories, so there's no way to show the parent directory (to the left of, in Column view) of items in a smart folder. Some means of dsplaying a preview other thn icon view would be useful, ala Pathfinder. Maybe the new Coverflow finder-thingy will be of use here.

[peeb]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

I know this isn't a feature, but along the lines of "better Flash performance", I'll also add "better web browser responsiveness" in general. When I restore a session in Firefox, I can click on anything in the browser immediately after initiating the session reload. In Firefox on the Mac, I get beachballs. It's the same sort of thing in Safari - if you are loading stuff into tabs, you sometimes have to deal with a temporary lack of responsiveness.

How about this: no more beachballs...

Too right - why can't browsers be set up to NEVER take all the available processor power to render background tabs?

[peeb]

Originally Posted by analogika 

This has been discussed to death for years, and the situation is this:

Implement it the way you suggest (and the way it works on Windows), and you CANNOT call it "Cut and Paste", because it completely breaks the way cut and paste work in every other application on every mainstream operating system on the planet - i.e. cut something, and cut or copy something else, and the originally cut section is replaced on the clipboard and is GONE.
Also, a "cut" selection can be pasted multiple times all over the place. Should "Cut/Paste" of files work this way as well?

I also see problems with the default behavior for moving stuff to a different volume (it's copied by default, rather than moved). How do you handle that with "move file - insert file" to provide a "safe" default - as the concept of Macintosh mandates -, so that people don't accidentally delete stuff off their drives? Pop up an annoying dialog box every time?

I'd rather the feature go missing than it be Windows-like both in the sense of broken interface AND highest-possible annoyance factor.

I'm not sure I buy the interface consistency thing, files are not the same as pieces of text in a wp, having a cut and paste that works slightly differently in different contexts would be ok. It sucks that this feature is missing.

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by peeb 

I'm not sure I buy the interface consistency thing, files are not the same as pieces of text in a wp, having a cut and paste that works slightly differently in different contexts would be ok.

That's not slightly different, it's completely different. The only reason you even think of it as the same function is because that's how you've been trained by Windows.

Cut and paste: Delete something, place it on the pasteboard. It can now be pasted to anyplace that takes that filetype.

File "cut and paste": Turn the file light grey. When the faux paste command is used, move the file.

[peeb]

Right, I agree.

[analogika]

You now agree that it is completely different - i.e. broken - behavior?

[peeb]

Originally Posted by analogika 

You now agree that it is completely different - i.e. broken - behavior?

No, I agree with Chuckit that copy and pasting text is not the same as moving files using cut and paste. Disabling one because of a confused sense of a need for continuity with another is broken.

[analogika]

Chuckit was describing WHY it IS broken.

I remember the first time I used Cut and Paste File on Windows at work.
I Cut the file, and then had to quickly switch to a different application and edit some info (phone call or something), copied some text and my heart sunk, for I knew I had just replaced the file on the clipboard with a text clipping.
Slightly panicky, I went back to the Explorer, only to discover that - hooray Microsoft! (for once) - what they called "Cut" and "Paste" was NOT "Cut" and "Paste".

The fact that they fundamentally changed the behavior as an afterthought in this case means that the function is BROKEN.

The fact that they had a good reason for doing so doesn't mean that this sort of idiocy needs to be thought through and AVOIDED BEFORE THE FACT.

[peeb]

Erm, no, that behavior seems pretty functional to me. If you cut a file, and don't paste it, nothing happens. If you cut it and paste it, it is moved.
The fact that, when you are using the same key combination in a text editor, it doesn't do exactly the same thing is to do with the fact that text and files are not the same. Key combinations cannot change the fact that not all of the things they can be applied to are the same. This is the one thing that I really miss from Windows.

This is just stubbornness in not being able to admit that this works better on Windows.

For example, are you arguing that every time you press a key combination, it should do the same thing? Why then, when I press command T in Safari does it open a new tab, while in pages the same thing opens a font control box? It must be broken? Or perhaps I can figure out that context is king?

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by Curiosity 

besson3c,

You mean that you want to connect the shell to the Internet? I do not see that as being very secure. Internet Explorer in Windows is the shell and it has all sorts of security flaws.

No, I want to access the file system over SSH via SSHfs. I can do this now with MacFUSE/SSHfs, it is just a rather awkward setup. Still worth it as a replacement for Appletalk though, no question.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by P 

Please no. That was a hack to support multiple users on top of single user systems like Win 95 and System 7. We have true multi-user support now - with fast user switching. Just use that.

No, that is extremely awkward, I would much rather use another client if it came down to that. Multiple identity support is so that I can address some of my emails in a given, single account as:

Full Name #1 <[email protected]>
Full Name #2 <[email protected]>

For anybody that makes use of shared mailboxes or email aliases, this feature is an absolute necessity and is already found in most other email clients, and has been for years. This is a basic feature that Apple overlooked, and the closest it comes to this in allowing command separated email addresses seems like an awkward trick that not too many people know about (and it only addresses this need in part, not enough for me unfortunately). They just need to do this right and add this common feature.

That almost falls below your own rules - very minor thing.

Actually it doesn't. For those that keep old archives of mail, it sucks to have Mail bog down by spotlight archiving stuff that doesn't have to be archived, not to mention consume disk space/inodes.

With autofs, it will hopefully be easier to implement your own network filesystems. Don't know that, but i can hope.

Is autofs sort of like vfs?

"Make Appleshare not perform like ass."

The single home directory mount on a given server is also quite a PITA for me.

Not really. It's just not automatic, you can restore the last session manually.

After a browser crash?

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by - - e r i k - - 

I'm confused. Between multiple accounts and FUS, what would this be good for?

See my response to the last poster. It is an absolute requirement for me the way our department handles mail flow, as it is for many other departments with shared accounts/mailboxes, and those with email aliases setup.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by - - e r i k - - 

Having plugins break is actually up to the developers of the plugins themselves. Inquisitor worked fine between updates. It's just that PithHelmet and SAFT have built in version checkers to avoid having to support users if newer updates break with their plugins. It's a on-the-safe-side solution, but as said it is completely up to the plug-in authors to implement it.

Cool, I didn't know that... I guess the advantage that Firefox plug-in devs have is in being able to test browser prereleases in advance, although I suppose if these devs really wanted to they could start testing Webkit nightly builds... Are there ever milestones in the nightlies?

[prashant]

I wouldnt mind:
- some user-friendly way to change unix user name

[JLL]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

No, I want to access the file system over SSH via SSHfs. I can do this now with MacFUSE/SSHfs, it is just a rather awkward setup. Still worth it as a replacement for Appletalk though, no question.

AppleTalk? Who uses AppleTalk in this day and age? Did you mean AFP?

Btw. you can connect to a Mac OS X Server using an encrypted connection.

[JLL]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

The single home directory mount on a given server is also quite a PITA for me.

What do you mean?

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by JLL 

AppleTalk? Who uses AppleTalk in this day and age? Did you mean AFP?

Btw. you can connect to a Mac OS X Server using an encrypted connection.

It doesn't have to be an OS X Server machine, you can SSL encrypt anything sent to a Netatalk server too.

The netatalk developers don't recommend doing this though, because it is slower doing it at the protocol level than it is to just SSH tunnel your entire connection to the server.

I did mean AFP though, and it is really long in the tooth....

[JLL]

Originally Posted by prashant 

I wouldnt mind:
- some user-friendly way to change unix user name

Some of you will like Leopard a lot

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by JLL 

What do you mean?

Mount Johnny's and Sue's home directory at the same time on a single server hosting Johnny and Sue's home directory over AFP... Can't be done.

[shinji]

Originally Posted by analogika

I remember the first time I used Cut and Paste File on Windows at work.
I Cut the file, and then had to quickly switch to a different application and edit some info (phone call or something), copied some text and my heart sunk, for I knew I had just replaced the file on the clipboard with a text clipping.
Slightly panicky, I went back to the Explorer, only to discover that - hooray Microsoft! (for once) - what they called "Cut" and "Paste" was NOT "Cut" and "Paste".

The fact that they fundamentally changed the behavior as an afterthought in this case means that the function is BROKEN.

The fact that they had a good reason for doing so doesn't mean that this sort of idiocy needs to be thought through and AVOIDED BEFORE THE FACT.

That sounds to me like an argument *for* windows-style cut and paste. Why does it matter if it doesn't meet the exact definition of cut and paste as long as it helps you get your work done? I think that is well-thought out on Microsoft's part, not broken at all.

What if they called it 'Smart Move' instead of 'cut' but it did exactly what cut and paste did in Windows? Then it could be seen as an Apple feature instead of a Windows one?

[peeb]

Yep - that's the solution.

[TETENAL]

A feature for moving files in Finder using the keyboard only. I don't think anybody would argue about that.

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

Is autofs sort of like vfs?

It seems to be a smarter version of VFS. Here's Apple's description:

Autofs.
The brand-new multithreaded autofs filesystem layer keeps track of which paths are actually located on remote AFP, SMB, or NFS fileservers — even across symlinks — and automatically mounts the appropriate server. The Finder and other applications needn’t wait for one mount to complete before requesting another. Now you can specify automount paths for your entire organization using the same standard automounter maps (e.g., NIS) supported by Linux or Solaris.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by Chuckit 

It seems to be a smarter version of VFS. Here's Apple's description:

I think they are much different... AutoFS is not an Apple invention:

Autofs Automounter HOWTO

It is used for determining and negotiating mounts.

VFS is a way of abstracting file systems so that support for different file systems can be easily added (such as SSHfs, which was missing from Apple's description you quoted).

I could have some of these details a little fuzzy, but autofs and vfs do seem much different in concept.

[chris v]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

Mount Johnny's and Sue's home directory at the same time on a single server hosting Johnny and Sue's home directory over AFP... Can't be done.

True -- the first time you log in to a machine over AFP, it asks you for a username & password -- standard log-in entry fields. Mount a volume, and go to log in to the machine again, and rather than give you the username & password entry dialog again, it just presents you with a list of volumes that are available to the first user you logged in as. I've encountered that, and it is annoying.

[Peter]

stickified

[JLL]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

Mount Johnny's and Sue's home directory at the same time on a single server hosting Johnny and Sue's home directory over AFP... Can't be done.

Are you talking about two users logging into their homefolders on two machines where the homefolders are on the same server?

We do that every day with lots of users.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by chris v 

True -- the first time you log in to a machine over AFP, it asks you for a username & password -- standard log-in entry fields. Mount a volume, and go to log in to the machine again, and rather than give you the username & password entry dialog again, it just presents you with a list of volumes that are available to the first user you logged in as. I've encountered that, and it is annoying.

Since Apple seems to be moving away from storing metadata in separate files rather than as part of the file system (xattr), I hope that AFP is either updated or replaced (preferably the latter). As long as they can make Windows writes to the same volume via SMB or some other protocol not clobber the extended metadata, this seems like the way to go.

Of course, once you transfer from the Apple volume, to a Windows volume, and back the metadata would probably be destroyed, but I'd personally prefer this to .AppleDouble directories littered with files.

[lpkmckenna]

Originally Posted by chris v 

Kind of impossible, since a smart folder can contain items in many different directories, so there's no way to show the parent directory (to the left of, in Column view) of items in a smart folder. Some means of dsplaying a preview other thn icon view would be useful, ala Pathfinder. Maybe the new Coverflow finder-thingy will be of use here.

Not impossible. Apple has already applied for a patent on browsing thru nested smart folders. I was really hoping to see this in Leopard.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by JLL 

Are you talking about two users logging into their homefolders on two machines where the homefolders are on the same server?

We do that every day with lots of users.

No.

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by JLL 

Are you talking about two users logging into their homefolders on two machines where the homefolders are on the same server?

We do that every day with lots of users.

He's talking about one user logging into two home folders on the same server. Your computer can only be logged in as one user on a given server.

[analogika]

Originally Posted by peeb 

EThis is just stubbornness in not being able to admit that this works better on Windows.

For example, are you arguing that every time you press a key combination, it should do the same thing? Why then, when I press command T in Safari does it open a new tab, while in pages the same thing opens a font control box? It must be broken? Or perhaps I can figure out that context is king?

There are such things as GLOBAL standards.

Cmd- (or Ctrl-) Z, X, C, V, S, and P are universal.

Are YOU arguing that selecting "Print" from the "File" menu should open a printer dialog in every single program except a single one, where it automatically generates a PDF and attaches that to a new e-mail?

Related functionality, but hardly desirable, though practical.

[analogika]

Originally Posted by shinji 

That sounds to me like an argument *for* windows-style cut and paste. Why does it matter if it doesn't meet the exact definition of cut and paste as long as it helps you get your work done? I think that is well-thought out on Microsoft's part, not broken at all.

It completely breaks consistency, which I suppose you could call "well thought-out", since that is Microsoft's modus operandi.

Originally Posted by shinji 

What if they called it 'Smart Move' instead of 'cut' but it did exactly what cut and paste did in Windows? Then it could be seen as an Apple feature instead of a Windows one?

I wouldn't mind that so much, except:

Originally Posted by analogika 

I also see problems with the default behavior for moving stuff to a different volume (it's copied by default, rather than moved). How do you handle that with "move file - insert file" to provide a "safe" default - as the concept of Macintosh mandates -, so that people don't accidentally delete stuff off their drives? Pop up an annoying dialog box every time?

[peeb]

Originally Posted by analogika 

There are such things as GLOBAL standards.

Cmd- (or Ctrl-) Z, X, C, V, S, and P are universal.

Are YOU arguing that selecting "Print" from the "File" menu should open a printer dialog in every single program except a single one, where it automatically generates a PDF and attaches that to a new e-mail?

Related functionality, but hardly desirable, though practical.

It depends. The action that a key combo has must make sense it its context - your example doesn't really, but I can see a situation where I would want command P to do something subtly different. Bloody mindedly sticking to rules in the face of usability doesn't help.

[analogika]

Originally Posted by peeb 

It depends. The action that a key combo has must make sense it its context - your example doesn't really, but I can see a situation where I would want command P to do something subtly different. Bloody mindedly sticking to rules in the face of usability doesn't help.

"Usability" is VERY directly linked to "Predictability".

Difficult to grasp when you're coming from Windows, but the most basic fundamental of Apple's interface design.

Apple would rather omit features than reduce usability - something that Microsoft has NEVER understood, and one prime reason their software is so horrifically cluttered.

And the Cmd-P thing was actually not such a bad example, since PDF creation is - on Mac OS X as on Windows - done via the printing engine.

[besson3c]

Both sides here have merit: this sounds like a handy feature, but there are usability problems with calling it cut/paste and using the same key combos.

So, simply call the feature something like "move contents of file to clipboard" (or something that provides more clarity), and make the key combo apple + option or shift + c, and apple + option/shift + v for paste. Something along these lines seems like a reasonable compromise.

[analogika]

I wouldn't mind that so much, except:

Originally Posted by analogika 

I also see problems with the default behavior for moving stuff to a different volume (it's copied by default, rather than moved). How do you handle that with "move file - insert file" to provide a "safe" default - as the concept of Macintosh mandates -, so that people don't accidentally delete stuff off their drives? Pop up an annoying dialog box every time?

[shinji]

Originally Posted by analogika

I also see problems with the default behavior for moving stuff to a different volume (it's copied by default, rather than moved). How do you handle that with "move file - insert file" to provide a "safe" default - as the concept of Macintosh mandates -, so that people don't accidentally delete stuff off their drives? Pop up an annoying dialog box every time?

Time machine or some other backup? Move the file on the original volume to the trash instead of flat out deleting it (possibly specified in a finder preference pane)? Disable 'Smart Move' by default, and only enable it in preferences, so that people have to consent twice?