[b00tang]

does anyone else use a kensington mouse? i have a 5 button mouse, i think it is like the optical elite or something, little blue light sorrounding the scroll wheel... anyway panther killed the functionality of all the extra buttons other than left and right click... anyone else feel the same troubles? (oh and panther also killed PTHitunesnotifier for me) and i get this thing in force quit called "mirror agent" and i have no idea if its related! otherwise it all rocks

[zachs]

h and panther also killed PTHitunesnotifier for me) and i get this thing in force quit called "mirror agent" and i have no idea if its related! otherwise it all rocks

Mirror Agent syncs your local iDisk with your remote one. (I don't know if it's related to your problem, just letting you know.)

[fireside]

can anyone play dvds? dvd player wont play any dvds for me.

[zachs]

Originally posted by fireside:
can anyone play dvds? dvd player wont play any dvds for me.

Yep. DVDs play fine in mine.
Although it takes a while to load...so if you get the spinning beachball for a while, just wait and it'll work fine.

[tooki]

Originally posted by Guy Incognito 2:
Are we talking about Jag or Panther? Because once you hit that toolbar widget in Panther, the Finder is spatial. It's impossible to get a Folder to open two window instances.

In Panther. It's easy to "break" the spatiality.

For example: With it in quasi-spatial mode, open the hard drive ("HD"), then Applications. You should have two windows now, and Applications is the frontmost. If you double-click the HD icon, it will merely bring the HD window to the front.

Now, open a new Finder window (command-N). Double-click the HD icon in there, suddenly you have two windows showing the HD. Now, if you bring the Applications window the front, and double-click the HD icon on the desktop, it'll simply bring to the front whichever of the multiple HD windows is frontmost.

Mac OS 9 and earlier absolutely, positively did not allow the Finder to ever represent an item more than once. We need this behavior back.

Panther is not spatial, it behaves the same as Jaguar, basically.

tooki

[fireside]

Originally posted by zachs:
Yep. DVDs play fine in mine.
Although it takes a while to load...so if you get the spinning beachball for a while, just wait and it'll work fine.

yea, they work now. i restarted and everything is fine.

[Simon]

So it seems Mail has been updated in Panther. But, basically it still looks and feels like the old Jaguar Mail.

So, can somebody tell me why Apple hasn't gone to their new left-side-panel window approach in Mail like they did with iTunes, the Panther Finder, etc. I mean, Mail would be a perfect program to also adopt this feature and nevertheless it still has its old and clumsy NS interface.

It would be really nice to have mailboxes and "smart" mailboxes (a la iTunes) in the left panel like iTunes or the panther Finder - especially the smart mailboxes which could be single threads or e-mail with certain senders, recipients or special subject keywords, etc.

And why does every other Apple-made Panther app get brushed metal except Mail? It looks like if Mail would not be done by the same people doing the rest of OS X...

[justinf77]

Is anybody here using Panther as their primary OS? I think it works great for just surfing the web and basic software, but I have found several things that will not work. Toast does not even load, and I cannot seem to get VLC or any DivX movies to play. I am on Panther now on my iBook, but I am just going to have to wait to buy it for my primary PowerBook. But I will miss this OS, it is FAST and very nice overall.

[Guy Incognito 2]

Originally posted by justinf77:
Is anybody here using Panther as their primary OS? I think it works great for just surfing the web and basic software, but I have found several things that will not work. Toast does not even load, and I cannot seem to get VLC or any DivX movies to play. I am on Panther now on my iBook, but I am just going to have to wait to buy it for my primary PowerBook. But I will miss this OS, it is FAST and very nice overall.

Developers have over 3 months to fix the problems. You'll have to 'wait' anyways. Panther won't be out for at least 3 months if not 6.

[kman42]

Originally posted by tooki:
We need this behavior back.

I don't know that we NEED this behavior back. It actually seems fairly minor in my mind. It's not really confusing or going to cause someone to mistakenly delete or move something that they didn't intend.

Now from a completely aesthetic point of view, perhaps it is better to only allow someone to open a single window.

From a usability standpoint, in my mind, I like the current functionality. For instance, say I have three Finder windows open, all to different locations. If I am working in a window and decide to open a directory, I would prefer that my current window remain the focus and change directories as I instructed it rather than switching windows which could be disorienting.

In OS9, a new window was spawned every time you double-clicked. In OSX, we have the option of a single window focus with the contents of the Finder window being updated to the current directory. Perhaps the way it should work is that if you have the Finder Preference "Always open in a new window" checked then it should only allow a single instance of a directory to be open. But if the user does not have this preference checked, then the primacy of working in a single window where a user clearly doesn't want windows bouncing around should take over and the current OSX functionality should be allowed.

I, for one, would rather periodically be faced with two windows at the same directory than having my focus changed for me when I'm not expecting it. I almost always work with two Finder windows in column view horizontally tiled. I use the top one for navigating around and the bottom one as a copy destination. Periodically, they end up in the same directory and it would annoy the hell out of me if the window focus changed on me.

kman

[Guy Incognito 2]

Originally posted by tooki:
In Panther. It's easy to "break" the spatiality.

For example: With it in quasi-spatial mode, open the hard drive ("HD"), then Applications. You should have two windows now, and Applications is the frontmost. If you double-click the HD icon, it will merely bring the HD window to the front.

Now, open a new Finder window (command-N). Double-click the HD icon in there, suddenly you have two windows showing the HD. Now, if you bring the Applications window the front, and double-click the HD icon on the desktop, it'll simply bring to the front whichever of the multiple HD windows is frontmost.

Mac OS 9 and earlier absolutely, positively did not allow the Finder to ever represent an item more than once. We need this behavior back.

Panther is not spatial, it behaves the same as Jaguar, basically.

tooki

That's 'cuz you're mixing and matching spatial and non-spatial, right? The 'New Finder Window' thing is part of the non-spatial Finder options. Have you ever created a new Finder window in OS 9 without creating a new folder? This never existed in the classic Mac OS.

This could merely be a bug or something Apple just didn't think of...you can suggest that Apple disable the 'New Finder Window' option when in spatial mode or add a 'classic Finder' option that prevents any mixing of spatial and non-spatial Finder options or simply ignore it.

But as far as I can tell...if you don't use the 'New Finder Window' option, you'll never run into the problem you described.

[Kyan]

Is it true that Panther can really be used as a full fax machine?

Sending is easy to understand, please tell me about RECEIVING.

Can Panther be hooked up to answer the phone, hear the fax signal and receive a bona fide fax? How does it save it? In a special forlder, as a PDF or JPEG or what.

Or am I getting to excited? If Panther can replace a $200 fax machine, I'm in!

[Jim Paradise]

Originally posted by kman42:
I don't know that we NEED this behavior back. It actually seems fairly minor in my mind. It's not really confusing or going to cause someone to mistakenly delete or move something that they didn't intend.

Now from a completely aesthetic point of view, perhaps it is better to only allow someone to open a single window.

From a usability standpoint, in my mind, I like the current functionality. For instance, say I have three Finder windows open, all to different locations. If I am working in a window and decide to open a directory, I would prefer that my current window remain the focus and change directories as I instructed it rather than switching windows which could be disorienting.

In OS9, a new window was spawned every time you double-clicked. In OSX, we have the option of a single window focus with the contents of the Finder window being updated to the current directory. Perhaps the way it should work is that if you have the Finder Preference "Always open in a new window" checked then it should only allow a single instance of a directory to be open. But if the user does not have this preference checked, then the primacy of working in a single window where a user clearly doesn't want windows bouncing around should take over and the current OSX functionality should be allowed.

I, for one, would rather periodically be faced with two windows at the same directory than having my focus changed for me when I'm not expecting it. I almost always work with two Finder windows in column view horizontally tiled. I use the top one for navigating around and the bottom one as a copy destination. Periodically, they end up in the same directory and it would annoy the hell out of me if the window focus changed on me.

kman

[tooki]

Originally posted by Guy Incognito 2:
That's 'cuz you're mixing and matching spatial and non-spatial, right? The 'New Finder Window' thing is part of the non-spatial Finder options. Have you ever created a new Finder window in OS 9 without creating a new folder? This never existed in the classic Mac OS.

This could merely be a bug or something Apple just didn't think of...you can suggest that Apple disable the 'New Finder Window' option when in spatial mode or add a 'classic Finder' option that prevents any mixing of spatial and non-spatial Finder options or simply ignore it.

But as far as I can tell...if you don't use the 'New Finder Window' option, you'll never run into the problem you described.

Not true.

All it takes to break the spatiality is to have an application tell the Finder to show you a file. For example, Safari's default is to download to the desktop. If, after completing a download, you click on the little looking glass next to the completed download, it opens a Finder window with the desktop. (What it should be doing is highlighting the file on the actual desktop.)

There's your broken spatiality. In a truly spatial Finder, it should be impossible to open a Desktop window at all, as the Desktop is always present.

tooki

[barbarian]

This is the panther feedback I have given to my friends at apple who asked what I thought. Before I get flamed, I think Panther is fantastic... a big leap forward from Jag, but I am still concerned about a number of HI/UI issues.

The Finder

While the speed of the new finder a breath of fresh air, and the new layout is excellent, there are some major problems.

1. The metallic interface should be optional. This heavy interface has traditionally been used by iApps. Please do not force it on us in the finder.

2. Column view still lacks sorting. As much as I love column view, without the ability to sort, it is crippled. I would suggest adding sort via a contextual menu.

3. We should have font previews directly in finder. Ditto for HTML documents. Also previews should function exactly as icons as they are essentially big icons. By functioning as an icon, I mean that you should be able to double click them, pull contextual menus off them and so on.

4. The current contextual menus for ftp items and internal HDs make no sense. Instead of saying Eject, they should read "un mount.

5. Your actions contextual menu is a great idea, but it doesn't do very much. How about using it to allow us to put selected fonts, .saver, and .prefpane files in their proper place or to make an image into a desktop. OS X lags far behind Windows in the smart contextual menu department.

6. The finder still lacks enough customizability. This is a major complaint. I want control over the style of the font on the desktop (hate the shadowed white). Why do you limit us to 10 point fonts (I want 9point!). I want control over grid spacing (even if control is through a plist hack).

Why do the items in the left finder pane not respect the font preferences?

7. Finder windows still take up too much screen real estate. Why not use the small scrollbars available in the toolkit? If I resize a finder window so that the left pane only shows an icon the scroll bar takes up just as many pixels as the icons themselves.

8. The finder does not respect drag and drop locations on the desktop. If I drag an icon onto the desktop, I expect it to be created at the location where I release the icon. Same thing, if I drop a graphic from Safari on the desktop. Ironically one of the few companies that supports drag-drop the way you expect it to work (item appears at drop-point) is Microsoft. Try dragging some text from Entourage onto the desktop. Now try doing the same thing in Safari. Which one works better?

9. Minimization of fields in list view is still one of my pet peeves.

Why minimize 'Date Modified' to 'Dat..fied" when it could be "Date"
Why minimize 'Size' to "..." instead of 'Size' or 'kb'
Why does 48KB go from "4..b" to "..b" to "..." instead of "48k", "48", "48"

Also why doesn't the text get more condensed as it did in OS 9. This is one of those attention to detail things you guys are supposed to be famous for. I'm not going to even get into the "kind" field.

10. Labels for items that one does not have permission to label should be handled more gracefully. Right now the labels are simply not selectable. This will be confusing to many users who don't understand permissions.

11. The admin should be able to control what kind of finder window a user sees and they should be able to control which drives/folders are available within the finder window.


The Dock

The current dock is great for computer newbies and casual users, but it quickly breaks down when power users are in production on a big project. Most of our designers simply hide it and don't use it at all using a variety of third party add ons as substitutes.

1. Expose is fantastic, but it still does not solve the problem of minimized windows which it does not show. While minimized windows will be used less often with Expose, there is still a need for some sort of windowshading that allows for one or two click window swapping. I personally miss having windowshade from OS 9 and had a haxie installed to do this. Even better is minimize-in-place. I have found it invaluable in production. Minimize/maximize simply takes too long to swap between windows and expose, while fantastic still does not solve the problem of window clutter (many of our designers are clean desktop sort of people).

2. Grouping would really help the power user. I currently have 80 items in the dock and can never find anything. I use all my apps frequently so I want easy access to them. If instead of having them all minimized, I had springlloaded tabs in the manner of OS 9 I would actually be able to use the dock much more effectively. In the meantime I use lauchbar which is excellent, but it requires me to remember the names of things. The goal is 2 click access to any app with hierarchical organization.

Desktops

Users love playing with desktops.

1. The solid colors part of this app should allow the user to select a color off the color palette.

2. Any folder dragged into the desktop pictures folder that contains images should show up in the desktop preference pane and stay there (like an itunes playlist).

3. Users should be able to drag folders and images to the pref pane and those images should live there until they have been removed by the user.

Screensavers

I'd suggest using the screensaver section to show off the power of the G5. Include at least one bandwidth busting saver that does something to completely knock our socks off.

Themes

We all know that Steve hates themes, but the truth is that you already have used at least 3 (original aqua, metal, new aqua). Design is a matter of taste (or lack of taste) and not everyone agrees on what looks best. I would suggest having limited apple-created themes in which there are only a few main themes to choose from and then several variations (aqua/metal mix). Window styles are deeply subjective and you would have a much more attractive OS if you gave people choice in this matter.

While you are at it, apple should really introduce a skinable quicktime player. As a producer of media for a movie studio, I can tell you that nobody is producing custom quicktime skins (in our case we had apple create them). The problem is that they are too expensive to create and because they are attached to the media they are used once and forgotten. On the other hand if you create a skin for a competing media player it lives on after your own particular piece of media is off the radar. Our winamp and windows media skins have been downloaded almost a million times and will exist out in the wild for months.

Address Book/iSync

The address book API still needs some work so that other programs can seemlessly sync with it. In an ideal world iSync would be extendable so that we could sync anything with a plugin to anything else with a plugin (assuming the data was compatible).

Fast User Switching

This is a killer feature. My only suggestion to enhance it would be to have an easy way for families to share iApp libraries between users. For example I want to access my wife's photos as a library. Same deal for music and address book.

[Guy Incognito 2]

Originally posted by tooki:
Not true.

All it takes to break the spatiality is to have an application tell the Finder to show you a file. For example, Safari's default is to download to the desktop. If, after completing a download, you click on the little looking glass next to the completed download, it opens a Finder window with the desktop. (What it should be doing is highlighting the file on the actual desktop.)

There's your broken spatiality. In a truly spatial Finder, it should be impossible to open a Desktop window at all, as the Desktop is always present.

tooki

Ok...you found another way...that's about it. If you can find a third way of breaking spatiality, I'll bow down before you.

[nagromme]

My take:

You can open a Desktop window via Show because the spatial finder is OPTIONAL. Non-spatial is an option, too--an option available to other apps. And the desktop--a window that can be hidden behind others--it a good excuse for apps to call on the Finder in a non-spatial way, for the Show function.

Perhaps Apple could add an option "never allow the user or apps to open non-spatial Finder windows," but that doesn't seem very important to me. As long as when YOU are using the finder, you have the choice of both ways.

It's certainly worth sending feedback to Apple if you'd find the OS more productive with the option to block non-spatial windows. My needs are not yours, and more options is good!

[redrope]

Originally posted by barbarian:
This is the panther feedback I have given to my friends at apple who asked what I thought. Before I get flamed, I think Panther is fantastic... a big leap forward from Jag, but I am still concerned about a number of HI/UI issues.

The Finder

While the speed of the new finder a breath of fresh air, and the new layout is excellent, there are some major problems.

1. The metallic interface should be optional. This heavy interface has traditionally been used by iApps. Please do not force it on us in the finder.

2. Column view still lacks sorting. As much as I love column view, without the ability to sort, it is crippled. I would suggest adding sort via a contextual menu.

3. We should have font previews directly in finder. Ditto for HTML documents. Also previews should function exactly as icons as they are essentially big icons. By functioning as an icon, I mean that you should be able to double click them, pull contextual menus off them and so on.

4. The current contextual menus for ftp items and internal HDs make no sense. Instead of saying Eject, they should read "un mount.

5. Your actions contextual menu is a great idea, but it doesn't do very much. How about using it to allow us to put selected fonts, .saver, and .prefpane files in their proper place or to make an image into a desktop. OS X lags far behind Windows in the smart contextual menu department.

6. The finder still lacks enough customizability. This is a major complaint. I want control over the style of the font on the desktop (hate the shadowed white). Why do you limit us to 10 point fonts (I want 9point!). I want control over grid spacing (even if control is through a plist hack).

Why do the items in the left finder pane not respect the font preferences?

7. Finder windows still take up too much screen real estate. Why not use the small scrollbars available in the toolkit? If I resize a finder window so that the left pane only shows an icon the scroll bar takes up just as many pixels as the icons themselves.

8. The finder does not respect drag and drop locations on the desktop. If I drag an icon onto the desktop, I expect it to be created at the location where I release the icon. Same thing, if I drop a graphic from Safari on the desktop. Ironically one of the few companies that supports drag-drop the way you expect it to work (item appears at drop-point) is Microsoft. Try dragging some text from Entourage onto the desktop. Now try doing the same thing in Safari. Which one works better?

9. Minimization of fields in list view is still one of my pet peeves.

Why minimize 'Date Modified' to 'Dat..fied" when it could be "Date"
Why minimize 'Size' to "..." instead of 'Size' or 'kb'
Why does 48KB go from "4..b" to "..b" to "..." instead of "48k", "48", "48"

Also why doesn't the text get more condensed as it did in OS 9. This is one of those attention to detail things you guys are supposed to be famous for. I'm not going to even get into the "kind" field.

10. Labels for items that one does not have permission to label should be handled more gracefully. Right now the labels are simply not selectable. This will be confusing to many users who don't understand permissions.

11. The admin should be able to control what kind of finder window a user sees and they should be able to control which drives/folders are available within the finder window.


The Dock

The current dock is great for computer newbies and casual users, but it quickly breaks down when power users are in production on a big project. Most of our designers simply hide it and don't use it at all using a variety of third party add ons as substitutes.

1. Expose is fantastic, but it still does not solve the problem of minimized windows which it does not show. While minimized windows will be used less often with Expose, there is still a need for some sort of windowshading that allows for one or two click window swapping. I personally miss having windowshade from OS 9 and had a haxie installed to do this. Even better is minimize-in-place. I have found it invaluable in production. Minimize/maximize simply takes too long to swap between windows and expose, while fantastic still does not solve the problem of window clutter (many of our designers are clean desktop sort of people).

2. Grouping would really help the power user. I currently have 80 items in the dock and can never find anything. I use all my apps frequently so I want easy access to them. If instead of having them all minimized, I had springlloaded tabs in the manner of OS 9 I would actually be able to use the dock much more effectively. In the meantime I use lauchbar which is excellent, but it requires me to remember the names of things. The goal is 2 click access to any app with hierarchical organization.

Desktops

Users love playing with desktops.

1. The solid colors part of this app should allow the user to select a color off the color palette.

2. Any folder dragged into the desktop pictures folder that contains images should show up in the desktop preference pane and stay there (like an itunes playlist).

3. Users should be able to drag folders and images to the pref pane and those images should live there until they have been removed by the user.

Screensavers

I'd suggest using the screensaver section to show off the power of the G5. Include at least one bandwidth busting saver that does something to completely knock our socks off.

Themes

We all know that Steve hates themes, but the truth is that you already have used at least 3 (original aqua, metal, new aqua). Design is a matter of taste (or lack of taste) and not everyone agrees on what looks best. I would suggest having limited apple-created themes in which there are only a few main themes to choose from and then several variations (aqua/metal mix). Window styles are deeply subjective and you would have a much more attractive OS if you gave people choice in this matter.

While you are at it, apple should really introduce a skinable quicktime player. As a producer of media for a movie studio, I can tell you that nobody is producing custom quicktime skins (in our case we had apple create them). The problem is that they are too expensive to create and because they are attached to the media they are used once and forgotten. On the other hand if you create a skin for a competing media player it lives on after your own particular piece of media is off the radar. Our winamp and windows media skins have been downloaded almost a million times and will exist out in the wild for months.

Address Book/iSync

The address book API still needs some work so that other programs can seemlessly sync with it. In an ideal world iSync would be extendable so that we could sync anything with a plugin to anything else with a plugin (assuming the data was compatible).

Fast User Switching

This is a killer feature. My only suggestion to enhance it would be to have an easy way for families to share iApp libraries between users. For example I want to access my wife's photos as a library. Same deal for music and address book.

Those are all very good points, and most of which I agree with. Excellent post and very well put together. I hope they really consider some of these.

[AKcrab]

Thanks for quoting that big, long, message.

[nagromme]

Barbarian--excellent feedback! Especially sharing iApp data easily between family members' accounts, and my beloved Minimize-in-Place!!

Add those two things and one other--easy syncing of POP email between laptop and desktop with just ethernet--and I'd be in heaven.

Regarding the details of how those things should work, I just sent the following four feedbacks to Apple. http://www.apple.com/macosx/feedback


Please allow family members on the same Mac to easily share a common iTunes library

When anyone adds music to a shared iTunes library, that music should automatically be available to all accounts that share it. There should be the option to make playlists, ratings, etc. editable by all, or to have them read-only. It should also be possible to share just the tracks--leaving other details (playcounts, playlists, etc.) unique to each user.


Please allow Address Book Groups to be easily shared between family members on a single Mac

Certain Groups should be able to be EASILY shared by multiple accounts, so a family can have an up-to-date Address Book for everyone. It should be possible to let everyone edit a Group's cards, or to make it read-only. Other Groups would remain private, as they are now.


Please bring back Minimize-in-Place (but use the title bar, not keys or the yellow dot)

Minimize-in-Place allows SHORT-TERM minimizing, such as to glance behind a window and then QUICKLY restore it without having to move the mouse to the Dock.

Please bring this feature back, triggered by a double-click on the title bar--but leave the yellow-dot minimize-to-Dock as is. That function is familiar (even to Switchers), and BOTH types of minimize are very basic and useful. They should both be accessible WITHOUT a modifier key.

Triggering Minimize-in-Place by double-clicking the title bar has many advantages:

1. It makes both types of Minimize easy, but keeps the trigger actions unique. Newbies will not accidentally Minimize-in-Place.

2. It's familiar to windowshade and OS 9 users.

3. Most importantly, it lets you choose WHERE the window minimizes to. Double-click anywhere along the bar to make the window shrink to the left, the right, the middle, etc. If Minimize-in-Place were triggered by the yellow dot, then minimized windows would cluster at the top left confusingly. Using the title bar instead puts the user in control of that intuitively. The window would end up right under the pointer, ready for one-click retrieval with no mouse movement needed.

Dragging minimized windows in and out of the Dock should be possible. The Dock contextual menu (click-hold) for a minimized window should also work for a window Minimized-in-Place.

(A preference, and/or holding a modifier key, could swap the yellow-dot behavior and the double-click behavior.)


Please allow easy NON-Internet sharing of mail, Address Book, and Bookmarks between a desktop and a laptop via LAN

Apple should encourage people to add a Mac laptop as a companion for their desktop Mac--or to add more Macs for other family members. But sharing vital data between Macs is now very difficult and unfriendly to new users. Even with .mac, it requires dialing your modem into the 'net, first on one machine, then the other. Much harder and slower than simply using AirPort or ethernet with Rendezvous would be.

Please make the following data EASILY SYNCED between two Macs via LAN--NOT Internet:

* Mailbox contents. Especially for POP mail. Otherwise it's very difficult for business travelers to switch from desktop to laptop when traveling. You need access to all your mail all the time--even offline, even with POP.

* Address Book data

* Safari Bookmarks

* iTunes library and playcounts, playlists, etc.

And please make it easier than it is now to connect two Macs via Rendezvous and simply transfer files over LAN. In Jaguar, the process is too technical and poorly-documented. Owning a second Mac should be easy for everyone.

[kman42]

Originally posted by nagromme:
Barbarian--excellent feedback! Especially sharing iApp data easily between family members' accounts, and my beloved Minimize-in-Place!!

Add those two things and one other--easy syncing of POP email between laptop and desktop with just ethernet--and I'd be in heaven.

Regarding the details of how those things should work, I just sent the following four feedbacks to Apple. http://www.apple.com/macosx/feedback


Please allow family members on the same Mac to easily share a common iTunes library

When anyone adds music to a shared iTunes library, that music should automatically be available to all accounts that share it. There should be the option to make playlists, ratings, etc. editable by all, or to have them read-only. It should also be possible to share just the tracks--leaving other details (playcounts, playlists, etc.) unique to each user.


Please allow Address Book Groups to be easily shared between family members on a single Mac

Certain Groups should be able to be EASILY shared by multiple accounts, so a family can have an up-to-date Address Book for everyone. It should be possible to let everyone edit a Group's cards, or to make it read-only. Other Groups would remain private, as they are now.


Please bring back Minimize-in-Place (but use the title bar, not keys or the yellow dot)

Minimize-in-Place allows SHORT-TERM minimizing, such as to glance behind a window and then QUICKLY restore it without having to move the mouse to the Dock.

Please bring this feature back, triggered by a double-click on the title bar--but leave the yellow-dot minimize-to-Dock as is. That function is familiar (even to Switchers), and BOTH types of minimize are very basic and useful. They should both be accessible WITHOUT a modifier key.

Triggering Minimize-in-Place by double-clicking the title bar has many advantages:

1. It makes both types of Minimize easy, but keeps the trigger actions unique. Newbies will not accidentally Minimize-in-Place.

2. It's familiar to windowshade and OS 9 users.

3. Most importantly, it lets you choose WHERE the window minimizes to. Double-click anywhere along the bar to make the window shrink to the left, the right, the middle, etc. If Minimize-in-Place were triggered by the yellow dot, then minimized windows would cluster at the top left confusingly. Using the title bar instead puts the user in control of that intuitively. The window would end up right under the pointer, ready for one-click retrieval with no mouse movement needed.

Dragging minimized windows in and out of the Dock should be possible. The Dock contextual menu (click-hold) for a minimized window should also work for a window Minimized-in-Place.

(A preference, and/or holding a modifier key, could swap the yellow-dot behavior and the double-click behavior.)


Please allow easy NON-Internet sharing of mail, Address Book, and Bookmarks between a desktop and a laptop via LAN

Apple should encourage people to add a Mac laptop as a companion for their desktop Mac--or to add more Macs for other family members. But sharing vital data between Macs is now very difficult and unfriendly to new users. Even with .mac, it requires dialing your modem into the 'net, first on one machine, then the other. Much harder and slower than simply using AirPort or ethernet with Rendezvous would be.

Please make the following data EASILY SYNCED between two Macs via LAN--NOT Internet:

* Mailbox contents. Especially for POP mail. Otherwise it's very difficult for business travelers to switch from desktop to laptop when traveling. You need access to all your mail all the time--even offline, even with POP.

* Address Book data

* Safari Bookmarks

* iTunes library and playcounts, playlists, etc.

And please make it easier than it is now to connect two Macs via Rendezvous and simply transfer files over LAN. In Jaguar, the process is too technical and poorly-documented. Owning a second Mac should be easy for everyone.

[badtz]

that long list of suggestions should really be submitted to apple!

[dividend]

on a different note; has anyone tried installing Warcraft III and noticed any difference?

[xi_hyperon]

I didn't see anyone post this yet, so thought I'd mention it. When you right-click (or control-click if using a one-button mouse), the behavior is more similar to Windows now.

In Jag: right-click on desktop, you get a contextual menu. Right-click again, the original contextual menu disappears.

In Panther: right-click on desktop, you get a contextual menu. Right-click again, the original contextual menu disappears, *and* a new contextual menu appears.

Interesting.

[LightWaver-67]

RE: FTP in Panther's Finder...

Originally posted by Thain Esh Kelch:
Been working for me all the time in 'Jagwire'?
Use it all the time with both a linux and Windows 2000 server on the LAN.

I did notice though, that it cant do special characters.

Ummm... HOW is it working for you...? I have the same issue that's existed ever since the beginning; the ability to "Connect" to the FTP server (my websites) in the Finder using the "Go" menu... but I do not have access to the folders to write or modify... which is pretty useless for the most part.

Are you saying that YOU have been and ARE able to connect to a server via FTP and have access to navigate, make changes and upload files...? I still need Transmit for that.

[stuffedmonkey]

Did anyone notice the "Scan and OCR" image capture service that's now available? Anyone try it? I don't have a scanner, but it would sincerly rock if ocr was built in to image capture.....

[Gul Banana]

Originally posted by xi_hyperon:
I didn't see anyone post this yet, so thought I'd mention it. When you right-click (or control-click if using a one-button mouse), the behavior is more similar to Windows now.

In Jag: right-click on desktop, you get a contextual menu. Right-click again, the original contextual menu disappears.

In Panther: right-click on desktop, you get a contextual menu. Right-click again, the original contextual menu disappears, *and* a new contextual menu appears.

Interesting.

Unfortunately, this makes it impossible to dismiss an accidentally-activated contextual menu by right-clicking a second time: it just brings up a new contextual menu in exactly the same place.

[ARENA]

Originally posted by Gul Banana:
Unfortunately, this makes it impossible to dismiss an accidentally-activated contextual menu by right-clicking a second time: it just brings up a new contextual menu in exactly the same place.

Thank god we still have the left button for that

[amontague]

Hi,

Has anyone had any problems getting DSL to work over PPPoE in Panther? I did a clean install of Panther on a spare hard disk, but I can't get my DSL connection working. I wiped the disk and did a fresh install of Jaguar, and got the connection working again. I then did an upgrade to Panther to keep my settings, knowing they were working in Jaguar. Still no connection.

The Network control panel says that my computer is connected to the internet via PPPoE. The computer is assigned an IP address, but I can't connect to anything.

I don't think it's a DNS problem because I can't ping Apple at 17.112.152.32.

Anybody any ideas?

BTW I can connect via a modem.

Andrew Montague

[moonmonkey]

Originally posted by amontague:
Hi,

Has anyone had any problems getting DSL to work over PPPoE in Panther? I did a clean install of Panther on a spare hard disk, but I can't get my DSL connection working. I wiped the disk and did a fresh install of Jaguar, and got the connection working again. I then did an upgrade to Panther to keep my settings, knowing they were working in Jaguar. Still no connection.

The Network control panel says that my computer is connected to the internet via PPPoE. The computer is assigned an IP address, but I can't connect to anything.

I don't think it's a DNS problem because I can't ping Apple at 17.112.152.32.

Anybody any ideas?

BTW I can connect via a modem.

Yes having intermittent problems here, try restarting, works for me.




Andrew Montague

[Thain Esh Kelch]

Originally posted by xi_hyperon:
I didn't see anyone post this yet, so thought I'd mention it. When you right-click (or control-click if using a one-button mouse), the behavior is more similar to Windows now.

In Jag: right-click on desktop, you get a contextual menu. Right-click again, the original contextual menu disappears.

In Panther: right-click on desktop, you get a contextual menu. Right-click again, the original contextual menu disappears, *and* a new contextual menu appears.

Interesting.

Awwww man.. I just got used to Jag's way of doing it, and now they're putting it back to OS9 style?
Not that im complaining, they should just try to stick with one thing..

[xyber233]

Originally posted by dividend:
on a different note; has anyone tried installing Warcraft III and noticed any difference?

Exactly what I want to know . I booted into OS 9 yesterday to play wc3 and the smoothness was beautiful. That and I could actually turn on music without it getting super choppy.

[tooki]

Originally posted by amontague:
I don't think it's a DNS problem because I can't ping Apple at 17.112.152.32.

I've never been able to ping Apple, I think they have their firewall eat up pings.

tooki

[Xerxes]

Can anyone please tell me if you still find Panther fast compared to Jag when you open multiple applications like PS7, Illus10, Dreamweaver, Flash. Fireworks and try and work with files between them all?

Thanks a alot.

X

[JLL]

Originally posted by tooki:
I've never been able to ping Apple, I think they have their firewall eat up pings.

tooki

No problems here.

[The DJ]

Originally posted by justinf77:
Is anybody here using Panther as their primary OS? I think it works great for just surfing the web and basic software, but I have found several things that will not work. Toast does not even load, and I cannot seem to get VLC or any DivX movies to play. I am on Panther now on my iBook, but I am just going to have to wait to buy it for my primary PowerBook. But I will miss this OS, it is FAST and very nice overall.

I could run VLC on panther.
Though sound was sometime giving trouble.

[amontague]

I've never been able to ping Apple, I think they have their firewall eat up pings.

tooki

When connected to the internet with Jaguar, I have no problems pinging Apple at 17.112.152.32.

Andrew

[Brass]

Originally posted by tooki:
In Panther. It's easy to "break" the spatiality.

For example: With it in quasi-spatial mode, open the hard drive ("HD"), then Applications. You should have two windows now, and Applications is the frontmost. If you double-click the HD icon, it will merely bring the HD window to the front.

Now, open a new Finder window (command-N). Double-click the HD icon in there, suddenly you have two windows showing the HD. Now, if you bring the Applications window the front, and double-click the HD icon on the desktop, it'll simply bring to the front whichever of the multiple HD windows is frontmost.

Mac OS 9 and earlier absolutely, positively did not allow the Finder to ever represent an item more than once. We need this behavior back.

Panther is not spatial, it behaves the same as Jaguar, basically.

tooki

I don't think Apple are the slightest bit interested in a spatial Finder. The changes from Jaguar to Panther are not in the interests of spatiality (is that a word?), but rather to avoid opening a second window for a directory which already has a window open.

[Kyan]

Ok, I'm new. No big deal. Second post.
Can someone tell me about receiving faxes with Panther.
Please?
Just don't want my post from above to get lost...thanks

[TC]

Finally got 2 machines up to try out the new Image Capture share capabilities.

First up sharing a scanner.
Works exactly as you would expect, set the scanner up as shared on the machine it is connected to. Go to another machine and choose browse, you can then see all the items available on the other machines on your network. Just select the scanner and you get the same interface as if it was connected to your machine.

Next up and a bit more exciting is sharing a camera.
You can do exactly the same as with the scanner and access it via Image Capture but you can also now access it using a web browser!
It sets up port 8080 for people to connect to your machine and view the images on the camera. You get a nice browser where you can see thumbnails of all your images or double click on one for a larger view and move back and fore between the images. You can even choose to download images and delte them from the camera.

Some things which weren't working, there are 2 tabs at the top of the window, the current one is called 'Image Browser'. There is another one called 'Remote Monitor' which is greyed out.
There is a button greyed out called 'Take Picture', I guess you need a compatible camera for this.

When you are browsing the images you can use icon or list view, the list view shows you a lot of the exif data for each image.

Finally I checked up on the other thing I noticed in the finder and it is definitely new to Panther. If you try to drag something to a folder you don't have permissions for you can use option to force a copy and it will ask you to authenticate it. Very useful and the extra keystroke will stop newbies from getting into trouble.

[laxthxdude]

The Image Capture sharing sounds great - esp. with marketing/graphics departments who can now share the hardware across machines with click of the button!

[t_hah]

Sonica Theatre is supported by Panther, which means that there is no need for the beta drivers any more. Just plug in Sonica and it works. I will be getting one for myself when Panther final comes out.

This must be part of the digital audio upgrade...

For those who do not know what Sonica is, it is a device that gives you output by channels (Center, Middle, Surround, Left, Right).


t

[nickm]

For those with Panther, I'm dying to know if the following bug is fixed:

Can you access Services using the keyboard shortcut without first exposing the Services menu?

In other words, with Omniweb or Camino installed. Start up Text Edit. Do not expose the "Text Edit" menu. Type a url into a new document. Select the URL and type "command-shift-u". Does the URL open in a web browser? If not, expose the "Text Edit" menu and then type "command-shift-u" does it open then?

[kerrazyjoe]

Originally posted by barbarian:
Fast User Switching

This is a killer feature. My only suggestion to enhance it would be to have an easy way for families to share iApp libraries between users. For example I want to access my wife's photos as a library. Same deal for music and address book.

This is Highly, Highly, Very desireable !!!

[zcasper]

Originally posted by Kyan:
Ok, I'm new. No big deal. Second post.
Can someone tell me about receiving faxes with Panther.
Please?
Just don't want my post from above to get lost...thanks

Yes, you can receive faxes. I don't remember where you configure it but I know you can send faxes from the print panel and receive faxes also.

Maybe in the system prefs.

Zach

[barney ntd]

Originally posted by tooki:
Mac OS 9 and earlier absolutely, positively did not allow the Finder to ever represent an item more than once. We need this behavior back.

Please, please, please, if anyone from Apple is reading this, DONT do this. This was the worst thing about MacOS 9 & earlier. In spite of using Macs for many years, I never got used to the bizarre effects caused by the stupid idea of a "spatial" finder. I frequently drag a window out of the way to see what's behind it; but the way the finder used to remember this new position next time I opened the window drove me up the wall. When they added list view, it was a bit better, but the effect of clicking on a triangle to open a subfolder, and another window spontaneously vanishing was really disconcerting.

The whole idea of everything on your hard disk having a "spatial position" just doesn't work for more than a few files. Let it die.

Barney.

[Zadian]

Originally posted by nickm:
For those with Panther, I'm dying to know if the following bug is fixed:

Can you access Services using the keyboard shortcut without first exposing the Services menu?

In other words, with Omniweb or Camino installed. Start up Text Edit. Do not expose the "Text Edit" menu. Type a url into a new document. Select the URL and type "command-shift-u". Does the URL open in a web browser? If not, expose the "Text Edit" menu and then type "command-shift-u" does it open then?

This works for me in Jaguar - with omniweb (command shift u) and Safari (command shift L).
But it has to be a complete URL including the http://

Just www.apple.com doesn't work.

[nickm]

This works for me in Jaguar

Trust me. This does not work in Jaguar. If you want to use the keyboard shortcut to access a service, you must first expose the services window. Try it again: launch app and immediately try the keyboard shortcut. It won't work. You need to expose the menu and then the keyboard shortcuts will work.

Incidentally, Omniweb doesn't require the http://. If you wish Safari wouldn't require it either, check out BrowserService.

Nick

[Zadian]

Originally posted by nickm:
Trust me. This does not work in Jaguar. If you want to use the keyboard shortcut to access a service, you must first expose the services window. Try it again: launch app and immediately try the keyboard shortcut. It won't work. You need to expose the menu and then the keyboard shortcuts will work.

Wow, you're right. The shortcut only works after clicking once at the TextEdit menu. Never noticed that but i leave TextEdit all the time open.

[tooki]

Originally posted by barney ntd:
Please, please, please, if anyone from Apple is reading this, DONT do this. This was the worst thing about MacOS 9 & earlier. In spite of using Macs for many years, I never got used to the bizarre effects caused by the stupid idea of a "spatial" finder. I frequently drag a window out of the way to see what's behind it; but the way the finder used to remember this new position next time I opened the window drove me up the wall. When they added list view, it was a bit better, but the effect of clicking on a triangle to open a subfolder, and another window spontaneously vanishing was really disconcerting.

The whole idea of everything on your hard disk having a "spatial position" just doesn't work for more than a few files. Let it die.

Barney.

I said we need this behavior back. I never said that they have to REMOVE the unspatial Finder. It should be as simple as a system preference, or just fully observing the "lozenge" button. What I don't like is Apple telling us that we already have an optionally spatial Finder, when we most decidedly do not.

There's nothing wrong with having options, you know. Just because the spatial Finder confused or annoyed you doesn't mean that it's not the right tool for the millions of people who use and enjoy it. Besides, if you had wanted a non-spatial Finder way back when, there were plenty of browser-style file browsers for classic Mac OS.

tooki