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Mac OS 10.2 WishList

o wry cooter, my bad. i must have read what you wrote wrong. i thought you had said typing wont bring the corresponding files up in column view.

sort by kind isnt supported and has been added to the list.

the list is 10781 characters right now, and i can only post 10,000 so im working on making it more succint. ill post it soon.
 
A much edited list

Bug Fixes:

Window Bugs:

windows should not open behind the dock, just as windows do not open behind the menubar.

all windows should remember their size and icon arrangement. this seems simple. perhaps a "save window position" like in omniweb could be used to save a certain window position and size.

the green button should function properly. currently when the "keep arranged by.." option is chosen the right side of the window crops the window too close forcing the icons along the edge to move to th next row. when the "snap to grid" option is chosen there is too much room at the top of a window. when none of these is checked then things crop properly to the right and bottom but it does not crop the left or top of a window.

when navigating windows with the "always open folders in a new window" preference turned off the new window should open in its saved state, not in the state of the window that was previously open. in other words it should function much like opening a folding while holding down the option key, but retain the history in the back button.

from cleo- when the "scroll to here" option is checked all applications should exhibit this behavior — cocoa AND carbon applications.

windows with a large number of files/apps should open in a reasonable amount of time.

scrolling in windows needs to be accelerated

all windows should by default be set to global (this is what global means). one can then change all of one's windows by adjusting the global options. if one wants things different in a particular window then one uses the "this window only" option.

--pipedreams:

classic windows should be just as aware of the dock and menubar as aqua windows.

Other:

From OldMac - Stickies Notes should be multiple monitor aware. They should not jump back to the main monitor on restart.

New Features:

Dock Features:

there should be an option to include drives, removable media (cds dvds), and servers on the dock. so with this option enabled i could insert a cd and have it appear in the dock much like a launched application would.

preference panel in which one can choose applications that will auto hide the dock.

A dock customization features akin to the toolbar customization feature. Where one can specify how groups of apps, docs, windows, etc are arranged, and (catfishman) where one can insert spaces and flexible spaces. also one could then choose groups that do not appear in the dock (including finder icon).

from mrtrumbe- windows and documents in the dock should have some sort of stamp indicating the application they are operating in. where a small graphical stamp is place over the window or file of choice like in mail and adium.

dynamic dock icons like adium and mail that give application status information, like having the finder icon display when copy file tasks are completed etc. the dock icon would then be separate from desktop icons in that it would be a separte set of dynamic icons that provide information visually (adium uses four icons to create its different dock icon states).

When a folder window is minimized to the dock you should be able to drag files to the minimized window and thereby drop files into that folder.

--pipedreams:

one should be able to save windows in the dock just as one saves links, apps, folders and drives.

option to have dock folders display contextual menu contents with a single click (not click hold or control click).

Window Features:

springloaded folders

a replacement for windowshade function that keeps the window on the desktop.

WryCooter- Ability to sort by kind in column view

Ability to choose a background color/picture in list and column views just like in icon view

from wrycooter- ability to print the contents of any window, including an iDisk

icon sizing should provide a pixel size along with each "tick"

--pipedreams:

from pcconvert- multiple desktops option

a contextual menu option to size each icon independent of others.

from kishba- an option in the customize toolbar preference to add a iTunes style filter field to the toolbar.

an option to "drop" a folder window onto the desktop. this would display the contents of a window on the desktop. picking up a dropped window would take all the items from the window off the desktop and display them in a window again. the file heirarchy would be maintained, only the manner in which the contents of that window is displayed would be changed.

tabbed window browsing in the finder.

Other:

Easy preference panel for networking with macs AND pcs.

an option to display and toggle the of classic state in the menubar as volume, ppoe, monitor resolution, and airport status is displayed.

from sockdoggy- a preference panel for speaker settings.

the hidden apple preferences unlocked by tinkertool should be incorporated into the system preferences.

--pipedreams:

option to remove recent items from apple menu.

from dantec- a cursor shadow.

from mischief- Ability to choose movies/visualizers/screensavers as desktop backgrounds.
 
I tried to consolidate and sort features/bugs. Also I tried to rank importance in each category and tried to make it clear that some things im asking for i consider to be far our requests (pipedreams).

Let me know what you think.
 
Not to demean all of the work you've done in compiling this list, but what it boils down to for me is SPEED.

If we have options to turn down the Aqua level a notch or two and regain some speed from our systems, great. Otherwise, just makes sure the thing runs fast!

Death to the rainbow-colored pinwheel and bouncing Dock icons!!!
 
i did mention a few items where speed is a big problem, but more general speed issues i take simply as a given. Ive mentioned many times how unacceptably slow osx is, but i felt that apple is well aware of it and has been attacking the issue with both software and hardware so it wasnt worth harping on.

i think ive mentioned my lil speed test a few times but here goes again. i lined up three computers with a fresh install of osx10.1.3. a g4 400, g4 800 imac, and dual g4 1ghz. there was little performance difference between any of them. the difference between the imac and the dually was almost inperceptable (im talking ui responsiveness ONLY). this lets me know its mostly a software issue. ive also done some thinking about a 2d graphics card like the 3d cards we have. ive heard rumors of new chips incorporating memory management into them as well.

mostly i didnt want to beat a dead and decaying horse. i see osx as a clean slate. its nearly devoid of any features. many complain and use third party utilities to bring back os9 functionality to osx. i think this is wrong. yes osx needs new features, but looking to os9 for answers isnt always the best thing to do. osx should evolve os9 features and innovate new features in a osx style. thats what i am going for in this list. trying to say something new and get people thinking about what osx can become not what os9 used to be.
 
Originally posted by AmbitiousLemon

yes osx needs new features, but looking to os9 for answers isnt always the best thing to do. osx should evolve os9 features and innovate new features in a osx style.
Click to expand...

AmbitiousLemon is 100% right... We need new features : not going back to the spring-loaded folders of os9 but serach a new alternative which fits right into osx.

Speed is also needed in osx. I think parts of Darwin will have to be rewriten to do this. But a alternative for this can also be : making a new preferences panel where you can disable Aqua stuff like shadows on windows, like some programs do. When these shadows are disabled in Quark osx runs a lot faster, resizing and moving windows is no longer slow on my iMac G3.

Also the switch user feature like in windows xp is needed in osx. (The only thing better in windows, so it needs to be fixed)
 
Originally posted by AmbitiousLemon


i think ive mentioned my lil speed test a few times but here goes again. i lined up three computers with a fresh install of osx10.1.3. a g4 400, g4 800 imac, and dual g4 1ghz. there was little performance difference between any of them. the difference between the imac and the dually was almost inperceptable (im talking ui responsiveness ONLY).

Click to expand...

But the pretty shiny buttons you can lick stuff DOES take a bite out of the CPU. Any one who has ripped MP3s with iTunes booting from both 9 or X could probably tell you the same.

However, some of that is made up by OS X being smoother for multitasking.. I can get more work done WHILE such a process is going on, whereas booting from 9, I might be apt to let the processor do nothing else but rip, otherwise I might crash.

There are some speed of work issues dealing with the GUI, and file management, although perhaps pining for lost spring loaded folders may not be the answer. I got over looking to the corners of the screen for my apps within a couple of weeks. And Sherlock for example, needs a complete overhaul, it is now pretty much useless to me with the way it works within OS X.
 
My OS 10.2 wishlist:

- SMB/CIFS Browser. Well done Apple in having some SMB support, but they need to build on it. Apple shouldn't be afraid of pissing off thursby (makers of dave), give us an SMB Browser!

- Re-write slow parts of OS X in Assembly if it's possible...

- Fix up Software Update so it downloads updates for your localization, not always for NORTH AMERICAN ENGLISH! I had to reinstall OS X from CD after downloading 10.1.3 from Software Update because I needed the International English version and it gave me the North American Edtn. I've learnt my lesson and now use http://www.apple.com/swupdates

- Add transperancy option in Terminal Windows

- Fix it up so that the date in fact CAN read as dd/mm/yyyy... In my International and Date & Time Settings, it says dd/mm/yyyy, but it displays mm/dd/yyyy...


And a suggestion for AmbitiousLemon -- scaling down the 10.2 list is a good idea but don't be limited by the post limit here. You've got a website -- post the list there!
 
ya a few things

-option-drag a file to create a duplicate somewhere requires the user to press option before they initiate the drag instead of whenever they want. this is so annoying!!!!

-apple-drag to scroll windows using the hand is a *MUST* grrr

-in the file browser, when I click on a folder in the rightmost column, I want that damn thing to scroll over! there's possible nothing worse than horizontal scrolling unless that part in the UI is specifically designed for it....otherwise it's a pain

-installers. stop saying 100 megs are needed for installation

-get rid of the damn command-n new window command-shift-n new folder thing! or at least allow switching of the two! command-n for a new window makes no sense when clicking on the finder icon does it for you. besides, the old new folder command was command-n

-allow mixing of apps, docs, and folders in dock.

-services!
 
hey these are some great comments. thanks guys. i recently gave my list to a researcher who studies graphical user interfaces. ive added much since then but ill let you know what he says when(if?) he gets back to me. ive been a bit busy lately (hence my rather over the top posts elsewhere, guess rushing around like a mad man 24/7 makes one sound more intense than one intends) but ill find some time to add all of these points and show you the newest incarnation of the list.

and as for scaling it down. i didnt eliminate any points just removed my own commentary on a few points and took similiar points and combined them into more succint points.

as for my website, man i havent updated that thing in way too long. ive been hoping someone could help me figure out how to make a poll with this wish list but no one has stepped up to bat, so ive been kind putting it off until i have time to figure it out on my own... ahhh work full time + double course load as a bio major at berkeley just seems to eat up all my time... who woudl have thought? i find time though so i will get to everything (i didnt sleep at all last night and got so much done, gonna do the same again tonight so maybe i will get to some of this)
 
ok been working on the list and i had a few questions, dont take it personally sometimes i just dont understand and i want to get it right when i add it to the list:

questions:
choppa what do you mean by "installers. stop saying 100 megs are needed for installation"
choppa by "services" are you referring to how the services seem to be grayed out in most apps?
choppa the option drag thing to duplicate a file, what would be a fix? there is a command-d or file menu duplicate to duplicate as well as copy and paste to duplicate an item in the finder in addition to the option drag thing. is there another alternative?
j763 i dont know what smb is so could you explain your request involving a smb/cifs browser? is this in the same category as better file sharing between macs and pcs? could this be what actually gives us better file sharing between macs and pcs?
wry cooter- as far as sherlock goes im torn. i was trying to stick to just osx, cuz we all know mail and itunes and others could use some serious work. should we mention sherlock since its basically a part of osx or not?
 
Originally posted by AmbitiousLemon
ok been working on the list and i had a few questions, dont take it personally sometimes i just dont understand and i want to get it right when i add it to the list:

questions:

wry cooter- as far as sherlock goes im torn. i was trying to stick to just osx, cuz we all know mail and itunes and others could use some serious work. should we mention sherlock since its basically a part of osx or not?

Click to expand...

I think a function called FIND would have a pretty close bet of saying, yes, its an important part of OS X. Of course we could do without the finder completely and just run searches from Terminal, wot? Whats a GUI?

As Command F , for find, brings up Sherlock, I think it rather important Sherlock still work as well as it did in OS 9.. I do not consider this a step backwards. However, it is good example of where Classic functionality clashes on a fairly low level with the Unix underpinnings of OS X.

My most common use of Sherlock was to drag and drop a file, on the custom setting (more search options, advanced) so I could find other files of that same type and creator. However, the resource fork, where this info was usually stored, is not necessarily any thing OS X gives a flying flip about, nor is going to ever use. But its useful info.

But hey, since we should have all documents in the documents folder and all apps in the application folder, we shouldn't ever have to find files by type, or creator should we? (sarcasm) Its going to be in the documents folder....along with thousands of other files. What do you mean you can't find that needle in the haystack?
 

choppa what do you mean by "installers. stop saying 100 megs are needed for installation"
every time I install something it always says that 100megs+ of space is needed for installation. I'm sure this has got to just be a bug in the installer (or perhaps 10.1 didn't update my copy of the installer app?), but it would be nice if it got cleaned up


choppa by "services" are you referring to how the services seem to be grayed out in most apps?

yes at least its greyed out in everything I have. It just seems if they put a menu there they should make it functional; its nice to see future goals but I think it's messy to leave loose threads like that


choppa the option drag thing to duplicate a file, what would be a fix? there is a command-d or file menu duplicate to duplicate as well as copy and paste to duplicate an item in the finder in addition to the option drag thing. is there another alternative?

option drag is the quickest. duplication requires a name change, copy paste requires you to have the window of the target location open right? what I like to do is like keep a copy of everything I've downloaded and worked on. I like to option-drag things into my docs folder (in my doc) to make a copy of it there for safe keeping while I work on/delete the one on my desktop. also I have a photoshop action that generates thumb previews in a set of folders that get copied a lot.

my MAIN GRIPE here is that if you start to drag the file and then hold down option, it won't give you the + icon telling you that it will duplicate/copy the file on drop. instead of you don't hold down option in time you have to drop the file, hold down option, then re-drag it. I want it so that I can press option during the drag and it will behave as it *SHOULD*
also I'm not sure if this is included with spring loaded folders that will be in OS 10.2, but the thing where you can drag a file over a folder, and then hit the spacebar to pop it open immediately is *very* helpful, and I really liked it in OS9. this would be another example of hitting a key during drag to create feedback. if this is not in 10.2 thats not going to make me a very happy camper >_<


should we mention sherlock since its basically a part of osx or not?

oh ya and sherlock too. get the hell rid of it and bring back find file :D
i delete sherklock off of anything I have running pre-OSX because I hate the damn internet crap they throw in there (put that in a separate app!) and the indexing thing which does nothing. in my experience, find file has found the file faster than sherlock every time, even after sherlock has done its indexing stuff (its SO annoying when it opens in X and it has to index before you can search for anything) and it launches in a quarter of the time. maybe make the find file app *part* of the dock in some way, or how bout add a search field to the windows? now *that* would be neato. a search field at the top of any window to do ultra quick searching. this is something I do alot since i have a really big website with 1000's of pictures; my hard drive has more than 180,000 items on it (mostly thanks to the devkit and other goodies though....)
 
i will be adding the list to my website soon. as soon as yahoo!'s ftp gets working again that is.

i thought i would share with you guys some suggestions Big had regarding sherlock:

Sherlock:

From Big (mike)- CD categorizing. If it can index harddrives, it should be able to index cd's. the system will entail just a drag and drop method, when a user calls up Sherlock, there will ba a cd Icon with a folder arrow, and a catagory of the different types of cd's could be created (ie, music cd's, archived projects, active jobs, work backup etc...) then I can search the whole kit & kaboodle or each type of cd, or each cd.

From Big (mike)- Speed up Sherlock. Sherlock is too slow over all networks

From Big (mike)- command+s+f (small find) then a little box appears, a user would not even have to look at it, just type. This function could be integrated with the search field an optional search field in the customize toolbar options. If a user chooses to have a search field in their toolbar then command+s+f will bring their cursor into that field. If the search field is not in the toolbar then a small separate window appears.

From Big (mike)- Give us file types, or at least (when searching for files of specific applications) I should not have to know every application's extension. I should have an option find files of specific applications "just like" then have a drop down menu (or better yet, a browse feature that will let me find a file that is just like the one I am searching for)
 
Re: Multiple Desktops is possible NOW!

Originally posted by MacUser-in-HI
http://space.sourceforge.net/
Click to expand...

Welcome to the boards! Whereabouts in HI are you? I'm a former Hilo boy...

I think the point that most of the people here are bringing up is that there are a lot of things that are *possible* on OS X, but Apple has not built them in yet.

TinkerTool and all the rest are great, but we want that same functionality built into the System Prefs...
 
Originally posted by AmbitiousLemon



i thought i would share with you guys some suggestions Big had regarding sherlock:

Sherlock:

From Big (mike)- CD categorizing. If it can index harddrives, it should be able to index cd's. the system will entail just a drag and drop method, when a user calls up Sherlock, there will ba a cd Icon with a folder arrow, and a catagory of the different types of cd's could be created (ie, music cd's, archived projects, active jobs, work backup etc...) then I can search the whole kit & kaboodle or each type of cd, or each cd.

<snip>

From Big (mike)- Give us file types, or at least (when searching for files of specific applications) I should not have to know every application's extension. I should have an option find files of specific applications "just like" then have a drop down menu (or better yet, a browse feature that will let me find a file that is just like the one I am searching for)
Click to expand...

Indexing can't be done on read only volumes such as CDs and Disk Images because apparently the index is stored on that disk- you can't store such on a read only disk. I imagine they could be stored on the boot up disk only.

Also keep in mind that the indexing is a TEXT index, a word index-- it doesn't need to index to find file names, only the contents inside TEXT files... this isn't going to do diddly for your Audio CDs even if they could be indexed. And you might not want the index of an Encyclopedia CD you insert... Or necessarily want an index of every single disk you insert. (I sometimes insert hundreds per day...)

(your Audio CDs ARE being indexed by file name in a way, if you use iTunes, it will look up what it can find on CDDB, and I think it keeps that info in a library available for use by Apple CD Player app as well. Your CD drive sees the medias serial number, and references that to the name info it keeps on file)

Booting from Classic, in Sherlock, you can drag and drop a file on the custom search window to determine a files creator and type-- this is probably disabled to some degree in OS X because of the Unix underpinnings of OS X means that not all of your files necessarily have a resource fork any more, where this info is stored. So Sherlock in OS X ignores this past functionality perhaps to avoid problems. This is by far the most missed function for me.

Indexing Preferences in OS 9 Sherlock could limit indexing to a once per day or even more infrequent schedule, in OS X its now or never... index when you open sherlock, or not. This is fine for keeping an incremental index up to date, but it slows down the find function when you are only doing a file name search, by far the most frequent use of sherlock. I don't know why it seems to be unable to index the boot disk, only my additional drives are indexed.

Sherlock still needs an overhaul to return past usefulness (even back to a simple Find File (or Custom Find File to search for Type, date, etc...). As far as the web capabilities, Watson is doing a better job with that.
 
I think they mean:

Icons (HDs included) have the annoying habit of jumping around on the right half of the desktop after exiting programs like Quake 3 or Diablo 2 that change the screen settings.
 
exactly!

icons jump all over the place after screen size changes...its rather annoying
 
Re: Jumping Icons

OK. Gotcha.

I guess it depends on your dock location/settings, etc. This is a problem with almost any OS I've used (Windows and Mac)...not sure how feasible it would be for them to change this...hmmmmmm
 
Re: exactly!

Originally posted by boobers
icons jump all over the place after screen size changes...its rather annoying
Click to expand...

Have you checked out the finder preferences view menu? View Options is command J.. You can have the finder sort the mess on your desktop as...

Name
Date Modifed
Date Created
Size
Kind

Or none of these (which may be what you are wishing). You can also have "always snapped to grid" chosen, or not, to keep icons in place.

Also very handy, if games are forcing a resolution change on you, and rearranging the desktop due to their previous size is the ICON SIZE slider. You can have them as small as you might see them in ANY finder view at ANY Screen resolution To something rather chunky that might only allow 16 icons positions on the desktop (some people have had fun with this tweaking the OS where the desktop could only contain ONE icon).

One might say there is even MORE functionality with desktop icon placement in os X than 9, If one takes the time to look. Tabbed pop up folders- well thats another issue. Snappier finder overall, well, thats an quartz overhead issue.

However, I might agree that the issue of changing screen resolution is less than elegant... Often the monitor wants to place the new resolution off center, or not have it expand to the size of the monitor. Not an issue with OS 9 monitor drivers.
 
Icons not remembering their position seems to be in all windows. The Finder window (the one with your drives) is always rearranging the icons. Seems to be a similiar problem to the whole windows not remembering their size and placement thing. There are also numerous bugs associated with using the sort by options in the view options (check the list for details).

its really annoying hvaing to rearrange all of your windows and icons everytime we restart, but i suppose its OSX we should never have to restart right?
 
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