Mountain Lion Suggestions

[tkermit]

I feel like I have had this exact discussion with people ~8 months ago when Lion was released. Do we really have to go over all of this again?!?

- some bugs survive even over a period of 10 years, imagine that

- Autosave is supposed to get rid of the concept of there being a difference between the state of the file on disk and the state of the document you're working on. If you want to separate the two, you can duplicate a document to one that is not connected with a file on disk. This also makes it possible to make experimental changes not reflected in the file, and only save a specific version to a new or existing file.

- if your expectation is that apps remember their state, and you close an app with windows open, you want the windows to pop back up when you reopen the app, thus it would be expected, not unexpected behavior

- what justifies you to make the claim that Resume "makes users particularly uneasy using their macs with other people" - are you talking about yourself, your friends, employees, colleagues, or have you done user studies?!

- I don't see the difference between iOS returning you to the document you were working on and OS X returning you to your documents you were working on

- What's special about an app remembering its state?
You don't have to worry about apps crashing or forced restarts due to system updates, you can close apps to free resources without having to deal with decisions about unsaved changes or having to reopen documents later that you still wanted to have open, you can restart apps when the app is leaking memory and get right back to everything you were working on, etc…

- Why the hell would you want reopening of all windows upon restart?
A lot of people only restart their computer for forced system updates. It is convenient to get right back to where you left off. Also, if you switch between different operating systems, you can leave apps (and documents) open and later be returned to them when you're done using the other system. In other words, it's nice for all the times when you have no option but to reboot, yet still have documents or apps open that you are not done with.

- I don't think you have explained successfully why Autosave makes sense on iOS but not on OS X

apple offering the choice that an app DOES NOT remember it's state by an EXPLICIT user controlled CHOICE.

Hey, I wouldn't have a problem with that.

 

[blow45]

sorry if you feel you 've gone over this before, I don't mean to belabour a point, some people reading here might not have though.

1. reminds me of ms going they are not bugs they are features...

2. I am aware of this. Why is this helpful to me when it means versioning that might end up taking too much space for me. Why should I have it as default? Admittedly autosave if implemented correctly and set again on a per user/app choice basis isn't something I am averse to.

3. It's expected behaviour that will have very unexpected results if you don't remember if you did or didn't close a window.

4. I don't need to do user studies to realize that when people want to open an excel file to show to a client they 'll be ******** themselves wondering if they did or didn't close all windows in excel last time they used it so said client won't see the companies internal spreadsheets, such as financial spreadsheets, spreadsheets of other clients etc. etc.

5. You don't see the difference between "open in" in ios taking you to just the document in the app you chose to open it with, and os x popping up 5 previous windows from the app you are meant to be opening with as well as the document you want to open? In any case you might not be able to see the difference but then again you are not getting paid a few millions a year by apple to be able to see it. Creg Federichi (sp?) is and he should have been able to see it.

6.-8. All of which can be simply ascribed to a command in the menu bar "go to previous state" and doesn't have to be by default. It's a direct ios loan simply because ios had to save the state because of lack of multitasking initially due to the low memory and underpowered cpu. It doesn't carry over any real advantages to os x.

7. If the main issue is about restarting after system updates, then have the system restore everything as it was ONLY after system updates. If I explicitly decide to reboot I do not want everything as it used to be. In terms of switching between two os's, you have a point, but then why not make it an explicit choice there? In any case the future is virtualizing one os within another.

 

[tkermit]

2. I am aware of this. Why is this helpful to me when it means versioning that might end up taking too much space for me. Why should I have it as default? Admittedly autosave if implemented correctly and set again on a per user/app choice basis isn't something I am averse to.

I am not saying Apple has managed to implement versioning and autosave perfectly. Versions certainly aren't supposed to take up a lot of space. There are still unfortunate issues, like the version history vanishing if you restore from a backup.... :/

3. It's expected behaviour that will have very unexpected results if you don't remember if you did or didn't close a window.

4. I don't need to do user studies to realize that when people want to open an excel file to show to a client they 'll be ******** themselves wondering if they did or didn't close all windows in excel last time they used it so said client won't see the companies internal spreadsheets, such as financial spreadsheets, spreadsheets of other clients etc. etc.

Personally I've adapted to Lion by concentrating on closing windows instead of apps. Only once in a while will I use the Alt-tab switcher to close a few apps at once. This kind of "housekeeping" would be less of an issue if Automatic termination was more widely supported by now, since you obviously don't have to take care of closing apps like Preview, Quicktime Player, Automator, Textedit, iCal etc. (at least you shouldn't have to – in practice 'Automatic termination' doesn't always work as intended in Lion... )

5. You don't see the difference between "open in" in ios taking you to just the document in the app you chose to open it with, and os x popping up 5 previous windows from the app you are meant to be opening with as well as the document you want to open? In any case you might not be able to see the difference but then again you are not getting paid a few millions a year by apple to be able to see it. Creg Federichi (sp?) is and he should have been able to see it.

Good point about the few millions. It's Craig Federighi btw. Even on iOS you're returned to the last document you were working on (which might not be relevant to the task at hand) if you start an app from the home screen, instead of using the "open with" command from another app.

6.-8. All of which can be simply ascribed to a command in the menu bar "go to previous state" and doesn't have to be by default.

That sounds cumbersome to do it for each app. :/

It's a direct ios loan simply because ios had to save the state because of lack of multitasking initially due to the low memory and underpowered cpu. It doesn't carry over any real advantages to os x.

Let's just say I disagree.

7. If the main issue is about restarting after system updates, then have the system restore everything as it was ONLY after system updates. If I explicitly decide to reboot I do not want everything as it used to be.

Maybe you don't. In that case, you can take advantage of the little checkbox and disable the option to "reopen windows when logging back in".

I know people were asking for the selection to stick permanently. No idea whether ML is bringing any changes there.

 

[baryon]

It's only unexpected if your expectation is that apps don't remember their state.

Yes, but the problem is that every app behaves differently, since not everything supports Resume, while other apps will "Resume" even if the feature is turned off (this may be a bug though). I'd prefer to just have a simple rule such as "apps will always resume" or "apps will never resume".

Already happening all the time with system files. If you mean your personal files only, then you're "consenting" by modifying the file. If you write a letter on your desk in "real life", does the paper "get modified without your consent"?

What I mean is that most apps in the world will require you to deliberately save the file before storing your changes. The few that Apple updated and that support Auto Save will, however, behave differently, and you pretty much have to learn by heart which apps those are. It annoys me more to have 2 kinds of apps out there that behave differently than actually not having this feature. I think that a security auto-save that recovers files when your system crashes is great, but auto-saving everything is a bit annoying. If every app did this (like in iOS) then I'm sure it would be great though.

What's so different about these systems that it makes sense on one but not the other?

In iOS, things are very consistent: every app Resumes, every app Auto-Saves, every app is managed by the OS when it decides which resources to use (a bit like auto-termination). In Lion, it depends on a per-app basis and it's quite random. Some apps have features they don't really need (Preview should not ever use Resume, in my opinion), while others lack features they need (the ones that haven't been updated yet (yes, that's not Apple's fault, but this doesn't happen in iOS)).

I really prefer a consistent behavior, and I'd rather not use any of the new features just to get consistency, and that's why it would be great to turn off these new features, and turn them back on when every app supports all of them.

 

[tkermit]

@baryon: I absolutely agree. The inconsistency is annoying right now.

 

[azpc]

"Better than violating a non disclosure agreement."

Thanks to extensive Apple previews and reviews no non disclosure agreements have been violated.

A note from the original post - "However, some features carried over from Lion need implementation improvements."

My hope is that the readers of this forum will copy and send my original posting to www.apple.com/feedback

(I have already sent this message to Apple.com/feedback)

I am sure other users have worthy requests that also need to be brought to Apple's attention. I hope these requests are also sent to Apple.com/feedback.

 

[azpc]

Nice idea, an improvement over Save a Version listed in my original post. Thank you for taking the time to post!


Save, Save As and Restore from Save.

Save would save a version.

Save As would default to the old behavior of saving it to a new document

Restore from Save would give the user the option to revert to a previous version of a document via the Versions window. This would retain the new functionality introduced in Lion and would be more intuitive.

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I really hope Apple won't change the green 'Zoom' button into a Windows-style Maximize button, especially now that there's a dedicated fullscreen button.

Image

Fortunately, I am not asking for Apple to change the default behavior of the Green Zoom button. Instead, I am asking Apple to provide an option inside of System Preferences, allowing users to define the behavior of the Green Zoom button.

Apple builds very nice computers, however, inconsistent developer implementations of the Green Zoom button really frustrate a lot of dedicated Mac users. Having the option would increase their satisfaction with OSX.

Thank you for allowing me to clarify this!

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I dont' want Mac OS to become Windows.

I agree.

I am only asking for Apple to re-examine the current implementation of several features listed in the original post. In each request, I am not asking Apple to change the default behavior, I am only asking for Apple to provide additional options to improve user satisfaction with OSX.

Thank you for allowing me to clarify this.

 

[azpc]

To tkermit,

Thank you for taking the time to post.

As a Mac user and a tech support professional, I am trying to keep Mac clients as happy with their new Mac's as possible. Over the last six months I have noticed a dramatic slow down in the number of clients who are purchasing new Macs.

After questioning these clients, patterns started to become apparent. The original post was to highlight these issues. I am not attempting to change the default behavior for any Mac user. However, after working with some of these clients for over two years, I have come to the conclusion that a few additional hidden options in (System Preferences, Get Info) would greatly increase many users appreciation of OSX.

Have a nice evening and enjoy your Mac!

 

[d21mike]

In what cases do you need the window to be larger than the size the zoom button adjusts it to? Just wondering.



That has to be decided on a case by case basis. But certainly the main goal shouldn't be to concentrate on making it easy for windows users to transition over to the Mac when that involves implementing inferior concepts, carried over from Windows, like only having the option to maximize windows instead of intelligently adjusting their size to the content.

I do understand what you are getting at. When you hit the ZOOM Button it will make the window size optimized for the content it is displaying. I will give you that it does a good job. So, the best answer I can give you is the distraction of the extra data outside of the Windows. On my 13" my mail, calendar and some other apps that I use often it does fill the screen similar (or the same) as the Windows Maximize Button. Regarding Safari which would be my other most used App. This works as expected but as I change from my default web page to a highly used web I have to hit the Max Button so that I do not need to scroll. Once I do make it that size it does stay after closing the browser and reopening. However, if I go to another page that is even bigger I would need to do it again. So for me the very little extra space on the left and right are just not worth keeping. I would prefer on my 13" to have the max button work like windows. If there was an option in settings to do that I could make that the default on my 13" laptop and leave it the default on my 27" display. Again, I do not think this would be a bad option to have since it appears to be a big wish for those Windows Users switching to the Mac. And your comment appears to be the MAX Button either works the way it does now or it works the way Windows is not what I have ever said. I gave the example of scrolling on the track pad where Apple made it an option. That is all I am saying. Make it an option so the user (not you or i) can decide.

 

[gumblecosby]

Fix this 2d genie effect bug. It has been here since 10.6 - 10.8 dev preview 2. A real showstopper