Yosemite looks terrible!

[grahamperrin]

… I don't care much about Title Bar (yes, I read your posts). Everyday, in Maverick, I work with Safari (which has one) side by side with Firefox (which has none) …

I choose to use Firefox at work where colleagues' computers run Windows 7 and the only other choice is Internet Explorer. I rarely touch Firefox on a Mac.

Alongside Safari 7.0.x and WebKit nightly builds, my second favourite browser is OmniWeb.

For many months OmniWeb was my first choice because I was busy in a private forum where the forum software failed to show titles of topics.

The disorientation of working without titles in the title bar was partly offset by OmniWeb's ability to show the head of the page etc. in a large tab to the side of the window.

 

[MagnusVonMagnum]

Complaining about hiding the Library folder is ridiculous. Most of the major OSes employ some sort of protection agains messing with system or auxiliary file structures (Windows and Linux included).

You all it "ridiculous". I call it BS. Apple made no announcements about hiding it. They made no simple way to override it for people that need access to it. And yet people like you act like it's no big deal while I get sick and tired of having to search all over the Internet every OS X release to figure out why things that worked perfectly fine in OS X before are now broken or disabled. Apple never provides a complete list of bugs addressed. They regularly ignore user feedback to get things fixed. I'm STILL waiting for them to add NFS file sharing to the token list to prevent the computer from going to sleep while someone is accessing the server with it. This is "supposed" to be "UNIX" yet they treat such features as 2nd class garbage and only include them to get the name certification since it sounds good.

Why hasn't Finder been improved? Why is it so much slower than Mountain Lion's Finder? I get a couple second delay most of the time when I click on a folder in Finder. With a Quad i7 and RAID 0 pulling nearly 300MB/sec read times here on my dual 1TB internals, there should be no freaking delays just to see a directory list. Bug reported ages ago. Where's the fix? I really believe they just send bug reports to the bit bucket.

But what we "NEED" are load of easter egg pastel looking colors added to OS X because it was just so damn ugly before. THAT takes priority over getting the latest OpenGL version implemented. THAT takes priority over fixing above bugs. THAT takes priority over improving the Finder. THAT takes priority over getting better audio drivers for newer AppleTVs so they can use something other than 16/48 (which according to OSX transfer as 16/44.1 *TO* ATV (confirmed by the fact I can redirect the audio to my 1st Gen ATV and DTS signals are still intact which require 16/44.1) and then sample rate convert it to 48kHz before playing (confirmed by the fact DTS won't output because the receiver is getting a 48kHz signal from a 44.1kHz source). Thus, if you have 24/48 music signal (say from transferring a record), OS X converts it to 16/44.1 to send to an ATV3, then ATV3 converts it to 16/48kHz. So you get two frequency conversions simply because Apple can't be bothered to write OS X and iOS drivers that can talk to each other at default rates of the file presented to at least minimize the number of resample conversions. THAT isn't important to fix for us audiophiles, but getting a funky green battery symbol is.

Sorry, you can't convince me that Apple gives a flipping crap about REAL OS issues when their primary motivator these days quite obviously appears to be first and foremost a snappy visual makeover that just seems to "encourage" buying a Retina capable Mac with the awful fonts.

 

[matrix07]

But is this really necessary? Every portable Mac comes with a charger that has an LED indicator on the connector: it's amber when it's charging and green when it's not. In fact, if the battery icon has to have colour to it, shouldn't it be following the exact same pattern as the physical indicator to be consistent?

For me the noticeability of the new battery icon is exactly the problem. It doesn't quite go with this "focus on the content" thing some people keep saying Yosemite is about. That green battery icon wants me to focus on the system, which should be completely secondary to what I'm doing with the system.

You'll get used to it. It's just a simple indicator. If it change color (from amber to green when full) then it will call too much attention to it.

 

[grahamperrin]

... call too much attention to it.

Notifications are the better approach.

Constant garishness in the menu bar is inappropriate, unnecessary, it sets a bad example.

(Make one thing garish by default, other developers might make things garish by default. Worse, they might make things garish-only.)

 

[grahamperrin]

An Appearance pane in System Preferences

... Freedom in computing is good when its functional. ... I agree with you that its very important to have customisation options, but sometimes too many of these options lead to substandard software. And that is btw why I stopped using Firefox ...

... I don't think an optional set of window decorations would lead to substandard software. If anything, Apple should be building a theme kit as they go along and replace everything. Why not make everyone happy? ...

Credit to Mozilla for giving options to users:

Not only is there a title bar in Firefox 31, the user is also allowed to prefer titles in title bars. Still, it could be better: in this case I would have preferred the title of the tab without the name of the app.

A default Apple interface to the most important appearance preferences for OS X should be simpler than Mozilla's about:config interface.

From the outset, from the first developer preview of Yosemite, there should have been an Appearance pane in System Preferences. And if Apple no longer has a single shared vision for OS X, the company could have begun by including, in that pane, before the first DP: the things that the designers of appearances could not agree upon.

 

[leman]

They made no simple way to override it for people that need access to it.

Are you kidding me? Pressing the option key is too complicated for you?

 

[MagnusVonMagnum]

Are you kidding me? Pressing the option key is too complicated for you?

Obviously, I'm talking about a permanent solution, not mystic keystrokes galore.

I honestly believe some of you fanatical types would defend Apple doing just about anything. There is simply NOTHING Apple can do wrong in your eyes and you would just defend any ridiculous thing they do until you're blue in the face and then argue about it for hours here. Let me roll my eyes some more.

 

[grahamperrin]

... No one I've asked can actually post on an old UI from the 80's or 90's than looks anything like today's "flat" designs. ...

Someone on Twitter observes similarities between the combined title bar + tool bar and visual style of Yosemite and the Xerox Star, which has 1970s origins. The tweet gives a screenshot of Xerox GlobalView 2.1, a mid-1990s descendant of the Xerox Star ViewPoint desktop software.

----

Defocusing from flatness, I found a few lovely things in Nathan Lineback's GUI Gallery.

BeOS 5.0 Personal Edition had a beautiful appearance --

-- and more than just good looks. I can't recall which version I tried, but BeOS on Mac hardware was an exceptionally classy experience. Some aspects of BeOS were superb, better than Apple operating systems of that era.

The "Wow!" factor from BeOS was great, and my memory of that greatness -- that excellence -- is enduring.

 

[GerritV]

Defocusing from flatness, I found a few lovely things in Nathan Lineback's GUI Gallery.

BeOS 5.0 Personal Edition had a beautiful appearance --

Image

-- and more than just good looks. I can't recall which version I tried, but BeOS on Mac hardware was an exceptionally classy experience. Some aspects of BeOS were superb, better than Apple operating systems of that era.

The "Wow!" factor from BeOS was great, and my memory of that greatness -- that excellence -- is enduring.

Always loved the look of BeOS

 

[grahamperrin]

Constancy, predictability and the Alt (Option) key

… mystic keystrokes …

I'll rope that perception partly into my emphasis on the value of constancy. Someone might roll their eyes, I won't mind

For me:

1. the default hiding of ~/Library from Finder was a surprise
2. Apple's default method of showing ~/Library in Finder was not mysterious.

When the folder did not appear, my first guess was to try the Option key.

How did I guess so quickly?

Whilst Apple now prefers the word Option in online documentation such as OS X: Keyboard shortcuts, for the same key on a Mac there's historical use of the word Alt. (Off-topic: some people will find the latter but not the former on their Apple keyboard.)

Why did I reach for the Alt key?

Many years ago I learnt, without being overtly taught, from use of Macs, that the Alt key is often used to produce an alternative option – typically an option within a normal menu. Without treating Wikipedia as definitive, today I read that the Alt (Option) key is used to change (alternate) the function of other pressed keys.

That learning through discovery – with all Apple operating systems for Mac, prior to Yosemite – has a very strong element of constancy. Over the years it has been very easy for me to predict that if something is not immediately obvious, that thing might become obvious with the Alt key.

Constancy. Predictability. One, two. Hidden, visible. Result √

----

Some of my earliest experiments with Yosemite involved the Alt key – with various menus, with various parts of various preference panes in System Preferences and in other apps – to see whether Apple had provided a way to present a normal title bar in apps where the title was no longer immediately visible. It was a very early pre-release, I wondered whether Apple had put the feature in a pane or menu that would be intuitive to some users but not to me. Disappointment followed …

 

[TechGod]

You all it "ridiculous". I call it BS. Apple made no announcements about hiding it. They made no simple way to override it for people that need access to it. And yet people like you act like it's no big deal while I get sick and tired of having to search all over the Internet every OS X release to figure out why things that worked perfectly fine in OS X before are now broken or disabled. Apple never provides a complete list of bugs addressed. They regularly ignore user feedback to get things fixed. I'm STILL waiting for them to add NFS file sharing to the token list to prevent the computer from going to sleep while someone is accessing the server with it. This is "supposed" to be "UNIX" yet they treat such features as 2nd class garbage and only include them to get the name certification since it sounds good.

Why hasn't Finder been improved? Why is it so much slower than Mountain Lion's Finder? I get a couple second delay most of the time when I click on a folder in Finder. With a Quad i7 and RAID 0 pulling nearly 300MB/sec read times here on my dual 1TB internals, there should be no freaking delays just to see a directory list. Bug reported ages ago. Where's the fix? I really believe they just send bug reports to the bit bucket.

But what we "NEED" are load of easter egg pastel looking colors added to OS X because it was just so damn ugly before. THAT takes priority over getting the latest OpenGL version implemented. THAT takes priority over fixing above bugs. THAT takes priority over improving the Finder. THAT takes priority over getting better audio drivers for newer AppleTVs so they can use something other than 16/48 (which according to OSX transfer as 16/44.1 *TO* ATV (confirmed by the fact I can redirect the audio to my 1st Gen ATV and DTS signals are still intact which require 16/44.1) and then sample rate convert it to 48kHz before playing (confirmed by the fact DTS won't output because the receiver is getting a 48kHz signal from a 44.1kHz source). Thus, if you have 24/48 music signal (say from transferring a record), OS X converts it to 16/44.1 to send to an ATV3, then ATV3 converts it to 16/48kHz. So you get two frequency conversions simply because Apple can't be bothered to write OS X and iOS drivers that can talk to each other at default rates of the file presented to at least minimize the number of resample conversions. THAT isn't important to fix for us audiophiles, but getting a funky green battery symbol is.

Sorry, you can't convince me that Apple gives a flipping crap about REAL OS issues when their primary motivator these days quite obviously appears to be first and foremost a snappy visual makeover that just seems to "encourage" buying a Retina capable Mac with the awful fonts.

PB1, What the **** do you expect??

Also it's so damn easy to unhide the Library folder so what's the issue here? All the **** you seemed to have posted as facts when in fact it just an opinion, stop thinking what you posted is fact, because guess what? it's not.

 

[maflynn]

Defocusing from flatness, I found a few lovely things in Nathan Lineback's GUI Gallery.

BeOS 5.0 Personal Edition had a beautiful appearance --

Image

-- and more than just good looks. I can't recall which version I tried, but BeOS on Mac hardware was an exceptionally classy experience. Some aspects of BeOS were superb, better than Apple operating systems of that era.

The "Wow!" factor from BeOS was great, and my memory of that greatness -- that excellence -- is enduring.

I always liked BeOS, I wonder where apple would be Gassée was successful in selling to Apple. Because they couldn't agree to terms, apple went and got NeXT and we know how that turned out

 

[leman]

Obviously, I'm talking about a permanent solution, not mystic keystrokes galore.

It is difficult to take you seriously if you refer to option key as 'mystic keystrokes'. It's what the key does - it provides additional options and seldomly used actions. It works for almost every apple app and has been doing it's thing consistently since the first OS X, and maybe earlier. There is nothing wrong with criticism, but at least criticise things worth criticizing, not documented, consistent behavior.

To answer your 'fanboy' rant - I am certainly not justifying everything apple does. I am annoyed with their archaic file system, with their poor response to bug fixes and transparency. I am annoyed about their lack of quality control in both hardware and software I am also annoyed that they didn't release Metal for OS X, that would have been the solution for Mac gaming (I hope they would do it next year). I still don't know what these things have to do with your baseless complaints about Library

 

[Tourgott]

There is one thing I hate about the new Safari. When opening a new tab the bookmarks disappear. Could this be changed in the settings? Thanks

Edit - Ok, got it. They are in the address bar.

 

[grahamperrin]

It is difficult to take you seriously if you refer to option key as 'mystic keystrokes'. … documented, consistent behavior.

For the reasons given above, I can accept that some people perceive some mystery around the Opt/Alt/Option key, Apple's symbol for which appears to differ from the ISO symbol

It's true that many people pay not enough attention to inline/online help/documentation, but there's a long history of that – and without singling out Apple, the quality of help for end users of computers is occasionally atrocious – so I completely accept that some users will not instinctively look first to documentation and/or the Help menu.

After an end user realises that there's a pattern, a rationale, to how a developer might approach end use of the Option key, there's a good chance that the user will have some lasting conscious or subconscious appreciation of that rationale.

I can't criticise people for not yet having that moment of realisation.

… annoyed with their archaic file system,

+1
and nice timing. By coincidence, concerning HFS Plus: https://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=19489537#post19489537

with their poor response to bug fixes

Yes and no.

… annoyed about their lack of quality control in both hardware and software …

I sort of agree about the software. However, since I have ceased to give feedback to Apple, I'm no longer in a good position to comment on the general quality of the company's software. Treat me as abstaining.

 

[grahamperrin]

Mash-up, anyone?

… bookmarks disappear. …
Edit - Ok, got it. They are in the address bar.

Side note (not aimed at Tourgott in particular): when I last checked, Apple was ceasing to use phrases such as address field and address bar.

With Safari 8, what Apple calls the Smart Search Field is most likely to present neither the word 'Search' nor a search icon. There's a domain, which can change to an address with bookmarks that are probably unrelated to that address. And/then you can begin searching, probably for something that relates to neither the address nor the bookmarks, and get results.

The search results are certainly very smart, but the related mash-up is so mashed that a factual description can easily be ridiculed. Hmm.

To the people who view my description as ridiculous: I'll not discourage you from doing so, but please also spare a thought for the person who will provide IT support over the 'phone, and the person who will …

 

[leman]

I sort of agree about the software. However, since I have ceased to give feedback to Apple, I'm no longer in a good position to comment on the general quality of the company's software. Treat me as abstaining.

I just see this again with Swift: new release and then multiple regressions pop up. Sometimes I have the feeling that Apple does not care at all about unit testing...

 

[Fuchal]

You all it "ridiculous". I call it BS. Apple made no announcements about hiding it. They made no simple way to override it for people that need access to it. And yet people like you act like it's no big deal while I get sick and tired of having to search all over the Internet every OS X release to figure out why things that worked perfectly fine in OS X before are now broken or disabled. Apple never provides a complete list of bugs addressed. They regularly ignore user feedback to get things fixed. I'm STILL waiting for them to add NFS file sharing to the token list to prevent the computer from going to sleep while someone is accessing the server with it. This is "supposed" to be "UNIX" yet they treat such features as 2nd class garbage and only include them to get the name certification since it sounds good.

This is pretty simple...

 

[grahamperrin]

+1 to simplicity

This is pretty simple...

Yes. Neat! Thanks (and an up-vote).

 

[MagnusVonMagnum]

This is pretty simple...

I don't recall that option when it was first changed in prior version of OS X, but I guess I'm supposed to count fixes retroactively in time when mention something. Besides, it doesn't appear to work with the master root Library (no option in view there), just the user library.

PB1, What the **** do you expect??

All the **** you seemed to have posted as facts when in fact it just an opinion, stop thinking what you posted is fact, because guess what? it's not.

People who can't discuss something without breaking the language filter lose the argument by default, IMO. Go buy a bar of soap.

Besides, who said I thought I posted an opinion as a fact? Honestly, if you can't tell an opinion from a fact in a sentence, they have books out there that can help.

It is difficult to take you seriously if you refer to option key as 'mystic keystrokes'.

I honestly don't care what you take seriously. I gave my opinion on the matter and I get attacked with this option key response. I don't really care if the option key makes it visible (doesn't work in Mavericks here, BTW). In other words, after there being no need to press an extra keystroke for something that used to require only one hand on a mouse for over a DECADE, I don't really want to press the option key for something that doesn't need it. How is that an improvement in ergonomics? How is that more efficient? THAT is my point, not the word "mystic" versus "pain in the keystor" which is how I really think of having to reach for the keyboard while doing mouse operations.

Besides, it seems like that "fix" didn't help much with 3rd party software file requestors. In fact, I just disabled my home library "view option" (that I don't recall in prior OS X versions) and the option key does exactly NOTHING here. So they either removed the key functionality when they added the preference option or it simply doesn't work here for reasons unknown (it works fine in the dock so my key isn't broke).

Apple couldn't even be bothered to mention the change, which comes across as a smug "they don't use it anyway so we don't need to say anything" type of move to me. Apple is very bad about documenting changes and bug fixes ,etc., but it's my fault because I'm apparently expected to guess everything they change.

But instead of just taking comments for what they're worth (or not worth as the case may be), I get attacked with cussing armies of fanboys that can't fathom why I don't just love Tim Cook and Johnny Ives to death for all their stupid changes to OS X. Oh joy.

 

[hamis92]

Besides, it seems like that "fix" didn't help much with 3rd party software file requestors. In fact, I just disabled my home library "view option" (that I don't recall in prior OS X versions) and the option key does exactly NOTHING here. So they either removed the key functionality when they added the preference option or it simply doesn't work here for reasons unknown (it works fine in the dock so my key isn't broke).

As far as I'm aware, holding down the Option key only reveals the user Library when you have the Go menu open in Finder.

 

[MagnusVonMagnum]

As far as I'm aware, holding down the Option key only reveals the user Library when you have the Go menu open in Finder.

Ah, I see. That does work. What I don't see is how in the world I would "guess" that like someone suggested above. I don't use and I don't think I've EVER used the "Go" menu since it just duplicates the device list on the left side for the most part and it's far easier to just click on an icon in the already open pane than go into the menu bar. The entry in the "Show View Options" does make sense, though, but I don't recall seeing that in Mountain Lion.

Looking here (http://macs.about.com/od/usingyourmac/qt/Os-X-Lion-Is-Hiding-Your-Library-Folder.htm), I see that Mavericks did indeed add the user option in "Show View Options" that did not exist in Mountain Lion or Lion. I'm not sure if the root one (/Library) was ever hidden. I thought it was, but my memory could very well be faulty. I see no mention of it in that article so it probably was just the user one.

 

[R3k]

Never mind

 

[Fuchal]

I don't recall that option when it was first changed in prior version of OS X, but I guess I'm supposed to count fixes retroactively in time when mention something. Besides, it doesn't appear to work with the master root Library (no option in view there), just the user library.

As far as I'm aware the root Library is not hidden.

 

[n-evo]

I don't recall that option when it was first changed in prior version of OS X, but I guess I'm supposed to count fixes retroactively in time when mention something. Besides, it doesn't appear to work with the master root Library (no option in view there), just the user library.

[...]

Besides, it seems like that "fix" didn't help much with 3rd party software file requestors. In fact, I just disabled my home library "view option" (that I don't recall in prior OS X versions) and the option key does exactly NOTHING here. So they either removed the key functionality when they added the preference option or it simply doesn't work here for reasons unknown (it works fine in the dock so my key isn't broke).

A) /Library (or root Library as you call it) isn't hidden in OS X Yosemite, so why should there be an option?

B) Holding down option doesn't reveal the ~/Library in OS X Mavericks either.