Detailed Panther Info and Screenshots

[MacRumors]

ThinkSecret (http://www.thinksecret.com/news/pantherfindersystem.html) and MacOSXRumors (http://www.macosxrumors.com/) posted their screenshots and details of the developer's release of Panther.

Meanwhile, RailHeadDesign (http://www.railheaddesign.com/) has posted an easy to follow and extensive screenshot-walkthrough of Panther. (Click on Various Page, then An OS X 10.3 Panther Visual Tour)

[evoluzione]

i like the detailed tour on RailHeadDesign, very nice. I think Panther will be a good OS when it's ironed out, I didn't like the icon ghosting when i first used it, but it grows on you, and the window frames, well, still don't like them, but they'll be li'l hacks on versiontracker when it's released for sure....

thanks for the links :)


:edit: some great things i love though.... exposé and the fast user switching are very very slick, even on a g3 iBook

[cc bcc]

Desktop and Screensaver pref panes are now combined as "Destop & Screen Saver" including the spelling error. :D

[Freg3000]

I am anxious to see Think Secret's reports on Panther throughout this summer. Although I wasn't on the Mac scene when Jaguar was in beta, I understand that TS had some in-depth reports. Hopefully they'll pull through again.

[markiv810]

Pictures removed from ThinkSecret

[Raiden]

macosxrumors claims ICQ support for ichatAV!! Cool!

[cyberddot]

Ditto on RailHeadDesign's walkthrough. Very Apple. Thanks for the link AND thanks to the rep of the McCown clan for nice work.

My only complaint is that my 15" screen requires too much scrolling, damnme. ;)

dot

non-sequitur: desperately seeking hand-me-down 23" LCD with CPU and accoutrements. G4 OK. Gratis a must.

[MacManDan]

I'm impressed with the detail that went into RAILhead's picture walk-through. That guy always happens to come out with quality work!

hmm .. the new "Start up at a specified time" feature is one tiny upgrade that I will gladly welcome.....

[beatle888]

very nice. its all beginning to grow on me. i really love the new AND FAST navigation of the finder. love the way the open and save dialogs work. oh and how you can click on the upper right finder window button to hide the new itunes-like layout of the finder windows, nice to have the option to view the finder windows like they are now just by a click of that button. i didnt like the new grey finder at first but with the new G5's this OS is going to look and feel so fine, and so generous and thoughtful towards professionals.

apple has never (that i can remember) been so attractive.

[C14ru5]

My favorite feature: Logout after X minutes of inactivity. I've been missing this feature from MacOS 9 ever since OS X came out. This is perfect for public terminal machines, say at an internet café. This in combination with automatic startup/shutdown scheduling and fast user switching is a winner!

[vniow]

I hope this isn't too off topic but its sorta related...

Does anyone know if Panther's Finder is Carbon or Cocoa?

[C14ru5]

I see no reason why the Panther Finder should be Cocoa. Finder is made up of so many lines of code that such a rewrite brobably wouldn't be worth the effort of the Apple Developers. And any Mac user who wishes to use a cocoa UI can simply run Path Finder instead.

[vniow]

Originally posted by C14ru5
I see no reason why the Panther Finder should be Cocoa. Finder is made up of so many lines of code that such a rewrite brobably wouldn't be worth the effort of the Apple Developers. And any Mac user who wishes to use a cocoa UI can simply run Path Finder instead.


With Cocoa apps, its easier to remove/add the metal appearence...

[Belly-laughs]

So, we finally see people appreciating the missing "goodies" from OS 9.

And finally , the OS of (the greatest) graphic artists now include a proper font managing system. It´s finally time to ditch Suitcase!

[hvfsl]

The DVD player shot did not have the streeking effects that appear in interlaced DVDs in the old DVD player. I hope this means Apple has included hardware de-interlacing because the DVD looked like a DVD that would normally have interlacing on it (not a film DVD). For me this is worth the price of the upgrade alone.

I also prefer the new Aqua theme, it looks much better than 10.2. Although if anyone wants that theme on their Mac now, they can get it from www.maxthemes.com and install it on 10.1.x or 10.2.x.

For anyone out there that is using 10.3, can you tell me if the DVD player really does do hardware de-interlacing?

[steve-dave]

Everything I've seen says that the finder has been completely rewritten. And I'm sure if Apple did a total rewrite it would have been in Cocoa not Carbon.

The finder is one of the most important elements of the UI so it stands to reason that if Apple was planning on rewriting anything the finder would be near the top of the list (after all the major work foundation work is complete).

Originally posted by vniow
I hope this isn't too off topic but its sorta related...

Does anyone know if Panther's Finder is Carbon or Cocoa?

[dukemeiser]

It looks like Apple does a lot of "logical cleanup" in Panther. Such as combining logical panes in System Prefs. or simplifying the Activity Monitor. My only complain: still no themes!!!

[Squire]

I'm not a long-time Mac user, but there don't seem to be THAT many differences. I like the Expose feature, though.

Actually, I'm still getting to know Jaguar.

Squire

[The Grimace]

I was just walking through RailHead Designs tour, and couldn't help but notice that the 'tabs' design seems to have changed. Personally, I like it. Just a thought.

(tig)

[markomarko]

One thing I've noticed that is lacking in the version of Panther I've been playing with, as opposed to what Steve demoed at wwdc is fast user switching without password. (One other thing: powerbook battery life is greatly reduced in this version. Let's hope that's fixed for primetime).

If anyone has any insight as to how to enable fast user switching without password please let me know...

[scan300]

Originally posted by Belly-laughs
So, we finally see people appreciating the missing "goodies" from OS 9.

And finally , the OS of (the greatest) graphic artists now include a proper font managing system. It´s finally time to ditch Suitcase!

Be careful. The auto activation feature in fontbook may only work with Cocoa apps. There are only a few design apps with are Cocoa, most are carbon. They don't use the new font menu which can show your sets and families etc. Suitcase may hang around for a little while yet.

[Juventuz]

Originally posted by markomarko
If anyone has any insight as to how to enable fast user switching without password please let me know...

My fiancee set up an account on my PB with the fast user switching. The only way we can have it work without the password is by going into System Preferences and leaving the password blank in Accounts.

So far that's the only way it will work without the password.

[robotrenegade]

I want 10.3 now damnit!!!:mad:

[rockman2023]

WHOA! I found this link on one of the FunMac threads: http://www.macworld.co.uk/news/main_news.cfm?NewsID=6548 and it states:
For example, although Apple states the maximum memory of the top-end Power Mac G5 as 8GB, it could - if the DIMMs existed - stretch to an almost unthinkable 18 exabytes (a billion billion bytes). 1 exabyte equals 1,024 petabytes. 1 petabyte is a quadrillion bytes. 18 exabytes is a hell of a lot of RAM!
Boger claimed that if memory requirements doubled every year, the G5's 64-bit architecture would still support our needs in 32 years.

HA! You'd never have to upgrade a G5 to a G6 for as long as you live!!! UNBELIEVEABLE!

[Belly-laughs]

Originally posted by scan300
Be careful. The auto activation feature in fontbook may only work with Cocoa apps. There are only a few design apps with are Cocoa, most are carbon. They don't use the new font menu which can show your sets and families etc. Suitcase may hang around for a little while yet.

There´s always a hitch, isn´t it?

[leo]

Originally posted by rockman2023
WHOA! I found this link on one of the FunMac threads: http://www.macworld.co.uk/news/main_news.cfm?NewsID=6548 and it states:

[snip]

HA! You'd never have to upgrade a G5 to a G6 for as long as you live!!! UNBELIEVEABLE!

This source is wrong. Note that the memory addressing of the PowerPC 970 is 42-bit, not 64. Thus, the theoretical maximum of RAM is about 4096 Gigabytes (or 4 TiB in IEC standard).

Note that this is much, much less than 18 Exabytes. ;)

SCNR

[hvfsl]

Originally posted by dukemeiser
It looks like Apple does a lot of "logical cleanup" in Panther. Such as combining logical panes in System Prefs. or simplifying the Activity Monitor. My only complain: still no themes!!!

Just go to www.maxthemes.com for all your theming needs. There are some good apps out now for theme switching that are safe and easy to use.

[Catfish_Man]

The Finder is carbon, and the main window is NOT nib based, making it very dificult to demetallize. It is, however, a complete rewrite. Note that Cocoa is not inherently superior to Carbon, so it really doesn't matter.

[nichrome]

The Railhead tour is pretty okay, but it's full of glaring flaws. No changes in Address Book? Except the totally new prefs, eg. template (http://maczsoftware.com/blogs/lkieksi/panther/Jun27-2003-1/abook_template.jpg)? Also, since Railhead's Maury uses a single-headed system, he's missed a cool new feature of the Displays prefpane, "attach pref panels to this display".

Side note, a pile (pun intended) of Panther Preview pics available here (http://maczsoftware.com/blogs/lkieksi/panther/).

[AidenShaw]

Originally posted by leo
This source is wrong. Note that the memory addressing of the PowerPC 970 is 42-bit, not 64. Thus, the theoretical maximum of RAM is about 4096 Gigabytes (or 4 TiB in IEC standard).

Note that this is much, much less than 18 Exabytes. ;)



If you read the Apple document referenced at:

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?threadid=31223

you'll see that the mobo chipset used in the G5 uses only 36-bit physical addressing, not the full 42-bit of the 970.

This will limit any system based on that chipset to 64 GiB of RAM, period.

A new chipset could go higher, but Apple probably won't have any need to add addressing lines until the PPC980 chipset is built.

[Sabenth]

is most of this cosmetic stuff or what i am currours as to what makes this so diffrent from the current version(s) not dissing it or anything it looks more profesional but then again my current bulid is 10.2 and it looks supperior to my windows xp machine colour is fantastic on a mac for some reason and no its not my pc screen ...

this looks like its going to change the whole meaning of computing for me again

[gunb0y]

Originally posted by Sabenth
is most of this cosmetic stuff or what i am currours as to what makes this so diffrent from the current version(s) not dissing it or anything it looks more profesional but then again my current bulid is 10.2 and it looks supperior to my windows xp machine colour is fantastic on a mac for some reason and no its not my pc screen ...

this looks like its going to change the whole meaning of computing for me again

one addition in Panther that you may find useful is a period....

[IJ Reilly]

Thanks to RailHeadDesign for the great tour (with the caveats previously mentioned ... what a critical bunch!).

Anyway, has anyone head about any changes and improvements to the Classic environment? I really expected Apple to improve Classic/X integration with Panther. This is long overdue.

[daveL]

Originally posted by rockman2023
WHOA! I found this link on one of the FunMac threads: http://www.macworld.co.uk/news/main_news.cfm?NewsID=6548 and it states:


HA! You'd never have to upgrade a G5 to a G6 for as long as you live!!! UNBELIEVEABLE!
Bzzzt. Reality break. From page 24 of the
"PowerMacG5" developer doc:

G5 processor implements a 42 bit physical address. That's 4 terabytes.

BUT the U3 Memory Controller uses only 36 bit wide addresses. That's 64 GB max for the box. You'd need to wait for 8 GB memory sticks to achieve that.

[phillymjs]

I really like the understated Aqua stripes, but I HATE the metallicized Finder- I hope a hack to restore the Aqua Finder pops up PDQ when Panther is released.

I wholly agree with people who say that it's tough to tell at a glance which metal window is the frontmost one-- recently I've found myself quitting Safari when I meant to quit iTunes, and I've also kicked iTunes into "Visual Effects" mode (Command-T) instead of opening a new tab in Safari a few times. Very irritating.

[Fredo Viola]

I'm really not so excited about the look of Panther. Some of the features seem cool. Others seem cool for cool sake. The most important thing I'd like to know is, will the interface be fast!

[soggywulf]

Originally posted by Fredo Viola
The most important thing I'd like to know is, will the interface be fast!

Yeah, I agree with this. Espcially how the Finder handles long file lists. If I open a window with >1k items, the Finder simply locks up for a good few minutes on a QS867. Unacceptable.

[Catfish_Man]

Originally posted by Fredo Viola
I'm really not so excited about the look of Panther. Some of the features seem cool. Others seem cool for cool sake. The most important thing I'd like to know is, will the interface be fast!

Yes, it's faster. They figured out how to hardware accelerate scrolling (like the old OS9 copybits() function). Also, menus and sheets have been sped up, and code optimization improved.

[Fredo Viola]

Okay, it's faster, but that doesn't mean fast, considering how terribly slow Jag is. I'm a huge Jag fan, it's stable, smart and elegant, but honestly I expect some serious performance on the speed side now. How did you learn of the speed increase?

[GulGnu]

Originally posted by Fredo Viola
Okay, it's faster, but that doesn't mean fast, considering how terribly slow Jag is. I'm a huge Jag fan, it's stable, smart and elegant, but honestly I expect some serious performance on the speed side now. How did you learn of the speed increase?

Just for curiosity's sake - how much RAM / VRAM are you using? I just switched to the new 900 MHz iBook w/ 640 megs of RAM, 32 VRAM, (Hardly a speed monster in other words) and I don't really notice the interface being noticably slower than XP on my 2,2 GHz P4 w/ 1 Gig of RAM.

Regards / GulGnu

-Stabil som fan!

[vollspacken]

yeah! panther looks sweet!

I like the fact that all the stuff is much more integrated and that several features got simplified...

I can't wait to purchase a copy :)

good job RailheadDesign... the tour gives you an excellent insight

vSpacken

[beatle888]

i have a 667tibook with 512 of ram and over all speed of OS is OK. sometimes the system experiences horrible slowdown...the spinning beach ball. but thats usually because im pushing the systems to its max.

[Fredo Viola]

1.25 gigs of ram. OS9 is still speedier.

[gotohamish]

Originally posted by Fredo Viola
1.25 gigs of ram. OS9 is still speedier.

Sure, maybe for clicking on the File menu, but navigating a file takes MUCH longer in 9 than in X. So it's relative.

[Fredo Viola]

Generally I find that there is a lot of functionality that is slower in os10. Definitely more stable, though, and I'd rather have the confidence that things won't crash than be speeding around worrying about oncoming chaos. And AfterEffects works SOOOOOO BADLY in os10, it's totally anti-creative. But I hear that AE works much much better in Panther. Ach, with all this hype it would be very unfortunate if things are not significantly faster. I'm going to buy the G5 as soon as it's released, and Panther. If the speed issue of the os is not seriously improved, though, I'm honestly thinking about adding a little darkness to my studio...

[beatle888]

you dont have to think about the darkside anymore. the g5's will bring plenty of speed to the os. that paired with the speed increases of panther (did you see how fast it was to SEARCH large drives?) would make most very happy.

[Fredo Viola]

happy happy happy

[QuiteSure]

Originally posted by soggywulf
Yeah, I agree with this. Espcially how the Finder handles long file lists. If I open a window with >1k items, the Finder simply locks up for a good few minutes on a QS867. Unacceptable.


How do you function with so many items in one window? I'm not intending to criticize your file organization, but couldn't you put some of these files into subfolders? Or are you working in a specialized environment that requires all of these files to be in one folder?

[york2600]

Has anyone noticed that Apple left out an icon on the sidebar for the Desktop in the open/save dialogs. Please of please fix that. It's horrible to have to nav to the Desktop and then run into the bug where you can't select it, but only use the widget to show the contents of the folder. Everyone that complains about final release bugs should use a beta and see what Apple has to fix for all those months before the final release. Panther is amazing, but like any Apple OS always needs a bit of tweaking. That's what 10.3.7 will be for.

[soggywulf]

Originally posted by QuiteSure
How do you function with so many items in one window? I'm not intending to criticize your file organization, but couldn't you put some of these files into subfolders? Or are you working in a specialized environment that requires all of these files to be in one folder?

I have this happen routinely when I slurp down a few thousand mp3's. Yeah it's play, not work; still I think the OS should handle this situation more gracefully than it does now.

[edenwaith]

Originally posted by MacManDan

hmm .. the new "Start up at a specified time" feature is one tiny upgrade that I will gladly welcome.....

Great! Now every feature from OS 8/9 that I want will be in OS X! Beautiful! At first glance, Panther did not look that amazing of an upgrade, but the more I look, I'm finding some nice small additions. The scheduled start-up or shut-down is a great feature.

Another feature I'm pleased to see is the secure deletion of files.

[Wonder Boy]

Originally posted by edenwaith
Great! Now every feature from OS 8/9 that I want will be in OS X! Beautiful! At first glance, Panther did not look that amazing of an upgrade, but the more I look, I'm finding some nice small additions

I agree. I find myself more excited about the features being brought back from os 9 rather than new ones...

[Dave Marsh]

Has anyone noticed during startup in Jaguar that synchronization is misspelled as "syncronization"?

:D

[nichrome]

Originally posted by york2600
Has anyone noticed that Apple left out an icon on the sidebar for the Desktop in the open/save dialogs.Just drag the Desktop folder from your Home into the sidebar and be done with it.

Side note, the pics that I referred to earlier were removed due to... issues.