A feature list for OSX 10.4...

[movabi]

I think it would be nice to have a forum for feature requests for upcoming versions of OSX. I enjoy seeing what people would like out of their operating system. Maybe by posting them early, Apple may actually implement them.:)

[movabi]

here is my list...

1... Dock improvements including springloaded folders, more placement options, a way to set up and customize the dock
2... tabbed finder windows
3... faster finder
4... theme support and other controls over the system appearance (fonts, font size, shadows)

[rueyeet]

I'll agree on the dock improvements, especially customization and placement. And also on themes/appearance. One of the most harmless things to do would be to just be able to change the colors of the different UI elements, which is so trivial in Windows that I was surprised not to find it in OS X. While I agree that some of the old Kaliedoscope themes made a Mac almost unrecognizable as a Mac, and that Apple wants to keep a more consistent look-and-feel for OS X, I don't think that being able to change fonts and colors would damage their branding THAT much.

(really, all I want to do is turn Aqua purple....is that too much to ask?)

[JackRipper]

1) Smart column view - When a folder is clicked and it's contents displayed in the next column I would like that column expanded so that the full file / folder name may be displayed instead of either guessing what "The...ion" is or expanding it myself. Seems to me that if the Finder is smart enough to know that the column is too small to fit the text that is should be able to resize accordingly.


2) Remove non-stretched resolutions from the monitors pane. What are these good for??? Some games switch the resolution automatically and they always pick the non-stretched ones. This one's becomming a big peeve for me.


3) Live file / folder updates in Finder!!! Sometimes I have to close a folder and reopen to see a newly added file, WTF??!


4) Allow column resizing in Open / Save dialog windows. Mildly annoying.... or maybe they could make it smart ( as in point 1 )


I think that's it for now, I'm an OS X nooB. Just in case someone is wondering, yes I'm using 10.3.2 .

[movabi]

made me remember how fontbook could offer a few more options for showing a font before you add it. Like being able to type different character sets and set custom texts to get a feel of a font.

[The Void]

Tabbed finder windows... yes, but spring-loaded tabs so that drag and drop would be workable.

Purple Aqua... yes!!!

Smart column view ....yes! Also how annoying is it that it won't remember the column widths you set for each folder? Aaaargh.

Define your own function keys.


The Void
........

[movabi]

is there a way to map function keys using shareware?

[x86isslow]

perhaps ultra-fast boot times on hard restart a la` os9,1. this would take away one of the last planks that supports that dying breed.

[Edot]

I am not sure what you mean by mapping keys, but in the keyboard/mouse system prefs in Panther you can map keys to any menu item in any app you want to. I don't know why the F-keys would be any exception.

[dukemeiser]

Themes.

[mnkeybsness]

i'm going to second (third? fourth?) tabs in the finder windows with springloading.

also with tabs, i would love to see them be able to be rearranged a la adium 2 (http://adium.sourceforge.net). be able to move them around in one window, drag them out to create new windows, and drag them from one window to another.

listing in the finder of your path just under the normal buttons a la pathfinder (http://www.cocoatech.com/pf.php)

system lock down similar to XP Pro. in some settings, the administrator can allow CTRL+ALT+DEL to give a menu, by clicking "system lock" or hitting Enter, the system can be locked down with having just a small login window. no other user can log in other than the one who locked it.

switch user without losing network connections or apps stopping their tasks because another user starts using the same app. mostly the network connection bothers me the most. in the first few developer seeds of 10.3 the network connections were not disabled when using fast user switching... it was nice.

allow apps to not show up in the dock if the user does not want them to, but leave the apps menubar functioning.

[DaveTheGrey]

The "cut" function should be enabled for files, not only for text...

It would be much easier to move files, if u could "cut" and "paste" them.

I would suggest that after u have "cut" a file, it should be moved to the desktop, until u "paste" it to another folder. So it wouldn´t be possible to "lose" data. :D


Dave out.

[j33pd0g]

1. Yes, tabs in the finder windows with springloading would be cool, and a step ahead of the other OS's.

2. A portion of the sidebar should have it's own folder properties. A place to put stuff (not simply the alias) when you tunnel around from directory to directory.

3. Side bar should have an option for text only.... and a global pref for hide tool bar in all finder windows is needed.

[snickelfritz]

Improvements to the Finder.
There's no reason why it should not be easier to make shortcuts on the desktop or send files as email directly from Finder Windows.
Windows has had this feature since Win98.
An optional QE 3D navigation system similar to Panther user switching would be a neat feature.

More configurable Dock.
"Dragthing" is much more flexible than the OSX dock, and something like it should have been integrated long ago.
As it is now, utilities like Dragthing seem sort of redundant with the dock hiding in the background.

Get rid of the Jaguar stripes from the menubar.

Better window scaling performance.
This is probably the most glaring problem in Panther.
QE works very smoothly for other functions, so I imagine why it could not be utilized for this purpose as well.

Drop-down calendar or integration with iCal from the menubar clock.
(iCal could simply have a scaled-down menubar calendar function linked with your iCal profile)
Redhat Linux has a nice implementation of this concept.

More Apple desktop patterns and screensavers.

Sidebars in Safari, similar to those IE.

Window focus.
Moving the cursor over a window should bring the window to the foreground without having to click.

[mms]

What about letting users choose between pinstripes and metal in the Finder preferences? So many windows are turning into metal and it annoys me because I liked pinstripes better. Users should be able to choose the appearance.

[Kwyjibo]

Features i'd love to see
Piles
more customization in the menubar
more customization in apps like ichat similar to adium 2
more features in isync ... more phones
more OS ipod integration/features

faster iapps was here but hopefully that will be solved

things that are overrated / dumb to me / not worth dev time:
springloaded folders
themes
Finder is a good speed for me now wasn't in jaguar
Restart times - much better than jaguar - still some room for imrpovement but shouldn't be a focus

[jeff.macaddict]

Purple aqua? So i supose you wear tons of vibrant make-up and are going to get a pink iPod mini?:D

Sorry, just that I think a purple-aqua interface would be bad. For marketing, and wouldn't look as good. Want it that bad? Do it yourself!:D

[Karlchen]

Hithere...

Some features of the shareware "Default Folder" would be the thing...

Click on an open folder on the desktop when saving a file... and have that folder open in the save dialog.

just my 5 cents...

[kettle]

Cocoa Finder
fax that works properly
dial up connecting reliability as good as Jag was/is.
patterns/tiling for window backgrounds

[iJed]

I'd like to see the return of the good old Apple Menu and the addition of smart folders which could be implemented in the finder sidebar or as fake folders. I would also love to see the end of menu blinking or at least make it work properly.

[scem0]

1. Less Bugs
2. Less Bugs
3. Less Bugs
.
.
.
10. Less Bugs

y'all see where I'm going with this ;).

scem0

[TigerPRO]

Originally posted by JackRipper
2) Remove non-stretched resolutions from the monitors pane. What are these good for??? Some games switch the resolution automatically and they always pick the non-stretched ones. This one's becomming a big peeve for me.

Stretched screen resolutions are necessary and very convenient. To the average joe user like yourself, your right, they serve no purpose. But if you are doing video out from your screen to a television, then they come in handy. Otherwise you may end up with bad proportions.

[Counterfit]

Originally posted by snickelfritz
Sidebars in Safari, similar to those IE.I can tell you now that it won't happen. One of the the major points of Safari is that the browser takes up less of the window so that more space is available for the page.
Window focus.
Moving the cursor over a window should bring the window to the foreground without having to click. So whenever the mouse moves, my windows rise underneath? I think that would make me sick...

[crazytom]

I want to see a better implementation of Firewire!!! I'd like to see FW be trully hotswappable. My firewire devices freak out every time I plug in or disconnect my iPod plus I can't use a FW hard disk while my Canon Elura is plugged in.

[Counterfit]

Okay, my requested feature is a new killer app: iSex. Performs a variety of sexual favors on request!

[mnkeybsness]

Originally posted by Counterfit
Okay, my requested feature is a new killer app: iSex. Performs a variety of sexual favors on request!

get a girlfriend/boyfriend, rename them to "iSex"... problem solved.

[JackRipper]

Originally posted by TigerPRO
Stretched screen resolutions are necessary and very convenient. To the average joe user like yourself, your right, they serve no purpose. But if you are doing video out from your screen to a television, then they come in handy. Otherwise you may end up with bad proportions.

Right, I like stretched resolutions, it's the non-stretched ones I don't like.

oh, and how do you know I'm an average joe??

[jxyama]

one thing i noticed i wish apple would change for the next version...

i hope they add a feature that removes all hidden files if a CD/DVD is burned for windows. it's rather annoying and confusing when i burn a CD with jpg's and there are duplicate thumbs of each picture burned as well. (as well as .Trash and .DS_Store's)

so "PC mode" CD/DVD burn would be an easy feature to add...

[Counterfit]

Originally posted by mnkeybsness
get a girlfriend/boyfriend, Therein lies the problem :(

[yamabushi]

1. Total stability.

2. Far more options for customizing the user interface.

3. No more problems with broken permissions.

4. Advanced self healing properties so that even the worst crash will always end with the user at the desktop.

5. Tighter security. Put both Windows and Linux to shame.

6. Better tools for developers built in. Easy to use and powerful OpenGL and Quartz Extreme tools. Built in support for more programming languages and compilers in XCode.

7. Improved user troubleshooting and system maintenance tools.

8. Peripherals should never cause the system to become unstable.

9. Bad memory should be detected automatically.

10. The user should be informed of the source of the problem and how to fix it. Professional service by a technician should be a last resort.

[TigerPRO]

Originally posted by JackRipper
Right, I like stretched resolutions, it's the non-stretched ones I don't like.

oh, and how do you know I'm an average joe??

Are you being glib with me dude? And "average joe" was a very relative statement. It was meant in the context of people outside the realm of it's (stretched resolutions) usage.

[JackRipper]

Originally posted by TigerPRO
Are you being glib with me dude? And "average joe" was a very relative statement. It was meant in the context of people outside the realm of it's (stretched resolutions) usage.

Maybe you should reread my original post. I asked what was the point of NON stretched resolutions.... Meaning the image doesn't fit the screen. I would like them to be removed.

[eclipse525]

- i would like to see improvement on Safari's ability to print web pages. Explorer handles this way better than Safari does at the moment.

- Tabbed FINDER would be a nice addition.

- Oh...I love the Tab feature in Safari BUT would like to see the Tab's better defined. They seem to melt in the interface/browser. Perhaps the active tab would glow or something.


~e

[j33pd0g]

Thought of something else I would like - Transparency option for open folder(s)/window(s).

Edit: Fixed how I worded this. Still may not be wording it right.

[TigerPRO]

Originally posted by JackRipper
Maybe you should reread my original post. I asked what was the point of NON stretched resolutions.... Meaning the image doesn't fit the screen. I would like them to be removed.

Ok then, well those are useful in the area of web design, where you need to simulate square monitors. Can't dump them either. Sorry.

BTW, I was just kidding with you before. Don't take it personally. I was also being glib.

[Counterfit]

They're also very helpful with games. I would hate to play Medal of Honor with stretched 800x600.

[mms]

Something like Cmd-Tab except for all the open windows of the application. F10 works but I don't want to take my hands off the keyboard. Maybe Cmd-Shift-Tab.

[Counterfit]

that's cmd-`

[dstorey]

Heres the list

1) Better windows networking

sometimes it is very hit or miss if I can see the shared folders on my windows box or not. It would be nice for windows users to be able to see my shared folder, or be able to share individual folders, without setting up a user account for them or giving my username/password. Being able to read and write to post fat32 file systems would be nice

2) Speed

I've got a new powerbook and it still lags when typing sometimes if something is going on in the background such as importing a ppt to keynote, ripping a cd, copyig files in finder. Finder seems the worst, so a nice new cocoa finder please

3) Bugs

Why do my icon's on the menu bar keep removing themselves? sometimes its bluetooth, sometimes clock and sometimes the battery.

4) Finder

Being able to resize from any ede of the window would be nice. If a window is on the riht edge of the screen and i want to make the window bigger, it is annoying to have to drag it left then resize it.

Locking the side bar. I've lost count of the amount of times i've accidently dragged a shortcut out the finder.

Meta-data. Would be nice to have a floating transpatent window (a la the volume controls etc) that appeared when hovering over a icon (or maybe option click or other shortcut) that showed meta data such as size, file type, last edited date etc. This could possibly be shown in the bottom of the side bar, but i doubt there is room.

5) User Interface, look etc

I like the look of panther, but some professional themes from apple would be nice, such as semi shiny black onyx with smoother metal or copper instead of brushed metal for that theme. Apple could do a much better job than me anyway, and it would keep the brand image high if they were professional. Maybe 2 alternative themes and different widget colours (similar to ipod mini colours?)

Support for quicktime content/screensavers as a background image. Having images fade in and out and possibly pan would would add to the wow effect if done correctly. Although a full movie would be too distracting, a movie that slowly changed over time would be nice, with subtle changes

Being able to switch off eye candy for old machines would be nice

6) Compatibility

FreeBSD has a linux compatibility layer, why not os x? PPC Linux apps are not as wide spread as x86 but it would add options, especially for none open source linux apps such as DB2 etc.

X11/Linux apps to be more integrated a la carbon/cocoa and java apps. Make it so they use aqua look and feel by default where possible. Make it so you dont have to open X11 first. Add X11 to System Preferences pane to set the options. Add QT and Gnome libs to allow KDE/Gnome apps to work in OS X

Add DarwinPorts with a GUI as an optional install or core install. Renane it to Xports.

Improve textEdits doc format capability and mails enchange capability. Allow doc reading/writing to be system wide using frameworks in cocoa. Let preview (or textedit) to be able to open powerpoint, keynote, and excel files.

Would be nice (but unlikly) to have a basic windows emulator built in (alongside coca/carbon/java/x11) to allow legacy dos and win applications which businesses rely on and have no os x version. Would remove problem that os x doesnt have x,y,z stock control, whatever app. Would be nice to match os x look and feel too.

7) File System

May as well jump on the BeOS file system. I've not used BeOS but i hear its good. I'm reading the guys book at the moment. System wide support for file specific meta data would be nice and smart playlist style searching. Maybe use Berkely DB XML for this. Should be faster than a sql db such as MySQL

8) Dock

As mentioned, spring loaded folders would be nice. Having catagories such as used in CDE on solaris would be nice, such as having a icon for iLife and clicking on it shows iTunes, etc on a verticle dock like menu. You could have menus as default for iLife, mail/safari/addressbook/ical/ichat/ical, dvd player/quicktime, developer tool apps, utilities/system prefs, etc. It would be good to save space when you use a lot of apps, and a logical way to group suites such as Adobe CS, Macromedia Studio, the apple pro apps etc. The groups could have their own icon instead of a generic folder

9) Address Book

Allow different preferences for different groups, thus in your work group, you can default it to show work tel etc while a friends group would default as home. Its annoying having to change the default each time you add a new contact, if they are in a group that does not conform to your set default.

10) iCal

Better integration with address book, so that birthdays are imported etc. Would be nice to auto show the date on the icon without having to open iCal. Showing on the icon that an event is due, such as someones birthday, or you have a meeting today.

11) iChat

support for yahoo/jabba/MSN please...ok last is unlikely, but sadly everyone at university uses it. Tabbed windows would be nice. Offline messages, voice/video mail would be nice (to mac only users at present i guess as wont be supported in aol im) If someone tries to send a message and iChat isnt open, it would be nice to warm me discreetly and allow option to open iChat and reply.

12) Safari

less crashes with java would be nice. Option to make safari automatically pretend to be x86/IE if a site insists on using it. Showing a likes url in the address bar when hovering over it, so you don't have to activate the status bar. Add other options/sherlock channels to the search bar a la Opera

13) Sherlock

Open it when a sherlock search is made from Safari. Faster speed, maybe using webcore. Follow user interface guidelines, in that the search bar should be a rounded text field and not a square one with a ugly green icon.

14) iTunes

Allow songs to have more than one album/default artwork, so that if I import a greatest hits or mix cd it can tell i have it already and ask if you want to associate this album with the song that currently exists in another album. This avoids duplication or having holes in albums. An alias could be added to the new album to point to the song so that in browse mode you get to see the song. When adding/changing tag info, allow changes on per album level for album specific tags such as name, genre etc. When typing album name, only show albums for that artist as you type, and same with artist name. Allow the long silence on songs to be removed when ecoding songs with hidden tracks.

15) Quicktime

Abouttime full screen was allowed for free.

16) Terminal

show colour coding for file and directories by default, or allow it to be easily added.

17) Xcode

Better java support - code complete, interface builder for swing etc

18) Java

Java 1.5 please

19) apple/tab thingy

Allow up/down arrow to go through windows of that application, using preview in icon and document name

20) Quartz3D

some form of support for auto-stereoscopic displays would be nice (my research area at university), with 3D icons, widgets etc..though this isn't very likely.

thats all i can think of at the moment

[johnnyjibbs]

I would really hope that window focus remains to require a click. Otherwise, you'd be switching apps when you didn't want to when accessing palettes etc - HOW ANNOYING WOULD THAT BE!! (Plus clicking the mouse button is hardly a difficult or time-consuming thing to do).

Purple Aqua? Just have a couple more options in addition to Blue and Graphite. My pet peeve with Graphite mode is that not everything changes from Blue (e.g. Finder/iTunes source lists, Safari menu bar buttons, selecting things SOMETIMES, etc). And a mixture of graphite and blue mode is horrible.

Windows resizing - get it sorted speed-wise. It must be bad coding.

Safari tabs - allow them to be dragged to the order your want them to be. I like their appearance though. Hope we don't get a sidebar in it though - that would be horrible and waste space. Oh, and I don't want Safari to be unresponsive for 5 minutes when trying to load ign.com.

iChat - MSN support but I know it won't happen. BTW when someone sends me a message and iChat isn't open, it opens automatically for me.

Finder - not sure tabs are necessary but would be a nice little addition.

TextEdit - a proper toolbar with custom options. Default stuff could include easy access to font and colour panels.

LESS DIFFERENTIATION BETWEEN CARBON AND COCOA APPS! Half the things still don't work properly in carbon apps. How is the average consumer supposed to know what the difference is between a carbon or cocoa app or if they exist in the first place?! And make QuickTime Player dock-aware!!!

Make Finder and QuickTime player and iTunes Cocoa (or sort out point above). Also it would be nice for iTunes menu options to work dynamically in real-time.

[blue&whiteman]

I ask for only 2 things:

1. make the user interface either smaller or more customizable. its just too big and takes up way too many pixels. with x I have to use 1 or 2 resolutions higher than 9 to get the same look. I think 1024x768 on osx looks like 640x480 on 9. make the interface smaller, we are not all blind!@#!@#!@# I have to run my 19" at 1920x1440 just to get all that pixel hogging out of my face.

2. more stable

[johnnyjibbs]

I ask for only 2 things:

1. make the user interface either smaller or more customizable. its just too big and takes up way too many pixels. with x I have to use 1 or 2 resolutions higher than 9 to get the same look. I think 1024x768 on osx looks like 640x480 on 9. make the interface smaller, we are not all blind!@#!@#!@# I have to run my 19" at 1920x1440 just to get all that pixel hogging out of my face.

2. more stable
It's not quite as bad as Windows XP. I switch to classic mode on that for the same reason.

[wdlove]

How about being fully compatable with the 64 bit processors?

[DVDSP]

A pet peeve of mine is that if I am in one app and I click on an app behind the current app to bring the second app to the front some of the windows associated with that app stay behind.

In this shot I was in Mail and clicked on Safari to bring it to the front, but the Downloads window is still behind Mail. That just annoys me. I want the WHOLE APP brought to the front, not just the window I click on...

[millhouse]

id like to see tabbable iChat windows, if Safari can do it why cant iChat be set to make the windows into tabs, its not the photoshop, or golive or keynote windows and palletes that end up eating my screenspace. its the iChat ones.

[shoez]

dstorey - I totally agree with your speed point - I've also noticed that (12" G4). Loads of other great ideas here, I think my main requests (http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=63553) have been made pretty well known. I think the spacing and size issues would be the one thing, if fixed, that could make my Mac experience better :)

Oh and the Finder refresh thing! And the saving of network passwords.. and... an....

shoez

[eclipse525]

iTunes:

It would be nice to have the ability of assigning more than one genre to a peticular song. Then when you sort, they will show up in any of those genre's. There are some songs that can fit into more an 1,2 or 3 genres.

~e

[XnavxeMiyyep]

I want it to be senselessly customizable, like Windows, where you click on the part you want to change. Maybe you could give each button its own color. Maybe even a theming program designed like that. So basically, just really really customizable. Other than that, the more speed, the better.

[ClimbingTheLog]

A pet peeve of mine is that if I am in one app and I click on an app behind the current app to bring the second app to the front some of the windows associated with that app stay behind.

In this shot I was in Mail and clicked on Safari to bring it to the front, but the Downloads window is still behind Mail. That just annoys me. I want the WHOLE APP brought to the front, not just the window I click on...

If you cmd-option-click in the Dock it works like OS9. They were called "Panes" and the God of UI looked upon Panes and said they were good.

[ClimbingTheLog]

I want to be able to take my iBook with me, change stuff (files, Mozilla settings, whatever) and come home and have them reflected on my PowerMac.

I don't want to pay for Server for this (which only works on the LAN anyhow).
I don't want to pay for .Mac for this - I've got a bleedin' modem connection and a fast ethernet LAN.

Basically, iSync for homedirs. Home on iPod would sort of work, but I don't want to have to bring the iPod just for this.

[Blackheart]

2... tabbed finder windows

Tabbed finder windows would be badass. I don't know about anyone else, maybe it's just my slow comp, but safari is getting unstable. Also, you can ctrl-click a minimized finder window to close it, how about other app windows?

[aswitcher]

I want to be able to take my iBook with me, change stuff (files, Mozilla settings, whatever) and come home and have them reflected on my PowerMac.

I don't want to pay for Server for this (which only works on the LAN anyhow).
I don't want to pay for .Mac for this - I've got a bleedin' modem connection and a fast ethernet LAN.

Basically, iSync for homedirs. Home on iPod would sort of work, but I don't want to have to bring the iPod just for this.

That would be pretty cool. A iDisk type arrangement for all your computers, and I suggest backup drives. Also R/W CD for backup updates...

[TigerPRO]

2) Remove non-stretched resolutions from the monitors pane. What are these good for??? Some games switch the resolution automatically and they always pick the non-stretched ones. This one's becomming a big peeve for me.

Not this again...

They are very useful for simulating different resolutions when working with website programming. Additionally, if you are using the video out on your Mac, you need these to be able to see your screen properly when doing an export to a non-wide-screen devices such as an "old" TV. Other other questions? I hope I've cleared this up.

[cb911]

i'd really love to see a better way of OS X handling the VM swap files.

right now i've got 1GB free on my Panther partition (a bit low on free space i know...) but even if i've just got Phtotshop open and use thet for a few hours it'll fill up my Panther partition, even though i've got it set to use different partitions for the scratch disk.

there is a tutorial here (http://www.resexcellence.com/hack_html_01/09-14.01.html) for setting up swap space for OS X in another partition... but it would be nice to see it included as an option. :)

i guess not many people would worry about this though... and it is kind of a weird request. :p

[yamabushi]

11. Fast and accurate dictation using speech/textedit.

12. Voice passwords.

13. Linux application support (as requested above).

14. Better support for (and marketing towards) business and government users.

15. Some form of support for PowerPC hardware made by IBM and possibly others. Sell Licenses for the OS and a generic boot ROM of some kind. Clauses included in the contracts can diminish the threat of market share loss by limiting advertising methods and/or product pricing. Television and radio ads in particular would benefit both parties.

[phrac]

3) Live file / folder updates in Finder!!! Sometimes I have to close a folder and reopen to see a newly added file, WTF??!


Yes, this is very annoying. I would also like to see this.

I would also like to see the ability for multiple virtual desktops (although this is less important with expose. I still like to keep similar type apps on different desktops, keeps things neater, especially on a 'book.

[wdlove]

11. Fast and accurate dictation using speech/textedit.

12. Voice passwords.

Those two items would be awesome. Instead of voice being a play thing. It would be great to be able to use the Mac by voice, typing text, surfing, and posting.

[cesar]

1. tabbed text-editor and tabbed terminal, like gnome's
2. Syntax Highlighting in textedit
3. Code Folding capabilities in xcode, like in kate.kde.org
4. a GUI for changing the login screen.
5. an add-on to iChat to be compatible with T.120 and multi-user videoconfs.
6. a Graphical Code Analyzer like SGIs for Xcode http://www.sgi.com/software/irix/tools/prodev.html#B
7. A cross-plataform Apple Remote Desktop 2. Tinny client app needs to be installed on UNIX, Linux and Windows boxes.
8. Add a direcotry service for iChat to 10.4 server. Offices can use iChat with a local server, instead of conecting to AIM or .mac. Use office login as iChat screenname and user info taken from login data. <-- this is would be great!!
9. More SDKs and frameworks from apple
10. just iLife apps with metal interphase, other apps (iChat, iCal, iSync, AddressBook, and so on... ) with aqua look

[thecow]

I want a way to make all of the windows from one application or all of the windows open fit onto one screen but have them all active unlike exposé. For example in safari if I am comparing 2 web-pages that are longer than the screen I would need to manually drag each of them to fit half of the screen. This is annoying.

[vniow]

Hibernate support!

I love this feature on XP, its great for those of us who have or want to turn our computers completely off instead of sleeping.

[DVDSP]

Hibernate support!

I love this feature on XP, its great for those of us who have or want to turn our computers completely off instead of sleeping.

Please explain Hibernate, until now I always thought that it WAS sleep, just with a different name.

[rice_web]

Please explain Hibernate, until now I always thought that it WAS sleep, just with a different name.

Hibernate actually turns the machine OFF.

However, all the memory is written to disk before shutting down, allowing for quick boots.

[mms]

I'm still not really sure what hibernation is. If the machine writes to the hard disk before shutting down, wouldn't it take as much time as usual in starting up because it has to start up the system and start spinning the hard drive?

Also, I believe I have heard about numerous problems that cropped up from PC users using hibernation. Maybe it's just becuse it's Microsoft, but I wonder if it is a flaw with the concept itself. Perhaps Apple could make a better implementation of it.

[vniow]

rice_web got it. Hibernation freezes everything like it is, saves the state to the hard drive and shuts the computer down where no power is required to keep things in memory, unlike sleep. I use this on my PC all the time, its boots a little bit faster but its main use is being able to save everything like you had it in the event where no power is going to the machine. I'm surprised that it hasn't made itself into OS X yet, its quite nifty.

[WM.]

system lock down similar to XP Pro. in some settings, the administrator can allow CTRL+ALT+DEL to give a menu, by clicking "system lock" or hitting Enter, the system can be locked down with having just a small login window. no other user can log in other than the one who locked it.
Open up Keychain Access and select "Show Status in Menu Bar" from the View menu. Or, if you want to be 1337, you can go to /Applications/Utilities/Keychain Access/Contents/Resources and double-click on Keychain.menu. You'll get a menu extra with a padlock icon, from which you can select "Lock Screen". Your Mac will then go to its screen saver and require a password to unlock the screen. If you have Fast User Switching enabled, I believe you can also switch to another user to unlock it (not sure about this though).

HTH
WM

[WM.]

Improvements to the Finder.
There's no reason why it should not be easier to make shortcuts on the desktop or send files as email directly from Finder Windows.
Select a file. Go to Finder ---> Services ---> Mail ---> Send File. Bada-bing!!!
Better window scaling performance.
This is probably the most glaring problem in Panther.
QE works very smoothly for other functions, so I imagine why it could not be utilized for this purpose as well.
I'm constantly amazed at what people think QE is and isn't--and I'm not even a developer!! Look, it's pretty simple. Quartz Extreme is a hardware-accelerated compositing engine. Nothing less, nothing more. Resizing windows does involve a fair amount of compositing, but I'd have to guess that most of the performance hit is in re-laying-out the contents of the window, like the text of your IMs in iChat or whatever. And that is not compositing, nor is it something that (AFAIK) is easily accelerated by the consumer video cards out there.

In other words, quit yer bitchin'. :) Things did get quite a bit better with Panther, at least on my old-school iBook (not even a Rage 128 over here...).
Sidebars in Safari, similar to those IE.
YUCK YUCK YUCK YUCK YUCK!!!!!! I hope not!! Unless they can be turned off...
Window focus.
Moving the cursor over a window should bring the window to the foreground without having to click.
I wouldn't be surprised if this is an option system-wide at some point, considering that you can do it in Apple's X11, and for all I know implementing that might have laid the groundwork for doing it throughout the OS...

WM

[WM.]

Cocoa Finder
Why?

[WM.]

1. Total stability.

2. Far more options for customizing the user interface.

3. No more problems with broken permissions.

4. Advanced self healing properties so that even the worst crash will always end with the user at the desktop.

5. Tighter security. Put both Windows and Linux to shame.

6. Better tools for developers built in. Easy to use and powerful OpenGL and Quartz Extreme tools. Built in support for more programming languages and compilers in XCode.

7. Improved user troubleshooting and system maintenance tools.

8. Peripherals should never cause the system to become unstable.
Not a very demanding person, are you... :rolleyes:
9. Bad memory should be detected automatically.
It's called ECC, and it costs $$$$. Not that much, but it's something, and there's very little demand for it at the consumer level. We may see Apple introduce it on the Power Mac sometime soon, though, since U3 (now) supports it.
10. The user should be informed of the source of the problem and how to fix it. Professional service by a technician should be a last resort.
Again, not very demanding, eh...

WM

edit: BTW, about the OpenGL tools thing: you may want to check this (http://developer.apple.com/opengl/opengl_serious.html) out.

[WM.]

Heres the list

1) Better windows networking

Being able to read and write to post fat32 file systems would be nice
Panther added read-only NTFS. It's a start...
Support for quicktime content/screensavers as a background image. Having images fade in and out and possibly pan would would add to the wow effect if done correctly. Although a full movie would be too distracting, a movie that slowly changed over time would be nice, with subtle changes
You can do this already. (It's not supported or very easy, but you don't have to recompile your kernel or anything, IIRC.) Search on Mac OS X Hints.
Being able to switch off eye candy for old machines would be nice
Since Panther, I really haven't had any complaints on my trusty old iBook. I appreciate that iTunes doesn't do live window resizing--it would be nice to have that for more apps (as an easily configurable option).
6) Compatibility

FreeBSD has a linux compatibility layer, why not os x? PPC Linux apps are not as wide spread as x86 but it would add options, especially for none open source linux apps such as DB2 etc.
MOSR (not the best of sources) says it's coming...
X11/Linux apps to be more integrated a la carbon/cocoa and java apps. Make it so they use aqua look and feel by default where possible.
I'm pretty sure the natures of X11 and Quartz make that almost impossible.
Make it so you dont have to open X11 first. Add X11 to System Preferences pane to set the options.
Yeah, those would both be nice...
Add QT and Gnome libs to allow KDE/Gnome apps to work in OS X
It's already being done. Check out http://ranger.befunk.com/blog/.
Add DarwinPorts with a GUI as an optional install or core install.
This showed up in some of the earlier builds of Panther (the WWDC preview until 7Bsomething). I'd have to assume it's coming at some point...
Improve textEdits doc format capability and mails enchange capability.
Definitely.
Allow doc reading/writing to be system wide using frameworks in cocoa.
I think that's already happened...
7) File System

May as well jump on the BeOS file system. I've not used BeOS but i hear its good. I'm reading the guys book at the moment.
He's worked for Apple for the last couple of years now. BeOS-style something is coming...we just don't know what. :)
11) iChat

voice/video mail would be nice (to mac only users at present i guess as wont be supported in aol im)
Eh? We already have AV chat with AIM 5.5 or later...
15) Quicktime

Abouttime full screen was allowed for free.
This is my take on an AppleScript that you can find all over the place, including on Mac OS X Hints. It's not the most convenient thing ever, and I barely know AppleScript so I'm sure there's plenty of syntactical or other weirdness, but I use it when necessary and it works fine:
tell application "QuickTime Player"
set request to display dialog "Select a size, or cancel. If you choose Double Size, you can switch among half, normal, and double sizes using Command-0, Command-1, and Command-2, respectively." buttons {"Cancel", "Double Size", "Full Screen"} default button "Full Screen"
if button returned of request is "Double Size" then
present movie 1 scale double
else if button returned of request is "Full Screen" then
present movie 1 scale screen
end if
end tell
Oh, I forgot to mention: I think the script's dialog looks better if you add a line break or two after "respectively." (note the period) but before the end quote.

FWIW
WM

[WM.]

A pet peeve of mine is that if I am in one app and I click on an app behind the current app to bring the second app to the front some of the windows associated with that app stay behind.

In this shot I was in Mail and clicked on Safari to bring it to the front, but the Downloads window is still behind Mail. That just annoys me. I want the WHOLE APP brought to the front, not just the window I click on...
I agree that it's not very OS 9-like, but that window interleaving ability can be a life-saver on small screens (like mine). In fact, I was just using it yesterday. When you have a lot of maximized windows (which I have to), it's essential to be able to see more than one app's windows at a time without having to use cmd-tab or Exposé. I think this should be user-configurable too.

WM

[WM.]

11. Fast and accurate dictation using speech/textedit.
There was a really interesting article (http://www.macdevcenter.com/pub/a/mac/2004/03/17/speech.html) on O'Reilly the other day about the Mac OS speech technology, how it works, and its limitations. Basically, it's not at all suited to dictation, where it would have no idea what you might possibly say next. Instead, it's highly optimized for situations where there are a limited (though fairly large and expandable) number of pre-selected things you might say to it ("tell me the time" or "get my mail" or whatever). It's very good at what it does, but dictation is a completely different kettle of fish.

Now, that's not to say that there's not some incredible dictation technology in Apple's labs. I just don't want people to get the idea that the current technology is easily extensible to dictation.
12. Voice passwords.
Yeah, it would be pretty cool to have those back again...

WM

[WM.]

7. A cross-plataform Apple Remote Desktop 2. Tinny client app needs to be installed on UNIX, Linux and Windows boxes.
ThinkSecret says ARD 2 will support VNC...
8. Add a direcotry service for iChat to 10.4 server. Offices can use iChat with a local server, instead of conecting to AIM or .mac. Use office login as iChat screenname and user info taken from login data. <-- this is would be great!!
Er, like Rendezvous (http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/rendezvous/) messaging? (There's a brief description at the link; since iChat has been out, with this functionality, for so long, I think Apple has stopped hyping it very much, so I couldn't find a very in-depth blurb about it...)

WM

[King Cobra]

All right. My #1 pet peeve about Panther is the layout of items in the Finder window. Now excuse me for being one of the 0.1% of Apple users that works with 800 x 600, but in OS 9, I could have 7 columns of files in a single finder window that took up about 30 to 40% of my screen. In OS 10.3, the number has been reduced to 2 !! I don't want everything to be spread out a ********** mile apart from everything else. What happened to the clean/condensed finder window option from OS 9? Or at least the option to set invisible panel sizes between each item? I don't see any such option. (Oh, and in 10.2, that number of columns was 4. What's going to happen for OS 10.4...one column?? Bullsh***!)

Now, how about some sci-fi functionality with 10.4?

[1] Finder search: I want to be able to put my cursor (on-screen) right over the little search query and, without clicking, have a text flasher (you know, the small, vertical line that flashes once or twice a second when you edit text files) right on the search query...then be able to type something and send the query as a search. "Mouseover searching"

[2] Finder folder navigation: I want to be able to have the option of doing a mouseover over a folder for 0.25 seconds (adjustable) in a Finder window and have it act like a spring-loaded folder for as long as I don't move the mouse away from the spring-pop-up. The purpose would be to "peak" inside folders so I don't have to double-click on them (or click at all) to see what's inside. And if I were to move the cursor inside of the spring folder, that folder would stay open until I close it again with command-W (or the "X" at the top left of the Finder window). "Mouseover spring-loaded folder previews"

And I also want an alternative option for a "tool tip" (you know, the small rectangular faint yellow rectangles that replaced the OS 9 balloons) beside each folder that gives a list of the folder contents upon mouseover. I think this would be better.

[3] I want to have the same option for the Dock, with an option for both file view and list view. "Dock mouseover spring-loaded folder previews"

[4] I want to be able to do a mouseover over the Trash in the Dock and know how many items are in the Trash, and what total KB or MB size they consumer. "Mouseover trash information display"

The sci-fi factor in each of these is the mouseover, where you never have to press a button or a keystroke to open an application, sort of like moving your hand around magically in the air on an imaginary mousepad to access a file or a folder.

(Hell, if you're not sure if that's a great idea, then imagine that your navigating through your Finder windows using the mouseover, and when you get to that text file, again mouseover it and it opens in the application of your choice. Try it.)



Other functions:
[5] I want an option to change the color my item text beside each folder or specific folders independent of the folder labels, like, cyan text on a blue label.

[6] Like in OS 9, I want to know how many items are in the Trash, and what total KB or MB size they take up, before I empty the trash (i.e. upon the confirmation dialog).

[7] I want the Finder sidebar to be an option, not a default, for using Finder windows. Also, I want to have Jaguar Finder icon navigation returned (place items on top of the Finder windows).

This probably won't happen, but:
[8] I would like to see the entire Finder GUI dressed in that of the Shinobi theme for OS X. :D

[Indiana Mac]

I'd really like to see a major enchancement to mail(inlcuding better integration with ical, address book, and stickies, ala Entourage) and an ability to blend perfectly as Outlook(I hate it, but you know alot of people use it).

Better, faster burning ability would be nice(including multi-session burning).

Ability to password protect and encypt folders and files(not my whole home folder).

That's about it for now. Probably have more later.

[mms]

Just thought of two more.
- Better way to view away messages in iChat. Moving your mouse over the sn in the list and hoping the yellow box shows up is very inefficient and annoying. Maybe it can be part of the "Get Info" window like in AIM.
- Ability to write to FTP servers from Cmd-K "Connect to Server" in the Finder. Right now the FTP is read-only, which is annoying because I am forced to use a separate application. I know I can do it from command line, and that is what I do now, but there should be a built-in read/write FTP support in the Finder with a graphical interface.

[WM.]

All right. My #1 pet peeve about Panther is the layout of items in the Finder window. Now excuse me for being one of the 0.1% of Apple users that works with 800 x 600, but in OS 9, I could have 7 columns of files in a single finder window that took up about 30 to 40% of my screen. In OS 10.3, the number has been reduced to 2 !! I don't want everything to be spread out a ********** mile apart from everything else. What happened to the clean/condensed finder window option from OS 9? Or at least the option to set invisible panel sizes between each item? I don't see any such option. (Oh, and in 10.2, that number of columns was 4. What's going to happen for OS 10.4...one column?? Bullsh***!)

Now, how about some sci-fi functionality with 10.4?

[1] Finder search: I want to be able to put my cursor (on-screen) right over the little search query and, without clicking, have a text flasher (you know, the small, vertical line that flashes once or twice a second when you edit text files) right on the search query...then be able to type something and send the query as a search. "Mouseover searching"

[2] Finder folder navigation: I want to be able to have the option of doing a mouseover over a folder for 0.25 seconds (adjustable) in a Finder window and have it act like a spring-loaded folder for as long as I don't move the mouse away from the spring-pop-up. The purpose would be to "peak" inside folders so I don't have to double-click on them (or click at all) to see what's inside. And if I were to move the cursor inside of the spring folder, that folder would stay open until I close it again with command-W (or the "X" at the top left of the Finder window). "Mouseover spring-loaded folder previews"

And I also want an alternative option for a "tool tip" (you know, the small rectangular faint yellow rectangles that replaced the OS 9 balloons) beside each folder that gives a list of the folder contents upon mouseover. I think this would be better.

[3] I want to have the same option for the Dock, with an option for both file view and list view. "Dock mouseover spring-loaded folder previews"

[4] I want to be able to do a mouseover over the Trash in the Dock and know how many items are in the Trash, and what total KB or MB size they consumer. "Mouseover trash information display"

The sci-fi factor in each of these is the mouseover, where you never have to press a button or a keystroke to open an application, sort of like moving your hand around magically in the air on an imaginary mousepad to access a file or a folder.

(Hell, if you're not sure if that's a great idea, then imagine that your navigating through your Finder windows using the mouseover, and when you get to that text file, again mouseover it and it opens in the application of your choice. Try it.)



Other functions:
[5] I want an option to change the color my item text beside each folder or specific folders independent of the folder labels, like, cyan text on a blue label.

[6] Like in OS 9, I want to know how many items are in the Trash, and what total KB or MB size they take up, before I empty the trash (i.e. upon the confirmation dialog).
Now we're getting the great ideas comin' out here!! (That goes for mms and Indiana Mac too.) I (am forced to) use 800x600 too. Column view works pretty well for me, though; I can't imagine using icon view on any kind of regular basis.
[7] I want the Finder sidebar to be an option, not a default, for using Finder windows.
You can kind of do that if you create a new Finder window, drag the separator all the way to the left, and immediately close the window. I haven't tried this myself, because I use the sidebar, but that's what everybody suggests.
Also, I want to have Jaguar Finder icon navigation returned (place items on top of the Finder windows).
If you mean putting folders and such in the toolbar, you can do that too, but it's kind of fidgety. Drag the folder up there and hold it over for a while, and it should drop in.

HTH
WM

[WM.]

I'd really like to see a major enchancement to mail(inlcuding better integration with ical, address book, and stickies, ala Entourage) and an ability to blend perfectly as Outlook(I hate it, but you know alot of people use it).

Better, faster burning ability would be nice(including multi-session burning).

Ability to password protect and encypt folders and files(not my whole home folder).
You can do that now with encrypted disk images--which isn't exactly what you want (less convenient), but it works OK.

And didn't I hear something about multi-session burning and Panther? I could be wrong...

Anyway, great ideas! :)

WM

[KC9AIC]

What about better built in disc burning software? I hate only being able to burn data cds in certain formats. Why doesn't Apple make some sort of addition to Disk Utility or the Finder so that we don't have to buy toast or something to burn Video CDs and the like?

[Indiana Mac]

One feature I do not want. DO NOT CHANGE THE LAYOUT OF THE SYSTEM PERFERENCE PANEL!! I'm still getting used to the one in Panther after over a year of Jaguar(same thing before). A different one every rev? you're kidding me, after 4 years I'd think we would have settled on a way.


WM, I know that i can do encrypted disk images in Panther, I just wish it was a bit more "user friendly".

Overall I just want to see enhancements to the thigns we already have. Make mail deeper and a more robust program. Same thing with TextEdit. Add some features to iChat(tabbed windows ala Adium would be nice). I'd also like to see more robust native print drivers(they are getting better though). TWAIN support would be nice as well. Safari needs to be made more robust(added option to change search engines, more preferences in how things are displayed, etc.). I like OSX where it is at, I think the basic pool of applications needs to be updated and made more robust though.

[cesar]

No, I know about Rendezvous support in iChat, but I want an iChat feature that takes the info from the login server, so I do not need to connect to AOL or .mac to access iChat. Like NIS for UNIX or ActiveDirectory for WinServer. This server will provide user (your office/coorporate user name) and password (office/coorporate user name password).

What I want is a corpotate IM/videoconf/desktop-application-sharing solution from apple that takes the info from the domian server.

[MaccyMarky]

..."view by" headers in finder windows when in column view mode .
Is it just me or does anyone else want their folders (job numbers/projects for example) listed numerically/alphabetically, then the newest files AT THE TOP?
If it's so easy in List view, why not in Column view? Obviously the headers would be close together, or even abbreviated, but so what?

C'mon guys. Small and easy. Not much to ask...

[mvc]

..."view by" headers in finder windows when in column view mode .
C'mon guys. Small and easy. Not much to ask...

Dang, I thought panther had fixed this - this one "feature" renders column view completely useless for me. I couldn't agree more - this needs to be improved. :(

[Indiana Mac]

One thing I wish Apple would add(more like fix). Is the Ability to use two different kinds of conenctions at the same time(Airport and the modem, or Airport and an Ethernet connection etc.) Right now I have a problem in surfing the internet over AP while connected to a physical LAN, or connecting to a modem while the Ethernet is up.

I do this because my father's network is a LAN and I sometimes have to do major file transfers over to his computers, so I hook up into it, but to access it I have to turn off my AP connection to the internet. I do the same thing with a Win2k machine I have, I use it to backup my home folder to(10GBs of info, music, etc.) so I use my LAN, but I'd like to be able to surf over AP. I don't know if anyone else has this problem, but if its not just me( I don't think it is) then we need this added.

[crenz]

Support for WebDAV on SSL servers. Pleeeeaaase! Unencrypted, WebDAV is useless for me.