Old Exposé in Snow Leopard

[Amdahl]

And then you chalk unhappiness with the new system up to user error, rather than a fundamental flaw in the new algorithm. The new Expose is failing in its job of helping users find the windows they want because it is not giving the users the information that would best help them make the correct selection. It is not giving them size or position information for any windows. Failure. End of story.

Sounds pretty reasonable to me. Time to flood the Apple bug report box?

 

[cksubs]

Any hope we could find a terminal command like this?

https://forums.macrumors.com/archive/index.php/t-87626.html

Think of all those old half-baked dock/expose/minimizing features that have stuck around in the OS X code. The old Expose algorithm has to be in there somewhere!

 

[Saturn1217]

Hmmm...

I just started trying out Snow Leopard a week ago. I actually think it was a good idea for apple to try to improve expose. I appreciate their attempts to make minimized windows more useful but clearly the people working on this never got the kind of fresh input from outsiders that was necessary to see the obvious shortcomings.

It would be really nice (and hopefully not that difficult) if you could have hot corners set up to show all open non-minimized windows and another with all minimized windows.

Hopefully apple realizes that they need to enhance the usability a bit (and give people back the old expose option if they wish)

Maybe this will be like the transparent menu bar in leopard. They realized by 10.5.2 that users deserved an option. Maybe apple will figure it out this time too

 

[ProfMonnitoff]

I totally understand that some like the new exposé more. Different people have different workflows I suppose.

What I don't understand is why Apple didn't leave behind some terminal command to change it back. That would be obscure enough to not bother anybody, but enough to make us shut up.

 

[adamkesher234]

definitely, we should all submit our feedback to apple. I have only come across one person who actually likes the new expose - correction, he "doesn't mind" the new expose.

it totally blows, it's as if a windows guy was working on the inside and now he's managed to corrupt what used to be probably the best feature of a mac.

 

[adamkesher234]

send criticisms about the new SL expose here:

http://www.apple.com/feedback/macosx.html

 

[dyn]

I'm another HCI researcher chiming in here to tell you that you're completely off base with this assertion. People DO NOT find the window they want by the window's title unless they absolutely have to. They find it primarily by a combination of the following three attributes: appearance, location, and size. Previously, the old Expose's algorithm degraded each of these attributes in scale ONLY UNTIL all windows could be fit on the screen. Unfortunately, the new Expose disregards and throws away both the location and size attributes. It is CLEARLY less usable.

Unfortunately there are hundreds of tests that prove other wise. Again, theory != reality. Obviously you haven't tried doing Expose on a 15" screen with more than 20 windows open. You'll see that doing things visually flies right out the window as it is impossible to do so. You also haven't worked with applications that have more than just 1 window open because it than too becomes nearly impossible to tell the difference between two windows, especially in cases when you're comparing text. The only thing that helps in that case is zooming the window (which old Expose couldn't do but the new can) or looking at the labels (which old Expose only could do by hovering the mouse over them).

What you're describing about the old Expose is untrue as well. The problem with the old Expose was it couldn't display all of the windows because of how it worked. This was actually one of the documented improvements for the new Expose although it too doesn't show all the windows, it just shows more.

In other words: get out of your books and start using it and looking at how other people use it! You'll see what I mean and why a lot of people are liking the new Expose.

Finding a window using Expose should rely on visual cues, not a search through each item in a grid. The one-by-one search should occur only in the wost cases, that is, when the expose algorithm has failed and not enough visual cues are preserved to accurately select the window. At a time like this, yes, labels for every window would be an improvement to the old Expose. Labels would actually always be an improvement (it is one extra piece of information), but not at the expense of more useful visual cues. That's the key.

The problem with the old one is that you had to depend entirely on visual cues which is impossible to do in a lot of situations. If you have more than 1 window open in an application you have to look at a couple of small windows to be able to see or guess if it is the correct one. There is no zoom option. You could use the labels to identify but you had to hover over every window. Because of that old Expose is not as good as new Expose is (new Expose has these features). Windows that are disappeared but you remembered they were there somewhere are the main reason why people tend to use Expose. Mostly they do remember what it was. In that case the new Expose is a lot more helpful as you don't have the visuals you need for old Expose to find the window you were looking for. That's the key to what I'm saying. You need visual cues in the old Expose because that's the only way it works. If you don't have any visual cues or you have too few this makes old Expose a disaster.

You say yourself that you only activate Expose with a very large number of windows. But at that point, the grid view is not THAT much better (if at all) than the classic Expose jumble of many windows. It's primarily the labels that you're championing, as well as the zooming and whatever else. You need to realize that. We ALL like the ideas of, if not necessarily the execution, of zooming, labels, extra stuff, etc. It's the sizing/positioning/grid algorithm that we want changed. There is no logical argument for having a grid view over the old view.

Not just the labels, you can sort the windows to applications and you can type the name of the window. I can also guess quickly because I can use the zoom function in that case. These are all stuff you don't have with the old Expose. You have to guess in this huge chaos of windows and that's what making it hard to find a window.

Thank you for your observations as it is a very important one. Expose is not just the way of displaying windows on screen. It does a whole lot more and it's those things that people are forgetting. The only thing I see that people are complaining about is how Expose is displaying the windows. They simply forget all the other tools and the fact that it is the combination of it all that makes Expose a good or bad thing for users. Because you don't like one part does not make Expose rubbish or not conform any HCI thing out there. As I already explained many times there are a lot of situations where the old Expose is hard to use and what the new Expose actually solves. There is no logical argument in shouting Expose is rubbish and non-HCI just because you don't like what it does.

This is great: You say that the old Expose failed when presented with a multitude of windows, a test that the new grid view also fails and which is only helped by the addition of labels. Labels are a completely different issue than the Expose algorithm. And then you chalk unhappiness with the new system up to user error, rather than a fundamental flaw in the new algorithm.

Nope, this is what you are saying and it only shows you have no idea what I'm talking about. I suspected that already as no one in this thread mentioned the situations I'm talking about. No one is telling that those situations are wrong and that the old Expose would be able to function properly in those situations. Not entirely true as you're the first who does so a little and you're actually saying I'm right

Another fun thing to see is that none of the HCI people seem to know that people do not like changes. They hold on to old things for a very long time and do not accept changes. It goes as far as users panicking because 2 icons switched places. If you don't know what I mean ask sysadmins and helpdesk people, they have enough stories about this (be prepared for a rant as sysadmins generally hate developers and HCI people). Why I'm saying this? Because it might also be the reason why some people dislike the new Expose. If you compare it to the old one it is quite different and this means that a lot of people need to change their way of doing things. It is this kind of change that people dislike a lot and why there is a lot of negative talk in the canteen when the IT department rolls out new software. When time passes you see people are starting to get more positive with the new software. It's the main reason why there are 2 evaluations after the roll out. One is after 1 month of usage and the other after 6 months. The 1 month evaluation is a lot more negative than the 6 month evaluation. If things are really bad you see that the 6 month evaluation is as negative as the first one.

Again this is not user error and I'm not the one blaming the user for it. The only one doing that is you. You failed to understand the sentences in that citation as it clearly stated: "People disliking how something works is completely different but not unimportant.". HCI is not about liking or disliking new/old features, it's about what is more intuitive for a user. As I've already mentioned there are quite some situations in which the old one is not intuitive and makes things harder to find and where the new one solves those problems.

The new Expose is failing in its job of helping users find the windows they want because it is not giving the users the information that would best help them make the correct selection. It is not giving them size or position information for any windows. Failure. End of story.

Nope, the old Expose failed to do so for a lot of situations and Apple addressed it so now it functions correctly. You do not need size and position about windows because that information is mostly unusable due to too small windows. In some cases however this might help. Again Expose is more than just laying out windows on the screen, it's also about interacting with those windows. As I've already mentioned there are quite some situations in which the old one is not intuitive and makes things harder to find. Because there are quite a lot of situations in which the new one is better (and what you are confirming) you can't say that the new Expose is not in line with HCI. I'm only seeing user preference being displayed in this thread and that has got little to nothing to do with HCI.

Too bad we're still talking about old Mac users, people who have used Macs for quite some time and are used to certain things. New users do not have these problems and tend to be a lot more open minded in learning stuff. If you really want to be sure if the new or old Expose is the best you'll have to set up a test using new users. If people who never used it like one of the two better than this is a much more accurate way of proving if something is conform the HCI stuff.

Take a look at what ProfMonnitoff is saying. He is absolutely right: there are people who like it as well as people who dislike it. Just do what adamkesher234 says and submit it to Apple. I don't mind if we got a cli setting or a checkbox to change the Expose algorithm because that is what the people in this thread actually want.

Btw: when I do a search on Google I only find a lot of positive articles about the new Expose and people liking it. The only negative I find are links to this thread...

 

[Sdashiki]

Nice...speech?

In the end, its a personal preference whether the "new and improved" Expose is better or worse.

You can argue YOUR points about why its better or worse, but if a user doesnt like it, you can't fault them for a preference.

 

[TheSpaz]

I'm at work on Tiger and I just used Exposé and I have to agree that the new one is better. I had a few Finder windows open, a full screen illustrator document open and a webpage open. The Exposé was un-organized and the Finder windows shrunk to way too small to see anything in them and the Illustrator document was HUGE.

Now... If I would have tried this in Snow Leopard, I would have gotten 2 bigger Finder windows, a small Illustrator window and a small browser window. The 2 Finder windows would be easily to see now and the Illustrator document is un-mistakable and the webpage is also un-mistakable.

Also, there was still huge gaps of unused screen space. I'm starting to see that the new Exposé is more helpful than the old one. You can zoom windows, type to get a certain window and even see all the labels all the time.

Old Exposé: Everything seemed too small. Can't see the window titles clearly. Windows are scattered all over the screen in no uniform order

New Exposé: Everything fits neatly in a grid. Small windows are bigger and easier to see and large windows are shrunk down (because large windows are easier to see usually).

Also, I'd like to point out that I usually know what is on my screen and what it looks like. So, technically it doesn't matter if my windows are different sizes. It only matters that they are organized and easy to find.

 

[NoSmokingBandit]

So much wasted space....

 

[TheSpaz]

So much wasted space....

First of all, you minimized Safari.

Second: You had to Exposé 2 windows?

Third: How would that have been better with the old Exposé?

 

[NoSmokingBandit]

First of all, you minimized Safari.

Second: You had to Exposé 2 windows?

Third: How would that have been better with the old Exposé?

First: So? Am i not allowed to minimize windows any more?

2nd: Its just an example of how terrible the new expose is. That could have been system preferences and finder, coda and firefox, thunderbird and VLC...

C: It would look like this (i had to use my other comp with leo on it):

It makes much more sense this way because the finder windows are pushed out of the way for the tiny iTunes player to take up the same amount of screen space.

 

[TheSpaz]

First: So? Am i not allowed to minimize windows any more?

2nd: Its just an example of how terrible the new expose is. That could have been system preferences and finder, coda and firefox, thunderbird and VLC...

C: It would look like this (i had to use my other comp with leo on it):

It makes much more sense this way because the finder windows are pushed out of the way for the tiny iTunes player to take up the same amount of screen space.

Exposé isn't about seeing what's in your windows... it's for switching windows when you have too many open. I hardly call 2 windows is a need to activate Exposé. Also, in the old Exposé, Safari wouldn't have even showed up if you had it minimized.

Have you ever used cmd ~? For 2 windows, there's no need for Exposé, unless you seriously couldn't find your iTunes window.

 

[drossad]

WOW!!!!

"dyn" has all the answers!

I am with "Sdashiki" on this one though.
You make a lot of good points "dyn", but that doesn't mean you are completely correct, since what you are saying is based off of the bias of your opinion.

I personally like the old expose better... but I could see the benefit of many of the new attributes like zooming & labels for each window without having to pass your mouse over it.

What it comes down to is - opinion and personal workflow.

Therefore, I think Apple should make expose and it's behaviors completely customizable. Then everybody would be happy, right?!?

 

[NoSmokingBandit]

Exposé isn't about seeing what's in your windows... it's for switching windows when you have too many open. I hardly call 2 windows is a need to activate Exposé. Also, in the old Exposé, Safari wouldn't have even showed up if you had it minimized.

Have you ever used cmd ~? For 2 windows, there's no need for Exposé, unless you seriously couldn't find your iTunes window.

My apologies. Do you have instructions on how to properly use expose or are you just talking out of your ass?

I know how expose works. I know that minimized windows dont show up in Leopard. I also know that the mini-player doesnt need the same amount of space as a full finder window.

But its a decision apple made, so it has to be correct, right? I must be doing something wrong.

 

[ViViDboarder]

I agree that shrinking windows that could fit full size is stupid.

I think a good blend between these would be to use the old format for the full size windows and have minimize windows show up at the bottom but even smaller than they are now. It's a good idea to see everything and can be useful if you forgot you minimized something. I just don't see why you'd have it shrink down windows that could easily be full size!

Also, there are a lot of times to Expose two windows. Sometimes they take up the full screen so you can't just click on the other one. Also, maybe you have 5 Safari windows open and 2 finder windows. You're in one finder and you want to find the other. I use Same Application Expose a lot for this. So I can just see my two Finder windows and ignore everything else.

Being able to see inside the window is also useful for this. When you have a finder window open with two different folders, knowing which is which is easier with a better picture of what's in it. Same with Safari or virtually anything else. Not everyone has one Finder, one Safari, one iChat, one iTunes, etc... open where it's instantly apparent from the general layout.

On top of that... The current shrunk methods just have more WASTED space!!! How could it possibly be bad to take advantage of that???

 

[TheSpaz]

I agree that shrinking windows that could fit full size is stupid.

I think a good blend between these would be to use the old format for the full size windows and have minimize windows show up at the bottom but even smaller than they are now. It's a good idea to see everything and can be useful if you forgot you minimized something. I just don't see why you'd have it shrink down windows that could easily be full size!

Also, there are a lot of times to Expose two windows. Sometimes they take up the full screen so you can't just click on the other one. Also, maybe you have 5 Safari windows open and 2 finder windows. You're in one finder and you want to find the other. I use Same Application Expose a lot for this. So I can just see my two Finder windows and ignore everything else.

Being able to see inside the window is also useful for this. When you have a finder window open with two different folders, knowing which is which is easier with a better picture of what's in it. Same with Safari or virtually anything else. Not everyone has one Finder, one Safari, one iChat, one iTunes, etc... open where it's instantly apparent from the general layout.

On top of that... The current shrunk methods just have more WASTED space!!! How could it possibly be bad to take advantage of that???

Actually... I do all of my Finder browsing through 1 window.

Finder: One window 98% of the time
Safari: One window, multiple tabs
iChat: One window with all my chats collected in it
Aperture: One window
Logic: One window
iCal: One window
iTunes: One window

You see... it's really not hard to manage my windows. I use cmd-tab for almost everything. Once I'm in the app I want, I just cmd~ OR I just hit cmd-1 (like in iChat to bring up the buddy list).

I also cmd-H apps that I don't feel like seeing. My finger is never very far from the cmd button, that's for sure.

I just have a different way of working I guess... and guess what, it's probably 50% faster and more efficient than your way of working because I don't have to invoke Exposé, and look at the windows I have. I just cmd-tab and BOOM I'm instantly in the app I want with the window I want right in front.

There's also another way to switch windows too, if you're unaware. Right click on an Application in the Dock and choose the window that way too.

 

[professorjay]

If it were up to some people here, we'd still be stuck on OS X 10.0 because everything Apple does is perfect and shouldn't be changed or complained about. Unless Apple changes it, then it must be better because I can't think for myself.

 

[TheSpaz]

By the way... I think I know a way how you can get the old Exposé back. If you can find a beta of Snow Leopard from BEFORE they added the new Exposé to the Dock, you can probably run that version of the Dock in Snow Leopard 10.6.2.

Just a guess.

 

[kolax]

I just wish we were given the option - or at least if there was a Terminal command to revert to the old way.

I like having my windows scaled proportionally, and I like having my windows appear in Expose in relation to where they actually are on screen (where possible). Like, if iTunes MiniPlayer is in the right hand side, it'll be on the right hand side in Expose, not bang in the middle.

Really.. there's no way we can all agree, and for those of us who do prefer the old way, an option would be nice. Expose: Use Grid or Scaling.

That is all.

 

[ViViDboarder]

Actually... I do all of my Finder browsing through 1 window.

Finder: One window 98% of the time
Safari: One window, multiple tabs
iChat: One window with all my chats collected in it
Aperture: One window
Logic: One window
iCal: One window
iTunes: One window

You see... it's really not hard to manage my windows. I use cmd-tab for almost everything. Once I'm in the app I want, I just cmd~ OR I just hit cmd-1 (like in iChat to bring up the buddy list).

I also cmd-H apps that I don't feel like seeing. My finger is never very far from the cmd button, that's for sure.

I just have a different way of working I guess... and guess what, it's probably 50% faster and more efficient than your way of working because I don't have to invoke Exposé, and look at the windows I have. I just cmd-tab and BOOM I'm instantly in the app I want with the window I want right in front.

There's also another way to switch windows too, if you're unaware. Right click on an Application in the Dock and choose the window that way too.

That's fine... Lots of people use more than one window. For example in Safari I often have several windows open and several tabs on each. I have each window basically represent a group of pages that are around the same topic. Say Slashdot and I follow up on a few things on MR and then so on. Another window I may have CNN, Yahoo and a few others etc... I got in the habbit of doing this because of Expose! I wanted a quick way to see all my different windows and switch rather than reading each tab to switch to the right one.

Also, I usually have several finder and Terminal windows open at any given time. Same goes with XCode. I like reading code Side By side so I generally have at least 2 different XCode windows. Tab based editors like TextWrangler I still have 2 windows open so they can be side by side, the rest are in tabs.

With a big screen I want to use my screen size.

TheSpaz, you seem to assume that people are wrong or features are useless just because you don't use them.

The fact still remains that there is no DOWNSIDE to using up more screen space when it's available.

 

[TheSpaz]

TheSpaz, you seem to assume that people are wrong or features are useless just because you don't use them.

No, you have your habits and I have mine. I did not call you wrong. I was just explaining that most of my apps only have 1 window and I can easily cmd-tab to them or use other keyboard commands to get to where I want to be.

Like I said... I usually know exactly what I have open at all times. Most of my stuff is hidden anyway and Exposé doesn't work on hidden stuff.

That's just my way of working.

 

[cksubs]

Unfortunately there are hundreds of tests that prove other wise. Again, theory != reality. Obviously you haven't tried doing Expose on a 15" screen with more than 20 windows open. You'll see that doing things visually flies right out the window as it is impossible to do so. You also haven't worked with applications that have more than just 1 window open because it than too becomes nearly impossible to tell the difference between two windows, especially in cases when you're comparing text. The only thing that helps in that case is zooming the window (which old Expose couldn't do but the new can) or looking at the labels (which old Expose only could do by hovering the mouse over them).

First off, it's laughable that you're claiming that people find windows based on reading their titles rather than visual cues. That is simply and utterly wrong. They're a helpful way to differentiate when the two windows are too similar (have too many of the same visual cues), sure, but otherwise people most certainly 'sense' what a window is from what it looks like rather than reading its label. And please, no more of this "hundreds of tests" talk without posting the research papers.

Second, on a 15" screen with 20 windows open it doesn't matter if Expose is in a grid or the old jumble. You still can't find the window based on visual cues alone, and have to rely on labels and etc. So yes, based on this case, "new Expose" is in fact better because it has labels on by default. If you're using that 'win' to throw out the entire old Expose system you're embarrassingly shortsighted. There's no reason labels couldn't be added to the old sorting algorithm, which was better with a small number of windows and 'just as bad' with a large number.

This topic is primarily about dissatisfaction with the new sorting algorithm. We all like labels, activation from the dock, etc. But they don't matter. Those things can be added to any permutation of Expose.

 

[lordthistle]

Is HCI a science?

No, it's not: especially for "general" interactions where the entity "user" cannot be defined. As in all the other non-scientific subjects that pretend to be scientific, common sense and reasonable solutions (like the use of options and customizable stuff) are forgotten: our HCI scientists said it's this way, they are scientists and you are a miserable user who doesn't understand science, so shut up and learn how to use their last wonderful creation.

Microsoft does a lot of HCI research. Indeed they offered and keep offering some of the worst user experiences that can be imagined.

The old Expose was centered on visual cues and exploited our ability of parallel processing some features of what we see. The new Expose is more centered on features, like text, that need a serial processing in our brain. Some of the new features are obviously very welcome, but now Expose requires a serial processing which takes inherently longer than a parallel one. No matter how much you train, if your brain must operate in a serial way, it will not become parallel. But I'm sure evolution will take care of this.

-- thistle

 

[TheSpaz]

Is HCI a science?

No, it's not: especially for "general" interactions where the entity "user" cannot be defined. As in all the other non-scientific subjects that pretend to be scientific, common sense and reasonable solutions (like the use of options and customizable stuff) are forgotten: our HCI scientists said it's this way, they are scientists and you are a miserable user who doesn't understand science, so shut up and learn how to use their last wonderful creation.

Microsoft does a lot of HCI research. Indeed they offered and keep offering some of the worst user experiences that can be imagined.

The old Expose was centered on visual cues and exploited our ability of parallel processing some features of what we see. The new Expose is more centered on features, like text, that need a serial processing in our brain. Some of the new features are obviously very welcome, but now Expose requires a serial processing which takes inherently longer than a parallel one. No matter how much you train, if your brain must operate in a serial way, it will not become parallel. But I'm sure evolution will take care of this.

-- thistle

I don't use Exposé that much but I've never had trouble quickly recognizing a window. In the new Exposé, I still don't have trouble recognizing any of my open windows. How often do you actually run into a situation where you have a hundred windows open and you use Exposé to find them? I am smart enough to know which windows are which without reading the titles and it doesn't matter how small they get.