I agree. We hide the dock as well. The downloads folder is nice. I also have a lighter desktop background picture and that makes the dock look better, I think than with a dark background. These are just topical items however. The real power of Leopard is what it does...
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In Depth Mac OS X Leopard Review
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Really lenghtly review, and I actually disagree with a lot of his dislikes on the visual improvements.
I prefer the blue orb to the triangles, I think they're effective. As well, the reflective dock is nice. The stacks are kinda "meh" I don't really care either way.
Other than that, the way he talks about all the under the hood improvements is really informative and was great to read.
I prefer the blue orb to the triangles, I think they're effective. As well, the reflective dock is nice. The stacks are kinda "meh" I don't really care either way.
Other than that, the way he talks about all the under the hood improvements is really informative and was great to read.
I'm a power user and I LIKE STACKS
I always used the pop up folder from the dock feature in Tiger and it really really annoyed me how slow it could was. Especially when the start menu is so much faster in comparison. Thats what I was most excited about with stacks. In leopard I have grouped my most useful applications into categories and put aliases in the corresponding folders and put these folders as stacks. The result is that I now have every single app i use within easy reach and each one can be loaded at lightning speed.
I always used the pop up folder from the dock feature in Tiger and it really really annoyed me how slow it could was. Especially when the start menu is so much faster in comparison. Thats what I was most excited about with stacks. In leopard I have grouped my most useful applications into categories and put aliases in the corresponding folders and put these folders as stacks. The result is that I now have every single app i use within easy reach and each one can be loaded at lightning speed.
what are the specs on your powerbook? we have one more license left on our family pack and just for fun wondering if updating my incredibly aged powerbook is worth it or if i'll end up rendering it to the waste land before i'm ready to replace it . . .
And some other things
The article was good. I would like to add some other things as well
Stacks
Stacks could be more useful if when opened one could navigate through folders and back again with the Grid view update to show contents as you navigate. I believe I saw this somewhere. Some Italian web site had videos where you could navigate through folders in stacks view. At least the functionality of the old Dock Whereby folders when right clicked had offered the user the possibility to navigate the contents and sub folders hierarchically with menus. Perhaps Apple is polishing the stacks navigation and will off it in 10.5.x.
Searching
Cmd F in Finder is limited in places to search. You can't add other places
The Tiger Find view for searches and Smart folders is sorely missed. It categorised file types into groups, with each group separated with a blue divider with control buttons. Also the locations for searching are limited to This Mac, Shared (if there is another Mac on the network and the current directory from where you initiated the search. There is no Home or Other places like in Tiger. If you find yourself restricted to Pictures in a find by mistake you have to back out and start over with the search
Smarts
There does not seem to be a way to edit Smart folders which means you have to dump them and start over. This is the situation with the default All Images, All Documents and All Movies smart folders. The results in mine were not what I wanted.
Firewall
Can't turn on ports. How is this done or how does the firewall work now. KB article on this required?
Help:
Help window always floats on top. Won't let other widows come to front.
Submitting feedback to Apple is something I firmly believe in. I also think that at least some, if not all of these things should get resolved over time.
The article was good. I would like to add some other things as well
Stacks
Stacks could be more useful if when opened one could navigate through folders and back again with the Grid view update to show contents as you navigate. I believe I saw this somewhere. Some Italian web site had videos where you could navigate through folders in stacks view. At least the functionality of the old Dock Whereby folders when right clicked had offered the user the possibility to navigate the contents and sub folders hierarchically with menus. Perhaps Apple is polishing the stacks navigation and will off it in 10.5.x.
Searching
Cmd F in Finder is limited in places to search. You can't add other places
The Tiger Find view for searches and Smart folders is sorely missed. It categorised file types into groups, with each group separated with a blue divider with control buttons. Also the locations for searching are limited to This Mac, Shared (if there is another Mac on the network and the current directory from where you initiated the search. There is no Home or Other places like in Tiger. If you find yourself restricted to Pictures in a find by mistake you have to back out and start over with the search
Smarts
There does not seem to be a way to edit Smart folders which means you have to dump them and start over. This is the situation with the default All Images, All Documents and All Movies smart folders. The results in mine were not what I wanted.
Firewall
Can't turn on ports. How is this done or how does the firewall work now. KB article on this required?
Help:
Help window always floats on top. Won't let other widows come to front.
Submitting feedback to Apple is something I firmly believe in. I also think that at least some, if not all of these things should get resolved over time.
Many of the appearance issues are subjective, but two things worry me the most:
1. Use of low contrast in the UI. The low contrast folders are a problem for anyone with vision issues. Most vision limitations don't require Universal Access features, but do require resonable contrast of UI features. In addition to folder icons, the button labels are now more difficult to read as they fall in the darkest part of the window border. Transparent menus can also be difficult. The real concern here is that Apple designers aren't focusing on the mission of the UI which is usability, not eye candy.
2. No Carbon 64-bit APIs. It's all well and good to push Cocoa and Obj-C, but if cross-platform developers drop the Mac it will hurt Apple. If Adobe and MS leave, you can kiss the Mac goodbye.
1. Use of low contrast in the UI. The low contrast folders are a problem for anyone with vision issues. Most vision limitations don't require Universal Access features, but do require resonable contrast of UI features. In addition to folder icons, the button labels are now more difficult to read as they fall in the darkest part of the window border. Transparent menus can also be difficult. The real concern here is that Apple designers aren't focusing on the mission of the UI which is usability, not eye candy.
2. No Carbon 64-bit APIs. It's all well and good to push Cocoa and Obj-C, but if cross-platform developers drop the Mac it will hurt Apple. If Adobe and MS leave, you can kiss the Mac goodbye.
Microsoft would be the most likely to abandon the Mac platform. But there is too much money involved for Adobe to abandon Mac users.
I'm becoming less and less enamoured with Stacks the more I use them.
If they were available on the desktop for use as temporary storage locations for current work, I'd possibly find them handy. But in the cramped dock, they're not particularly useful. That they've removed one-click shortcuts to open a folder in Finder is also a bit of a kick in the knackers, not to mention losing the drill-down context-menu. Mind you, I'm not going to miss that quite so much now that the Finder is as fast as a rocket-propelled whippet.
Overall, the Dock's lost a few coolness points for me, Stacks haven't earnt any, but Finder gets several gazillion for working so damn well. I love how network browsing and connecting are implemented - especially with screen-sharing right in there too.
Address Book gets a minus-several-billion coolness penalty due to its loss of Bluetooth phone integration. However, the new Address Book app bundle does contain some Bluetooth icons and the AB prefs file contains a couple of bluetooth references, so perhaps all is not lost for future point-releases.
I'm pretty happy with Leopard other than the faults I've outlined above. It's certainly a solid release. I'm mostly looking forward to what those wonderful 3rd-party developers do with the new APIs. That's one of the best things about the Mac developer community. It's usually pretty short-order between Apple giving them new and better toys to play with, and us getting some great apps that use them!
True. But the 32-bit Carbon APIs won't disappear any time soon. I think it's been pretty clear since Tiger's launch that Apple's intention has been to gradually re-implement Carbon routines in Cocoa, in a manner consistent with Cocoa's design and approach. If Adobe and MS want to grow the capabilities of their apps along with the capabilities of OS X, they're going to have to bite this particular bullet anyway. At least they're both now rid of CodeWarrior, having moved to Xcode for Universal Binary support. Apple's extension of Cocoa to cover what Carbon does is going to be a gradual thing, hopefully gradual enough that Carbon-heavy developers can move with them at a similar pace.
If they were available on the desktop for use as temporary storage locations for current work, I'd possibly find them handy. But in the cramped dock, they're not particularly useful. That they've removed one-click shortcuts to open a folder in Finder is also a bit of a kick in the knackers, not to mention losing the drill-down context-menu. Mind you, I'm not going to miss that quite so much now that the Finder is as fast as a rocket-propelled whippet.
Overall, the Dock's lost a few coolness points for me, Stacks haven't earnt any, but Finder gets several gazillion for working so damn well. I love how network browsing and connecting are implemented - especially with screen-sharing right in there too.
Address Book gets a minus-several-billion coolness penalty due to its loss of Bluetooth phone integration. However, the new Address Book app bundle does contain some Bluetooth icons and the AB prefs file contains a couple of bluetooth references, so perhaps all is not lost for future point-releases.
I'm pretty happy with Leopard other than the faults I've outlined above. It's certainly a solid release. I'm mostly looking forward to what those wonderful 3rd-party developers do with the new APIs. That's one of the best things about the Mac developer community. It's usually pretty short-order between Apple giving them new and better toys to play with, and us getting some great apps that use them!
gkroeger said:
True. But the 32-bit Carbon APIs won't disappear any time soon. I think it's been pretty clear since Tiger's launch that Apple's intention has been to gradually re-implement Carbon routines in Cocoa, in a manner consistent with Cocoa's design and approach. If Adobe and MS want to grow the capabilities of their apps along with the capabilities of OS X, they're going to have to bite this particular bullet anyway. At least they're both now rid of CodeWarrior, having moved to Xcode for Universal Binary support. Apple's extension of Cocoa to cover what Carbon does is going to be a gradual thing, hopefully gradual enough that Carbon-heavy developers can move with them at a similar pace.
They both would stand to lose too much money at this point. I think Apple would have to be a much more significant threat to Microsoft (like if they developed a way to run any Windows app without Windows, or something) than they currently are. By that point, if it ever came to that, it wouldn't even matter if MS withdrew their support of the platform
+1 on disagreeing with his opinion on menubar/dock design changes. I love them, think they look great, and they have not hindered the usability in any way for me. Cool review overall though.
I'm going to have to disagree on the reviewer on Stacks.
I find it a lot easier to have my Applications folder as a group of Stacks in my Dock and looking at a screen full of large icons, rather than clicking the Finder icon in the dock, clicking the Applications folder, and then scrolling through a bunch of files with small icons to find the app I want to open.
And don't even get me started on the Downloads stack. This was needed.
I find it a lot easier to have my Applications folder as a group of Stacks in my Dock and looking at a screen full of large icons, rather than clicking the Finder icon in the dock, clicking the Applications folder, and then scrolling through a bunch of files with small icons to find the app I want to open.
And don't even get me started on the Downloads stack. This was needed.
Wow, he sure can whine 
It was quite a depressing review in places, with rant after rant after rant. However, overall, a good review, some positivity towards the end, and at least it's honest and to the point.
I do actually agree with some of his complaints about the UI (even though I think he's gone a bit overboard with his loathing). The new "fuzzy orb" for active applications is probably my biggest gripe in the whole of Leopard and I hope someone comes up with a hack to make it more contrast-y whilst keeping the 3D glass look which I like. I also agree with the stack icons, they just look... ludicrous... and are unhelpful if you use more than one stack. Here's hoping Apple do the unthinkable and add user options in the next point release as well as bug fixes.
I've never used OS 9, but I've seen it, is it just me or is the general look and feel of OS X - the icons, window style etc, slowly coming full circle back to Classic? (albeit in a much more elegant fashion). Not a complaint, just an observation.
The new dock in general though, and the transparent menu bar, I like. I think they look great. The menu bar should have an *option* to be solid, sure, but I think it adds a great effect. The combined menu/dock effects and transparency give a feeling of "floating" either in the default space background or in the mountain scenery I set as mine... not sure if that was their intention as such, but it's a nice effect.
So yeah... a blunt review in places, but some fair points. I too am looking forward to 10.5.1 and/or third party hacks.
It was quite a depressing review in places, with rant after rant after rant. However, overall, a good review, some positivity towards the end, and at least it's honest and to the point.I do actually agree with some of his complaints about the UI (even though I think he's gone a bit overboard with his loathing). The new "fuzzy orb" for active applications is probably my biggest gripe in the whole of Leopard and I hope someone comes up with a hack to make it more contrast-y whilst keeping the 3D glass look which I like. I also agree with the stack icons, they just look... ludicrous... and are unhelpful if you use more than one stack. Here's hoping Apple do the unthinkable and add user options in the next point release as well as bug fixes.
I've never used OS 9, but I've seen it, is it just me or is the general look and feel of OS X - the icons, window style etc, slowly coming full circle back to Classic? (albeit in a much more elegant fashion). Not a complaint, just an observation.
The new dock in general though, and the transparent menu bar, I like. I think they look great. The menu bar should have an *option* to be solid, sure, but I think it adds a great effect. The combined menu/dock effects and transparency give a feeling of "floating" either in the default space background or in the mountain scenery I set as mine... not sure if that was their intention as such, but it's a nice effect.
So yeah... a blunt review in places, but some fair points. I too am looking forward to 10.5.1 and/or third party hacks.
I'm trying to figure out while after I've had my PBG4 running for a bit that the Dock starts to chug with it's animations.
Pbg4 1.5
I've actually installed Leopard on my 1.5 PB, and once it got through making the 89Gb backup for time-machine, I have to agree with previous posters - my laptop now feels faster!
I'm impressed, and I only performed an archive and install!
I'm fitting a new 120Gb ata disk (as soon as it arrives) and I'll be doing a nice clean install onto it, then trying to restore my documents from time-machine - should be a fun exercise!
I too was hoping to use this as an excuse to buy an MBP, but I'm going to have to come up with another excuse now.
Damn you, Apple!
Nig.
I've actually installed Leopard on my 1.5 PB, and once it got through making the 89Gb backup for time-machine, I have to agree with previous posters - my laptop now feels faster!
I'm impressed, and I only performed an archive and install!
I'm fitting a new 120Gb ata disk (as soon as it arrives) and I'll be doing a nice clean install onto it, then trying to restore my documents from time-machine - should be a fun exercise!
I too was hoping to use this as an excuse to buy an MBP, but I'm going to have to come up with another excuse now.
Damn you, Apple!
Nig.
IMHO, the "Real Stacks" (tm) is a smart folder tuned to look for a particular document type and sorted in time of last access or last modification and viewed in coverflow mode.
For example, you could have a smart folder that tracks all your powerpoint slides, then when you need the slides that you worked on, say sometime around April, you just scan back back to that general period and use Coverflow and Quicklook to quickly identify the document.
The point about the transparency issue with the menu bar isn't one of personal preference - the fact that you use a light backdrop that doesn't interfere with the menu isn't an argument to say that transparent menu bars are a good idea. The point surely is that under certain circumstances i.e. certain desktop backgrounds, the menu is literally unreadable - that is not an opinion just a fact.
I also feel the same way. A good way to customize the stack icon is, put an icon you like in the stack folder and name it 0. Then sort by name.
Here is a screenshot of mine, I used a bag icon and it looks like my apps are stuffed inside ;-)
Attachments
The stacks are not totally useless (as long as you avoid fan view), though the loss of the right-click on the folders will be SORELY missed.
The new icons are criminally bad in their design, but the overall fixes and improvements to Finder make me ignore them (Finally, I can see the path without acrobatics) Coverflow + Quicklook in Finder is a revelatory experience
Finally, the system does feel curiously more responsive, and not that it wasn't before, it just has a little extra 'snap' on the click.
The new icons are criminally bad in their design, but the overall fixes and improvements to Finder make me ignore them (Finally, I can see the path without acrobatics)
Coverflow + Quicklook in Finder is a revelatory experience Finally, the system does feel curiously more responsive, and not that it wasn't before, it just has a little extra 'snap' on the click.
Excellent. John Siracusa's reviews are always the best part about a new OS release. If you really want a history lesson on OS X, go back and read all his past reviews. I believe they start with one of the developer previews of 10.0.
Items shipped on October 29, 2007:
Delivery estimate: October 30, 2007 - October 31, 2007
1 package via UPS
Now I can talk about blue orbs and black triangles and stacks.
Good grief, it sounds like an episode of the X-Files
1 package via UPS
- 1 of: Apple Mac OS X Version 10.5 Leopard [DVD-ROM]
Sold by: Amazon.com, LLC</SPAN>
Now I can talk about blue orbs and black triangles and stacks.
Good grief, it sounds like an episode of the X-Files
Why do Ars reviews always blow the others out of the water? This one really goes deeper than just a rundown of features and gets to the meat of the OS. I came away with the conclusion that the new developer tools are the thing to get most excited about. I really look forward to the next generation of software for 10.5.
That said, I am totally with the dock loathers, and ever since I switched to Mac, never quite managed to make it useful. Since I got good at using quicksilver/spotlight, I have given up on using the dock for anything but a task switcher, and everything Apple has done with it has just reinforced this behavior.
Try this for a week- take ALL of your apps out of the dock, put it on the LH or RH side on autohide. Now, whatever you see on the dock you automatically know is a running program and you can use it to switch apps without hunting for dots and triangles. Just use spotlight or quicksilver to launch apps and you'll find that you can type up the app, folder, or file before you could hunt it down on the dock.
That said, I am totally with the dock loathers, and ever since I switched to Mac, never quite managed to make it useful. Since I got good at using quicksilver/spotlight, I have given up on using the dock for anything but a task switcher, and everything Apple has done with it has just reinforced this behavior.
Try this for a week- take ALL of your apps out of the dock, put it on the LH or RH side on autohide. Now, whatever you see on the dock you automatically know is a running program and you can use it to switch apps without hunting for dots and triangles. Just use spotlight or quicksilver to launch apps and you'll find that you can type up the app, folder, or file before you could hunt it down on the dock.