Mac OS X 10.3.3 7F34

[jettredmont]

Re: my gripes with 10.3 (+extras) thus far...

Originally posted by shoez
word highlight shortcut keys are different in each application

Unfortunately, Apple can do very little about this. In the Cocoa text boxes it's consistent. Elsewhere ... Yeah, I hate that too.

no "mail to" action on right-click file select

That bothers me too. I wouldn't want Windows' overcrowded context menus, but the "Send To" fly-out is indispensible ...

expose is sluggish initially

I don't get this one at all. What kind of hardware are you on?

can't tab to pulldown menus or radio clicks -why??

Turn on Universal Access. In the System Preferences.

Why can't you do this by default? I dunno. Makes no sense to me that you'd want to have to reach for the mouse to select your state or deselect all the "opt-in" checkboxes on web forms ... This is the first pref I change when I sit down to a new box.

volume and brightness controls can be very slow to operate.

Again, I don't get this. Mine are instant, even when I'm doing a long compile/link process using 100% CPU ...

No easy way to arrange files which may be oddly spaced all over a directory

Huh?

Try View|Arrange, then whichever way you'd want to have them arranged. Or, View|Clean Up if you just want to make the layout a little ... umm ... "cleaner" ...

No fast way to sort by name, date, etc. when in large icon mode

Try the View|Arrange menu.

itunes - select a load of tunes in a finder window, drag them across to iTunes (the left-most window-playlists). iTunes automatically creates a playlist (good), highlights the "untitled playlist n" text, but doesn't transfer window focus.

Feature, not a bug. When dragging something from the foreground app to the background app the window focus should not change.

Personally, when I'm dragging stuff from Finder to iTunes I am generally dragging a few over, then finding more stuff in the Finder, then dragging a few more over, etc. It would annoy me to no end if iTunes were to grab interface focus with each drag. How Microsoftian.

iTunes - doesn't seem to recognise the numbers at the start of a filename...

If you have ID3 tags in your files, iTunes goes off those. If you have none, then the numbers in the filename are preserved along with everything else in the "track name". You get into trouble when you have only partial ID3 tags, say, with the artist and album and track name, but relied on the filename for number. Oops. On the other hand, it would be pretty unreasonable to have iTunes try and figure out your track numbers from the import file name I'd think.

calculator doesn't show zeros when they are being input after a decimal point.

Hmmm. Yeah, I guess that's a bit odd. Never noticed it before!

As a developer, I can see why this likely is (the app is keeping a double for the current entry and displaying based on that, but skipping looking at the next-digit entry position to see how many digits after the decimal it should be adding, I'd guess). But, it's a bit silly and sloppy.

iPhoto leaves the camera display on while downloading photos!

And this is a problem ... why?

I think this is more a camera/driver issue than iPhoto. My camera's display stays off while downloading photos.

iPhoto doesn't download camera movies

True, but that's because iPhoto doesn't handle movies, it only handles still photos. You can change your default camera-handling app to "Image Capture" (I believe) to have the movies downloaded too, and the stills sent over to iPhoto. At least, in theory. I don't have a movie function on my camera and wouldn't use it if I did (that's why I have a video camera! but that's a diatribe for another day) ...

iPhoto is slow, takes ages to connect to camera and start to process images. Pizza wheel of doom shows regularly.

Odd. iPhoto connects to and imports my photos exactly as fast as the Windows software my camera maker (Kodak) supplies. Sounds like a driver issue. See if there is an updated driver on your camera maker's website.

Photo doesn't show current file location - just a file name!!

File location is irrelevant, right?

This bothers me too. But, it's a side-effect of an application using a database approach. iPhoto would really rather you not go mucking around in its directory structure; you should manipulate those images through the iPhoto interface instead of Finder.

 

[dwsolberg]

The networking problem

Tyler,

Here's one problem:

If you browse for networks, there is no way to RELIABLY *dis*connect from a browsed network. (Dragging the icon to the trash does not work.) If you don't have a portable computer, you will probably not notice this because you're connected anyway. If you have a 'book, then the computer will misbehave and stall when you move from your work network to your home network to the network at the coffee shop.

If you want to use "connect to server" command-K, then you must know the IP address. It's not helpful when you're working in various offices and you want to pull a file from someone's DHCP-served computer.

 

[smags]

Re: The networking problem

Originally posted by dwsolberg
Tyler,

Here's one problem:

If you browse for networks, there is no way to RELIABLY *dis*connect from a browsed network. (Dragging the icon to the trash does not work.) If you don't have a portable computer, you will probably not notice this because you're connected anyway. If you have a 'book, then the computer will misbehave and stall when you move from your work network to your home network to the network at the coffee shop.

If you want to use "connect to server" command-K, then you must know the IP address. It's not helpful when you're working in various offices and you want to pull a file from someone's DHCP-served computer.

Take a look at the update. Browsing has changed and the reliability is now given. Doubleclicking to a server in the finder opens the same dialog as with "connect to..." Volumes are automatically mounted to finder and desktop. browsing with finder does not work for me anymore.

 

[shoez]

yeah sorry, just to confirm - these issues I have are derived from the latest public release. I'm not party to any Apple developers programme or pre-release software.

I do love however, when people pass lengthy comment on each gripe it such a belittling way....


opps, sorry forgot the rest. Just joking of course, but it's important to be constructive when it comes to usability points because you need to demonstrate how users actually "use" the interface, and not how it was designed to be utilised. As an aside my machine is a 12" Powerbook rev.b.

shoez

 

[iHack]

Originally posted by MattG
Agreed. Trying to make my Powerbook talk to other computers on the Windows network at work is a pain in the ass. I'd really love a way to create network shortcuts -- for example, there are network shares that I access all the time, and it'd be nice not to have to navigate to them everytime. I'd like the ability to put a shortcut on my desktop, and so far, I haven't found one. Making an alias to it does not work...

In jaguar this is how it works perfectly: drag the network volume icon from your desktop onto the toolbar (is that what it's called?) at the top of your finder windows, next to programs, home etc.
It will show a network volume icon if you're connected or a questionmark if you're not. Clicking on it will connect and take you to the volume. Brilliant really.
And my favorite: if you try to open a recent file in e.g. Word that happens to be on a server (a samba server in my case), it connects to the server and opens the file. Completely transparantly. Really, really cool.

M.

 

[MacBandit]

Re: Re: my gripes with 10.3 (+extras) thus far...

Originally posted by jettredmont
Unfortunately, Apple can do very little about this. In the Cocoa text boxes it's consistent. Elsewhere ... Yeah, I hate that too.



That bothers me too. I wouldn't want Windows' overcrowded context menus, but the "Send To" fly-out is indispensible ...

There is a way to do this. Highlight what you want to send-to and then got to the Application title menu/services/mail from there you can send your link or text to an email. I'm sure there's a way to add applications to this send to menu but I don't know how.

 

[rdowns]

Re: No new features

Originally posted by digitalbiker
The idea that an upgrades to the GUI can't take place because of an inability to update the manual is ridiculous!

Have you never heard of online help files, updates to Apple help, etc. etc. Manuals are only as good as the current revision of the OS and do not hinder the updating of OS.

The notion that no new features can be added because of the manual is ridiculous. I just dug out my Panther "manual" which is all of 24 pages, mostly pictures. Apple hardly ships a manual with their OS. For every topic Apple touches on, there are no more than 4 or 5 sentences. Each page tells you to search help for more information. At best, the manual is for a first time user only.

 

[gareth]

Hardware?

Originally posted by srobert
Mail never crashed on me in 10.2 and 10.3

Maybe it's hardware specific. What's your Mac?

isnt that the whole advantage of buying a mac and why windows isnt always so good with hardware compatability?

anyhoo... i've heard a lot of people say delete the mail.app related config files in the library folder and reset up (esp. if you've upgraded from an earlier os).


Gareth

 

[jacg]

printing?

Hope USB printing gets proper treatment. I have to unplug my USB-to-parallel adapter after every job or it gets stuck. Airport/rendezvous printing to a another HP printer stops randomly during one in five pages. (when this happens something goes nuts in the activity monitor and my powerbook fan comes on).

Mail has been dreadful since 10.3.2 and many other apps have quit with alarming regularity (eg FCP, iDVD, iPhoto, Excel, Word).

If 10.3.3 doesn't do the job I'm going to have to wipe this PB clean.

(edit: I didn't mean "if 10.3.3 doesn't wipe my PB clean...". Hmmm, there's a thought...)

 

[Stewie]

Originally posted by Earendil
Concerning Jag vs Panther networking.

What is it about the networking that you don't like exactly? Is it the functionality, the consistency of being able to get a connection, or the user interface?

I went straight from an OS8.6 Bondi iMac to a Panther 1.25 PB, so to me the User Interface for networking friggin rocks
I've kinda stood by and watched people whine about Panther networking without saying a word, so I thought I'd step up to the plate. It's a shame that the whiners and negative attitudes are always the disproportionally louder group. Has there been a poll on this? if not, may make a good poll...

That said, out family also has two Jag machines still left in it, and when I go to use networking functions on them, I find the command K window, and having the Network Drive appear on the (always covered) desktop to be cumbersome compared to the network Drive appearing on the "Left Side Bar" (technical name for that?).

Functionality wise, I dunno how reliable Panther networking is compared to Jaguar, but then that isn't what I'm talking about

Tyler
Earendil

The inability for Panther to add my username and password to the keychain for the windows servers I connect to everyday.

The sometime strage problem of not prompting for a username and password on a windows share and then telling me that the username and password is not correct.

Finder Crashing when trying to view a windows share

Finder refusing to disconnect a windows share, claiming it is still in use.

Other apple servers not showing up under network view

I could go on.

 

[Stewie]

Re: The networking problem

Originally posted by dwsolberg
Tyler,

Here's one problem:

If you browse for networks, there is no way to RELIABLY *dis*connect from a browsed network. (Dragging the icon to the trash does not work.) If you don't have a portable computer, you will probably not notice this because you're connected anyway. If you have a 'book, then the computer will misbehave and stall when you move from your work network to your home network to the network at the coffee shop.

If you want to use "connect to server" command-K, then you must know the IP address. It's not helpful when you're working in various offices and you want to pull a file from someone's DHCP-served computer.

You can experience the same problem when connecting via command-K.

My favorit is after I have unplugged from my work network and tried to disconnect a windows share and been denied, I can still 'browse' the cached directories that Panther is holding on to for some strange reason. At least it isn't caching files

 

[mdriftmeyer]

Originally posted by rfenik
Mail needs to be fixed. It doesn't send, i have to use microsoft entourage to send. Mail recieves mail ok tho....

-ko

Consult your System's Adminstrator who manages SMTP services for you. Mail.app sends email just fine.

Ask the System Admin what Mailserver software they are running. Suggest Postfix.

Make sure that if you are running SSL/TLS that they have the proper settings and ports turned on, etc..

 

[Kiwi-Todd]

xxx

Originally posted by machan
is it too much to hope filesharing goes back to the ease of use we had with jaguar?


Thank god! I'm not the only thinking that. How is it it worked in 10.2 and now it does'nt work as fine in 10.3? 10.3.1 and 10.3.2 adressed this issue but did not fix it. Strange.

xxx

Wow! I have been whinging about this since 10.3.2 and also thought I was alone in my frustration! - here's hoping......

 

[jettredmont]

Originally posted by shoez

I do love however, when people pass lengthy comment on each gripe it such a belittling way....

Lengthy post -> lengthy reply ...

Was I belittling?

If so, sorry about that. Just wanted to give a few workarounds and an idea of why some of the things work the way they do (for instance, iTunes not popping to foreground when files are dropped on it).

You might want to call Apple tech support about the lag with Expose and the volume/mute/etc keys. I have an old 500MHz TiBook running Panther, and those buttons work very well there (not Expose ... but that's because the graphics card in it is sorely lacking, which shouldn't be the case with your 12" PB). Mention your iPhoto delay problems as well; that may be related.

 

[akac]

Re: Re: Re: my gripes with 10.3 (+extras) thus far...

Originally posted by MacBandit
There is a way to do this. Highlight what you want to send-to and then got to the Application title menu/services/mail from there you can send your link or text to an email. I'm sure there's a way to add applications to this send to menu but I don't know how.

There is actually a free bundle you can install that gives you your services menu in Cocoa contextual menus. But I can't remember what it is...

 

[johnpaul191]

Originally posted by gola
Font book really REALLY need improvment. It is slow and ****s up the system if it has to many fonts active.

when you say too many font... what do you mean? i know some people scquire and load hundreds of fonts and make them all active.

you know you don't need to have them all active all the time.... hence font software. i think that fontbook is not great for people with TONS of fonts on their system.
excessive active fonts has been an OS slowdown even back in the classic days (i remember it as far back as system 6), but nobody needs them all active all the time.

 

[elgruga]

Mail is a mess. Thats what they need to fix. File sharing is a bit messy at times, but Mail? Puhleeez!

Mail does weird things, is counter-intuitive, and just not very good.

Please sort out Mail, Steve Jobs.

Yes, I want SJ himself to actually work on the code.
All this running around with Pixar isnt helping to fix Mail, is it Steve?

No. Exactly.

 

[fluidinclusion]

FRESH INSTALL WILL HELP SOME PROBLEMS.

Originally posted by numediaman
The death, and then rebirth, of my Titanium PB taught me a big lession about OS X: to avoid troubles completely reinstall the OS and wipe out everything.

I never, never, had to do this in any older OS -- going way, way back.

But now with OS 10.3.2 I have had zero problems

I TOTALLY AGREE. Although I've not had many problems (started with 10.1.0 and upgraded all the way to 10.3.2), I have had some. Wierd things like Quicktime previews in the Finder have no sound, others, etc. I decided to reinstall, partly to see if these "quirks" go away and also just to clean out all the junk I've installed over the last 2.5 years.

I'm very glad I did. I wrote zeros and backed up all stuff and only copied over what I needed. I HIGHLY recommend this to any one who is anything but a novice user.

 

[veedubdrew]

Originally posted by jettredmont
Lengthy post -> lengthy reply ...


You might want to call Apple tech support about the lag with Expose and the volume/mute/etc keys. I have an old 500MHz TiBook running Panther, and those buttons work very well there (not Expose ... but that's because the graphics card in it is sorely lacking, which shouldn't be the case with your 12" PB). Mention your iPhoto delay problems as well; that may be related.

My 12" PowerBook (1GHz, 512, 40GB, 10.3) responds to the volume/brightness keys at a snail's pace as does my 17" iMac G4 (800MHz, 768, 80GB, 10.3). The volume and brightness generally adjust the instant I hit the keys, then several moments later the image appears on the screen and zooms to the new setting. I don't think it's a hardware problem, I think it's a software issue and I sure hope they fix it. I also hope and pray that window resizing and scrolling smoothness are improved with this update.

As for iPhoto, are you running iLife '04? It's a HUGE improvement in speed for iPhoto. With 2500 pics in the previous version (2.0?) it was basically unusable on my iMac, barely tolerable on my PowerBook. In comparison, iPhoto 4 absolutely flies.

-Drew

 

[waterbug]

Originally posted by leenoble
Changing back to Jaguar's implementation of browsing networked volumes or sticking a home on ipod option on the accounts preferences would be an unexpected behaviour change since there is no way to let the average user who just runs the updates know that these changes have been made. [/B]

Except for the ReadMe window that the user must click through before installing any OS update.

Seriously, OS X updates change/fix behavior all the time; other posters have given multiple examples of this.

UI changes are far less dangerous than unanticipated API changes. These are the things that break apps and cause havoc.

I'm all in favor of UI and feature improvements, as long as they're documented. I'm also in favor of people reading the ReadMe information. It's there for a reason! RTFRM!

 

[Makosuke]

Re: Re: No new features

Originally posted by alandail
what manual?

Exactly what I was going to point out--OSX does not, and never has, come with anything printed that amounted to more than a loose overview of the OS. There is no physical manual to outdate, so although they might avoid making GUI changes in.x.x releases, there's certainly no documentation issues stopping them.

And I hope as well that the network issues are big enough to put them in the "worth fixing" category. I'd like to point out, by the way, that it's not that Apple isn't making progress with networking; 10.3, when it works, handles Windows networks much better than 10.2, and the non-modal network dialogues are great.

Unfortunately, it's incredibly inconsistant in the way it displays mounted volumes (connect to server versus browse), the browse command is shaky in cross-platform environments, and the whole browse method just isn't as useful as connect to server's hierarchy was.

Point being, Apple is trying, they just got some stuff wrong with this attempt. Stuff that will, hopefully, be fixed in this update.

And I also agree that 10.3 is MUCH more stable and polished than 10.2; it just has a few more glitches than 10.2.8 did, since that had already been polished for a while.

 

[WM.]

Re: my gripes with 10.3 (+extras) thus far...

Originally posted by shoez
can't see size of file just by clicking on it (tool/taskbar)

Do you mean in the Finder? Are you using the Aqua-styled no-toolbar-or-sidebar view? If yes to both, are you aware of the status bar (in the View menu)?

can't tab to pulldown menus or radio clicks -why??

To clarify what jettredmont said: specifically, you want Full Keyboard Access.

Can't perform undo+redo operations in form boxes in Safari

Yeah, I agree, they should really fix that...

The way safari doesn't seem to cache and page, and when returning to the previous page starts at the top and moves down after other page elements have reloaded

When returning to a page in Safari, starts at the top, manually scroll to a place of your bidding - when it finally finishes reloading the page it jumps back to the original place (linked with bug above)

Agree.

Safari - when you write a long document in a textarea window in one tab, go into another tab and return back, the textarea remains in focus but it scrolls back up to the top (cursor remains at the bottom)

Agree.

too much bloody space wasted with windows - spacing of icons is pretty crap

Agree.

WM

 

[ginoledesma]

I'm casting my vote for better Windows file sharing as well. I've worked with Windows for so long I've forgotten how easy AppleTalk file sharing was back then. I did myself the favor of installing Dave, which has made my a life a tad easier.

Honestly speaking, SMB filesharing on the Mac isn't as easy as I'd like it to be. It would be nice to be able to get a list of Windows shares listing the name and description (right now, only the name is listed). In some large networks, the server names are not at all helpful/descriptive, so the remarks section comes in very, very handfily.

I'd appreciate any improvement to the current system. Consistency is key, and so is reliability. As for the argument about not having "upgrades" because of significant/fundamental changes (the Panther manual argument), I don't believe that at all. Back then, Mac OS 8.1 introduced HFS+, and people scampered to get it because of the significant savings on the disk space. So if this update brings in significant ease-of-use to the masses, Apple has no reason whatsoever not to release it. They'll only be shooting themselves in the foot if they make it available as part of a "paid upgrade."

One feature I'd like in relation to SMB networking: please, please, PLEASE allow users to connect to hidden shares. Right now, I have to use the smbclient tool to connect to hidden shares. A textbox asking for the share name will do (or if you want to make it more user-friendly, have an Other... item and then it asks for the share name).

 

[soosy]

Originally posted by Stewie
The inability for Panther to add my username and password to the keychain for the windows servers I connect to everyday.

there's a lot of problems with the current state of networking... but I've found a way to get name/passwords to save, that hopefully is a reliable fix.

Use Connect to Server... and format the address like:

smb//domain;username@share.company.com/sharename

You can leave out <domain> and <sharename> but I've found that including your username@ in the address finally got keychain to work!

I've now saved each share as a favorite and I can get to things very quickly.

hope that helps someone.

 

[soosy]

Re: "MAIL": Crash Central

Originally posted by JGowan
I'm running a Quicksilver 2002 Dual 1GHz and Mail crashes on me a lot for no reason and EVERYTIME I select an email and try to teach Mail that it is Junk... it will crash 100% of the time. It is so frustrating because one of the best things about Mail is its filtering out the junk, but lately, the spammers are getting smarter and lots more of this stuff is getting through. Without being able to teach Mail what is Junk, I've got to weed through a lot of crap again.

deleting lsmap2 fixed this problem for me.

http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20031207160555107