Mac OS X and Virtual Desktop Functionality?

[rjstanford]

Originally posted by WM.
The problem is that, right now, almost all the widgets are bitmaps. The stoplight widgets, for example, are just bitmap images that are stored somewhere in the depths of OS X. Same goes for things like menu extra icons, and scroll and resize widgets. (Obviously the scroll widget can change height, but I doubt it can get wider.)

Think about the way that Expose handles it, having the card do the scaling. Admittedly, some of the current bitmaps should be converted to vector graphics for ideal clarity, but that's why I pointed to Expose as a great proof of concept. Scaling works, live, today.

-Richard

 

[ClimbingTheLog]

Re: Don't use FileVault

Originally posted by MM2270
Now, granted, the probs only happen when you allow FileVault to compress unsued space on the Home directory, but it appears this technology is not perfected yet, so I personally am staying away from it until a fix is in place, or until Apple improves the way it works.

Yeah, I can hit cancel until 10.3.1 comes out.

Call me crazy, but I'm a little concerned about locking down my whole Home directory with encryption that can't even be broken by a SuperComputer for like a BILLION years or something!

Umm, that's the point. Sometimes it's better to risk losing your data than it is to risk having your data exposed. Stolen laptops come to mind.

 

[moki]

Re: Re: Re: It'd be the last missing piece for me

Originally posted by whooleytoo
If I'm not horribly mistaken (not using my Mac at the mo..) clicking on a running application's icon in the Dock will only bring the active window to the front, not all the application's windows? If so, it's not really as good as a virtual desktop solution.

You're mistaken -- clicking on the Dock icon brings to the front ALL windows from that application. Thus if the way you use virtual desktops is to put one app in each virtual desktop, OS X already gives you what you want.

 

[mainstreetmark]

Re: Re: Re: Re: It'd be the last missing piece for me

Originally posted by moki
You're mistaken -- clicking on the Dock icon brings to the front ALL windows from that application. Thus if the way you use virtual desktops is to put one app in each virtual desktop, OS X already gives you what you want.

It certainly does appear to do that now. It didn't in Jag that I can remember - I was always scrounging around for my dreamweaver windows, which I always have like 5 or 10 open

 

[moki]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: It'd be the last missing piece for me

Originally posted by mainstreetmark
It certainly does appear to do that now. It didn't in Jag that I can remember - I was always scrounging around for my dreamweaver windows, which I always have like 5 or 10 open

It's worked this way since the public beta, at least in terms of clicking on the Dock.

Ah well, just another way to use your Mac right?

 

[mainstreetmark]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: It'd be the last missing piece for me

Originally posted by moki
It's worked this way since the public beta, at least in terms of clicking on the Dock.

Ah well, just another way to use your Mac right?

Public Beta for Panthy or Jag? I really only used Jaguar for about 3 weeks, which is just long enough to no longer miss having a list of all your windows down in the task bar (XP)

 

[moki]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: It'd be the last missing piece for me

Originally posted by mainstreetmark
Public Beta for Panthy or Jag? I really only used Jaguar for about 3 weeks, which is just long enough to no longer miss having a list of all your windows down in the task bar (XP)

Public beta of MacOS X -- ie, over 2 years ago.

As for the list of all windows, yes, it's true, MacOS X works differently than Windows XP, and it'll take a bit of time getting used to how it works, but I think both OS's have valid solutions to window management.

I'm sure Windows will have something like Exposé soon.

 

[mainstreetmark]

maybe I'm thinking about when you click on an application's window, the rest of that app's windows don't come to the foreground with it. OS9 worked that way.

Who knows, I'm now used to it (clearly so, since I can't remember how it used to be)

 

[daveL]

Originally posted by Eric_Z

Are you paying your wife to be with you?!?

In one way or another

 

[WM.]

Originally posted by rjstanford
Think about the way that Expose handles it, having the card do the scaling. Admittedly, some of the current bitmaps should be converted to vector graphics for ideal clarity, but that's why I pointed to Expose as a great proof of concept. Scaling works, live, today.

Right, but it only works well if you're making things smaller--and even then it's best if you only change sizes from the max by a factor of 2. Making things bigger is a no-go unless you're willing to put up with jaggies.

Like you say: we need vector widgets. Thing is, it seems to me like that would slow things down--especially for those of us who use older, non-QE hardware. Perhaps you could set a resolution that you'll be using the most often and the OS would rasterize and cache the widgets for you, so that they'd effectively be bitmaps, but with resolution independence. But then you'd have to re-render every time you wanted to change your resolution and/or effective size...

WM

 

[cb911]

help!! how do i turn off the virtual desktop thing?

i tried 'defaults write com.apple.dock wvous-olddesktop -bool true; killall Dock' and i thought that would do it.

AppleInsider says to turn it off "simply re-evoke the command by passing 'true' to the boolean variable."

so how do i turn it off? help.


edit> sorry. i just got it. when i first cut and pasted the command to turn it on it automatically ran the command. i just had to press return to run the command to turn it off.

 

[nichrome]

Originally posted by Steamboatwillie
One of my programming mentors always said to me when I tried, in vein, to convince him that "My way" was better; "When there are two or more good ideas implement them all and let the user decide"

Choice is never wrong

I'm not surprised your programming mentor told you that. It's a typical programmerism. And it's also utterly false.

From a usability standpoint, choice is most of the time wrong.

If you need to make the user choose which way they want to accomplish task X before they can actually accomplish task X, your implementation sucks, period.

If you need to make the user choose a method of accomplishing task X instead of giving them the optimal method of accomplishing task X out of the box in the first place, your implementation sucks, period.

Also, when a user is given a choice between two methods of accomplishing a single task, they will most likely spend more time and effort trying to figure out which way is the best way than actually doing the task at hand.