Spaces = Exposé²

[Palad1]

For the most part, none of those are truly revolutionary.
(snip)
Did we really just see a magic act?
(Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!)

64-bit cocoa framework.

 

[tektonnic]

Funny, because it's the one Sneak Peek, probably-will-change feature that I see myself absolutely never using.

I know what you mean, I never thought I would use Expose, but now my mighty mouse's nipple is for that purpose.

 

[Lau]

I know what you mean, I never thought I would use Expose, but now my mighty mouse's nipple is for that purpose.

I read that as "mighty monkey's nipple" for some reason. Either way, it's funny.

 

[tektonnic]

not to deviate but i use the might monkey nipple for dashboard.

 

[After G]

VNC runs at any resolution at any color depth at any FPS you want, assuming that you have the network bandwidth to drive it.

We know that they were in the same network segment, so you could stream high definition video at full resolution (1920x1080), 48-bit color depth at 120FPS with 60Mbps.

Lower the resolution and color depth per pixel, the faster each frame can draw.

What I would do if I were to create an iChat with the ability to see the desktop (and I had OS X plus it's standard components to work with), I would use the final render of the main screen fed back into an offscreen buffer, into Quartz Extreme to scale down to 640x480 or a simmilar resolution and downscale to 16-bit pixel depth.

From there, I would do an MPEG2 VBR compression and start streaming.

Well, the remote computer stuff doesn't interest me (as much) if you have to be on the same LAN to do it.

I know VNC can do scaling and 16.7 million colors. Why are things like ARD and Remote Desktop on Windows faster then? I'm sure Apple improved something somewhere. And when I tried VNC, by direct-networking my Macs together, it left a lot to be desired (over ethernet). I had to scale down my settings. Maybe a dual-core Mac mini isn't enough for VNC though ....

Consider all the people right now with low upload capability (in the post your connection speed thread). Looks like a lot of them will be left in the cold if high bandwidth is a requirement. Not everyone has a Uni network or FIOS / FTTH handy.

And your answer to interactive iChat still involves scaling down the desktop elements, and no interactivity. What about system sounds, mouse movements, etc.?

 

[Palad1]

VNC works on the framebuffer level that is, it sends pixels over the wire. Some clever implementations send regions compressed in jpeg (tightvnc, for example) in order to gain some bandwidth.

Window's Terminal Services works on the Win32 api level, meaning that it intercepts orders sent to the local computer Windows graphics subsystem and forwards them to the remote computer (ie: draw a box there, draw a label here, and so on). The bandwidth needed is much smaller.

It's the same principle as OpenGL commands. I can play quake on a remote headless unix machine and get a pretty descent framerate on my computer which has an opengl accelerator.

I don't know howADC works though... any hints? is there a windows ADC client?

Cheers,
Palad1

 

[Cooknn]

And Virtual Desktops have been around in *nix window managers for years...

What's interesting to me is that although I've always had this option at my disposal (one way or another), I never really got into the multiple desktop gig. But the way it looks to be implemented by Apple just seems so much more intuitive than anything else. It didn't seem like multiple/virtual desktops when I watched the Spaces preview on apple.com. It seemed so easy to use - the fact that clicking on an application on the Dock brings that space into play is very cool. And of course you can drag and drop applications from space to space.

When I'm working on my virtual tours I have a bunch of stuff going on at the same time, and even with a 23" Cinema HD Display I don't have enough room to keep it all open. So, I'm constantly hiding applications, or grabbing them with Exposé. With Spaces I see myself working more efficiently by having each application on its own desktop ready to rock

 

[OldCorpse]

Spaces

Yep, I'm with those who find Spaces a neat addition to OS X. And if existed as a power toy in windows, or as md in linux... so WHAT??? Point is, I'm running OS X, and not win or linux, so I don't give a rat's about who came up with it first... that debate does not impact the usefulness of Spaces. I do more than one kind of task on my iBook through the day. Sometimes I'm writing. Sometimes editing. Sometimes working with music files. It's super neat that I can have all my apps relevant to a particular task already lined up, and not have to start from scratch every time I move on to a different task. So, to each his/her own. For *me* Spaces is good news.

As for the rest of the stuff shown so far... meh. OK, maybe todo lists everywhere might be useful - I often find myself in need of such an app. However anything to do with iCal, iChat or Mail - completely irrelevant to me. I never use these. GMail + GMail Notifier is all I need - personally, I have zero need for a mail client. Skype does all I need (these days it does video for mac too), so iChat is of no use to me. iCal sux and unless Apple scrubs the whole thing and starts with a blank page, I have no hope of iCal ever turning into a decent calendaring/pim solution.

TimeMachine - meh. I don't tend to lose stuff. Occasionally, I'll clone my drive using CCC and I'm fine. I can't imagine having an external drive hooked up 24/7 to my laptop... what happens when you're on the road. For *me*, I have no need for TimeMachine.

Dashboard - I'm actually one of the few users who likes this... but I'm not excited by the new featurs such as they are... maybe I'll change my mind once I see it in action.

64-bitness doesn't impact my life. I'm running an iBook, and all my software is 32 bit. And I dont' see anything fabulous that's 64 bit and must have.

So, apart from Spaces, I see no need for Leopard for me - of course, I'm hoping the super secret stuff will make all the difference

 

[thewhitehart]

VNC controls through ichat, Time Machine's ability to get back anything you've deleted... I'm scared, to tell you the truth. Is my Mac less secure? I take such good care of my data, that when I want something deleted, I want it deleted! I hope Time Machine has a 'permanent delete' feature.

 

[projectle]

A perminant delete like the Secure Erase that now exists in Tiger?

Where it will invoke Shred to overwrite your data several times so that it can not be recovered by "those with questionable motives"?

I seriously believe that if you continue to use the Secure Erase that it will still be just as unreadable as it is today.

Just doing a normal delete, of course you are not secure. You never are under any Operating System even if it never touches the internet and exists in a locked room and is only accessable with a biometrics scanner. If someone bypasses the OS entirely, they can get any data back if you do not overwrite it MANY times.

 

[Palad1]

VNC controls through ichat, Time Machine's ability to get back anything you've deleted... I'm scared, to tell you the truth. Is my Mac less secure? I take such good care of my data, that when I want something deleted, I want it deleted! I hope Time Machine has a 'permanent delete' feature.

If you watch the demo, Steve (I'm not worthy, I'm not worthy... ) explicitely flags files for their inclusion in TimeMachine.

Now 3rd party apps using TimeMachine should use the same policy as well.

What about stuffing important stuff in an encrypted dmg then? And stuff, will be, like, stuffed!

Cheers,
Palad1

 

[WillMak]

There's been a 3rd party app/hack out for some time now for OS X, called Desktop Manager. Spaces looks alot like that, just more polished.

The same kind of features is also present in most Linux desktop distributions. The idea is that you can have several desktops.

I've got desktop manager but it doesn't seem to allow me to drag applications to other windows even when I tell it to.

 

[Lollypop]

I wonder if spaces will work on multiple monitors, I know current 3rd partyt apps simple crash, while it wont be easy to do it would be so cool if you could have 4 spaces per screen, and be able to drag one app on one space from one monitor to another space on another monitor.....

What about stuffing important stuff in an encrypted dmg then? And stuff, will be, like, stuffed!

Couldnt we just TimeMachine the entire dmg? Sure the content might not be saves as dynamically as if it would be a standalone file but its something..

 

[ZLurker]

Yep, I'm with those who find Spaces a neat addition to OS X. And if existed as a power toy in windows, or as md in linux... so WHAT??? Point is, I'm running OS X, and not win or linux, so I don't give a rat's about who came up with it first... that debate does not impact the usefulness of Spaces.

True! I dont give a damn either, i welcome it. Ive been using multiple desktops on unix for more than a decade and im sure it was built in even before then. I just think that if u are adding new stuff to OSX dont add something that is worse than your competitors and make a fuss about it.
Now im using Desktop Manager on OSX. I think ill continue to do that after Leopard is released. Why?
I dont think spaces it will be as good on OSX as on Linux or Unix.
1) Can u only have an app in one desktop? (DM can)
I usually have my fav editor, browser on 2-3 desktops
2) On cmd+tab id like to get only the apps on that particular desktop, and i dont think the current implementation of the UI of OSX would allow that.

Lets see what the final shipping version looks like

 

[ZLurker]

I've got desktop manager but it doesn't seem to allow me to drag applications to other windows even when I tell it to.

You can move apps to another window by using keybord shortcuts, but i dont know about drag n drop?
I try to use keybord as much as possible, but i guess thats all about how u interact with the OS.
Im also one of those who use terminal and x11