The small things 10.5 does right

[shakenmartini]

I always see lots of Leopard complaint threads so I thought I would post a few of the small things that really make Leopard great. Instead of the big items that are awesome, these are those really small, simple details that make a huge difference in day-to-day work.

• The red stoplight is filled with a black circle if a document is unsaved. This is a beautiful, simple visual clue that you need to save and a great feature if you need to check if a document is saved
  
• Command-Expose button. It is so simple to access the desktop by hitting command-expose (Command-F3 om a MBP). Moreover, UNLIKE windows, you can make the windows all come back to where they were WHILE dragging files. This is a fantastic way to drag and drop stuff that is unrivaled in Windows
  
• Minimal window overhead. The greatest thing about a Leopard window is that the border is only a couple of pixels thick. Absolutely no wasted desktop space for the window. Instead of wasting desktop space Leopard goes one additional step and uses a drop shadow. If you have entourage then you know what wasted window and UI space looks like. Only thing left is for Apple to slim down title bars and scroll bars and I will be a happy camper.
  
• Scrolling windows in the background without bringing it forward. Nuff said, when working side-by-side on two documents this feature is immensely powerful
  

 

[apfhex]

Your first two points have existed in OS X for a long time. The "unsaved dot" I'm not sure how long — maybe since 10.0? And the Exposé stuff since Exposé was added in 10.3.

Your third point about Minimal window overhead also applies to older versions of OS X, though is more true with Leopard with the removal of the brushed metal style.

The fourth point about scrolling windows in the background, YES I like this a lot. I didn't think it would end up mattering much but I find that there really are situations where I use this.

 

[KingYaba]

I liek the built-in spellchecker.

 

[applefan69]

I liek the built-in spellchecker.

thats more something OS X itself does right, not 10.5 OS X has had a spell checked since 10.3 i believe


ALTHOUGH, 10.5 now has built in grammar checker, but it doesnt really work all that well. But maybe by 10.6 apple has have improved it to be as good as the grammar checkers in proffesional apps. (which would be VERY nice)

ALTHOUGH i do fully agree, the system-wide (ANY text you type) spell checker is extremely useful. I remember when firefox 2.0 came out people made a big deal out of the fact it would check your spelling, and I was like ".... ummm if you use a mac EVERYTHING you type is automatically spell checked......"

 

[techage14]

I remember when firefox 2.0 came out people made a big deal out of the fact it would check your spelling, and I was like ".... ummm if you use a mac EVERYTHING you type is automatically spell checked......"

lol

I think the small things that OS X does right for me is the ability to solve simple calculation in spotlight (very useful for me) and dragging a highlighted word into the dictionary icon on the dock, again, extremely useful for looking up a word that I haven't seen in a while or seen at all.

 

[HLdan]

Things that Mac OS X does right

I think the OP (if possible) should change the thread title to something like "The small things that Mac OS X does right" and this thread will get an enormous response.
The reason the thread I hate the most "Things you hate about Macs" has so many replies because it's generalized so people complain about Macs and the OS.

Anyways here's the small thing I love about 10.5 and really needed it. Preview! Now I can fill out interactive PDF's and save them and highlight text which is something only the expensive Adobe Acrobat Standard or Pro could do. Also I can combine multiple PDF's into one. Also I love the photo editing features in Preview, it eats Microsoft's kiddy Paint program alive.

 

[spork183]

Time Machine. Ah the joys of finding revisions from multiple times in the past...

 

[Sam Yikin]

I think the OP (if possible) should change the thread title to something like "The small things that Mac OS X does right" and this thread will get an enormous response.
The reason the thread I hate the most "Things you hate about Macs" has so many replies because it's generalized so people complain about Macs and the OS.

Anyways here's the small thing I love about 10.5 and really needed it. Preview! Now I can fill out interactive PDF's and save them and highlight text which is something only the expensive Adobe Acrobat Standard or Pro could do. Also I can combine multiple PDF's into one. Also I love the photo editing features in Preview, it eats Microsoft's kiddy Paint program alive.

I disagree there, preview's tools are great but the ability to, well, paint puts Paint on top for me.