Tiger - eyecandy. Replacement for the genie effect?

[Blue Velvet]

If I read you correctly you would probably prefair if the window just dissapeared from the desktop and then appeared in the dock. In my view the more visual feedback you can get from the system the more intuitive it becomes...

You have read me incorrectly.
I'm happy with scale 'cos it's fast and less obtrusive.

Re: Visual feedback – do you think airplane cockpit interfaces need as much flashy feedback? It's not about quantity – it's about efficiency and visual ergonomics, not gimmicky distracting effects.

 

[jlewis2k1]

Download Tinker Tool or Onyx to find out!

Basically it's similar to the scale effect, with the window getting sucked in by the bottom corner.

well i would but ... im kind of mac-less.

 

[mox358]

I was just messing around and decided to try out the "suck" effect with OnyX and I'll be honest - I think it sucks.

I don't know why... personal preference, not trying to sound like a complainer. It just doesn't look as nice or as polished as the genie effect. And I haven't seen the updated one from tiger, so maybe I would like it better (if it has changed at all).

With genie its so smooth and apparent where the window is going. With the suck effect my eye is drawn to it due to the way the window is "sucked" into the dock. It looks like at the end it just collapses into the dock, as where genie smoothly slides into the dock. I dunno, just throwing in my 2 cents.

Thats the nice thing about it... we can all have different dock settings and work with what we like!

 

[Blue Velvet]

With the suck effect my eye is drawn to it due to the way the window is "sucked" into the dock.

My point exactly.

But... I'm minimizing a window precisely because I do NOT want to see it anymore. I'm looking for the next file or task and so do not want my eyes drawn to something which is redundant...

 

[maya]

You can always always speed up the minimize animation for windows, to the point that its not even a blink.

Not sure if anyone has mentioned this.

I like all the effects, its makes for an entertaining experience. Though I have it speed up.

 

[NickFalk]

Re: Visual feedback – do you think airplane cockpit interfaces need as much flashy feedback? It's not about quantity – it's about efficiency and visual ergonomics, not gimmicky distracting effects.

A rather silly comparison. I am not insisting that you*use the genie effect I'm just pointing to the fact that it gives a clearer indication of where the minimized window is going. For first time users this is probably fairly helpfull, as is all*visual feedback in an alien enviroment.

And as for the cockpit - I really*don't think airplane cockpits are particularly intuitive. It's not like you just buy a plane get into the drivers-seat and take off...

 

[johnnyjibbs]

Whenever I use Windows (rarely now it has to be said), I always am struck how little feedback there is. OS X is full of feedback, not just the genie effect, but also actions such as dragging and then cancelling (and it moves back to where you dragged it from, etc). This sort of feedback is few and far between on Windows and so you only tend to notice how much we take it for granted when you play around with Windows. (Biggest pet hate: double clicking an application on the desktop and waiting half an hour while Windows provides no feedback as to whether the program is launching or not, just to be bombared with 200 windows because I got bored and double clicked a few more times )

On Windows, there is a rather crappy but nevertheless functional minimise effect. Turn it off and it doesn't feel right, even though you know the window will have simply minimised to the taskbar.

I like the genie effect, although I agree that it could be a little slow for some. That's why there's the option to change it to Scale (which provides the all-important feedback, but is also much quicker and less gimmicky).

I once enabled the Suck-in effect but I didn't like it so much. I believe it is disabled because it isn't polished enough. It works well on small windows such as the iChat buddy window but looks completely naff on big windows such as Safari or a Word document (too blocky, as if there were not enough "polygons").

 

[ldburroughs]

Third, and lastly: It annoys me that Windows users get so excited about it. There are far more important & valuable things about OS X than an animated window. It's pure eye-candy designed to help sell Macs – it has the 'wow' factor that helps distinguish OS X from dull old Windows...

I hate to burst anyone's bubble but Windows based users have had this capability for quite some time now as well. I have one of each (Windows/Mac) and each has the dock. Each is completely configureable. In fact, the Windows version has more options for this eye-candy than my mac does. I'm sure there are third party programs for the mac but I don't currently use any for this purpose.

Windows is very dull but I can do anything I need to with my Windows machine just as easily on the Mac and vice versa. In fact, my Windows machine can run circles around the Mac in terms of pure performance. The Mac environment is just more pleasant to the eye and is subject to fewer attacks - although I've never experienced any of the nightmares people claim to experience with Windows. It has never crashed or failed on my current system. I prefer the Mac system simply for asthetic reasons, nothing more. The eye candy is a nice change of pace from the dull "START" bar commonly used in the Windows environment.

 

[buggybear]

Speed up genie effect

You can always always speed up the minimize animation for windows, to the point that its not even a blink.

Not sure if anyone has mentioned this.

I like all the effects, its makes for an entertaining experience. Though I have it speed up.

How? I read somewhere how to do this, but can't find it again. Please help!

 

[Applespider]

I find the Genie useful when showing people who don't understand how the Dock works.

I don't have particularly strong feelings either way in my personal use but that's probably because when I don't need a window any longer I tend to Hide it rather than Minimise it.

 

[Plizzo]

Suck Effect

You dont need any programs to activate Suck effect!

Just open Terminal and type:

defaults write com.apple.Dock mineffect suck

then press enter and then type:

killall Dock

Then enter and Suck is activated! ?

 

[M@lew]

Was there really a reason to bump a topic from 2 years ago? I'm pretty sure the person would've come across a solution by now.