UI changes you'd like to see in Leopard

[jellybean]

Anyone else think the UI could do with a major update in Leopard? Nothing too radical, just enough to bring it a bit up to date.

I've been playing with the latest build of Vista and I must admit OS X's interface feels very dated in comparison

I think most people agree brushed metal will most likely be gone in Leopard but replaced with what? Smooth metal? Still nothing amazing. And those red yellow and green buttons in the corner of windows feel so "fisher price"

I know, i know... it's how Leopard works at the end of the day what is so important, but there are a surprising number of people in the eye candy crowd who would be won over by just what looks and feels cooler. And I really don't want Vista to steal OS X's thunder

 

[ezkimo]

The damn lozenge buttons have to go. Unfortunately, it looks like they are spreading.

 

[Benjamindaines]

I like the buttons in OS X and hope (and am 99% sure they will stay). I would like to see some more window effects, like have the windows actually "grow" when you hit the green button, shrink away when you press close, and zoom in when they are opened a little like vista but not really.

 

[Lollypop]

I like the lozenges, for me the biggest UI change I would like is a nice consistant UI, not 2 or 3, but 1. Give us the choice maybe. What I would also like is for inactive windows in the background to become slightly transparent, if they want or need attention their transparrency levels can then cycle from non transparent to sligtly transparent and back. Not a UI change but something I hope apple does to the UI with Spaces, if a app in another space needs attention I would like the dock icon to start bouncing or even for the app to "knock", possibly by doing a light ripple effect on the visible space where the app on the other app is.

 

[SiliconAddict]

I don't think Apple uses enough spatial relations to finding data in their UI. If you take a look at Time Machine the ability to see a few levels back is somewhat important. I think this should somehow be integrated into Leopard's finder. How? No idea. But it seems to be a nature integration. Many of the techniques we use to find things, sort things, and remember things are so natural they should be in the OS and in many cases are. Also one of the most natural ways of locating data is by thumbing through it. You don't look up something one item at a time in an index. You page through it sections at a time. It's similar to how iPhoto allows you to scan through your photos by date at a relatively fast rate by showing months and years. This method of scanning data needs to be flushed out at an OS level.
Finally as slick as spotlight is its design and display of data is very 2D. Data can and often is viewed in not only context but in several other ways. How it relates to other data, timeframe, etc. A new way needs to be developed to see these relations beyond a simple show all in Spotlight. Finally someone please kick the developers at Apple in the head. However developed the spotlight "show all" window left out the ability to cmd-tab to it which is annoying as heck when you switch to another window and want to switch back. Instead you have to expose it, move your mouse, and click it. Waste of time IMHO.

 

[Frisco]

I also like the lozenge buttons. I want a consistent feel throughout: no more brushed metal and want everything plastic! Love that look

 

[BWhaler]

I don't care as long as it is consistent.

I'd really like to see consistent and intelligent keyboard shortcuts would be nice.

 

[Lollypop]

While im thinking about it... its very nice that the finder has all the folders for the different media types, but it doesnt encourage you to really keep it sorted that way, when i used systems 7 and I droped a extension in the system folder the finder put it in the right place for me, same with fonts. Why cant the current finder do the same kind of thing? When im surfing a website and want to save a image I simply drag it to the main HDD, I would like automatic actions that copies it to my pictures folder, and even adds it to my iphoto library. Not directly a UI cahnge, but almost...

 

[bousozoku]

Leave the buttons alone. They work just fine now.

Progress bars still take way too much CPU power. Slower flow of the liquid effects would be nice.

Consistent title bars, etc. The Unified gray/silver look plus the translucent black for the dialog boxes is fine with me. No more white with stripes and no more brushed metal, please.

Themes, or at least colour for buttons and scroll bars that's not blue or graphite.

 

[MacVault]

Yea, man, OS X needs a MAJOR overhaul on it's UI. Vista and XP is a way ahead of us on the UI...

1) The red/orange/green buttons are totally lame and need to go.
2) The slidebars and their arrows need to be totally redesigned. The look lame!
3) The menu bar at the top of the screen needs to go or be totally redesinged and possibly even put at the bottom of the screen.
4) When clicking the "maximize" button on a window it really should maximize and fill the entire screen or at least a smooth connection with the menu bar, wherever it is. Right now it looks so lame when the rownded corners of a window slam up against the stright menu bar. It gives it a very unfinished look, etc.
5) The Dock should prbably go bye bye, or at least dissappear when maximizing a window.
6) The brushed metal sucks, and the inconsistency in the UI sucks.
7) Small window elements need to be consistent. As it is now the "small windows" have squared off corners and really small buttons, etc. I think an example of this is the system wide font window, or the window that changes the size of icons in the finder, etc.
8) What else.. Hmm.. there's a lot more I'm not thinking of right at the moment. Oh yeah, here's one... Apple, please, please, please kill Quicken for Mac and make a Personal Finance Manager for us. Intuit Mac product SUCKS!

 

[wmmk]

for me the biggest UI change I would like is a nice consistant UI, not 2 or 3, but 1. Give us the choice maybe.

the only problem with making "traditional" aqua apps into metal apps and vice versa is that it tends to mess up toolbars and popup dialog boxes.

 

[hyperpasta]

Yea, man, OS X needs a MAJOR overhaul on it's UI. Vista and XP is a way ahead of us on the UI...

1) The red/orange/green buttons are totally lame and need to go.
2) The slidebars and their arrows need to be totally redesigned. The look lame!
3) The menu bar at the top of the screen needs to go or be totally redesinged and possibly even put at the bottom of the screen.
4) When clicking the "maximize" button on a window it really should maximize and fill the entire screen or at least a smooth connection with the menu bar, wherever it is. Right now it looks so lame when the rownded corners of a window slam up against the stright menu bar. It gives it a very unfinished look, etc.
5) The Dock should prbably go bye bye, or at least dissappear when maximizing a window.
6) The brushed metal sucks, and the inconsistency in the UI sucks.
7) Small window elements need to be consistent. As it is now the "small windows" have squared off corners and really small buttons, etc. I think an example of this is the system wide font window, or the window that changes the size of icons in the finder, etc.
8) What else.. Hmm.. there's a lot more I'm not thinking of right at the moment. Oh yeah, here's one... Apple, please, please, please kill Quicken for Mac and make a Personal Finance Manager for us. Intuit Mac product SUCKS!

hehe... I'm waiting for someone to miss the sarcasm...

 

[MacVault]

hehe... I'm waiting for someone to miss the sarcasm...

I guess I missed the sarcasm. Want to clue me in?

 

[wrldwzrd89]

Three changes I'd like to see in Leopard:

Remember the Favorites function from the pre-Panther days of Mac OS X (and in late "Classic" land)? The folder used for that feature is still there, but it no longer serves a useful purpose. Make it so that the Favorites folder does something useful again. I'm not sure what, though.

Secondly, when I make a new folder from inside a Save dialog, the view scrolls all the way to the left, as if it was invalidated by creating the new folder. Please, make it not do this! It's annoying, and I want to see that the new folder I just created is where I wanted it to be.

Finally, Why don't Open and Save dialogs remember the last folder used? A perfect example of an application that fails to remember the last folder used is Preview, Mac OS X's built-in PDF and image viewer.

 

[steelphantom]

Yea, man, OS X needs a MAJOR overhaul on it's UI. Vista and XP is a way ahead of us on the UI...

1) The red/orange/green buttons are totally lame and need to go.
2) The slidebars and their arrows need to be totally redesigned. The look lame!
3) The menu bar at the top of the screen needs to go or be totally redesinged and possibly even put at the bottom of the screen.
4) When clicking the "maximize" button on a window it really should maximize and fill the entire screen or at least a smooth connection with the menu bar, wherever it is. Right now it looks so lame when the rownded corners of a window slam up against the stright menu bar. It gives it a very unfinished look, etc.
5) The Dock should prbably go bye bye, or at least dissappear when maximizing a window.
6) The brushed metal sucks, and the inconsistency in the UI sucks.
7) Small window elements need to be consistent. As it is now the "small windows" have squared off corners and really small buttons, etc. I think an example of this is the system wide font window, or the window that changes the size of icons in the finder, etc.
8) What else.. Hmm.. there's a lot more I'm not thinking of right at the moment. Oh yeah, here's one... Apple, please, please, please kill Quicken for Mac and make a Personal Finance Manager for us. Intuit Mac product SUCKS!

So basically what you want is Windows?

 

[MacVault]

So basically what you want is Windows?

No, cuz Windows has other problems. I want OS X with a good GUI. The current one really leaves a lot to be desired.

 

[projectle]

I don't see why everyone loves the Vista UI.

Now before you start the flame war like I am a Mac Zealot, or some other mindless giberish, I am a Blue Badge.

Vista's new UI and its ultra-wide window borders definitely makes me a whole lot less productive on the same system due to the fact that it ties up an additional 20 pixels around each side of a window.

How can using more of your screen for mindless garbage be useful?

That is the single reason why I love the OSX UI, because usable space goes to the pixel of the edge.

Vista - a pleasing view, esp. one seen through a long, narrow opening

That definitely seems to be the case. It sure does look nice from far away for a few moments. But, when I want to get some work done, I either turn on the "Classic" view where I can do some real customization and get the best performance, or I power up my Powerbook.

I would personally be very upset if Apple were to substantially change the OS X UI. However, I am thrilled that OS X will have a fully functional, non-glitchy resolution independant UI. I just love working at 80%... Really gives me the power to give 120%.

 

[theBB]

1) The red/orange/green buttons are totally lame and need to go.

I like the colorful buttons quite a bit actually. I hope they'll stay.

My problem is Finder. Lack of "cut" is one thing, but I can live without it. The little bugs irritate me more. For a piece of OS GUI used everyday, Finder needs to work more smoothly. For example, when reading my camera's flash card, it takes ages for Finder to generate the previews of the photos. I can actually copy all of the pictures onto my harddrive and get the "icon previews" show up much sooner than Finder to generate the "icon previews" of pics on the card. XP is much faster on that respect.

Finder also displays the size of some pictures (1600x1200 for example), but some other photos of the same size in the same folder does not display any info about size. These kinds of little things is a bit irritating and of course I don't want to shell out $130 just for these fixes. One of the 10.4.x updates should be able to plug these holes.

 

[AvSRoCkCO1067]

No, cuz Windows has other problems. I want OS X with a good GUI. The current one really leaves a lot to be desired.

You want to get rid of the dock!?!?!?!?!? GASP . HERESY!

 

[CANEHDN]

Yea, man, OS X needs a MAJOR overhaul on it's UI. Vista and XP is a way ahead of us on the UI...

1) The red/orange/green buttons are totally lame and need to go.
2) The slidebars and their arrows need to be totally redesigned. The look lame!
3) The menu bar at the top of the screen needs to go or be totally redesinged and possibly even put at the bottom of the screen.
4) When clicking the "maximize" button on a window it really should maximize and fill the entire screen or at least a smooth connection with the menu bar, wherever it is. Right now it looks so lame when the rownded corners of a window slam up against the stright menu bar. It gives it a very unfinished look, etc.
5) The Dock should prbably go bye bye, or at least dissappear when maximizing a window.
6) The brushed metal sucks, and the inconsistency in the UI sucks.
7) Small window elements need to be consistent. As it is now the "small windows" have squared off corners and really small buttons, etc. I think an example of this is the system wide font window, or the window that changes the size of icons in the finder, etc.
8) What else.. Hmm.. there's a lot more I'm not thinking of right at the moment. Oh yeah, here's one... Apple, please, please, please kill Quicken for Mac and make a Personal Finance Manager for us. Intuit Mac product SUCKS!

You didn't by chance read the previous posts and copy them into your own did you?

I know this isn't a UI fix but I want to be able to right click on an image in Safari or in Preview and have the option to set it as the desktop. It would be so much easier.

 

[MacVault]

...I know this isn't a UI fix but I want to be able to right click on an image in Safari or in Preview and have the option to set it as the desktop. It would be so much easier.

YES! This is a great example of the type of integrated gui/features found all over the place in Windows, but Apple, on the other hand, tries to "simplify" everything and in doing so a lot of great features and GUI concepts are just non-existent. Apple needs to grow up and admit that these type of things should be in the OS, because they really should be there!

 

[portent]

I couldn't care less what color the buttons are, or whether the windows look like metal or plastic or tapioca pudding.

I want the Finder to be responsive when browsing network volumes. I want what's on the server to be on the screen now, not after a ten-second refresh. I want a graceful failure with an error message if a server goes down, not a spinning beachball. I want progress bars that show a meaningful progression, not a barber pole that spins for five minutes before filling up in five seconds.

I want Spotlight to be as fast for me as it is for Steve during the demos.

I want toolbar icons to be big and distinct, not small and similar. And I want a few pixels of space in between, and the option to remove or rearrange them.

I want a Trash can window that doesn't regrow its sidebar no matter how often I hide it.

I want to be able to create new folders with Command-N again. It's been five years, but I'm still not used to Shift-Command-N.

 

[decksnap]

I know I'm not the only one who thinks Vista looks like absolute garbage. I woudn't wish OS X to look anything like it.

And XP? Did someone mention Fisher Price?

Brushed metal has seen its last days. I'll agree with that.

 

[decksnap]

Yea, man, OS X needs a MAJOR overhaul on it's UI. Vista and XP is a way ahead of us on the UI...

1) The red/orange/green buttons are totally lame and need to go.
2) The slidebars and their arrows need to be totally redesigned. The look lame!
3) The menu bar at the top of the screen needs to go or be totally redesinged and possibly even put at the bottom of the screen.
4) When clicking the "maximize" button on a window it really should maximize and fill the entire screen or at least a smooth connection with the menu bar, wherever it is. Right now it looks so lame when the rownded corners of a window slam up against the stright menu bar. It gives it a very unfinished look, etc.
5) The Dock should prbably go bye bye, or at least dissappear when maximizing a window.
6) The brushed metal sucks, and the inconsistency in the UI sucks.
7) Small window elements need to be consistent. As it is now the "small windows" have squared off corners and really small buttons, etc. I think an example of this is the system wide font window, or the window that changes the size of icons in the finder, etc.
8) What else.. Hmm.. there's a lot more I'm not thinking of right at the moment. Oh yeah, here's one... Apple, please, please, please kill Quicken for Mac and make a Personal Finance Manager for us. Intuit Mac product SUCKS!

Also...

WHAT!!?

 

[Lollypop]

That definitely seems to be the case. It sure does look nice from far away for a few moments. But, when I want to get some work done, I either turn on the "Classic" view where I can do some real customization and get the best performance, or I power up my Powerbook.

Funny that you should mention that, I have vista on my work laptop, and I switched to classic view within days, the thing sucks so much memory that I couldnt get anything done.

One thing that I would like to see as well is that in expose when I expose to all the windows I can click on the desktop and all applications are imideately minimized. Second the notian that networking be improved. The finder beachballs way to much with network drives, and its to difficult to add shares on a permanent basis.