beerfloat isn't nerdy enough to know what he's talking about. OS X is Unix. There's nothing unixy, it just is, so it couldn't be any more "unixy". It could be more like other unix-based OSs, but that's a different matter.
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What do you like and dislike about Mac OS X?
- Thread starter Doctor Q
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beerfloat isn't nerdy enough to know what he's talking about. OS X is Unix. There's nothing unixy, it just is, so it couldn't be any more "unixy". It could be more like other unix-based OSs, but that's a different matter.
I just wish a few more things were built into the os. Leopard has taken a step in the right direction with the option for the translucent menu bar(which I can't stand, so I'm glad I was given an option), but there are still only the aqua and graphite themes. I'm not saying I miss windows, trust me I don't, but there were things about it that I liked, like being able to make it look different than everyone else's version of windows. I just want to be able to tweak the style with having to download and install a bunch of apps or use command line, etc.
Oh right sorry i didn't quite understand what you meant, i thought you meant its too much effort so theres no point in defragmenting, not the system being put under too much stress to do it on a regular basis.
oh god no, opening an application and then pressing "Start" isnt that hard haha!
yea true it would be good, i wonder if there is a too deep in unix somewhere?
if your into the whole defragging thing, then it will do it best for you
(probably because it boots up from a disc and has full access to the HD)i see, excellent. good to see your in "Teh Know"
sweet, ill check it!
just gotta wear her in!!!!!!
It could possibly be reference to the fact that OSX comes from the lesser represented BSD family tree of Unix (as opposed to most of the major distros that come from the System V branch).
I'm guessing he's talking about a subjective feeling of freedom, customizability, tinkerability, openness...
If Microsoft made a new version of Windows that would introduce some drastic interface changes and would generally be different from other Windows versions, people could complain it's not windowsy enough, although it would still be Windows. Therefore your argument isn't the best one.
I love the productivity OS X gives me, the beautiful UI, system wide spell-check and dictionary, app install/uninstall procedure, expose and hundreds of other things I could go on and on about!
As far as gripes, I wish flash would either die or be better optimised by Adobe for Macs (50-60% CPU is still unacceptable!).
I'd like the last remnants of Aqua to be removed and the UI more unified.
I wish there was a cut function, dragging files through many folders gets tiresome and feels a bit of an old-fashioned way (though I love spring-loaded folders).
I wish the dock was more responsive when moving icons about.
I wish error reports had an option to see more info: "an unexpected error occurred" isn't particularly useful
Finally, I wish Mail was a bit more stable, of all the apps on OS X Mail crashes the most for me
Looking at these though, they're really minor gripes, hence why I use OS X!
As far as gripes, I wish flash would either die or be better optimised by Adobe for Macs (50-60% CPU is still unacceptable!).
I'd like the last remnants of Aqua to be removed and the UI more unified.
I wish there was a cut function, dragging files through many folders gets tiresome and feels a bit of an old-fashioned way (though I love spring-loaded folders).
I wish the dock was more responsive when moving icons about.
I wish error reports had an option to see more info: "an unexpected error occurred" isn't particularly useful
Finally, I wish Mail was a bit more stable, of all the apps on OS X Mail crashes the most for me
Looking at these though, they're really minor gripes, hence why I use OS X!
likes: ease of audio editing and recording/UI
dislikes:flash (but thats adobes fault all tho going from 10.5.6 to 10.5.7 seems to have better drivers for Nvidia cards so its not as bad as it was)
dislikes:flash (but thats adobes fault all tho going from 10.5.6 to 10.5.7 seems to have better drivers for Nvidia cards so its not as bad as it was)
Something I really like about Mac OS X: One app can crash without harming others or crashing the Mac. I know it's not new, or unique to Mac OS X, but it's sure a nice change over the pre-X version of Mac OS. It's not 100% effective, as you probably know. It's possible for one app to crash another when it involves a bug in Mac OS X itself, but it's pretty rare compared the the bad old days.
It's nice to be spoiled this way, because it direct affects productivity, as well as reducing the number of times you want to hit your head on the wall because you lost your work in "innocent" apps.
We'll be further spoiled when every web browser lets one window or tab crash without affecting others. Maybe Mail (which seems to crash itself more often than most apps) should take that lesson to heart and try to limit it's handling of internal bugs to crashing one mailbox at a time, not the whole app.
Of course, if there were no bugs in any software, that would be ideal, but that just won't happen (on any platform). It's the nature of software that bugs will always be part of the equation.
* * *
Something I don't like about Mac OS X: The System Preferences -> Print & Fax -> Add New Printer window. I know there are many ways to access printers, but Apple hasn't done its usual job of making something complex seem automatic or simple. It has tabs named Default and More Printers, neither of which seems intuitive to me, since "Default" isn't about picking your default printer and More Printers is really about more protocols, not more printers.
Are consumers really going to understand jargon like "HP IP Printing" and "Internet Printing Protocol" and "HP Jetdirect Socket", or know what to put in the "Queue" field for a printer accessed by IP? Will they wonder why the Fax choice has a list of Printer Names instead of Fax Names? Won't they be puzzled by the lack of a USB tab?
It just seems like a grab-bag for the techie instead of a well-thought-out design for Joe Computer User.
It's nice to be spoiled this way, because it direct affects productivity, as well as reducing the number of times you want to hit your head on the wall because you lost your work in "innocent" apps.
We'll be further spoiled when every web browser lets one window or tab crash without affecting others. Maybe Mail (which seems to crash itself more often than most apps) should take that lesson to heart and try to limit it's handling of internal bugs to crashing one mailbox at a time, not the whole app.
Of course, if there were no bugs in any software, that would be ideal, but that just won't happen (on any platform). It's the nature of software that bugs will always be part of the equation.
* * *
Something I don't like about Mac OS X: The System Preferences -> Print & Fax -> Add New Printer window. I know there are many ways to access printers, but Apple hasn't done its usual job of making something complex seem automatic or simple. It has tabs named Default and More Printers, neither of which seems intuitive to me, since "Default" isn't about picking your default printer and More Printers is really about more protocols, not more printers.
Are consumers really going to understand jargon like "HP IP Printing" and "Internet Printing Protocol" and "HP Jetdirect Socket", or know what to put in the "Queue" field for a printer accessed by IP? Will they wonder why the Fax choice has a list of Printer Names instead of Fax Names? Won't they be puzzled by the lack of a USB tab?
It just seems like a grab-bag for the techie instead of a well-thought-out design for Joe Computer User.
The network preferences and software update were better in tiger. Plus I hate how OS X does permissions.
I almost never do updates requiring reboot unless I can download them and run them as a package. Then if there is some big update that does not require reboot and then this tiny one that does it installs the big one at the same time as the small one meaning you can't use the computer then.
Network preferences:
I can go in and change the DNS server but I cannot delete the DHCP ones. I could do this in tiger and on ethernet in leopard. It seems like more "dumbing down" or "idiot proofing" than letting someone who knows what they are doing to do what they want. The advanced button is just that, it's for advanced settings. Just let me set them how I want it.
Permissions:
Say I want to edit a plist or config file. I have to copy the file to the desktop to do it. I prefer doing this in terminal over the GUI because I just type sudo and it does what I want. I just want to enable PHP in apache but I have to use terminal for it? TextWrangler is the only GUI tool that just lets me do it. At least someone figured out how to do text editors right.
I almost never do updates requiring reboot unless I can download them and run them as a package. Then if there is some big update that does not require reboot and then this tiny one that does it installs the big one at the same time as the small one meaning you can't use the computer then.
Network preferences:
I can go in and change the DNS server but I cannot delete the DHCP ones. I could do this in tiger and on ethernet in leopard. It seems like more "dumbing down" or "idiot proofing" than letting someone who knows what they are doing to do what they want. The advanced button is just that, it's for advanced settings. Just let me set them how I want it.
Permissions:
Say I want to edit a plist or config file. I have to copy the file to the desktop to do it. I prefer doing this in terminal over the GUI because I just type sudo and it does what I want. I just want to enable PHP in apache but I have to use terminal for it? TextWrangler is the only GUI tool that just lets me do it. At least someone figured out how to do text editors right.
Let's face it, no OS is perfect, even one as great as OS X. What bugs you about it?
I'll start:
-when there are too many "functions" for an app in the menu bar, it blocks the menu bar icons. I then have to click Finder, because it has the least amount of functions, and then I can get to my icons. I wish it had the arrow like on Windows, and when I click the arrow I can see all of my icons.
-on the dock, there's no way to tell a "pinned" app from a non-pinned, running app. What I really wish for is a separate area of some sort, that shows the running apps. I want my dock to simply be an app launcher, not a running-app manager.
I'll start:
-when there are too many "functions" for an app in the menu bar, it blocks the menu bar icons. I then have to click Finder, because it has the least amount of functions, and then I can get to my icons. I wish it had the arrow like on Windows, and when I click the arrow I can see all of my icons.
-on the dock, there's no way to tell a "pinned" app from a non-pinned, running app. What I really wish for is a separate area of some sort, that shows the running apps. I want my dock to simply be an app launcher, not a running-app manager.
I take it you don't like Lion? I don't blame you. I didn't mention that though because those things have been mentioned atleast a thousand times since it was released...
snow leopard seems perfect to me, havent tried lion yet since i dont think it can run on a core duo imac....
Flash brings OSX (and Windows) down to its knees and Safari in my opinion isn't a great browser.
lets see hitting delete won't delete a file. copy and paste sometimes you can use the mouse sometimes you have to use the keyboard. clicking the x on a app is the same as the minus most of the time so you have to work to close apps. whats the point of the x if most of the time it does not close an app?
That apple doesn't really let you tweak much of the os - for example font size system wide, mouse pointer customization, little stuff like that
Overall SL is rock solid so it's angood tradeoff.
Lion though, ugh, that's a bag of hurt. I'm a little offended at how blatant apple is at forcing some of these new features on users
Overall SL is rock solid so it's angood tradeoff.
Lion though, ugh, that's a bag of hurt. I'm a little offended at how blatant apple is at forcing some of these new features on users
I have played Lion at the store for a while...It looks nice but not ready to upgrade until Steve Jobs irons those nasty bugs out!
I'm not sure what to suggest - it seems like you are trying to replicate Windows functionality when it doesn't apply to Mac OS's design. The Menu Bar has a different function from Window's Task Bar. Mac OS has always used this paradigm - all the way back to the first. Menu Bar Items have grown in use and diversity through the years, but the primary reason for the Menu Bar is for app's menus. Display resolution has increased too, which serves to separate menus from items.
All I can say is to see if some of the items can be reduced in width and to review whether you need all of them. If you can eventually go with a higher resolution display, that would probably eliminate the "collision" for you.
Non-"pinned" running apps will always be placed next to the Dock Separator and are removed from the Dock when closed. Your running "pinned" apps can be manually positioned in any grouping you like. To help distinguish between those running and those closed, I suggest enabling the "Show indicator lights for open applications" option (System Preferenced > Dock).
I seldom use the Dock to see what is open/closed - I primarily use it to launch apps, too. If I'm actively using an app, there is usually a window open, and I can use Mission Control to switch between them (or, sometimes cmd-tab).
With Lion, you can worry even less about which apps are open and which are closed. Those that have been inactive, will be put into a suspended state which will limit the resources actively being used (the criteria for when that happens is based on several conditions - and the app has to support the feature).
First, I'd like to say I am all for everyone having their likes and dislikes about OS-X. What I don't get is when, so often, dislikes come across as if that functionality is missing - when it's simply a matter of either learning a new method or understanding what a function - that looks familiar - actually is meant to do.
Deleting a file: cmd-delete
Copy/paste: can't think of a situation where both aren't available (and also through the Edit menu). If you can pinpoint when that happens, please post it.
Clicking the 'x': MacOS is much more document based than Windows. When an application's window is modal to that app, it makes sense to close the app (like System Preferences), as there isn't anything else for the app to do. When it isn't, such as TextEdit or Pages, or pretty much any content creation app, closing the window simply means you are finished with that specific document. The app stays running because you can reopen it, create a new document, or open a recent document (for instance). You'll notice documents seldom have any kind of menu bar, rather they have tools needed for the document (like justify, fonts, etc.).
The single Menu Bar and document based paradigm has always been a major difference between Mac and Windows. I hope I've helped explain the 'x' - this is something brought up often in forums.
I have heard over and over about command delete but it does not work. at least not on files. maybe on older version of osx?
It will do that if you keep the button down. Single click to select the menu, then you can move the cursor wherever you like, without the menu closing (unless you move it to a different menu by going back to the Menu Bar and over to a different menu).
Once I click on a menu, I can move the mouse anywhere out and back to the menu, until I click a second time - either selecting an option, or canceling the menu by clicking elsewhere. Otherwise, the menu stays open.
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It's been working that way for at least several versions. I don't use it much, myself, rather I right-click, but it's been a feature probably at least back to 10.4. (I tend to use the mouse/trackpad as much as I can as it requires less movement. I know, I know, but that's anoher story...).
Anyway, if you click on a file to select it, then cmd-delete, it will move to the trash.
Snow Leopard is nearly perfect. The only annoyance that I have is that there is no way to use a keyboard shortcut to do a right click on a selected icon. (e.g. using the arrow keys to navigate to a file rather than the mouse and then getting a right click using the keyboard rather than having to move the mouse all the way to the selected icon and doing a right click that way.) I won't go into my dislike of Lion here, I'll just stick to that one annoyance that I have with Snow Leopard.