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Re: ::scr Ramblings of a Classic Refugee or How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love OS X
WARNING - LARGE RAMBLING POST AHEAD
>>>> unixy goodness <<<<
taken as read :)
>>>> classic feel (if not look) <<<<
I figured that the first things to attempt would be to make OS X's
interface less offensive through the use of the built-in prefs before I
got going installing any hacks.
Too right. And kudos to Apple: quite a few of the "hacks" I installed
have already been subsumed into the built-in prefs. (But let's hope they
pay off developers who pioneer great new functionality rather than just
rip off the idea - in this respect Apple has always seemed to lag behind
Microsoft's much better business sense)
1) Reduce the default icon size to less than the size of a dinner plate
CHECK
2) Sort out the Dock:
a) Reduce the size
b) turn off the cycle-sapping magnification.
c) anchor it to the right of the screen.
CHECK
And auto-hide it.
And not use it for launching apps or minimising windows. Then it makes a
pretty good open apps list.
http://homepage.mac.com/vercruesse/cocoa/asm/
CHECK
Except I switched to X-Assist as it also automates the focusing of all
of an application/the finders windows. Actually when that is built-in
pref configurable I'll probably just use the dock. Maybe there's already
a better way to do it...
Another thing I thought was missing was the familiar trashcan in the
bottom-right of the screen:
http://homepage.mac.com/northernSW/trashx.html
Actually I think the trash in the dock is the biggest UI improvement in
OSX. It's always there rather than hiding on the desktop obscured by
some window or other. And since I've anchored the dock to the bottom
right it's even where (it should | I've come to expect it to) be. Fitts
Law++
Pisspoor tabbed app switching
I can live with that (although it would be nice if the behaviour was
configurable) but I've always found extra gui approaches to just be so
much additional gui cruft that actually slows you down
Apple Menu
http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/system_disk_utilities/fruitmenu.html
CHECK
I'd say that it has the makings of being better than the original
Classic version. I would be surprised (and annoyed) not to see Apple
fold this into the mix.
WindowShadeX
CHECK
I hadn't bothered with it but I've just given it a go. I like it. The
ability to make windows as transparent as you like them is nice.
Although leaving the title bar opaque would be better still (but I guess
rather hard if not impossible to implement). I'd also like to see
selecting the window from the window menu automagically unshade it
though. But those niggles apply to Classic too. It's good. And you can
still minimise if you want too.
Note that WindowShade is by the same guy as FruitMenu. And ShadowKiller.
He knows Macs all right :)
Pop-up folders. I *really* miss them, but I've been unable to find a way
to duplicate their functionality.
Not a biggy for me. However there is this:
PopUpX
http://www.madoverlord.com/projects/popupx.t
Haven't tried it though
Alternatively you could just adapt and bung your folders on the dock ;)
Spring-loaded folders. They should never have got rid of these. I was
gobsmacked that they did since they're so *useful*. Ah well, it's due in
the next release, I hear.
But still nowhere as good as the functionality provided by PopupFolder
(which OS8's introduction of spring-loaded folders tragically broke,
inspiring the developers to give up on the Mac) - springloadedness++ in
the finder and dialog boxes. Can we have some of that please?
But am I doing the right thing? Is this not just head-in-the-sand
behaviour? Should I be embracing the new UI and fitting myself to it
instead of jumping through all these hoops in order to remain "living in
the past"? Surely I'm rejecting progress?
No. You are doing the right thing. You are doing what Mac users have
always done. That *is* progress. If the ui doesn't suit, change it to
suit. It's your machine. You sit in front of it all/most of the day.
In that vein, here are my demands:
>>>> I want candy <<<<
There are Kaleidoscope-style replacements (front runner: Duality,
formerly X-Morph) but - as I fortunately read just before installing it
and Stuart Wyatt piped up about in another place - these are known to
still have a tendency to leave you with unrecoverable blue screens on
startup. Blinking question mark macs - yes, blue screens of death - no.
If I wanted that I'd be using a whole other OS, wouldn't I?
[Didn't stop me tinkering with the Visage pref pane and managing to make
the OSX splash graphic vanish leading me to fear that I was experiencing
blue screen. Now I like it, seeing the system startup messages in a vast
sea of nothingness - it just seems so leet ;)]
Hopefully these will mature and be even better than the original
Kaleidoscope. Given the sheer scope and the consistency of the
underpinning of interface elements by Aqua, the possibility for as much
customisation as the user can stand seems eminently doable, seems
mouthwatering and if done right should avoid the potential "it looks
great but you've made it unusable" problem of themes (sorry - that
sentence extremely poorly thought out). If done really right, ancillary
services such as help systems should be able to reflect the user's theme
choices creating a truely seamless experience (or am I smoking crack
here?).
Of course, those familiar with my theme rants already know that what I
want from a theme manager is not more eye candy but less (even OS7 is
fussier than I need).
>>>> I want chrome <<<<
You know what I mean. Chrome all around the window. Not just a title
bar. So I can grab a window on any side and move it. So I can avoid
trying to scroll and ending up in some other window/app entirely :(
Perhaps theme managers can deal with this one, much like Kaleidoscope
enabled the amount of chrome under Classic to be altered. (whoops,
freudian past tense, guess who's not booting into Classic these days).
But I am probably misunderstanding how windows get done in OSX.
>>>> I want desktops <<<<
Not SpaceDock-alike desktops. Real unixen-grade desktops. Nuff said.
>>>> I want docks <<<<
And fully customisable at that
http://www.wpi.edu/~phoenix/macosx/dock.html
In some ways the dock could become great. But it's currently too laggy
to compete with FruitMenu as for decent nested access to folders/files
or collections of aliases (of course you can press ctl but with a
trackpad that's a somewhat cumbersome operation - if I was using a mouse
or, mmm, a graphics pad maybe I'd feel differently).
>>>> I don't want open/save dialogs <<<<
Well in an ideal world that would be lovely, making it all happen in the
finder
http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=06594
[Comments about suckiness of current implementation (apart from the much
improved, if not perfect, navigation services) are spot on too - the
worst thing being not being able to type letters and jump to the
files/folders starting with those letters]
However, in the absence of such a bold step, I'd like to be able to do
the following (all of which I can under Classic - granted using
DefaultFolder) in dialog boxes:
* Click on a file and copy its name to the new file
* Rename files
* Delete files (Oh you can, can't you?)
* Open folders in the finder
* Click on a folder in the desktop and change to that folder in the
dialog (obviously some hotkey would be necessary given the modeless
nature of the dialogs now)
[Please somebody tell me I'm an idiot and that it is possible to do
these things in OSX]
>>>> I want glue <<<<
that allows:
* the recording and playback of any action or task, such as typing key
commands or text, selecting menus and dialog box options, clicking on
controls, rearranging and resizing windows, opening applications and
documents, and prompting the user for input.
* the assigning of any sequence of these actions to keyboard commands,
toolbars, menus, and scheduled shortcuts.
* the resulting scripts to be fully editable (or written from scratch).
* the resulting toolbars and menus to be fully customisable.
Under Classic OneClick almost achieves this. And OneClick's developers
may join the fray (XClick?) but equally possibly they may just give up
as the PopupFolder guys did (although fairs fair, OneClick can't be
incorporated into OSX whereas Apple simply refused to buy up PopupFolder
and introduced their own inferior version)
Quickeys can do some of these things, but it's plodding, flaky and is
not scriptable so you can't get under the hood.
I've heard talk that Route 66 have a RealBasic plugin that promises to
do these things but their website doesn't mention it so hmmmm.
>> The contenders
I've come across a couple of apps that show promise and point in the
right direction:
ShellShell
http://www.madoverlord.com/projects/shellshell.t
A simple macro writing tool to create aqua interfaces for your favourite
commands - or rather for people who are scared of the command line or
can never remember the right commands.
ScriptGUI
http://www.scriptgui.com/
Let's you run scripts from the finder. Which can be double-clickable. Or
even better, drag-and-droppable with the dragged and dropped
files/folders being accepted as <stdin>. Mmmm nice, even if currently it
still has some rough edges. I like the suthor's combative distribution
notes too:
"A Note to Apple Computer
I suspect you left this sort of functionality out of MacOS X
deliberately. Otherwise a whole group of UNIX developers might have
simply used it to port their command-line tools over to OS X and been
done with it. But in making this decision, you made OS X less useful to
people who really understand both MacOS and UNIX. And you lost the
opportunity to entice them into the MacOS X fold. Please consider
putting functionality like this back in. I might even negotiate the
rights to distribute ScriptGUI."
>> The great white hope
AppleScript Studio looks like it's shaping up to be funky funky
functional. But a) while it's going to be great for writing apps it's a
bit too laborious for knocking out everyday run-o-the-mill scripts b)
Applescript support remains patchy in many (most?) apps and where it
exists does so in a sometimes truncated form and certainly wildly
diverging functions and keywords from app to app.
What I dream of most though is a kind of FinderPop style contextual
thingy (hell, it could even be FinderPopX with whistles) that not only
executes such scripts but enables users to build the scripts in a pop-up
fashion (Perhaps accessing AppleScript's dictionaries, thusly overcoming
the problem of having to learn those diverging dictionaries?) without
having to manipulate the apps and finder directly. And then group the
scripts as the user sees fit.
[Actually this kind of approach seems to me a good way of constructing
complicated searches, presenting the user with only the relevant
options/prompting for the necessary input, rather than cluttering up the
interface with masses of input boxes, some of which may or may not
impact on others.]
>>>> I don't want a finder <<<<
Hang on you say. What the fuck am I talking about? Especially
considering what I've just said about wanting open/save dialogs to
dissappear and magically just be finder operations.
OK, the finder can stay, it's folders/directories I want to see the back
off replaced by user-configurable attributes/categories - Isn't it
obvious that the OS should be a database too? The finder becomes a
collection of aliases to specific files or searches for files that match
specific attributes. (No Gerstner Scopeware 3d timelines though, well
not unless you really, really want that). [0]
Actually I also want auto versioning and trashing ;)
Whereas Apple's advance down the path of filename extensions and the
abandoning of the resource fork is a step in very much the opposite
direction :(
*cough*
[0] I've wanted this since 1996 when I encountered Apple's .mcf format -
the whizzygee fly-through mode was pants (and all those Brain/Fractal
Map style visualisations suck too), but the simple tree-style browsing
(lists, lists, lists) opened my eyes to how things could and should be
organised. I even toyed with learning Frontier to attempt to implement
my own system but (un)fortunately the learning curve at the time was
just too steep. As well as the fact that the task itself would have
been, er, still is, beyond my capabilities. And then sometime late last
year I read that piece about that BeOS guy's conversion to OSX - the
future has been and gone.