Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger first impressions

[mmcirvin]

(10.4.1, actually...)

Graphics operations do seem faster; I'm currently running at a resolution that taxes my video card, and things like full-screen QuickTime VR panning are noticeably faster now.

Now that Spotlight's indexed my drive, it's pretty remarkable. I haven't used it enough to know how usable it is, but it sure is fast. I don't like the use of grayed-out labels and icons in the search results dialog; things that look like they're inactive aren't.

The idea of Dashboard is interesting—an environment for extremely easy-to-develop tiny little apps—but did the user interface for these things really have to be totally different from, oh, everything else in the entire system? Keyboard shortcuts don't even seem to do what you'd think they do.

It really feels half-finished, and also a little like Apple is trying to invent desk accessories again after gradually erasing the distinction between them and everything else years ago. I'm a little uneasy about the duplication of services that results. The new dictionary feature has a dictionary application, a dictionary service and a dictionary Dashboard widget. The iTunes miniplayer widget now coexists with the minimized iTunes app and the iTunes dock-icon controls. There's a Stickies widget as well as the original Stickies app (unless that's gone from a pristine Tiger installation; I don't know). It all seems a bit redundant. I will grant that Stickies do seem like a natural thing to put on a separate worldsheet that shows up with a magic keystroke.

That said, I think my favorite widget so far is the Yellow Pages one, with its one-click integration with the system address book; I can see that being immediately useful (I just got my dentist's contact information in there with a couple of clicks). I wish you could change the size of the thing, though; it's tiny. And I wish the map link brought up Google Maps rather than Mapquest; it seems like these widgets usually allow extremely little customization.

The new features generally seem to violate established UI standards in wacky ways, and it's going to take a while for me to get used to them.

Comments

[ckd]

There's yet another interface to the dictionary. Leave the cursor over a word and hit Cmd-Ctrl-D.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

That was what I was calling the dictionary service, but now that you mention it, there's also a normal Cocoa service that opens the dictionary app.

The dictionary does seem to be a nice one, much better than what Sherlock used to bring up.

[pentomino.livejournal.com]

Apple seems to reinvent UI standards every so often. But who doesn't?

Do you still have to check a special option to be able to tab to things like checkboxes and pull-down lists?

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

The option's still there; I checked it a long time ago. I don't remember what the default setting is.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

...The change that bothers me the most is just functional buttons being displayed in a manner that, ever since the original Macintosh in 1984 (and on Windows and Unix too), has screamed "this is a disabled option that does not do anything".

[chicken-cem.livejournal.com]

They did change the behavior on keyboard-driven accessibility, for the better. For example, the only way to navigate the finder menu in the past was with the arrow key. So say you wanted to do Finder->View->Clean Up. In the past that was Ctrl-F1 (or whatever you chose for 'open Menu' in the keyboard accessibility settings), then hit the right arrow key FOUR times to get to 'view', then hit the down arrow to get to 'Clean Up'. Now it actually responds to letter presses, so now it's just Ctrl-F1, 'V', one down-arrrow press, then 'C'. Sometimes when the down-arrow part involved going past lots of options that didn't have key combo equivalents, the old way could involve as many as thirteen or fourteen keystrokes. This new way really cuts down on that.

[paracelsvs.livejournal.com]

I don't think you're looking at Dashboard quite right. The duplication of functionality is quite intentional - the Dashboard is for quick access to simple, often-used functions, where opening up a full app would be cumbersome.

The design guidelines tell you explicitly to never use Aqua controls on the front sides of widgets - the wisdom of this is maybe debatable, but I think the idea is to make the widgets stand out from the rest of the system, and also from each other. If they all used standard Aqua components, they'd all blend into each other. Also, widgets are supposed to be simple enough to not require perfect consistency, since they'll at most have a couple of buttons and maybe a scrollbar.

Also, if you really want to, it's easy enough to modify the functionality of one if you are a programmer by opening up the bundle and editing the javascript code for it directly.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

One thing that does seem nice is that the system is evolving in the direction of not requiring the user to do a lot of compulsive organizing work. You can fill up the whole screen with Dashboard widgets without worrying much about them interfering with anything. Old-style desk accessories would be hard to get to if your strategy was to just leave them lying around open, and though you can now uncover the desktop with an Exposé button, that would make desktop accessory windows scatter too, since these days they're just apps like any other. So maybe there really needs to be a UI distinction between desk accessories and other things, just to make it easy to call them up at any time.

Spotlight's good for lazy, disorganized users too. Many people have argued that they don't need to use a global system search very often because they spend a lot of time arranging files into a comprehensible taxonomy according to their private mental filing system; the point is that you could have a computer bother with that instead. I do remember thinking at one point that I could really use something like iTunes' essentially instantaneous search and Smart Playlist technology for the whole system.

[iayork.livejournal.com]

Still not sure about Spotlight. In its most simple mode, it seems to work pretty well; but the moment I try to do anything remotely fancy something goes wrong. I tried Smart Folders based on time (modified in the last week, eg), and the thing is just dog-slow, takes several minutes (literally) to show results. The Raw Query system has no way of limiting based on Path (can't exclude "Caches" from a search on a case-by-case basis). Other weird stuff happens: files get excluded from searches that don't mention any of hteir key words, sometimes.

In general Spotlight seems another work in progress.

[graydon.livejournal.com]

I very much like having search systems. what I dislike is the current religious repetition of the phrase "search, don't sort", to the point of removing sorting features from UIs to "make them more intuitive".

the fact is that in order to search, you must know what you want to search for. often you don't. in those cases, you must browse, and browsing is very frustrating without some sorting. libraries are organized by LC number. they could be organized by hash code, but they're not: they're organized by subject. I use dmoz.org, which is organized by subject. in mutt, I often sort by non-date fields (something gmail stubbornly refuses to do). on my disk, I often browse my old src/ directories to see what I was working on. these are cases where there is no search term.

[pootrootbeer.livejournal.com]

So maybe there really needs to be a UI distinction between desk accessories and other things, just to make it easy to call them up at any time.

It makes sense to put them on a separate plane of the desktop interface from full-fledged application windows, I'll give it that. But I don't see the logic behind making users learn two different ways of interacting with program objects, or making developers learn two different ways of developing them. Anything that's good practice for a standard application should also be good practice for a lightweight app-let.

[paracelsvs.livejournal.com]

As I said earlier, widgets are supposed to be so easy to use that you don't need to learn anything. They are not for complex tasks - either they just sit there, or they have the one button that says "DO STUFF", or something along those lines. Interface consistency is important in a big and complex program, but nowhere near as important in a program that lets you change the song in iTunes.

Furthermore, remember that widgets are just HTML and Javascript, not Cocoa or Carbon programs. Not conforming to the usual Aqua look makes things much easier for developers.