I've about friggin' H-A-D it with GoLive 6.0.1 for OSX. Here I am, trying to be a good little Mac Faithful soldier, doing my best to try and adapt to a third-rate operating system and apps written for a third-rate operating system.

But holy crap, as I use GoLive in OS X, I'm seeing everything that's wrong with this OS. And it's costing me all kinds of time and money. What we have here, is typical "Good for a penny, not good for a pound" syndrome.

Deal with small sites, single documents, work slowly... and everything's fine.

Get under the gun, work with big sites, and you are so. unbelievably. screwed.

Here's one thing I just discovered. If you use a lot of keyboard commands, and do a lot of cutting and pasting snippets of code in big sites with multiple documents open... if you do big sitewide find and replaces... you might as well boot into 9 now. I'm one of those guys who will do some code-tweaking, then hit command-S/command-W to save and close. I'll hit the two commands right on the heels of each other, badaboom badabing... because I'm used to the program doing what I tell it. Simple things, like saving my work and closing.

But with OSX, doing stuff like that can lead to tripping up the app. Work too fast, and you get screwy saves. I found this out by opening up documents I had just worked with. What was saved had very little to do with what I had just done. Whole tags and lines were missing, pooching my pages. there was the right amount of white space, but no code in it, when I saw with my own eyes the code I had pasted in. So I had to go back and fix. Things in OS X always take twice as friggin' long.

Now, I've had similar issues with other apps. I'll tend to enter my keyboard commands quickly, like command-x/command-v in rapid succession. But in OS X I find that the clipboard usually takes forever to update. Sometimes I'll paste, and what gets pasted is from a previous incarnation of the clipboard. God, I hate that. But that's called outworking the OS. Sorry, but that's what it is.

Pros are getting penalized for working rapidly, in a field where time is money.

Meanwhile, the OS X GoLive has the same disappearing text Quartz bug that Explorer has. You'll be minding your own business doing some site management, and suddenly big chunks of your site window's file list completely disappear. It's a standard Quartz misfire... also tied to the slow updating of OS X.

I find in GoLive sites in OS X, I have to do WAY more "refreshing" of site contents than I ever did in 9. And navigating with OSX's open/saves, vs. the good ones in 9 are an exercise in self depilatation. I mean, why do I do it to myself? Why do I even TRY to work in OS X? When time and time and time again it can't a) keep up with me; and 2) doesn't do its job right. So I can listen to iTunes and see some kicked up big icons? Sah-Ree.

Some things just have to work. You can't cut corners on stuff like saving files. Like cutting and pasting. Those things have to work.

This is an example of OS X not being up to the task. Where the shortcomings and slow updating of the operating system, have a direct impact on working with an application. In this case, by code becoming corrupted, being mis-saved. I want OS X to be more RELIABLE than this. I want reliability to be more than kernel uptime, which doesn't really amount to all that much if your primary working apps always go south and act flaky.

I do so thank you for being on the cutting edge. You're saving me LOTS of money, brother thalo.

I can't fathom why forgetting commands would be the case. I can understand the lag. But this is all computer code we're talking about, right? These are all instructions that are slavishly followed one-at-a-time by the operating system. It has to. What else can it do? It can't just make up its own code on the fly, can it? Once you issue a command, the code should execute, even if it takes a while to do so. Improvisation just isn't in the cards.

Something must be deeply bollixed up somewhere. What this must show is that the GUI is quite literally all for show. The entire OS can safely ignore important commands given to it and still keep right on running. What we have here – I think - is a clear indication that one should think GUI and work from there and not think Unix and then put a GUI on top. Surely the coding could be fixed but I think we also have an attitude problem here that is expressed by how the GUI works – or doesn't work in this case.

Golive mostly sucks because Adobe didn't write it, they bought it and tweaked it.

It's better than Dreamweaver at certain things. But BBEdit blazes for big codin'

I only use Golive for the lazy stuff like tables and frames and CSS that I like to set up in a GUI initially.

From then on it's BBedit.

And if BBEdit blazes, then the OS must be fine for such things. It's Golive that bites/is sluggish/flakey. (mostly)

And if BBEdit blazes, then the OS must be fine for such things. It's Golive that bites/is sluggish/flakey. (mostly)

Crap-settling deluxe! If OSX really was a pro-enabling system, then it wouldn't matter if applications were coded/optimized well at all. A pro-enabling system should automatically detect poorly written applications and make them work stupendously. The OS itself should compensate for all inadequacies of every application. The third-party developers are blameless for how their applications run in a particular OS. Look at all the applications for OS9; they run perfectly. It is the quintessential pro-enabling system.

I think GoLive is a great program. Approaching the conception of what all web design programs should be. And highly customizable and modular to boot. It was a good buy by Adobe. Unlike Apple's purchase of NeXT, which wasn't.

With GoLive, it's really the OS X version that's a beast. And sorry, it's more about the OS sucking, than the app. This is all about the OS being slow to update. About the chain of command from user input to execution. I don't have any of these saving problems in 9. I do have some problems in the 9 version, of course (various bugs that can crash the app)... but these are magnified by OS X. I blame all this kind of thing on the operating system. Because I see flakiness with cut/paste/slow updating/forgetting everywhere in X apps.

The comparison between BBEdit and GoLive, to me, only extends as far as the source editor. Past that, it's Apples and oranges. Beyond how they handle source text, they're completely different animals. GoLive has a really surprisingly damn good intuitive source editor (in 9). I love the syntax checker. Love it. Its FTP/Web DAV interface is superior to BBEdit's FTP, the shortcomings of which are largely OS X's and Aqua's fault. Is BBEdit a better source editor? Sure, hands down. But it ain't no design tool for artists who think with their eyes. It's for the most part lean and mean, a serious pro tool for crunching text.

Big codin'? Yeah, OK. I agree. But what I was doing wasn't big coding. I was tweaking... quickly going through and polishing code by pasting in snippets. The tasks weren't even big enough to bother with a find/replace. And the documents were open already. And that's part of it. It wasn't WHAT I was doing, it was how fast I was going, and how many things were happening concurrently. That's where X flips out. If I was working very slowly and methodically, you wouldn't hear me shrieking. The OS would have caught up, caught on, and everything would have been fine. But I pushed it. I behaved like a pro. Like a power user. And OS X failed. Gave up the ghost. GoLive failed because OS X is good for a penny, not good for a pound. I do the same exact stuff in the same version of GoLive, in the legacy, and my code doesn't corrupt.

Plus, I FEEL the added sluggishness in the X version. I use the app every day in both Mac OSs and you can't tell me the X version isn't a total slug. I live and breathe that reality.

BBEdit for OS X is only halfway decent, because it's easier to BE a text editor in OS X. Crunching text is childsplay for unix computers. It's easier to be Pico than Quark. Being a text editor alone is not that hard when it's riding on a kernel that lives and breathes text. But X sucks at multitasking, uh, unless you are talking about not working sorts of multitasking. Like playing iTunes while surfing.

I imagine it's harder to be a text editor plus all the other stuff GoLive is. I think this logic is faulty: "if BBEdit blazes, then the OS must be fine for such things." That's like saying if the terminal blazes, the GUI must be fine. I see different worlds. I see different things being asked of the OS. I see where you can ask a lot, and where you can't. I see the TYPES of things OS X is good at, and where it pooches. These problems may not have happened in BBEdit, but I was asking more of the operating system as an operating system, than I would have been if I was using BBEdit.

Oh, first of all, it has never been my experience that ANY app in OS X "blazes"... not when you hold it up against the legacy version. BBEdit can get just as flaky, forget prefs, beachball, screw up a cut and paste just like every other OS X app, when you start asking a lot of it. It happens to be one of the better OS X apps, because it's a text editor dealing with text. It has a lot of diverse functionality, but I wouldn't say it's presented in the most intuitive way. You're not asking as much of it, or as many different concurrent things, as GoLive users ask from GoLive. GoLive has to be the text editor of BBEdit plus a visual editor. They aim high, while trying to make all the power accessible, and I like that. BBEdit has the power, in spades, but they don't give a rat's ass about doing anything but offering the functionality. They're not trying to reinvent the wheel like a big design app has to.

Bare Bones Software was founded on "Less is More" principles, which always made it a hit in my book. They set out to be the penultimate text editor, and they are. But most people would argue that you can't pick up the app and start designing web pages with it without a lot of foreknowledge. It's a potent geek tool, without being the easiest to use app in the world. Don't get me wrong, it's my right hand. But its interface is, well, barebones but not intuitive. You've gotta have the knowledge. It's function over form for sure. And lookit what happened to their product when OS X came along. Aqua is a total liability for it. Those open/saves friggin' RUIN the workflow. It's been the same old story. Struggling with an OS that doesn't work, an interface that sucks, makes apps that inherit the dysfunction. BareBones rushed a few versions through the door there. Way more frequent paid upgrades than I expected from them.

[This message was edited by thalo on Tue July 08 2003 at 08:55 AM.]

I love the sytax checker.

Amusing irony.


With GoLive, it's really the OS X version that's a beast. And sorry, it's more about the OS sucking, than the app. This is all about the OS being slow to update. About the chain of command from user input to execution. I don't have any of these saving problems in 9. I do have some problems in the 9 version, of course (various bugs that can crash the app)... but these are magnified by OS X. I blame all this kind of thing on the operating system. Because I see flakiness with cut/paste/slow updating/forgetting everywhere in X apps.

Hmmm, Adobe took an OS9 application that has had time to evolve in and be optimized for OS9, and carbonized it to get an OSX version out the door. I wonder, in which OS will GoLive work better? I wonder, for which one has it been optimized? The one for which it was originally written, or the one it has been "modified" to run "natively"? I'll spot you the argument that these applications aren't "pro" ready. Not because of OSX's fallabilities though. But because the developers simply haven't rewritten their applications to handle the OSX environment to their utmost capability. I suspect that will take developers some time. Probably the reason Quark took so long?

[This message was edited by mithradites on Mon July 07 2003 at 11:43 PM.]

quote:

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I'll spot you the argument that these applications aren't "pro" ready. Not because of OSX's fallabilities though.

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I'm sorry, but I don't quite see how you can jump so easily to the infallibility of OS X, when it's global OPERATING SYSTEM things, precisely, that are failing. Cut and paste, clipboard updating, Finder/file updating. Prefs being forgotten or pooched. It's Quartz that misfires to cause disappearing text. It's the OS that has the repeating text bug (reminded of that because the letter "g" in 'disappearing' just went mental on me...).

I'm sorry, but I think my logic is on sounder footing, and has been reflected on the record by all kinds of developers, to the effect of: it's damn tough to develop for an operating system where huge portions of it are unresolved and unfinished. We still have yet to see Services implemented in any serious way. They just forgot about them. There's a menu, but squat is available.

It's a good question, can you optimize anything for something that's basically a beta? Is any app you write for it gonna be Jerry rigged by definition? If stuff is being rushed out the door, what's motivating that? Quality or greed? I seem to be paying an awful lot of money for an awful lot of half-assed releases.

Sorry, but this OS shows every sign of behaving the way it's been conceived: bloated and slow, and working better for people who use it at a newbie pace. The buck stops with Apple. The buck stops with the operating system. The platform needs superior, and it's bogus. If apps don't run right (they don't), something is wrong. And since there is NO good application for OS X other than iTunes, I have to wonder, is it that all developers everywhere suddenly can't develop? When OS X was supposed to be a hundred times EASIER to develop for than the legacy?

Sorry, it's all a little too sloppy for me not to hold the OS accountable. Because I am not overawed by eye candy and casual use features, I am able to see serious performance hits, globally, in all apps. Have not yet met the native X app that cleanly and soundly whups the legacy version. Surely after two years something could be optimized for OS X by now. Something besides iTunes. But no, instead let's blame every developer for rushing stuff out the door. It's not like Steve promised all kinds of native apps six months after the release with a bell curve chart--no wait, he did.

Sorry, but the free ride is over. Time for this stuff to start working now. No way am I going to adopt with the OS and platform this weak. If OS X is so easy to develop for, why are all the apps such dogs? Answer: it's the OS that's the dog. Dysfunction is being inherited. When the OS is cobbled together, the apps developed for it are going to be cobbled together. If the OS is bloated, the Apps will be bloated. If the OS has a crappy eye-candy ridden visually superabundant interface, the Apps will inherit that. Bugs in Quartz, means bugs in all apps that use Quartz.

I really don't see how any X-Man can say OS X is so great when it's flakier and apps crash more than they ever did in the legacy. This is stability? No, it's bullshit. It's just getting harder and harder to hide the flaws. I think people will only crap-settle so long, then they're finally going to start demanding better.

[This message was edited by thalo on Tue July 08 2003 at 11:19 AM.]

And since there is NO good application for OS X other than iTunes, I have to wonder, is it that all developers everywhere suddenly can't develop? When OS X was supposed to be a hundred times EASIER to develop for than the legacy?

I can only speak of apps I use frequently, but Gene Construction Kit, Sequence Analysis, and EndNote are all excellent OSX apps. And I even find Excel handles large data sets without crashing far, far better than the OS9 version. And Powerpoint doesn't choke on large presentations and take out the entire system as the same does in the legacy. There are others too that I find to be quite good in OSX, such as Now Up-To-Date, Filemaker Pro, Watson, etc. No apps...hardly.

quote:

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I can only speak of apps I use frequently, but Gene Construction Kit, Sequence Analysis, and EndNote are all excellent OSX apps.

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I'll take your word for it, my brother. But am I right in assuming that most of the real winners in your mind, are text/data crunching apps? Like brother mighty lauding BBEdit... I am left wondering if the stuff that OS X does well, is mostly slanted toward text and data, stuff that's not that hard for computers, in general terms, to deal with. I wonder if the perfect OS X app is kinda like a scientific visualization app... where you pump in a lot of numbers, and then it generates spinning gears or somesuch for you to watch. Less real-time give and take of user input.

The only one in your series that I use is PowerPoint, and I don't see it being superior to the X-Version. I DO see it choke on larger presentations. I got nasty "unexpected quits" importing graphics all the time. I honestly experienced less lost work in the legacy version. My machine is maxed out with RAM, and maybe that has something to do with PPT behaving better for me in OS9.

From a designer's perspective... I find every single pro package for OS X deeply flawed. Not only thanks to the absolutely terrible interface, which causes holy heck with workflow stoppages... but also real honest-to-god performance hits.

I no longer feel the app is working with me, but rather against me. It's like playing on a piano that's out of tune. I have experienced nothing but trouble, and the trouble is getting worse. As I've said many times in the past, OS X gets worse with use. Whether the fault is scratch files, fragging, prefs degrading and corrupting, fonts corrupting, or whatnot... the fact is, the time I spend on upkeep and troubleshooting and maintenance of OS X is unbelievable compared to what I had to endure in 9.

I went from "set it and forget it" to having to nursemaid the OS constantly. My guard is always up for the pref that gives up the ghost. I'm constantly restarting when apps start to "unexpectedly quit"... way more than I ever restarted in 9. I find I waste all kinds of time fsck-ing and repairing directories and file/alias linkages. My entire experience degrades rapidly.

It's only when I carve down the number of files, drastically reduce the number of loaded fonts, and do everything I can to give the OS as little as possible to do, that I have even a modicum of success.

But still, after years of staying in the hunt, the easy answer, for me, is just boot into 9. 9 is still more the pro OS I need. It's still superior to X in the ways I require as a pro user. And remember, as a designer, I'm always in touch with other designers. And I always ask the same thing: "adopted yet?" And the answer always comes back: "are you kidding? Hell no."

That's everyone I know. Everyone I've worked with. Prepress guys, service bureaus, freelancers. Every Mac-based professional I've asked. No adopt. There are folks, like me, who TRY. Who own and have installed OS X. But nobody, and I mean nobody uses it full time. I probably use it more than any of my buds. I evangelize constantly to get them to feedback and make it better so we don't have to endure a future of crap. But as much as I use the new Mac OS, I can see, painfully and clearly, that it ain't ready for primetime. Not for this industry. No way. If somehow Quark manages not to suck, and Photoshop fixes the really irritating bugs and slowness... there might be hope. But in the here and now, no way.

Here's the short list of what I absolutely need to work:

The operating system and Finder. Quark, Photoshop, Freehand, Flash, Illustrator, GoLive, Dreamweaver, BBEdit, Strata, All browsers, Suitcase, Quickeys, Office, QuickCooks Pro.

Nothing. Not a single OS X offering has blown me away. Nothing has surpassed the legacy in performance or reliability. Conception or execution. That's nothing. Nada. Squat.

Sorry, but adoption to me, hinges on trading UP to better. Not crap settling. No better, no thalo.

Just for a hypothetical, say tomorrow I buy a G5. Say that the crap I have simply draws faster, thanks to dumping power on the problem. That doesn't make the software better. Faster crap is still crap. And so far I'm unwilling to spend the money to test that theory. The problems with OS X run deep. Bloat is a nasty, seductive process... developers can get greedy and make endless money off of people who fall for it. Well, I say time for tough love. Demand greatness. Demand economy. Demand quality. Don't be FORCED to crap settle because crap is the only thing on the menu.