Argh I hope this is not true:

http://www.4osx.com/forum/index.php?act=ST&f=1&t=1408

For labels, instead of coloring the icon they color the label, how cheap is that?!@# And they don't provide more colors?@#$

The Finder is just a bastardized browser, full-complete in form. I see no pop-up folders, and icon view is attached to the browser and they layout the browser however way they wish (Microsoft-style) . The Mac is dead.

To the top right of the Finder browser we still see that wider-collapse-toolbar-widget, so useless in functionality across apps, and more useless in the new browser: who the hell will hide it? you will need the toolbar for the browser It'll only cause trouble for novices.

Global menu still has stripes, but they are very dim. Maybe that'll change in final release.

Mail is updated (who cares) iChat candy app gets updated (who cares again)
Activity monitor gets revamped. I like that, good addition.

I see no piles in the screenshots nor multiple icon sizes in icon view. I hope Apple didn't take that out like they did with minimize-in-place.

I know it's premature bashing, but if this is part of Panther, I know what to expect next: another candy costly Jaguar-like release. The mac (as we knew it) would then be officially dead.

[This message was edited by Trifid nebula on Sat June 21 2003 at 12:25 PM.]

IF the above link is not working, go here for more mirrors:

http://www.macaddict.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=22851&start=0

Few other gripes: same ugly aqua folder (which scales terribly at 16x16) same unnecessary shadowed approach to windows, menus, icons and fonts (white desktop font, argh). Same aqua skittles, which have been lately blending not so well with the metallic skin. Same Dock form-factor, same windowing system..... argh

"Expose" looks interesting. I think I understand how it works and it could actually – gasp – be a good piece of innovation.

It looks like the stripes are not just lighter but completely eliminated in some of the title bars – unless someone is running a theme. That's a start. It makes the traffic like window widgets look even more out of place though.

Activity Monitor (formerly Process Viewer I guess) seems to have been given an upgrade. And looky, looky: the return of horizontal divider lines ala List View in OS 9 – at least for Activity Monitor. I told you them things were useful.

I'll have to see the new Finder in action. I'm not quite sure what's going on there. It looks like it has elements of Windows' tree view. They ought to replace Column View with a better implementation of it if you ask me

I'd have to see how Labels looks in List View before I can say much more about them.

For labels, instead of coloring the icon they color the label, how cheap is that?!@# And they don't provide more colors?@#$

They may provide more colours, there wasn't any way to tell from the images. As for it being cheap: actually, I think it makes more sense to colour the label - less ugly than colouring the icon.

But I would suspect, that no matter what they do, there'll be no pleasing some of you. Clamour for labels to be returned, Apple return them in what is potentially an innovative way and - as usual - the howls of "but this isn't like it used to be is OS 9, not fair!!!" will echo round the land

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Few other gripes: same ugly aqua folder (which scales terribly at 16x16) same unnecessary shadowed approach to windows, menus, icons and fonts (white desktop font, argh). Same aqua skittles, which have been lately blending not so well with the metallic skin. Same Dock form-factor, same windowing system..... argh

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What Apple still fails to realize, no matter how this stuff functions, is that they've given a "play thing" look to OS X. This doesn't jibe, first of all, with what a Mac is (or should be) about. [Insert one of brother thalo's various diatribes here.] It also doesn't jibe with those who need and want their OS to look, feel and act like one lean, mean fightin' machine. I have to say, 90% of this could be corrected by killing any and all stripes, inventing better window widgets, taking it easy with the god damn drop shadows, and designing an alternate set of "Pro" icons for at least folders and a few other things. Oh, gotta kill drawers too. Gotta fix anti-aliasing (let me turn it OFF). Gotta fix open/saves (didn't see a screenshot for that). Gotta have the choice of crisp, pixelated fonts for the Finder. And the Dock still seems to be going nowhere. Little innovation there. None of the major problems of it addressed – at least as far as we can tell from the screenshots.

And, umm, like I said, I'm not sure what the hell is going on with the Finder. Maybe Pathfinder is the only hope in that area. Maybe tricking out OS X with so much Unsanity shareware is the only way to get the functionality back. Maybe the only way now to deal with OS X is to HackSettle the crap out of it.

The left pane is not like the Windwos Explorer at all. It is still the same pane that the current column view has which is merely a list of mounted drives and devices. It's not a hierarchical tree.

They have merely and smartly moved the standard folders to below the drives list which is nice. I'm positive that the Finder toolbar is still a place to keep your favorite items (none shown) but now you can have more space for your stuff, since the app/doc/mov/music/pic folders are not taking up space there now. The problem with the current Finder toolbar is my stuff get's assigned further and further offscreen (relegated to the popup menu) as I deposit handy icons.

Be glad I'm not in charge. I want another pane on the right for user favorites, eliminate the overhead toolbar. Panes on left and right like iCal.

At first I thought it was a fake but I'm sure it's real.

- Love the gear icon/menu in Finder. Good for those that don't use 2 button mice or contextual menus. (And many people don't.) Does bring us too close to Windows having menus in the windows though for my liking.

- Folder Actions: Yay! This will be fun and useful (again)...

- List row dividers: I'm hoping they are system wide finally.

- Nice input level bar in iChat. I hope this is the standard for the system now.

- Exposé: Seems like another Mac OS X "feature" that is really a workaround spun as an innovation. Since the windowing scheme Ma coS X introduced is so flawed (all windows should be in the same layer as the application; not independant and intermeshable with other apps!) Apple must have figured this is a "cool" way to show off Quartz transparency while giving the user ways to bring all windows to front. But this is flawed. This will use up 3 hotspots, to boot. I'll reserve judgement until I use it, and will undoubtedly love it over not having it, but I'm intrigued by how this will shake out! I use FocusLayer now, with Classic Windowing enabled in ASM. So I'm spoiled.

Desktop and Screensaver are united at last: I love that. Something I myself would have ordered be done.

Love the Security icon: That's one of the things that told me the screengrabs were authentic.

No stripes in title bar: Nice. Has them if backgrounded, nice.

Labels: How do we know it only colors the text and not the icon? No screenshots of the "after". "Color Label" need not be read as "Color the text label". I read it as "Color Label (to apply)" which could be Icon only, Text only or both or even a color dot Badge overlay for I can tell. I'd love it if only the title of the file is colorized, especially if they are now the rounded rectangles. Very sharp looking.

What is MISSED and ought be complained about is loss of custom text for each label. But since people rarely used these fully I like the idea of disuniting the color flagging feature from the text categorizing feature. Just need to address the latter.

The window widgets are fine, even on metal. They are adequately sunk into the surface.

Lighter stripes.....nice. They are now totally palatable.

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Originally posted by djn1:
_For labels, instead of coloring the icon they color the label, how cheap is that?!@# And they don't provide more colors?@#$ _

They may provide more colours, there wasn't any way to tell from the images. As for it being cheap: actually, I think it makes more sense to colour the label - less ugly than colouring the icon.

But I would suspect, that no matter what they do, there'll be no pleasing some of you. Clamour for labels to be returned, Apple return them in what is potentially an innovative way and - as usual - the howls of "but this isn't like it used to be is OS 9, not fair!!!" will echo round the land

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Labels are like #47 on my requests list. Hovewer, I'll take back what I said about Labels in Panther. Brother Brad made mention of labels in list view, and I think visually that'll look good (and useful). I'm thinking that it'll look as good as color items in iCal. I'll be probably happy about that.

[This message was edited by Trifid nebula on Sat June 21 2003 at 02:27 PM.]

Did anyone else notice that the Internet prefpane seems to have been replaced by a .mac one? That isn't something that impresses me as I'm not overly keen on Apple assuming I will use this.

And what's all this about celebrating the return of Folder Actions? Hasn't this been around for ages or was is part of the beta Script Editor install? Either way, I've had it on my system for some time.

Thanks for the links Trif. There looks to be some interesting developments. Will they be worth another $129? Will my .Mac account be worth another $99 in a few months? I don't know. I probably will fork out the money because I have come to rely on OSX and .Mac, but I do hope that there is some price relief for the upgraders.

Ok, apparently Exposé will be a method of temporarily rearranging and scaling the overlapped open windows to fill up the screen in such a way that you can see them all.

No doubt it will use animation and transparency effects. So imagine going to a hotspot and whoosh whoosh whoosh your windows slide and scale so that they are all visible, kind of a huge-ass version of minimize in place.

I love it. Processor-intensive eyecandy that will drive thalo into the loony bin once and for all. BRING IT ON....

Just in time to SUCK UP all the soon to be available CPU capacity that G5 is going to provide....

Wonder what 7.5 would run like on a 970?

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I love it. Processor-intensive eyecandy that will drive thalo into the loony bin once and for all. BRING IT ON....

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lol, haha. I knew it. X-men do these things on purpose

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Originally posted by the mighty johnq:
I love it. Processor-intensive eyecandy that will drive thalo into the loony bin once and for all. BRING IT ON....

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Assuming, of course, that he isn't already in one. You never know, one day we might all discover that thalo.net is some shrink's idea of therapy ... "we've set up a website for you Mr thalo, where you can explore all these issues. We think it might help"

<< I knew it. X-men do these things on purpose. >>

Exactly. OS X is a plot by Apple just to drive thalo into the loony bin.

As soon as they've accomplished that, it'll be OS 8.7 and everything will be back to normal!

(Couldn't do any worse in the market than this antique Unix shit is doing!)

Markle

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Originally posted by Markle:
(Couldn't do any worse in the market than this antique Unix shit is doing!)

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Yep, no doubt about it, had Apple stuck with OS 9 they'd have cornered the entire market by now

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Assuming, of course, that he isn't already in one. You never know, one day we might all discover that thalo.net is some shrink's idea of therapy ... "we've set up a website for you Mr thalo, where you can explore all these issues. We think it might help"

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HaHa.

This was after the lie detector test: they asked him his name; he looked around with a crafty gleam in his eye and answered, "Steve Jobs."

The polygraph showed he was telling the truth.

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Originally posted by 9point5man:
This was after the lie detector test: they asked him his name; he looked around with a crafty gleam in his eye and answered, "Steve Jobs."

The polygraph showed he was telling the truth.

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An alternative scenario: thalo is a charismatic Apple employee whose remit is to gather together the remaining resistance to OS X and whip them up into such a frenzy of reactionary hyperbole that the rest of the mac community simply dismiss them as raving crackpots

What a sad collection of Windows screenshots I've got to see from following those links.

I hope I'm wrong but AFAICS I don't think we will be getting any of the Mac back with Panther.

Or ever.

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Originally posted by mAxximo:
I hope I'm wrong but AFAICS I don't think we will be getting any of the Mac back with Panther.

Or ever.

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The perception, that somehow the Mac got lost in the transition from OS 9 to X, seems to lie at the heart of debates between the X-men and the critics, but I wonder how much of this feeling is tied to our actual experiences of making the switch.

For me, OS X feels eminently Mac like (though I see no point in rehashing those arguments here) but my transition wasn't a typical one. While a lot of you (critics especially) seem to have switched from a fast and responsive OS 9 setup to a less than satisfactory 10.0.x setup, my transition was from OS 8.6 on a 7200/90 to 10.1.2 on a G4/800. I suspect that this made a big difference to how I see all this. For example, 10.1.2 was a lot faster, more capable, more configurable … and so on … than OS 8.6 (on a 7200) had ever been.

So, a question, of sorts: clearly, for me, OS X was a big step forward while for others it was a big step back. From what I can gather (thalo’s protestations aside) many people now seem to feel that OS X is as capable as OS 9 ever was, if not more so. So, how much of the current angst, expressed in mAx’s post as a feeling that the Mac has possibly gone for ever, is attributable to the nature of the switch that each of us made? For me, there was never any doubt that OS X was a quintessentially Mac-like, capable and exciting OS, for others this clearly isn’t the case.

I’d be interested to hear your thoughts.

In my case —Aqua looks and sluggishness aside— OS X put in front of my eyes every single reason why I despised Windows and took away every single reason why I loved the Mac. I would hate OS X even if I switched from an SE30 running 6.0.8.

I think HighHopes nailed my thoughts (again) here:

“In the past Macintosh operating systems were different than other OSs because they included end users as active participants in the operation of the equipment they owned. What struck me first and hardest when I first fired up OS X was the paradigm shift that had taken place. I was willing to look by the slow, bug-ridden operation of the initial release (although I thought it was pretty stupid of Apple to lead with its ass like that) What couldn't be overlooked was the status of the end user in the new OS. The end user was no longer an active participant, but was demoted to being a passive consumer to be manipulated and sold. The paradigm shift was stark and smacked ya in the forehead. No overlooking that.

(...)
I thought because it was Apple doing it they would produce a Mac operating system full of innovation and change that would be the envy of computer users everywhere no matter their stripe. Here it is many years later and, so far, I don't see a Mac operating system at all. And the OS Apple has inflicted on us isn't very great and certainly not innovative.

Gee, I would have like to have seen Apple produce an innovative, strong product after all that time. I had high hopes, very high hopes. Instead we got nothing new. No new ideas, no innovation. Nothing very much different than what was already available on the market. What we got was an old, rehashed NeXT OS with a shiny GUI pasted on top of it aimed at being a consumer product push vehicle. The OS itself showed no innovation, no new ideas, nothing very different, just the same old stuff that was already available, only repackaged. Instead of innovation we got packaging. We now have a choice. We can become the passive manipulated tools of Microsoft or the passive manipulated tools of Apple. It's a damn shame.”