I've had my fights with network printing, I think I have it tamed for now. I've been through a few dozen Vista installations so I know the drill.

Here's the scenario: OSX recognizes my network xerox printer automatically without installing any drivers, and it even detects ip changes. Vista doesn't. So in vista I basically need to install the driver again with the new ip. And the add printer wizard is pretty unfriendly. Bad UI experience.

Trif, I've also been told that Epson's drivers sort of suck. And I was/am having problems with them.

10.5.2 is out today.
Transparent Menubar can be disabled now, wow!
Stacks are now offering the "old" view again. WOW!

Smithz after updating to X.5.2 the disable switch for Transparent Menubar does not show up in System Preferencesesktop&Screensaver for me. Or at least that is were it is supposed to be according to MacCentral.

The stacks thing still makes no sense to me. I don't know what stacks does. For me the stacks view is exactly the same as folder view.

If you run Software updater after the X.5.2 install there is another update that shows up titled Leopard Graphics Update (1.0). What ever it does it does at the tune of 48.1MB.

BN the worst thing about Epson drivers are the installers they use not the actual drivers. On the Mac end many Epson updaters you have to go through three steps to get the driver installed. It is so convoluted the end user many times thinks the driver has been installed but in fact it has not been. Example you download the updater from Epson to the desktop. You launch this file it opens creating a new file that has Epson stamped on it. Launching this file would seem to install the driver but it usually only creates a folder that contains the actual updater file that again also needs to be run. This can easily be missed. Especially when driver to driver it can be different.

I can not even imagine getting Vista to have to deal with this on its own.

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If you run Software updater after the X.5.2 install there is another update that shows up titled Leopard Graphics Update (1.0). What ever it does it does at the tune of 48.1MB.

For a moment there I thought that Steve, in a desperate attempt to stem the tide of the Maclash, was hitting us with a themeing engine--full customization options. But apparently not.

The 5.2 upgrade also brings toned-down transparencies overall, and for the first time in OS X's history its menus are actually readable now without the deeply despised end-user having to squint. So that's good.

I do have the switch that turns menubar transparency off.

Rico, i'm still using 10.4.10, so no problems here... ;D

This update shows me how crappy Leotard really was. It still cracks me up how the X-men were fucking BESIDE themselves about how great it was, and all I was experiencing was instability and slowness and trouble typing... a general lack of quality. I assumed it's because I'm on a PowerPC, and that Apple was pressuring G5 owners like me to make the move to Intel.

Oh, thank god I can turn off that terrible translucent menu. That was awful. And yes, the menus are much more readable. I'm not sure if the keyboard is actually fixed (it always works fine after a restart then degrades), but so far so good, I'm not out-typing it, and my spaces are showing up in the thalo.net text field in Safari. All of this I complained to feedback about.

Try and guess what the first thing I check after any "appearance" or graphical type of upgrade is?

Right, whether I can choose BLACK as a text highlight color, and have it work. The answer is still no. I'd really like to see that one before I die.

There were other irritating bugs with the left Finder column, I'll have to see if any of those were addressed.

The "Stacks" seems to have been fixed a bit. Now you don't have to display a stack as a stupid pile of icons, you can keep it looking like a folder. You can decide how you'll view it, fanned or in a grid, or--oh my god--a LIST, which is basically how the Dock functioned before Apple over-interfaced it. Watch X-Men treat this like a new feature, instead of going back to the way the dock was before, uh, except now you have to burn three or four interface twiddlings to GET it to work like it did before. A list used to just pop up. Now, for every folder you put in the dock, you have to teach the Dock to show it as a folder, AND display the contents as a list. Eye roll. Let's review, the Dock USED to work this way, just by dragging a folder into the dock. Now, if you want that same functionality, you have to change those settings individually every time you use it. Am I missing something? Or are the Apple interface idiots complete retards?

The interface is still the worst thing about OS X. And after all the trouble of a "graphical" update for leopard, we fucking STILL don't have the new scrollbars. Like iTunes has. I want those. I can't believe we've had two revisions already and I'm still looking at crystal sausages and the old arrows in the Finder, Safari. Come on, Apple, this is ridiculous.

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I do have the switch that turns menubar transparency off.

Wow. That's an improvement. I wonder if thalo ever tires of hearing that he (at least his principles) are right? Less is more. Why in god's name (sort of a Dawkin's-like god, I think) did anyone think that kinda-sorta being able to read things was better than clear, crisp, non-translucent, non-in-the-midst-of-transporting-down-to-the-planet-Gamma-Bloata-Five, was better?

I can't believe we still have crystal sausages. That's insane. And I still think it's funny that in our new non-metallic titlebars, windows in the BACKGROUND are higher contrast and more readable than the active window.

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And I still think it's funny that in our new non-metallic titlebars, windows in the BACKGROUND are higher contrast and more readable than the active window.

I've got a friend who is going to set me up with Leotard and I'm anxious to take a look at it. But in Panther (I think that's the cat I'm running, 10.4.11), noticing which is the active window is still a struggle. I'll be typing a bunch a stuff thinking I'm in my word processor and -- ooops -- I was in Safari all along and it could care less about those key strokes. This is pretty basic interface stuff, making the active window apparent and plain. But Apple has gone off the deep end and put visual superabundance over function. It's really whacked, but it's nice when they make those incremental improvements. And every time they do it's a reminder of how stupid their tangents were in the first place.

Yabor, are you still using ShapeShifter and other means to tone down and customize the interface, or have you found the Leotard out-of-the-box is good enough?

Well, the windows are a big difference over Panther. At least there's a marked distinction between foreground and background window, and at least the title-bar TEXT is somewhat greyed out... but it still could be better.

Yeah, have I mentioned how sick to death I am of visual superabundance? I'm so used to OS X now, and all its stupid extra clicks and such... but I still can't stand all the hopping happy horseshit. If they'd go with clean, simple monochrome application icons, simple icon-tint labels, customizable interface fonts, and a text highlight color I could actually see well for editing text (black... or any DARK color where the text I'm highlighting dropped out to white), I could at least function without wanting to off myself by blowing my brains out with a Remington 870 XCS Marine Magnum (a less is more shotgun).

What kills me is that Apple has spent so much time and effort trying to make the Finder, and the interface look and behave like fucking iTunes, and no when push comes to shove, they can't even give the system the right scrollbars.

We have layer upon layer of useless interface... coverflow, column view, dock and command-tab arrays, spaces, dashboard, and on and on... and yet none of it really works together or is held together by any simple and intuitive usability rules.

What I can't STAND about the left Finder is that sometimes I'll WANT to go back to the root of a folder by clicking on an icon in the left column of the Finder, uh, but I won't GO there, if I'm in a nested folder in that directory. I have to click on something else and then click again on the target. Stuff like that makes me mental.

Navigating around the legacy was EASY. Effortless. Intuitive. Navigating around the X Finder is almost deliberately complicated. The Finder is now the loser.

Spotlight is OK, they fixed a bunch of things from Panther, but jeez it still isn't there. It finds SO many files, it seems, every time I search for anything... it really doesn't save me much time.

I've changed the way I work in the Mac now. Gone are the days when I could wheel through a big directory of assets and assemble them. Now it makes more sense to have zillions of folders with fewer items in them. It makes wading through the junk drawer OS easier. For one thing, crap like stacks and cover flow work faster when there's fewer items to deal with... and it's easier to draw folder icons than lush icon previews.

Quick view is fun, but I find I'm not using it as much as I thought. For visual browsing, Adobe Bridge seems to be a little better.

It's also funny how we can do left finder searches for things like TODAY'S files, and we can see those in cover flow, but not column. To do column view by date (now possible, after fighting for years to get this)... you have to change the view options to sort that way.

But if you click on "Search for > Today" it goes to list view, and you don't have the option of clicking on column view after that.

Is it just me, or does that seem like very, very beta to you?

To be honest, the thing I like best about Leotard is the return to flat folder icons, and the removal of stripes and brushed metal textures.

We have layer upon layer of useless interface... coverflow

I played with that the other day (in iTunes). I find it to be useless. But if someone else finds it useful for sorting through files, fine. Never use dashboard, although the idea behind a few of those widgets sounds great.

What I can't STAND about the left Finder is that sometimes I'll WANT to go back to the root of a folder by clicking on an icon in the left column of the Finder, uh, but I won't GO there, if I'm in a nested folder in that directory. I have to click on something else and then click again on the target. Stuff like that makes me mental.

Yes, that drives me mental as well. I'm amazed that crap like that is still hanging around. It reminds me of Windows. It would take about five seconds to fix but they never get around to it. It's like they have no respect for things working right or logically.

But if you click on "Search for > Today" it goes to list view, and you don't have the option of clicking on column view after that.

Is it just me, or does that seem like very, very beta to you?

Beta. You ought to start a web site where we could bitch about these things.

What? Flat folder icons? Oh, I think I remember you guys mentioning that. That's so damn sensible. Do you figure it slipped in there by mistake on their part?

I love how X-Men call ME behind the times, a luddite... and yet I upgrade before them on every single OS upgrade, and adopted OS X before them. Really the thalo.net laggard is YOU, Nelson. You've got to get Leotard running, I can't wait to hear what you think.

I just don't see why Dashboard had to be its own environment, why we couldn't install and so forth from the FINDER, and put widgets in the Right Dock rather than in their own, different dock. I don't see why widgets couldn't have just floated above the desktop like other mini-apps like Stickies and Clock... all crap we used to have.

The OS X interface has been divide and conquer, when it should have been unify, unify and simplify, simplify.

We now have a jolly jumping opensource geek competition, for who can best DICK with the original brilliance of the Mac interface.

All I can say is that it hasn't done any Mac user any good. We need a MacLash. A return to Mac interface principles. We can be content to see our beloved Mac interface get more and more arcane and Windows-like, get taken over by eye-candy, or we can stand up. It's getting ridiculous.

Time and again, Apple has done well design-wise, when they go MINIMAL. Where is the savior that can rescue the OS X interface? I've said it many times, we need the 2-D equivalent of Jon Ive. Clean, anal, disdainful of useless wasteful eye candy.

Really the thalo.net laggard is YOU, Nelson. You've got to get Leotard running, I can't wait to hear what you think.

Well, to tell you the truth, just yesterday I ripped the last SCSI cord out of the chain of command from the twisted spaghetti mess of cables and wires behind my desk. Sata? What the hell is that, one of the Star Wars villains?

I just don't see why Dashboard had to be its own environment, why we couldn't install and so forth from the FINDER, and put widgets in the Right Dock rather than in their own, different dock. I don't see why widgets couldn't have just floated above the desktop like other mini-apps like Stickies and Clock... all crap we used to have.

Something tells me these guys throw this stuff together and then make bets with each other as to whether or not that guy over at thalo.net will call it "junk drawer." There's only so many places to cram things, so they just decided to create another layer. In theory, this is a good idea. It's there when you need it but otherwise it's out of your way. The problem is, of course, is that it is indeed a junk drawer. It's flexible, I'll give it that. It gives the user a lot of choices to arrange things as they want. I'll give it that. But I think you touched on it once that the stuff we'd actually use (stock tickers, UPS trackers, weather, etc.) is stuff that is useful, if it's useful at all, when it is of the "corner of the eye" type, when it's readily enough available so that it actually helps you manage things and cut down on work rather than being yet another thing you have to reach for and manage yourself to get any use out of it. It's just implemented wrong. For a calculator or a currency converter, then Junkboard might be perfect for that. But that kind of stuff would work just as well in a stand-alone app or in the Apple menu. For nearly everything else, putting it in a junk drawers tends to lead to what we usually do with such things in our own house or garage…forget about those tools or don't use them as much as we could. We'll reach for the pocket knife and put it to work as a hammer if necessary rather than running into the garage for a proper one. Dicking with the whole Junkboard thiing I think is like that. I think it's why I don't ever use it. But I use the stand-alone dictionary app all the time.

We now have a jolly jumping opensource geek competition, for who can best DICK with the original brilliance of the Mac interface.

LOL. That about sums it up. "Now accepting the award for the best dicking with the original Macintosh interface by an opensource geek is…" That would be truth in advertising at one of those developer conferences. And they'd probably still all be laughing and back slapping one another over it, proud to have done so.

Yabor, are you still using ShapeShifter and other means to tone down and customize the interface, or have you found the Leotard out-of-the-box is good enough?

Unsanity's haxies, including Shapeshifter, don't work on Leopold. Some geeks say they never again will work, and that Apple Inc is now in a position to kill themeing once for all. We might well be stuck with Aqua for as long as Steve deems proper.

AQUA ÜBER ALLES, liebe Freunde!

In 5.1 it was possible to hack the iTunes scrollbars into the system. I don't yet know if this hack is still possible. If and when I find out, I'll report.

The Leopold GUI as it is out-of-the-box I find more or less usable (the speed is quite good for me), but it's still the same old Aqua--stupid, ugly, girly, insulting, irritating, half-baked etc, etc.

You can use good old Tinkertool, Brad, to get a flat dock at the bottom of your screen. Instead of the insulting plate-of-glass-cum-refleXions.

And if you position your dock on the left or right, rather than the bottom, you get a whole different-style dock. One that looks more like the command-tab array. Just a semi-transparent grey background, with a border.

Well, I contacted my friend who has Leotard and she's going to bring it over as soon as she is over with the flu that she has. I'll install the 300 GB Maxtor ATA/100 drive that I have on hand and put Leotard on it. And then I'll go from there. I'll see what software needs to be reinstalled from scratch or what software will just drop some preferences into the new system and go go go.

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How are the screen fonts? Still fuzzy, or have they sharpened them?
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Fonts are about where they were for Tiger... though the technicolor aliasing is a little better. You don't see blue or orange in tight vertical spaces anymore, thank god.

The interface is more or less readable now. Not as fuzzy as Panther, for sure. Working in thalo.net right now is actually fine. Part of it may be that I'm just USED to the fonts now, but they're OK. Not great, OK. The only place I still have trouble reading is with desktop icon labels (white with a drop shadow). I still thoroughly hate those fonts. I usually pick a fairly light grey desktop pattern/picture, and the icon labels are really tough to read. Better if I choose a dark grey, but I prefer a 10%-20% grey while I'm working.