I think i know a very easy way for them to do the window resizing... has anyone here used the Enlightenment window manager in linux? yea... like that... forgive me if i don't have the right key combinations but you get the idea i haven't used Enlightenment in about 2 years... if you hold Control and right click (and hold) then drag in any direction the window resizes in whatever direction you move the mouse. i honestly wish every window manager did this.. it means you don't have to find a corner at all, you simply click and drag in any area of the window.. granted this would suck horribly on a laptop with only one mouse button.. use... say.. Control+Option or something.. i don't know.. but there has to be an easy way to do this..
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Things that need to change in Tiger before it is released
- Thread starter broken_keyboard
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madmaxmedia said:
I'm a switcher from about 18 months back too, so I know what you mean. You must understand something about the Macintosh community. They tend to sound like they are "complaining" a lot more. It's not because the Mac OS X needs help. it's totally awesome; you obviously know that. It's because once you find a wonderful computer company that solves the problems the rest of the world is still trying to figure out, you tend to be more sensitive to those minor issues that do arise. In other words, it's like your expectations are much higher. So when I say it's "lacking", I'm not necessarily making a comparison to "other computers", I'm making a comparison to "perfection". And no matter how hard Apple works, there's always going to be customers who can think of things that need fixing or improvement. So it's not always complaining, sometimes it's just that we care so much. It's like Apple users, once they get use to OS X, they start to take it for granted and desire even more; forgetting where they once were. This has been my observation anyway. So don't be disscouraged, you have the best Operating System in the world my friend!
That being said, I'd like to have some real interface customization features. I know that Apple doesn't want users going out and "embarrassing" their OS with ugly renditions or "skin" (like what windows users do. lol). But within the limits of beautiful design, to just offer some simple and elegant interface options for those with different tastes. Other than that, there are just a bunch of miscellaneous preferences I think of all the time that would be handy. No majors system technologies or anything, just little "tweaking" stuff. But all around, there just seems to be less of these kinds of "nitty gritty" options.
johnnyjibbs said:
Actually, one of the main reasons for Graphite is for graphic artists. Some don't like any color on their screen that could change their perception of the colors they are trying to look at. Thus, turning all of the main widgets to grayscale helps to avoid that. Things like iTunes and Safari aren't design-creation programs, so they don't need to be as careful.
Not saying that things couldn't have better consistancy, of course.
Alright, I've not posted much here, but I've seen a lot of threads like this and I want to put in my thoughts.
First off, i'm a switcher from about 4 months ago. I have a 15" powerbook. I'm a graphic designer and programmer. I'm definately what you'd call a power user, but I'm not just some linux nerd, I also care greatly about aesthetics and design. I use this machine for work and general web browsing and music listening. My primary work machine is a windows PC,
@broken_keyboard
1.) The lip windows. Yeah, I'm not sure about this yet. I can sort of see what Apple is trying to do, but it's something i'll have to use before I can give my final opinion on it.
2.) KHTML doesn't seem to bad really. I do a lot of web development and have recently been doing things with CSS that i'm pretty certain nobody ever intended (transparent boxes with OSX style drop shadows on all sides that resize dynamically for content) and the two browsers that handled it perfectly were Firefox and Safari. Safari seemed to handle it better, I had to do more tweaking to make firefox look just right, but i'm not sure if this was because I was initially testing it on Safari or not. Right now, I just don't see enough of a point in Apple putting forth the effort to switch to Gecko when KHTML seems to be doing more than fine.
3.) I've compared the font smoothing on my 15" powerbook right next to my work PC running a nice video card and a $600 19" Planar LCD with a 700:1 contrast ratio. The font smoothing on the powerbook looks so much better that I honestly find myself just staring at windows full of text, marvelling at their beauty. Now and then while writing an email in Mail.app, I'll forget what I was doing because I spaced out looking at how absolutely amazing the text is. For the record I have font smoothing on medium, the one it says is best for CRTs.
4.) No real comment here.
@jsw
I've heard this complaint a lot, about letting us resize windows on more than just the bottom corner. At first I felt this way too, but after some using it, I like the way Apple has it much better. Now and then in windows I go to move a window and accidently resize it by catching one of the edges. This really annoys me.
@anyone else
The Mac community, from what I've noticed, does seem to "complain" a lot about little things. However, I submit that this is a good thing. I believe its part of the reason that applications and the OS itself tend to be of as high a quality as they are. Developers are held accountable. As a developer, I feel we should be held accountable to ourselves and to our users. So as much as it can get irritating to see threads pop up on a frequent basis with what seem to be nit-picky type complaints, I think its for the best, and I hope the community never becomes complacent.
I think this is one of the differences between the Mac and Windows communities. Before I switched over I was posting on a PC forum about a certain application that I had just purchased. I was criticizing the developer because the program had crashed 3 times on me that day. I said that this was entirely unnacceptable, even if the app had been free I wouldn't have expected that kind of trouble with it. What kind of response did I get? Someone actually said to me "I don't know, its only crashed once on me today, I think its just fine, keep up the good work!". If Safari, Finder, Mail, Transmit, Unison, or any other app i use crashed once a week, much less once a day, I'd be firing off some angry emails, while a PC user just shrugs, relaunches it, and the developer doesn't get the feedback they need, or the accountability the community needs for them to have in order to make things better.
Sorry for the long rant, these thoughts have been building up for awhile. If you've made it this far, congradulations, you're a trooper.
First off, i'm a switcher from about 4 months ago. I have a 15" powerbook. I'm a graphic designer and programmer. I'm definately what you'd call a power user, but I'm not just some linux nerd, I also care greatly about aesthetics and design. I use this machine for work and general web browsing and music listening. My primary work machine is a windows PC,
@broken_keyboard
1.) The lip windows. Yeah, I'm not sure about this yet. I can sort of see what Apple is trying to do, but it's something i'll have to use before I can give my final opinion on it.
2.) KHTML doesn't seem to bad really. I do a lot of web development and have recently been doing things with CSS that i'm pretty certain nobody ever intended (transparent boxes with OSX style drop shadows on all sides that resize dynamically for content) and the two browsers that handled it perfectly were Firefox and Safari. Safari seemed to handle it better, I had to do more tweaking to make firefox look just right, but i'm not sure if this was because I was initially testing it on Safari or not. Right now, I just don't see enough of a point in Apple putting forth the effort to switch to Gecko when KHTML seems to be doing more than fine.
3.) I've compared the font smoothing on my 15" powerbook right next to my work PC running a nice video card and a $600 19" Planar LCD with a 700:1 contrast ratio. The font smoothing on the powerbook looks so much better that I honestly find myself just staring at windows full of text, marvelling at their beauty. Now and then while writing an email in Mail.app, I'll forget what I was doing because I spaced out looking at how absolutely amazing the text is. For the record I have font smoothing on medium, the one it says is best for CRTs.
4.) No real comment here.
@jsw
I've heard this complaint a lot, about letting us resize windows on more than just the bottom corner. At first I felt this way too, but after some using it, I like the way Apple has it much better. Now and then in windows I go to move a window and accidently resize it by catching one of the edges. This really annoys me.
@anyone else
The Mac community, from what I've noticed, does seem to "complain" a lot about little things. However, I submit that this is a good thing. I believe its part of the reason that applications and the OS itself tend to be of as high a quality as they are. Developers are held accountable. As a developer, I feel we should be held accountable to ourselves and to our users. So as much as it can get irritating to see threads pop up on a frequent basis with what seem to be nit-picky type complaints, I think its for the best, and I hope the community never becomes complacent.
I think this is one of the differences between the Mac and Windows communities. Before I switched over I was posting on a PC forum about a certain application that I had just purchased. I was criticizing the developer because the program had crashed 3 times on me that day. I said that this was entirely unnacceptable, even if the app had been free I wouldn't have expected that kind of trouble with it. What kind of response did I get? Someone actually said to me "I don't know, its only crashed once on me today, I think its just fine, keep up the good work!". If Safari, Finder, Mail, Transmit, Unison, or any other app i use crashed once a week, much less once a day, I'd be firing off some angry emails, while a PC user just shrugs, relaunches it, and the developer doesn't get the feedback they need, or the accountability the community needs for them to have in order to make things better.
Sorry for the long rant, these thoughts have been building up for awhile. If you've made it this far, congradulations, you're a trooper.
Oae said:
No long rant at all. Those are excellent observations well worth noting. These kinds of sublte differences are something that's very difficult to explain to non-macintosh users. Some things you just have to experience about the platofrm before you can understand them. Unfortuanelty, that doesn't sound very convicing to prospective switchers. Although, I've come to the realization that having a large marketshare really isn't my goal. Because what's really important is that I'm able to continue to use my Mac and work efficiently with others who don't. And some of the time, it's just plain outright concern over suffering people using Microsoft Windows.
Oae said:
I know what you mean about marvelling at the text - that is what I like to do. I think that having beautifully rendered characters can make the different between a GUI looking just OK and looking really top notch. The PC font smoothing I was talking about was specifically the ClearType mode, which may only work on LCDs I'm not sure. It is not the normal Windows font smoothing, it is something extra you switch on in the Display properties in Windows XP.
@broken_keyboard:
I made an error in my post, the medium font smoothing I use on my Powerbook is the one it says is best for LCDs. I use an LCD on both of my windows PCs as well, and both of them have ClearType turned on. On one of the machines I've even on through and tweaked ClearType to try making it look better, and while it improved it is still nowhere near as gorgeous as the text on my Powerbook.
@TigerPRO:
I know very much what you mean here. I first tried to convince people that I knew that OSX was very much superior to windows and that they should give it a shot. All but one responded with skepticism and the usual negative anti-Mac comments. I wasn't trying to get them to give it a shot because I thought they should be like me, but as you said, it's out of concern. I felt bad that they didn't know any better, and that they were using this system and thinking that everything was just fine. I don't mean that to sound condecending towards them, I was once that way too, I honestly do feel bad for them.
I made an error in my post, the medium font smoothing I use on my Powerbook is the one it says is best for LCDs. I use an LCD on both of my windows PCs as well, and both of them have ClearType turned on. On one of the machines I've even on through and tweaked ClearType to try making it look better, and while it improved it is still nowhere near as gorgeous as the text on my Powerbook.
@TigerPRO:
I know very much what you mean here. I first tried to convince people that I knew that OSX was very much superior to windows and that they should give it a shot. All but one responded with skepticism and the usual negative anti-Mac comments. I wasn't trying to get them to give it a shot because I thought they should be like me, but as you said, it's out of concern. I felt bad that they didn't know any better, and that they were using this system and thinking that everything was just fine. I don't mean that to sound condecending towards them, I was once that way too, I honestly do feel bad for them.