Command-Tab Mayhem

alternateorg on October 30, 2003

Wow. Who knew two little keys could create such mayhem in the Mac world, within minutes of Panther’s release?

The latest blathering of spite comes from the normally vanilla Kottke:

Here’s what I propose. Ditch the existing clunky Exposé behavior (perhaps except for the “Show Desktop” keystroke) in favor of a combined Cmd-Tab/Exposé behavior. Hitting Cmd-Tab would bring up a palette of all the open windows (not just applications) and would also Exposé all open windows. Continuing to hold down Cmd and hitting Tab would cycle through each icon in the palette (which would need to be smaller to not overpower the Exposéd windows) but would also highlight the corresponding Exposéd window. When you reach the window you need, you let go of the Cmd key and the window pops open.It’s like they never open the System Preferences and check out what you can actually customize about Exposé. What I’ve found is that the mouse gesture-enabled Exposé is much more easy to use than invoking it via the keyboard. After all, in order to use the default F9-F11 keystrokes, you have to take your hand off of the mouse, which is pretty much an annoying idea.

And if you combine using the bottom-left corner to invoke Exposé with command tab, you end up with something very similar to what Kottke suggests – minus the window-centric Windows idea of having Command-tab show every window instead of every application. That would be problematic and way too Windows-ish for most Mac folks to stand.

And then, if Kottke read MacOSXHints. he’d know that if you:

  1. Invoke Exposé via a mouse gesture
  2. Hit command-tab and
  3. Select an appliction with it, that
  4. Then, you’ll end up with an Exposéd list of every document in that application. Click the window you want.

Sounds complicated, but it really isnt, since it uses mouse gestures (very easy to work into your workflow) and a keybaord shortcut already in use. If you really wanted to get fancy with it, you could use the arrow keys once you have one application’s windows open to select a window, and spacebar to select it. Again, sounds complicated; isn’t.

Is this exactly what Kottke’s whining about? No, but it’s the closest Mac-native implementation he’s going to get. Don’t hold your breath for Apple to dive into a window-centric behavior like the one he’s describing. Exposé’s ‘Show all windows’ feature and this use of it, is the only way for Apple to do it (built into the OS at least) due to their HIG, which states that the MacOS is document and application centric, not window-centric. You use an application to edit documents, not your operating system to edit your windows. I’m not doing a very good explanation of that concept. I’ll see if I can try to find something a little more concise…

Sing it

alternateorg on October 15, 2003

Apple actually cares about this sort of thing. Which is odd. Which is rare. Which is why they deserve gushing adulation now and then. They actually put the time and energy and labor into creating a gorgeous package most people will toss anyway, and why they include a first-time welcome experience, with subtle music, with flowing lush clean graphics, one that will never be repeated, just because.

This is the point. Detail and nuance and texture and a sense of how users actually feel, what makes them smile, what makes the experience worthy and positive and sensual instead of necessary and drab and evil

These are the things that are nearly dead in our mass-consumer culture, things normally reserved for elitist niche markets and swanky boutiques and upscale yuppie Euro spas and maybe cool insider mags like I-D and Metropolis and dwell. They are most definitely not to be expected of mass-market gadget makers. This is why it matters. This is why it’s important.

Aw. Look at that. His first Mac. Welcome to the real world, child.

Mixed bag

alternateorg on September 25, 2003

Via SVN (you don’t need a link, you know where it is): Macromedia Central: a Sherlock-style app. Written. In. Flash. A desktop app. Written in Flash.

You can downlaod and install it via a Flash UI within the webpage which seems scary and cool to me at the same time. The app runs and…

Not as good as Sherlock. Its very impressive that it’s Flash, but it has a few major shortfalls for me:

Unresponsive UI
Aliased text
UI is a little too much like a web-app for me to want to have on my desktop
I just don’t dig mouse-overs on scrollbars. That feels wrong to me
It seems to make everything else running hang a little bit. Uncool.

Now, that’s not to say it doesn’t have its pros. Tha data transfer is faster than you’d expect. The Flash movement in the UI is nice, but I prefer Aqua’s smooth transitions to Flash’s clunky ones. Also, I don’t use applications because of the fact that it’s neat they’re written the way that they are.

Of course I could also spend more than 10 minutse in it before passing judgement. Go see for yourself.

Reowr

alternateorg on September 22, 2003

So in order to offset my last post with something to prove Alternate’s not dying, I’m going to spackle you with my latest impressions of Panther.

No. I’m not a developer. Yes, it was procured with BitTorrent. Now hush.

First thing a lot of people want to know about is the Finder. I love it. The action menu mirrors the functionality of a right- or control-click, I’ve never really used it, but I could see a first-time user getting the hang of it. The customizable sidebar is a thousand times more easy to use that the regular ole Cocoa top-bar in Jaguar. In my build (7b44), you can set the folder a new Finder window will open. No more choosing between Home and Computer anymore! I have mine set to “Current Projects” which is managed by a PHP script I wrote. The new Open/Save dialog boxes go along with this, as they use a similar UI. Shortcuts on the left, browsing on the right in one of the three different metaphors. If you’re anything like me, you’ll find yourself not using the Open dialog much anymore because…

…Exposê makes the Finder instantly and insanely accessible. I use my Desktop again! Just slide the mouse down to the bottom-right corner and I have my Desktop available, with all my other windows’ edges a wee bit visible and lower opacity clinging to the screens edges. Click the Finder icon in the dock and get a new Finder window by itself (which, again, opens up Current Projects), find the file I’m looking for, double-click it or drag it over to its respective app icon, and all my windows come sliding back, and my app is opening the file. I use the desktop show thingy much more than the much-touted all-window minimizer, which in my opinion, takes too long to find the window you’re looking for, as there’s no predictable place for your window to end up. Yes, it’ll go to the same place every time given an almost-same number of windows but when you a. have a million windows to choose from and b. use a 1600×1200 resolution, each window is barely discernable from the next and you really only know which one you’re selecting because of the mouseover that tells you the window’s name. Like I said, I don’t use it. When I use someone else’s machine with Jaguar though, I find myself intuitively mousing over the bottom right to get the desktop, and when nothing happens, I get disappointed. I think that’s a big point to make: mouse gestures were so easily implemented into my workflow that I end up really more dependent on them that I expected I ever would be.

Speed: I’m like 10 releases behind, and I see no reason to try to find the newest ones. This thing is fast. My aging 533 with 896mb of RAM was like a brand-new machine, easily equaling a 667 or 733 machine with Jaguar. I see speed increases easily in the 20-30% range, with Photoshop 7 being the most welcome. Save For Web comes up instantly, etc.

The general UI is cleaner than Jaguar and definitely feels more professional without all those stripes. The new tabs are very nice and the darker wells/fieldset-type backgrounds are very striking.

The only apps that don’t work from Jaguar are the Apple-issued ones (iTunes, iMovie, iChat, Safari) and you have to use Panther-specific versions of those. Otherwise, application support is phenomenal. There were a few UI bugs in BBEdit but they seem to have been squashed, minus the ever-annoying and really stupid one where when I command-tab from BBEdit to Safari and hit Reload, my keyboard stops working. Other than that, this OS is a dream to use and will definitely be worth whatever it costs when it comes out, which, despite what your opinion may be, I will certainly pay. I’ve paid for every major MacOS upgrade since 8.0. So nyeh.

Jobs Ramblings of Mine

alternateorg on August 24, 2003

Recently, on Daring Fireball, I read

[Steve Jobs’s] strengths are obvious. Since his return as CEO in 1997, Apple’s computers have gotten better (and better looking), their product line has been simplified, their software has gotten better, and the company has successfully entered new markets.

While I agree with this statement, I gotta admit that (as a crazy Mac user), I’ve become a little interested in the “product line has been simplified” comment. In 1998, this was certainly true, even before the iBooks came out. You had Powerbooks in 3 different speed configurations (all called Powerbook G3), iMacs in one configuration to simplify the buying process, and PowerMacs in (I believe) 3 speed configurations, and correct me if I’m wrong, but at some point I believe they mirrored those available in the Powerbooks. That’s it. No iPods, no eMacs, no speakers, no iSight, no software other than the OS and what we bundled with it (this may be incorrect, also). You had basically 3 product lines, in simple configurations.

And we all know that this saved Apple from their previous stance of having very, very similar product names applied to different products. Aside from Tai, can anyone tell me the exact system-level differences between a 6400, 6500, 7200,7500, 8400, 8500 and a 9500? All with random numbers and a slash after their names? Was my friend’s 7500/200 really that much better than my 6400/180? The answer is yes, but I couldn’t tell you why, then or now.

Now, Apple has a multitude of lines that don’t fit into the power user desktop/portable, consumer user desktop/portable line up. What’s the main difference besides form factor between an iMac and an eMac? A 1st generation iPod at 10gb and a 3rd generation iPod at 10gb?

I guess my question is… is Apple perhaps too diverse these days? I understand the reasons behind the financial need to branch out into the videoconferencing and music player/PDA-ish markets, but is it going to cause problems down the road when Apple isn’t known as a computer maker, but an all-inclusive experience-maker?

And too a lesser degree, this:Is the fact that Apple makes the best peripherals for their OS and hardware going to drive them back into their well-known tendency toward proprietary connections and protocols (AppleTalk, ADB, vs TCP/IP, USB, etc)? If so, that’s almost definitely a bad thing. You already need a DVI adapter to use a new Cinema Display on a computer without ADC. Now, admittedly, they include this adapter with the display, but the fact remains that it runs on a proprietary connection.

Thoughts? Am I just being one of the many, many armchair analysts on the internet that seem to focus solely on Microsoft and Apple? Should I chill out and watch a movie instead?

Naked Mac-bashing

alternateorg on August 22, 2003

When will the Mac-bashing ever end? Why do my ‘friends’ feel the need to send me random emails telling me I’m a moron for using a Mac? I get my work done on it, and you use a PC. Great. Fuck off.