Tag Archives: leopard

How I’m using Spaces on Mac OS X

June 16th, 2008

When Apple released the latest update for Mac OS X Leopard, with the version number of 10.5.3, they updated the way that Spaces worked.  As John Gruber pointed out, Spaces now can better focus on “task separation” rather than “application separation”.

Here is a quick overview and history for you.  Spaces is a virtual desktop application that, for the lack of a better way of putting it, allows you to create as many desktops as you’d like.  Right now your computer probably has one desktop or one “viewable area to put windows”.  With Spaces, you can create more than one, and then use each of them for different purposes.

Prior to Mac OS X 10.5.3 Spaces was used more for separating applications onto different Spaces rather than setting up Spaces for tasks.  An example would be keeping your email on one Space, while having your browser in another, to keep the two applications separate for use. For people that are more productive based on focus, this made it nice to focus on your email Inbox instead of having many windows open.

However, I called this version of Spaces a glorified “Hide Others”.  In Mac OS X you can hide any application, or, hide every other application except the one you are currently viewing.  The first iteration of Spaces was like a different way to use this feature.

In the latest version of the operating system you can separate your Spaces into tasks rather than only by application.  An application, like Safari, can have windows present in every single space if you’d like.  This way you can have a Space set aside for writing, one for email, and another for working on a logo.  Sound confusing?  Consider how I’m currently using Spaces – and it might help clear things up for you.

Space 1: Writing / Reading: I use my first Space to read just about everything I need to read.  Google Reader in a Safari window, tabs open for other articles and links people give to me, etc – are all on this space.  Since my reading and my writing usually go together, I use this Space for writing as well.  This means that while I’m writing this entry, I’m on Space 1 with tabs and windows open that are related to this entry.  Nothing else is distracting me from this task of writing this entry.  All of the information I need to complete this task is on this Space and nothing else.

Space 2: iTunes and other long-duration tasks: Have you ever needed to encode something in iMovie or, perhaps you’re downloading something that will take a long time, or transferring files from one location to another, backing up your computer, etc.  I use this second space for those tasks.  iTunes is always open in Space 2, though I can control it through my Apple Keyboard, so I don’t need to switch to that Space to play, pause, skip to the next song, etc.

The reason I separate the long-duration tasks over onto their own space is because I feel they can be a distraction.  I find myself checking applications that are “doing something” every now and then.  Now I don’t check them usually until they are completely finished with their task.  I find it is far less distracting.

Space 3: Email, IM, and Twhirl: I also call this my “communication station”.  The entire Viddler team keeps tabs via a Skype chat.  I also use iChat on a daily basis.  My email Inbox is in a constant state of flux.  And Twhirl, the application I use to keep up-to-date with Twitter and FriendFeed, is also getting updated every 15 minutes or so.  In order to keep my distractions down on all other Spaces I keep these tasks dedicated to this one Space.  I’m free to check up on them when I want.

Space 4: Projects: Typically, on a given day or at a specific time, I’m working on one project.  This space is where I do that project.  For instance, if I’m programming something I’ll have Coda, Transmit, any browser windows with documentation and reference material, and perhaps a browser window with a preview of what I’m working on – in this Space.  This space is completely project centric, with nothing else to distract me from that project.  It is very seldom that I need to work on 2 projects at once ((That don’t fit into the other Spaces I already have set up.)) so I’m able to focus on the project until it is done.

I’ve found Spaces to be very enjoyable since the 10.5.3 upgrade to Mac OS X and while I think my usage of it will mature over time, the last few weeks have been liberating in many ways.  Just the other day, while at a meeting at ViddlerHQ, I used my project Space to keep notes for the meeting.  There was no other distraction available for me during that meeting so I was able to both take notes with my laptop open and be a constructive part of the meeting.

How are you using Spaces?  Have you given it a try since the update?

Update: Switching Spaces and preference oddities

After rereading this entry, and being asked questions via Skype by Kyle Slattery, I might have omitted a few details that I should probably include in this entry.

First, is that I recommend deselecting the “When switching to an application, switch to a space with the open windows for the application” box.  This will allow you to switch applications without switching Spaces.

Second, is that in order for Spaces preferences to take effect – you have to restart your Dock sometimes.  I am not sure why, but this doesn’t happen to everyone.  Here is the way John Gruber explained it in his aforelinked entry:

“Lastly, I should mention that I had problems getting this new feature to work at all. After upgrading to 10.5.3 and seeing the Spaces-related changes in the release notes, I tried it out. Toggling the new checkbox made no difference for me, however — I got the same old “jump to another space when switching apps” behavior either way. I solved the problem by trashing my com.apple.dock.plist preferences file (which, since Spaces is controlled by the Dock, is where most Spaces-related prefs seem to be stored). After logging out and logging back in, the new checkbox worked perfectly.”

And last, that I use the Cntrl+arrow keys to navigate around to different Spaces the majority of the time.  But, when I’m at home on my desk using my Might Mouse, I’ve set up the third-button ((Which is the equivalent of pushing down the scroll wheel.)) to also show my Spaces.  This makes it really easy to switch whether my hand is on the keyboard or the mouse at the time I need to switch. 

Snow Leopard, a reality

June 10th, 2008

OS X 10.5.3, also known as Leopard and the current Operating System I’m running on my laptop as I write this entry, is a fantastic Operating System.  OS X, since 10.0, has been a leader in the areas of ease of use, security, user interface, speed, and features.

Since Apple switched to OS X, just seven years ago, they have had 5 major releases of the Operating System as well as about 5 smaller releases per major release.  That is at least 20 updates to the operating system in seven years.  How many updates have the other guys done in that amount of time?

Each major release of Leopard brought with it at least 300 new features on average.  This is where OS X 10.6, code named Snow Leopard at the moment, will be different.

Here is a quote from Bertrand Serlet, Apple’s Senior VP of Software Engineering.

“We have delivered more than a thousand new features to OS X in just seven years and Snow Leopard lays the foundation for thousands more,” said Bertrand Serlet, Apple’s senior vice president of software engineering in the statement released by Apple. “In our continued effort to deliver the best user experience, we hit the pause button on new features to focus on perfecting the world’s most advanced operating system.”

In my honest opinion, and really I’m trying not to be biased because I like the Mac so much, Leopard was an astounding “polishing” release of OS X.  Even though Apple managed to jam in another 300 or so features into Leopard when it was release, and even though they’ve refined many of these features since it was release in 3 separate updates, I still think Leopard has a fair amount of focus on efficiency, security, and polish.  Obviously Mr. Serlet doesn’t feel the same way.

I’m really looking forward to what Snow Leopard will bring.  Macworld is reporting that one major difference is that it will support “groundbreaking amounts of RAM”.  Well, that piques my interest.  But no matter what, I think that hitting the brakes to focus on Core in software development is not only rare in this business, but very refreshing.

Source: Macworld: Apple confirms OS X Snow Leopard.

Comic Life Magiq – from plasq

May 8th, 2008

plasq continues to amaze.  Adding onto the Comic Life brand, which includes Comic Life for Mac and Windows, is Comic Life Magiq.  What is the difference?  Comic Life Magiq is a big brother to Comic Life, it has more “pro” type features like image editing, and it is Leopard-only.

“With creative features rivaling ‘Pro’ applications, while retaining plasq’s signature ease-of-use, Comic Life Magiq is a Quantum Evolution of Comic Life.”

I’m downloading the trial right now to give it a spin.  I’m fairly confident Eliza would like to get her hands on Comic Life Magiq to create some really neat photo projects.

Video demonstration of Comic Life Magiq

A demo of plasq’s Comic Life Magiq

Source: Comic Life Magiq.
Related:  Other posts tagged with plasq.

Leopard’s Spotlight window isn’t as good as Tiger’s was

May 7th, 2008

I don’t think I’m alone in this thinking either.  On Mac OS X Tiger, when you searched for something, the list that appeared is much like the list that appears now, under Leopard.  Leopard’s speed improvements for these searches, when compared to Tiger, is undeniable and welcome.  Where Spotlight in Leopard begins to break down is when you click Show All to see all of the results for your search.

In Tiger, when I clicked Show All I got a really nice Spotlight-only window that I could then drill down into the results more specifically.  For example, if I was searching for photos of my friend Chris Fehnel, the window in Tiger looked like this.

Tiger’s Spotlight “show all” window.

Pretty straight forward, right?  It breaks out Documents (or in this case conversations I had with Chris in iChat), Email messages, his Address Book entry, and photos that I had tagged with his name.  Brilliant!

Tiger’s Spotlight window also allowed for some sorting options on the right “panel”.  Sorting by date, kind, location of the file, etc, – is quick, easy, and straight forward.

Now, let’s take a look at Leopard’s Spotlight window when clicking Show All for a search for “Chris Fehnel”.

Leopard’s “show all” window.

I don’t even think I have to explain how bad this is.  Imagine being new to the Mac, and seeing this window.  This is horrible, unusable, and makes me wish I could downgrade to Tiger.

If anyone has any suggestions (besides Finder replacements), I’m all ears.
 

Safari 3 on Leopard is almost as good as Camino

October 31st, 2007

While I await a new build of Camino that works a little better on Leopard I thought it a good opportunity to take Safari 3 for a spin. After using it since my upgrade from Tiger to Leopard I’ve found that Safari 3 is almost as good as Camino and in some ways even better.

Screenshot: Safari on Leopard.

Safari on Leopard. Screenshot by Skitch.

When I jotted down my wishes for Safari in Leopard I quickly mentioned the things I’d like to see changed and/or added in Safari to become my default browser full time.

That was then, this is now

Several of my opinions have changed a little since then, so I’ll go through those really quick first.

My stance has change completely regarding Apple’s decision to place the “Default Browser” preference within Safari’s preference panels. I wrote:

“This “feature” definitely gets on the nerves of many and really I can’t figure out why this resides in here. [...] …but this does not mean that this is the proper location for this preference. What if I uninstalled Safari?”

I now feel this is the best possible place for this preference and I couldn’t see it residing anywhere else. In fact, I think that all applications which rely on being a “default” for any protocols should handle these preferences the same way applications do with regards to filetypes. Photoshop has a preference setting for being the default application for opening JPG files as does Apple’s Preview application. Firefox, Safari, Camino and their ilk should do the very same when it comes to handling the various hypertext protocols that browsers typically utilize. Not only do I now feel that Safari should have this preference built-in, I believe all other browsers should do the same.

Just quickly; Me wanting multiple feed detection might be against spec. I have to do some research on this (not that I wouldn’t mind having the option still) but I’ll report on this in the future. (please see Update #2 below)

Onto features.

One of the things I wanted most was a searchable history. I’m a bit of a pack rat when it comes to my browser’s history (I keep about 120 days worth, see: my history in Camino) and so I like being able to quickly search it based on not just the URL but also the page’s title.

This is something that has been available in Camino for quite some time and I found myself using it a lot.

I’m happy to say that this is built into Safari and works as well, if not better, than it does in the latest Camino build that I was using. I had some people ask me if Camino slowed down the more history items were in it and the answer is yes. Browsing doesn’t slow down but URL lookup does. In Safari I’ve yet to see the lookup slowing down at all.

The other feature, which sadly did not make the cut in Safari on Leopard, that I wanted to see was bookmark keywords. Sure, I could use Spotlight to search my bookmarks but I liked having short words that I could type into the location field without using my mouse to find the bookmark in the menu or typing in the entire URL. For instance: ‘mysql’ was one of my keywords for a bookmark that took me to my phpMyAdmin installation on one of my servers, the URL of which spanned some 75 characters and the bookmark relating to it lies nested about four steps down. This is the thing I miss most when using Safari in Camino’s stead.

I’m not going to do a feature-by-feature review of Safari on Leopard because so many have done it better than I ever could. But I will say this: during my short stint with Safari so far, the only thing I’m now missing is bookmark keywords. I recommend giving it a spin.

Update: Something that I forgot to mention but was just reminded of while I was using Google Reader; clicking on a link from iChat, for instance, which is not currently loaded in Safari will result in a new tab with that URL. Perfect. However, as my friend Kyle Neath said to me last night:

“1. Can’t force target=blank to open in a new tab for some reason”

I never really had much issue with this because I can just “command”+click on a link and it will open in a new tab. Bad part is, this doesn’t work when using Google Reader’s default keyboard shortcuts. So I’m presented with a new window everytime I hit ‘V’ to view the original post.

Does anyone have a workaround for this?

Update #2: November 12th, 2007 – Another thing I had wanted was for Safari to handle multiple feed URLs and I thought this was against spec. I was wrong. And boy am I happy to say that I was wrong and it turns out that Safari does indeed handle this just fine out of the box. My friend Josh Pigford has more on theappleblog.com about this.

Location, location, location

October 29th, 2007

I’ve been pretty much gushing over Mac OS X Leopard for the last few days so I thought it’d be good to show a little balance. While using the Mac OS over the last few years I’ve wanted to have something natively handled and I was hoping it would be taken care of in Leopard; Location detection.

By design most modern Operating Systems allow each user to save an innumerable amount of options. Not only can we manage our own directories, system level options, and per-application preferences – we’re also able to customize the look and feel of the Operating System without changing it for another user of the same system.

This has been true for nearly every OS since I began using computers in 1994.

Yet, even the very latest, cutting-edge version of the Mac OS is unable to change a few of these preferences based on my current location. Sure it remembers the passwords to access the wifi networks I have encountered in my journeys – but I need something more. I need to be able to add location-based preferences for things like mounting drives, SMTP servers in Mail.app, and per-directory file permissions to name a few.

Any Operating System designed to run on portable devices, like my Macbook, should have these types of things built-in without the need to search for third-party solutions.

A few tips before installing Leopard

October 28th, 2007

Before returning from Phoenix I installed Leopard on my Macbook with very little effort. Upon my return I wanted to upgrade Eliza’s iBook to Leopard but I had tons of issues. Based on my experience with her laptop I wanted to jot down a few tips for any of you that have not made the jump yet.

  1. Backup your entire drive. Some good tips for this step can be found in John Gruber’s “I believe in Murphy’s Law“. In short; create a bootable backup of your hard drive before you install any operating system upgrade.
  2. Uninstall anything non-Leopard compatible. There are many applications that you probably have that you could keep, because you know that it will be updated at some point, however there are others that start when your computer boots up that it’d be a good idea to ditch. The first of these may be Unsanity’s Application Enhancer (APE). Either remove this using these instructions or update it to the latest version. Another would be to rename your DivXNetworks folder in your /Library/Application Support/ folder. Doing these two things will ensure that your installation process will go much smoother.
  3. Free up enough space. Leopard is going to need somewhere between 6 and 9 Gigabytes of free space in order to install. Leopard won’t actually take that much space once installed, but it will need at least this much space in order to complete the installation.
  4. Plug in your computer. If your using a laptop computer I would advise having your computer plugged in during installation. The installation will take the better part of an hour in most cases so you’ll want to be sure to have enough juice. This may seem like a no-brainer but, for some, it isn’t.
  5. Have a way to search Google handy. I hope all of your installations go as well as my Macbook’s install but incase they do not, have some way to search Google for solutions handy. There are thousands of people upgrading Leopard or have already done so within these first few days since its release and you can easily leverage their experiences to make yours better.

I’ll be doing a short write-up about Leopard sometime in the next few days but here is the short version; I am in love.

My thoughts on the WWDC Keynote

June 13th, 2007

MeToday: June 11, 2007

MeToday: June 11, 2007

So I’ve been catching some flack over my MeToday photo that, more or less, described my feelings towards the WWDC Keynote on Monday. Perhaps I’m overreacting, perhaps I’m being a little overly critical, or maybe I just needed more sleep, but the fact remains — I am not alone in my thinking that this latest Keynote wasn’t what we all thought it would be.

If you haven’t watched the Keynote, or weren’t fixated on the coverage during it, I suggest you watch it and then come back and read this post – because I’m not going to recap what Steve Jobs covered, but more cover what I think was sorely missing which lead to my disappointment. If you’d like my thoughts on what was announced, I suggest reading Michael Heilemann‘s “WWDC 07 fallout” post which nearly reiterates my thoughts on the what was announced during the Keynote.

That which went missing

The days leading up to any keynote by Apple’s CEO are always filled with rumors of new products or services that Apple will announce. These generally range from iPods that will do your laundry to cloaks that make you invisible like Harry Potter. Though Harry made an appearance in this keynote – no cloaks were added to the Apple Store. A lot of times this rumor-mongering builds up the expectation to such a level that, no matter what Apple introduces, those expectations are ultimately let down. However, I do not want anyone to believe that I “expected the unexpected” and was thus let down by the contents of the keynote. On the contrary, I think nearly everything that was mentioned in the keynote was, in a word, great — but I definitely feel a few things were missing from the keynote and that is why I reacted the way that I did.

Ok, so there was one rumor that, in the end, let me down. The iPhone SDK isn’t really an SDK at all – which only lets me down from a “user” perspective since my Cocoa-foo is lacking to say the least. No, I don’t want to build Cocoa apps for the iPhone – but I know a few developers who I would have loved to have the opportunity to do so. Yes, I like the fact that Apple is providing hooks into the iPhone’s core system via OS X services that can be “called” via the Web. Yes, I will build a few “iPhone applications” for my own personal use – but there is something I’m not happy about. Speed, responsiveness, and local caching on the iPhone will all become a factor with having 3rd party web apps be the only way that the iPhone can be developed for. Most of my time is spent near wifi (by necessity currently) but when I’m accessing the web over AT&T’s network I imagine that my mobile version of NetNewsWire is going to suck. Google Gears for iPhone plz?

Where was the latest version of iLife? While watching the keynote during MacWorld in January I was sitting on the edge of my seat, waiting for Steve to announce iLife 07 and give a preview of the enhancements made to, what has become, my most used suite of applications on any platform. Nothing. Surely another opportunity to let us iLife-faithful know what is in store for the next versions of the applications wouldn’t slip by. Obviously, iLife 07 is destined to become Leopard-only (which I’m fine with) – and perhaps the keynote had a “bigger agenda” for this conference, but even announcing that an update is coming might have quenched my thirst.

One might argue that WWDC is not the platform for announcing consumer products but rather is focused on showing off features that developers would find most interesting and valuable. Good argument. But that doesn’t mean that Steve couldn’t show how iLife takes advantage of the new Core Animation API in Leopard to allow a much richer experience when sorting your photos in iPhoto, or how iMovie can burn HD DVDs (or something). Of course I could argue the point further that the new movie listing Dashboard widget being released in Leopard (oh thank God this was a top-ten feature of Leopard, gives me a lot of faith in the other 290+ features) is much more a consumer product than a developer one.

I also wanted to see updates to .Mac since Steve Jobs mentioned at D5 All Things Digital that we should expect updates to this service soon. No, he didn’t say that they’d be announced at WWDC – but still. .Mac is falling behind and really needs a shot in the arm. I’ve only used 60 day trials of .Mac – but I did like being able to use it during those times. However, with free and better alternatives available – there is almost no reason to use .Mac besides greater system-level integration. I’d love to see a partnership between Google and Apple on integrating .Mac with Google’s offerings. Having close ties with Google Docs, Maps, Gmail, and several other Google services inside of Leopard – via .Mac somehow – would be great to see. Obviously it would save Apple the need to reinvent the wheel – and with Google’s open APIs it wouldn’t be that hard for Apple to put some really slick interfaces ontop of these great services (like they did for Maps on the iPhone). Perhaps this is wishful thinking since Apple makes a fair amount of cash from .Mac subscriptions – but I’d also love to see .Mac go free as another pull to switch to the Macintosh and have the best system level integration with web services on any operating system.

Something new! In January Steve mentioned that they had to keep wraps over a few of the Leopard features because they didn’t want Redmond’s photo copiers to start early. Fair enough. But he couldn’t have been talking about Stacks or the movie widget, was he? Obviously Time Machine and Core Animation are Leopard’s most notable features (from my perspective). I’m sure there are a ton of advancements under-the-hood being that Leopard has been in active development for 21 months! And maybe, just maybe, we won’t know of the best features until we install it – but I really thought Steven built-up the expectations there a bit and never really came through with anything bigger than what he had mentioned in January. This isn’t to say that I’m not just as excited to update my operating system as I was in January, just that I thought there was going to be “one more thing” worth noting about Leopard.

So to recap. I’m pretty happy with what was shown in the keynote. I’m just a little disappointed with what I thought was missing in it.

Leopard wish list – Part four: Finder

November 16th, 2006

My wish list for the Finder is not as extensive as other’s will be. Partly because I do not have as many complaints about the Finder as I’ve seen long-time Mac users have – particularly those you came from OS 7, 8, and/or 9.

Fixes

As I said, my list of fixes will be pretty short.

An unlimited number of labels would be where I’d start. If you open your preferences in Finder you have a Labels area that gives you a selection of 7 colors that you can change the names of, to fit the label. I use this feature rather sparingly so I can actually get what I need labeled within the 7-label-limit – however why is this a limitation at all? Why not have a quick + button that lets you select a color, name the label, and you are off to the races. Perhaps it has to do with people deleting labels that scares Apple from including such a feature.

Saved searches are currently the only folders that allow you to view things “like Spolight” windows show files. By kind, date, etc. If you create a smart folder you can see a new view button at the top – but yet you can not view those on other folders. I think it’d be neat to have that view across the system, not just within saved searches.

Keyword autocomplete when doing a keyword search is really annoying. If you do a search within Finder, then click + and add a Keyword filter – Finder will load your list of keywords from your entire system (including those in iPhoto). On my Macbook it took about 20 seconds to do this (good ole’ beachball meantime), and then it autocompleted anything I typed. Instead of being able to type in partial names (i.e. Paul), it forced me to search for a specific Paul. Here’s the annoying part, I have 7 people that I know with the first name of Paul, and 8 that I know with the last name of Paul. Turn the autocomplete off.

DMG mounts should not automatically be opened with the finder in “collapsed mode”. I am not sure where to throw the blame here – if it is Apple, the developer who packaged the DMG, or something that I’ve set on my system. But I have never once wanted to keep Finder in collapsed view since I will eventually have to drag the application into my applications folder to install it.

Feature requests

There is a lot of hoopla about having tabs and other various things, but I’m not sure I’m on board with that yet.

Better media browsing when you are viewing a folder filled with images, movies, or audio. Right now if I’m viewing a directory full of JPGs I can view it in thumbnail (or tile) view, and then open my preferences and bump up the size of the thumbnails. But why not an iPhoto like slider for this type of thing? Why not have a quick way to sort by date, kind, or keyword?

Apple should start taking some of the functionality back out of the applications that it creates and start putting those features into the operating system. Make it just as easy to find a photo in Finder as it is to do in iPhoto.

Final thoughts

See, that wasn’t so bad. I’m sure the improvements to Finder in Leopard will be pretty broad. Not only because of the amount of criticism that has flew – but also because there will be new features that it needs to support (such as Time Machine).

I’m not sure I want to see it change too much though – and if it becomes anything as bloated as Path Finder I may just have to revolt!

Note: Be sure to check out other parts of my Leopard wish list listed below:

  1. Part one: Safari
  2. Part two: Mail
  3. Part three: iChat
  4. Part three: Finder

[tags]finder, macintosh, apple, mac os x, osx, leopard, wish list, iphoto, keywords, searching[/tags]
[slug]leopard-wishes-pt4-finder[/slug]

Leopard wish list – Part three: iChat

November 14th, 2006

Another application within the Mac OS that is open for most of my day is iChat. Many have chosen to use third-party chatting applications like Adium – but the ability to hold audio and video conferences, and transferring files to those on my list, proves to be indispensable features for me.

Fixes

I hope not to sound as if I use iChat begrudgingly because, on the contrary, I rarely find fault with iChat during my normal usage. However if I really turn a critical eye to it, I find:

Error messages should be more descriptive when a video or audio conference, or file transfer fails. Many times there are issues with NATs or Firewalls getting in the way of iChat trying to make connections. iChat typically reports with an error message along the lines of “blah blah blah”. If iChat could have a built-in utility to test your connection for possible problems, and then offer ways of solving those problems based on it’s findings – that’d be cool.

Better Address Book integration is something that I’ve long for since the beginning. Both Adium and iChat both pull your contacts address cards to add buddies to your list – however they also hold their own lists separate from the address book. I’d like to see every contact held within iChat to be in the address book, and vice-versa, by default. What typically happens is, if I sign up for a new AIM account, and load up iChat – I will be forced to go in and add each buddy from my address book into iChat – rather than it just recognizing them. Perhaps there is a reason that they do not do this (perhaps some would find it annoying) – but for me – I think it’d be neat to at least have the option.

File transfers that don’t work when video and audio do seems really strange to me. If I am talking to someone on video and I try to send them a file, and it doesn’t work, that seems strange to me. Why can we make a connection for audio or video and not for transferring files?

Update the tooltips which are used to show your buddy’s info. If you hover over a buddy, you can see some quick information about them – usually their AIM name, and current status. Like Adium, I’d like to see this updated to show a larger version of your buddy’s icon – along with a way to quickly send them an email, an invitation to an event in iCal, a link to the song currently playing in iTunes, etc. This could also be considered a feature request, but I’ll get more into that in a second.

Feature requests

There are a few of my feature requests that delve slightly into what we already know will be included in the next release – but bear with me because I think they need to be refined a little more.

System-wide iChat integration could go well beyond what we see now with Mail and Address Book. Currently you can see who is online from within Mail (if you have that particular email address associated with the current AIM username), and also from within Address Book. This is sufficient in my opinion though anywhere address book information is used (i.e. in the Address Book widget), it’d be nice to see a person’s online status as well.

However, there are many more ways I’d like to see iChat integrated into the OS. If we take a look at the four reasons I currently use iChat, perhaps we can see a way to integrate it more.

1. Text messaging. There are several ways I could see this being used. Contextual menus in Safari, as just one example, give you a way to “Search in Spotlight” and “Search in Google” when you have highlighted text. Perhaps “Send to buddy” would also be available instead of having the need to copy/paste all the time. This may seem like a very small thing, but just think of the amount of time it could save.

Perhaps this feature could be extended a bit further to actually be an option from within Pages.

2. Audio chat. Audio chat should not be limited to only sharing one’s voice. With a little jiggery pokery, or software like Audio Hijack Pro and Soundflower, one could potentially share their tunes with someone working remotely out of the office or with a computer not directly connected to the LAN. Or, maybe two people would like to collaborate on a project in GarageBand, and they could do so by “porting” the output of GarageBand in the current audio chat.

The implications could be fairly endless here.

3. Video chat. Just like with Audio chat, I’d like to see a way to share video via the video chat feature. I realize that the upcoming release will have some screen sharing, iPhoto slideshow, and other features. But being able to open iMovie and show someone a rough cut of a project their working on – could prove extremely valuable.

4. File transfers. What about being able to send a file from anywhere in the system to someone on your buddy list? You can do this now by dragging that file onto your buddy’s name in your contact list – but what if you could do it from within the application you are working on the file with. Say I’d like to send that same rough cut of the iMovie project to someone so that they can edit it further. Emailing it is not an option (too big). I could send it to him in iChat but that means I’d have to save it, open finder (or use Spotlight) and drag the file onto their name ect. What about a button to “Send to Buddy”?

Update (9am on Nov. 15): It turns out there is a product for doing something like this with Skype. It was written about on TechCrunch. Interesting.

I could also envision this feature being awesome from within iPhoto. Quickly send someone an entire album. Sure, this would bypass Apple’s .Mac photo-sharing service built-into iPhoto. But I think .Mac sucks.

Final thoughts

As I said, I really don’t have many issues with the current iChat. Not enough to make me jump ship to something like Adium (which I would have to write a 5-part piece to say what I don’t like about it). I’m going to stick with iChat – and I’m looking forward to the new stuff coming up.

Note: Be sure to check out other parts of my Leopard wish list listed below:

  1. Part one: Safari
  2. Part two: Mail
  3. Part three: iChat
  4. Part three: Finder

[tags]apple, macintosh, mac os x, osx, wish list, leopard, ichat, buddy list, aim, adium, audio hijack pro, soundflower, safari, spotlight, mail, garageband, imovie, iphoto, finder, itunes[/tags]
[slug]leopard-wishes-pt3-ichat[/slug]

Leopard wish list – Part two: Mail

November 13th, 2006

I’m not as much of a power-user of Mail as I probably could be. There are features of Mail that I simply do not use, and therefore my request for Mail are rather light. However, I do feel that some of my requests make sense, so hopefully they will be included in Leopard.

Fixes

Here are some things that I believe should be fixed in Mail.

Smart Mailbox rules are seemingly complete – though I find one oddity among them. When you select the “Message is in Mailbox” filter, you are presented with every Mailbox you’ve setup – even the Smart Mailboxes that you’ve already created. However, if you select the “Message is not in Mailbox” filter, you are not given the Smart Mailboxes as options. I’ve thought about this for awhile, and I still can’t figure out the reason.

The search box should allow for multiple filters such as you find in the current Finder. Searching for a subject, then being able to click + to drill down until you find what you are looking for. I have about 12,500 pieces of email, and finding the 1 that I am looking for can sometimes prove difficult with a single search filter.

The address book panel seems very OS 9-ish. It works, but I’d like to see the design of this updated a bit.

Feature requests

I realize that Mail is getting “a significant upgrade” when Leopard is release, though the major feature additions looked atrocious in my opinion. Here are some things I’d like to see.

The iLife Media Browser would be an awesome addition to Mail’s default set of icons on the New Mail window. Attaching photos from your iPhoto Library is quick and easy – if you already have iPhoto open. I envision a time where we can click on the Media Browser (similar to what you find in Pages, iMove, etc) and find a photo or photos and attach them with ease.

Side note: The new version of Mail will have “stationary” – and from what I can tell from the screenshots released so far there is a new button called “Photo Browser” at the top. I hope that this is not a brand-new, non-standard media browser that does not use the same frameworks that are used throughout the system so far. And, I hope that this button is not only enabled when you choose a particular style of stationary that allows for photos. We need this feature to be available any time we want to send normal attachments.

An all new way to attach files would be nice. Utilizing a media browser to attached photos, audio, and perhaps even video – would be nice. But I can see definite improvements that could be made to attaching documents, spreadsheets, and compressed archives too.

Imagine you need to attach an Excel spreadsheet, a PDF document, and a .Zip file full of product images to an email. When you do this, I would like to see a preview of the document that I am going to attach. (This does currently work with PDFs and Images) I’d like to see previews for Excel spreadsheets, Text files, Rich-Text Files, Word Documents, .Pages documents, Keynote Presentations, and anything else that usually resides in the document window.

As per .Zip archive files, it’d be nice to select a zip file in the “attach file” panel and be able to see the file names of the files within the archive. This would ensure that I’ve selected the correct file to attach.

Automatic compression of multiple file attachments is something that was “introduced” by AOL back in the mid to late 90s. I have not used America Online since then, so I have no idea if this feature still exists.

If I had an email with multiple attachments, as described above, Mail could automatically compress those files on send. This way, the transmission of data would be slightly smaller. On the other end, Mail.app would uncompress those files into their original state prior to displaying the message to the recipient.

Side note: The biggest problem with this feature in AOL (circa version 2 or 3) was that when you sent email to anyone that was not an AOL user, they’d just get a .zip file. Back in those days .zip files were not yet the norm, and so you had to have people go to winzip.com or something to download a utility to uncompress those files. In other words, their email client did not have the “automatically uncompress files upon receipt” feature. Annoying to say the least.

The other problem with this is, Mail would have to have a slightly proprietary compression format so that when a .zip, .tar, .bz (etc) type of file would come in, it wouldn’t always uncompress those files. If I was sent 1,000 text files in a .zip archive, I wouldn’t want those files automatically uncompressed by Mail.

Final thoughts

I’m trying not to be too picky, otherwise this list would get quite long. Any application that is used as often as an email client always gets more than it’s share of scrutiny. I’m fairly happy with my email client to-date, and I hope that the trend continues.

Side note: Leopard Mail will include Stationary, Notes, To-Dos, and RSS feed reading ability. From what I’ve seen so far, I do not “like” any of them (even though what I did see would be considered BETA).

The Stationary seems a bit superfluous though I can see people having a ball using them. The Notes doesn’t make sense to me yet simply because I do not email myself notes. There are hundreds of ways to “take notes” on the Mac OS ranging from widgets to small menu bar applications to full-blown GTD applications. The “to-dos” in Mail seem like they’d be better kept and updated within iCal. I’m sure the integration between iCal and Mail will be might tighter this time around – so I’ll have to see that integration prior to passing judgement.

RSS within Mail is a completely new headache to me. RSS feeds within Safari is only made for those people who keep track of a few web sites. With constant attention to feed management you may even be able to get away with having 100 subscriptions in Safari without pulling your hair out. Unless the integration of RSS feeds (which should be called “Feeds” but we’ve already talked about that), rivals that of NetNewsWire, then I see no improvement than using Safari for your subscriptions. Too much synergy may not be a good thing in this case.

Note: Be sure to check out other parts of my Leopard wish list listed below:

  1. Part one: Safari
  2. Part two: Mail
  3. Part three: iChat
  4. Part three: Finder

[tags]apple, macintosh, mac os x, osx, mail.app, mail, iphoto, ilife, safari, leopard, mac os 10.5, wish list, ical, gtd, stationary, notes, to-dos, rss[/tags]
[slug]leopard-wishes-pt2-mail[/slug]

Leopard wish list – Part one: Safari

November 10th, 2006

I fully realize that my “wish list” that I will be publishing is coming a little late to be included in the Spring-time update to the Mac OS – however it is good to note that much of what I am documenting has already been sent to Apple months ago.

The first thing I’m going to tackle is Safari (though I believe that Safari should be updated as a separate application and not part of the OS). I’ll try to focus my thoughts from fixes, to actual bugs, to feature requests.

Fixes

The following are not “bugs” in the traditional sense. I believe that most of the following was done intentionally, I just do not think they should have been done.

Setting your default browser is currently held within Safari’s preference panel. This “feature” definitely gets on the nerves of many and really I can’t figure out why this resides in here. In order to switch from Safari to Firefox you’d need to first open Safari and tell it you want Firefox to be the default browser.

This isn’t to say that Firefox (and other browsers) do not ask if you’d like to use them as the default browser on your system – but this does not mean that this is the proper location for this preference. What if I uninstalled Safari?

The blue RSS button at the top of the browser is fairly misleading. Apple is attempting to “brand” a doc-spec. In other words, they are saying that all “feeds” are RSS. Obviously this is not true. I do not want that icon to change from RSS to ATOM to “WHATEVER” when it applies, I’d much rather see Apple use the unified feed icons to go along with the unified feed theory (another post I have to bring over to my local site soon).

Multiple feeds detection kinda goes along with the above. I suppose this could be filed under a new feature request – but I feel like they might have kept it simple on purpose. I wouldn’t mind seeing a short list pop up with the available feeds for that site. Obviously this would only be useful if web masters actually listed these feeds in their documents.

Feature requests

Safari is definitely a browser for the average user, but I’d like to see a few of the “not so elementary” features from other browsers find their way into the Leopard release of Safari. Why? Because I’d much rather use Safari than Firefox if it only had the following.

Photo description

Bookmark keywords (click to zoom)

Bookmark keywords is something I use heavily in Firefox. I am not sure how widely used this feature actually is, since even browsers like Flock do not currently have this feature built in (and Flock is built off of the same engine and core as Firefox). Side note: I’ve been told that Flock 1.0 (due out sooner than later) will have these features as it will be built off of the Firefox 2.0 release.

To explain really quick, for those that are not familiar with this feature – Bookmark keywords allow you to setup shortcuts for your bookmarks. Let’s say that you had a rather long URL that you visited often, and you didn’t want to traverse your long list of bookmarks in order to get to that page without typing in the name manually, you can setup a shorter keyword for that. (see screenshot) You type in that keyword, and poof, you’re there.

Searchable history is not something I use every day, but when you need it – you find it very handy. I suppose I could liken a searchable history to Spotlight. Before Spotlight was introduced we never knew how much of a pain it was to find things on our local system. But, after having Spotlight for awhile now, I find it indispensable. Such is the case with searchable history. Safari’s history menu is crude – and needs a significant update.

Update: As Nathan pointed out the history in Safari is indeed searchable. But I would have never found it if he hadn’t told me where it was. So the UI needs to be adjusted to make this much more accessible.

Final thoughts

Really my requests for Safari are very light and don’t hold a ton of water when it comes to my decision to use Firefox instead of Safari. There are other, underlying, reasons why I use Firefox that are much more “under the hood” type of reasons. For instance, many WYSIWYG editors inside of various web applications do not function properly within Safari. Hopefully, with the very latest version of Web kit no doubt being included in the upcoming release of Safari, we’ll see some of this functionality made available.

I remember the first day I wanted to jump ship from Safari to Firefox. I wanted to use Google Calendar and couldn’t because Safari was not a supported browser. But now that I rarely use any online web applications – I may switch back and deal with my little niggles mentioned above until they become available (hopefully) in the next release.

Note: Be sure to check out other parts of my Leopard wish list listed below:

  1. Part one: Safari
  2. Part two: Mail
  3. Part three: iChat
  4. Part three: Finder

[tags]leopard, mac os x, osx, macintosh, apple, safari, wish list, browsers, flock, firefox, bookmarks, history, rss, feeds, atom[/tags]
[slug]leopard-wishes-pt1-safari[/slug]