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Clarus returns home in macOS Ventura

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Re: Clarus returns home in macOS Ventura

#111

Post by mbreese »

saurik wrote: post #103
jeffkeen wrote: post #16

This is so great. The 90s/pre OS-X Apple (the "BuT tHeREs No SOFtWaRe!" and "ApPLe is GoING tO DiiEE" Apple) had a sense of playfulness in their UIs that was largely lost when they became the Apple we know today. The Mac OS classic architecture definitely had some problems with its non-protected memory and cooperative multitasking, but what it _allowed_ were extensions that could really get in there and muck around w…

OSX was also easy to modify and add extensions to for many years, as Objective-C is so extremely dynamic... until Apple started really trying to lock things down on purpose, turning macOS more and more into the miserably rigid iOS.

Given how much grief I’ve had from corporate mandated “enterprise” virus and firewall programs, I’m happy they started locking things down. Poorly written kexts were one of the worst user experiences I’ve had to deal with. When your computer crashes because you plug in a USB network adapter (due to a buggy firewall), you’ll want a more stable and locked down system too.

(Oh, and all USB-C/Thunderbolt docking stations have these adapters)

Sadly, there’s a reason why we can’t have nice things…

Re: Clarus returns home in macOS Ventura

#112

Post by shagie »

jeffkeen wrote: post #16

This is so great. The 90s/pre OS-X Apple (the "BuT tHeREs No SOFtWaRe!" and "ApPLe is GoING tO DiiEE" Apple) had a sense of playfulness in their UIs that was largely lost when they became the Apple we know today. The Mac OS classic architecture definitely had some problems with its non-protected memory and cooperative multitasking, but what it _allowed_ were extensions that could really get in there and muck around w…

> That extension that made Oscar the grouch climb out of the trash can and sing a little ditty when you emptied the trash

This was responsible for my little sister completely erasing a 20 MB hard drive one file at a time.

Re: Clarus returns home in macOS Ventura

#113

Post by shagie »

danudey wrote: post #86
jeffkeen wrote: post #16

This is so great. The 90s/pre OS-X Apple (the "BuT tHeREs No SOFtWaRe!" and "ApPLe is GoING tO DiiEE" Apple) had a sense of playfulness in their UIs that was largely lost when they became the Apple we know today. The Mac OS classic architecture definitely had some problems with its non-protected memory and cooperative multitasking, but what it _allowed_ were extensions that could really get in there and muck around w…

> After Dark! I would pay a frankly distressing amount of money for reproductions of After Dark screensavers, even if it was just videos I can set my TV to play when it gets tired.

https://www.bryanbraun.com/after-dark-css/ ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28006679 )

Re: Clarus returns home in macOS Ventura

#114

Post by mattl »

dtgriscom wrote: post #91
jeffkeen wrote: post #16

This is so great. The 90s/pre OS-X Apple (the "BuT tHeREs No SOFtWaRe!" and "ApPLe is GoING tO DiiEE" Apple) had a sense of playfulness in their UIs that was largely lost when they became the Apple we know today. The Mac OS classic architecture definitely had some problems with its non-protected memory and cooperative multitasking, but what it _allowed_ were extensions that could really get in there and muck around w…

There was a very early (1985-6?) app called "Selectric." When you ran it, it immediately exited, leaving you wondering what the point was. Until the next time you started typing: every key you typed made a "Chunk!" sound, the spacebar went "-diggit-", and the return key went "zzzzz...DING." Way fun.

Sounds like it was trying to be the IBM typewriter of the same name.

Re: Clarus returns home in macOS Ventura

#115

Post by warning26 »

weikju wrote: post #109
deergomoo wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It seems the aim is now to make all computing feel fun and friendly The weird part is most current attempts of this are actually really bad at it past initial surface appearances. Minimalist and “content-first’ UIs look great in screenshots and I guess they prevent new users from getting overwhelmed, but they also hide all the features in a way I find quite hostile. We have an absolute wealth of pixels in our displ…

I dread the day the menubar disappears...

Luckily, considering they brought the menubar to iOS (you can open it on most apps if you have an external keyboard connected and hold CMD), I'd say that Apple is at least somewhat committed to it!

Re: Clarus returns home in macOS Ventura

#117

Post by NaOH »

danaris wrote: post #48
grishka wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm very doubtful that by the time it reaches release, they'll bring back the icon grid and the sensible layouts (instead of those stupid iOS-like lists) in the panes themselves.

Frankly, the icon grid was arranged somewhat arbitrarily to begin with. I'd be quite happy to have a largely-alphabetical list, making it much easier to actually find the specific preference pane I'm looking for.

I'm still running OS X (10.11, El Capitan), but System Preferences under that OS had a View menu option Organize Alphabetically. That was present in many (all?) versions of OS X. I don't know if/when that may have been removed.

Re: Clarus returns home in macOS Ventura

#118

Post by dylan604 »

hedgehog wrote: post #64
macNchz wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had many of those fun extensions, I think my favorite was one that added physics to your desktop icons so they’d hang from your cursor at an angle if you dragged them from a point other than their “center of gravity”. Sometimes I’d just twiddle icons while thinking through things I was working on. I too miss that sort of whimsy and playfulness–I don’t think it’s inherently incompatible with modern expectations of p…

The Grouch was great. Or "great" if there were little kids around, intermittent fun reward for throwing file in the trash, what could possibly go wrong? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GE7EWDKVM1Y

More than the Grouch, I'm getting pains from the Iomega references

Re: Clarus returns home in macOS Ventura

#119

Post by dylan604 »

ben_w wrote: post #47
grishka wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the people in charge of the Mac are now people who _grew up with it_, who love it, and who have that same nostalgia as (some) of us outside Apple. So then how does one explain the unending UI regressions with every single major update? This whole system preferences thing for example? The terrible, terrible toolbars combined with window titles? The borderless buttons (with borders being an accessibility feature)? Th…

It's easy to rose-tint the past. I also remember the hockey puck mouse, the UI skeuomorphic choice to combine "brushed metal" window backgrounds with "plastic" buttons and "black and white LCD" info panels in iTunes and Quick Time Player, and the placement of the apple logo in the middle of the menu bar.

>the placement of the apple logo in the middle of the menu bar.

wait, what? when did this happen? I do not have any memory of the Apple logo being anywhere other than the upper left hand corner of the menu bar.

I do however remember the G3 PowerBooks with lit logo on the lid that was UPSIDE DOWN when open and in use

Re: Clarus returns home in macOS Ventura

#120

Post by OberstKrueger »

NaOH wrote: post #117
danaris wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Frankly, the icon grid was arranged somewhat arbitrarily to begin with. I'd be quite happy to have a largely-alphabetical list, making it much easier to actually find the specific preference pane I'm looking for.

I'm still running OS X (10.11, El Capitan), but System Preferences under that OS had a View menu option Organize Alphabetically. That was present in many (all?) versions of OS X. I don't know if/when that may have been removed.

It's still there on Monterey, so any removal or altering of functionality will be part of the redesign in Ventura.
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