Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

OS X is as old as the classic Mac OS was when it came out

sixcolors.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 138 posts

Re: OS X is as old as the classic Mac OS was when it came out

#111

Post by aequitas »

sarreph wrote: post #9

What's the sentiment on OS X being rechristened macOS ? Doesn't this count as a sort've era 2.5?

I for one really like this rename for search reasons. Now it is a single unambiguous word: macos. Where before people used the variations: osx, os x, mac os x. Depending on how smart the search engine was you would either get to few or to many results, eg: github issue search. Some search engines even ignore 3 letter words altogether. It will take a while of course for everyone to adopt the new name in their writing.

Re: OS X is as old as the classic Mac OS was when it came out

#112

Post by SentientNo4 »

pfranz wrote: post #109
PascLeRasc wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I personally disagree. OS X, even older versions, is to me worlds ahead of Windows 7/10. I love the menu bar at the top for application-specific menus, the tabbed file manager, Spotlight is the best system-wide search compared to Windows or any third-party Windows tools. Devices like audio interfaces and printers are so much easier to get working than on Windows. The system preferences menu is a lot cleaner and easie…

I think the menu bar at the top served macOS well over the years, but I think menus on the window are a better solution now that multi monitor and high resolution monitors are so common. Having it at the top of your primary monitor just ruins Fitt's law. It may be because of how I use a computer, but I only use Spotlight as an application launcher. Because it's there I will type stuff in the "Search" box in Finder, e…

> Because it's there I will type stuff in the "Search" box in Finder, expecting to filter on the filename of the current folder--instead it it searches "This Mac"

http://osxdaily.com/2013/03/12/change-finder-search-to-look-...

Re: OS X is as old as the classic Mac OS was when it came out

#113

Post by Tsiklon »

pfranz wrote: post #109
PascLeRasc wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I personally disagree. OS X, even older versions, is to me worlds ahead of Windows 7/10. I love the menu bar at the top for application-specific menus, the tabbed file manager, Spotlight is the best system-wide search compared to Windows or any third-party Windows tools. Devices like audio interfaces and printers are so much easier to get working than on Windows. The system preferences menu is a lot cleaner and easie…

I think the menu bar at the top served macOS well over the years, but I think menus on the window are a better solution now that multi monitor and high resolution monitors are so common. Having it at the top of your primary monitor just ruins Fitt's law. It may be because of how I use a computer, but I only use Spotlight as an application launcher. Because it's there I will type stuff in the "Search" box in Finder, e…

A neat function of OS X's menu bar is that all menu bars in other displays are slightly greyed out if it's not got the in focus application displayed.

There is a 'Primary Monitor' setting - this determines the window presenting the Dock and can be changed by clicking and dragging the 'menu bar' idiom between windows in the 'Arrangement' tab in the 'Displays' preference pane

Re: OS X is as old as the classic Mac OS was when it came out

#114

Post by SSLy »

gnl wrote: post #76
drb91 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that the obvious problems with OS X (macOS, whatever) are with the UX, though. Sure, there are problems on that front, but I don't think they're the major pain points people deal with on a daily basis. Meanwhile, user-controllable per-process (or per-app) sandboxing would provide tangible benefit to all of us. This means, easy controls for accessing filesystem, network, cpu, gpu, memory, peripherals, an…

Yup. While I do need to use a number of third-party tools to get the UX like I want it (Hammerspoon, Hyperswitch, Spectacle and Quicksilver), they do exist, they work fine and I think this has more to do with my specific requirements than with any fundamental issues or missing features in the UX. Going forward, advanced sandboxing is indeed one of the most important things that I would love to see Apple focus on. Eve…

Is there something akin to the little flocker for windows?

Re: OS X is as old as the classic Mac OS was when it came out

#115

Post by code_duck »

_bxg1 wrote: post #91
code_duck wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as Ubuntu supporting window snapping, it’s worth noting that Linux has supported every conceivable window management feature for years, including some that have never come anywhere near Windows or Mac, like tiling window managers. making window management entirely modular. Every WM or desktop combo in Linux has other features I find highly convenient which are strangely missing from Mac and Windows, such as a…

Sure, but I don't think it was available out of the box for Ubuntu until recently (I could be wrong), and I also think Windows 7 invented snap-to-sides (could be wrong on this too). Linux has always been the OS where you can do just about anything you want with enough research and effort, but it still matters what the most mainstream distro offers out of the box at any given time.

I do believe that WM feature was available long before Windows 7... I recall similar options in many WMs as well as apps like Gimp, called sticky edges, edge attraction, snap-to-borders, and so forth. It seems like a fairly apparent idea to assist window placement, and i’d be surprised if it hasn’t been around in some form since the 80s.

Linux is highly extensible and modular, so it’s hard to say what it provides ‘out of the box’, even a given distro. For almost any distro, it’s very simple to start using a different WM (literally 3 steps).

I suppose it’s true that for the majority of users, what the defaults are is more important than an option merely being available as most people will never even read the settings menus.

Re: OS X is as old as the classic Mac OS was when it came out

#116

Post by pjmlp »

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #80
pier25 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If not, Google is coming down the road with Fuschia. I'm also hoping Fuchsia will save us.

I wouldn't count on it. Google doesn't seem particularly interested in the desktop at all. And if they were, then my worry is that it'll be seen like Windows 10 is now seen by Microsoft: as an "experience" (aka advertising platform), not a tool people use to get things done that should spend most of its time staying the hell out of the way.

At least they are bringing Android native apps and official GNU/Linux support to ChromeOS.

Re: OS X is as old as the classic Mac OS was when it came out

#117

Post by pjmlp »

ksec wrote: post #96
_bxg1 wrote: post #8

I would honestly love to see a ground-up rebuild, but not the kind that would probably happen. OSX is getting creaky; it seems like it's had an increasing number of integral bugs lately, and the "redesign" that came with Yosemite felt more like a rushed coat of paint than a substantial rethink of the UX. Here's what I'd like to see: a fresh desktop OS that actually innovates in the space. Desktop UX innovation has sl…

I think Apple do plan to rewrite some or large part of macOS. The problem is they surely want to do it in Swift, but Swift is no where near ready or stable enough for that use. Swift 5 were suppose to get ABI stability, may be that will be announced in WWDC.

They already rewrote launchd and the Dock last year.

Re: OS X is as old as the classic Mac OS was when it came out

#118

Post by wool_gather »

pjmlp wrote: post #117
ksec wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Apple do plan to rewrite some or large part of macOS. The problem is they surely want to do it in Swift, but Swift is no where near ready or stable enough for that use. Swift 5 were suppose to get ABI stability, may be that will be announced in WWDC.

They already rewrote launchd and the Dock last year.

I don't disbelieve you, but do you have a reference for this? `nm /sbin/launchd` doesn't show anything that looks like Swift. Searching ASCII WWDC turns up nothing. All I can find is you saying it a couple of times here on Hacker News. :)

Re: OS X is as old as the classic Mac OS was when it came out

#119

Post by rorykoehler »

_bxg1 wrote: post #14
drb91 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that the obvious problems with OS X (macOS, whatever) are with the UX, though. Sure, there are problems on that front, but I don't think they're the major pain points people deal with on a daily basis. Meanwhile, user-controllable per-process (or per-app) sandboxing would provide tangible benefit to all of us. This means, easy controls for accessing filesystem, network, cpu, gpu, memory, peripherals, an…

Yeah, some (arguably most) of the missing features/core problems are due to the fact that OSX has been all-but-ignored by Apple for half a decade, but some of them are just due to the fact that the UNIX paradigms are becoming outdated. Google is trying to solve the latter problem with Fuschia, you're right, which is interesting. But so far that OS's UX also looks like it's primarily mobile-focused, even if it's desig…

I don't know why you would want window snapping. It doesn't provide any benefit

Re: OS X is as old as the classic Mac OS was when it came out

#120

Post by pjmlp »

wool_gather wrote: post #118
pjmlp wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They already rewrote launchd and the Dock last year.

I don't disbelieve you, but do you have a reference for this? `nm /sbin/launchd` doesn't show anything that looks like Swift. Searching ASCII WWDC turns up nothing. All I can find is you saying it a couple of times here on Hacker News. :)

What is new in Swift, WWDC 2017.

Later I can cross-check it.

Post reply on HN