MacNet2 holds a full preview article of Mac OS X 10.3 Panther and screenshots here.
Mac OS X 10.3 Panther Preview
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
I really don’t know what to think about the “New Finder”. Provided Panther itself has kqueue support like Panther Server (which it will probably need for the “Live Queries”-like search functionality) I will certainly love it from a technological point of view. However, the interface seems fairly odd and quite a departure from traditional file managers. I suppose if it is received poorly enough we can hope Apple will add a “classic look” option.
He also never mentions what caused his kernel panic, and I’m certainly curious. I was hoping Panther might be a stability improvement, but it sounds like it still has some problems…
I love the new finder. if anything, the current finder was my only beef with the OS. Come Panther, I will be in OS nirvana
Anyone got a mirror?
Don’t get me wrong… a Cocoa rewrite of the Finder was sorely needed. I just wish it were more like the original.
I will certainly love it from a technological point of view. However, the interface seems fairly odd and quite a departure from traditional file managers. I suppose if it is received poorly enough we can hope Apple will add a “classic look” option.
Think of it this way: the new finder is made to be more consistent with the other browsing applications such as iTunes, iPhoto, Address Book,.. If you like working with those applications, you will probably like the new finder.
And if everyone who doesn’t like brushed metal, sends Apple feedback, they might want to update it to look allot slicker. I doubt they are going to remove it, but make it look prettier should be no problem at all.
I haven’t seen it myself, but isn;t there a Debrushmetalizer ? Is it any good ?
Well, I hate to say this here, but looks like Anonymous is all over Apple:) Even if he would work for Apple he wouldn’t be so active. Wherever an Apple topic shows up, Anonymous shows up! WoW! Please don’t take this personal, but realy, take a break:) Anonymous, are you atleast a developer, or just a troll? I saw that you also insulted Eugenia a couple of times… I understand that you like Apple, I like the company and their products to, I wish I had a second computer running OS X, or even Linux on PPC, but I can’t afford it right now… Common, be more calm, and I’d would rather try to help people and point them into the right direction than deffending Apple all the time when someone says something nasty about the company or their products. And yes, they are expensive.
I suppose if it is received poorly enough we can hope Apple will add a “classic look” option.
I’m really surprised that Apple doesn’t have an official classic MacOS Platinum theme available for OSX.
Mac is a lot like Gnome, BeOS and Windows: less features, less headaches for support, more integration to the system. “Less is more” regarding themes and other bells and whistles. XP only started supporting themes natively and only power users and teenagers really use the feature.
If I had my own OS, I would only offer 2-3 pre-defined themes for different kind of users (teenager’s “wow”, oldies “normal” and an accessibility one) and that’s it.
If I had my own OS, I would only offer 2-3 pre-defined themes
Yup. I agree. “Classic Platinum” and Aqua.
Though, I guess they would have to tweak Platinum just a bit to get it to integrate with OSX.
I dislike the new Finder a lot less after having a closer look at it.
It looks like you can resize the sidebar so that it only shows icons and the icons can be set to the size you want. The toolbar can still be customised just like previous versions, so the pointless Action menu can be replaced with something useful.
The sidebar would be better if you could drop groups of files onto it, like the NeXTSTEP shelf. But overall it’s a good way of having quick access to drives and folders, without cluttering the main toolbar or needing much screen space.
I don’t think it’s as radical a change as some people fear. Other than the sidebar, labels and the brushed metal look, it doesn’t seem much different from previous versions of the Mac OS X Finder.
Personally I think the author under sells the usefulness of Expose, it’s much better than other solutions IMO.
With Window Shade you’ll almost always have titlebars stacked and overlapping, so you can’t see all the open windows at a glance. Even if you have windows arranged so that you can see them all when Shaded, it doesn’t show the window’s contents, just it’s title.
Minimise in place iconises the windows to the desktop. They get mixed in with desktop icons and covered with other windows, making it hard to find a specific window icon. This was how RISC OS minimised windows, personally I used 3rd party window management tools as I found it useless most of the time. Plus this feature seems redundant when you have a Dock for minimising windows and the ability to hide apps.
Expose quickly shows you nice large thumbnails of your open windows, arranged so that you can see them all. It has to be the fastest and most elegant window management feature I’ve seen for years. Even the animation where the windows slide into place is very functional, as it shows where the window will appear when clicked. Apple deserve credit for such a well designed and innovative feature.
Yes Eugenia, I completelly agree with you. Most users need a desktop OS for productivity, not to play with. I think that’s one of the reasons that so many people use GNome and not KDE (please, don’t flame me for this). People who like to toy with their desktop use KDE, but people who like to get work done use GNome. I’ve tried to use KDE but it is like a toy, too many things, not complicated, rather the functionality has a bad implementation. The same with OS X: keep it simple. And themes: usually people don’t need 100+ themes, just 3 themes like you said, but each of those themes should be good, with its own personalitty.
>Apple deserve credit for such a well designed and innovative feature.
Expose is a nice feature indeed. However, it is not Expose who should get the credit, Quartz Extreme is. Apple simply uses the goodies that come “for free” by having a 3D implementation on your UI. It is not a brand new invention. It is simply a build up over an existing technology.
Give credit to Apple for creating QE last year, not for Expose, FastUserSwitch’s effect or any other visual effects that you are going to see in the future _because_ of QE.
Is the screenshots link working for everyone? The link to the powerbook screenshots on the guys mac.com site works, but the javascript or the thumbnails to panther screenshots simply won’t load in either firebird or IE on OS 10.1 for me. I don’t really care, I was just wondering if maybe apple took down the pictures, since that is their site. Do you think this could of happened?
Yes, and not only that, but if Safari is anything to go by Apple is designing apps (widgets) to look good with either skin.
I installed Panther to a bootable FireWire drive and it is faster (generally speaking) than Jaguar on a local drive. The Finder is quicker if nothing else…haven’t done anything with Expose yet.
I think you make a good point SM. To overshadow the ingenuity of something like Expose because it is simply an implementation of Quartz Extreme and to then summarily dismiss all future implementations of QE is rather… extreme.
Panther’s looking good, though. There’s some interesting problem-solving and refining going on with OS X now, I look forward to the seeing it mature.
“Expose is a nice feature indeed. However, it is not Expose who should get the credit, Quartz Extreme is. Apple simply uses the goodies that come “for free” by having a 3D implementation on your UI. It is not a brand new invention. It is simply a build up over an existing technology.”
But surely just about everything in the GUI is built up over an existing technology? I don’t think the technology used determines whether a new UI feature is an innovative idea or not.
QE may make Expose and other features possible, but IMO it doesn’t make a feature like Expose obvious. Apple could simply have added a more flashy version of an existing feature, such as alt+tab with window thumbnails. Instead they had a new idea that AFAIK doesn’t exist in any other GUI and implemented it very well. Most ‘new’ features in recent versions of Mac OS and Windows have come from other OSes, so personally I think a useful new feature like Expose is noteworthy. But maybe I’m just easily impressed.
Wow. Impressive troll. Anything to back that up other than ‘I think’?
What hammer to you use? “People who like to toy with their desktop use” a Sears Craftsman, “but people who like to get work done use” a Peddinghaus.
I use KDE on FreeBSD as well as Fluxbox on *BSD, Win 2k, Linux, and an old MacOS, amd I am very serious about getting things ‘done’.
A persons choice about tools does not indicate their seriousness or ambitions. Most of your comments are equivalent to the same petty crap that fashion industry is based upon.
I’m a little confused . . . I hear tons and tons of people that complain about Apple’s gun metal look, and how ugly and disliking it is. I’m sure those people are a large voice in the Apple world, and it seems like there isn’t that much of a backing that like it. Why does Apple continue to base their design around this gun metal? I personally don’t enjoy it all to well, but I’m also a guy that can deal with it.
But anyway, Panther – I’m really excited about this upgrade! From what I saw with this new Finder, I really can’t wait. I hate the Finder in 10.1 and 10.2. Steve Jobs said it best, why should I have to go, like, five levels down just to get my files! This new finder makes things right where you need them, and where you want them. BIG plus!
I really can’t wait until I get a chance to try that Expose in action, and the user switch. Even though I’m the only user on my machine, it’s still looks nice. Quartz Extreme is truly the technology to use, and Apple is doing a very good job with it.
So all in all, I think this is going to be a good upgrade for Apple. They seem to be pushing it good enough. I’m pretty sure I’ll purchase a copy when released.
But I’m not too sure about this iChat AV though. Only open to other Apple users, I really hope that changes, because most people on my buddy list have PC’s. Kind of a bummer, I can’t really use iChat AV’s full options. Oh well, at least when you enter text in an IM the box expands. I really hated that one line textbox for the original iChat!
Expose is a nice feature indeed. However, it is not Expose who should get the credit, Quartz Extreme is. Apple simply uses the goodies that come “for free” by having a 3D implementation on your UI. It is not a brand new invention. It is simply a build up over an existing technology.
Sorry Eugenia but that is just a lame argument. That’s like saying that the invention of a relational database wasn’t anything special because it comes for free by having a file system.
Virtually nothing is a “brand new” invention. Everything builds on something else. It’s not like OpenGL was anything new. That’s been around for a while, hasn’t it? Postscript display has been here for a while too. Quartz is just a later implementation of similar technology.
Yes, Quartz (not Quartz Extreme – that just makes things faster – Quartz is the 3D implementation), enables Expose. But the innovation is just as much in the application of the tool as in the tool itself.
Expose is a nice feature indeed. However, it is not Expose who should get the credit, Quartz Extreme is. Apple simply uses the goodies that come “for free” by having a 3D implementation on your UI. It is not a brand new invention. It is simply a build up over an existing technology.
Why do you always talk about how great BeOS’s live queries are? Of course they could do that with BFS. It was “free”. You shouldn’t give Be any credit for live queries. In fact, you should deride anyone who does. It’s just a “build up over an existing technology”.
No one said Expose was difficult to code. They said it was an innovative user interface. If it was so obvious, why wasn’t it in Jaguar?
-bk
Quartz isn’t an especially 3D thing, you know. Quartz is a display engine, a kind of “Display PDF” (as opposed to Display Postscript)…
> Why do you always talk about how great BeOS’s live queries are? Of course they could do that with BFS. It was “free”.
No, it was not. To add live queries is not a trivial job, as it also requires kernel support.
I think you’re selling Expose a little short, Eugenia. It isn’t an amazing innovation, but you’re dismissing the functionality as a visual effect. Expose is a novel way to quickly navigate between a large number of windows, either inter-application or intra-application. Quartz Extreme only gives the particular zooming video effect. It’s like minimizing windows with the “genie effect”; Quartz lets OS X do that effect “for free,” but that effect has nothing to do conceptually with the concept of minimizing windows. Likewise, the concept behind Expose has nothing to do with the zoomy shrinking/growing of windows; the effect gets the oohs and ahs, but people will use–or choose not to use–Expose based on its utility in quickly switching windows, not based on its use of QE.
>Give credit to Apple for creating QE last year, not for Expose, FastUserSwitch’s effect or any other visual effects that you are going to see in the future _because_ of QE.
That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. And you’ve been saying it since putting down the developer sitting next to you at the Keynote. Get over yourself, go down to the bank, get a loan and buy yourself a big fat clue.
The concept that Expose or FastUserSwitch have no merits because they are based upon previously developed technology is beyond narrow minded. And then to say any visual effect created in the future using QE would also have no merit displays the small world you live in.
Would you suggest to others that any software developed using C++ or any other language is not innvative because it’s simply based upon an existing launguage?
From the review:
“If we try to think the way Apple wants us to, then the Finder is a great application.”
So much for “think different”…
> Why do you always talk about how great BeOS’s live queries are? Of course they could do that with BFS. It was “free”.
>No, it was not. To add live queries is not a trivial job, as it also requires kernel support.
Well what kind of kernel support did it need. BeOS was microkernel based right. So the support for the live queries would be in the bfs file server/client. So the support would have been in bfs (driver or process) and not in the kernel.
Ther kernel should not need to be changed to add support to the file system. That’s just silly. Linux, Solaris and many mordern OSes load filesystems are drivers or modules and not part for the core kernel. Well in linux you can compile it in but that’s beside the point.
So your argument about expose being different from live queries doesn’t stand.
Eugenia,
About QE being the enabler for expose. Are you sure that expose will fail to work as a feature if installed on an older version of the iMac that QE doesn’t support?
I thought QE just accelerates the UI using the graphics hardware. So expose should be faster and seemless on QE enabled platforms but should still work on older hardware. Unless I missed something.
I find the new finder really bloated. Just look at it, and look how many space of a window is actually used for managing files…
Those icons on the left can be handy sometimes. So why not make a seperate folder “Handy icons” on the desktop containing them. Then you can also easily access them, while they are not in the way when you don’t need them.
And the options in the toolbar. In OS 7 these options could be accessed via a menu, much more space-efficiënt and not much a usability problem. I mean, how often do you change between list mode and icon mode?
As I see it, it’s just like themes, those icons and quickbars are fancy, are hot, while you do not really need them.
As I use BSD, maybe it’s time to look at the RoX filer.
I kinda like the new Finder’s concept. However, with the brush metal and the thick frame seperating it with the folder contents (which IIRC even iTunes doesn’t have), it looks, at best, ugly. Heck, if Apple really liked brush metal, why not use it for the whole OS?
But I hope Apple for it’s sake have a “Classic” option. This is a whole departure of the Finder idea, and not a whole lot of Mac users would like it. Keep this as default and if the users do like it, they keep it that way. Otherwise, they can switch to the Classic.
The new open/save dialogs are much better however.
I just tried Panther in compusa, it is no way a solid os. There are still bugs. I just found some of them in the compusa. For example, when you label files, sometimes they just disappear from the finder. You have to change the view to see them again. It was quite confusing.
Maybe that is the only one, but I found that quite disturbing, cause it literally makes you freak out, the file just disappears from the finder.
But offcourse it hasn’t even reached alpha status, and shouldn’t even be in comp-usa.
I for one dig the brush metal apperance. of course its all personal prefrence; however I do remeber people whining when Aqua was introduced. Alot of people prefferd the classic look better. And as we see today, some people preffer the Aqua look over a new brushed metal look.
Its just the fear of change
@raptor:
Well I installed Panther on my ibook 600, and it works well. Exposé is a bit slow, else the gui overall seems a bit snappier than with jaguar (it’s perhaps a misperception, but at least I don’t find it slower than jaguar, which is good sign). The gui has very slight modifications, but the look is sharper.
Exposé has 3 features — clean the desktop, “show” the current app (by shadowing the other parts of the screen), and “exposé” itself.
The activated corners with Exposé are a good feature (I put the left bottom corner to clean easily my desktop, and for Exposé itself I put it on my third mouse button). Even if Exposé is a bit slow here, it’s useable, and moreover, I’m using it. At first I thought it was more an “in-your-face” feature but all in all I quite like it, and it’s interessting.
“Those icons on the left can be handy sometimes. So why not make a seperate folder “Handy icons” on the desktop containing them. Then you can also easily access them, while they are not in the way when you don’t need them.”
Personally I think it’s very useful to have quick access to drives and folders in the Finder window itself. It allows quick access to drives and folders without having to clutter the Dock or find a folder on the desktop. Also you don’t have to open new Finder windows, or click ‘back’ repeatedly to get to the root folder. In 10.2 my Finder toolbar is packed with folders so I expect to find sidebar very useful.
It’s a shame you can’t turn it off totally, but you can resize it so that it just shows small icons and doesn’t take up much space.
“And the options in the toolbar. In OS 7 these options could be accessed via a menu, much more space-efficiënt and not much a usability problem. I mean, how often do you change between list mode and icon mode?”
Personally I change between views quite often and use the back and forward controls constantly, so I find the toolbar essential. But if you don’t want it taking up space you can turn it off and just use the menus. As long as it’s possible to clear the ‘bloat’ from the UI if you don’t want it, I don’t see the problem.
Just look at it, and look how many space of a window is actually used for managing files…
True, it looks bloated however because of the thick frame and the large icons. Otherwise, I doubt many would really mind. A whole lot of Windows users not only mind it but like it..
And the options in the toolbar. […]
The last I checked, there was a sheet where you can change the icons on your toolbar. And there is also a long button thingy on the window titlebar that removes it altogether. Want it? Press it again.
Works effectively.
As I see it, it’s just like themes, those icons and quickbars are fancy, are hot, while you do not really need them.
I agree that those fancy widgets can really be annoying, but if you really want to do away with fancy widgets, we are looking at 1970s UIs here… Frankly, I wished Apple would have themes support built in (not some flaky third party shareware)
As I use BSD, maybe it’s time to look at the RoX filer.
Filer is nice, the only reason why I don’t use it is because it is too simple in terms of features.
I just tried Panther in compusa, it is no way a solid os.
If it is an solid OS, I would be suprised considering how long more before it reaches the consumer market. The main question is how CompUSA can show a closed beta (if it is even a beta) to customers?
Regardless of the display technology used to implement this tool, Apple should be given some credit for the simple fact that it is a new method of window management, as far as I know. Even if it is not, it is certainly the first mainstream implementation of this new window management system. And that’s something that will definitely improve Mac OS X.
>Nobody said that “Expose or FastUserSwitch have no merits”, learn to >read. As I said, I do like these features. But Expose is trivial to do as >soon you have 3D.
> Your comment was beyond rude.
If you want to argue symantics then you’re right, you didn’t say they had no merit. You said Apple deserves no credit for developing Expose, User switching or any future visual effect employing quartz exteme.
Now you’re saying that Expose was trivial to develop. By that logic in order for something to be innovative or deserving of credit it has to be complicated to develop and based upon entirely new technology.
The good news is since it’s so easy to develop we’ll soon be seeing your implementation of Expose on OSnews.com!
As I remember, any criticism about Aqua when it was introduced was the fact that it wasn’t usable. People don’t prefer the Classic look when they criticize Aqua at that time, but plainly, Platinum made more UI sense back then. Later on with 10.0 to 10.1 to 10.2 and now 10.3, Aqua got more refined as a UI than it was in the early days. For example, compare the first introduction of Aqua’s Dock with todays dock – a world of a difference.
But as for looks, there are people that still prefer Platinum’s look. It is not because they can’t accept change, it is personal preferences. As they say, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. As a look, as soon as it was introduced, Aqua (the striped background with blue jellybeans) was rather a hit, with people making skins and themes, and even designing their websites to match it.
Sure, there are people who dig brush metal. But currently, the issue isn’t whether to choose between the old iMac-like Aqua or brushed metal, rather on Apple inability to choose between them. If Apple really thinks brushed metal is better, then by all means, change the default to brush metal in all cases. Otherwise stick with the old. Right now, Apple is creating inconsistencies that even goes against its own HIG.
The idea for Expose isn’t exactly entirely new either, sorry to say. In Windows for example since the earliest days when windows can finaly be moved around and multiple windows can exist – window tiling existed. And Windows wasn’t even the first one to this.
However Apple deserves credit for extending the idea further by allowing the user to glance at all the windows temporarily. unlike tiling windows where you have to resize the windows again to the way they were before manually. But again, the idea isn’t entirely new.
However Apple deserves credit for extending the idea further by allowing the user to glance at all the windows temporarily. unlike tiling windows where you have to resize the windows again to the way they were before manually. But again, the idea isn’t entirely new.
Nothing is new in this world. Everything is built on something else. So let’s just scrap the word “new” out of the dictionary, ok?
Right, the Mac OS was the first to have a graphical GUI with movable and stackable windows. What is your point here?
Remember, everything originated with SCO, so all you people talking about derivitave work should remember that anything built upon AT&T ux can have its license revoked by SCO.
I just hope that the new finder fix a lot of problems of the actual one… Like the really annoying problems with networked files (crashes too much on network errors; has problems showing lots of files in a network folder; if any finder window’s busy, like downloading file list [even more problematic with ftps] or file preview, you can’t work with any other finder window, etc…), and usability problems (like, you can’t open a new finder window when you have “connect to server” dialog open, and others like that…).
Also, the new open/save default dialog should include column resize like finder, because it’s impossible to know what file you’re trying to open/save if the filename isn’t really small and even more if you have a sequence of files with similar filename… At least now, there’s a option to toggle between list and column display, but…
looking foward for panther… I hope that it’ll solve most of Mac usability problems.
I’ve just bought a PowerMac G3, preinstalled with OS 9.2 and I was wondering whether it is worth buying OSX 10.2 or whether I should wait until Panther comes out. Did somebody say september as a release date for panther?
I would suggest waiting for Jaguar cause Apple have yet to announce upgrade pricing yet. In other words, you may get Panther for $20, or not, but I don’t think it is a risk worth taking.
>>Posted by marcm
>>Anonymous, are you atleast a developer, or just a troll?
Hey, leave me alone, I can post here whenever I want.
http://www.loser.com/
Too much brushed metal for my liking. If aqua is so great, why isn’t apple using it? Instead, they use a second theme for all their applications, which doesn’t really make for a very integrated/consistant user interface.
I am still in love with OS X.1, and X.3 adds some nice things, but seems to be moving a bit in the wrong direction for me.
1) I liked how icons dimmed. The new “dark box” idea irks me.
2) But, the new labels implementation looks nice.
3) The combined “Screensaver & Background” pref pannel seems kinda silly. They’re not that related. Give those two things two seperate pannels.
4) Spring loaded folders are back! Clarius the dog cow will rejoice.
5) What happened to tabs? I don’t know what the replacement widget is called, but it bugs me. Now we have tabs in the web-browser to add consistancy, but then we remove them everywhere else and break it? Hmmm….
omg lol