OS X Annoyances

[non sequitur]

I hate not having a My Computer icon, coz I hate drives on me desktop.

 

Also can I create a drawer like in ObjectDock, and put all me desktop Icons in dere. I hate cluttered desktops!!

 

Also why are cracked apps so hard to find??? If u know any good links/forums, please PM me.

well, first off you can go to finder preferences, then uncheck the show hard disk option, then under that you will see open new finder windows in home (default). change that to xxxx xxxxxxx's Computer. then just make an alias of finder and put it on your desktop.

 

second, you can make a folder on your desktop and drag aliases of whatever programs you want into it and then drag the folder on to the dock. it kinda works the same way.

 

as for the cracking, i have no idea

[milesce]

This is both an annoyance and a great feature. in finder, click go: connect to server: then type in an FTP server. It will mount it as a drive.

 

This is excellent. What isn't so excellent is that no matter what your permissions are, you can't write to that mounted drive. This is the ONLY feature from windows that I miss (well, also Half-Life, but that's another story).

[FriedCPU]

although I have got pretty used to it now, after using os x on and off for 3 years, every now and again it catches me out when navigating finder by keyboard... enter doesnt open, it renames!! what is with that? lol.

[myzar]

Today's Great Debate is really more of a venting session. The only real debate is whether these are bugs or features. If one of our annoyances is easily fixed, let us know!

 

What are the things about OS X that annoy you the most? You know, those seemingly tiny little quirks that really get bothersome after awhile. My 3 largest are fairly common.

 

First, I have no idea why there's no default list view in the finder. Should I really have to change the settings for each folder?

 

Secondly, the Dashboard is a powerful tool, but why can't I drag a widget to the desktop (this is, at least, possible) and make it float, stay below other windows, keep it locked on the desktop, etc. (If Apple was trying to knock out Konfabulator with Dashboard - and they were - they should at least support a few of its features)

 

Finally, why can't I delete messages in Mail.app that are below the one selected? Does the rest of the world start at the bottom of their inbox and move up?

 

What are yours?

 

Finder just plain sucks , amiga workbench 1.3 was better

 

 

Right or wrong, it helps to understand Apple's Human Interface Guidelines to see what the logic is:

 

"In most cases, applications that are not document-based should quit when the main window is closed. For Example, System Preferences quits if the user closes the window. If an application continues to perform some function when the main window is closed, however, it may be appropriate to leave it running when the main window is closed. For example, iTunes continues to play when the user closes the main window."

 

See Apple's website for more info.

 

well it's retarded even if it conforms to Apple's monkey Interface FOR RETARDS Guidelines. If i close the main app window i expect the app to freaking quit period

[velinn]

well it's retarded even if it conforms to Apple's monkey Interface FOR RETARDS Guidelines. If i close the main app window i expect the app to freaking quit period

 

You may call it a monkey interface but there are many Windows programs that do the same thing; MSN Messenger, WinAmp, and X-Chat just to name a few. In Linux you've got Gaim, Rhythmbox, the entire Notification Applet for the panel was designed to allow for this behavor. Hell, even every single Windows Mobile device doesn't close down apps when you "click the x". Why is that, I wonder?

 

There are plenty of reasons for an app not to close. For the most part, I like it because I don't need to have every single running program on my screen at the same time. I don't think of "the x" as closing a program, I think of it as just getting it off my screen. Minimizing is nice if I want to keep a specific windows contents for later, but something like a web browser I don't need on my screen or in my dock minimized and it is something I open and close all day long. It's nice to not have to load it every time; with it still running it opens instantly. Mail is open all day long, sending and receiving, and not on my screen. If I need to see it, it'll beep at me, otherwise get it off my screen.

 

I love this functionality. Guess that makes me a retard. :pirate2:

[myzar]

You may call it a monkey interface but there are many Windows programs that do the same thing; MSN Messenger, WinAmp, and X-Chat just to name a few. In Linux you've got Gaim, Rhythmbox, the entire Notification Applet for the panel was designed to allow for this behavor. Hell, even every single Windows Mobile device doesn't close down apps when you "click the x". Why is that, I wonder?

 

There are plenty of reasons for an app not to close. For the most part, I like it because I don't need to have every single running program on my screen at the same time. I don't think of "the x" as closing a program, I think of it as just getting it off my screen. Minimizing is nice if I want to keep a specific windows contents for later, but something like a web browser I don't need on my screen or in my dock minimized and it is something I open and close all day long. It's nice to not have to load it every time; with it still running it opens instantly. Mail is open all day long, sending and receiving, and not on my screen. If I need to see it, it'll beep at me, otherwise get it off my screen.

 

I love this functionality. Guess that makes me a retard. :pirate2:

 

Well you can't compare it with windows where it could make sense because the apps you say minimize to sys tray where you can see that they are minimized.

[cardinal]

Well you can't compare it with windows where it could make sense because the apps you say minimize to sys tray where you can see that they are minimized.

You can see that in the dock as well - running apps without windows still have the triangle.

[cardinal]

I hate there not being a "shut off moniter button" I hate putting my imac to sleep, but I also hate going to the prefs, and changing it to turn off after one minute

I'm curious, why do you need to shut the monitor off? Why not just permanently leave it on automatic 5 min (or whatever) monitor power save. I assume that iMac has this option, separately from sleep timeout. I have power switch on my monitor, but I can't recall last time I used it.

[velinn]

You can see that in the dock as well - running apps without windows still have the triangle.

 

Exactly and you don't get a cluttered systray. Also if there really was a problem with keeping apps open like a serious lack of ram or something: Program Name -> Quit or cmd+q. If the mouse is going towards the upper left hand side for the x, it can't be that much harder to continue in that direction to the menu bar.

[willgonz]

2. Un-installing applications??

 

I thought you only had to delete the Application from Applications and it's gone?

I also remember seeing a program that will remove applications for you.

[Korrupted]

Appzapper.

[Swad]

Roberto -

 

It looks like they're putting the "Preview" navigation in place with Leopard.

[gwprod12]

I have two big annoyances. Working and not slow WMV support, and I'd really like a double-click to full-screen function for some media player.

[A Nonny Moose]

Well, you won't get double click functionality because of the Human Interface Guidelines. They mandate a minimize upon double click and it is system wide. Score one against uniformity, I guess.

[.macAddict]

One thing that is annoying me is whenever i find a wallpaper and I right click it and click "Set as desktop backgroud," it just turns my background blank. Never puts the image as my background!

[jesse steffen]

From what I have read, most of these problems are from installing OS X on a PC so I don't think those should matter. Really, one of the only things that bugs me is the home-end keys. I was a PC user most my life and am used to hitting Home-End keys while programming(I really have to have them, I use an app to change them) to get to the begining/end of the line from where the cursor started.

 

As for what I've seen about clicking the X to quit an application....I totally disagree. It's really easy-want to quit the app? Press apple+q. Want to close the window? Click the x or hit apple + w.

 

As for you people who run OS X on a PC, how can you even complain about a problem when you aren't even running it on a mac? Yes, I have put OS x on my dell laptop, but only for fun not for real use. I would never post about how it doesn't 100% work on my dell because it was never ment to run on a dell.

[Pantalaimon]

also, you can only make windows bigger from the down-right corner...

[velinn]

What about scrolling with the mouse wheel? Is there any way to change that to a system wide setting? Some programs scroll one line at a time, some scroll several lines at a time. I hate that in Safari it scrolls one line at a time and I have to spin the wheel either a whole lot, or once really fast to get the page to move. It scrolls a lot better in Camino, but that goes back to programs scrolling at different rates. Would be nice to set everything to scroll at about 6 lines per click. That defualt seems to work well in Windows.

[A Nonny Moose]

What about scrolling with the mouse wheel? Is there any way to change that to a system wide setting? Some programs scroll one line at a time, some scroll several lines at a time. I hate that in Safari it scrolls one line at a time and I have to spin the wheel either a whole lot, or once really fast to get the page to move. It scrolls a lot better in Camino, but that goes back to programs scrolling at different rates. Would be nice to set everything to scroll at about 6 lines per click. That defualt seems to work well in Windows.

 

I dislike this one also. I have two mice (One Logitech and one MS). Both of them get wonky depending on the application. It makes me wonder if this is an application issue or a system wide issue (I'm open to either choice).

[deadlyhifi]

(regarding the close apps with an X issue)

Right or wrong, it helps to understand Apple's Human Interface Guidelines to see what the logic is...

 

Well this is fine. But not all programs follow these guidelines. I use Azureus and that quits with the X. Surely that is something you keep running. Mmmm, maybe I should be complaining to Azureus about this?

 

Someone mentioned about un-installing programs. From your applications folder you can just drag programs to the Trash and that un-installs them. However, it still leaves some program preferences in your Library folders. You can manually go through and delete this, if you can find them all. Better is an excellent little program called 'Appzapper'. It only costs about $12 (i think) for updates for life and this will find all the stray files that go with a program. It is excellent and I highy recommend it.

 

Cracked programs? I find demonoid.com pretty good.

[myzar]

From what I have read, most of these problems are from installing OS X on a PC so I don't think those should matter. Really, one of the only things that bugs me is the home-end keys. I was a PC user most my life and am used to hitting Home-End keys while programming(I really have to have them, I use an app to change them) to get to the begining/end of the line from where the cursor started.

 

As for what I've seen about clicking the X to quit an application....I totally disagree. It's really easy-want to quit the app? Press apple+q. Want to close the window? Click the x or hit apple + w.

 

As for you people who run OS X on a PC, how can you even complain about a problem when you aren't even running it on a mac? Yes, I have put OS x on my dell laptop, but only for fun not for real use. I would never post about how it doesn't 100% work on my dell because it was never ment to run on a dell.

 

 

if i have to use the keyboard your gui royally sucks period

[velinn]

if i have to use the keyboard your gui royally sucks period

 

Hover over the icon on the dock, right click, click quit. Two clicks to close a program. Or, for those of us that use the mouse as little as possible because, frankly, the keyboard is faster on *any* OS, cmd+q. I'm still confused over why this is a problem.

 

I'm not trying to be a jerk, but I think it has more to do with people expecting everything to conform to Windows way of doing things, rather than learning to think differently. People have similar complaints about Linux as well when they attempt to use Windows logic. If you like how Windows does things, then really, you should use Windows. If you want to use something different, no matter which OS it is, you should be able to allow yourself to think differently about how it should work.

 

Otherwise, you're just going to get frustrated. :/

[A Nonny Moose]

Hover over the icon on the dock, right click, click quit. Two clicks to close a program. Or, for those of us that use the mouse as little as possible because, frankly, the keyboard is faster on *any* OS, cmd+q. I'm still confused over why this is a problem.

 

It's only a problem because people make it out to be a problem. For instance, it's a lot easier to hit cmd-c to copy and then cmd-v to paste rather than trying to navigate mouse menus. You can even do it one handed while the other hand is faithfully attached to your mouse. Some users would balk at the thought of using such an arrangement, preferring their all-mouse way to do the same thing.

 

That one is just complaint for complaint's sake.

[br0adband]

I've been using OSX a bit more seriously the past few weeks, and I'm getting to know it better overall since with the .6 release and JaS's .7 updater it's actually pretty damned useful now. Stuff actually happens instead of me sitting around waiting like I did with older versions - and yes, we all know it's software never designed to run on generic or such varied hardware. The fact that is does is just a miracle in itself.

 

Having said that, a few things do {censored} me off about OSX and not the fact that I'm using software designed for a real Mac not on a real Mac:

 

- the "click X" thing that's already been talked about.

 

I'll go into detail about why I think that {censored} is so ridiculous and stupid. It's about mouse mileage, or the need to move the mouse entirely too much to do the same particular function.

 

There's this idiotic thing called Fitt's Law that, well, to put it bluntly says (and I'm paraphrasing it in my own unique damned way):

 

The time it takes you to move the mouse to move the cursor to point it to something onscreen is directly related to how freakin' far you have to get the mouse moved so the cursor points to something onscreen.

 

The actual Fitt's Law quoted verbatim says: "The time to acquire a target is a function of the distance to and size of the target."

 

I'm sure someone out there can understand what it means in it's original form, but I really get sick of people telling me that OSX and Apple's seemingly absurd "Human Interface Guidelines" is the defacto way things should be.

 

Try this example on for size:

 

Say you have one of those monster LCDs so popular today, 1920x1200 resolution, perhaps even 2560x1400 (the 30" Cinema Display does that res natively iirc). Now say you're running a Windows app, like maybe Word or whatever really, it doesn't matter. The point is, if for some reason you need to access the menu/toolbar on that application, it's right there, attached to the window itself. If you have a huge screen and you need to get access to the File, Edit, etc menu/toolbar, it's right there on the window, mere centimeters of mouse movement away, onscreen it might be an inch or two.

 

Contrast that with something on OSX. If you have an application open like that you'll encounter a situation just like in Windows: every single application (for the most part) uses the same exact guidelines - except with OSX it means the menu/toolbar (and I know some apps break this guideline) is at the top of the screen, way up there, inches of mouse movement (typically based on the default mouse settings most people never change - hardcore people yes, regular Joe Schmoe consumers, no) and a helluva lot of screenspace covered.

 

As Johnny Cochrane was so fond of saying: "Does that make sense?"

 

I could care less what some researcher decided was a "law" in the past and spouted off that this way or that way is how to do things, but if I've got my mouse pointer floating on an application window that's open, realistically if all I'm doing is using just that application, the mouse cursor should never have to stray outside the physical dimensions of the window, unless I just want it out of the way - we all know that one: point to a text box or whatever, start typing something, realize we can't see some of the letters because the cursor is in the way, and we reach out and move the mouse again to get clear skies.

 

I like OSX (and I'm diehard: I say Oh Ess Ex each and every time - if they didn't want it called Ex they shouldn't have chosen the "X"), but that one thing has been my biggest damned gripe about Macintosh computers since that day in January 1984 when I first discovered the things.

 

I'm using a 1024x768 LCD (XGA resolution), so the amount of movement I have with this mouse of mine while running OSX is considerably higher than it is running Windows.

 

Why?

 

Well, here's the other thing that pisses me off about the OSX GUI: the toolbar/menubar/whatever you wanna call it is at the top of the screen, and all the pertinent icons or shortcuts to the software I want (by default, because I do go in and make it vastly more efficient with keyboard shortcuts, etc - something I don't have to do in Windows and I'll explain why in a second) is at the bottom of the screen.

 

Sure, you can move the Dock to the left side, or the right. You can make it large and have the icons really jump out in superlarge size with magnification, but in the end, you're still going to end up doing a ton of vertical mouse movement that just seems so counterproductive I wanna take that Human Interface Guidelines manual and beat Steve Jobs to death with it.

 

I do use WrapAround, which is pretty damned slick for what it is, and in my opinion (like that holds any weight, shyeeah right) this little app is one of those absolute must-have piece of software - especially if you have a huge LCD and gigantor resolution(s) you work with.

 

It helps dramatically under OSX with the up-down-up-down Toolbar/Menubar to Dock movements since you can just move the pointer a slight bit at the top of the screen and voila, it's now resting on the Dock. Pretty slickz0re application and I can't recommend it enough.

 

So the question appears: why doesn't the OS have something like this built-in? Why doesn't OSX offer that feature by itself - is it because a great many people that purchase new computers also go out and get new mice (meaning they don't stick with the default factory mice/mouse that was supplied with the computer maker/supplier) and then get it home and install all the mouse software automagically?

 

Because that's what your average Joe Schmoe does. In fact, the average Joe Schmoe computer owner is:

 

- a Windows user

- uses IE as his default browser

- uses Norton AntiVirus because it was installed when he bought the PC and hasn't updated the definitions in a year or two since the trial period ran out

- has some idea of what spyware is but doesn't really notice it much considering he's too occupied closing the popups that keep spamming him

- when he's not closing the popups that are spamming him he's trying to figure out which toolbar to install next because one popup looked interesting so he clicked "OK" instead of "Cancel"

- never pays much attention to the fact that his computer takes 8 minutes to boot to a usable state

- never understands how many resources are wasted by the 27 icons he has in his System Tray for wallpaper changers, weather applets, etc etc ad nauseum - in fact the only useful things there are the clock and the volume icon, the rest is pure dreck

 

I could go on but you get the point: His machine is a total mess, and he makes it worse everytime he gets a new component - like a new mouse, for example - because he automagically puts in the CD from the box the mouse came in and installs whatever pops up onscreen. He's pretty damned good at clicking "OK," you know.

 

Anyway, I'm going off-topic in my own post.

 

Mash created this sub-forum for "The Great Debates," and most people that know me and my history with OSx86 and test3 and Release1 know I'm never short on words in situations like this. So let's have debates, long well-crafted discussions and posts about what annoys the living hell out of us about "the most advanced computer operating system ever."

 

 

Sorry, couldn't help but laugh at that again. It's always good for a chuckle.

 

To paraphrase Arthur C. Clarke (and I've never read a single book he's written, or Asimov either, go figure):

 

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic... unless you're talking about the sleight of mouth the mad geniuses in Cupertino keep shoving down our damned throats... advanced my ass..."

 

Again, with my situation and using an XGA resolution screen, even with OSX I simply don't have far to move the mouse so it's an issue for me but nowhere near the issue it would be if I had a hi-res LCD monitor at 1600x1200 or higher resolution. I was at the Apple store today and when I stopped at the MacPro (slow as it is) with the 30" ACD connected to it, my god... I had to lift the mouse three times and set it back down to go from the lower right-hand corner of the screen to the top left-hand corner.

 

Apple should include WrapAround with OSX as a default thing. It's that important, especially for the big LCDs more and more people are using.

 

Either that or find a way to move the mouse pointer to wherever your eyes are looking. Can you imagine what computing would be like if that was possible? Mouse movement by eye-targeting? Good god... it would be like using a computer 50x faster... oh the possibilities

 

I can just see it now (no pun intended):

 

Apple would end up creating a "Human Ocular-Controlled User Interface Guidelines"

 

One blink is a single click, a long blick is a double click, three quick blinks is click-drag, etc. Hey, it could happen, and I'll bet someone is already looking that far ahead. But I mentioned it first!!! I want a cut!!!

 

bb

 

Hey, have fun with it...

 

ps

Oh, something I learned today that I simply did not know about the Dock usage: put the cursor on an icon, left click and hold the button, you get the menu. Hey, it was new to me when I discovered it in a book, I'm a Windows guy, we've had two very useful buttons for a long damned time now. Mighty Mouse... yeah right.

[A Nonny Moose]

I get annoyed that there is no better way to look through images with Preview in sequence. You have to open iPhoto to scroll through-some things are not iPhoto worthy! There should probably be forward and back buttons. Anybody else?

 

There are forward and back buttons, but you have to put them there in the "customize menu" critter. I do think those buttons should have been on there to begin with though instead of added later.

 

Apple would end up creating a "Human Ocular-Controlled User Interface Guidelines"

 

One blink is a single click, a long blick is a double click, three quick blinks is click-drag, etc. Hey, it could happen, and I'll bet someone is already looking that far ahead. But I mentioned it first!!! I want a cut!!!

 

bb

 

Hey, have fun with it...

 

There's already equipment that utilizes small head movements for those who cannot use their hands. Eye movements might only be a blink away (pun).

 

Then would most likely come intuitive speech systems, which the Mac is kind of already handling via speakable items and the voices. But what I'm wanting is something where I can actually work with my computer and have it learn me instead of me learning it (The Star Trek computer, basically)