Some changes for 10.3

[Arden]

I have here a list of changes I have thought of that would make Mac OS X even better. Some of them will probably happen, some of them may happen, and some probably won't happen. Some may even already have been implemented (don't tell me if they have, I don't want to go back and remove items from the list, just add to it). Feel free to suggest your own changes as well.

If you want further explanation of one of my suggestions, tell me and I'll go into proper details.


1. Auto start-up & shut down-simple & advanced schedules
2. Toggle between brushed metal & Aqua
3. Themes
4. More color schemes
5. Theme editor
6. Expanded sound sets
7. OS 9-like window stacking
8. Reordering of System Prefs
9. Customizable key combos
10. More overall customization
11. Controllable scroll speeds
12. Optional side-by-side panes of multiple get info windows
13. Applications/task menu
14. Dock on/off toggle (not just show/hide)
15. Better open/save navigation (default folders, favorites, recent items, etc.)
16. Better Dock information-current app, hidden apps, frozen apps, etc.
17. Better control of Classic for limited users
18. Way to change computer owner
19. More contextual menu options
20. Full manual on UNIX
21. Toggle between minimize & window shade effects
22. Better font choosing (simple menu or font inspector)
23. Show/hide Dock background
24. Changeable menu font, icons, cursors
25. More interesting pointer
26. Move Trash between Dock & Desktop option
27. More optimization for Carbon appliations
28. Wait to notify about needing attention
29. Screenshot format option
30. Can change Cmd-N function in Finder
31. Secure sleep

[symphonix]

Just a thought, but you could break your list up into a few sections. I've had a go at this, and got it started. I've also rephrased or commented on a few.

Enhancements to Appearance/Themes
2. Toggle between brushed metal & Aqua
3. Themes
4. More color schemes
5. Theme editor Yes, 3,4 and 5 are the same!
6. Expanded sound sets
7. OS 9-like window stacking ???
10. More overall customization see 3,4 and 5.
24. Changeable menu font, icons, cursors Already there, already there ... except for cursors
25. More interesting pointer Rumors have it the new pointer will be a hot-ninja-chick who can read minds... I'll settle for an arrow for now!
21. Toggle between minimize & window shade effects Why would you want to "Shade" your window? I've seen this in lots of Unix GUIs but never seen the point.

Enhancements to power management and sleep
1. Auto start-up & shut down-simple & advanced schedules I'd call this Scheduled Start and Shut Down. Since I never shut down my Mac, I won't notice anyway.
31. Secure sleep YES!

Dock Enhancements
16. Better Dock information-current app, hidden apps, frozen apps, etc. Frozen apps?
23. Show/hide Dock background
14. Dock on/off toggle (not just show/hide) For the love of all things that make sense, why?
26. Move Trash between Dock & Desktop option Why not just have an option to put Trash on the desktop? Having it in the Dock is useful.

29. Screenshot format option Well, yes. This is a hidden option that shouldn't have been hidden.
8. Reordering of System Prefs It seems fine to me, since the 10.2 re-shuffle.
9. Customizable key combos

11. Controllable scroll speeds Already got it, in Appearance prefpane.
12. Optional side-by-side panes of multiple get info windows Err, you already have multiple Get Info windows. You can put them side by side, if that floats your boat. Where's the problem?
13. Applications/task menu We've got that. Right now mine is labelled "Safari". ;-)
15. Better open/save navigation (default folders, favorites, recent items, etc.) I'd like to be able to create folders in the save dialog, for one...
17. Better control of Classic for limited users
18. Way to change computer owner See the network prefpane! Its already there!
19. More contextual menu options Like what? What else could you want to do to a file?
20. Full manual on UNIX Already there! Full man pages are in place already.
22. Better font choosing (simple menu or font inspector) Hoo yes!
27. More optimization for Carbon appliations
28. Wait to notify about needing attention.
30. Can change Cmd-N function in Finder You already can do this. See Finder Preferences.

[fryke]

Window Shade is coming from Mac OS 7.5, 8 through 9 (and was a shareware before, and is again now...?).

It's incredibly more useful than minimizing in the Dock for example for Photoshop work. Open five files and you minimize them. Okay, you see what they look like - but not if the Dock's too small AND the mouse-way down to the Dock is too far.

Minimize in place, which was in early betas of Jaguar (6C48, I believe) would be a very good alternative.

[chabig]

Originally posted by arden
7. OS 9-like window stacking[/B]

This will never happen, I hope, unless it's available as a preference setting. OS X's window layering is so much more flexible than OS 9's. And if you really want all of an applications windows to come to the front, you can do it with the Window menu or by clicking on the dock icon.

Chris

[Darkshadow]

A lot of these you can do with third party apps...I'm sure you're meaning you want Apple to implement them, but they are available...

Reordering of System Prefs - you mean the actual placement of the pref panes when you open System Preferences? You can actually do this if you really want to - edit /Applications/System Preferences/Contents/Resources/NSPrefPaneGroups.plist to your heart's content. Just know that this file gets overwritten if System Preferences gets updated (so make a backup).

You can get the Dock to show hidden apps - it'll show them semi-transparent. Either type defaults write com.apple.dock "showhidden" -bool true in the terminal, or edit the com.apple.dock.plist file and add this in that way.

Full UNIX manual - umm...there are probably only a handful of people who actually 100% understand everything in UNIX. Stick to the man pages as symphonix said - they'll help you out with the commands you actually use.

...and like I said, there are third party apps to do most everything else on your list.

[fryke]

Must say: Both behaviours have advantages and disadvantages... This would usually lead me to a statement like: "Make it a user preference."

But in this case... Mac OS X has been around for two years, and I think that most users are okay with the layering. If you're not, there are some utilities that change it, afaik.

ASM 2.1b1 (Shareware)
X-Assist 0.5.1 (Freeware)

[mr. k]

Is already there, you activate it through a menu in keychain access... But I think that you should be able to tell your computer when to wake up from sleep to do something important, like say I want to copy a file to a backup every night at 3am when Im asleep, I could just sleep the computer and it would wake up at three and then go back to sleep when it got finished, that would be very nice.

[substrate]

15. Better open/save navigation (default folders, favorites, recent items, etc.)

This to me is one of the more important ones. For instance I use the terminal a lot, and I usually have one black on white and one white on black version of it open. The default is black text on a white background but to open up the preference I've saved I have to wade through the filesystem.

This might be acceptable once, but once I've waded through it should remember where I last opened a file from.