on 3/4/03 5:30 PM, Mark Kippert at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > I don't think Apple removed anything. They've taken the power of UNIX and > wrapped it in a Mac GUI. If they tried to add everything that existed in > OS8/9, then the original release of OSX would have been delay even longer. > I'm glad Apple was wise enough to release it the way they did and work some > of the original functionality back in as the continue to upgrade it.
What they did with bringing UNIX to PPC was great, and wrapping it in a reasonable GUI was even better, but there's a lot of room for improvement, and you'd think they could've got around to adding at least the basics by now. > As for Windoze being markedly better, that begs the question, why are you > here and why then, do you use a Mac? The comment was along the lines of... Windows has a more functional and easily learned way to use the keyboard to use the GUI. > I also find it difficult to believe that 99.+% of the world is on Windows. > Even so, my guess is that 90% (or more) of all Windows users know just > enough about the OS to turn on the computer, surf the web, do some email and > write a letter. Beyond that they're overwhelmed by it's bloated complexity. Reading more into what I said than I said ;). 99+% of the world's computer users will be *familiar* with (used to) the alt way of keyboard control. A tiny fraction of Mac users will become familiar with Apple's way of doing things which still leaves a sizeable portion of Mac users familiar only with the Winblows way of doing things, *along with* that 90%+ majority of Winblows users out there. That said, I'm not fond of the windoze system either but it does have more going for it than the whole slew of F-keys one needs to know to be able to use the OS X scheme. A hybrid of the two wouldn't be a bad solution: use option to activate menus, etc. (like the winblows scheme), but *only* if you activated it somehow (like Apple's scheme). > I'd have to say that a Mac novice is going find their computer experience to > be much more pleasant than a novice Windoze user. I don't know anymore (& I really mean that). I've seen users frustrated beyond belief on Macs when they've had to use them when they come from the Windows world. I was also just thinking, there aren't really that many "novice" computer users out there left to introduce to computers (at least, the portion of the population that has yet to have an 'intro' to the micro computer). In a way Microsoft has won. They are ubiquitous, and more than half the population has experienced Windows, but far fewer have experienced Mac. But, as all of us have experienced, 'market share' isn't enough to make or break an OS. Apple offers a package that can't be beat. OS X is so stable, has a reasonable GUI and the hardware *works*. (& even OS 9 was a pretty polished OS) I haven't been able to make an honest judgement call about the state of mac vs pc since win 95 came out. Win 95, despite all its shortcomings (instability) did have two major advantages over mac os at the time (7.5?): preemptive multitasking and protected memory (sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't ;-). Plus its GUI isn't that bad (there are times where I find that Windoze does a smoother job of handling menus and clicks than Mac). The recent incarnations of Windows really have raised the bar for Apple. I can't stand Luna (much like I'm no great fan of Aqua... when will Apple let themes back into the GUI... though, at least Aqua has more class than a pack of Hubba Bubba chewing gum), but Windows 2000 was a pretty slick OS with some neat ideas (haven't had the chance to get down to the nitty gritty with XP yet). What I would love is to have the best GUI ideas from Apple married to the best GUI ideas from Windows, stuck on top of Apple's "UNIX". > Command-tab works fine for me, certainly not non-functional. Just exactly > what do you want it to do? > > I've added just two haxies to get back some missing functionality. > WindowShade X and FruitMenu. Both function great and have not been "broken" > by subsequent upgrades of Jaguar. If I have to go to an app other than the last app I was in it becomes irritating (b/c if you deal with more than two apps and you have lots open it becomes quite the ordeal to get to it... sometimes I capitulate and use the mouse). The only way to deal with it is to rearrange the apps (to get the ones I happen to be tabbing b/t together), and, one problem with that is that moving an app around will also cause it to stay in the dock so I have to remove it later (I keep only the bare essentials in the dock... even after two years of using the dock I find that it is not living up to its potential... otherwise, I wish Apple would leave room for someone to extend it). I'm leery of installing haxies b/c of stability concerns (I like the stability of OS X & I've finally learned what will cause kernel panics -- automatic dialup and, for some reason, too many unpluggings/pluggingins of USB mice (TurboMouse Pro or Intellipoint 2+scroll wheel) and keyboards... if the mouse or the keyboard are not used (but still recognised in Apple Sys Profiler) I know it's time to do a restart to clear things out)). I fiddled with a few apps that restored normal switching behaviour but they used option-tab in Jaguar (since Jaguar's dock apparently prevents other apps from intercepting command-tab) and didn't find them to be overly stable or smooth. I guess maybe I'll have to bite the bullet and install the haxie since it supposedly can "swipe" the command-tab from the dock and restore normal tabbing behaviour. -- G-Books is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> and... 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