What are the features you'd like to see in Leopard when it's released in about a year or so?

Personally, I'm hoping for a radically different (3D) finder, as well as a consistant UI after booting out the brushed metal. Are there any features that you think Vista might have that OS X should incorporate?

Others?

A task bar, I cant stand how silly the windows are managed on osx. For example, if a program uses several windows at once, and they are overlapped you have to right click over the program´s icon on the dock and and then select the window you want bring to front (and too often you can´t even see which window you are going to focus, as they are named identical).

Also, an adress bar in finder´s windows would be nice. And a faster finder gui (specially resizing windows)

On the other hand, I still wondering how in the hell apple didnt introduce a way to remove the windows from the desktop until 10.4.3....before 10.4.3, you had to minimize each window one by one lol

OsX is nice...but, could be nicer.

frontrowe with digital tv card support

and very fast nvidia drivers too

so apple users can finaly play some good games

Because Mac OS has differnt aproach, Dock is for Apps (or folders if you put them there), not for windows, Avery App has the window menu where you select what to view, if you observe menus are not in each window (as Windows do) but menus stay in the same place and it changes depending wich App is focused.


Why do you need adress bar in Finder´s windows? You can hit Command-Click on the name of the Window and the whole path appears, also you can select any point of the path and a new window opens with it's contains.


You didn't use Exposé at all did you?

if you use Expose and Hot Corners, you can assign a corner for seperating the windows (press f9) and then all you have to do is flick the mouse and all the windows are revealed. This i find to be faster and more effective than the taskbar.

Command-Click...

all i can say is thank you macgirl.

i've really needed that, but was so overwhelmed by the novelty and all the cool toys, i didn't know i was missing it.

- I´m talking about the extra steps required to select a unique overlapped window from an application.

- About the path...I really dont want to being hitting command-click all the time

- And about Exposé, I´m talking about that feature WASNT present til 10.4.3.... what apple´s coders were thinking about meanwhile? lol, before 10.4.3 you have to minimize one by one every window.

Well, and seriously talking about extra features, Ntfs write support would be nice. And also, better opengl perfomance. Even in powerpc osx always lagged behind windows in 3d perfomance. I heard doom3 mac team worked for almost a year trying to optimize the game for osx and after all that effort they didnt got any near to windows perfomance. As far I know I heard opengl layer is "too far from the kernel".

ntfs write support exists, in the command line anyway. They are using support that is in BSD (and linux really), so I doubt it goes into the gui unless it stops causing intermittent data corruption.

But, I think it needs (some may be planned, just whining here):

1. Improved (or at leat a faster implementation) OpenGL Support
2. HFS+ improved yet again, making it closer to BeFS (that FS rocked)
3. Better handling of kernel threads
4. The finder needs to be sped up, among other problems. On a lot of mac boards, please just say "FTFF"...use some slang to figure out that acronym.
5. Improve on Apple Remote Desktop (could be faster I think, RDP is better on windows)
6. More 64-bit Support (background/command-line stuff only can be 64-bit now I believe). I'm fairly sure this is a given though.
7. Keep on speeding the interface up. This seems to happen w/every release, at least if you have a proper video card.
8. Yet more x86 work (not sure how VT fits into all of this, though).

I'm pretty sure 2 and 4 are planned anyway, to some degree.

I also just would like to see more work done to the GUI, and perhaps any other work be put toward optimizing the system further, be it the read speeds on the drives, or the functionality of the GUI. Once OSX86 is complete, I'm confident that the speed increases will be stunning and dramatic.

Yeah, I agree that window management on a Mac can be a little difficult. I love Expose, and in many ways the windows are better in OS X than they are in XP. However, the dock could be made a lot more functional in the way it handles windows - it should actually tell you how many windows are open and give you one click access to those, just like the taskbar in Windows. The Dock is great, but it could certainly help with open windows.

I believe there are some 3rd party utilities that can do that. I'm not know which since I never looked at those pregrams

yeah i think macgirl is right about the 3rd party apps, but at the same time, having an integrated solution in the OS is always a better, faster option.

Some months ago I searched for that kind of third party apps, and I wasnt able to find anything near to a taskbar for Os X.

The only one I found was for os9.

Anyway as suleiman said, having an integrated solution would be better.

I also am hoping that brush metal will finally disappear and the look for all apps will be standardized. It's a little embarrassing, I think, that Apple hasn't been able to standardize on a look for its own programs so far. Otherwise, I'm a huge fan of the dock, of Expose, of the overall Finder style, etc.

Note that you can also customize the finder toolbar and add a "Path" item, which gives you the same fuctionality as command-clicking the title.

I would also really like to see an option to list folders before other items in finder windows. I don't think there's any way to do that right now, including third party apps, besides using color-coding or renaming your folders to start with a space.

Quartz 2D Extreme enabled by default.

I don't get the point with this window-thing mentioned here... there is a beautifull function for handling the windows: Just Press F9 to get all open Apps, Press F10 to get all windows of the current App and finaly press F11 to get all Windows away... No third party products needed here in my opinion...

CDFS

One thing I like about Windows is the ability to minimize all windows by using the shortcut in the Quick Launch Toolbar (down by the start button). While I know that in OS X you can send all of the windows to the side, sometimes I just want to minimize them all.

This would be a great feature.

cdfs-
I think the point is that with the toolbar you can look down and see everything that's open. It saves you click (or mouse movement) of Expose.

Ability to run Windows programs natively.
Ability to run *NIX apps natively w/o X11.
Faster, faster, faster.
User options to remove code from the OS X your Mac doesnt need.
Quartz 2D Extreme, enabled.

- EM64T / AMD64 Compiler
- Better Sound Card Management (Intel HD has a much better interface in windows)
- Hibernate (now is only supported in some PowerBooks)
- Better management for non understandable partitions (currently Mac OS x killed my Solaris 10 Partition tryied it twice)
- Enable to boot from a non Primary partition and also boot from a partition that is not set as "boot"
- Temperature / FAN utility

1. IP Address added to Apple Menu.

2. Applications and user folders added to Apple Menu below system preferences.

3. Applications and user folders added to dock as well.

4. Themes and system sounds finally make it over from OS9.

5. Customizable system pointer.

6. Better HID support with game controller preference pane that changes to match the devices being used. Device makers would only have to write extensions for the preference pane instead of their own software.

7. Similar to above for Keyboard/Mice, Video, and sound preference panes.

8. Full EAX and OpenAL sound support.

9. Ability to read and write NTFS.

I forgot to add this:

- Back and Forward mice buttons as it works on Windows / Linux without extra configuration.

10.5...
Yeah a 3D finder will be great, but i'm sure Steve Jobs & friends thought about something breathtaking. I hope they will take advantage of the solaris OS, that can flip windows around in order to write something in the back or else.
Plug and play with no dumb software to install, a real plug and play for everything. The driver would be downloaded without users noticing, or at least just clicking on a yes button.
A better task management for apps, when i look at my activity monitor app. i see that certain app are not using both processor when rendering, encoding or else.
Games shoudl be able to use both of the processor.
UT2k4 as far as i remember is using both, one processor manages sound and the other the rest.
I hope the intel transition will also improve the compatibility with GPUs

9. Read is available for NTFS partitions, Write uses code from the BSD trees where although it works, it isn't consistant and can cause random data corruption. eek.

That's already added.

You can make different location profiles and you can change with the Apple Menu any time, different addresses, different kind of media/connections/preferences.

1) Multiple Desktops a-la Linux
2) Support for Soundblaster Audigy (why is ALSA or OSS not used?)
3) Windoze apps support - DarWine sort of works - but not well enough!
4) Open/GL or DirectX support (gaming! yay)



Asus P5P800 Mobo
Seagate ST380021A
Western Digital WDC WD800JB
Soundblaster Audigy DE (not working )
Marvell 88E8001 Gigabit LAN Controller (not working)
Onboard AC97 sound (not working)
ATI Radeon 9600

Exactly what incentive would this give for creation of OSX native apps? Windows compatibility killed OS/2



OpenGL is intergrated fully into OSX. As much as I'd like to see Direct X suite ported to the Mac (mainly for online gaming), MS tied it too closely to windows. There were inquieries during the anti-trust preceedings about Direct X and Microsoft was able to convince them it was impossible to port to another operating system.

One issue on which I have to grudgingly admit defeat to Windows, or at least admit a draw -- menu bars. Apple's menu bar has been anchored to the top of the screen since the very beginning and with dual display setups and giant monitors that no longer makes sense all the time; it doesn't work to have the application window a great distance away from the menu bar, especially not on a different monitor from the menu bar.

Users should have the option of having the menu bar open attached to the top of the application window as per Windows -- or at the very least, in a dual monitor setup, have the menu bar open at the top of the same monitor on which you have an open window for that application.

It would be nice to see Mac OS fully support non apple DVD burners for use in iMovie - it's a pain having to buy a mac with a Superdrive when i have a perfectly servicable firewire burner.

??
You can add them to the dock by dragging the folder to the right part of the dock

I think ilife 2005 already does that... anyway u can use patchburn to use any osx app with your burner.
I think that we would have to distinguish between the additions that we would want to the intel version and those that we would want to the ppc version (multiple desktop is alrady possible for the ppc version using Desktop Manager).

It seems that everybody is asking for some driver or user interaction improvements so my nominees are:

1. Much better and faster updates for every driver
2. Visual interaction is essential for many of us (so many window managers in linux and some are 3D enabled); make it happen (a change in this area)
3. Better compatibility with other filesystems/operating systems, especially windoz and linux
4. Can U bring some 3D in the same place where 2D was (could be very good looking)
5. Apple is a big and creative company(especially a creative one), we should be amazed by some new features(xml based and not only - so many technologies are waiting to be used); do not let some other companies to dictate standards!

Instead argue with other entities what's right and what's wrong for the future of IT, Apple should listen to the users ... could be very creative. Not for 10.5 (leopard) but for sure ...Mac OS XI (eleven).

Those are all rather non-specific adjectives, better faster etc. Be specific. Do you mean you want an alternative windows manager to Aqua? Aqua is Mac OS to most of its users and i don't see them changing it anytime soon.

I'd say Mac OS was already very compatible with windows - i can't think of anything that has caused me problems so far and i've had macs joined to active directories. What else could apple support in your oppinion?

What do you mean bring 3D in the place of 2D - you mean like window effects and things similar to the way widgets spin around? Asking for new "XML based technologies" is a bit non-descript. XML is just a buzz word for what is just a markup language. It's what you do with it that counts.

i just want a way to change the default size of the finders column view so it doesn't truncate my long file names. the default is MADDENINGLY close to usability. if i didn't know better i'd think Havoc Pennington had something to do with it, it is just that sadistic.

people have been bitching about this for years, i've been bitching about it for years, am bitching about it right now, and undoubtedly will be bitching about it a decade hence, cause they are never going to do anything about it. damn!



the amount of clicking and resizing of windows and finder columns in osX destroy the illusion that this is an os that "just works". though i can barely remember so long ago, i really had no usability issues with the os9 finder.

and i hate how under "Window" you have a Minimize, but no Maximize, and Zoom doesn't zoom anything it only makes things smaller, and when you click it again to unzoom it, it doesn't go back the way it was, it only expands vertically, so you have to click and resize it manually. sigh.

i want to be able to tile and untile finder windows.

fini

Allow cutting and pasting of files and folders. Not being able to do that is simply WEIRD.

the option is there, but it's GREYED OUT! you cannot cut and paste a file or a folder in OS X. all you can do is copy, then you have to go back and delete the damned things.

select, copy, navigate to destination, paste, navigate to originals, delete them. vs. select, cut, navigate to destination, paste

I would want my DEL key to work to delete a file or multiple files when navigating through the finder. Having to drag them to the Trash bin everytime is such a...well, drag.

I want the option to display images as thumbnails in the finder.

a folder in Icon View, and then Alt-J to get to View Options where you can change the icon size, or is this not what you meant.

http://img387.imageshack.us/img387/355/thumbnails4ij.jpg

1. Support for other filesystems like ext3/UFS/NTFS/reiserfs (read/write)
2. Software uninstallers (like add/remove app/rpm -e /pkgrm .. )
3. Sound/Video support (Almost all HW)
4. Games
5. Application menu (like windows All programs menu)
6. CD/DVD burning application

I wish more n more features from Apple.

I'd like a real OS that will work in almost any pc, careless brand, model, like windows works in almost any pc.

To get an Applications menu in the dock, drag the Applications folder onto the right hand side of the dock. Mouse Down and Hold on the Applications folder in the dock to be presented with an Applications menu.

finder->view->show view options->show preview

Dammit - why have i never noticed that before? Probably cause its in a dumb place. It should be next the other view buttons.

NTFS support would be nice, as opposed to having to use my external USB drive to store things.

In the finder action dropdown, choose view options, check "Show icon preview".

While you're there, change label position to "right", check "show item info" and possibly "Keep arranged by" can be set to what you want (I use "type").

That's a nice, informative icon view for ya.


software uninstallers are pointless in osx - drag the application icon to the trash. If it was written properly it'll automatically delete any related files (since they're supposed to be contained within the icon's folder anyway according to apple coding specs). Occasional very complex installations DO have uninstallers - I think the adobe cs2 suite is an example of that.



uninstallers only exist for apps that need them, eg adobe cs2 suite. Most apps uninstall perfectly by dragging the app's icon to the trash. It's that easy in OSX, get used to it.

application menu? that's the application folder. Complete list, no exceptions.

cd/dvd burning application? that's called Disk Utility, it's in the utilities folder in the application folder.



uninstallers only exist for apps that need them, eg adobe cs2 suite. Most apps uninstall perfectly by dragging the app's icon to the trash. It's that easy in OSX, get used to it.

application menu? that's the application folder. Complete list, no exceptions.

cd/dvd burning application? that's called Disk Utility, it's in the utilities folder in the application folder.



uninstallers only exist for apps that need them, eg adobe cs2 suite. Most apps uninstall perfectly by dragging the app's icon to the trash. It's that easy in OSX, get used to it.

application menu? that's the application folder. Complete list, no exceptions.

cd/dvd burning application? that's called Disk Utility, it's in the utilities folder in the application folder.

Hi!

Well, I'm using MacOS X for a few days, and since I have used both Linux and Windows a lot, I guess I'll make a list adding some of what I read from another users wishes.

Window Management Improvements
- Move windows clicking anywhere
In Linux, or a X Window system, when you hold Alt and click with the left mouse button on almost ANY window, you can drag the window to a new location. This is one of the most used features of my X Window to me.
- Tile Windows
You now, horizontally, vertically, and, well, you can just forget about that useless cascade thing… hehehe
- Magnetic Windows
If the get close, side by side, the moving window could be attracted by the other window’s border. This would be very nice, and together the move windows clicking anywhere, well, the best window managing system ever
- Independent Window Management
One thing I experienced yesterday was that, since the menu bar is linked with the application, you can’t control the window, except move it. It would be great to have the ability to control the window independent of its working status. For instance, I was moving 30.000 e-mails from one IMAP mailbox to another IMAP mailbox on the same server and same account, but until Mail had finished, all I could do was to drag the window out of the desktop, since I couldn’t minimize it. And I believe this feature IS there, as Mac OS is X Window based. X Window need to have an application environment, like Gnome, and a window manager, like Enlightenment, BlackBox, Window Maker, etc. If the application freezes, the window manager can still do whatever the window allowed when created or altered, like move, resize, minimize, but, the contents would be just frozen or a flat background. This is a great change in Mac OS Bar coding, but would be amazing.

Finder Improvements
- Automatically resize to fit contents
There could be options for column view as "automatically resize to fit contents" with a size limit, since we are talking about something that can have to show some really long file names
- Create New Folder - menu item
A "create new folder" when you right click or command-click I guess (I have never used a real Mac) on the menu

Dock Bar List
There is on Gnome Panel of Linux an extremely nice "applet" which is the name they give for things on panel, with is like a list of Icons. You drag an application icon there and when you click on the list icon it shows you the icon list. I believe this could solve the requests about the applications list, without altering the nice and clear look of the dock

Mac OS Bar Autohide
As I’m a new Mac OS user, I don’t know if it’s possible, but if the Mac Bar could have an "autohide" feature like the Dock Bar… That would be nice, since after a few minutes using the OS, I had already memorized some shortcuts, and don’t need to have that area of my screen "lost"

Widgets on the Desktop
Widgets are amazing. But the need to use sysctl to change an option and then be able to drag a widget to the desktop is horrible. Besides, I couldn’t drag more than one widget, since when I call the dashboard, the widget that had previously been dragged to the desktop just go back to the dashboard

Better PalmOS iSync Support
As usual, it syncs the contacts and appointments, but why, oh my good lord, why they don’t sync the categories? This is one of the most useful features of both address book and date book. iCal is a wonderful built in feature, nice looking and easy to use, but with all my appointments without their categories, oh boy…

Well, I guess that is it. As I’ll be using this amazing OSs more and more, surely there will be another improvements I would like to see.

[]’s

Igor

CS2 actually doesn't have an uninstaller which is a bit of a pain. Uninstallation instructions for OSX basically boil down to a one page list of folders that you should delete - some of which won't exist on all installations and other folders that are there are not listed - a definite "could do better" for adobe on that one.
I wish they would add the option to display *all* hidden files in the finder to the GUI (and in open file dialogues) cause having to jump into terminal then scratch my head while i try to remember the command is a pain.

Going into the subject about 10.5 i would like to see the GUI more 3D i have read a few things about Independant GUI for medical institutions which you can "move" object in full 3D perspective, of course i have no idea how it will work, and I also read that Vista will drastically cahnge the GUI to be more 3D like.

Well we can't say nothing until we see Vista out.

For everyone who doesn't like the dock, here are the thoughts of a former Apple employee:

http://www.asktog.com/columns/044top10docksucks.html

I was talking about next generations of OS X and Aqua will be improved with features like 3D fully suported and more easier and accesible interface (if you'll see Office 12 from Micro$oft you'll be edificated) but in the same time there are many windows manager that already support 3D (luminocity came my mind).
In the compatibility part as I referred it was about wine and running windows application, about protocols (like ipv6, and other next generation protocols) which should erase the distance between different OS'es and about multimedia which (already well knowed) is very much in a proprietary sense of developement (maybe h.264 is closer by divx6 but it doesn't show it yet) and you know what it means when you install 10 codec packs to see a movie (not the same easier for Mac).
3D in the place where 2D was it's a matter of imagination. Longorn(Vista) will bring us some features but from Mac OS X we expect more (at least Vista already has).
And about XML .... there are so many new technologies to use and xml seems to be the base for all of them. Wouldn't be nice to have some webservices in OS X which could improve security, manage our computer and allow us to do it from another computer in a webbrowser, which cound make accesible our files independent the destination machine and all this services running on localhost?
I think there's more but this is my opinion for today and I expect the changes (even on filesystem level) to transform our Mac OS X in a very smart, accesible, good looking, and amazing Mac OS XI !!!
Regards, Barladeanu Marian

I want to see PPP Callback to Windows RAS. I want to see it just from OS X Cheetah.