Swad Posted September 19, 2006 Share Posted September 19, 2006 Our next iAnnoyance Challenge, which will begin next Monday morning at 12:01 a.m., is focused on the OS X desktop. This time around, we're improving the contest by giving developers a full week to come up with the winning formula and then selecting the winner based on the quality (ie breadth of innovation, interface, improvement) of his or her submission... not on who's first to submit something. But first we've got to know what annoys you about the desktop in OS X. Does it bug you that you can't show some drives and hide others? That you can't have icons aligned to your specific standards? Let your voice be heard. We'll take all of our annoyances, figure out which ones we can wrap into an iAnnoyance Challenge, and launch the contest next week! So go ahead and sound off - your issue might just get fixed next week! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mofo-X Posted September 19, 2006 Share Posted September 19, 2006 Greetings, Coming from a Windows platform (Ya, I know, ewwww!) I have to say the thing I miss the most, is a god damn Maximize button, WindowShade X handles most of my window needs, but I would love SOMEBODY to make an enhancement that would resize the active window to cover all available desktop space instead of having to use the anchor on the bottom right ;p Regards, {censored}-x Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Urbz Posted September 19, 2006 Share Posted September 19, 2006 Well it's a feature I saw in Leopard that I can't wait for: I would love the ability to manipulate the grid that auto-places icons on the desktop. For example, if i have dozens of icons and make them small, there's still quite a bit of space in-between them, space that could have been saved for more icons yet. I'd also love this to be expanded to being able to draw my own grids: circle patterns for instance, or maybe a grid that only has icons around the edges of the screen, or no more icons after a certain point and having them overlap from there on... (imagine a flower pattern, or a football one?) There are countless possibilities for what I could do with my own desktop grid! -Urby Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Swad Posted September 19, 2006 Author Share Posted September 19, 2006 {censored}-X - That's what the last iAnnoyance Challenge fixed - check out Stoplight. http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?showtopic=26669 Everyone - Also give us name suggestions for the app! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
martin1976 Posted September 19, 2006 Share Posted September 19, 2006 Greetings, Coming from a Windows platform (Ya, I know, ewwww!) I have to say the thing I miss the most, is a god damn Maximize button, WindowShade X handles most of my window needs, but I would love SOMEBODY to make an enhancement that would resize the active window to cover all available desktop space instead of having to use the anchor on the bottom right ;p Regards, {censored}-x Check this out, it might help. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Titan999 Posted September 19, 2006 Share Posted September 19, 2006 I would like an app that adds "Macintosh" onto the desktop so i can have less icons on my desktop. I download alot and many many files end up on my desktop. I wish i could drag them to the "Macintosh" hard disk and they would just go to their corresponding assigned' locations' depending on file type. All pictures go to pictures. If not on the macintosh hard disk logo then on a "Auto organise" logo or so.. It would be amazing to have documents organised this way... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rogabean Posted September 19, 2006 Share Posted September 19, 2006 I would like an app that adds "Macintosh" onto the desktop so i can have less icons on my desktop. I download alot and many many files end up on my desktop. I wish i could drag them to the "Macintosh" hard disk and they would just go to their corresponding assigned' locations' depending on file type. All pictures go to pictures. If not on the macintosh hard disk logo then on a "Auto organise" logo or so.. It would be amazing to have documents organised this way... thats not a horrible idea... actually. a little app running in the background sorting "in" files. just drop it on the HD icon and it places it where it needs to go... like if it's *.app drop it in the Applications folder. Honestly opening the HD and then the Applications folder to drag an app in has always been just a hair annoying since.. well OS forever. user config file for making rules on what to do with what extensions... jpeg,jpg,gif->pictures mp3,ogg,aac->music mpg,avi->video etc. or maybe even a popup that says.. where do you want this item to be placed? pretty easy to code though.. for the purpose of this challenge I would rather see it as a part of a bigger application set. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iroiro Posted September 19, 2006 Share Posted September 19, 2006 It's not really related directly to the desktop but the thing that annoys me the most is that you can't 'cut' and 'paste' files in the finder. When I was using windows as my main desktop that was primarily how I moved files in windows explorer. After about 2 years of using Mac OS X I'm really sick of dragging files in finder (sux even more when using the trackpad on my ibook). Doesn't this annoy anyone else? Cheers, Jay. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PolishOX Posted September 19, 2006 Share Posted September 19, 2006 Name suggestion as requested by Mash: iNSIGHT Why? Because it makes the window become the complete and utter focus on your viewable screen... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ljbarbeau Posted September 19, 2006 Share Posted September 19, 2006 Ok I know my annoyance is not related to the desktop but i tought id post it anyways just in case for the next challenge.. what annoys me is inside iTunes. when you sort by artist it sorts the album by name instead of by year. also the track number.. I dont wanna see that "1 of 13" I wish there was a way to remove that "of 13" Luigi Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Swad Posted September 19, 2006 Author Share Posted September 19, 2006 iroiro - That bugs me too. Also, welcome to the forum. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rogabean Posted September 19, 2006 Share Posted September 19, 2006 iroiro- fully agree... this has been an annoyance for years. give me a cut/past instead of a copy/paste/delete or drag. this becomes especially annoying on a trackpad using tapping/dragging Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ali Zaid Posted September 19, 2006 Share Posted September 19, 2006 @Titan999 This is a great idea :censored2: I'm new to mac world, but the most 2 anoyying things that I really miss (or maybe don't know how to do it) are: 1- When I select group of files, I just can't see the total files size of my selection, like in windows, it always show in the side bar, the way I do it now is to move/copy the files into a folder, and get the folder Info. 2- If I'm browsing a folder in the windows explorer, I can always grap the path in the address bar, and copy it, it's useful for programming sometimes, in mac Finder I can do this in a cool way, I drag the icon of the folder from the title bar above to a text file (or the place I want the path to be pasted on), it's cool, put I would really have loved if I can copy this by right click, also even if I show the Info dialog and try to select the full path from there from the "Where:" field, it doesn't allow to select these are not going to stop earth spining , but it's really annoying that MAC! doesn't have easy do it way(or I don't know them) ok, to be honest, this is not the end of my list os small things, but I'm trying to see is me being new, or mac doesn't have it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
complex Posted September 19, 2006 Share Posted September 19, 2006 I'm annoyed when there are icons on my desktop. Thankfully, Path Finder lets me get rid of them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Takuro Posted September 19, 2006 Share Posted September 19, 2006 1) Ability to see an optional Trash icon on the desktop, either placed on the grid like a normal icon or anchored to one of the desktop corners. (Also, if possible, when this feature is enabled the dock's trash icon should disappear to avoid redundancy) 2) Ability to choose which volumes will be shown on the desktop. (eg. if a windows HD is also mounted, you could make it invisible from the desktop without unmounting it) 3) Dedicated desktop areas: the ability to select which areas of the desktop will be dedicated to show mounted volumes, applications, images, etc 4) A way to automatically load a widget to the desktop upon reboot, so that a widget that was dragged from the dashboard will still be there. (In dev mode, it has a tendency to go back to the dashboard after reboot.) 5) Ability to make all desktop items invisible whenever dashboard starts / the ability to make all items invisible with a hotkey. 6) Complete freedom to manipulate desktop item orientation, either aligning icons to the right of left of the screen, and the ability to change the desktop grid in general. 7) The ability to have a small mini-dock in the middle of the desktop, similar to DockTop Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alex Oughton Posted September 19, 2006 Share Posted September 19, 2006 This is more finder-related than desktop related, but I'll say it anyway: Dragging duplicate folders over. If you have a folder "1" containing a folder called "A", and a folder called "2" containing a completely different folder also called "A", you can't drag the one from "2" into "1" without the entire contents of the version in "1" being destroyed. On Windows, this will copy any of the files in the "2" version into the "1" version, and overwite any duplicates with the ones from "2". However, any files which exist only in the "1" version will be left unchanged. On Mac OS X, the previous version of the folder is destroyed, so any files which only existed in the original folder are destroyed. WHY?????? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mifki Posted September 19, 2006 Share Posted September 19, 2006 aaarg double post, i also hate dragging in the finder Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nonhuman Posted September 19, 2006 Share Posted September 19, 2006 The thing that annoys me the most is that, considering OS X's Unix security model, they still put a Hard Drive icon on the desktop that opens to the root level of the file system. As a Mac IT professional, let me just say that THE VAST MAJORITY OF USERS SHOULD NOT BE ALLOWED TO KNOW THAT ANYTHING EXISTS OUTSIDE THEIR HOME FOLDER (and the Applications folder...). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Suzuka Posted September 19, 2006 Share Posted September 19, 2006 Id like some way to "Create shortcuts" on the desktop like how windows does it (Windows did something right OMG!) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
non sequitur Posted September 19, 2006 Share Posted September 19, 2006 you can make shortcuts, its called an alias. i recently found that out too. i wouldnt mind being able to choose what side the files are organized on the desktop. also, i think multiple docks would be amazing. anyone know of an app to make a new one? i'd also like to be able to divide my apps on the dock. you all know how there is that line that separates the trash and minimized windows form the rest of the running apps? i want ot be able to place those around say the finder, my internet stuff(camino, adium, teamspeex, colluquy) my productivity stuff(neooffice, gimp, core image fun house) and my fun stuff like garageband and photobooth. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iroiro Posted September 19, 2006 Share Posted September 19, 2006 Id like some way to "Create shortcuts" on the desktop like how windows does it (Windows did something right OMG!) In OS X they're called aliases. They're actually pretty cool and can do a lot more than the windows shortcuts. For example, my brother wanted to use my itunes library in his home folder but didn't want to copy my music over (basically just wanted to my itunes library to listen to stuff). Anyway, I just made an alias from my itunes folder and replaced his itunes folder (in his home folder) with the alias (shortcut). Anyway, Mac OS X sees an alias as if it is an actual folder - so basically we share my itunes folder. Another example of where this comes in handy is in front row, I have some movies on an external drive that I want to show up in front row. Anyway I just made an alias of the movie folder on the external drive and placed it in the movies folder (in my home folder) - now front row sees this alias as an actual folder in 'movies' and I can play the movies in front row (without actually copying the movies to my home folder). There's a couple of ways to make an alias. Just right click (control-click if on a one button mouse) and select 'Make Alias'. Now just drag that to wherever you want (in your case the desktop). Alternatively you can drag the original file/app/item in finder while holding down the command (apple) key and option key, you should notice an arrow icon appears on the file, which signifies an alias (not the original file). Hope this helps. Jay. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Masked Muchacho Posted September 19, 2006 Share Posted September 19, 2006 you can make shortcuts, its called an alias. i recently found that out too. i wouldnt mind being able to choose what side the files are organized on the desktop. also, i think multiple docks would be amazing. anyone know of an app to make a new one? i'd also like to be able to divide my apps on the dock. you all know how there is that line that separates the trash and minimized windows form the rest of the running apps? i want ot be able to place those around say the finder, my internet stuff(camino, adium, teamspeex, colluquy) my productivity stuff(neooffice, gimp, core image fun house) and my fun stuff like garageband and photobooth. Multiple Docks? try Dockyard Manager http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/19151 i dont think it has every feature you wanted but its pretty good at what it does, if a little buggy. a small app to automaticaly put files in the correct places would be nice but i get by with clicking the little bean on the to right of finder windows to open the side bar then just drag them to the correct place there, you can add your own folders to the side bar too. I would like a "cut" option though, it would make sorting files a whole lot easier and being able to see the size of ALL selected files would be pretty useful. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bennyboy Posted September 19, 2006 Share Posted September 19, 2006 That whenever an icon is added to the desktop, like a disk driver or an ejectable program thingy(I forgot the word) it puts an icon there then moves it down a space. Does anyone know what im talking about? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ampTK Posted September 19, 2006 Share Posted September 19, 2006 The thing that annoys me the most is that, considering OS X's Unix security model, they still put a Hard Drive icon on the desktop that opens to the root level of the file system. As a Mac IT professional, let me just say that THE VAST MAJORITY OF USERS SHOULD NOT BE ALLOWED TO KNOW THAT ANYTHING EXISTS OUTSIDE THEIR HOME FOLDER (and the Applications folder...). Have you checked out the Finder and System options under parental controls for users? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Swad Posted September 19, 2006 Author Share Posted September 19, 2006 bennyboy - Let me see if I get what you're saying. You want all the .dmg files to be loaded under the "Macintosh HD" icon and bump everything else down? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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