Panther.

[petey]

so what do folks think?

---

i'm scared of the new Finder. i'm on a laptop screen, and i hate big 'n' cluttered interface elements.

but i'm excited about FileVault, Fast User Switching, and the iDisk changes.

---

i haven't watched the keynote yet, so i'm not fully up to speed.

[jdhorner]

petey

i tend to agree with you on the portable front. i barely have enough screen space as it is... anyway... i'm very looking forward to user switching, speed-enhanced preview (finally! when will they improve the help system...), and exsposé.

i'm also glad that i can still get a student discount. i'm just a little sore that we're paying for this one... again.

[mnewman]

The fast user switching will be important to me. I have a twelve year old daughter who flits from box to box and hates to log out. She loves to leave her chat sessions, SIMS and other stuff running. Being able log in and check my e-mail while she's on a quick food run will be a time saving advantage for us.

I agree though that the new Finder looks like a real estate hog and will crowd things a bit on our 12" iBook. It will be interesting to see what options are available to alieviate that.

[Craig R. Arko]

Here's (http://www.apple.com/server/macosx/pantherserver.html) an early peek at Panther Server.

The Apple mail server is getting the boot for Postfix, maybe NetInfo is getting the boot for OpenDirectory 2 (although that's not clear).

[chabig]

I don't see why the new Finder will take any more real estate than our current Finder. Everything is in one window, and Exposé takes care of the window clutter problem. I think we'll find Panther easier to use on a small screen than Jaguar.

Chris

[mervTormel]

also, it seems that the sidebar is sizable and the items scale. i would think that you'd also be able to use the finder a la current jaguar views, i.e., perhaps this view is just a Places view (command-4 ?). remains to be seen; i couldn't grok it from the panther preview.

still wish the full path to the view/file was in the title bar.

[Jacques]

The first thing I'll do after installing Panther is mash out all the metal!

Using SafarIcon for instance, I swiped the common Safari metal for Phoenity - an included theme. Wow does it look so much better..

---

It looks good, very good.. did the developers get preview copies of it? Anyone here using it?

[petey]

Originally posted by Jacques

did the developers get preview copies of it? Anyone here using it?
yeah. the developers did get copies. i'd love to hear first hand reports.

one thing i'm curious about in Fast User Switching:

does a 'background' user's processes contiune to run? in other words, if i'm downloading a 600MB file, and i switch to a different account, will that download continue to run?

[mervTormel]

Originally posted by petey
...
does a 'background' user's processes contiune to run? in other words, if i'm downloading a 600MB file, and i switch to a different account, will that download continue to run?

sounds like 'yes', the account's processes continue.

..."While any user accesses an account, other accounts remain active in the background, with applications running and documents still open..."

http://www.apple.com/macosx/panther/fast_user_switching.html

is this where the re-entrant code modifications enter the picture? seems so if one windowmanager is threading these processes.

[macmath]

Perhaps this Finder will be faster, as many people complain about the speed of the Finder. However, I'm not sure how the new Finder window will be functionally different from the current one...one could have put all those items (see the preview (http://www.apple.com/macosx/panther/finder.html) from the left-hand column into the toolbar. Perhaps the toolbar is also present in this preview window but just does not have many things in it.

I agree about the brushed metal look (shudder). I did not mind the stripes, but I think even those who did not like the stripes would prefer to have the stripes over the metal look.

Did anyone hear anything about 'piles'? Perhaps they are there but Apple wisely renamed them something else. Apple seems to have a knack with naming things most of the time.

Anyway, whatever change there is will be interesting and fun to investigate when it comes out.

[Phil St. Romain]

I really like the expanded open-save dialogues, which seem to basically give you the Finder and hopefully with options to copy or delete files with the dialogue open.

Finder . . . if you can still configure the toolbar, the new layout will be an improvement, imo. Lots of configurability. Will it be cocoa?

Xcode looks very interesting!

The built-in Faxing will come in handy at times, especially if there's a way it can work with broadband on a LAN.

Increased file security will be nice . . . about time for that one! Ridiculous having to use encrypted disk images!!!

I'm not sure how useful Expose' will be for me. I'd have to see it in action.

Anyone know if there will be an upgrade fee option? This release is coming a little closer than past major ones.

[petey]

Originally posted by Phil St. Romain

Increased file security will be nice . . . about time for that one! Ridiculous having to use encrypted disk images!!!

i'm curious if they'll use disk images or not. i think it'd be prefereable to have your entire home folder secured, ala the disk image way, rather than encrypting at the file level. but i suppose they'd have to use/develop a sparse image format that could shrink.

[petey]

Originally posted by Phil St. Romain

Anyone know if there will be an upgrade fee option? This release is coming a little closer than past major ones.
AFAIK, there will be no upgrade path.

[chabig]

Anyone know if there will be an upgrade fee option? This release is coming a little closer than past major ones.

I concur with Petey. You'll pay $129 for this new version.

It's really not any closer than previous releases. Apple is putting out major upgrades about once per year. They've put a lot of work into each one and it shows. We have one of the premier OSs on the planet, and it's worth the $129.

Chris

[Craig R. Arko]

It will actually be longer than the time between 10.1 and 10.2, which was just about a year.

Look at the bright side, Phil. At least you won't be upgrading Server at full price. Ouch.

[Phil St. Romain]

10.1 was free, and there was quite a flap about Jaguar having no upgrade option. Guess there'll be "flappers" again! ;)

[JayBee]

Yup, Apple's getting their £80 out of me every 18 months or so.

If Panther purrs on the G4, they'll have earned it.

I sooooo need Exposé. This is possibly the BEST innovation in window management I have ever seen. I played with Minimise in Place a while back, and I liked it, but it was all just too manual. Exposé is exactly the kind of thing I really need.

And it looks the shiznit too :)

My flatmate is looking into getting a new machine for Photoshop work, and was seriously considering a Mac. After Monday, seeing both the G5 and Panther, I don't think it's any longer a matter of "consideration" :)

[macmath]

Expose' does look really nice.

If I had had Expose' before CodeTek VirtualDesktop, then I probably would not have looked into VirtualDesktop, but after having worked with VirtualDesktop, I'm hooked. After looking over the preview of Expose' I'd have to say that it does not look like it will replace VirtualDesktop for me.

[griffman]

Barring a major change in Apple's policies, this will be a $129 release with no upgrade path. The .1 upgrades have all been that way, excluding 10.1:

OS X Public Beta: September 13, 2000 [$30]
...
six months pass...
...
10.0: March 24, 2001 [$129 less $30 rebate from beta]
...
six months pass...
...
10.1: September 25, 2001 [$19.95 if you have 10.0]
...
eleven months pass...
...
10.2: August 23, 2002 [$129]
...
16? months pass...
...
10.3: December 2003 [$129?? guess?]

So assuming I've been with OS X since the Public Beta (which I have :-), and assuming Panther is also $129, I'll have spent:

$30 + $99 + $19.95 + $129 + $129 = $406.95

in going from the PB to 10.3, spread over the span of 39 months. To put it in comparison, Windows XP Professional full is $279.99, and an "upgrade" is $199.99. Although it's tough to compare, if Windows had done what OS X has done, I'd be out something closer to $850 or so over that same time frame!

One interesting side note in digging up these dates was a PR blurb from March 2001, claiming "Over 10,000" developers working on OS X. I believe I heard that they now have over 300,000 registered OS X developers (can someone confirm I heard that right?). If true, a 30x increase in developers over a three year timeframe bodes very very well for the future of our fave machines!

-rob.

[mervTormel]

now have over 300,000 registered OS X developers

hmm, i wonder if they're counting us pudknockers that are just ADC online members?

[jdhorner]

merv, i wonder the same. ;-) i feel bad knowing that i'm upping their numbers... the only reason i've registered online is to download the dev tools for fink purposes. perhaps one day, i'll actually start writing software.

[griffman]

Not sure, but I would've guessed if that were true, there would've been more than 10,000 by March of 2001 -- there were clearly more than 10,000 users of the Public Beta, and I recall getting the Dev Tools from ADC way back when...

Ah well; it still sounds pretty impressive ;-).

-rob.

[Phil St. Romain]

My wife works for the school system, so I'll be watching for education discounts for Panther. We got a copy of Jaguar free last year during a promotional by Apple. Might we hope for the same with Panther? Hmmm.

[petey]

screenshots, screenshots, roly poly screenshots. eat 'em up, yum.

http://funmac.com/showthread.php?threadid=2027&perpage=15&pagenumber=1

[AHunter3]

I assume I can turn off that Windows98esque bar down the left hand side of Finder windows?

(If not, I'm sure someone will be kind enough to write some shareware that will)

[AKcrab]

You can.

[rmcellig]

One thing I like about the new finder is that you can hide the left hand side of the window, if screen real estate is a problem. In efect, by doing this, the finder window looks like the finder window we all know and love in Jaguar.

One feature that people have been asking for for a long time, is back in Panther. The ability to Startup/ Shutdown your Mac from the Energy Saver pref.

Panther so far looks promising. Most apps I tried work fine so far.:)

[bluehz]

Everything working good on my dinosaur G4/400 (AGP). Unfortunately though - Panther does not recognize my 2nd video card (ATI Xclaim VR) which I was actually using as my main card instead of the factory installed RagePro AGP. I finally deduced after months of troubleshooting that the AGP card was at the root of many many problems on my machine. Most notably - Keynote would freeze the machine consistently with the AGP card, works fantastic with the XClaim card. So I was using the Xclaim as my main card.

The Xclaim card is actually recognized and shows up as a 2nd monitor - which in itself is a bit annoying as it thinks I have an extended desktop. Unfortunately - it only shows up as 256 colors 640x480.

Most menu extras do not work. Although I was able to get many working using the Unsanity (no APE) MenuExtra Enabler - but most displayed their icons improperly, but they functioned.

FINALLY - old-style EnergySave scheduled startup/shutdown. Its about time!

Is rather zippy even on my old machine and Expose works even though I don't have QE capable video.

A disk image I created using CarbonCopyCloner is not usable in 10.2.6 for some reason. I get the "Error 95 - no mountable filesystems". All attempts to fix (incl. DMG Fixer) have failed to get it to mount in 10.2.6.

Most 3rd Party apps, pref panes, etc seem to be working fine - including Impasse, LittleSnitch, DefaultFolder, and others. MaxMenus did not work.

Mail.app is nice, but no earth-shattering speed boost as was spoken of. No mail bundles work with new Mail.app, including Mail Pictures, and GPG (which I MUST HAVE!). They will be auto-disabled.

[rmcellig]

bluehz

I have the exact same config as you. I am also experiencing the same bugs.

Another problem I encountered is that I cannot save a page in Safari as a PDF document. Safari quits.

I'm sure this will be resolved by the time Panther is officially released.

[petey]

Originally posted by rmcellig

One thing I like about the new finder is that you can hide the left hand side of the window, if screen real estate is a problem. In efect, by doing this, the finder window looks like the finder window we all know and love in Jaguar.

not quite. while you can hide the left sidebar, the resulting window has MUCH thinker borders than the Jaguar Finder window.

i'm on a 1024x768 laptop, and i like to have many small Finder windows open simulateously. see the problem?

[rmcellig]

petey

That is a good point. Maybe what Apple should do is give the user a choice in the Finder prefs to use either the Panther or Jaguar type window. Maybe some developer will come up with a solution, but I can see your point.

[AHunter3]

Maybe what Apple should do is give the user a choice in the Finder prefs to use either the Panther or Jaguar type window.

Or MacOS 8 type window. You know, no crap, no icons up top or to the side, but with borders that you can click on and drag the window with all the way around?

[AKcrab]

Originally posted by AHunter3
Or MacOS 8
:eek:

:p

[nkuvu]

Well you can turn off the left icons, that's been verified earlier in the thread. And I'm guessing that Jaguar and Panther both still have the button on the top right of the Finder window to turn off top buttons. True?

The only issue remaining would be the border width...