OS X "Geek Edition"
 

Here are the things I'd love to see in the next version of OS X. Although the title says "Geek Edition," I don't mean taking things down to a Linux level, but adding features to the OS X GUI that would make it a more productive environment for power users.

• Improved open/save dialogs that support cut/copy/paste of files and folders, renaming files, saving over existing files more easily, Finder contextual menus for folder and file items in the dialog, pasting in a file path
• Unified uninstall application
• Unified driver settings editor
• Drop-down menus and other GUI components that can be consistently navigated and used across all applications -- especially being able to select an item in a drop-down list by typing the first few letters ("Turn on full keyboard access" does NOT provide this consistently)
• More priority given to user interaction as opposed to running processes; no one should have to wait several seconds or more for the dialog to appear when they hit cmd-opt-ESC, or for a menu to appear when they opt-ctrl-click on a dock icon to Force Quit
• Fink or a fink-like application installed by default, with a GUI interface
• Ability to delete trashed items independently (i.e., without emptying everything in the trash); separate trashes for each volume
• Built-in controls for creating custom shares
• GUI for default printer settings, to save going through CUPS
• GUI to edit file and protocol handlers, like existed in OS 9 or exists in Windows Explorer preferences

I'm sure I could think of more, but I guess this is enough to get started. Would like to know what others would add ... although I guess this whole topic is devoted to that. ;-)

Some good ideas. Some.. well..

As a power user, I don't need unified uninstallers or driver settings. I don't need fink built in. I can get it via the web. And I can get Fink Commander as a GUIfied control, should I desire (which I don't). When I put things in the trash, it's because I don't want them anymore. Why do you put things in the trash?

I don't understand this. Can you elaborate?

Please don't make my OS into a Windows clone.

It sounds like he's referring to something like RCDefaultApp, which is a pretty useful prefpane.

Most of those other requests can be handled by third-party apps now. What Apple did do was include free developer tools to let some of the other creative programmers in the world extend and customize the basic OS feature set. As compromises go, given the 'you can't please all the people all the time' reality of software creation, it's not the worst one they could make. ;)

Excellent ideas, especially the keystroke capabilities. http://www.cbr1100xx.org/temp/smileys/smiley_beer.gif

I hope that if Apple incorporates such GeekTools (and many are out there already as third-party tools, i.e. RCDefaultApp), they will rightfully pay for it and not just snatch them and build them into their System.
But other than that most of these ideas are indeed welcome features/enhancements.

I see. Well that saves the steps from Get Info -> Open With -> Change All..

Not exactly. Protocol associations can't be changed this way. A unified way to set those handlers is not part of OS X.

Lessee...

• Improved open/save dialogs that support cut/copy/paste of files and folders, renaming files, saving over existing files more easily, Finder contextual menus for folder and file items in the dialog, pasting in a file path

i.e., Apple should buy out DefaultFolder or bundle it w/every OS X install.

• Unified uninstall application

::yawn:: How about a unified (cross-volume) Desktop instead? Include items from Classic "Desktop Folders" on mounted volumes and /Users/SameUserName&Group/Desktop items from OS X hierarchies.

• Unified driver settings editor

Maybe. Haven't missed it but I may have been lucky.

• Drop-down menus and other GUI components that can be consistently navigated and used across all applications -- especially being able to select an item in a drop-down list by typing the first few letters ("Turn on full keyboard access" does NOT provide this consistently)

Now you're talking. Keyboard power for GUI-centric folks. As it should be.

• More priority given to user interaction as opposed to running processes; no one should have to wait several seconds or more for the dialog to appear when they hit cmd-opt-ESC, or for a menu to appear when they opt-ctrl-click on a dock icon to Force Quit

I agree. Also, there should be a low-level routine that will cause a command line to pop up and superimpose itself in response to a keystroke similar to Cmd-Option-Esc — not Terminal but something more fundamental, something that will work even if the Aqua GUI is, in its entirety, totally hosed.

• Fink or a fink-like application installed by default, with a GUI interface

Include Fink Commander and relevant XTools and whatnot, check.

• Ability to delete trashed items independently (i.e., without emptying everything in the trash); separate trashes for each volume

God no. Well, OK, how about if Trashed items appear inside of folders named for the Volume from whence they were trashed; and a pair of contextual menu items for trashed items: Restore and Delete Now. How's that? But I'd better be able to empty the whole works in one shot when I want to and I sure don't want 8 trash cans if I've got 8 drives mounted!

• Built-in controls for creating custom shares

Yes please. I'll settle for the finely tuned and exquisitely flexible and modern file sharing controls of System 7.0. Just rescue me from the current mess.

• GUI for default printer settings, to save going through CUPS

I've never gone through CUPS. I have yet to meet a printer interface that I liked. Not Windows, not OS X, certainly not OS 9.

• GUI to edit file and protocol handlers, like existed in OS 9 or exists in Windows Explorer preferences

Buy out More Internet and expand it somewhat, check. And do things to force compliance so pushy apps like TextEdit, Safari, and iTunes don't override those settings.

Not a bad list at all.

I'd like a comprehensive encyclopedia, rich with examples on every known call, on AppleScripting of applications and have it built into the AppleScript dictionary. A "show me some examples" button and a "details" button beside every dictionary entry.

I'd like alternative fonts for menus and Desktop and so forth to actually WORK, i.e, scale properly to the space provided both horizontally and vertically. As opposed to the frustrating hack-experience provided by TinkerTool. I miss Chicago.

Clarification
 

I appreciate everyone's input.

Some clarification:

Yes, some of these features can now be had by installing third-party apps. The problem is that the more third-party apps you install, the more you risk your system becoming unstable. I don't believe Apple should steal anyone's technology. But on the other hand, many of the third party apps that provide these features are just mimicking existing features on other platforms -- so in that case they wouldn't have much reason to complain if Apple just incorporated the features directly. Adding the features natively (or even including third-party apps that have been tested by Apple) would tend to ensure that the system remains stable.

What I want to see happen with the trash is not to make it MORE difficult for people to empty trash, but to give people more control. Just saying "Empty Trash" should delete EVERYTHING ... I have no problem with that. But the idea of a trash (instead of insta-delete) is that you sometimes want to keep things around for a while in case you need to restore them later. But sometimes you need to free up space on one volume for example ... which you can do by emptying the trash ... but what if you want to keep your other trash a bit longer? And what if you just want to delete one or a few really huge files in the trash, and leave everything else as-is? What if you want to delete everything in your trash that is more than 30 days old, but keep the rest? I just want to have a way to do those things easily.

If you've never used CUPS, I guess that means you're really happy with your printer's default settings, or you don't mind changing them every time you print a document. For me, configuring CUPS is one of the first things I do after installing a new printer. Basically that means setting the default quality setting to "high" (I'm a graphic designer, and always want high quality prints), and turning off all color-correction and what-not (I use my own software color correction which is more reliable).

Cheers.

The biggest thing i wish that they would add/change is taking a step towards the OS 9 networking via the chooser ang picking specific folders that you want to share out and such. I know that you can do it with things like 'share points' but i think it should be in the OS. I just really dont like to have to either know the IP or name of the computer to get it to show up as a volume when i mount it. the network browse can work but there needs to be alot of changes to that in my opinion. Dont get me wrong through i still like it better than windows sharing from my experiences with windows sharing.

I understand what you want. But I disagree that the idea of a Trash is so that you can keep things around for a while while you decide if you want to delete them or not. The idea of the Trash is merely so that you can recover from accidental deletions. You should only put things in the Trash if you are sure that you want to delete them. If you aren't sure, then you should put them into some other holding area.

Let's keep the Trash simple. If you need some other holding area for things that you think you might perhaps want to delete if you need more disk space, this should be separate functionality. I don't think it is functionality that a majority of Mac users would use and so I think it better that Apple leave this to third party developers to provide.

What a lot of people haven't picked up on yet is that many things are perfectly configurable through editing either 'defaults' values or changing the settings in a config file. Many of the third party add-ons (like SharePoints, BrickHouse, RCDefaultApp, and TinkerTool, but unlike the Unsanity products) are just GUI frontends to those existing settings. A fair number of Hints on the main site involve doing just that sort of thing.

Apple can and should provide their own GUI frontends to these things, but where I think they fell down-went boom the most is in documenting their existence and how to approach them. And it's that lack of adequate documentation that helps make sites like this one so popular. But it's the same thing that made ResEdit popular to classical MacOS and RegEdit popular in the Windows crowd, for that matter "peek and poke" to the Apple II set, so it's not like it's some new phenomenon that's likely to receive a Silver Bullet solution any time soon.

One of the main reasons why Apple doesn't document these things is that they want to reserve the right to change them arbitrarily in future releases. If they were documented, then changing them would be a big deal. As it is now, if you rely on some undocumented feature, it's your problem if it doesn't work in the next release. Documenting features means having to support them. This incurs real $$ costs.

Yup, and that's why these things are being added gradually to the system as the features and API's become a little more fixed in each release, and the release rate slows down. Some of this is apparent in the prefpanels displayed for Tiger.

I'm sure there will still be plenty of space for 3rd party additions, as well as space for the 'why didn't Apple build this in from day 1' and 'why did Apple rip off this 3rd party developer to build this in' crowds. :D


Edit - and as I think about it, actual 'geeks' wouldn't shy away from either the terminal or the Developer documentation, where most of this information can be found. I suspect that's how a lot of us do it here.

Ahh, you young whippersnappers! When I first learned my way around a Mac the trash can automatically emptied itself when you shut down or even launched an application! (Took me awhile go get used to the idea that I had to empty it myself or it'd stay there forever and grow fungus. Then I'd always immediatly empty it after throwing anything away so I wouldn't forget. Finally Apple made the icon change so you could tell by looking at it that you had stuff in the Trash).

Trash
 

The trash suggestion is one of the less significant ones to me personally, although I would find it useful. I add it because from a programming standpoint it would be easy to do, and would add no overhead to the system, and would not interfere with the way anyone does things now.

Speaking of which, "Open terminal here" would be another great addition to the built-in selection of Finder toolbar items. I use Marc Liyanage's "Open Terminal Here" script application all the time.

CronniX, BatChmod, PsyncX, and Macintosh Explorer are good applications that put on a nice face on handy utilities, in addition to others that have been mentioned.

Well, sure, and the reason those applications exist is because the tools used to create them are provided for free, with every shipping version of OS X. Not every third party program needs to be reinvented by Apple, and some of these often do a better job because they don't come from inside Cupertino.

Oh, so true! I also remember those days. Often when I check other peoples' trashes, wastepaper baskets or what they are called on their systems, I find Mb, somtimes even Gb of stuff in there. Some legitimate, some not (i.e. system folders, system files, etc). So, yes, trashes should be emptied automatically again once you shutdown or log out. That's the way I like it, ahha! :D

Ah - but it would add complexity to the user interface. One more choice for the user to make. One more button or menu item to look at and decide whether to use or not. Or one more configuration option.

Even providing this as a configuration option comes at some cost in complexity. This cost may not be worth it. We're talking greatest good for the greatest number here. If it makes 4% of the users 20% more productive, but the added complexity makes the remaining 96% of the users 1% less productive, it is a net loss.

Note: I'm a Mac & Unix expert and I don't want any added complexity. I'd rather have one way of doing things than two ways. Less is more. Speed of operation is far less important than avoidance of error.
The same is true when driving an unfamiliar route through the city. If I know the route from A to B and I know the route from B to C, then I might well choose to drive A -> B -> C even if B is a little out of the way. That avoids any possibility of error. Error can introduce catastrophic delays.

OK, how about a slightly different direction. If Apple were to release an "enhancement pack" (bundled as a separate CD, or as an online list of links or bundled downloads, or whatever) of their own extra and third-party apps targeted at application developers, web developers, and system admins, what would you like to see on it? Obviously this would be excluding anything already on the Xcode/Developer Tools CD, because probably everyone in the target audience already has that.

I would include: A Better Finder Rename, RCDefaultApp, SharePoints, CronniX, PsyncX, BatChmod, Carbon Copy Cloner, GPG, iTattle, Open Terminal Here, YourSQL, HenWen, MailTicker, Postfix Enabler, GraphicConverter, OSXvnc, VNC Thing, BBEdit, LaunchBar, TechTool Pro, Transmit, VolumeWorks, and the unix/web software Apache 2, PHP 5, MySQL 4, Webmin, PhyMyAdmin, Fink.

The shareware/commercial products could be trial licenses.

Or as a Plan B: since by the time those things are gathered, pressed to CD, boxed, and delivered into our hot little hands, they are pretty much all going to be out of date versions, Apple could make a spot on their website that points to a wide variety of 3rd party programs, both commercial and shareware.

Heck, they could probably even organize the links by category and put a 'Mac OS X Software...' item in the Apple menu if they wanted to. :p

Zing! Nice one C.R.A.!

Well, I'm a little concerned that in their haste to make additions to what's available, that people tend to ignore what's already there. Or that it's no good if it doesn't come in the box from Apple.

If the intent of the thread was about how to tailor the thread to 'power users', part of the definition of power user is to first understand what the system offers before mucking around with changing it.

Just my opinion, but then I see a lot of forum threads and deal with a lot of people's systems where problems could have been avoided if a 'think first, tinker second' approach were adopted.

Go visit their website again, you'll find that it contains lots of generally useless software that a person has to sort through to find the good stuff. I think my plan A is vastly superior.

To each their own, I guess. I prefer to find my own good stuff. ;)

What you're talking about doing with the trash sounds like a practice among many computer users called "archiving"-when you want to get rid of stuff taking up space on your hard drive, but you don't want to just delete it immediately.

There are many options for getting stuff off your drive that you don't want to just delete. You can burn it to a writable CD or DVD, you can FTP it to online storage (like an iDisk). You can even write it to tape, if you can afford the hardware.

Most people who put stuff in the trash do it because they are totally through with it and they want it gone. They may forget to empty the trash, but once they've put stuff there they tend to forget about it, 'cause it's history as far as they're concerned.

Since it keeps coming up, I'll explain my practice a little more. I do make permanent backups of things I really want to keep. My design work creates about 500 MB or more of files per month. In one case a particular Photoshop file was 7 gigabytes by itself. So I do a lot of backups, mostly to DVDs these days.

Then I have things I think I may need for a while, but not permanently. I end up reusing a lot of content, and loading it back from DVD or CD is way too slow and inconvenient. Unfortunately I never know which things I will be reusing. So I put files in a folder I call my "180-day bin". As you might guess from the name, that means I keep everything that goes in there for about six months. Each month I clear out things older than six months.

I also have a second internal hard drive, which I backup all my user and data files to on a weekly basis (including the 180-day bin), and also manually each month.

Then there is the trash. I rarely need to recover anything from the trash, because I'm a packrat with data and am quite cautious about what I delete. But on the other hand, there have been times when I've deleted something, and then later wished I hadn't. Fortunately in all or nearly all cases the item was still in the trash waiting for me. If I have system problems, I often empty the trash as a precaution. But otherwise I refrain from emptying it except once a month, and only then after scanning through it to make sure there's nothing I really need. (The scanning is often like what people do with their EULA agreements. I don't read every line, but going through it makes me feel better.)

The 180-day bin takes care of most of my needs now for reusing discarded content, but occasionally the trash has proved useful as a last-ditch measure to save time and effort redoing a bit of work.

So how about getting an external hard drive (Firewire of course for best speed) and relocating your 180-day bin there? Make it the biggest size you can afford, like a 120GB or more. That way, stuff in your 180-day bin can stay there a lot longer than 180 days without taking up space on your main or backup drives. And since it'll be an external hard drive, it will be just about as fast and convenient as your internal hard drives. You can even use it as a backup drive.

Thanks for the suggestion. I have a backup drive already, but a third HD for storing old projects might not be a bad idea.

The difficulty with relying on the "180-day bin" (or something larger) to completely obliviate the need for a managed trash, is that there are many files that have no long-term significance, but might be used once or twice over a couple weeks (although there is no way to know in advance just how long they will be used, or how many times, or even if they will be used again at all). These could be stored in the "180-day bin," but moving everything to the "180-day bin" is not only tedious, but eventually it would fill with files that would make searching much longer. I'm talking about files which might take two minutes to recreate from scratch, but only seconds to drag from the trash if needed again after having been deleted. Eventually the bin would become so big that the time spent searching for the files would exceed the time saved by keeping them around.

So basically my collections of past files break down like this:

• Trash: temporary project files or graphics with possible short-term value, but which would not be a major loss if prematurely emptied
• 180-day: all projects and temporary files that required significant work, up to six months old
• DVD: all projects

This arrangement works well for me, although finer control of the trash mechanism would improve the experience for me. In the latest version of Macworld I saw a writeup for a shareware program called Compost, which may perform the function I need. I haven't tried it yet though. But at least that must mean I'm not the only person looking for something like this!

I 2nd that motion for selective Trash, but no uninstallers, please.
 

I can elaborate about the Trash. One of the things I appreciate about the Windows Recycle Bin is that I can delete one thing out of the Bin, without having to empty the trash. That means I can zap the 3 GB video capture file I no longer need, without also deleting the trashed QuickTimes and HTML files I've put there, which I *might* need later, on short notice, to undo recent changes I'm working on -- that's why they are in the Trash, but the Trash hasn't been emptied.

I'd prefer to just be able to control-click on selected items in the Trash, and delete them, without having to empty the whole Trash contents. That would make everybody happy, wouldn't it? You wouldn't have to change the way you do things, but I'd have a happy little choice that suited me.

I also would like to see many of the options listed here, but not the "unified uninstaller". One of the things I LOVE about well-designed Mac apps is that they need no uninstaller. I don't want uninstallers at all. I want apps that can simply be deleted, and when deleted, take their files with them. One thing I HATE about Windows is that apps alter so many files in the OS and throughout the computer that I must have an uninstaller to clean up all the changes each app has made. Uninstallers work some of the time, but not all of the time, and that's one completely crappy thing about Windows that really, really irritates me -- and costs me time and effort.

Open/Save dialogs would be best for me if they were just like Finder windows. Anything I can do in a Finder window, I want to be able to do in the Open/Save dialogs.

We've had this discussion already I think. Putting something in the Trash that you "*might* want need later" is a perversion of the Trash. You should only put things in the Trash that you *definitely* don't need anymore. If you want a temporary holding bin, just make one (create a folder & name it what you want).

You can do this currently - all you need to do is install a contextual menu item that will delete a file immediately (without putting it in the Trash). Then you can use that on any file, in or out of the Trash. See for example, the "On My Command" CMM.

I agree that it would be great if every app could be installed by simple drag and drop, and removed by throwing the one file or folder in the trash. Unfortunately the library and system extension architecture created by Apple does not always lend itself to that ideal.

I agree that there are many problems with the way Windows handles installs and uninstalls. Unfortunately there are lots of programs of such complexity that a single bundle/folder/package is not adequate. Any of the "big" apps like the Adobe Creative Suite, Macromedia Studio, and even Apple's pro apps tend to install lots of files in lots of places, and from what I gather they couldn't realistically do otherwise.

If all these programs came with their own Uninstall apps, that would be a step in the right direction. Actually that would probably be the best solution, except for the unfortunate cases where two programs by separate companies use the same library files -- and yes, that does happen, even without DLLs. If companies can be weaned away from all dependency on shared libraries (by whatever name), it would definitely improve the install/uninstall experience.

In the current state of affairs, Windows and Mac programs are very much alike, in that some apps on both platforms require no installer (although sometimes that's a bit deceiving -- sometimes the apps install things silently on their first run -- even on the Mac), and for other apps an installer/uninstaller makes a lot of sense.

I want command-period back!

When I get a spinning beach ball of death, I want to be able to hit a single keystroke and have whatever app I'm using abandon whatever it is doing, instantly.

This keystroke is the one thing I really miss from pre-OS X days.

Regarding improved Save As dialog boxes, do you know you can click on filename to replace it. You can also hit command-n to make a new folder, even if there is no 'new folder' button, or its an 'Open' dialog. Finally, you can drag and drop a folder or file from the Finder onto the 'Save As' dialog to easily preselect it.

In those "good old days" (pre-OS X), we had cooperative multi-tasking. What that meant was that it was up to the programmer of each application to release control of the CPU at regular intervals so that other apps could get some CPU time. If an application didn't release control of the CPU, then the whole system was gone. The "Command-period" keystroke was something that needed to be implemented by each application. If an application didn't implement it, that keystroke would do nothing.

In OS X, the system (the WindowServer to be precise) detects when an application has ceased responding to events (i.e. when it has gone off into the weeds due to a bug, or due to some operation that is taking longer than expected) and the system puts up the rainbow cursor to tell you that this application is not behaving as it should. There is no way that the system can tell the application to stop what it is doing and go back to the state it was before - because only the application knows what that state was. The best the system can do is terminate the application. And you do have a keystroke to do that (Command-Option-Escape).

In other words, when you see the rainbow cursor, it means the application is in a state where, if this were an OS 9 application, it wouldn't be responding to the Command-period keystroke - because it is busy doing something else and not paying the least attention to user input of any kind.

I might rephrase your wish to be a wish that OS X applications would be better written so that the user-interface remained responsive at all times, that the developers would be more aware of the possibility of something that is normally a split-second operation taking several seconds (or minutes) if the network isn't responding, etc. I think we can all agree with that. But such careful programming is difficult and time consuming. Hence most applications handle the top 90% of problems and hope for the best with the rest.

As a possible solution...

set Folder Actions (or cron...) to delete stuff in your 180 day folder that's older than 180 days, and also set other scripts on a folder to replace your current trash (maybe with a limit so when you add files and it grows over a certain size, it deletes the oldest files till there is room)

just suggestions

jake

Wow, hayne, if this were a Slashdot forum, I'd want to mod your post +5 for being informative and insightful. Almost all my experience with Macs has been post OSX. Thanks for that background. Good points, too.

I was going to mention the Command-Option-Esc shortcut. I will merely add that it's good that, although it takes more than just that one keyboard shortcut, it's at least handy that an app can be killed without touching the mouse. After CMD-OPT-Esc, you can use the arrow keys to select an app, then whack the Enter key to kill it. You can also kill the popped-up Force Quit dialog via the keyboard: do CMD-OPT-Esc again, then CMD-W.

@ brontojoris: those are all great points you make about the Open/Save dialog box. It's CMD-SHIFT-N to make a new folder, though. :) Oh, and you can do CMD-D to change the dialog immediately to the Desktop for saving or opening things there. Nice.

Package Management and Trash
 

I think it's actually the goal of Gentoo/MacOS to be used for installing EVERYTHING, not just UNIX-y apps. I look forward to the day when I can install Firefox.app (not just X11, pseudo-debian Firefox), and, better yet, when "emerge -uDav world" updates everything including the OS itself (I realize that's a pipe dream, of course -- but it would still be damn cool).

I know the traditional Mac OS way of installing stuff is drag-and-dropping it into the Applications folder, but I like package management systems because you can just search the package database (e.g., `fink list <foo>`, `emerge search <bar>`) for what you want instead of having to deal with Google and VersionTracker and Apple downloads and whatnot. Plus, you can keep the whole system up-to-date that way, instead of having to check for new versions of each app separately and by hand (and Software Update only works for Apple software).

I bet you could do that with some combination of AppleScript and Folder Actions (or init and bash scripts if you're enough of a UNIX geek :cool: ). Ditto with your 180-day folder, mprewitt, although obi1cannoli beat me to it (now that was insightful!).

Now, there are just two simple things that I really want changed about the Trash:

1. Let me send files to the trash by selecting them and hitting "delete!" It wouldn't clutter any menus, and shouldn't you expect a key marked "delete" to delete stuff anyway?
2. Add a button or [context] menu item to restore items from the trash. If I want something untrashed, I want it to be put back wherever it came from without me having to figure out where that is first.

By the way, mprewitt, is this similar to what you had in mind (Scroll down to the "Trash Directories" heading)? In fact, now that I think about it, it would be good for OS X to support this and some other freedesktop.org standards as well...

Finally, would somebody please tell me where the trash can actually is in the filesystem? I've looked for ~.trash, I've looked in ~/Library/, I've searched the Finder .plist for a path, and I still can't find it. Please tell me it's a real folder...right? :(

Depends on who deletes it and where it is deleted from. There is indeed a ~/.Trash folder where things deleted from your home directory go. As well as a .Trashes folder at the root of each volume with subdirectories bearing the uid of the owner of the deleted item(s). I believe that is where things outside your home directory go.

Incidentally, in the classic MacOS, you could click on an item in the trash and select "Put Away" and it would go to where it originally came from.

I miss the 'put away' command. It was great to be able to drag files from where ever to the desktop, and at the end of the day just hit cmd-y, to clean up the mess.

Umm, maybe I'm misunderstanding what you are asking for, but I think this functionality is already there. But you need to hold down the Command (Apple) key when you press Delete. I use it all the time.

DOH! Stupid case sensitivity...I only looked for (lowercase T) .trash. :o

Well, thanks for telling me about cmd-delete, but it's still not as efficient as just hitting the delete key by itself.

it is very clear to me now (two months with 10.3.7) that the designers
of OS X did not have anyone "on the Linux level" giving relevant user
scenarios for the system. Maybe they didn't have them around
(doubtful) or they didn't want to let people see the guts (shameful).
It's really a shame, because under the hood, it's ALL here, it just
not easy to use if you are trying to do anything except point and
click and get GUIfied. If they would open themselves up to that
command line community, EVERYONE who is running Linux would flock to
Mac. as it stands, I'd have a hard time recommending it to developers
"at the Linux level"

The problem is that the Delete key alone is too efficient. I don't want to aim for F12 and miss it slightly, deleting a file that happened to be selected somewhere else in the window, and maybe not noticing that until it could be too late. Cmd-Delete is really no slower, yet it is far more deliberate, and therefore far safer. Basic human-centered UI design in action. Though ultimately, Apple needs to make these kinds of shortcuts configurable in case you do want to live on the edge. (More than just the ones already configuarble in the Keyboard prefpane.)

I'm not sure what sort of things you are having trouble with. Use of Unix-level commands in Terminal is fully documented and as easy to use as any other Unix I've had experience with.
When people say "at the Linux level" in the context of OS X, it mostly means that they don't really distinguish between "Linux" and "Unix" and the latter comes to their lips more readily because of media exposure. they really mean "at the Unix level".

Perhaps you wish that the Unix that underlies OS X were Linux rather than FreeBSD. That has been the topic of discussion elsewhere and it has been explained that there are good reasons why Apple chose FreeBSD instead of Linux.

Put Away != Delete, right?
 

I didn't use Macs much before OSX, but ... didn't the "Put Away" command return your file[s] to their previous location? That's not the same thing as putting them in the Trash. I seem to recall that "Put Away" remembered where each file came from, when you put it onto the desktop. Triggering "Put Away" would move the file back to the location from which you'd taken it when you put it onto your desktop.

Isn't that right? It's been years, and, like I said, I wasn't really into Macs until OSX came out ....

Software-Update for Third-Party-Apps
 

-->jmd2121

While there may be religious convictions at stake here, in my experience, real hackers (like in technologically clued) and Alpha-Geeks (Tim O'Reilly...) tend to use OS X, various Linux-distros (gentoo, LFS, debian), FreeBSD. And even among those not using Mac OS X, i- and PowerBooks are runners-up to ThinkPads.

You should probably hang out with people who don't need to be told what OS tends to work anyway :; .

The One Truly Useful Thing I miss in OS X is a way for third-party-apps to take advantage of Software-Update.
It would not take a lot of ressource to come up with a working and really useful solution.

@ OSXPounder

Correct, the put away command put files back to where they were. I just meant that the mess on the desktop was cleaned up.

The Put Away command could be used on files in the Trash to put them back where they came from, too. At least it could on System 6 and 7. I didn't use Mac OS 8 and 9 all that much.