hello, my name is
nathan pitman.

well you asked for it :)

More consistent uninstallation procedures:
One of the areas for me that Windows get right and Mac just misses it completely. Yes in theory applications are self contained, but this just isn’t the reality, finder extensions in one folder, preferences spread out in system and user folders… a right pain in the neck to manage.

Better right click integration with finder:
If i wanted to live purely in command line land, I’d be using linux. Simple things like “new file”, customisability (finder plugins are forced in a certain place which means I have to drag my mouse across the screen to use the menus I want).

Replace alias with symlinks:
Aliases are very mac-centric, which is fine for the gui, but as *nix based programs cant use them (apache etc), I have to manually use the command line to create symlinks when creating shortcuts.

Fix mail.app:
A wonderfully easy to use email client let down by instability and various annoying “random” bugs (such as cutting of replies when the original email contains attachments)

All or nothing:
Please apple, there is a grey area for user preferences, for example I don’t just want a choice whether to have all my drive icons on the desktop or none… there is a middle ground here!

I’m using a Mac for about a year now and I don’t find that things annoying. The only thing I could want for Apple is to fix the Flash plugin to not eat 100% of my CPU (but I think that’s Adobe issue).

- The zoom button adapts to the content window, to me it’s all right like that.
- To email files to contacts -> Quicksilver
- To view hidden files in a simply way -> Houdini (http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/26729)

Cheers!

One tip for emailing files is to just drag the file and drop it on Mail.app in the dock. This will create a new message with the file attached.

A lot of the shortcuts/utilities in OS X are drag/drop based, which may suit some, but often doesn’t occur to me to try. I’m not a very draggy/droppy person.

I think my favourite tip of late is to hit Space to get a quick preview of the currently selected file in Finder.

OK - incoming from Mac writer!

@Nathan: The Zoom button isn’t the same as a maximise button. It’s supposed to switch a window between two states: the user state and the state where it optimises the window size to fit in the content. In Finder, this isn’t broken, but users often intuitively resize to something similar to the optimised state.

In iTunes, this behaviour is semi-broken, since you have to Option-click to get the standard Mac OS X (index, the standard Mac) behaviour. Frankly, there really should be a preferences setting to make the mini window shortcut switchable.

I think you’re right about the ‘+’ icon being problematic, but then I still prefer the button spacing on Mac OS X, placing the close button a long way from the others.

Hidden files: There are myriad widgets, bits of shareware and other things you can use to toggle hidden file visibility. Apple will almost certainly never enable this via the standard UI, because it gives typical users too much scope to wreck their systems, but geeks can easily compensate for this shortcoming.

Folder ordering and merging in Finder: I think this is a Mac vs Windows thing. I’m not going to defend either way, because both have benefits and issues. Path Finder provides the same option as Windows, though, and I don’t see why Mac OS X shouldn’t. Merging should also be an option, although, clearly, not a default action.

Address Book: Not sure what you mean there. Click under the name of the contact and you can input a company name.

@Steven Hambleton: Regarding Mail, the chopping off of messages is a massive problem, although research suggests this doesn’t happen with most other clients. In fact, it mostly happens with Outlook and Entourage, suggesting this is something Apple and Microsoft should bang heads about. It is annoying, though - I didn’t even realise it happened until my editors at Future thought I was being curt. I’d attach a file and then write a message underneath, but they only saw the attachment!

As for flexibility of shown local volumes, I think that’s another of those features you’re never going to see. Surprisingly, even Path Finder doesn’t enable this, suggesting it’s either not possible or that not enough people want this feature (given that PF deals with most of Finder’s perceived shortcomings).

@David: Flash has long been a massive PITA on Mac, but if you look at the performance and issues with Adobe apps in general versus, say, every other app, it’s pretty clear where the blame lies. Adobe stopped caring about the Mac platform years back, but is now trying to do an about-turn due to Mac sales growth. Unfortunately, this is Adobe, so it’s like trying to do a handbrake turn using an aircraft carrier. Also: why do you think Flash is ‘banned’ from iPhone? It’s not because of clashes with App Store games - it’s because its dreadful performance on Mac OS X would make iPhone look like the slowest device ever made.

@Drew: The preview to which you refer is the absolutely bloody amazing Quick Look. It was massively overshadowed by Time Machine when Leopard arrived, but I’d say Quick Look is the best feature of the latest version of Mac OS X - wonderfully useful. It’s also highly extensible, enabling you to add plug-ins to peek inside archives and packages, and to syntax-colour code.

Anyone interested in maybe finding out more about Quick Look, read my article on TechRadar: http://is.gd/BfHH

And as for other issues, I wrote another piece for TechRadar recently, entirely about my Mac OS X bugbears: http://is.gd/v4zA

Oops - just realised I attributed all those comments to the wrong people, due to copyage to TextEdit. Sorry!

I’m not a PC to Mac convert but I have used both for a long time. So keeping on topic, having an address bar in Explorer is so much easier to open a new window with the same state; copy paste location. The finder has ‘Go To Folder’ but I know of no way of having the path to where you are, so you can copy and paste. How many clicks have I spent drilling down to the same location?

I use hot keys all the time. A really annoying ‘feature’ of the finder is: Cmd i, gives you info on a file or foler, Cmd w closes any window including the newly opened info. Selecting multiple files, Cmd Alt i gives you the combined info, Cmd w doesn’t close it, it closes the finder window you have open, arghhhh! It’s worked like this since OSX 10.0 and it’s still catching me out!

“having an address bar in Explorer is so much easier to open a new window with the same state; copy paste location. The finder has ‘Go To Folder’ but I know of no way of having the path to where you are, so you can copy and paste.”

I don’t really understand this problem. Are you saying you want to clone an existing open window or that you keep closing a window but in Windows would retain its path on the clipboard? To clone a Finder window in Mac OS X, just View > Show Path Bar, Control-click the relevant folder and ‘Open Enclosing Folder’. Alternatively, drop common folders in Finder’s sidebar or use Spark to create user-definable shortcuts to common folders. (I have Control+Shift+[a letter], and so Ctrl+Sh+’S’ = ‘Sites’; Ctrl+Sh+’M’ = MacFormat.)

I agree with Eliot (although i havent encounted the need to use cmd+alt+i etc to notice the problem).

@Craig the problem isnt cloning windows, but the ability to navigate smoothly using finder (while in a finder window), the same also applies to the various save dialogues that you cant manually set a path with. If you were moving throughout the filesystem and you wanted to move to a folder directly, in explorer you could type the address in the current window, you cant do this in Finder.
It mostly applies when trying to reach a folder that has been “hidden” by the file system (/etc, /var or some such).

You can use the finder dock icon or the the finder menu, but its like asking someone to copy and past using the menu, its wildly inefficient, and I dont always appreciate having to move my mouse all around the screen for every action (the amount of movement that finder requires from the mouse is staggering… no word of a lie, my logitech G7 mouse runs out of battery about 10-20% sooner on OSX then it did on windows)

The issue is opening a new Finder window with the same state. There’s plenty of times I need to copy files to near folders and drag and drop doesn’t cut it. I use the side bar, but of course littering it with hundreds of short cuts defeats it usefulness. I just keep my current 5 jobs in there.

‘Open Enclosing Folder’ is a solution I’m looking for I guess. It’s a shame there isn’t just ‘clone window’ as a short-cut key or right-click. I’m not sure I like the clutter along the bottom of the finder window, I’ll try it for a day and see if I get used to it. Cheers.

Sounds like you guys should investigate Default Folder X and Spark. As for becoming more keyboard-oriented in things like Finder and the system in general, I take it you guys have full keyboard access turned on? (If not, go to Sys Prefs > Keyboard & Mouse > Keyboard shortcuts and look at the Keyboard Navigation section. It doesn’t cure all the issues you’re talking about, but is useful for flicking about major system components using the keyboard rather than the mouse.)

Good post!

I hate the fact that things change all the time in Mail, but Address Book doesn’t auto-update with new address details. Address Book needs to be more intelligent and Mail needs to be friendlier towards it!

@Craig I think you’re giving solutions off topic. Yes you can mod-the-ass off Windows or OSX, but we’re talking about the pet peeves as is, out of the box. Fair enough if Apple or Microsoft have developed the ability to do something and I don’t know about it (ala ‘path bar’, nice) but I’m with Nath on the ‘not a zoom’ ‘zoom’ button. After a rather serious Kaleidoscope crash years back I leave the system as is, no extensions for me!

Sure - I’m not suggesting Mac OS X is perfect, and I also have grumbles ‘out of the box’. But that’s why I recommend add-ons to people who have the same issues. And given the number of apps I’ve reviewed for the Mac, I don’t make such recommendations lightly, especially to people using Macs in work-critical environments.

As for the zoom button, I have a problem with its consistency site-wide (such as with iTunes and Firefox not playing ball), but not in its default behaviour. I guess the expectation from some users - mostly those who’ve come from Windows - is that the button should be maximise a window, but the Mac has never had a maximise option.

@Ross

RE Mail - The inability to hide specific IMAP folders (as you can in Thunderbird). Right clicking on an email address should offer the ‘Visit the parent domain in your web browser’ as an option.

RE Safari / Address Book - I wish that Safari and Address book provided integration - ie: the address bar should auto complete URLs in address book entries.

@Elliot/Craig/David

Hopefully the finder rewrite in Snow Leopard might bring us some of the features we’re all lusting after. :)

@Craig “I guess the expectation from some users - mostly those who’ve come from Windows - is that the button should be maximise a window, but the Mac has never had a maximise option.”

This is certainly the case for me, and I don’t understand why one single button can be allowed to behave in so many different ways - even across apps developed by Apple themselves.

In Mail the plus works like maximise, in iTunes it switches between two different modes, in iCal it works like maximise, in Safari… god knows what it does… it seems to switch between the current and previous window dimensions but reduces the vertical height of the window at the same time… in Tweetie… it does nothing!

That button just totally baffles me. If there was some app that enforced the maximise behavior system wide - I’d pay for it in a blink!

I understand that there is no history of a maximise button in the Apple OS but they would do well to introduce it as an option - it’s little details like this that put Windows users off from switching. :)

Well, one could make the same argument regarding the menu bar (the single one on the Mac versus a menu being attached to every app window on Windows). That said, I do sympathise with your viewpoint and wish Apple would get its finger out regarding OS consistency (and the same goes for the UI design).

In terms of apps/add-ons, there’s Right Zoom. It’s been on my to-review list for months, but I’ve not got around to it, so I’ve no idea if it’s any good.

http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/30591/right-zoom

@Craig Ah, the single menu bar - I think from a usability point of view it’s actually much better than the menu attached to every app approach in Windows - despite being a long time Windows user!

‘Right Zoom’ looks great - will give it a shot and let you know how I get on! :)

The zoom button behaviour, whilst inconsistent sometimes, is much, much better than maximise on Windows.

On the Mac it is supposed to make the window no bigger than it needs to be to enclose all content. A second click returns the window to the state you set it in originally.

It’s a throwback to when Macs had 9” screens and you could use it to zoom the window down to the size needed, and no bigger. You should try vMac sometime and it’ll all make sense.

On today’s large 30” screens, conversely it’s also useful. What is the point in maximising your browser window to 2560x1600 when you’re viewing a page designed for 800x600? Or having a huge border around an A4 page in word?

Usually the applications that get it wrong are a) written by Windows guys who have some strange desire to keep the behaviour consistent across platforms (WHY????) or b) don’t use the native OS for window management (eg. Firefox and Adobe).

Firefox drives me mad when I have to use it as it lulls me into thinking it’s a Mac application but it’s behaviour just isn’t. And that’s why it’s not my browser of choice.

Apple gets it wrong occasionally too though - iTunes is it’s own monster of inconsistency as are some of the applications that carried over from NeXT such as Mail.app.

On the other side, when I have to use Windows, I still find myself trying to drag files onto folders and expect them to spring open and dragging files onto icons, windows and the task bar and expecting things to happen. Very frustrating.

@Nathan: I just reviewed Right Zoom for MacFormat. It pretty much does what it says on the tin, but it also enables you to define whitelists and blacklists, along with restricting its behaviour to Option-clicking. In other words, if you wish, clicking the zoom button results in standard Mac OS X behaviour, but Option-clicking results in Windows-like behaviour.

OK, Craig you’ve convinced me I’m going to give Right Zoom a whirl.

Talking of OS X’s inconsistencies with the OS (Woz apparently doesn’t like it), this old Ars Technica article is really good. OS X really is a mess when you look in to it this detail. You’ll need a big cup of coffee to get through the lot. Hopefully everything will be tidied up in Snow Leopard. http://arstechnica.com/apple/reviews/2007/10/mac-os-x-10-5.ars/3

In terms of visual UI, Mac OS X has become something of a mess due to Apple faffing about and other companies following suit. That said, it’s still more consistent in general than other operating systems, and Snow Leopard supposedly finally brings in a fully unified UI - although I’ll believe that when I see it.

For me, the biggest Leopard mistakes were the menu bar - subsequently fixed via a preferences setting - the Dock and the folders. The last of those things is a big accessibility cock-up, since it’s hard to tell folders apart now, although it’s pretty clear Apple no longer cares for folders at all (witness OS X iPhone, Spotlight and ‘smart folders’). The former was clearly designed for screen grabs on boxes and websites ("Look at how new everything looks!") and remains an abhorrent piece of design. The iLife scrollbars also irk, given that they are inconsistent with the rest of the system for no real reason and actually run from entirely different assets and code. (Use a ‘scrollbar arrows at both ends’ hack and many apps using the ‘new’ scrollbars won’t have the revised set-up.)

Given how far along Snow Leopard now is, it’ll be interesting to see if the new UI is still on the cards, and whether we’ll see it at WWDC as a ‘one more thing’.