OS X Yosemite: Do you Like the Look?

[BlueBär]

I've yet to see a good calculator program, they always seem so cluttered. I'd much prefer an analogue one.

[Muirium]

The previous calculator is also pretty bad though, IMO:


Unrelatedly, it’s really stupid how crazy OS X goes with the shadows. They were just perfect in ~10.4/10.5.

Leopard (10.5) was the one that bumped the buggers up.

http://arstechnica.com/apple/2007/10/mac-os-x-10-5/3/

They look much more pronounced in isolated window mode screenshots like mine, as they're painted on a pure white background instead.

[andrewjoy]

who needs gui calculators when you have bc ?

https://www.gnu.org/software/bc/

[Findecanor]

I always use the Python interpreter. I need to import the "math" module first for some stuff, though.

[jacobolus]

The best computer calculator I ever used was the ~2000 version of Maple for Windows. I really like the programming language (much nicer than Mathematica IMO), the libraries were very capable, and the documentation was very effective. Most importantly, the executable would launch and put me at a usable input field in less than a second. It literally launched faster than the Windows calculator program. For anyone who really cared, it could also be accessed from the shell directly, with a text interface rather than a GUI.

At some point in 2002–2004, they decided to rewrite all their GUI logic in Java, to make things “cross platform”. The new version took more than a minute to launch, and was extremely buggy. Many operations became laggy, and some of the UI widgets were broken or inconsistent.

One of the worst software “upgrades” I’ve ever experienced. Right up there with Microsoft Word for Mac 6.0.

* * *

These days, I also use a Python shell.

[Daniel Beardsmore]

And as for the green pill, it toggles this.

I still remember when the zoom button in the title bar did something intelligent. Then along came Mac OS X, where for several years it was pretty much guaranteed to do something really stupid (in Tiger's Finder it seemed to just pick a random and senseless window size). In more recent versions of Mac OS X (like, Snow Leopard or something) it seemed to be completely dead.

I'm not sure why that widget is even still there, as the intense hatred and detestation for Mac OS 9 that brewed after X came out seems to have driven all the UI sanity out of everyone's minds. No-one thinks back to how that control used to work, because Mac OS 9 became some sort of abominable pariah in everyone's minds. (It was bad enough that the "smart" people in the industry outright rejected Mac OS in the first place, but once Mac OS X came out, even Mac lovers started hating on it. That was a lot of good design tipped down the drain.)

[cookie]

I think the most of us would use linux if all the nice enterprise software would be available for it

[andrewjoy]

I don't care about enterprise software most of it will work in wine , its just modern 3d games that only support direct x that are the problem .

[BlueBär]

I'd switch to Linux if it wasn't for games (that use DirectX). I don't mind using WIndows though.

[cookie]

Unfortunately Cubase with all its VST awesomness won't work in wine :/
I had problems with photoshop too in the past, I am actually using it less and less because Lightroom is taking over

If League of Legends and CS:GO would run on linux I'd switch imediately

[BlueBär]

Doesn't CS:GO run on Linux? I thought I read something like that somewhere.

[cookie]

I am not 100% sure, League definately doesn't run on it and this is the main game I play atm :/

[BlueBär]

You could maybe just play a good game instead?

[cookie]

What do you recommend?

[Muirium]

And as for the green pill, it toggles this.

I still remember when the zoom button in the title bar did something intelligent. Then along came Mac OS X, where for several years it was pretty much guaranteed to do something really stupid (in Tiger's Finder it seemed to just pick a random and senseless window size). In more recent versions of Mac OS X (like, Snow Leopard or something) it seemed to be completely dead.

Not dead. I even had a keyboard shortcut to fire it the last several years, as I used it too often to excuse the mouse! (Ctrl+Command+Z. The red button is Command+W and green is Command+M by default, of course, so I could do all three.) I found it quite useful on small screens, which is where I mostly live. The zoom button often acted similarly to Windows. Your window would expand to maximum available dimensions. But this was entirely at the whim of the app's developer. So it was always a bit hit and miss, and only really useful when used in the "right" application.

Which is precisely why I don't use it now. The new functionality supersedes the old, for me, completely. Right now I have seven virtual desktops open on my 15" MacBook Pro here, most of them Safari windows. I like my stuff wall-to-wall, and zipping around between desktops feels more natural to me than shuffling around through a pile of windows on one. I realise I'm in the minority here, but then I'm the kind of guy who still uses Dashboard!

[BlueBär]

What do you recommend?

I don't think there are good games anymore ;_;
I know there's a lot of hate between Dota and LOL (I play neither), but they're sort of similar and Dota runs on Linux iirc.

[Muirium]

Are you guys multitasking while playing games? The few Mac gamers I know are really Windows gamers who reboot.

[BlueBär]

I don't have a Mac, I'm just following this thread.

[Muirium]

Ah, in that case I recommend Civ II and Transport Tycoon. Along with Battlefield 1942 and II, my most played games ever!

[cookie]

@BlueBär I think there are a lot good games outside! Hate between Dota and LoL is actually very ignorant, I played both games and enjoyed them a lot but most of my friends play LoL so I stick to it

@Mu No unfortunately we are not, Once I had Linux as my primary OS but it turned out very unpractical that I have to reboot my system plenty of times a day to have the ability to play a game and then went back to work or something :/

I think Mac and Linux are missing a gigantic number of users only because the lack of games.
It is not their fault, the game developers should put more effort into other platforms, steam did a balsy move and I hope others will follow! If the big publisher will put more effort into Mac and Linux compatibility, Microsoft will slowly get dethroned!

At least Mac users have Photoshop and a ton of Music software!

[Hypersphere]

The previous calculator is also pretty bad though, IMO:

Spoiler:

Unrelatedly, it’s really stupid how crazy OS X goes with the shadows. They were just perfect in ~10.4/10.5.

Leopard (10.5) was the one that bumped the buggers up.

http://arstechnica.com/apple/2007/10/mac-os-x-10-5/3/

They look much more pronounced in isolated window mode screenshots like mine, as they're painted on a pure white background instead.

The previous calculator works better for me just because to my eye it is more legible.

As for the green pill -- in a way it is fun to see what unpredictable thing will happen when clicking on it. On a multi-monitor setup I found that for some applications clicking on the green dot collapses everything to a single screen and the clicked-on window expands to full screen. However, when I tried this with Text Wrangler, the dots disappeared and I had to do a force quit to get my screen back.

[Muirium]

Bizarre. I use that editor daily and never get glitches. Are you on an old version? When I ran the Yosemite DP some months ago, TextWrangler was yet to support 10.10, but the only problem I got was setting new fonts in its preferences.

[scottc]

[scottc]

Ah, in that case I recommend Civ II and Transport Tycoon. Along with Battlefield 1942 and II, my most played games ever!

Actually, Civ 5 has been released for Linux! It's one of my favourites, so I'm ecstatic that it's also been released for my preferred platform. Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) has also seen a recent Linux debut, and that's another of my favourites. Along with the excellent Team Fortress 2, Linux is really making headway in the gaming space. Exciting stuff!

[Muirium]

Civ 4 made me so angry the one time I played it that I spent almost as long ranting about it afterwards as I did in AI turn hell. Let's just say Civ 2 played much better when I launched 100 nukes simultaneously, with another 100 the turn after that. My empires are the scourge of the world!

[andrewjoy]

ok i installed it on my work macbook pro 10.10

i like it so far new safari is very fast and having a 2d dock back is amazing !

but the font is not the best i agree , the top bar is also too big imo can it be made smaller ?

[Muirium]

Turn to the dark side! That should take the edge off.

Screen Shot 2014-10-29 at 06.00.11 pm.png (271.17 KiB) Viewed 4091 times

I don't think it's any taller than before — in fact I've heard Apple did all sorts of things to keep proportions the same, so as not to mess up every app out there, including diddling with the font's internal spacing — just that Helvetica makes Lucida Grande look like a fat aunt.

Hopefully you're on a retina MacBook Pro… all bets are off otherwise!

[jacobolus]

Civ 4 made me so angry the one time I played it that I spent almost as long ranting about it afterwards as I did in AI turn hell. Let's just say Civ 2 played much better when I launched 100 nukes simultaneously, with another 100 the turn after that. My empires are the scourge of the world!

Civ 2 was the best. If you played on Deity level, things started getting really fun once enemy civilizations discovered the tech for cruise missiles: they’d start spontaneously spawning extra cruise missiles in many of their cities every turn, in addition to whatever else they were building. (Not that they wouldn’t cheat by spawning extra other units earlier in the game, but getting battered by dozens of cruise missiles every turn is extra fun.)

[andrewjoy]

Turn to the dark side! That should take the edge off.


Hopefully you're on a retina MacBook Pro… all bets are off otherwise!

i will try that ,


nah its an old 09 macbook pro , but i am in charge of the budget so it may not be for much longer ;P

then again i would rather spend the money on a mac mini and 2 nice displays

[Muirium]

Mac Mini? Those were getting good for a while, but the new models are turds. Don't expect to be able to hook up anything good to them.

Right now, Apple's basically got one supreme desktop model (the 5K Retina iMac) and a bunch of losers I wouldn't recommend to anyone. The Mac Pro included.