Membranophonist’s Ramblings

Finder

Largely to make it easier for those who don’t know about the Info window or how to control file sharing, a button in the banner at the top of shared nodes:

The button would open the Sharing pane in System Preferences with the particular folder selected.

Mail

The dialog asking for confirmation before permanently deleting messages marked for deletion or as spam is really irritating. As with the Restart/Shutdown/Log Out commands in the Apple menu and the Private Browsing command in Safari, holding Option should suppress the confirmation and execute the command immediately.

Going by the HIG for the use of ellipses in command labels, the Erase Deleted and Junk commands in the Mailbox menu should have them.

Based on Pages ’08 (3.0.2). Some of these apply to Numbers and/or Keynote as well.

Template Selection

1. The template category and template selector panes should allow type-ahead selection when either pane has keyboard focus. The category selector only jumps to categories based on the last input single character matching the first letter of a category label rather than performing string matching; if I type Le, Envelopes is selected rather than Letters. The template selection pane does not provide type-ahead selection at all.
2. Using Sim Daltonism, the yellow inner border used to indicate the selected template is hard to see for those with certain color perception impairments.
   
   This could be addressed by giving the selected template a distinct background shape.
   

Document Metadata

1. I’d like to see an Insert menu command to insert the document’s Title metadata, a variable that would automatically update when the Title is edited in the Inspector. Same with Author metadata.
2. If input before saving, the Title metadata string should be suggested in place of “untitled” as the filename when saving, with the complete text selected if the user wants to enter their own. Characters allowed in the metadata but not in filenames would be automatically replaced.

Miscellaneous

1. An Export All command in the File menu or some Automator actions to export documents in bulk would make it a lot easier to use Pages as the authoring application for documents to be viewed and edited by those using Word. The current process requires selecting the Export… command from the File menu, confirming the export format, confirming the file name, potentially accepting the replacement of an existing file, then potentially reviewing compatibility issues if special Pages dynamic information like date strings were used. For each document. All these options would have to be provided in an Automator export action, but the decisions would have to be made only once.
2. The chart data editor should display the series symbols next to their labels rather than a square color swatch.
   
3. Stealing a feature from MS Office (which is not generally recommended!), comment bubbles should display users’ IM presence status, providing a direct way to contact a person about their contribution to a document.

A bit of visual pleasantry for chat clients.

If you have Firefox 3 or Opera 9.5, check out the 4 frames in an animated PNG:

For browsers that do not yet support aPNG, here is the frame-by-frame:

1. Double-click on a contact in your buddy list
   
2. 1. The window zooms out from the location of the contact, starting with just the contact name and input field being displayed:
      
      If multiple contacts are selected, the names zoom out individually to a single window.
   2. The conversation display area expands between the titlebar and input area midway through the animation:
      
   3. The window appears at full size in final position:
      
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1. Click on a conversation participant’s buddy icon:
   
   
2. Drag and drop to your e-mail client:
   
   
3. A new message is created:
   
   
   
   Assuming there is an e-mail address associated with the IM handle in your address book, the message is pre-addressed.

A few ideas to improve the alignment guides in Apple’s Keynote presentation software, based on version 4.0.3.

1. Allow users to simultaneously create intersecting vertical and horizontal guides by dragging from the upper left corner between the rulers. This halves the number of drags needed to create a bounding box using guides.
   1. Click…
      
   2. …drag…
      
   3. …release at desired position.
      
2. Consistent with the above, allow users to reposition existing intersecting guides simultaneously by dragging from the intersection. The current behavior seems to default to just the vertical guide.
3. Allow users to copy and paste guides between slides using commands available in the Format menu and a contextual menu that appears when Control- or right-clicking on an individual ruler or in the upper left intersection of the two. The copying and pasting of guides would exist independent of the clipboard, similar to how styles are handled. Including a ruler unit selection sub-menu would make some sense.
   
   
4. Bind Control-Command-G to Show/Hide Guides; how to bind a shortcut to this menu command using System Preferences > Keyboard & Mouse > Keyboard Shortcuts is not obvious since it has to be bound twice — the command label changes from Show Guides to Hide Guides. Thanks to Rob Griffiths of Mac OS X Hints for the information on how to bind a single shortcut to a dual-state menu command.
5. Evaluate the colors of the slide canvas and objects to determine a highly visible and distinct color for guides. The default yellow is rather hard to see on a white canvas.

Based on iPhoto 7.1.3.

General

1. Clicking the bottom left Info pane while viewing a single photo switches back to the library/album view rather than allowing input.
2. When viewing a day with multiple events, dropping one event poster on another should combine the events.
3. Due to the distance of the search/filter field from the Library source list items, it would be nice if the magnifying glass was displayed at the right of the item being searched to make it more obvious that a search or filter was in effect. A small touch I find helpful in Contactizer.
   
   
4. When viewing individual images, it is not clear when videos are presented, possibly leading people to believe they are simply out-of-focus still images. Displaying the video camera icon within the photo pane would help.
5. When viewing an event, Command-Left and Right Arrow should navigate through events in the sorting order selected in the View menu > Sort Events.
6. Control- or right-clicking in the bottom toolbar area should present the same Show in Toolbar sub-menu found in the View menu.
7. The kerning of event titles is poor with some letter combinations. Notice the space between the T and o in “Toy”.
   
   

Keywords

1. The Keywords search is generally good, but you can’t type in Boolean queries once you learn the syntax. I’d like to be able to just type “Seattle or Tacoma” rather than having to click Seattle, depress the Shift key, then click Tacoma. The point-and-click cursor-based interface is nice, but should augment a keyboard-based one.
2. Keyword letter shortcuts should be displayed and function when filtering via keywords.
3. A flip-around animation of the Keywords window would be nice when switching between the assignment and editing modes.
4. Displaying a small x next to applied keywords on the palette would make it easier for those with color perception abnormalities (particularly monochromats) to differentiate applied and non-applied keywords.
   
   
5. The default button on the confirmation dialog that appears when removing applied keywords from the available set should be relabeled “Remove”. Though I understand why this dialog is displayed, it really isn’t necessary given Undo support. Suspenders and a belt!
   
   

Fullscreen Mode

1. When in fullscreen viewing mode, the bottom toolbar should appear when the cursor touches anywhere along the bottom of the screen rather than requiring the user to scrub over the actual toolbar area, making it consistent with the Dock’s hiding behavior.
2. Rating assignment keyboard shortcuts (Command-1 through 5) do not work in fullscreen mode when the Information HUD has keyboard focus.

When selecting multiple items to be sent via e-mail or IM or copied to another volume, it is helpful to know the total size of the items; many e-mail servers restrict attachment sizes and CDs and DVDs only hold so much.

The Finder provides this running total through the Inspector (Command-Option-I), which is both fairly hidden and changes based on the active view. The only method I know of for getting similar information in iTunes is to use the File menu’s “New Playlist from Selection” command (Command-Shift-N), then looking at the status bar. Status bars that display the sum of the selected items’ filesize (and length for linear media) can provide this information more conveniently.

Finder

1. Single file selected



2. Two files selected



3. Three files selected

iTunes

1. Single song selected



2. Two songs selected



3. Three songs selected

During my holiday visit to Seattle, I helped two people address disk space shortages on their Macs. While purchasing additional storage was not the solution I recommended in either case, it got me thinking about the issue.

There are many places to buy storage online, and a few of them allow you to filter the options based on the Mac the drive will be in or attached to. This is helpful, but it would be better to filter the list automatically based on the known system configuration without requiring user input.

1. The Warning Dialog
   
   I didn’t have a screenshot of the actual current dialog, so I had to work off an old screenshot I found. Regardless, the only important difference is the addition of the Additional Storage button.

   

2. 1. Compatible Storage List with Item Details
      
      The list is generated based on your hardware. For example, if you have added an eSATA controller, eSATA drives would also be shown.

      Showing the formatted capacity makes it easier to determine exactly how much additional storage you will get. The filesystem type in parentheses could be a pop-up menu to select different formats.

      Additional item details could include cache size, noise levels, power consumption and conservation features, seek times, etc.

      

   2. Compatible Storage List with Item Reviews
      
      The value of reviews really depends on the number provided, but even one can contain useful information not provided elsewhere.

      

3. Reviewing Your Storage Order
   
   
4. Placing Your Storage Order
   
   All credit card type logos would be fully opaque until the first digit is input. Once input, the matching logo remains opaque while the others become semi-transparent.

   Checking “Ship to a different address…” would vertically expand the window to accommodate another set of fields for shipping information. Billing and shipping fields would be auto-completed based on your address book.
   

The Mac Pro, FireWire, Internal, USB, and generic External icons are property of Apple. The Cuica hard drive icon is Metal OS from Carlos Reyes' Carlito Drives set.

An Alternate Approach

System information could be sent to a web-based store as part of a generated URL (similar to Google Charts) after clicking Additional Storage on the warning dialog.

Generally, you have some idea as to the expected social etiquette during an event when you are adding it to your calendar. Is it a meeting with a potential business partner? A date? Would it be irritating or embarrassing for your phone to burst into the latest Top 40 hit in the midst?

All phones have a way to switch them from audible to vibrate, but do you want to deal with that in the middle of a proposal?

The three options would be:

1. Phone default
2. Ring tone
3. Silent ringer

A ringer configuration interface should also be available in the iPhone’s calendar application. Event ringer settings would be synced.

Events that occur within a longer event (e.g., multi-day events) would override the enclosing event’s setting. If events overlap, the setting for the latter event overrides that of the earlier unless the earlier is set to silent ringer.

This would also be great for concerts, either because you don’t want to interrupt a violin solo or you won’t hear an audible ringer during the shred guitar solo (depending on the music). Also, finding what may be a physical switch is not necessarily easy in a darkened venue.

Users should be able to quickly change the audio output device without leaving their current context. This came to mind because I regularly change my output from speakers to headphones so I don’t disturb my roommates and upstairs neighbors. Before bed during the week, I change the output back to speakers so that I can hear my alarm the following morning.

For output switcher quasi-mode activation and cycling, either Control- or Command-Volume Down/Up would be easy to remember. Shift-Volume Down/Up is already bound to changing the volume without the feedback sound and Option-Volume Down/Up/Mute opens System Preferences to the Sound pane’s Output tab.

Consider my icons placeholders.

Headphones

Line Out

Digital Out