Membranophonist's Ramblings

Interaction and interface design, technology, politics, music, and random thoughts…

June 30, 2009
by Daniel J. Wilson
2 Comments

Data Detectors in Browsers

I didn’t see anything on the Snow Leopard Enhancements and Refinements page about Detectors being added anywhere but TextEdit.…

November 20, 2008
by Daniel J. Wilson
0 comments

Scroll for Whole

In the Now Playing table view, I’d like the total length of the album displayed in a hidden row that only appears when scrolling beyond the track rows:

After releasing the screen, the total row is hidden again.…

November 9, 2008
by Daniel J. Wilson
3 Comments

Tap to Map

Unlike addresses displayed in contacts’ details, locations added to calendar events cannot be tapped to display a map of the location.

The current event details screen:

Slightly tweaked to indicate the location is actionable:

Location field input is not structured, …

October 29, 2008
by Daniel J. Wilson
1 Comment

Being a musician and big proponent of metadata, I frequently add musician credits in the Comments field of music tracks. Like lyrics, comments could be displayed atop the album cover image in the Now Playing view.

…

September 16, 2007
by Daniel J. Wilson
1 Comment

Eventful

When importing, iPhoto should use the date and time the photos were taken and your calendar to suggest event names. For days with an all day event (such as a holiday) and time-specific events, the default suggestion should be the …

September 2, 2007
by Daniel J. Wilson
0 comments

Who Took That Photo?

Some people (such as myself) would like to know more about the pictures used as desktop backgrounds. Photographers would probably appreciate it if the interface exposed a path to their self and/or portfolio.

Fortunately, images can carry useful information such …

April 1, 2007
by Daniel J. Wilson
1 Comment

New Tricks for yFlicks

A few comments for Many Tricks’ yFlicks, a video player and organizer for Mac OS X.

A first-launch-only prompt to import the user’s movies (searching based on UTIs or whatever magic is required) and perhaps user-selectable locations would help

…

March 18, 2007
by Daniel J. Wilson
1 Comment

Living in Projects

Folders can be a crappy way to organize files. Fortunately, there is metadata such as Spotlight’s Project label, which is accessible through Desk Lamp.

Find the files related to your project in Desk Lamp.
Add a Project label.
Type

…

March 11, 2007
by Daniel J. Wilson
2 Comments

Kind Thoughts

Due to differences in Kind labeling, the same (PDF) or similar (PowerPoint and Keynote) filetypes are not grouped together when sorting by Kind alphabetically.

I’d like the Kind column in the Finder to provide secondary sort options, similar to the …

December 17, 2006
by Daniel J. Wilson
0 comments

Feedback Loop

Star ratings can be assigned to any filesystem object (kMDItemStarRating) as of Mac OS X 10.4. There is currently no way to do this in the Finder, but it is possible using third-party tools such as Desk Lamp.

What …