macBlogger - Apple Mac Blog

Hey there MacHeads!

Before I launch into my post on the Leopard preview I guess I should say who I am and what I’m doing here. My name is Katie and I am officially Mac obsessed. I’ve been a Mac user for as long as I can remember and Cormac recently asked me to contribute here with a post or two. The whole blogging thing is relatively new to me so be patient please!

I thought that as a first post I would tell you all a little bit about the developer Leopard preview which I have been working on lately. Leopard, which is due for release in October, at a cost of approximately €150 has had a lot of coverage on various Mac sites so I thought it would be nice to cover some of the new features here. Unfortunately, due to the NDA (non-disclosure agreement) I can only give you my own thoughts on the features you have heard about and cannot really get into the finer details.

Probably the most talked about changes are the look and feel updates given to the Dock, Finder and a number of other native applications. Finder now uses Cover Flow which makes your Finder window look and feel like you are browsing your iTunes music library. In the same way you can browse your iTunes collection while viewing your artwork, Cover Flow displays a large preview of each file in your directory, while Quick Look will even playing previews of QuickTime movies. The 3D look and feel applied to the dock is carried over to the Finder preview window as well. From a user’s perspective browsing through files could not be any easier now. Finding that photo or movie is simply an arrow click (or two) away!

Another change to document browsing in Leopard is Stacks. You can create Stacks from anything you want to access quickly from one place: a handful of documents, a group of applications, or an entire folder, simply by dropping the folder onto the Dock. When you want to see the files in a Stack, all you have to do is click — Stacks spring open from the Dock in an elegant arc for a few items, or in an at-a-glance grid for more. I find this feature very convenient for folders I access on a regular basis, allowing for fast and efficient access to files in the directory.

One of the most useful features of Leopard for me so far would be Spaces. With Spaces you can create a virtual work area for each application/window and organise each Space the way you want it just by dragging in windows. The Spaces interface is very convenient and user friendly allowing rearranging of Spaces simply by drag-and-drop, toggling between Spaces using the arrow keys and activating an application with a simple Dock click will automagically bring you to the relevant Space for that application. You can create as many Spaces as you need and configure your Spaces by using the Exposé & Spaces pane in System Preferences. Arrange your Spaces according to your needs, then choose the function keys you want to control them. You can also assign applications to specific Spaces, so you will always know which Space your favourite application lives in! Linux users can breathe a sigh of relief at this progression!

My workflow in Leopard is much more efficient and certainly requires less Mighty Mouse clicks. Overall I find the environmental changes to the OS to be very welcome and beneficial from a user’s perspective. New functionality such as Time Machine makes backing up your system an incredibly quick and easy job. It keeps an up-to-date copy of everything on your Mac syncing it with an external drive, and even offering a wireless sync option for Airport Extreme Base station users.

The look and feel of many native applications have also changed in Leopard. Welcome updates to iChat, Mail, Preview, iCal and Safari all add to your daily Mac experience. Bootcamp will be automatically included as part of Leopard, making it even easier to configure a Windows partition on your Mac. With the announcements made at yesterday’s keynote about iWork and iLife ‘08 users can expect even more of their favourite applications to step up with new features ensuring the ultimate work and play environment. Roll on October for a faster, sleeker and more keyboard friendly operating system!!