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Monday, November 24, 1997
Reality News Is Updated Every Monday And Thursday
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[Reality] [Reality Archives] [Send Rumors Here] [The Rhapsody Page] [MacNN] |
Themes For Mac OS And Rhapsody
We've been following the "theme trend" which has appeared throughout the developer mailing list and various news sites. People seem to be making this more complicated than it really is. Back in August, the Apple HI (Human Interface) group, headed by Don Lindsay, was committed to extending the Rhapsody Visual Experience with the implementation of themes (see also Gordon Garb, Mac OS User Experience). This would be accomplished by adopting the MacOS Appearance Manager, which at this time will support themes (multiple appearances).
In other words, the next major update to the MacOS, Allegro, is scheduled to include an update to the Appearance Manager which will enable it to support themes. They were, and still are, aiming this feature for the Unified Release of Rhapsody. However, there are time constraints that can impose on these plans. Either way, themes are initially being developed totally by Apple for a release in a future version of the MacOS (preferably Allegro, but this is still "iffy"). Once this occurs, Apple will move the technology over to Rhapsody and support themes thereon.
Should time constraints be an issue, Apple has already addressed its solution via this text clipping (below) from a document on themes in Rhapsody.In the event that the appearance abstraction provided by an Appearance Manager is not delivered in the Unified release, this will be escalated and remain a priority for follow-on releases.
The investigation and implementation of enhanced visual experience elements will also continue.Below is an excerpt from Apple documentation which our analysis is based on. Thanks to an anonymous industry source who keeps us updated with these references. The red highlight is meant to be an emphasis on important points.
Unified Release
This release delivers the final Rhapsody-specific appearance.
Implementation is TBD, but the desired solution is to adopt the Mac OS
Appearance Manager strategy. This will allow support for multiple
appearances (Themes) which will be shipping on Mac OS in the
Rhapsody Unified time frame. All goals listed below assume this
strategy.
? Apple platinum appearance (Premier release) implemented as a
Theme under the Rhapsody appearance manager.
? New Rhapsody specific appearance implemented as a Theme under
the Rhapsody appearance manager.
? Additional Themes derived from the available Mac OS suite. New
Themes if time and resources permit.
? Backdrop (patterns & pictures) support with a suite of backdrops.
This is in addition to any active backdrop strategy delivered as part of
the Finder UE.
? Support for real-time generation of document proxies.
? Consistent cross-platform visual experience strategy should be
implemented.
? Implementation of enhanced visual experience elements as
identified in the earlier investigation.The MacOS and Rhapsody theme managers will assumably have a similar look and feel to the early development versions of the theme manager originally scheduled for Copland. If Apple decides to incorporate the theme settings into the Appearance control panel it will most likely be represented by a 3rd option button similar to the Sound and Color selectors. Below is our updated markup of the Appearance cdev containing themes as it was portrayed for Copland.
click this thumb nail to view the full size image
It's important to notice the difference between a Kaleidoscope scheme and a MacOS theme. A scheme is a system wide appearance while a theme is a system wide atmosphere that can be very dynamic or even animated. The Copland Hi-Tech theme is a great example to demonstrate theme atmosphere. The children's theme takes pleasurable experience to the next level. As one can see from the image, the window structure is very unique. This is something that would be very hard, if not impossible to accomplish via kaleidoscope schemes when you consider the animation that goes along with this theme. The Copland Hi-Tech theme could be made into a scheme as the Be scheme was.
Contacts at Apple failed to comment on the theme situation, claiming they are restricted to discuss the topic outside of the office. The result of Steve's new security measures are without a doubt effective. However, there are hints which can be extracted from conversing with developers that strongly suggest this and other features to be in the works.
In any event, we will see themes sooner or later. Apple's focus for the Mac OS and Rhapsody is to incorporate core technologies it has been lacking previously and get the product running flawlessly so it can be shipped to businesses all over the world. Visual effects and features come second to core technologies; they are the icing on the cake so to speak. You have to bake the cake and let it cool before you spread the icing on top, otherwise you'll have a big sloppy mess...like Copland.
More to come in the up and coming weeks ...stick with us.
MacOS 8.1 Beta 4 "Salute" Report
Our anonymous industry sources tell us that MacOS 8.1 Beta 4 was posted on the developer seeding site on Friday, November 21 at roughly 10 pm and sends us the following information. Beta 4 is entitled "Salute". This new release makes some important updates to the HFS Plus file format, now referred to as HFS Extended. a portion of the note that accompanies this release reads...
DRIVES FORMATTED AS HFS EXTENDED WITH PREVIOUS VERSIONS OF BRIDE OF BUSTER WILL NOT BE READABLE AFTER THE SYSTEM IS UPGRADED TO BRIDE OF BUSTER B4. *** IF YOU WANT TO USE THE INFORMATION ON THE DRIVE, YOU MUST BACK IT UP BEFORE YOU UPDATE.***
This obviously suggest a strong amount of work is still being done on the volume format late into the beta test. Conflict Catcher is also not compatible with this release, for Apple has made a change to the extension or INIT load process in order to fix load order problems on non-Roman localized systems. The documentation suggest that Conflict Catcher and any other extension manager utility will not be compatible with MacOS 8.1 until an upgrade is provided through the appropriate 3rd party.
The first advancements towards a Golden Master have been implemented in this release. Apple has inserted the Read Me file place holders on the downloadable images and finally changed the installer to read 8.1 instead of 8.0. However, the installer Read Me still contains the Mac OS 8.0 documentation.
Open Transport is sliding on through its beta versions, skipping the beta 9 release and advancing to Beta 10 which is installed by default with Beta 4 of Bride.
Disk Copy 1.2a1 is now mandatory to mount the MacOS 8.1 b4 image. Disk Copy 1.2 will support image files in a new format that will allow Apple to break a large image file into segments.
Developer CommentsI just wanted to let you know my 8600 has been running for 7 days straight without having to restart/shutdown and the system has never crashes. The machine is physically in use for a 14 hour day. It's a VERY stable release. This is beta 3. The only reason I will need to actually restart will be to install beta 4 when it's available. Virtual memory has also greatly improved.
I've had Bride Of Buster installed on my 7300 since its early alpha release and I continue to install the updates. The system is noticeably faster (From OS 8). Startup speed has improved so much I can actually notice the improvement. Stability will no longer be an issue. I'm a graphic artist and use a wide range of applications including Photoshop, Infini-D, FormZ, Painter and Illustrator. They all have run flawlessly since beta 2. Maybe it's just me but applications seem to load faster as well.....Bride Of Buster is definitely spoiling many hungry Mac Heads. The reactions to system stability are remarkable. It kind of makes you think..."do we need protective memory?" (maybe, but for now the stability is close to perfect). From gathered reactions, we have come to the conclusion that Apple has somehow fixed bugs that originally were suggested to be third party bugs. This is turning out to be a very powerful hard-hitting release. Doug Clarke and the Bride team should be commended on the wonderful job they have done so far.
The servers are going to be mobbed for this one......
An anonymous industry source has forwarded us some images and impressions on Bryce3D which is currently in development.
I just downloaded a copy of the new Bryce 3D. They have changed the visual appearance of the editor features and added some features since previous releases. After all, it's still in the development process. Anyway, this application is simply beautiful! The visual experience one finds while in this application is like no other. Bryce 3D has it's own interface. The user can switch between a presentation mode and a full screen mode. The tool bar on the right side of the screen will fade in or out when the cursor is moved on top of that space.
The materials lab is redone. When you select an option a bar emerges from the palette. Like I said, everything is beautifully presented. I've included a simple render inside the folder. Learning the app will take a few minutes of your time. Meta Creations keeps the learning experience to a minimum. This is a Must Have application!It looks like Meta Creations has done it again. Their products are "insanely beautiful" and easy to use. Below we have posted an index of screen shots taken from the Bryce 3D application.
For more information on Bryce 3D or any other Meta Creations product please check out the Meta Creations website.
Bryce 3D Preview Images
click on the links to view the corresponding images
This week we have a G3 PowerMac impression from a friend who recently purchased a fully loaded 266mhz G3 Tower! Below is what he had to say about this fantatsic new machine.
I just got a new Power Macintosh G3, and it kicks ass. I got the minitower version, 266mhz, 128 megs of RAM (you can never have to much ram), 6 gig hard disk, Zip drive, 24x CD-ROM, AV card, and a 17" monitor with 6 megs of VRAM. That set me back a whole lot, call Apple if you want to find out exactly, but it was worth it.
My ordering experience was uneventful. I didn't use the web site because I was planning on ordering 2 machines, 1 for me and 1 for my mom, and I was gonna have them delivered to different addresses, so I thought that wouldn't be possible to do through the website yet. I ordered the day after the store openned, and I was told it would take 2 weeks for delivery. Then about a week after I ordered it, I got a letter from Apple saying it was back ordered. So I was really pissed. I called Apple and they said it was standard procedure to send a letter saying that it might be delayed, and that my computer was still to be delivered on time which now was about a week away. So I went on with my life, and two days later the computer arrived.
Well, I skipped the next 2 days of school to play with it. I transfered all my stuff from my Powerbook over, via Localtalk. It's an awesome computer.
The speed of the computer is amazing. It takes seconds for any app to open, even Navigator 4. Start up is equally quick (not seconds, this is still Mac OS). One thing I've noticed about the speed that is very nice, is that if you have a faster computer then networking is faster. On my Powerbook with a modem, using the web was almost unbearable, but now, with the same modem and the same ISP, I get much higher transfer rates, even while I'm running a lot of other apps. If you're part of Project Bovine, cracking RC5-64, you'll immediatly notice a nice speed boost. I went from 260kkeys/sec, on a 100mhz 603e, to 750kkeys/sec on the G3, and it'll probably get faster, considering the client isn't optimized for the 750 processor yet.
Graphics is pretty quick too. I tried Marathon 2 with all the settings at their highest, millions of colors, highest resolution, the works. And it still runs super fast, and very smooth too. I've had two problems so far, in terms of graphics, but none of them were related to the computer itself. The first is that changing the geometry of your monitor is a real pain. Someone needs to come up with a better way of doing it. The second is that if you change the resolution of the monitor, the setting is stored in the computer and not in the monitor, so when you start up, the monitor starts at 640x480 and then once the AudioVision extension loads, then it changes the resolution. Its a little silly, but I don't like my monitor changing resolution all the time.
Sound is a bit of a problem on this machine. I can never seem to get it loud enough. It seems like the speaker only works if you turn the sound up all the way, if its a little bit below the highest setting, you can barely hear the sound. I even used my earphones, and I still couldn't get it loud enough. But I'm a little deaf, so that may be part of the problem.
Since I got the AV card, I immediately tried out the video-in support. I hooked up a playstation directly to the computer. The computer only supports video-in at 640x480, so if you have your monitor set at a high resolution you won't get full screen. But that's easy to fix, just set the
resolution to 640x480 and you have full screen TV. I haven't tried recording, or outputting video yet, but I'll give it a go later.
People seem to have a problem with the fact that these computers use IDE instead of SCSI. Unless you're doing a lot of work with video, you don't really need a SCSI drive. It's fast enough. The CD-ROM drive sucks. I read somewhere that IDE CD-ROM drives use the CPU to control them, and it seems like it does, because when you use the CD you have to wait a bit it to load, which is annoying, but just don't leave a CD in the drive all the time.
I got a 6 gig drive with my computer and that is a little annoying because HFS sucks. The minimim file size is 97k, so if I have any file that is less than 97k it will still take up 97k of disk space.
Here are some benchmarks from MacBench 4.0:
855 for the processor test
844 for the floating point testDo you have a new G3 or are you testing any new or unreleased hardware? Send us your impressions.
Each week we compile Rhapsody coverage from some trusted sources who would prefer to remain anonymous. This week, as last week, we must go image-less due to Apple's demands. For those of you who are new viewers to Reality, we'll be covering Rhapsody right up until its release and thereon after. Each week we show you a little more of what's planned for Rhapsody through Apple Markups, First, and Second Hand information. Click on the links below to view the corresponding sub pages.
Rhapsody Feature Descriptions Rhapsody's Window Controls Rhapsody's Window Scrolling Rhapsody's Window Management
Check Out Our Blue Box Report Here
Allegro And Sonata Teams Underway At Apple
With Bride Of Buster almost out the door, the Allegro team has begun to pick up the pace. Apple has different teams of engineers for different system releases.
The Allegro (MacOS 9.0) team today is rumored to consist of14-17 Core System Software engineers
4-5 MacOS Finder engineers
4-5 Hardware group engineers
A number of other various positioned engineersAllegro will apparently be fully optimized for the next generation of PowerPC chips, the G4's. Apple apparently needs people to port the system. This explains the need for the Hardware team.
As reported earlier, Apple's goals for Protective Memory and Multitasking seem to still be within boundaries. However, as far as V-Twin, Themes, and other Finder enhancements go, it is too early to tell if they will make it into the Allegro release.
There lies a good 3 to 4 months before anyone even sees a developer release of Allegro (early late February). Presently, a lot is thrown up in the air right now.
As one Allegro engineer tells us...Though we are in progress, it is still very early to tell exactly what features will and will not make it into allegro. Presently nothing is final. This release is still unannounced. Much relies on time. If we finally release technologies such as the V-Twin advanced search engines we want them to work flawlessly.
The Sonata team (MacOS 10? highly speculated)Since the Allegro team will eventually become the Sonata team only a lead technician and a couple of engineers are presently working on Sonata. It is year too early to speculate further on this release.
If you have any clarifications on this report, please let us know.
For more on Allegro, check out our Allegro Report
Thanks to an anonymous source who sends us the following information on MacOS 8.1 beta 3, which was released a little over a week ago.
"MacOS 8.1 b3 seems to contain some bugs that were previously non-existant. To start off, there is some noticeable system (or Finder) lagg.... Simple Text seems to hang for an extended period of time when launched. Selecting "Preferences" from the Finder's edit menu invokes a huge delay from selecting the menu option to when the preference dialog actually appears on the screen.
I too have installed Stuffit 4.5 and found it to be not-so-sweet. This may be causing the frequent Finder crashes. Until I installed 4.5 on my 8.1 system I had never experienced a crash. True Finder Intergration is buggy and often causes Finder restarts. Speed Doubler 8 on the other hand does not work at all. (I'm running a 7300).
So despite beta 3's label "Smile" this release inflicts a slight "Frown". I expect these bugs to be fixed in the next version. It won't be long till we see a final candidate...2 to 3 more releases. The new OT and TCP work great BTW."We've had similar reports. Though some suggest that Speed Doubler 8 will run with 8.1 on certain macs. Can anyone else vouch for this? The overall impression of 8.1 has been very positive. And "no" this release will not include "Menu Tasking", which allows system processes to go on while a menu is held active. This was obviously another silly rumor from MacOSRumors.
Update
Note : The above report is due to a large amount of system fonts. However, this does not affect the StuffIt situation.
Update
Readers confirm the presence of bugs in the third beta of Bride Of Buster. And a note about Speed Doubler 8 compatibility.I am writing to tell you that Speed Doubler 8.0.1 works with 8.1b3 on my 7500 running a 233 Mhz 604e. I should point out however, that the quick/power key features don't work and neither does Speed Copy. However, the most important portion (speed emulator) works. Speed Copy used to work with b2 of Mac OS 8.1 (except when the Finder restarted).
It is a buggy release.The Speed Doubler 8 problems seem to be bothering a majority of testers. I'm sure Connectix will issue a second updater at the time of MacOS 8.1's release.
I would like to make a public apology to Charles Wiltgen and the rest of the QuickTime development team. Guys, we screwed up. We acted first...and thought later. Sometimes we forget about reality (Microsoft)...and its ever growing presence. We're deeply sorry for any delay or misfortune we've brought to your progress. We're here to help but we aren't perfect.
We let material slip through our hands without reviewing it, this will never happen again. In fact a lot is going to change here in the next few weeks. I have a conscience...which I have begun to and will continue to abide by.
Our most sincere apologies to you all,
-Jeff & the Reality Team.
Your input is welcomed here at Reality. We encourage you to interact with us. If you are testing Rhapsody, MacOS, or any Macintosh product and would like to share your experiences with Reality's viewers please E-Mail me . Let us know what's new, what you hate, and what you love about these products. The more people that help this site, the greater it will grow.
Anonymous info, material, and so on is also welcomed via e-mail .
We do read each and every e-mail: we try to respond to as many as possible, but sometimes it isn't possible.
Power Mac G3 Extreme
-Power Mac G3 Extreme (code named Power Express) G3/300 will include 64 MB of RAM, a 4-GB Wide Ultra SCSI-3 hard drive and a 66-MHz system bus. Estimate cost about $6,400.
-A 275-MHz version will cost about $5,400.Apple, Oh How Sweet
-Apple will donate $10 to charities from each consumer Mac OS 8 sale between now and January 15.
8X CD-R
-An 8X CD Recorder was introduced at COMDEX this week.
Windows 98 For MacOS?
-Yes, it's a rumor. Apple Recon has the complete story.
It's Only A Matter Of Time...
-Before Microsoft gets their asses sued....
