Ok, an anti mac rant. sorry, but this pissed me off (doom3)

[fateamenabletochange]

I'm a lumberjack and I'm ok,I drink tropical fish,and eat books on "correct" spelling,and right now I'm looking for one of those hammers with a tight rubber sheathed handle,so that when the blood really starts to pour I won't spoil things with a slippery grip.But hey ,I'm a lumberjack and I'm ok,a mile wide and an inch deep,yay.

[jones-y]

Ah well, and I hate it even more that float windows under Logic never become "active". Under Windows, keycommands still work for float windows, under OSX, if you select, say, a note in Matrix edit and then press backspace, the "source" sequence will be deleted. That's indeed rather lame...

I've never opened the Matrix as a float I'll have to try that.

Damn, I just tried it... You're right. That's stupid behavior. But like I said, I never use a floating Matrix, I prefer to use a dedicated screenset for heavy MIDI editing.

Oh... before I forget, I've got two questions, maybe some of you Mac/Logic folks could help me here:

1) As I'm really using Macs for Logic only, and as I'm really used to having a lot of keycommands on my F keys, is there a way to un-assign them from OSX functions (such as minimizing all windows)? That's something I truly hate - I'd be happy if there was a way to use them in Logic (funny sidenote: by default there's even some keycommands assigned to the F keys in Logic - just that they don't work under OSX, maybe a left over from OS9).

Apple Menu -> System Preferences -> Keyboard & Mouse -> Key Commands.

AFAIK, the only function keys used by the OS are F9, F10, and F11 (I just pressed them all and none of them did anything ,so... To reassign the Expose key commands, just select Expose from the System preferences.

2) When I open Kontakt under Logic, I sometimes want to drag files onto it straight from the finder (we all know how bad the Kontakt browser is...). Under Windows, I just grab the file in explorer, drag it into my Logic window and then onto Kontakt.
Under OSX, whenever I grab the file in finder, Kontakt simply disappears. I can drag it into Logic fine, but the Kontakt GUI won't show up.
Is there any way to drag it onto Kontakt straight?

Thanks in advance.

This behavior changed in Logic 7. I just tested, and yes, plugin windows stay open when you switch to another app. So you should be able to perform a drag and drop with Kontakt. I don't have any drag-drop capable plugins to test though.

[egbert]

I remember during the Mac/PC wars raiding a Mac village. We set fire to it - you could see it burn for miles. The men were strung up and I won't go into what we did with the women and children.

But ... I mean ... you had to destroy the village to save it didn't you?

Yeah, did you at least have the decency to stay and oversee a "Democratic" election for them after the raping and pillaging?

What - sort of like - you go into the booth and there's a button labelled "Dell" and another one labelled "HP" - that sort of election? (and anyone called Steve can't vote because they have the same name as an enemy of the state.)

[John Vulich]

Ultimately using a keyboard, with shortcut commands, is the fastest way to interface with a computer anyway. The Mac is the antitesis of this methedology.

Oh come on John, you gotta be kidding me. The Mac OS is full of key commands.

I guess I just haven't been exposed to many keyboard centric equivalents to programs like (the file manager) Total Commander... for example. This leads me to think that keyboard usage isn't as much a concern in the Mac world. Perhaps I'm wrong. Either way I didn't understand you slur about the PC mouse. Which BTW you neglected to clarify.

Check out this well written essay The Anti-Mac Interface...

We should state at the outset that we are devoted fans of the Macintosh human interface and frequent users of Macintosh computers. Our purpose is not to argue that the Macintosh human interface guidelines are bad principles, but rather to explore alternative approaches to computer interfaces. The Anti-Mac interface is not intended to be hostile to the Macintosh, only different. In fact, human interface designers at Apple and elsewhere have already incorporated some of the Anti-Mac features into the Macintosh desktop and applications. The Macintosh was designed to be "the computer for the rest of us" and succeeded well enough that it became, as Alan Kay once said, "the first personal computer good enough to be criticized." This article should be taken in the same spirit. The Macintosh was designed under a number of constraints, including:

• It needed to sell to "naive users," that is, users without any previous computer experience.
• It was targeted at a narrow range of applications (mostly office work, though entertainment and multimedia applications have been added later in ways that sometimes break slightly with the standard interface).
• It controlled relatively weak computational resources (originally a non-networked computer with 128KB RAM, a 400KB storage device, and a dot-matrix printer).
• It was supported by highly impoverished communication channels between the user and the computer (initially a small black-and-white screen with poor audio output, no audio input, and no other sensors than the keyboard and a one-button mouse).
• It was a standalone machine that at most was connected to a printer.

These constraints have all been relaxed somewhat during the 12 years since the introduction of the Macintosh, but we will explore what might happen if they were to be eliminated completely.

Okay, maybe ten years ago when this was written...

I realize this might be an older essay but it was meant to illustrate a design mindset, with Apple, that I believe is still prevelant in many of the design choices that they make.

More stable? I'd say so. Although if you know your way around, a PC can be just as stable (but that's the problem in itself, its easier to know your way around a Mac, because the Mac OS doesn't hide anything)

Sorry but this is utter and complete bullshit. This may have been true during the OS9/Win 98 days but not now. In fact I think that Win XP is probably more stable than OSX. If there is any difference in stabilty I believe at this point it is negligible either way.

Well I could point out Windows' virus/trojan/spyware/browser hijack vulnerabilities, but that's beside the point.

My point is: If a Mac OS machine goes haywire, and a Windows machine goes haywire, which one is easier to fix? Which is easier to maintain. From my experience, it'd be the Mac. And I'm not inexperienced.

I know several professionals in the soundtrack field that have dumped Macs because of thier instability. And I've first hand seen the troubles that close friends have had with OSX. My XP system has crashed once in the last year... due to a flacky audio driver. Programs will crash rarely but not the OS. And I f**k around a LOT with the guts and registry of my OS so I am asking for problems most of the time... but it's still stable.

YMMV.

Look... if you like using a Mac that's fine. Just don't try and justify it by making absurd statements.

1. I feel no need to justify anything.

2. Your opinion is that my statements are absurd. Does that mean my statements are absurd?

3. You obviously haven't been carefully reading my posts, because you obviously missed a whole lot in coming to those two conclusions.

Well I find these statements in particular "absurd"...

Easier? I'd say so, even today. Just chuck that lame ass mouse first

More stable? I'd say so. Although if you know your way around, a PC can be just as stable (but that's the problem in itself, its easier to know your way around a Mac, because the Mac OS doesn't hide anything)

[Sascha Franck]

Damn, I just tried it... You're right. That's stupid behavior. But like I said, I never use a floating Matrix, I prefer to use a dedicated screenset for heavy MIDI editing.

Same here. But for "light" editing on a one screen setup (such as deleting wrong notes after recording something) I often only have a small Matrix floating on top of the arrange.
From what I know, that's an OS limitation - but I thought it could've been changed in OSX.
I find active floats to be really useful under Windows. Funny thing is, it's no default behaviour there either. Steinberg for exampled doesn't manage to "activate" float windows in Cubase - so keycommands just don't work as long as you don't switch off "float". The clever programmers at Emagic must've "hacked" that back then.

Apple Menu -> System Preferences -> Keyboard & Mouse -> Key Commands.
[...]
To reassign the Expose key commands, just select Expose from the System preferences.

Thanks!

This behavior changed in Logic 7. I just tested, and yes, plugin windows stay open when you switch to another app. So you should be able to perform a drag and drop with Kontakt. I don't have any drag-drop capable plugins to test though.

Well, I worked with L 7 yesterday for a while (on a third Mac we have) - the two I am maintaining won't see the update until there is a decent version. While the new plugins are really nice, it felt way less snappy than Logic 6.

I think that dragging should somehow be possible with Logic 6 though... I mean, it's a key functionality to work quickly with plugins such as Kontakt.

Thanks again.

[jones-y]

I guess I just haven't been exposed to many keyboard centric equivalents to programs like (the file manager) Total Commander... for example. This leads me to think that keyboard usage isn't as much a concern in the Mac world. Perhaps I'm wrong.

You are. the Mac OS is probably on par with Windows WRT key commands. But for the record, there is nothing on the Mac side to compare with the windows key (or whatever its called; the one that opens the start menu)

As for Mac apps, the ones that are worth anythingthing are stuffed full of key commands. Even the iApps are big onkey commands.

Either way I didn't understand you slur about the PC mouse. Which BTW you neglected to clarify.

My slur was against the Mac OEM mouse. That wasn't clear?

Okay, maybe ten years ago when this was written...

I realize this might be an older essay but it was meant to illustrate a design mindset, with Apple, that I believe is still prevelant in many of the design choices that they make.

But how can you believe that, and you just admitted a fundamental lack of knowledge about the Mac OS (the key command thing)? How do you know the design mindset, when you clearly aren't that familiar with the Mac OS? Do you have any idea how fundamentally different Mac OS X is from OS 9 and the legacy OSes?

I know several professionals .... YMMV.

Fair enough. And pretty much exactly what I said earlier...

Well I find these statements in particular "absurd"...

Easier? I'd say so, even today. Just chuck that lame ass mouse first

More stable? I'd say so. Although if you know your way around, a PC can be just as stable (but that's the problem in itself, its easier to know your way around a Mac, because the Mac OS doesn't hide anything)

The mac mouse is lame. Absurd?

Macs are easier to know, because they don't hide anything. Absurd?

My opinion that Macs are more stable. Absurd? I'm experienced with troubleshooting both platforms, mind you.

John, you're grasping at straws.

[jones-y]

Thanks again.

Glad to help!

[Jules2000]

@ CskaTorpedo

That was really fun to read. It was nice to learn some more about the English language.

But I'm sorry to say that you are completely wrong. I hope you didn't wasted to much time investigating. That was probably wrong spelled, but who cares? Oh, I forgot you do.

[birrbits]

I hope you didn't wasted to much time investigating.

I hope (ok so far)
you didn't (still good)
WASTE (present tense)
TOO (not two or to)
much time investigating(spelling fine)

or you could use
I hope you haven't wasted

[Jules2000]

Thanks!

I'll guess that CskaTorpedo is convinced now.