System Preferences Reimagined on macOS
basicappleguy.com
basicappleguy.com
If you remember how everyone moaned about iTunes and begged Apple to rewrite it, then got Music in macOS Catalina, you can kind of see how the new System Settings app is.
I’m not saying that necessarily makes -any more- sense. Given that the VPN settings are much more widely used and used to be available only through the top line settings, and is still also available at the top of the first list of settings.
I use KDE now as main driver which has a ton of options compared to macOS and they use the same format. What I do find myself using a lot more is the search. Part of the reason I didn't have to do this with the old macOS preferences was just my muscle memory (only slightly thwarted by Apple's changing of the icons). And the other part was that there's simply less to find there.
But essentially I think the scrolling left and right panes are not a bad idea. The old format consisted of a non-scrolling and non-resizable(!) window that would be replaced, and this caused some issues on really low-res screens in the past, at 800x600 pixels (or even 800x480 like the eeePC) it was impossible to reach all the settings on the old preferences.
At least this is now fixed to a format where more controls don't need to be crammed into the same space, it can simply expand. And the number of "menu" options is now also dynamic and no longer constrained by screen space.
But it's going to mess up decades of muscle memory which is not fun :)
Those of us who remember the old tree-based layout from before Kirigami took over were about as happy about the change as macOS users are about the new Preferences layout in Ventura. It used to look like this a long time ago: https://fedoranews.org/krishnan/review/kde3.2/fullsize/contr... -- it was a lot more space-efficient and going into one sub-section didn't automatically hide all other sections, so it was a lot easier to look for things.
I don't recall if the window in Plasma-era releases was resizable but it certainly replaced one that was both scrolling and resizable. Early 5.x releases still supported the tree-based layout IIRC but it hadn't been the default since the 4.x days, which used that awkward icon-based layout, eek!
Until touch/mouse inputs have a widespread support for horizontal scrolling by default, like they do for vertical scrolling (scroll wheels or two-finger drags), I think they are going to remain a bad idea: you have to move your pointer from the thing you are looking at to the scrollbar and then back.
One could say it's a chicken and an egg problem, but displays are already much wider than they are taller, and if you do need them even wider, you are failing miserably IMO.
I totally agree about horizontal scrolling by the way, it's horrible. I used to use Siebel 6 which used that heavily. And Microsoft's Azure portal does it too Though in Azure it's more like a 'breadcrumb' thing to go back, you don't normally need it. In Siebel you actually needed it to get to some important fields.
I really like the version that shipped: I love the much more reachable address bar and use the quick tab switching by swiping (and also the quick tab creation) all the time.
I also like it much more visually – but even if you don’t, it‘s clear that the design is different for functional reasons, not visual appeal. There is a clear purpose behind the changes (moving the address bar to the bottom is the obvious change, making the address bar look draggable and providing the hint of the other tabs to the left or right is also quite important and very much function first.
I didn’t care for the first iteration. I do like the final design. The only thing that‘s weird is that they kept the old variant around as an option. Maybe because the discussion turned toxic and people became unable to evaluate the design based on its merits?
I want something that make life easier, not harder!!
: ((
Seems to me like your reaction is rather out of proportion.
I hated everything about the UX on Big Sur and they seem to have doubled down on their poor decisions. This news destroys the final bit of hope I had that they’d correct the MacOS path the way they did with MacBook hardware.
This seems like a bug they might actually fix? As opposed to the "bug" of showing you those at all, which is pretty annoying but unlikely to get looked at.
MacOS is a clear second class citizen at Apple. Each of the least three releases has been worse than the one before. I hoped it was the last gasp of Ive but it’s apparently intentional. Or maybe nobody is in charge, which would make more sense.
At this point Linux looks like a better option.
MacOS has become less and less pleasant to use in that last 3 to 5 years for me as a developer, because of this. Which is such a shame, because the new Macbook Pro's are really amazing machines, hardware-wise. Great keyboard, Magsafe, no Touchbar, amazing screen and great battery life.
I will be requesting a Linux (or Windows.. whatever) laptop at work if this one dies.
With it, I could at least scan. Image Capture/Preview just produce invalid files. (Samsung M2070w). Now to scan I have to use Linux or Windows machine.
You can also try VueScan, which is a spartan UI, but works great.
It is pretty much device specific; an HP MFP at home works fine. The Samsung app was an workaround, but it was pretty obvious that nobody is going to fix Image Capture.
The list of Steam games that even supported macOS at all was already quite short, but now Portal, Portal 2, Team Fortress, the entire Half-Life series, and quite a few others will no longer run.
The switch to Apple silicon machines also makes running them in a VM tricky. Even though Windows supports running x86 code on Arm hardware, the mix of architectures inside the VM creates new problems, particularly for Steam.
The Khronos APIs are the ones I have more experience with, and it pains me that all these years it stays as kind of initialiation ritual to go through all the things they miss versus proprietary APIs.
Everyone has to write their own mini-engine with their APIs.
What do you mean?
Right click in the message pane and select "Show Times"
> I’m not sure search even exists
Search exists and seems to work pretty well
Search works great. My CPU is idle. Sync iCloud works perfectly if you toggle your iPhone to also share SMS with your Mac.
To be honest, the apple ecosystem stuff and how well it works, for me, is one of the biggest benefits of Apple. I walk up to my computer and my watch unlocks it. I can take a call or respond to a message literally on whatever device I happen to be on. For me, I can put up with UI/UX quirks in features like system preferences that I use maybe one or twice a month.
Its the holistic experience that matters to me.
It wasn't the software.
Well I would consider hiding system traffic from firewalls to prevent tracing to be an enormous one, wouldn't you?
https://www.obdev.at/support/littlesnitch/245914647368270
Oh I almost forgot about the image scanning regression:
https://techcrunch.com/2021/12/15/apple-removes-csam-detecti...
And the ominously named "Gatekeeper"
https://www.engadget.com/macos-slow-apps-launching-221445977...
For example, have you ever used the system settings panel in Windows? It’s the most confusing, horrible, and neglected part of the OS. For like 15 years they had mashed together settings panels from different versions of Windows without even bothering to make them visually consistent. Ditto for a lot of Linux distros.
I think you’re overthinking it. MacOS has barely changed at all in last 20 years from a UI perspective compared to Windows. Upgrading from an 8 year old intel model to an M1/M2 model is going to feel like strapping on a jetpack.
That wasn't even the gripe. They have disliked the last few major revisions of macOS. I think that's a good enough reason to consider a switch.
I do feel some Linux or perhaps a BSD system with a GUI like WindowMaker might feel like an improvement at this point.
It’s something I will probably try in the coming year.
I'd like to have a system that is 'less secure' in which I feel I have more control over my system.
Also it seems Apple is moving apps included in macOS to be more in line with iOS, which is not really something I like to see. It will likely dumb down app functionality.
I used OS X exclusively from 2008 onward, and I switched fully to linux late last year. I managed to make the switch tolerable by learning and falling in love with tiling window managers and minimal desktop environments that are available on linux. I could never stand 'traditional' desktop environments on linux, they always felt so clunky. With Sway (or i3 on my desktop), the operating system just disappears out of sight. All I see is what I want. A little bar with information and system status, a browser window, a bloated text messaging program or two, and heaps of terminals. Really fast, too, unlike macOS.
iOS, that's changed a lot. Could we move back toward iOS 6? I still miss it.
I use Monterey at the moment on my main Mac and it’s absolutely fine.
i did just that, and it simply felt "normal" again after years of increased slowdowns on every macOS update without any noticeable big improvement to the UX.
The bloat is real.
There's only been 1-2 major macOS releases since the M1 launch and benchmarks have gotten faster during that time. There's simply been no "years of increased slowdowns".
Consider that the "years of increased slowdowns" probably referred to the years before the M1 was released a year or two ago. Which would make sense, as the comparison was pre-M1 vs post-M1.
The rest is irrelevant to the point.
Closer to 30 years actually - there are many configuration dialogs which have been virtually or entirely unchanged since their first appearance.
The worst part is: It's not even neglected. It's been undergoing constant changes, and while they're mostly for the better, the constant stream of changes really highlights how poorly thought out it was in the first place, and makes finding anything an exercise in frustration.
That's what I use Spotlight for. Years ago someone pointed that use of Spotlight out to me and I've been using it that way ever since. No longer have to pull up System Preferences and I can find any setting I need immediately.
The OS is perfectly fine.
Battery life is more a hardware concern than software anyway.
Almost no one buys desktops anymore, even though they are obviously a better choice in many regards, including ergonomics, if the thing is to be strapped to a desk 100% of the time.
The market for desktop computers is a market for people who also own laptops, with very few exceptions (mostly gamers).
Speaking of UPSes, I wish that desktops/servers would just chuck a laptop battery socket on the back. Batteries are the only real difference between desktops and laptops, and desktops need them nearly as much as laptops do.
I have this on my 11 inch Air from whenever it was - maybe I can get them for false advertising - because they are saying I can have some great new features if I click the button ...
Made me wonder how part-time hobbyist with minimal resources can continue supporting old hardwares while a trillion dollar company cannot.
[1] https://dortania.github.io/OpenCore-Legacy-Patcher/START.htm...
As it stands System Settings now looks different from every other preference panel on the system. I helped ship a sidebar+search design in IINA and we do a far better job that System Settings does. Go take a peek if you'd like to see how this could've been done. (Personally, I think most apps should stick with top tabs, but we–and Apple–are constrained by how many preferences we can show on screen at once.)
Of course, I couldn't tell if it was indeed a factory reset or not - what even is content? Does it include non-user scoped files and folders? Why not just use normal language people are accustomed to?!
There’s a read-only partition that contains system files and default applications, and a read-write partition that contains files and apps you’ve added. The second gets erased, keeping the first.
Factory Reset term been around for so long and everyone already know the term meaning. Even I remember that term 25 years ago. Apple chose to change the language and this cause confusion. "Factory Reset" and "Erase all content and settings" didn't implies the same meaning. Apple should add a subtitle or a tooltip to indicate that it is factory reset or additional context for us to understand what it does. So why change the term if it isn't broken?
- Task/ process management is done in "activity monitor" - what the hell is an activity? An event? - Error logs and crash dumps are found in "console", which is different from a terminal. There's many more examples too
Trying to step people through this convoluted app over the phone or text is really going to be a chore. I had the old System Panes memorized.
Computer Name
Network Name
Login Name and Password
VLAN
...Didn't expect a mess like that from Apple.
https://photos5.appleinsider.com/gallery/48776-95249-001-Sys...
At least the Ventura/iOS multiple menus has a hierarchy. Ultimately I use "search" for such large settings to find stuff like 90% the time.
I have to say though, iOS does not seem like the best model of Settings that I would emulate. Rather than the years-long, pile-on model that iOS Settings seems to be the result of, someone needs to step back and reevaluate where every setting ought to belong — how best to organize them.
Also, speaking of iOS Settings — Mail setting should be in the Mail app, Safari settings in the Safari app. I have always loathed that iOS 1.0 idea that you had to go to a different place to find the settings for the apps.
You are not alone, it drives me nuts to have to scroll through the settings for every dumb joke app I have when I'm looking for something.
A valid complaint about the System Preferences app is that it is hesitant to introduce new top-level subdivisions (the tabs). They should roughly double the amount of tabs, and introduce new categories in order to group them together better.
The macOS System Prefs is also not ideal but I prefer it to the iOS Settings.
I was going to say Apple has been moving away from the "every app has a sidebar" UI, but it seems the sidebar has made a comeback now that I think about it. I think this is a good thing in most cases.
It's a decent concept. Although I'm not a fan of the wallpaper settings. The only option shown is to drag and drop an image into the Settings window. So a person would need to open Settings and either Finder or Photos. Finder and Photos both have options to set the desktop image directly, so if a user is already in there, opening Setting is a needless step. If someone heads to Settings to change the desktop image only to be cryptically told they need to open a picture from somewhere else to drag it in, that's a bad and confusing user experience. It also seemingly eliminates the concept of built-in wallpaper options from Apple, unless they throw a folder in the users Pictures folder, which seems tacky.
For an extreme case think of today vs XP. No bluetooth. No privacy. No location. No login or users. No speech recognition. Sharing was there but hidden. There was no colour tuning, font smoothing was hidden, and half the other graphics options didn't exist.
In today's era people don't dare to change from the default configuration if they don't have to. We all know that if some settings feel like Apple doesn't want it, it will be hell (incompatibility with other settings, subtle hints that things won't work because of that, the option will get back to default magically in some occasions, and so on). Heck lots of people don't even change their Desktop picture anymore.
I just tried to firewall out Apple's app notarization, using Apple's provided IP addresses, macOS's included firewall (pf), configured from macOS's System Settings plus a configuration file in /etc.
Not only my configuration file will be burned down at each update (and rapid security response will probably make it even more deceptive), not only I cannot receive even the courtesy of having my conf file in some "Relocated Items" directory as macOS used to do, but also I notice clearly that app notarization still works in apparently random moments
There's a "Customize" but I guess that just lets you hide stuff.
[0]: https://www.macrumors.com/2022/06/06/macos-ventura-system-se...
https://apple.fandom.com/wiki/System_4.1?file=System_4.1
So if we are playing a game of who copied who then I think Apple wins.
The old one allowed you to have a favorites bar and actually ordered the contents alphabetically. I can't find anything on the new one without searching.
User interface/desktop
peripherals/hardware
networking/connectivity
organisation (very specific, I know)
Security doesn’t really fit into the first one
While they can make kind of sense it doesn’t really help me as a user.
On the iPad I always end up with the stupid files overlay thing that is hard for me to get rid of. Usually I was just trying to scroll or drag.
I thought iOS was supposed to be grandparent friendly!
I can't tell how much of this is related to getting old and how much is just saved-up expectations from a more civilized time.
Just to be 'trendy' and 'fresh look' some software takes this to the extreme, even inside the same app sometimes the top invisible band is for dragging the whole window, sometimes (large! with lots of emty space) list items run edge to edge putting active area there, playing a guessing game with you. This is just [stong adjective here]!
Second thought, is it fashionable now to not include a "Cancel" button in settings dialogs?
Many times, I have navigated all of the pages of a settings dialog to change a setting or multiple settings, then realise I liked it better how it was before, and have no idea what the settings were before I changed them.
Just yesterday I wanted to try a new theme in Xfce - change the theme, not happy with it, and no idea out of the 50 themes what it was before I changed it, so now I have to go through every option to find the one that was (approximately?) what it was before.
https://www.fossmint.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Ubuntu-1...
Finder (especially Finder, copying a filepath...), iTunes/Apple Music, Xcode, Quicktime, Safari (pre 2022, Safari extremely recently became a great browser).
The vast majority of the core applications bundled with their products I've found painful to use.
The actual desktop and window manager itself is very pleasant.
But quite frankly, I despise the pre-bundled applications just as much as any other pre-bundled application.
So, this might be down to discoverability being such a challenge, but it's actually very easy to copy a filepath in Finder - with great precision too.
There is an element called 'Path Bar' that can appear at the bottom of Finder file panes. You may or may not have this thing hidden, there's an option in the 'View' menu. Make sure the Path Bar is visible and right-click on any part of the path to copy up to that point.
Frankly, I rarely use it since the terminal is so much more powerful for file handling tasks, but there you go. The solution existed just past your threshold to discover it, which is a whole 'nother kind of UI problem. But I find this implementation to be superior to Explorer or any of the Linux stuff.
If memory serves, all three incidents had a distinct set of menus, first you had to display the folders, etc etc, to make it as irritating as possible.
Thats crazy to me. Explorer is 1000x better in my opinion. In fact, explorer and window-pane snapping / window resize rules are about the only things I prefer on Windows over Mac.
Specifically for this use case, you just click the address bar and it becomes copy-able in Windows. No need to edit any preferences to get that feature either.
Both examples present us a line of breadcrumbs. Both allow you to interact with the breadcrumbs directly and use them to navigate, or right-click to copy them as a filesystem path. so far so good.
But Explorer falls short here: At no point does the filename you are focused on appear in the trail of breadcrumbs. Not in default mode, nor in the abrupt switch to plaintext if you click a little past the breadcrumbs. In Finder, the focused file appears at the end of the list and you can right click to copy the full path.
Essentially, Explorer is limited to providing the enclosing folder only, which is a kind of stunted quality to this feature. I'd say in the majority of cases, you are trying to grab this path to do something to a specific file, not to an enclosing folder. Copying off of a network share, or some GUI scp/sftp application... those sorts of things. In Explorer, no matter what you are forced to switch modes to the keyboard, to type out the file name.
This is just not the case in Finder. You can grab the path up to the file name from the get go and do your thing, never switching modes to the keyboard if that's how you want to work. For that reason alone the Finder implementation of this specific feature is superior.
And one last thing? at no point did I say you have to 'edit any preferences' about this. You can toggle the breadcrumbs on/off with a single item in the 'view' menu. Some people may have toggled it off, so I thought I'd point it out.
AS an aside, this kinda touches on what I mentioned about discoverability - I sorta go out of my way to understand how to get stuff done on these various OSs and this one eluded me. I was under the impression you would have to install powertoys and use 'send to...' commands to get this done on windows GUI.
And you can't uninstall their garbage, either. Siri, Facetime, Messages, Maps, Photo Booth, Music, Podcasts, TV, News, Stocks, and a whole bunch of other junk. This is a work machine, I don't have any need for any of that stuff (and I have even less of a clue why an average Joe would be forced to have Stocks installed).
IMHO, this is really good. One of the gripes I have with Windows is how Microsoft seems to constantly reorganize the control panel, which is as annoying as looking for something only to have trouble finding it because someone moved all your stuff around.
IMHO, there should be a pretty high bar for reorganization, and as much stuff as possible should stay put, under the same or very similar name.
> But my frustrations with System Preferences are that features are continuously being crammed into a format that has outgrown its utility,
I agree with this. It's a problem if they're too hesitant to add to the top level, so shoehorn things where they don't really belong.
> and that the current System Preferences continue to diverge significantly from Settings on iOS.
One of the more annoying things in UX is the instance that everything should work like a phone. Phones have ridiculously limited input mechanisms and screens, which means that a lot of compromises need to be made. I'd really prefer desktop stuff be optimized for the desktop.
Edit: Oh please no, not that icons-only view!
Compare to NeXTSTEP 0.9's "Preferences" from 1989 and you can still see the family resemblance: http://toastytech.com/guis/ns09.html (http://toastytech.com/guis/ns09prefs.png)
I have to say, Preferences was fine. Sure it isn't great, but it was OK. Meanwhile Finder continues to be a crime against humanity. It boggles my mind how bad it is. Yet, it remains largely untouched since as long as I've been using a Mac (10-15 years).
The layout, how changing layout affects / doesnt affect other finder instances, how window resizing works, trying to show hidden files, trying to show specific folders (~/Library), having to modify settings to show the file path, trying to copy a file path
Also it’s Command, Shift and Period to toggle showing hidden files.
(I just hope they didn't mess this up in Ventura, haven't checked yet, but in general I like the new list approach more than the old "icon soup")
Currently I’m ductaping together crappy solutions with Hammerspoon and shell scripts to change the default browser or change screen resolutions.
I’ve always assumed this situation is better on Linux and *nix systems, but is that so?
You are supposed to use defaults, which is the command-line tool to set preferences. There are APIs in Objective-C, and I would assume in Swift.
The specific part of that chat for those interested: https://youtu.be/WfnvsepVJC0?t=2485
They did not have to change to the new look that caused inconsistency the first place. This is a toxic kind of practice to reorganise everything again and again, obstucting users. I had to waste sooo much time already in various system 'optimizations' and 'consistency redesigns' forced on me that it costs a lot!
On this level the consistency is a barrier, not helping, corrupting a working situation. It is not a magic wand solving everyhting, it could ruin things! Just think about consistent touch screen approaches, putting touch screen everywhere in the highly practical world of vechicles, causing problems, accidents. Consistency is not paramount. Practicality is.
Every design is tailored around constraints. Importing the design language of iOS into macOS imports its constraints.
If we ignore that, we end up with nonsense such as the iOS dialog boxes in macOS. [1]
[1] https://twitter.com/lapcatsoftware/status/129569323820511232...
The flat icons though are not really an improvement. Icons’ role in user interfaces is aiding recognition/recall, if they are indistinguishable color blobs than they have failed, and you’re better off with no icons at all.
It wouldn’t be enough to win me back, but it’d be nice if they respected users a tiny bit.
Mac is not iOS and it shouldn't be. I really dislike the trend of taking UI concepts that are great for a smartphone and applying them to a large display.
Agreed.
However I always take too long to locate stuff in System Preferences. Zig-zag scanning is so inefficient it's easier to just search for stuff: That's a UI failure.
What is this tendency of wasting more HEIGHT than WIDTH
macs have more WIDTH, they are not mobile phone with huge scroll list
FFS