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			Scrollbars MacOS 8/9 MacOS X Description MacOS X will have built-in proportional scrollbars, as well as adopting the very fluid look of all of the other widgets in the system. The scrollbars are also affected by the light which highlights all other UI elements on the screen.

 

			Windows little widgets MacOS 8/9 Close box Minimize box (though, really, all this button does is hide all contents of the window except for the title bar) Maximize box MacOS X The red ball is for closing documents, and acquires an embedded "X" when the cursor is over it. The yellow ball is for minimizing documents to the dock, and acquires an embedded "-" when the cursor is over it. The green ball is for maximizing documents to the size of the visible screen, and acquires an embedded "+" when the cursor is over it. Description The new theme for MacOS X is that of a stoplight. Red is for close, yellow for hide, and green for maximize. While a stoplight isn't really the optimal analogy, the way it works is really intuitive. You can not only access the colored ball/boxes (what do you call them?) in the frontmost document, but also in any background document as well. This is very useful as it allows you to never have to change your current window to affect change on another window. full windows MacOS 8/9 MacOS X Description Documents in MacOS X have gained some very high-octane features which have been lacking in the MacOS for quite sometime. In addition to having the very sleek curves and new buttons, all windows are resizable on the fly, which means that as you resize the window, the contents of the window are updated. This is a very useful and needed feature for the Mac, and allows you to resize windows sensibly, as opposed to guessing how big you should resize the window under MacOS 8/9. Additionally, the button you see in the upper right hand corner of the window is a new feature - "single window mode." When you press the grey button, all other windows other than the active window will be minimized into the dock. And if you open another document, the new document becomes the "single window" and the formerly active window becomes minimized into the dock. And windows are also movable on the fly. Windows move around the screen without the outline you see under the current MacOS, and act more like Windows, MacOS X Server, and the MacOS with Greg Landweber's PowerWindows installed. Very useful. Default button MacOS 8/9 MacOS X Description The way MacOS X will interface with the user will be more graphically intuitive. In MacOS 8/9, the default button (the button which means the same thing as hitting return on your keyboard) has that thick border around it. Under MacOS X, the fluid little default button is colored blue and throbs. You really need to see this in action to understand how amazing it really is!

 

			Menus MacOS 8/9 MacOS X Description As most windows and dialogs, the drop down menus in MacOS X are transparent. It is unclear whether there will be specific menu dividers, as you can see in the platinum appearance, or if they are simply transparent spaces, as seem to be the case in the MacOS X menu. In addition to transparency, menus are still sticky. And in a very cool bit of work, when you fail to use a menu, or change to another menu, the menu will dissolve into the background. Very cool indeed.

 

			Dock MacOS 8/9 Not applicable MacOS X Description The dock is an addition to the Mac, but by no means a new technology. The dock actually started on its current journey on NeXT's NeXTSTEP and OPENSTEP operating systems. A dock is a way of collecting a number of icons which can be active documents, applications, aliases, or whatever can be represented already by an icon, into a monolithic bar on the bottom of the screen which allows you to easily and intuitively find a file you are working on or need. MacOS X has a "minimize" feature, similar to the way you can minimize documents under Windows 95/98/NT. When a document is minimized, it is sent to the dock, which holds an icon for the minimized file. However, don't confuse Windows' Start Menu bar with the MacOS X dock. The MacOS X dock is simply amazing. As you can see, both the trash and the MacOS icon are in the dock. The MacOS icon is for the Finder, and the trash can for the Trash. The desktop as you know it is changing, but this is a good change, so don't get scared. The sizes of the icons in the dock are fully customizable, though the default is 128X128. As more and more icons get added to the dock, it will automatically decrease the size of the icons in the dock using anti-aliasing. If the icons are minimized too much, then there is a "magnifying glass" feature (which you can see in the above picture) which will magnify the size of the icons under the cursor. And, with the "have fun" theme of much of the animation in Aqua, windows being minimized don't just disappear with an icon in the dock. No sir. They actually slither from their current position on the screen to their position in the dock. The reverse also happens when you maximize an icon from the dock.

 

			Finder MacOS 8/9 You know what it looks like :) MacOS X Description The new Finder in MacOS X will draw on a number of technologies, including the current Finder, the OPENSTEP/MacOS X Server Workspace Manager, V-Twin/AIAT (the search technology behind Sherlock), and more. There will be a couple of options for you as a user. The first option will be a Finder which works, mainly, the way you have been used to in MacOS 8/9. You can open as many windows as you'd like while traversing the filesystem. You will still have icon view, and be able to drag and drop between folders. The second option, and the option which will be pushed by Apple, is the new refined Finder which should help nearly any long time MacOS users, as well as anyone new to the platform. The new Finder window, which will NOT spawn additional windows unless you go out of your way to do so, will feature three different views: Icon view - this is very similar to the MacOS 8/9 Finder, but enclosed in a single box. There is also a back button (the blue button with the arrow pointing to the left in the picture above) to go back one folder   Column view - very much like the OPENSTEP/MacOS X Server Workspace Manager, as well as Greg Langweber's "Greg's Browser, " this view is very helpful when you are looking to walk through your hard drive graphically. For a very good idea of this, visit the homepage for Greg's Browser.   List view - Identical to the Hierarchy view, except that it also gives you an idea of any file or folder you click on. For instance, if you click on a JPEG file, you will see a preview of that JPEG on the screen. The same goes for movies, text documents, and more. In addition, the new Finder has a number of new navigation buttons which will take you to specific areas of your hard drive with one click. Computer - Takes you to the base of the filesystem Home - Takes you to the main folder for your personal account Apps - Takes you to the applications folder (unclear whether it is your personal App folder, or the global App folder) Docs - Takes you to the documents folder for your account Favorites - Takes you to your accounts favorites, including folders and more People - Allows you to see other users on the network View - Cycles between the Icon, Column, and List Views There is also a built-in search function, which allows you to search for specific files on your hard drive without opening another application, such as Sherlock. Very handy. And as you can see, the MacOS X Finder has the ability to navigate a number of different types of data sources natively. "Network" is likely the same as Network Browser under MacOS 9. "Hard Disk" is self-explanatory. "FireWire Disk" is just a mounted FireWire disk. And "iDisk" is a reference to one of the new "iTools" provided by Apple on their website. For more information, visit apple.com and click on iTools.

 

			I hope this has been a useful tour of some of the more apparent visual elements of MacOS X's new Aqua interface. There will undoubtedly be additional refining of the interface in the coming months, and an addition here and there. By simple reasoning, there are probably also a number of technologies which will ship with MacOS X which were not announced at MacWorld SF 2000. All in all, however, this is an amazing new interface, and a definite improvement to the platform.

 

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