[Brad]

I was tempted to resurrect the "why the Finder sucks" thread yet again, but I think that this job posting from Apple presents a glimmer of hope that the Finder shall suck no more! We can only dream...

https://jobs.apple.com/cgi-bin/WebOb...tionID=2510614 (from DaringFireball.net)

Title: Finder Software Engineer Req. ID: 2510614 Location: Santa Clara Valley, California Country: United States Req Date: 13-Jan-2006 The Finder team is seeking an energetic, motivated software engineer to help develop next generation versions of the Finder, the notorious file browser for Mac OS X. You will be responsible for developing new features of an application that is often perceived by our users as the "face of the system". You will be working on user interfaces spanning various browser views, new advanced search features, navigation and data presentation as well as many other parts of the application. In this position you will be expected to: - Participate in all of the various stages of feature development from design brainstorms, through feature development, all the way to fixing that last critical elusive bug under a tight release deadline. - You will be required to produce clear designs, excellent implementation and tight code. - Deliver tight, well implemented features, fix bugs and develop Finder into the best file browser on the planet. - Work on performance and responsiveness of the Finder, making it feel lightweight, fast, snappy and pleasant to use. If you are passionate about working on user Interfaces and usability, love writing tight code, enjoy being a team player, hone your programming skills as a hobby, aren't afraid of working on large code bases and share your code with other engineers, this is a job for you.

Did you catch that "notorious" bit? I wonder if whoever wrote that line hates the Finder as much as some of us do.

no•to•ri•ous |nəˈtôrēəs; nō-|
adjective
famous or well known, typically for some bad quality or deed



I suppose it's too late to hope for a revamped Finder to appear by Mac OS X 10.5 if this is any indication of Apple's current situation. Maybe 10.6 circa 2008? I just hope those engineers are working on something better for 10.5; the changes for 10.4 were mediocre at best.

[chucker]

Siracusa on the topic.

(Third inline editing attempt.) I just noticed the position is for Santa Clara, not Cupertino. Hardly far away, sure, but it still seems odd not to develop such a core component in the headquarters, no?

Anyone know if they have a lot of facilities in Santa Clara?

Never mind. I actually remembered this correctly: Santa Clara is where the FileMaker campus is, and thus probably also where the former Claris campus was. So this may very well be why a lot of Mac OS application development is still going on there (since Claris used to distribute Mac OS).

[chucker]

Brad, if your board ever gives me that "No Thread specified. If you followed a valid link, please notify the administrator" bullshit during inline editing again, completely removing all my editing text and not letting me retry, Microsoft employees are going to have to die! Nobody would want that, right? Right?

[Brad]

Originally Posted by chucker Siracusa on the topic.

Is that so, Mr. "posting a link while contributing little to nothing of your own"?

[chucker]

Originally Posted by Brad Is that so, Mr. "posting a link while contributing little to nothing of your own"?

Re-read the post.

[SuperMi]

well actually this is a pretty good thread...

[Unbeliever]

I was hoping for revamped Finder in 10.5

I wonder what they will put in Leopard since it will (at least in media) be put head-on with Vista? I agree with Brad that changes in Tiger were mediocre at best.

Oh well, at least this gives some hope for future generations

[Mugge]

Brad. I'm hoping you are writing your application as we speak. You now have the rare chance to be known as the man who fixed the f***ing Finder.

[FFL]

Originally Posted by chucker Never mind. I actually remembered this correctly: Santa Clara is where the FileMaker campus is, and thus probably also where the former Claris campus was. So this may very well be why a lot of Mac OS application development is still going on there (since Claris used to distribute Mac OS).

Actually, if you look closely at Apple's jobs site, "Santa Clara Valley" seems to be code for "anywhere in Silicon Valley" so this may in fact still be a position on Infinite Loop.

EDIT: Yep.
If you search for all California positions, nearly everything is Santa Clara Valley, with an occasional Sacramento, Folsom, or Santa Monica in there.

[chucker]

Originally Posted by FFL Actually, if you look closely at Apple's jobs site, "Santa Clara Valley" seems to be code for "anywhere in Silicon Valley" so this may in fact still be a position on Infinite Loop.

Oh. Well then, never mind Can anyone confirm though whether Apple still/now uses some of Claris's former space?

[FFL]

http://www.santaclara.org/
"Santa Clara" is used at Apple to refer to the whole county, not just a single town. I believe it's because Apple's HR Department pre-dates the term "Silicon Valley"

[dviant]

Does subpixel anti-aliasing fall under the Finder? Last time I checked anything but the standard anti-aliasing sucked when it appeared over non-white backgrounds. I'm on 10.3 here at work so I can't check if it's better in Tiger.

[chucker]

Originally Posted by dviant Does subpixel anti-aliasing fall under the Finder? Last time I checked anything but the standard anti-aliasing sucked when it appeared over non-white backgrounds. I'm on 10.3 here at work so I can't check if it's better in Tiger.

No, the Finder has nothing to do with that. The Finder is a file browsing application.

Are you on a CRT? If so, turn sub-pixel anti-aliasing off. You have no sub-pixels. Second, have you tried various different modes? It may be set too strong.

[dfiler]

What I found interesting about that job posting was how well written it seemed. Many postings are written by relatively clueless people in HR, people who don't understand the job they are describing. This one seems to have been written by a technical mind. Not only that... it seems to have been written by somebody with a good grasp of the Finder, its scope and shortcomings.

[Moogs]

We may still be close to a year away from 10.5's release so I see no reason at all why this person couldn't be working on the next version right away.

[Brad]

10.5 is expected to be released at the end of 2006.

8-10 months (remember that we need time for testing, sending to printers, etc) is a terribly short time to get new employees trained, develop new models and designs, and produce working code.

So, yes, the person could get working right away, but the fruits of a new design are unlikely to appear until the following major revision.

[dviant]

I hope I'm not veering to far off-topic here. I realize that the Finder is not responsible for anti-aliasing, it just seemed like an associated "problem" with user interface to me. Feel free to ignore this if it's derailing the discussion.

I'm not on CRT, I run LCDs both at work (Panther) and at home (Tiger). Here's a an animated gif of what I'm talking about. This is from Safari on Panther. I apologize if this issue is has been fixed in Tiger, but I seem to recall testing...but will verify tonight at home.



Note how badly the text fills in on the black background compared to the white when using any of the subpixel options (light, medium, strong). I have pngs of those as well if you want more accurate representations, but figured the animation would illustrate the point.

[chucker]

You do realize that making a screenshot of anti-aliasing is fairly pointless, as the actual visual results of anti-aliasing depend mostly on the display, right?

(Incidentally, the screenshot looks fine to me, even with the strong anti-aliasing applied.)

[dviant]

Yes it looks different on different screens but the underlying anti-aliasing it still apparent. Regular weight looks bold and bold looks black on the dark backgrounds. I would expect strong to be heavier but man it's almost completely filled in. Even light font smoothing renders the weights much heavier on the dark background, you can't see that? Oh well.

[CoolToddHunter]

Originally Posted by Brad 10.5 is expected to be released at the end of 2006. 8-10 months (remember that we need time for testing, sending to printers, etc) is a terribly short time to get new employees trained, develop new models and designs, and produce working code. So, yes, the person could get working right away, but the fruits of a new design are unlikely to appear until the following major revision.

To inject a note of hope, it could be enough time if the design were already worked out. This new employee could be additional help or a replacement. I have no opinion on whether it will happen, but I believe it is possible for a 10.5 release.

[dfiler]

Sub-pixel anti-aliasing is completely subjective. No really.

People, or any animal for that matter, have quite disparate color perception. Not only can the distribution and sensativity of cones differ, the spectrum of each of the three cones is actually different between people. Meaning, your primary colors are minutely different than everyone else. Some people are completely oblivious to certain colors while others are hyper sensative to narrow bands of the spectrum. For sub-pixel rendering to be effective, it must be calibrated to the display, ambient lighting, and user color perception. Normal anti-aliasing isn't so affected.

On top of that, posting a compressed screen-shot (gif) is completely pointless. Sub-pixel rending is munged.

If the OS X's sub-pixel anti-aliasing looks abhorent to you, chances are you have abnormal color perception, a bad display, a miscalibrated color profile, or all of the above.

And...
Did somebody mention the finder?

I predict that at least the next 3 OS X releases will see drastic finder revisions. The classic finder was great for it's era. Now we have an couple order of magnitude more files to manage and networked resources to deal with. Eventually I can see it evolving again to a near optimal state for the times.

[LudwigVan]

Originally Posted by CoolToddHunter To inject a note of hope, it could be enough time if the design were already worked out. This new employee could be additional help or a replacement. I have no opinion on whether it will happen, but I believe it is possible for a 10.5 release.

I was just about to write the same thing. This job posting does not prima facie mean Apple has yet to begin a possible Finder overhaul. Anyway, my hope--based on nothing more than my very fallible faith--is that the slowdown in the OS updates equates with a stronger tinkering-under-the-hood mentality and a little less with adding new bells and whistles to the system.

[dviant]

dfiler chucker... I'll take the subpixel conversation outside this thread... I'd like to respond but it's seeming off topic. Let me double check Tiger and I'll post back some comments in a new thread later.

[sirnick4]

Doesn't it annoy you how Apple seems to ignore people's issues with the Finder?

As Mac users, we expect the best!!

[Mac Donald]

This is all BS Apple is throwing at Microsoft. Since M$ ripped everything off Apple put out in Tiger and Panther, Apple is willfully throwing some curveballs around to confuse people. I would not be surprised if Leopard comes out with no previews. None. Just to keep everything secret. :smokey: :smokey:

[ZachPruckowski]

I think the reason Apple isn't really worrying about the Finder too much is that it is hardly a deal breaker. A person considering converting isn't going to refuse to go with the Mac because of the Finder, so it isn't as high on Apple's priority list. And advanced users can always replace the Finder if they feel so inclined. Using Target Disk Mode or an external/network boot, you can replace the Finder with something like Pathfinder easily.

I'm not saying I'd prefer to have a better finder, but that it isn't high on the list because it isn't the dealbreaker.

[Robo]

I'm with CoolToddHunter in hoping that Apple has already started working on a new Finder. I thought a new Finder would be one of the things that would make 10.5 the biggest upgrade to OS X yet - hence the longer development time.

[Banana]

Any probability of Apple buying PathFinder? Not saying that I have any ideas, but saw another thread about how great it was and wondering if Apple would decide to use it instead of developing their own?

[chucker]

Path Finder isn't well-suited for a consumer's file browser. It's trying too hard to be "more".

[Frank777]

So Brad, have you sent in your resume yet?

I would think your previous threads on the subject must have been required reading down in Cupertino.