10 ms·

Projects for Old OS X

141 points by pierremenard 1y ago

mattl 1y ago
The effect on that page is awful. I also suspect not great on older Macs.
- Hackbraten 1y ago
  I wish it at least honored the prefers-reduced-motion [0] setting. [0]: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/@media/prefers-reduced-motion https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/@media/pref...
  - mattl 1y ago
    I have that and dark mode on all the time. It’s sad the number of sites that don’t support it.
- Lammy 1y ago
  It's one of the most obnoxious things I've seen in a while, but a good excuse to test my uBlock rule skills: jonathanalland.com##*:matches-css(transform: /.*/):style(opacity: 1 !important; transform: none !important; transition-property: none !important; transition: none !important;)
  - mattl 1y ago
    I want reduce-motion to give me a way to set that for all sites.
    - Lammy 1y ago
      You can kinda to it in uBlock by matching multiple TLDs, like: com,net,org##*:matches-css(transform: /.*/):style(opacity: 1 !important; transform: none !important; transition-property: none !important; transition: none !important;)
      - mattl 1y ago
        It’s a shame you can’t just write . and have it work for all TLDs/ccTLDs
hyperjeff 1y ago
If anyone is interested in old Mac software and open source projects, I have an archived version of my old OS X listings. While most links are broken these days, it can be a handy for finding things for old Macs. I think the list ended when the App Store finally went online, around the time of Lion. http://osx.hyperjeff.net/Apps/ http://osx.hyperjeff.net/Apps/
curtisszmania 1y ago
[dead]
caseyy 1y ago
We've accumulated much bloat in macOS since "big cat" days... and what seems like only 10% more OS utilities/functionality. Interesting to think about it in retrospect.
- trinix912 1y ago
  I still find it baffling how huge (in disk space) a clean install is nowadays, even before Apple Silicon universal binaries. I remember thinking years ago how slim an OS X system was compared to C:\Windows, but in the recent years they’re both huge. It’s not like we got much less functionality back then either.
  - drooopy 1y ago
    Tiger 10.4 was such a breath of fresh air for someone like me, coming from Windows XP and some variety of Linux with Gnome 2.x back in 2005. Twenty years later, I find Windows 11 and MacOS 15 to be in such a bad state, that I would rather use XP and Gnome 2 over them.
Reason077 1y ago
I wish Apple would bring back the Dashboard for modern macOS versions, using the modern widget technology. I like the modern widgets but it's awkward that you can only use them on the desktop or notification centre. It's been gone for years now, but I still really miss Dashboard! What I'd like is: * Dashboard is a special desktop that appears to the left of the main desktop * Can be accessed with a single F-key press, or by swiping with the trackpad/Magic Mouse * Widgets can be organised/laid out any way you like, anywhere on the screen
- trinix912 1y ago
  There was also an overlay option to see Dash atop of other apps, which I liked more than the extra desktop. You could pop up a unit converter without “leaving” the current program/desktop.
- ForOldHack 1y ago
  It was an absolutely brilliant idea, which they tossed... But .. nothing prevents someone from retro programming it or a better one. Apple has left behind some of the most brilliant UX/UI ideas of the century...
- dewey 1y ago
  I'm not sure what it was called but the "web clipping" Widget was always my favorite. It worked really well to just have a always updated time table from your school in the dashboard just by basically taking a screenshot of it once.
  - Reason077 1y ago
    Yes, I found that very useful too! Although it was always pretty fragile. Minor changes on the underlying clipped website would often break the widget and you'd have to go back and clip it again. And occasionally WebKit would crash or act weird because of the clipped website and the whole Dashboard would freeze or crash. My understanding is that the technical foundations of Webkit-based Dashboard were always a bit flaky and this is what did it in. But now that we have modern, native widgets, it's a shame that the excellent Dashboard UX hasn't been brought back. They threw the baby out with the bathwater!
dang 1y ago
Related: Projects for Old Versions of OS X - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31164521 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31164521 - April 2022 (87 comments)
behnamoh 1y ago
macOS keyboard shortcuts situation is weird. it shines where Windows is lacking, and falls behind where Windows is ahead. Example: I still don't know how to install an app (*.pkg) just using keyboard on macOS. On Windows, it's simply "press tab or alt and see what happens". Another example: on Windows I can press Alt and see a letter underlined in the menu to let me know what keyboard shortcut activates it, but on macOS I have to do Cmd-Shift-/ and search for the command. On the other hand, on macOS I get to create custom keyboard shortcuts in the Settings app while Windows, afaik, doesn't have this feature. I can make a new folder on macOS and put the selected files in it automatically if I do Ctrl-Cmd-N, but if I want to "show package contents" of an app in the Applications, I definitely need a mouse! On Windows machines there's often a right-click button which is really useful
- mattl 1y ago
  Now I think of it, how do you install a pkg from the CLI?
  - ireflect 1y ago
    installer -pkg InstallMe.pkg Check out `man installer` for details.
- CalRobert 1y ago
  For peak usability, Windows 3.1 kept the mnemonics underlined _all the time_. It's been downhill since then. Though I'm looking at the menu bar on Firefox on Ubuntu right now and at least the mnemonics are underlined now as I type, even without hitting "alt".
  - emchammer 1y ago
    Oh, man, I had forgotten about having the menu keyboard shortcuts underlined all the time. Sometimes you could even tell that whoever had a sense of humor in choosing the mnemonics. I don't even know how to open the macOS menu bar without my keyboard now. After doing an Internet search for it, I have learned that it is Fn-Control-F2, after enabling Full Keyboard Access in Accessibility. How could it get this bad? (Apple's other accessibility features are amazing.)
brian-armstrong 1y ago
I shudder to think anyone still has OSX connected to the internet. How many unpatchable critical vulnerabilities are there already?
zombot 1y ago
> it was time to leave modern macOS behind. I can relate. But there's one thing I really find great in Sonoma: Select Cyrillic text and hit the keyboard shortcut for Speech and it pronounces the text in Russian. Select Japanese text and it pronounces it in Japanese. And so on. Also, translations or transcripts of such texts in images. Finally an alternative to Google Translate! But I'm still pissed that I can't install 10.14 on the latest Intel iMac, the hardware won't let me. You cannot run one of the more resource-hungry games on Intel macOS > 10.15 any more. For Apple Silicon, they don't even exist.
- fsiefken 1y ago
  you might be able to run them with https://www.codeweavers.com/crossover https://www.codeweavers.com/crossover or parallels if that doesn't work someone got steamvr running with his quest on parallels
ksec 1y ago
10 years after introduction, Swift is now 6.1 and soon to be 6.2. May be another revision or two before finalising on 7.0 ? Then may be Apple could rewrite everything in Swift 7 ? I know this sounds fun or cool for a lot people on HN. But I much rather they kept Objective-C and keep refining old codebase for the past 10 years instead. And as many have noted. macOS is now huge. And apart from continuity I dont know any recent macOS feature that made any different for me. We are now close to yet another remake for UI with Vision OS styles. May be they will do a big clean up when they stop supporting x86 Mac. But I wont be holding my breath.

141 points by pierremenard 1y ago

mattl 1y ago

The effect on that page is awful. I also suspect not great on older Macs.

Hackbraten 1y ago
I wish it at least honored the prefers-reduced-motion [0] setting. [0]: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/@media/prefers-reduced-motion https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/@media/pref...
- mattl 1y ago
  I have that and dark mode on all the time. It’s sad the number of sites that don’t support it.
Lammy 1y ago
It's one of the most obnoxious things I've seen in a while, but a good excuse to test my uBlock rule skills: jonathanalland.com##*:matches-css(transform: /.*/):style(opacity: 1 !important; transform: none !important; transition-property: none !important; transition: none !important;)
- mattl 1y ago
  I want reduce-motion to give me a way to set that for all sites.
  - Lammy 1y ago
    You can kinda to it in uBlock by matching multiple TLDs, like: com,net,org##*:matches-css(transform: /.*/):style(opacity: 1 !important; transform: none !important; transition-property: none !important; transition: none !important;)
    - mattl 1y ago
      It’s a shame you can’t just write . and have it work for all TLDs/ccTLDs

hyperjeff 1y ago

If anyone is interested in old Mac software and open source projects, I have an archived version of my old OS X listings. While most links are broken these days, it can be a handy for finding things for old Macs. I think the list ended when the App Store finally went online, around the time of Lion. http://osx.hyperjeff.net/Apps/ http://osx.hyperjeff.net/Apps/

curtisszmania 1y ago

[dead]

caseyy 1y ago

We've accumulated much bloat in macOS since "big cat" days... and what seems like only 10% more OS utilities/functionality. Interesting to think about it in retrospect.

trinix912 1y ago
I still find it baffling how huge (in disk space) a clean install is nowadays, even before Apple Silicon universal binaries. I remember thinking years ago how slim an OS X system was compared to C:\Windows, but in the recent years they’re both huge. It’s not like we got much less functionality back then either.
- drooopy 1y ago
  Tiger 10.4 was such a breath of fresh air for someone like me, coming from Windows XP and some variety of Linux with Gnome 2.x back in 2005. Twenty years later, I find Windows 11 and MacOS 15 to be in such a bad state, that I would rather use XP and Gnome 2 over them.

Reason077 1y ago

I wish Apple would bring back the Dashboard for modern macOS versions, using the modern widget technology. I like the modern widgets but it's awkward that you can only use them on the desktop or notification centre. It's been gone for years now, but I still really miss Dashboard! What I'd like is: * Dashboard is a special desktop that appears to the left of the main desktop * Can be accessed with a single F-key press, or by swiping with the trackpad/Magic Mouse * Widgets can be organised/laid out any way you like, anywhere on the screen

trinix912 1y ago
There was also an overlay option to see Dash atop of other apps, which I liked more than the extra desktop. You could pop up a unit converter without “leaving” the current program/desktop.
ForOldHack 1y ago
It was an absolutely brilliant idea, which they tossed... But .. nothing prevents someone from retro programming it or a better one. Apple has left behind some of the most brilliant UX/UI ideas of the century...
dewey 1y ago
I'm not sure what it was called but the "web clipping" Widget was always my favorite. It worked really well to just have a always updated time table from your school in the dashboard just by basically taking a screenshot of it once.
- Reason077 1y ago
  Yes, I found that very useful too! Although it was always pretty fragile. Minor changes on the underlying clipped website would often break the widget and you'd have to go back and clip it again. And occasionally WebKit would crash or act weird because of the clipped website and the whole Dashboard would freeze or crash. My understanding is that the technical foundations of Webkit-based Dashboard were always a bit flaky and this is what did it in. But now that we have modern, native widgets, it's a shame that the excellent Dashboard UX hasn't been brought back. They threw the baby out with the bathwater!

dang 1y ago

Related: Projects for Old Versions of OS X - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31164521 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31164521 - April 2022 (87 comments)

behnamoh 1y ago

macOS keyboard shortcuts situation is weird. it shines where Windows is lacking, and falls behind where Windows is ahead. Example: I still don't know how to install an app (*.pkg) just using keyboard on macOS. On Windows, it's simply "press tab or alt and see what happens". Another example: on Windows I can press Alt and see a letter underlined in the menu to let me know what keyboard shortcut activates it, but on macOS I have to do Cmd-Shift-/ and search for the command. On the other hand, on macOS I get to create custom keyboard shortcuts in the Settings app while Windows, afaik, doesn't have this feature. I can make a new folder on macOS and put the selected files in it automatically if I do Ctrl-Cmd-N, but if I want to "show package contents" of an app in the Applications, I definitely need a mouse! On Windows machines there's often a right-click button which is really useful

mattl 1y ago
Now I think of it, how do you install a pkg from the CLI?
- ireflect 1y ago
  installer -pkg InstallMe.pkg Check out `man installer` for details.
CalRobert 1y ago
For peak usability, Windows 3.1 kept the mnemonics underlined _all the time_. It's been downhill since then. Though I'm looking at the menu bar on Firefox on Ubuntu right now and at least the mnemonics are underlined now as I type, even without hitting "alt".
- emchammer 1y ago
  Oh, man, I had forgotten about having the menu keyboard shortcuts underlined all the time. Sometimes you could even tell that whoever had a sense of humor in choosing the mnemonics. I don't even know how to open the macOS menu bar without my keyboard now. After doing an Internet search for it, I have learned that it is Fn-Control-F2, after enabling Full Keyboard Access in Accessibility. How could it get this bad? (Apple's other accessibility features are amazing.)

brian-armstrong 1y ago

I shudder to think anyone still has OSX connected to the internet. How many unpatchable critical vulnerabilities are there already?

zombot 1y ago

> it was time to leave modern macOS behind. I can relate. But there's one thing I really find great in Sonoma: Select Cyrillic text and hit the keyboard shortcut for Speech and it pronounces the text in Russian. Select Japanese text and it pronounces it in Japanese. And so on. Also, translations or transcripts of such texts in images. Finally an alternative to Google Translate! But I'm still pissed that I can't install 10.14 on the latest Intel iMac, the hardware won't let me. You cannot run one of the more resource-hungry games on Intel macOS > 10.15 any more. For Apple Silicon, they don't even exist.

fsiefken 1y ago
you might be able to run them with https://www.codeweavers.com/crossover https://www.codeweavers.com/crossover or parallels if that doesn't work someone got steamvr running with his quest on parallels

ksec 1y ago

10 years after introduction, Swift is now 6.1 and soon to be 6.2. May be another revision or two before finalising on 7.0 ? Then may be Apple could rewrite everything in Swift 7 ? I know this sounds fun or cool for a lot people on HN. But I much rather they kept Objective-C and keep refining old codebase for the past 10 years instead. And as many have noted. macOS is now huge. And apart from continuity I dont know any recent macOS feature that made any different for me. We are now close to yet another remake for UI with Vision OS styles. May be they will do a big clean up when they stop supporting x86 Mac. But I wont be holding my breath.