WWDC1997 Session 210

Transcript

Kind: captions
Language: en
new operating system couple months ago
based on a technology that has an
interface and a user experience that is
certainly not Mac OS the internet
explodes in discussion comments debate
I'd like to invite Kurt Piersall to join
the stage talk about Rhapsody's user
experience how we're moving short term
long term and the exciting issues that
are in front of us
Kurt good morning everybody
as you heard probably in the keynote
speech for Rhapsody the stuff that you
can see today is a work in progress and
so I'm here to deliver the awful truth
to you as many of you may have noticed
Apple has been struggling for the last
13 years to try and make a business out
of this whole graphical user interface
thing and we've now come to the
conclusion it's not really possible to
do that of course so as one very
perceptive person during the the QA at
the core OS sessions asked they asked
whether or not we were going to be
delivering the curses library along with
the rest of the nuclear underneath we
decided to move to a completely ASCII
art based interface using the Curtis
library extensively so the next the next
version of the interface builder tool
that you've seen so much about it will
of course be the VI text editor
but you're free to leverage a large
number of additional ascii-based tools
available from a huge array of vendors
so obviously this isn't the real truth
about rhapsody human interface but I
wanted to give you an idea just how
horrible it could be so when we get to
the Q&A session I could threaten you
with something when we actually get to
the stuff we're going to do so let's
jump right into the real message that
we're going to try and make in all of
this which is the Rhapsody look and feel
what we're aiming for is to give you the
best of all worlds and first of all of
course given it we're talking about the
Macintosh human interface we're pretty
darn close
as it is so we're not about to just sort
of go and say okay why don't we just
blow off all of that years of experience
with the Macintosh look and feel we're
going to try and preserve as much of it
as we can we're going to try and make it
look and feel delightful to people who
have used Mac ins options but at the
same time there's a whole bunch of great
new ideas and openstep and we want to
make sure that we're also using the
great new ideas we see from there and we
even may look at a few other platforms
the occasional other platform
I won't leave anything in specific here
of course does have the occasional
extraordinarily rare good idea a human
interface so we're going to take all of
those things now because you know you've
had a chance to see this I want to get
rights to the demo stage so that you can
you can get all excited before I have to
go and give you the rest of the talk so
I'd like to bring up one of the fellows
who's been most involved with getting
the specifics of the look and feel the
look of the very funds up on the screen
and his name is Arlo rose I really would
you please come up everyone here has won
a free one-year supply of human
interface from Apple Computer Arlo tell
them what they've won thank you
you wander down to the far side of the
stage here so what we're looking at
right now is not a Macintosh it is
actually open step or I'm sorry Rhapsody
as you can see the windows look just
like a Mac we've got the closed box in
the right place we've got the zoom box
over here that actually works resizes
properly we have a collapse box not the
little eye complication thing we have a
menu bar that actually has layouts very
similar to the way you'd be used to
seeing them on a Mac the file menu the
Edit menu depending on what kind of
application you're in we may change the
name of the file menu but this is all
work in progress so who knows we're
going to do put a little look who has
yours remember the Archaea let me show
you some of the other neat things that
some the other interface element so if
we go to the print menu
soomi nothing horrible happens here you
can see that we have the radio buttons
behaving the way they behave on a Mac we
have the tempo Mac OS 8 pop-up menu tab
behavior we have the push buttons
looking the way they're supposed to look
system font isn't quite there yet but
we're getting there let's take a look at
interface builder real quick I can show
you some of the other groovy controls we
have we have sliders it's create a new
document real quick get over there
we have sliders and they just like they
do on the Mac OS point in any direction
you want them to and have tick marks
although I'm not going to take the time
to bring that up because I don't know
where can those the mystic marks be any
ASCII character they can they can be one
they're going to be your eyes they could
be lowercase elves step two the
developer is going to be a theme through
this whole thing just in case you didn't
know that already
checkboxes progress indicators another
thanks character in the check box and
it's actually alright so as you can see
we're actually doing a pretty pretty
good job of making this look and feel
like a Mac let me also show you some of
the other interesting things we can do
here with window layering something that
we're keeping if you open up the text
edit path let's get this guy a little
smaller what we're talking about how you
resize that window just oh okay one of
the nice things is as you'll notice
there's no grow box anymore
the grow box will be integrated or the
grow regions will be integrated into the
outside of the window and not only can
you grow from the bottom right hand
corner you can also grow from the top
left or top right top left bottom left
and will probably be either resizing or
moving from all four sides as well so
kind of a neat little thing there our
scroll bars will see let's just hit the
return character a few times as you can
see that they're proportional do we have
proportional thumbs what an idea
and libels growing - and the window
layering model is a little different
than you're used to you're used to
having your entire app switch forward
when you click on one of the windows in
this little scenario here you only get
one of the windows unless I guess this
is a floating palette kind of behavior
thing here so you're going to get that
floating to the front but as you can see
I'm filling around here and only certain
windows are coming to the front even
though the entire application is active
anything else nope I think that's about
it except we might want to feel around
with text editing just a little bit just
so people can see there's kind of some
new basic controls in the system for
things like textiles and colors so we
can select a piece of text go to font go
to the font panel it's a global system
font panel that should look and behave
the same across all applications do some
groovy stuff you can see the font you're
fiddling with and set it and same
concept with color I can remember where
it actually
colors there's a color candle to which
you should should just be able to drag a
chunk of text to and have a change color
not quite used to this there we go
and then those will go away if you click
another layer or they'll stick around if
you go back to layer you're fiddling
with great thanks very much rollin sure
hopefully what you all took away from
this short little demo is the idea that
what you're seeing is not something
that's so radically different from the
Mac OS that people going to oh my god oh
my god lobby doesn't they know who we
are we're marking close customers we
need something good right we want people
to have an experience that they find
delightful that's that's the basic idea
so the stuff that you saw there there
are some things that are really kind of
nice the scrolling is much improved over
the way it currently works in Mac OS and
we think people are going to be very
excited about those capabilities the
ability to live scroll the ability to
get proportional thumbs add a lot of
nice extra information in the interface
that users will find very valuable you
notice that we have the Macintosh menu
bars we went and looked at the various
kinds of menu solutions we saw out there
we didn't look at just our platform we
didn't look at even just the the
openstep platform we went looked at all
various peoples menu systems and we
decided magnet does minions really are
better than anybody else's happen for a
long time but we did decide it would be
great to have tariffs and do context
menus so I'm glad to see some of you are
awake as well as excited this morning so
the second thing of course is the window
behavior is much improved the layer
model that you just saw in there is
generally much less confusing so the
typical user who takes a look at it the
new resize capabilities where you can
resize some era states this is one of
those extraordinarily rare ideas from
other platforms that we thought were
particularly nice and the ability to
live dragged Windows is also nice I hear
a hit over there quiet remember curses
you could have it so the basic elements
of the system the things that that
people see almost immediately are going
to look very familiar to them so when
someone sits down in front of the screen
they're not just gonna go anything but
that they're going to go see this feels
a lot like a Macintosh which is usually
the reaction we've done for most people
who's seen the current look what you
have seen really is a work in progress
as you've been told before because the
various controls I see some of you are
pointing at the text in the window here
enjoying a little dialogue back and
forth to what people will see the
various controls should all feel
reasonably
we'll see them so I'm not going to give
you a demo of the new Rhapsody finder
but we are in the process of building a
new one the one that you saw there is
really just a thing that we're
delivering for developer release and
it's a relatively small Delta from the
current open step workspace but let me
talk a little bit about what we're going
to do with the finder what's going to be
interesting about it as we move forward
first of all like most of the things
we're going to build something that's
mostly the Mac OS finder we don't want
to suddenly move to an entirely
different paradigm I knew some of you
would be pleased by this idea as well so
you are going to have the sort of
multiple window paradigm that you have
today from the finder you are going to
be able to drag to the desktop that's
going to be just like it is today you
are going to have an icon view it's not
going to be just a next step browser it
will have pixel level positioning we are
going to give you 32 by 32 icons there
have been people who suggested the
current 48 by 48 icons are a bit immense
as a person of substance I can't
empathize with them but nonetheless a
diet is probably in order for the icons
you're a subtle crowd this is good
uh-huh we're also going to do a list
view like we have today with the twisty
triangles but we're going to add some
new features that people would ask me
for for a long time including not only
resizable but reorder herbal columns
also a very nice feature and to add sort
of the icing to this particular cake
we're planning on making both of these
views standard openstep use standard
Rhapsody views that you'll be able to
incorporate in your own things instead
of having to rewrite stuff looks kind of
like the stuff that's in the finder
you'll be able to use the actual code
base that does it so people will be able
to build services that look very much
like the current finder experience and
there's a good reason for that and I'll
get into that in just a second but the
other thing is we are going to put in an
open step style browser this is good I
get to appeal to both sides now I can
say how cool the open step browser is
good because it really is cool if you've
used it especially in a development
environment it's really kind of a nice
way to deal with when you have a whole
bunch of files that you're trying to
work with in groups you want to quickly
browse back and forth into segments of
it it's very nice and we're gonna build
one much like today's open step browser
with multiple panes the shelf the paths
on it and that's going to be available
probably as a menu item we haven't
decided in specific yet exactly how it's
going to look but basically a user who
wants to use it will be able to go to a
menu item say I'd like to use the
browser that's the way I'd like to
interact with my system as opposed to
I'd like to use a sort of find your
style you know navigate down through
folders mechanism to get down what's
there so we're trying to get people just
as I said before the best of all worlds
the best stuff that we can find from
both platforms and put them together
into something that people will find
delightful more filling tastes great
let's let Kent yeah more filling even
better so the good reason I was talking
about for making those controls
available for you to use is because
we're going to actually make the
Rhapsody finder an extensible system so
you'll be able to write new browsers to
plug in to our environment
so you don't have to sell for just the
stuff that we provide you're going to be
able to write your own blog in your own
plugins for it and this is a feature
we're planning on having available for
the unified release we don't have a
current schedule for a spec so I can't
give you a date at which you'll be able
to start doing this kind of stuff but I
wanted to give you an idea that this was
coming and it's going to be possible for
these viewers to be separate
applications the way we're building the
finders we're building an infrastructure
layer underneath they handle things like
copies and moves so that you can just
call those services to get those things
done correctly and completely on the
system so you will be concentrating on
writing a look and experience that
people can see without having to worry
about how to get the copy algorithm just
right so that everything works correctly
in the system so you'll be able to run
them either as a separate application or
probably write in the same process space
with the regular finder so this
extensible replaceable feature I'll talk
a little bit more as we go through some
of the other slides to give you a basic
idea so for developer and premiere the
thing we're going to deliver for
developer you've already seen much of it
although it's it's even more Mac like in
the current builds that are actually
back at the shop in Cupertino it's going
to be a relatively small Delta from the
open step workspace and for premia
there'll probably be some incremental
changes views that look more like the
current finder views some of the basics
of what we're doing but not the whole
infrastructure that lets you extend the
finder and that's something that we're
talking about doing for the unified
release so that's the point rig you'll
actually see that so that's a little
ways off which is why I don't have a
great demo to show you a wonderful cool
with the things in it but the basics are
already coming together but you should
see at least does some improvement and
things that are looking more and more
Mac like even for the first two releases
of the finder and developer in the
premier release okay so let's talk a
little bit about some of the other
experience elements in the system this
is kind of a little grab-bag section I'm
going to talk about various areas and
I'm going to try and keep these
relatively short because we want to give
a lot of time for you guys to give us
questions later on so the traditional
jehad level holy water issue whenever
you get to wow that's great
thunder and everything um
file types and creators this is probably
the single most contentious issue for
people who are actually discussing what
we ought to do with the new system and
how we should go and the current plan
for us is to retain the file type and
creator experience from Macintosh users
so people have gotten used to types and
graders are still going to get same
experience they get today but there are
some file systems that simply cannot
support this behavior if you're making a
connection over a link to NFS I
guarantee there is just no in hell
you're going to get that stuff on an NFS
so it's just not wherever you go there's
some interesting little block that
prevents you from finally getting to it
so and the fact of the matter is when
you're interoperating with the rest of
the world file extensions are an
important way of talking about the
content of things for interoperability
with the rest of the universe so our
plan is to use file extensions as a
fallback position as well so if you
download a file onto your system and it
comes from somewhere that doesn't have
types and craters if we can't figure out
what it is and it has a sort of a you
know questions-- questions-- questions--
questions-- in the type field or any of
the other similarly not particularly
useful type or creative values we're
gonna actually look at the extension and
map the applications that way as well so
people will get a good experience out of
it a better experience when you get on
Mac OS or next today so that all the
power of types and creators but when
they're interoperating with the rest of
the world
extensions are going to work and they're
going to be able to use all the various
disk formats that people use in other
parts of the world that don't have types
and creators so we should have limited
support for this in premier and full
support for it by unifying okay the help
system in health system we've decided to
take a radical new approach to help
system authoring by using an actual
standard data type that other people in
the rest of the world use that being
HTML so yes we haven't finished all the
details about how HTML is going to be
plugged into the system but one thing
that we can tell you now is if you build
help files as a set of HTML files with
relative references that can all be
plugged together into a folder that it
is going to work with our help system so
the basics of doing this will allow you
to base it use any HTML editor if you
like you know go out and grab yourself a
copy of Clara's home page
go out and grab a copy of Paige mill and
start building HTML based health content
now a lot of people like some of the
capabilities that you get from Apple
guide and you know the ability to do
coach marking the ability to help do
things these are great features we don't
want these things to disappear in the
system but we don't want to have to have
a whole special data format to do them
so our current plan is to provide sort
of incremental additions to the system
new kinds of HTML types that you can add
to get things coach marked to start
doing more kinds of active assistance in
your help files so as time progresses
we'll add more and more of these tags to
get you back to the same kind of stuff
that you were doing with Apple guide
today but using HTML as your basic
content model underneath so the new help
model for the system is going to be able
to go out across the net because it's
HTML based and we're going to be able to
follow links out of the help system so
you can link back onto your server if
you need you know extended help on
something it will be integrated with the
network HTML based I think it will be a
much better experience for a lot of
people and we're not going to give up
two great things that we were doing with
Apple guide we're just going to put them
more into the internet world the world
of trying to interoperate with the rest
of the computing universe ok so let's
talk a little bit about internet and
Internet integration you remember this
wonderful extensible finder architecture
I was telling you about one of the big
reasons for doing that is so that we can
get superb internet internet integration
into the system so we plan to make sure
that anybody who's building browsers can
use those same facilities for having
desktop URL files for using the
extensible finder architecture to run
browsers right in place inside Finder
windows if they want so that you'll have
an integrated browsing experience that
goes from your local disk all the way
out through the internet internets and
lands and we're going to have Internet
data types of the first class citizens
in it for instance of something that
probably most of you don't know yet is
that the text object the basic text
system inside the racketing platform is
going to handle HTML so you're going to
be able to actually use HTML stuff
directly just using the text system and
get HTML in and out of that so you'll
have a lot more capability for dealing
with HTML browsers and kind of things
just by using the basic text editing
services of the system so you should see
the
first instances of this kind of stuff by
premiere the first instances of this
kind of integration happening is to get
better and better as we get the full
extensible architecture in place the
installation model is also something
that's kind of nice
probably most of you haven't installed
anything on an open step system and if
you have you probably realize they
haven't installer that's much like our
current install and we're planning on
actually taking some of the technology
for our own installer and some from the
current open step installer merging them
into a new installation model but a lot
of the great things that they have in
there is a built-in uninstall model when
you install something on a system it
puts a receipt on the system that you
can double click and take the stuff back
off and that's just a basic part of the
installation experience so we're trying
to get all of those capabilities into
the installation model for the system
and there's an upgrade or capability as
well and you'll be able to take
advantage of all of these things
there'll be a standard system install
experience that you can use ok now we
get to the hard part of this talk this
is the one that I think it's probably
going to be the most interesting and
contentious issue of any of things that
we have to do with the Rhapsody human
experience so I'm looking forward to
getting very toasty when if we actually
get around to having questions here's
the big picture about how the Mac OS
compatibility layer and Rhapsody the
yellow box are going to interoperate on
the system and the answer is they're
going to be almost completely separate
so when you're actually in the blue box
environment there's two computers in
there you're going to think of the blue
box environment as a separate computer
we have argued about this quite
extensively internally so my guess is
those of you who really don't like this
decision will come up with many of the
same arguments that people internally an
applehead about this we don't think
there's an ideal solution here I'm going
to describe to you some of the thinking
that we went through and coming to the
current decision so you can get an idea
exactly they're doing but basically it
comes down to having to make a tough
call about what probably is a better
experience for users in the long run so
let's talk a little bit about that right
now okay those of you who've studied
human interface over the years or looked
at know that rule number one the golden
rule the rule Edge tunes
oan when it comes to doing interface
design is avoiding hidden modes alright
the last thing you want the user to be
in is a mode where the rules of behavior
on his system have changed but he
doesn't know it he hasn't figured it out
you don't want it to suddenly sort of
you know and this was sort of the
traditional thing that tended to happen
a lot in sort of typical sort of
command-line interfaces that people were
building you know way back when was that
you would get into these modes right you
would forget that you were in the middle
of the text editor and you start typing
what you thought was a command and all
you get was some extra text on the
bottom in fact there was a text editor
that I used to use once upon a time it
was really great if you would sit down
in front of it and you they had little
sort of command things and if you were
in the wrong mode and you type the word
edit thinking you were going to go into
edit mode another thing what it did was
it would do II meant select everything
delete was the second thing that was the
day I met insert and then you were in
insert mode and you got a T so you know
it was a really keen way to turn an
entire file into a T just by typing the
word it very nice you know that's the
kind of thing you really really don't
want to have people do and that was the
thing that made us really really worried
about trying to get a mode where the
windows and the menus and very things of
the blue box and the yellow box were
mixed together the rule is if you can't
provide seamless integration try and
make the mode switch obvious let me give
you a couple of examples just so you get
kind of a clear idea what's going on
imagine that we had mixed the blue boxes
and yellow boxes together so people
really couldn't tell which kind of
windows were coming from which kind of
application it all felt like they were
just sort of one space and you go out
and you grab your favorite utility that
patches your Mac OS today my favorite in
this particular case is something like
pop care pop here's a really neat little
utility you know you plug it in there
puts up a little thing that puts up a
key caps kind of thing it sits up in the
menu bar and imagine if you actually did
just go to wrap you system install the
thing it's wonderful now you get pop
care on about half your menu bars
because obviously the paps that's
happening to the Mac OS level the system
isn't going to be applied to the yellow
box part of the system but I guess we
could try to apply the patch but I don't
think the results would be terribly
wonderful and
would be very unlikely to be stable in
that particular case and this one
happens again and again that's the kind
of stuff that goes on all the time in
Mac OS people make patches they do basic
things to the basic system and it
wouldn't apply across all of your
applications and you as an end-user
would probably have no idea what was
going on right so you could you could
try another solution you could say okay
so what we'll do is we'll make those you
know blue box based windows look
different than yellow box based windows
right that way users could always tell
what was going on by looking at the
window title bar now speaking it
personally as a geek you know I could
probably handle this right you know I
said oh I see this window is subtly
different therefore this application is
running in a cooperatively scheduled
shared memory model on the system right
and anybody sitting nearby me would
probably be saying something there Oh
Damon tomorrow we get another
infestation of geeks here I'll go get
the shot and clean the damn things out
all I do is leave around old bottles
adult colon Szechuan food droppings
everywhere totally right people just
don't think in that subtle of terms when
they're looking at their system and we
don't want to confuse them are having
all sorts of subtle changes let me give
you some other examples let's some you
know one of the things that's different
about rhapsodies this window layering
model right you can bring individual
windows to the front in the yellow box
but you can't really do that in the blue
box Mac OS Springs windows together in
layers so you're a user now you get to
say I click on this window it comes to
the front I click on this window five
windows come to the front I like this
system it's sort of those experience in
stimulating surprises every time all
right let's imagine a tap crashes in the
Makah left side of the world what
happens then the user sits there and
goes huh you know sometimes when app
crashes takes 2 or 3 with it
sometimes it doesn't I don't know what
the hell's going on this thing Howard
right and the really exciting one the
one that I really love user Scott bunch
of blue box applications up and working
doing this mac OS stop running
file-sharing background app over in the
blue box side one of the apps crashes
now file-sharing has gone away because
the blue box has vanished right did the
user have any idea that some of the
server's we're running in the blue box
some of them are running in the yellow
box some them crash when some of the
visible apps go some them crash on their
own when they don't sometimes one of
those things crashes it brings out some
of the visual ops the point of all of
this is this is a very confusing
experience for a user they would sit
down in front of a system like this and
they go you know sometimes things crash
and a lot of stuff happens I don't know
why it's all very subtle sometimes the
windows work the way I expected to a lot
of time they don't a lot of times I can
patch stuff in the system and sometimes
it kind of works this is not the
experience I think we want for our end
users and this is the reason we've
decided especially for the time being to
try and keep the two worlds as separate
as possible so you can explain to a user
that when the Mac OS part of the system
goes down did anything he was running in
their feed a server an application went
down with it you can explain why that
happened and they'll understand there
are things in this part of the world and
they kind of they aren't as stable but
they work together and I've got a lot of
software that works there and if it
crashes I have to restart the thing but
at least I know what's happening where
and what's going wrong my system and why
it's doing what it's doing and that's
what we wanted people to get out of the
experience so basic rules for
integration when we have these kind of
systems up where we're trying to keep
you know two worlds and we're trying to
keep them separate first of all don't
change modes unexpectedly on users so
we're going to try and make sure that if
you double click on a document somewhere
it doesn't automatically decide to
launch the entire blue box environment
and swap you into it we're probably
going to give you a little bit more
warning than that in the environment so
you understand what's happening to you
second thing is trying not to hide
differences that make
a difference and so that's the kind of
stuff I was talking about with things
like the window layering models or
weather service crash and so on and the
last thing is don't make the user guess
what changed when you did what and this
is something a little more subtle we'll
talk about this more in a second
so there are a bunch of shared system
elements and a bunch of things that
aren't gonna be shared so first of all
let's talk about what can be shared to
some extent between blue box and yellow
box the file system is going to be
shared but not entirely because you
probably don't want your average you
know user sitting in Mac OS to go
wandering off down into the midst of the
slash bin slash whatever folder and
start you know editing files with you
know Microsoft Word which is perfect we
have to open any file you pointed out
I'm probably not the ideal experience
now we don't to prevent people from
seeing these files but we also don't
want people to just have these files in
their face all the time with you know
dangerous things that they might
possibly do with them so we're going to
try and segregate the file system into
things that are mostly glue based and
things are mostly yellow based not to
keep people from getting to them but to
keep them from having to be confused by
the difference most of the time we are
going to share the clipboard between the
two parts of the system because people
really do like to transfer data back and
forth and they probably get really
annoyed with this the screen is going to
be partially shared we talked a little
bit about this in the blue box session
sometimes it'll be full screen sometimes
it'll only be a part of the screen we're
probably going to share the fonts for
the simple reason then you get to
countries in Asia you often have fonts
that 40 megabytes apiece so just getting
an extra copy of those just so you can
run them in the blue box as well as the
yellow box even with today's wonderful
modern disk technology 40 megabytes
apiece does begin to add up sort of like
in a million here a million there adds
up to real money eventually famous some
you know megabyte here megabyte there I
had that experience recently by the way
I was installing onto a system and it
wouldn't install with more than a four
gig drive on it and this this drive had
a 4.0 for gigs it's just a smidge above
four gigs right then I realized that's
40 megabytes at what point in my life
did 40 megabytes become a smidge
so uh one thing that isn't going to be
shared as the finder we're going to talk
about that at length in a second just so
you understand a little bit more there
but so for filesystem sharing the math
class is going to see a series of
volumes just like it does today start
with Mac OS it's going to see a series
of volumes those volumes there is you're
going to come from shared parts of the
yellow filesystem or disk images or
partition in the shared case each of the
two environments is going to be able to
see all the files in all the shared
directories and you're going to be able
to share any directory you'd like so you
can go actually and share the slash
directory at the top of the the yellow
box world into blue although chances are
it's a wildly uninteresting activity for
you but we are going to try and tend to
hide inappropriate files separate
directories for the things in different
environments so the system folder is not
going to be mixed in with the /fc folder
in some fashion or some similarly
praised notion and the other directories
directories that are sort of you know
standard directories that yellow box
uses to keep up and run are going to be
made less obvious to people and that's
really the goal we're trying to reach in
all this to keep people from being
unnecessarily confused on the system and
there are some special compatibility
modes things like mac OS partitions and
disk images those files aren't going to
be shared with the rest of Rhapsody in
general but these things are more
compatible and you've got a blue
application that's talking directly to
discussing manager and it wants to do
stuff to you know a disk format that's
entirely different than a volume you're
going to need these special modes to
actually work so for really high end
users these features are going to be
interesting but they're not going to be
the default experience for most people
there's going to be a setup panel that
will let people sort of configure this
any of you played with PC compatibility
on Macintosh as I've seen a similar kind
of a panel there we can sort of say
which kind of volumes are going to
appear as the drives in the PC side of
the world it's a very similar kind of
experience we're probably gonna do here
so screen sharing we have two modes one
where the Mac OS takes over the screen
one where there's hotkey switching
what's going on I excuse me that's
taking over the screen so you can switch
back and forth with hotkeys and they'll
probably be one or more wrapped to the
entries on the process menu and
switching is never going to be a side
effect
users action we always wanted to be
something the user decides to do not
something that the system sort of
imposes on them because something
happened right you can just imagine you
know fascinating things where I you know
a time program wakes up and desire
excellent time to switch the user in the
blue like a music goes I know what
happened probably right in between
keystrokes if he's really lucky
uh-hum having to mechanize take over the
screen it's going to be by far the most
compatible mode and the fastest mode
that you can run it in when blue has
access to do the whole screen it doesn't
have to double buffer or whole series of
things that work better in this mode now
it's probably going to be fine for most
reasonably well behaved applications to
run into Mac OS in a box mode but for
some things like games they're going to
want to take over the full screen - and
so Mac OS in a box means really a window
it's going to be a Rhapsody window that
has a little Macintosh screen in there
it's going to have little knots off
edges just as if it were a screen
there's going to be a little menu bar up
at the top of it and in fact if you
resize the screen the macro life stuff
is going to think that you just change
the resolution on the monitor and it's
going to relay itself out to kind of fit
the new screen size and one of the
things that is currently going to be the
case and it's probably not my favorite
feature of the system is the fact that
dragging is going to stop at the box
boundary so this is something that right
now currently the blue box
implementation team isn't sure that they
can deliver so you don't want to promise
it to people yet but certainly high in
my list of things that we'd rather have
working a different way there are going
to be a few other shared elements
generally as few as possible we talked
about fonts in the clipboard a little
bit but one in the system time we
decided it would probably be a bad idea
to have users think of the system as
sort of yet another thing kind of like
all those VCRs and clocks and stuff they
keep around the house when the power
goes out all the power went off I have
to reset the clock on both sides that
would be really obnoxious I already hate
it with the rest of my equipment the
last thing I need is in my computer I
still have to set multiple clocks to it
would be very unfortunate
we are also going to have two finders
and this is the usual thing because if
you actually go and talk to somebody you
say hey how'd you like to have a system
with two finders in it they go oh no no
I wouldn't like that at all
then you go okay that's great would it
be all right if Fong you know all the
Apple scripts you were doing for
workflow stopped working well no of
course not
that would be terrible okay well how
about if all those things that you know
kind of get all these neat little
extensions and stuff that make the
finder do some extra things for you okay
if they'll stop working too well no I
like all that software it all works and
pretty soon you have this little
conversation for a little island people
going maybe to find written all in bed I
kind of like being able to do the stuff
I do in my current system on here
so the real trade-off for us is one of
can we make it compatible and stable and
still have a single finder and we don't
think there's any way to do that and
when you talk to people they want the
stable environment they want high
compatibility with their existing
software and they want great smooth
integration it's like you know huh you
can have any two of these but not all
three
so the Mac OS finder is going to be
there so that the things that depend on
the Mac OS finder and there are
applications there are extensions there
are scripts that all depend on are going
to be able to run on this system it's
going to be highly compatible but of
course you know the Mac OS finder is
vulnerable to other programs mistakes so
if we try to make it the only de macorís
finder that was launching all the wraps
the applications then basically you'd
have to relaunch gravity whenever the
blue finder crashed which we all know it
does from time to time
very rarely of course but nonetheless
people wouldn't want to give up that
level of stability and so the last thing
is we're talking about the separated
model so people understand that there
are two machines in there and they have
different characteristics and different
kinds of stability and different sorts
of behavior and having two finders let's
let's people understand there are two
computers in there and helps them to
understand which mode they're operating
in at any given time so we think having
two finders is the best we can do for
the time being if we can solve some of
these problems it's going to take us
time because we're going to have to get
some help from you to stop doing some of
the sort of amazing things that
applications do if you want to get stuff
that's going to give a smoother
integration I'll give an example there's
at least one program I know of which no
because it hasn't called wait next event
yet it's safe to go walk the window list
get all the reasons out of the windows
take them out of whatever it's doing and
then circ writing gets directly into the
frame bunker which is absolutely true on
the Mac OS because if you haven't given
up like next event nothing in the
universe could have moved those windows
underneath you on rhapsody between any
two instructions something could have
moved one of those windows underneath
you and this is the kind of sort of you
know I'm sorry said this is pathological
behavior that will cause weird screen
artifacts to occur if we're trying to
get these these window systems to
interleave they're a whole series and
things like this and so it's going to
take us time to move the system towards
more integration because we're going to
have to sort of move people relatively
slowly and get enough software that
works the right way so that people can
continue doing their work and still be
able to use the system and that's not
going to be something we can do right
away so haven't gone through this long
thing I hope some of you understand more
why we're making this particular
decision about the human experience
because it's not because we think it's
the ideal I mean the ideal would be
everything would work smoothly and
perfectly and you wouldn't be able to
tell the difference and it would all be
great but that's probably not achievable
given the current state of the real
world so this is what we think is the
best thing to do so one last little bit
of stuff about the network this is the
last sort of area each environments
going to prevent present its own view of
the network for a variety of different
reasons and this is not all bad by the
way Rhapsody it's not going to have a
chooser we have decided that the chooser
is not the optimal human experience for
network browsing so the rhapsodies
wouldn't have that but not all the
network protocols will necessarily be
there on both sides so you know you may
not have something that knows how to
read some particular protocol in the
yellow box side of the world or
something in the blue box side of the
world so we need to allow both of those
environments to operate somewhat
independently just so people will
understand what's going on again so in
summary before we get to our questions
and answers we have a new advanced look
and feel for accessing we're trying to
combine the best of all ways
we want it to be stable we want it to be
extensible we want it to be
high-performance we also want to have
great Mac OS compatibility and we want
to have it be so compatible that people
get basically all the software they care
about to run on it in very short order
and to do that we're going to make it
distinctly separate so at this point I'm
going to open up the floor to questions
and answers and some of my compatriots
from the H I team and the marketing
group are going to come up here and help
me answer these questions so an
barrestin is going to be up here Arlo is
going to get up on stage Ricardo
Gonzales who's the marketing manager for
Rapp see Tim McCallum who's one of the
leaves on the H I caiman I don't know
Cordell do want to get up here I see you
out in the middle of the audience you're
hiding not that I blame you of course so
I'll go over here and okay why don't we
start on the left-hand side here
hi crystal from Wolf Square and all the
information systems I have a bunch of
questions I'll try to restrict myself to
a couple to dive right into the pipe
creator debate have you considered that
on a multi-user system opening a default
application based on a creator code
stored in the file may not be the best
idea because different users on the
system are going to want to open the
same file in different applications by
default and do you have any plans for
allowing that to be tuned on a per user
basis so I can answer that if you look
at the current environment of people who
work today with pipes and graders on
Apple share systems they basically have
the same thing write a particular user
has set the particular creator code for
that application in general they it
hasn't been a big problem for us so
we're pretty convinced it's not going to
be a big problem in the new world either
you know it does cause the occasional
annoyance but it hasn't been something
that we think merits actually sort of
you know moving
an entirely different model of of how we
could launch files because we think
users are used to it they kind of like
it okay any chance that we'll still see
some form of pop-up-menu supported by
the system global next style
no definitely it means like the two
different types of pop-up and pulldown
menus that currently exist open step no
I'm referring more to the use of right
mouse button to get rather than having
to move all the way to the top of the
screen and I hope so it's one of the
things that I am trying to figure out
how we can integrate into the whole menu
like our connector thank you I give
someone else a chance for now go to the
center place does your new help system
handle balloons or are you planning on
handling something like balloons there's
there's currently some things that do
the same kind of stuff in the current
app kit for putting up the basically
tooltip kind of things with various
kinds of controls we're planning on
moving those things forward I don't
think we're going to go to the same
model of balloon help that we all know
and love on the Mac OS but we do want
some of that same kind of capabilities
and are some things in the app kit so
you'll see some of that kind of stuff
but it won't be the same model that we
have currently on Mac OS ok I'm on next
they currently do all their installs
into like an ACCI folder it is that
going to change or be perceived
different I yeah we plan to let people
put applications anywhere they want just
like they do today on the Mac OS we
think that's important part of the
experience
on the right-hand side Alvers burner
motorola i was wondering if you give us
your thoughts on multiple monitor
support and how that whole thing fits
into the picture for multiple display I
think you'll be very pleased actually
one of the things that we looked at when
we were actually evaluating various
operating system technologies at the end
of last year was you know what could we
do with multiple monitor support and you
know the open sepsis was the only one
that actually had multiple monitor
support the way we would think of it on
the system so we plan to carry that
ahead into the new system
we'll definitely want to do multiple
monitors and you'll feel much like they
do today okay back here on the left
giving Locke Island graphics corporation
yes I'm going to bring out the blue box
questions okay so you decided to go
separate which is fine and you brought
out some very compelling arguments why
you want to do that I can think of one
very compelling argument about having an
integrated environment and that is let's
say if the user has Photoshop installed
where is it is in the blue box is in the
yellow box where is it going to find it
and you know you not only do you have to
maintain a dual mentality that you have
your two machines in there which is okay
right but the thing is that you don't
know where things are you need to keep
track of oh I have XY and Z in blue box
I have ABC and yellow okay let it be a
big problem let me address that we're
saying we aren't planning on hiding you
know the blue applications when you're
over in the yellow side of the world in
in the new system so if you actually go
to a blue application and double-click
on it we probably will put up with
dialog boxes you know you're not running
in blue right now would you like me to
switch you there but we will definitely
switch you into the environment and
let's you start using it so you're not
going to have to sort of you know sit
around go hey I wonder where I put that
application did I leave it in the blue
world or in the yellow world we don't
want that experience so that particular
issue I think we're going to give a
pretty good solution for but I agree
with you this is this is going to be
more difficult in the new system than it
was with just a straight Mac OS
any any other guys want to comment no no
none of them with a government I hope
you all are you implying that when I'm
sitting in front of the in the yellow
screen I can actually double click on
some icon that will launch means with
blue box app absolutely ok and the other
way around someone else what about the
other way around the answer is yet
you're working both records can you can
you provide some other arguments on the
other side um now that you're gonna have
me right there ask me to argue with
myself well I've been killed in presence
of half the arguments here I would like
to see what the users are going to be
experiencing what the problems they are
going to be running into right I think
the primary issue that people are going
to have with the new system to argue
with myself about those because we've
gone through this back and forth it is
going to be that they have to understand
that there are two worlds and there is a
separation and sometimes that's going to
introduce some inconvenience and now
they have to do things and we're
entirely aware of all these things we
went through them in sort of
unpleasantly gory detail we went through
there but this was exactly the example I
mean this was a judgement call which was
going to be worse not understanding what
was going to go on on your system for
all of your basic operations in a pretty
continuous fashion or having to keep a
little bit of extra memory around about
where things were and we decided that it
would be better to have the basic
operation seems smooth and a none
confusing and that was purely a judgment
call and a rational person could
disagree with us and one of the things
we're going to do of course is when we
actually get the thing up and running
we're going to test the hell out of this
because we know it's a big deal if I can
add something to that we actually have
been through this before with macintosh'
application environment and as we were
going through the design of that we've
started running into these same issues
where you know we really like the way
things work on the Macintosh side and we
wanted to carry over some of the
interface elements into the x windows
world and we started going down that
path and we soon found that it really
became confused
because you could switch between these
two worlds but the rules for how things
acted between those two worlds were
change and we did go through usability
testing with that and found that users
also liked the model of even though they
had to deal with two different worlds
when they were in one world all the
normal rules of laws of physics applied
when they're in another world the world
they've the rules for that world applied
to and from the usability testing that
we did there we found that was the right
decision we could go to the middle place
either I'm a long time math developer
but recently I've had to spend a
significant amount of time developing
under Windows NT 4.0 and I'm troubled by
how much of the new Mac look and feel is
already in Windows NT and how Apple is
going to distinguish their look and feel
in the marketplace from from that and I
just want to throw that out as a sort of
a cautionary note to Apple that we do
need to distinguish our look and feel
from a lot of stuff that already is in
Windows and one could argue about who
developed these innovations in the first
place and it probably wasn't Microsoft
but on the other hand they are there in
the marketplace and Apple does need to
distinguish that but on a more practical
level I'm really troubled by the
windowing model under Windows NT of
Windows being intermingled from
applications and how that interacts with
the taskbar I find that incredible Cluj
and I hope Apple will doesn't fall into
sort of that same mire and at least have
the windowing moddable model switchable
so you could get a standard mac OS
layered approach and or the intermingled
approach depending on what you like and
also I mean look at how Windows NT
you know forget we're going to be a path
name based operating system all of a
sudden which is troubling on a Macintosh
how Windows NT basically fails that you
know how the yeah incorporating path
name information both into the title
bars of Windows and into the taskbar
information
and you know see some usability testing
on this is I guess is what I'm saying so
first I want to say all your points are
very well taken I think we'd basically
agree with all of the things that you
had to say to us and we're very worried
about those particulars issues there is
one particular thing I want to point out
about the window model in specific which
isn't immediately obvious so most people
who sit down in front of a Rhapsody
system which is that there is a very
simple way it's very easy to build
reflexes up to get applications to
switch all of their windows to the front
which is basically just going and
double-clicking on the app icon and all
the windows will come together as a
group and we plan to have a mechanism
that lets you bring any individual
window or any application you know set
of windows together forward as a group
so that people will be able to sort of
choose whichever mode they want and sort
of build their own reflex for which way
they like to switch between apps so I
think that will work very well for fuel
I certainly found it as soon as I
understood that there was this extra
feature in there I certainly was much
happier because I felt I had gotten
pretty much the best of both worlds in
them okay on the right hand side Jeff
Johnson Web TV networks I'm interested
in specifically how the file mapping
between files that do not use the file
and type creators will work
specifically I'm interested in is the
setting or how the the files extension
is mapped an application global or does
it separate between Rhapsody of robots
so for example if you have fractal
painter on one side and Photoshop on the
other you want to open a TIFF file with
one on raster day and one with blue box
run that scenario by me one more time
well let's say you have a tiff file in
the extension gif and you want to open
that file by default with fractal
painter on blue box and Photoshop on
Rhapsody is that possible or is it
mapped to a single type of application
what we're currently planning is to be
able to have both a blue and a yellow
application associated with any
particular file type so that if you're
running in the yellow it's going to try
to launch the yellow application with
that file first if there's not a
corresponding yellow application then
what you will do is it'll lock it'll
come up with selection saying we don't
have this we although there is a blue
application that's associated with this
file you want to make the switch over to
blue at that point super one weather
quick question are you planning on
making it possible for the browser then
the next step browser to be used in any
window as opposed to having a single
browser
yes we're currently looking at trying to
associate browsers with individual
windows individual folders or files so
that you can actually swap switch
browsers depending upon the context if
you have an application environment or
folders associated with your application
development you may want to use the
next-step browser with those particular
folders you may want to use the Mac OS
or you may want to use some third-party
browser to look at other sections of
your hard disk or the network or
whatever browser you choose to look at
you can associate those with whatever
context you choose to believe that's the
plan right
super hope you do that Thanks okay here
on the Left Mike's cool or curling I
have a question about the Finder window
code that we're going to be able to use
in our apps because we heard that the
advance look and feel won't be there for
apps running under windows will that
code be there with a Windows look and
feel or will that be something we have
to differentiate in a portable
application
the answer is we could probably do it
either way so we should talk about what
your business requirements are and see
if we can come to some agreement about
what the right way is to do it you know
just give us feedback tell us what kind
of stuff you need and we can talk about
which stuff is going to be available in
which parts of the world I mean you know
one of the things about the way open
stuff works is it's a series of
frameworks so you can deliver it you
know parts of it in various places
without delivering the whole thing so we
have to go through a process of deciding
you know which frameworks are
cross-platform and which ones aren't and
your feedback will help us get the right
stuff in there okay I I'm guessing that
people want to go cross-platform are
going to want you know more of the
framework to go but of course they want
the windows look and feel on Windows you
know be a credible windows out when
they're there right currently actually
that it does open step does that right
now and we plan on keeping that I assume
you're just simply talking about the
visual appearance not necessarily the
entire framework thing but yeah right
now if you run an open step app then you
know compiled for both open step on NT
and open step for mock or whatever in
our case it will be Rhapsody you will
have the exact same look and feel
experience per platform so if you run a
Rhapsody app on Mac OS it will have the
Mac OS look and feel if you run it on on
mock on a PowerPC or on Intel it will
have whatever the default Rhapsody look
and feel will be and if you run it on
into your Windows 95 that will look like
Windows NT and Windows 95
it'll do the right thing as well as the
menus as well there's separate files
inside each of the apps it says okay I'm
on a Mac app I'm going to display Mac
like windows under the Windows
environment I'm going to display windows
from those menus okay the other question
I had was about compound document
architecture is Apple going to provide
some leadership to bring developers
together on a single standard open doc
Khan was a little too
a little too late well maybe a little
too much little too late are we going to
get something that's enough early enough
this time you're a cruel man like this
probably isn't the right forum for for
me to answer that question the truth of
the matter is for the time being we
aren't doing stuff for opened on
Rhapsody and we haven't finalized
anything focus on the yellow box I mean
I really think this falls under user
experience that that to the user what
open doc provided was you know that
developers could come together on a
single way to interoperate in documents
I'm not asking to bring open dark
forward I'm asking Apple to provide some
leadership somehow that will bring
developers together you know not after
we have like two generations of
applications on Rhapsody but maybe the
first generation we could we could
already have leadership from Apple to
get that inner about interoperability
going from the beginning and I think
that's that's very good feedback I think
something that we need to be clear going
back to open dog anyway open dog is
going to be on the blue box not in
yellow however all the experience that
and all the technology that well their
doors also think that we're going to be
looking anyway because as we said the UI
right now is working progress will be
evolving it and if we think that there
are things that we can bring from other
type of experiences and technologies who
look at how to incorporate that so it's
it's give all the feedback we will look
at that and be sure that the user
experience will continue to evolve and
what we want to do is to bring the user
to new levels with the most advanced Yui
for all patterns so we will be looking
at that okay in the middle place of
course I Kurt agree with these remarks
and a quick shot but it would certainly
solve the application layering versus
window based layering discussion we just
had about five minutes ago to have a
document based layering I think this is
an excellent time just just here is sort
of a ceremonial act here to get down on
the knees take the microphone
sorry about that anyway but my the
reason I came up here to make a remark
was independent of what you think of the
HTML file format please don't even dream
that you can do help in the current
browsers using HTML yeah the plan is not
to be using you know something like
Netscape as your help system any of it
or any sort of browsers I mean I
whether hTML is up to up to it as a file
format but using you know having
thousands of files spread out on a
folder and expect to do some reasonable
help for developers say is I think
absurd right so I I think we'd agree
with you on that we're not planning on
doing it as a browser style environment
but hTML is the format that we're
planning on using to get the content
into the system on the right hand side
place oh no microphone in terms of the
security issues on the file system what
you ID will the blue box be running
under the answer is the UID will be the
same UID that the user logged in to
yellow with so that's what blue box will
run as if it were that user thank you
back to the left when Rhapsody is
running on top of the Mac OS will it
also be a separate window or will it
take over the whole machine and it's
something similar going to happen when
Rhapsody is running on Windows 95 or MS
NT okay we should be clear it isn't
going to be Rhapsody that's running on
the system's it's going to be the yellow
box api's so when you see the yellow box
api's on Windows 95 or Windows NT they
used the 95 or NT student experience
they used their version of the finder
they use their version of controls the
same thing is going to be true about Mac
OS when you run a yellow box based
application on Mac OS it'll look and
feel like a Mac OS based application
okay thank you in the middle
then yeah just just clarify something
there's something that is important is
that for the user who's running an
applications on the Windows environment
it shouldn't be apparent for him that
he's running any yellow box or whatever
so he's running any application as it's
at his facts to run any normal Windows
application today and that should be the
same experience in the in the Mac OS
side and let me just add one more thing
because it will be designed by Macintosh
developers it will work that much better
than any other Windows application
question in the middle place ah yes I
wanted to ask the question that UNIX is
a multi-user environment thus are you
going to preserve the concept that the
users desktop as a use individual user
logs into their machine that their
desktop appears from their home
directory which might be out on the
network somewhere you know from a system
administration standpoint one of the
largest things that you get with the
open step environment on MOC is that you
can tell the user that you can scribble
on your local hard drive is completely
controlled from the system and
standpoint and you get a lot more
stability that way then most users are
used to with the operating systems that
are out there today so the feature
you're talking about we we tend to call
virtual desktops the idea that you log
in on one machine wherever it is on the
network and your desktop comes up with
your preferences and so on and we plan
to continue that in wraps tick that's
certainly the planet I don't know that
we'll have quite the same you know for
small work groups we may not have sort
of the centralized server model of where
the home directory lives it may be more
peer-to-peer in those cases but those
are people who don't have the same kind
of security concerns so I want to make
sure you understand that it's not
entirely necessarily exactly the same
experience but but the core parts will
probably still be there if we're running
short on time but we'll take two more
questions start here on the the right so
I I get Rhapsody I install application a
and it installs the shared library user
expectation manager version 4.0
means and it doesn't understand version
3.0 version 5.0 then I install
application B and application B requires
user expectation manager version 5.0
will application a still work then when
I D install application B will
application a still work so I believe
the answer to both of your questions is
yes the application will still work
those are two separate libraries and the
process decides which one it's going to
load when it starts up so that they
could both be on machine at the same
time and you know they can be D
installed separately from our own so
either so is the whole concept of shared
code among applications being discarded
oh not at all I mean they could they
could be sharing code but if they're if
they're interested in two different
versions of the library then they aren't
sharing code anymore right
right is there any way that application
a could be made to take advantage of the
new additional features of shared love
the second shared library probably not
not without recompiling application a in
some way this probably won't won't do
the same thing cool say excellently yeah
yeah this gently is the question I think
that's better served in the runtime
group talking about the actual runtime
model of system there will be some
feedback sessions that that session
itself may actually be repeated later
today we could take the last question
here on the the left hand side it's
going to be looking at the contents of
file is going to be more like a get info
or inspector kind of experience under
the new UI I think the experience will
be much like the current inspector model
is a next step sort of a selection
driven non-modal dialogue but there
probably call it get info and it's going
to be like context-sensitive and down 50
windows right definitely yeah one of the
things we were planning on doing with
Copeland and I hope to move to the Mac
OS at some point and we get with with
Rhapsody is the ability to have an
extensible get info method so if you
know you want to add the ability to view
you know macro mind director files with
your get info thing to see what the
animation is you could certainly add
that kind of plugin ability to your
inspector okay thank you very much for
your attention we'll stick around at the
front of the stage here also there is a
feedback form talking about the advanced
user experience for Rhapsody right
around tonight just after lunch today
thank you very much
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