Smoothly going from 9 to X with Dreamweaver, Photoshop and Snapshot.

[fishbonex]

I'm on it right now, at home. It never crashes, networking is a breeze and is overall a great OS. But...

I work at home almost as much as I do at work, where I am still running 9.2. Why? Because I work in a hi-speed envirorment, and the window shade-less Os DOES slow you down. And that slight few-second delay to open a file adds up and seriously bogs down any groove you might be in. Besides that, I have several minor/major issues with OS X that I can't seem to resolve at home:

-Double-clicking file opens it in Preview or IE, not native App.
-Drag and Drop file does not open it in Dreamweaver, Photoshop or Image Ready
-Downright slow and sluggish in Dreamweaver, Photoshop, Image Ready and IE
-Snapshots are taken as PDF files and go straight to your desktop
-A lot of my fonts do not show up (granted, in X I am not using a Font management program)
-NO SNOOD!!!

I wonder if I only had X installed, would it be faster than it's running? The only program I NEED OS 9 for is Quark Xpress, but it's a major program. I find myself restarting in 9 when I have to work because the above programs all FLY in 9 and as I said, are sluggish in X.
Some people might not think these issues are a big deal, but they seriously cramp my working style. I don't know if the problems are because I'm using an older 400MHz G4 with 832MB or if having OS 9 also installed is slowing it down, but if anybody knows how to fix some of these issues, please point my in the right direction!!

[fryke]

Nope, OS 9 installed doesn't slow down your Mac OS X. Quark XPress is certainly bad in Classic and a big reason to stay in 9.

However, you can set screenshots to be taken in other formats with TinkerTool, I believe (or something else), and I have to say that once you _adapt_ to the new ways, your workflow will actually be faster in Mac OS X.

Opening files with a specific app is a breeze, just hold down the Command key while dragging a file to an app that doesn't want to open the file per se...

[RacerX]

Originally posted by fishbonex
-Double-clicking file opens it in Preview or IE, not native App.

That usually means that the resourse has been stripped off at some point (usually via e-mail or downloading from the web). You can tell the system what apps you want a document to be open with in the Info panel for that app. Further you can set the default app for that type of document at the same time (I set Acrobat to be used in place of Preview because I utilize many aspects of the full version of Acrobat on a daily basis).

-Drag and Drop file does not open it in Dreamweaver, Photoshop or Image Ready

Okay, I don't know about Dreamweaver, but Photoshop and ImageReady are two apps I spend a ton of time in and I have never had that problem unless the resource fork was gone and the file didn't have an extension. If it has a resource fork (that is, if you created it on a Mac and moved it between Macs using Mac media) drag-and-drop should work. Fryke pointed out what to do if that doesn't.

-Downright slow and sluggish in Dreamweaver, Photoshop, Image Ready and IE

I haven't had any problem with Photoshop or ImageReady and both my systems are G3s running at 350 MHz or less. I don't use IE unless I'm testing compatability (same with Netscape), I generally use OmniWeb (specially for working on web pages in it's source editor) or Safari. That could very easily be something to do with your system that is not a general problem with Mac OS X.

-Snapshots are taken as PDF files and go straight to your desktop

Where would you like them to go? The original place (root level of the boot drive) was counter-intuitive for many users (I do phone support, I know of what I speak). Having the file appear where the user can see that it was generated has saved me a ton of time helping others.

Also, what format would you like? Originally screenshots were pict files (which was pretty much a Mac-only file format). Then we had TIFF files, but then again, it wasn't easy to share. With PDF you know that most any other system out there is going to be able to see it and it doesn't require the system to do anything other than dump the current screen image to a file as the screen image is already a PDF. I would say this is a step up from the old pict file format and should be considered an advantage over Mac OS 9.2.

-A lot of my fonts do not show up (granted, in X I am not using a Font management program)

Generally, Mac OS X looks to three places for fonts...

• /Library/Fonts
  /Users/home_folder/Library/Fonts
  and the Classic System Folder's font folder

Plus many of my client have already moved to Suitcase. The current version works in both 9 & X.

-NO SNOOD!!!

I have no idea what that is.

[fryke]

Good answers, RacerX. And I guess Snood is some sort of game that would run in Classic?

And I just have to repeat one of the basic benefits of using Mac OS X: You can keep your applications open. In OS 9, I always had to _decide_ what to work with. I kept two copies of Photoshop, one using 80 MB of RAM, one using 300 MB of RAM (when I had 512), and I always had to quit the big one as soon as I wanted to use either GoLive, Illustrator or InDesign concurrently. Now in OS X, I just open them all. I'm glad that I can tell Photoshop the percentage of RAM it should use, but somehow I'd rather not, as I fear as long as it's opened, it hogs RAM - even in the background and without images open...

The most important thing, I think, is that you _HAVE_ to try and adapt to the differences Mac OS X has over Mac OS 9 - and you'll not only SEE the advantages, you'll feel them. And use them. And start to miss the days when you thought OS X was a bad idea. :P

[chevy]

MacOS X is to MacOS 9 what MacOS was to the old Apple II text oriented OS.

The text oriented OS is MUCH faster. But you are faster with Mac OS, because the limitating factor in not CPU power, but human reaction, human reflexion, human creativity. That's why I find MacOS X is better than MacOS 9... and my iMac is better than any 4GHz PC.

Just do it faster.

[fishbonex]

Nobody wishes OS X would run smoother than 9 than I do, believe me. I am a HUGE Mac evangelist and still pump OS X to people, I know all of it's benefits and have been working on these machines for nearly a decade. But this new OS is alien to me (where I used to be able to fix and tinker with the old one), so I don't know how to fix these issues I do have and NONE of them are happening in OS 9.2. I apreciate all advice in advance!

quote:
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That usually means that the resourse has been stripped off at some point (usually via e-mail or downloading from the web). You can tell the system what apps you want a document to be open with in the Info panel for that app. Further you can set the default app for that type of document at the same time
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I hope this one works. I went into the apps Info dialog box, where do I enter this? I am just finishing having my ".PSD" open in "preview", so my frustration is fresh on the surface! These files are transferred between Office and Home via FTP or Firewire drive, either way same problem.


quote:
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-Drag and Drop file does not open it in Dreamweaver, Photoshop or Image Ready

Okay, I don't know about Dreamweaver, but Photoshop and ImageReady are two apps I spend a ton of time in and I have never had that problem unless the resource fork was gone and the file didn't have an extension. If it has a resource fork (that is, if you created it on a Mac and moved it between Macs using Mac media) drag-and-drop should work. Fryke pointed out what to do if that doesn't.
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Whether I have created these files on my Mac at home or at work, same issue. Drag and Drop only works the first time you do it, when it is also launching the app. After that, it doesnt work even if I am holding the Command key down.


quote:
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-Downright slow and sluggish in Dreamweaver, Photoshop, Image Ready and IE

I haven't had any problem with Photoshop or ImageReady and both my systems are G3s running at 350 MHz or less. I don't use IE unless I'm testing compatability (same with Netscape), I generally use OmniWeb (specially for working on web pages in it's source editor) or Safari. That could very easily be something to do with your system that is not a general problem with Mac OS X.
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Once Safari and Chimera iron out some more bugs, I will move full time over to those browsers when I am surfing. But I still need to test my work in IE, and will continue to need to work inside of it. All of these apps in OS X are slow to open, slow to bounce between and slow to respond.


quote:
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-Snapshots are taken as PDF files and go straight to your desktop

Where would you like them to go? The original place (root level of the boot drive) was counter-intuitive for many users (I do phone support, I know of what I speak). Having the file appear where the user can see that it was generated has saved me a ton of time helping others.
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I would like them to go to the root folder, or in a folder I can designate. Unfotunately, what is helpful to others in not helpful to me. I'm sure most people don't need to take over a dozen a day, so a snapshot on their dektop is not disorganized or cluttered. I need to view them by date, D and D several at a time and have them open quickly in either Photo or IReady. These files I need to import into PSD's, to build into other files. A PDF is not helpful to WORK with, Pict files were. I am not looking to save these, mail these or even share these. The snapshot is a tool in which we (my crew) work with to build other files. A JPG would be even better, and unfortunately with Jaguar, Tinker no longer works.


quote:
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Generally, Mac OS X looks to three places for fonts...

/Library/Fonts
/Users/home_folder/Library/Fonts
and the Classic System Folder's font folder
Plus many of my client have already moved to Suitcase. The current version works in both 9 & X.
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I think another person answered this in another thread for me. OS X has probs with True Type and such? All of my fonts were moved into these library's, OS X apps just don't recognise all of them. Not wierd fonts like "Phil's Semi" but standards like "Helvetica Rounded" do not show up. I have to try Suitcase to see if this works, I used to be a ATM user, but maybe suitcase is the way to go.

Again, thanks in advance to anybody who spends time responding to my probs and valuable brain time on these issues. As for SNOOD, that was a joke I dropped in my post. It's a very addicting, simple cross platform game that we play at work for stress relief (www.snood.org). I really don't have any issues not really being able to play it in X!

[chevy]

fishbonex,

you have a really excellent discussion here. It is worth a new thread in the Mac OS X System and Software forum.

I suggest you start it.

Chevy.

[chabig]

fishbonex,

If you hold the control key down when you take a shapshot, it gets placed onto the clipboard where you can paste it into Photoshop.

If you really use snapshots as part of your workflow, buy Snapz Pro X. You will be glad you did.

Who asked about Snood? It's available for OS X:
Snood for OS X. It's beta software, but I've been playing it for a while and can't tell why it's not an official released version. It works great.

Chris