Leopard’s new features
Stacks
Description: Allows easy access to folder contents from the Dock, Mac’s application launcher. Displayed in fanned-out or grid view.
Breakdown: Works well, though the fanned-out view looks awkward against non-solid backgrounds. No option to switch to old Tiger menus. Dock icon is always a “stack” of whatever items are inside it and can’t be changed, only reordered.
Conclusion: Remove it from the dock and go back to using a menubar application.
Spotlight
Description: Can search multiple computers across networks and recognize boolean operators, words such as “and” and “or” that customize and narrow down searches. “Saved Searches” feature, previously known as Smart Folders, stores the results of searches.
Breakdown: Spotlight fell short in Tiger, but improved in speed and usability in Leopard.
Conclusion: The new Spotlight is a breath of fresh air. In Tiger it was slow and often had people staring at that unholy spinning beach ball for minutes on end. In Leopard, it could become an often-used feature.
Time Machine
Description: Allows backup of the complete or incomplete contents of your hard drive on a regular basis. Restores single files, entire folders or even whole systems all within a user-friendly interface.
Breakdown: With just enough features to make a good backup utility, its simplicity and eye-catching graphic user interface set it apart from any other backup system for Mac.
Conclusion: It’ll take a few hours to back up, depending on hard drive size and the number of files, so it’s best to run overnight or during a particularly slow day. Restoring files and folders is extremely simple and smooth. On the downside, to make best use of it a fairly roomy external hard drive is recommended. They run from $70 to $200, depending on the size.
Spaces
Description: Leopard’s integration of the long-cultivated virtual desktop feature.
Create different workspaces called Spaces and switch between them using keyboard shortcuts or the Dock icon.
Breakdown: A great feature for anyone who suffers from crowded desktop syndrome. You can assign applications to a certain space or all spaces. Keyboard controls are seamless and moving windows between spaces is easy.
Conclusion: The best feature so far. For those who always have a lot of applications running on limited screen real estate, being able to sort them by category and usage into different desktops is a huge plus.
Mail
Description: Features e-mail templates, data detection, RSS feed reader, enhanced integration with iCal, Mac’s calendar application and Address Book.
Includes Notes, a notepad-like feature that allows quick notes to be stored in your inbox. Notes can be accessed anywhere you can access your inbox.
Breakdown: Mail’s new integrations can detect dates and events in e-mail and Notes and allow you to add events and alarms into iCal.
Conclusion: While iCal integration is noticeable, Notes has quickly become one of the best features. Being able to have short notes at your disposal without large unsightly clutter on the desktop, like Stickies, or being out of sight, like Dashboard, is a relief.
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on Monday, November 12th, 2007 at 10:09 pm and is filed under Arts & Entertainment.
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