Coming from Mac OS 9

Many die-hard Macintosh users see Tiger's predecessor, Mac OS 9, as the ultimate expression of the purity of vision that was the original Macintosh; they claim that Mac OS X is a travesty, a sellout, a mongrel that never should have been. Although there is something to be said for some of the classic Macintosh's admirable design goals, it has to be acknowledged that times have changed. It's not the same computing world that it was in 1984. Most people know basic computing concepts nowadays, such as files and folders and dragging-and-dropping . Moreover, it's a Windows world now; and although no dyed-in-the-wool Mac user will admit to Windows having any technical advantages over the Mac, there is one Windows advantage that cannot be denied : ubiquity. That being the case, the Macintosh must evolve or die.

Fortunately, the compromises that Mac OS X has had to make are of minimal impact, and the advantages it provides are very tangible . For instance, Mac OS X no longer uses the venerable Type and Creator codes to identify (respectively) what kind of file a document is, and what application created it. Instead, Mac OS X uses filename extensions to determine the file type (the extension can be hidden, simply by renaming the file, or by using a check box in most Save panels). Mac OS X also provides a global " opener application" framework that allows you to specify the application in which a file will open . This might seem less symmetrical and elegant than the old way, but in practice it's a lot more flexible.

NOTE

If you have a JPEG image file with the .jpg extension hidden, you never have to see the extension (nor does any other Mac user with whom you share the file), but if you send the file to a Windows or Unix machine, the extension is visible and tells that operating system what kind of file it is.

More visible and less technical differences are, of course, present between Mac OS 9 and Mac OS X. The Dock is the biggest one. In Mac OS 9, you had to launch applications from their locations on the disk or create aliases to them to place on your Desktop, or use a tool called the Launcher. That approach is no longer necessary now that you can simply place application icons directly into the ubiquitous Dock. For the same reason, there is now much less need to keep important documents and folders on the Desktop; they can be kept filed away in your Home folder, while simultaneously appearing in the Dock for one-touch access. The Desktop can be kept much tidier this way.

The Control Strip is gone. Quick one-touch actions that once resided in the expandable tab at the bottom of the screen are now incorporated into the system menus that occupy the right half of the menu bar. Other functions from the Control Strip now appear in the Apple menu, which is now a global control menu with fixed content, rather than the free-form list of user-defined shortcuts that the Apple menu was in the old days. (Those shortcuts now go intoyou guessed itthe Dock.)

NOTE

The Apple menu contains global controls such as logging out, shutting down, putting the computer to sleep, getting system information, controlling various global interface settings, and launching key applications such as System Preferences .

The old Control Panels are now consolidated into the System Preferences application. Users of Mac OS 9 and earlier will probably not miss the ever-lengthening list of Control Panels that caused interminable conflicts, lockups, and other incompatibilities; also gone are the Extensions, which were incremental additions to the operating system such as device drivers (and not to be confused with filename extensions). Mac OS X still has Extensions, but they're much more tightly controlled and much less user-accessible in the new, security-conscious Unix architecture of the system.

Finally, because of the multi-user nature of Mac OS X, your starting point in the system is no longer the Desktop, but the Home folder inside Users on the startup disk. Rather than placing all your files in folders on the Desktop or in the top level of the disk, the new way to keep things organized is to start at your Home folder and use the labeled subfolders inside it: Pictures , Music , Documents , and so on.

NOTE

The idea that the entire disk is no longer your playground for placing files wherever you please can take some getting used to, but in the long run, especially if you share your computer with other users, you'll find that a Mac OS X system is typically far better organized and easier to navigate than any well-used Mac OS 9 system.