How Apple's Lion won't let you trash documents Apple's Mac OS X 10.7 is branded Lion. The Lion may be king of the jungle, but from where we sit, it's the king of bungles. A case in point. Someone emails you a document, and you open it in, say, Apple's Pages app for a look. You read it through then, having done with it, you quit Pages. You no longer require the document so …
How?
I delete the most recent version, OpenVMS wont delete the entire revision history. I have to do that myself. Granted you get to see all the revisions in the same location on the filesystem with a nice little increment tagged on to every previous revision with the current revision the actual file-name instead of a hidden folder. I will also wager my entire yearly salary that no OpenVMS Admin does a full delete of the revision history on every file that gets updated, I know quite a few that say with pride "I can roll back my entire OS to the first day I installed it, then roll it forward"
Nanny state to from DEC/HP? Does DEC/HP really think they knew better then the Sys-Admin Administrating it?
Nanny easily removed from AAPL if the delete function asked to delete the revisions too. I guess this marks the 2nd "bug" in AAPL's delete() function. Be happy you iMac and MacBook/Pro/AIR doesn't have a GPS Chip....yet.
"The fundamental issue here is Lion's assumption that you don't know what you're doing, and it's going to ensure you're protected from cock-ups"
Change the word Lion for Apple and that line sums up my issue with most things fruity in a nutshell.
I grant you Ubuntu and Windows 7 (or Android for that matter) are not as graceful as their Apple equivalents, but they generally let me do the things I want to do in the way I want to do them and as the person who has paid for the bloody thing (well, the hardware in the case of Ubuntu) that's what I look for.
I opened a video the other day and the last viewed video appeared in exactly the same way... could be a tad embarrassing if you've been having a wafty crank without the misses knowing and the next time she views a video of a fluffy kitten your depravity is revealed.
Thankfully I was just watching videos of fluffy kittens so all was ok.
I doubt I'll be the first to point this out but here goes anyway. Did I miss Mac OSX being transitioned from FreeBSD to VAX VMS? Are Mac users going to have to get used to typing PURGE?
I reckon that there's a high chance that the less technically experienced users out there are going to get veeeeeeery confused by this. The thought of trying to explain a complicated version control system and when it does what it does and why it does it to my Aunt is not an appealing prospect!
I shall snigger from afar....
As someone who switched to Mac after 15+ years of Microsoft, yes, they are that easy.
Seriously, a retarded box turtle could use a Mac. I personally use OSX and Linux.
I make the idiots I know Buy a Mac, because I can leave a stupid person alone with one and not have to worry about it. In six months it generally still works. The smarter and/or cheaper ones I teach Linux.
Its cut WAY back on the "free tech support" I have to do for well meaning acquaintances.
I have had some issues with the versioning system not even keeping the most recent copies of Pages documents. Most of the issues come from using an encrypted disk image, it will not always update the thing. I found that Locking the file and then Unlocking it will force a save and has been mostly successful in keeping the thing saved. I had it once not work properly after activating FileVault on the hard drive, but I am getting into the habit of Locking my files before exiting to make absolutely sure that the version I see is the one I'm going to get next time around. I am not a fan and would like to get rid of it or at least have it work. I dread the day I have to delete the file now.
Because there is just a little bit of prior art here. ICL George 3 (circa 1965) had similar system where, by default, files were effectively immutable. Editing files would create new versions. This actually had many advantages (once one got used to it). But it was very easy to control how many and/or which of the previous versions one kept.
And it all fitted in very nicely with carefully ordered writing of data and metadata that the filesystem used, automatic file dumping etc. Copy on write? New? Don't think so.
I believe that VMS had a very similar system of file versioning.
But the system at least needs to allow for the fact that sometimes the user is a developer or an admin. And in any kind of structured environment eg. business, campus there needs to be a central way of controlling user stupidity protection.
Again Apple have completely neglected people who use their products to actually do stuff.
May be I am doing something wrong though, but so far it hasn't been in my way.
But I need to say, I am not 'to' happy with this function, it's also not in my way. What I don't like is that it opens my last document, even when I didn't ask for it. May be I am getting old..
IBM had that idea in mind for OS/2
I described it in 1988 for a Pen & Pad Operating system.
But Apple has made a mess of implementing it.. Because they are not good at actual real development, only taking industry standard stuff and adding their own candy.
I can think of nothing Apple has done that's original. Except maybe the unique and poor 5.25" floppy format of the original Apple II drives. Lowest capacity at the time?
rm -f…
Not hard to cook up a shell script that nukes the offending directory for us power users that do know what we're doing.
That said, I'm still running 10.6.8… can't be arsed spending $60 on a USB stick (which I sincerely hope isn't one-time-use only), and I'll be damned if I'm going to leave the MacBook sat at home tethered to Ethernet for two days burning up half my monthly Internet quota downloading it.
If I buy a newer Apple machine, then, it may be a case of getting 10.7 (or newer)… but only then. My current Apple machine runs Linux more often than it runs OS X.
You are correct, but - speaking personally - I've grown accustomed through 20-odd years of GUI use to just quitting apps and clicking 'Cancel' or 'No' when asked if I want to save a file.
I shouldn't have to perform extra steps to do this now. Improving OSes should be about reducing such steps not making more of 'em.
As if you close a file, and then quit, thats two steps.
If you quit, and then deal with a save prompt, thats also two steps.
Alternatively, you could just close the document, and not close pages - Lion will close pages automatically if its not in use, no windows are visible and the system resources are required elsewhere.
Solaris has a complete shadow of your directory, in your directory, with lots of versions (hourly, nightly ...). It is hidden ( a dot directory); but apart from space taken, find(1) can waste an awful lot of time perusing it. It is called .snapshot. Been there for years.
So actually, one could see, comparing George 3, VMS, Solaris and no doubt others OS X is late to the party.
According (deliberate pun) to St. John's gospel Christ tells the crowd, "For I did not speak of my own Accord..."
The Apostles also had one between them..."The Apostles were in one Accord."
Meanwhile, Moses drove an old British motor bike with a hole in the exhaust, "the roar of Moses' Triumph is heard in the hills"
Maybe they're assuming you're NOT an idiot, and both know what a versioning file system is, and why you would want one.
You'll be singing its praises in 6 months when it's saved your ass. Unless you disable it, of course, since it does seem to be a little "not quite ready for prime time" in implementation.
File versioning is great, if you want it, but if you don't you should have the power to turn it off.
Making this a feature that almost forces you to have it enabled is a tad big-brother-like.
I support apple users, in a legal environment, the LAST thing I would ever want is to have versions of files sitting about on machines that the user thought were deleted but were actually just removed from view, with all versioning history there for the taking should you go looking.
From the confidentiality aspect, this is not a good idea. I would not recommend this OS version to anyone until this is fixed.
When I delete a file, it is meant to be deleted, but correct me if I'm wrong, isn't that the purpose of the recycle bin/trash? Mark for deletion, send to trash, empty trash when you're sure you no longer want the files.
This is like a trash bin's trash bin..... what next... another level of trash, say a tertiary recycle bin that you cant even see that stores all the pr0n you have been viewing recently?
Actually - trash bin works more like...
Move file to trash -> file is easily recoverable
Empty trash -> file is flagged to be overwritten as and when something needs to use that disk space
Unless you're using a program that specifically writes over the blocks on the disk, the file is still there, and still potentially recoverable, even when you empty the trash.
Just sayin'
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