“OS X should offer an ‘expert’ mode, where power users get additional settings and more features that might otherwise be hidden beneath the command line,” Gene Steinberg writes for The Tech Night Owl. “This special mode can possibly be engaged in System Preferences or via the Setup Assistant when you first boot a new Mac OS or a new Mac.”
“Right now, however, Apple appears to be removing visible features rather than leaving them intact and adding more,” Steinberg writes. “So starting with Lion, if you want to visit the user/library folder to zap a damaged preference file or remove some other file to troubleshoot your Mac, you’ll find the folder is invisible. Sure, you can hold down Option and choose Library from the Go menu, but why? You can also make the change permanent via the Terminal. Maybe Apple sought to avoid mischief from Mac users who were in a little bit over the heads, but there are other folders on your drive that also ought to be hidden for the same reason.”
Steinberg writes, “The Expert mode would reveal those folders, system settings for power users, and provide other tools to enhance your Mac experience. Sure, a regular Mac user can have the simplified interface and do perfectly well, but maybe Apple needs to differentiate it even more from iOS.”
Read more in the full article here.
Experts already know how to access things like the library. Why would you need a special expert mode ?
I think it’s right to make it harder to access parts of the system where an average user could create problems for themselves. Even very knowledgable users should only need ‘expert’ access infrequently.
May sounds radical, but that’s why we have root user!
What about “save as”?
Should you have to be a power user to have access to that?
Holding down the “Option” key when accessing the file menu makes one a power user?
Sounds reasonable. Maybe it is time to stop dumbing down OS X.
It is a great system, but it will never have the ease of use and fool proofness of iOS. As it should be.
All the advanced features are there, and can be used by real experts. Hiding those features from typical end users is the right direction. The best software is transparent in the ultimate user experience. I think Jobs once said something about how users won’t even notice the best software, it will just work like magic.
Steve Jobs was fond of Clarke’s Three Laws, especially the third: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
Arthur C. Clarke, creator:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarke's_three_laws
OSX asks to load an app with cleared preferences file when it detects 2 or third launch that quits, users are less required to know what happens behind the curtains,
also CLICK ON MENU is an expert mode, and saves me 2 trips to the preferences file.
CLICK ON MENU, sorry missed the keyboard part
Why cant I edit my post,
[OPTION key] CLICK ON MENU,
system filtered previous text since it looked like a tag
OS X already has an expert mode. You can invoke it by running /Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app
If you’re a CLI hater, like me, then make everything VISIBLE on your Mac using this terminal command that granny must NEVER see:
defaults write com.apple.Finder AppleShowAllFiles YES
Then type in the command to reboot the Finder so the above visibility command becomes active:
killall Finder
Et voilà.
I’ll let you figure out how to turn stuff invisible again. BWAHAHAHA! 😈
defaults write com.apple.Finder AppleShowAllFiles NO
simple da dah all things are invisible again.
😀 Well done sir!
This guy wants power to be easy. Sheesh.
Divorce? Look at the icon set and interface. Damn. We are separating come September baby and OSX is keeping the furniture!
Expert mode sounds like something Microsoft would come up with. No thanks.
My first thought was this sounded like a pc help desk person who wants to feel superior because they will know to go to the advanced options, advanced tab, advanced menu and check off some box. Ha, I am so much smarter than you but don’t ask me why it should have just worked to begin with.
Well, while the Terminal IS the “expert” mode, I’ve been using OSX, and MacOS before it for over 20 years, and over that time, I’ve learned a lot of what to do when things don’t work… but I’ve learned them all in the GUI. Sooooo making the Library folder invisible, is a step back for me. I don’t mind a setting that makes things disappear, but I’d also like a setting that makes things appear as well.
My biggest comment with using the very very first OSX 1.0, was the lack of Point And Click to make changes. Most of those concerns got fixed soon enough, but I see no reason why “experts” like myself who are very comfortable with the GUI to have to learn how to use the Terminal. I already know who to fix things in the GUI… don’t make it harder for me.
Experts don’t need special “modes”.
iPhones run a full Unix system, and experts can already do everything he’s talking about and more. Adding GUI for “experts” mode would just lead beginners in to places where they could screw things up.
A real expert doesn’t need an expert mode.
There already is an “expert” mode it’s called Root, enable root login and you can screw up as much stuff as you want. This basically what windows does for every user and is why most windows systems are such a mess and mac’s aren’t.
OS X – Home Edition
OS X – Ultimate Edition
OS X – Enterprise Edition
OS X – Upgrade Edition
OS X Sever – Advanced Edition
OS X Server – Enterprise Edition
OS X Server – Ultimate Edition
no way!!
*HURL*
:-Q******
Many thanks, exactly my thought!
Haha, yes. Exactly what these geek trades love. 12 versions of the same thing because its just awesome.
I never have understood hiding the user’s Library folder by default. Hiding it is GREAT if you have a LUSER problem amidst your Macs. But it should have been an option inside ‘Parental Controls’ or something similar.
Meanwhile, It is dirt easy to pick up one of a couple dozen apps that quickly and easily makes EVERYTHING visible. Once you get the hang of it, puttering around inside the guts of OS X is entirely possible and easily done. It’s pure, wonderful UNIX under the hood.
But UNIX is NOT what granny wants at all. iOS is STILL daunting to dire technophobes. Hiding the UNIX and placing user-friendliness at the top of the agenda is an entirely Apple concept. No other computer company bothered to try to hide the spooky bits and bite. Idiotic Windows to-this-day is incapable of allowing you to actually NAME your drive volumes. It’s still horrifying old DOS A: and B: (both of which are now meaningless) and C: as your boot volume and gawd knows what your H: volume and Z: volumes are unless you’ve memorized what is what on any particular computer boot. It’s shear HELL for dear old granny.
Apple wants to be more user-friendly than stupid Microsoft or anyone else for that matter. So, as long as I can easily get into the guts of OS X whenever I like, hiding those guts from granny is fine by me.
Huh? Drives have actual names mapped to their DOS letter. Granny can right-click on a drive or partition in the Computer utility (accessible from the Start menu/7 or File Explorer/8) to rename it. The real problem is running out of letters F-Z (only 21, or 23 if Granny reclaims A and B from floppydom). More advanced grandmothers will get around this limitation through installing terabyte drives and devising cross-linked directory schemes. (Less of a problem with HFS Plus which supports ∞ drives)
You can never have too many volumes when gathering and sorting all the baby pictures.
Apologies. I haven’t played enough in Windows 7 or 8 to know that was possible. I still do my Windows work on XP. Silly me.
I always wondered what was the big deal simply mapping the stupid letter drives to an actual name. As for being limited to only an alphabet of drive letters, again we notice that DOS really does still run the show under Windows. Yuck.
“I still do my Windows work on XP” — you and 37.2% of desktop PC users, according to Net Analytics. (It’s 16.4% in the U.S.) Microsoft is pulling the plug next April, even though XP still does the job, because they need to sell OS licenses in the worst way.
Your polar opposite WRT CLI is Neal Stephenson. His 1999 essay “In the Beginning… Was the Command Line” critically and philosophically disses GUIs. (Since OS X came out, though, he’s all smiley 🙂 Probably because OS X marries CLI to GUI in the nicest way)
My CLI hatred comes with my general lack of talent with languages as well as some minor lack of coordination.
Neal Stephensen is one of my favorite writers. Next up on my reading list is his book ‘Cryptonomicon’. First I have to finish Gibson and Sterling’s ‘The Difference Engine.’
In April I’ll probably move over to Windows 7, which will be the general trend.
I think you’ll like 7, I kind of do. I only switched in June 2012. How do you have time for a reading list, with all your involvements? Never mind, renaissance men always seem to manufacture time out of nothing 🙂
Ah yes, the difference engine. Why, only yesterday I was dropping Ada Lovelace’s name in this very forum.
Since points don’t matter +1 million to you. Hiding stuff the average user doesn’t need to access is fine by me. For anyone that needs access they know how to get to it and now what damage can be done. How many PC’s have needed a total reinstall because a file was deleted. Why should this be allowed to happened (PC or Mac)?
Every heard of ‘DLL Hell‘ on Windows? Theoretically the problem was solved back in Windows Vista. But in the bad old days, merely installing another application’s required DLL file could severely hose your PC. That wasn’t a LUSER Factor. That was a Microsoft Factor.
I like that /~/Library is hidden. I actually would like Apple to hide /System and /Library from normal user view as well. Traditional users really only need access to /Users and /Applications. If you know the other folders exist, you should already know how to get to them through other means. I don’t need any special mode, I’m fine with holding option to reveal the occasional hidden menu item. Plus, if I really wanted access to anything and everything all the time, and for whatever reason didn’t want to use Terminal, I could download OnyX and toggle the hidden files to show.
Well, ideally the user can’t get into the /Library, and ~/System/Library folders. Ideally everyone is simply using a standard user account. The Admin account is supposed to be for tweaking, setting up Standard accounts and geeking around on the machine. Therefore, any Standard user is safe from being able to wreck the core of OS X.
However, any user can get into their user account ~/Library folder and muck around with anything specific to their user account. I suppose Apple wanted to provide something closer to the safety of the root level /Library folders.
I never liked the term ‘LUSER’ because it’s disrespectful. However, once you’ve seen enough DANGEROUS computer users and the RUIN they have wreaked on their computers, you’ll be calling them LUSERS too.
Therefore, seeing as Apple has seen more Mac computer user-induced ruination than anyone, hiding the ~/Library folder probably gives them a deeper sense of safety from LUSER problems. But I’m only speculating.
Blunder above! There is no such thing as the ~/System folder. I meant to type: /System/Library
See why I despise CLIs? Despite being a touch typer, i still suck at it.
Can all those “experts” just shut up and stop talking? There has never been an better desktop OS than OS X and never been a better mobile OS than iOS, both in terms of stability, elegance, usability, any many many more. Let them do what they have in mind, and if the “expert” doesn’t like it, he may switch to Windows. I came from there years ago, never looking back since.
Gene ought to befriend a developer and ask about such things as ~/Library It’s a big freaking security hole that Apple is closing in their march to OS X security that’s close to iOS security. Hiding it was the first step in forcing developers to quit offering “support” measures that had the user go fiddle with things in the Library folder. Next comes Containers, where all things related to an app are contained in its container, so other apps can’t get in there and muck around. After that, I believe, the user will not be allowed into an app’s container (like iOS now) so that even the user can’t muck things up. And before you get up in arms about the user owning their machine, blah blah blah, realize that social engineering and trojan horses work because they get the user to do the bidding of the malware author. As code security gets better and better, the user authorizing bad things to happen is the battlefront Apple is forced to take on now.
That is indeed the road malware authors are converging upon, and Apple’s logic is as you describe it. Both privacy and safety are essential to their primary goal of providing an untarnished experience of delight.
So most of the posters here don’t like the idea of an “expert mode”, including me. However, in this day and age, simple controls shouldn’t require a command line.
It is troubling that Apple continues to dumb down, remove, or hide things on the OS X interface, while adding unwanted fluff that the user can’t permanently remove. That has to stop. Can anyone name an improvement since 10.6 that has truly improved OS X? The OS would be improved with more user options, more obvious operation, and more comprehensive control-panel functionality. And take out the social networking crap!
dumbing down and simplifying is great if it works. I tried setting up an airport lately and the interface is terrible… back to my mac still not working. Oh and where the F… did xgrid go? well I guess if most people don’t need it…… very sad indeed. and please don’t get me started on the new mac pro.. they don’t make round server racks….
If your a expert you know already how to get in it. Duh!
Superlative adjectives like “expert” are so carelessly tossed around these days.
NOBODY is truly an expert in current technologies anymore. You might be good, but technology moves too fast for anyone to stay current for long.
Do you wanted to get quicker results from divorce process. All benefit you can get from this case type is the quick delivery of results. Florida Online Divorce services are quicker results.Please communicate with us
Do you wanted to get quicker results from divorce process. All benefit you can get from this case type is the quick delivery of results. Florida Online Divorce services are quicker results.Please communicate with us http://www.divorceinfloridaonline.com
Articles like this always strike me as being just a little bit demented.
OS X has an expert mode, it is called the terminal, and as the article admits there are many other things you can reach just by holding down the option key at the right time.
So when you get down to it, what you have is a demand that apple offer an “expert mode for people that aren’t actually experts.”
That’s simply retarded. If you don’t know how to get your car’s hood open you shouldn’t work on the engine, and the manufacturer shouldn’t provide an expert mode for people that can’t figure out how to open the hood.