r Hurm(Rhapsody Info)

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RhapsodyUser Exp erien cePre limin ary D esign D ocu m ent

v.08

Feedback

please send feedback about th is document to:

rhap sody_ue@group .apple.com

Contacts

Don Lindsay, 4-7164, lind say@ap ple.com

Tim McCollum , 4-2512, m ccollum @ap p le.com

Kurt Pier sol, 4-1201, p ierso l@ap ple.com

Cord ell Ratzlaff, 4-9109, cord ell@ap ple.com

Contrib utors of ideas, suggestions, or sections:Jose Arcellana, Sue Barta lo, Peter Bierman , Mike Cappella, Pat

Coleman , Larry Cornett, H elen Cu nningh am, Pau l Danbold, Josh

Fagans, Jeff Glasson, Wa de H ening er, Steve Ko, Patr icia Lee, DonLind say, Wayne Loofburrow , Tim McCollum , Sue McGarry, Susan

Michalak, Justin Miller, Per N ielsen, Ly Pham , Kurt Piersol, Cord ell

Ratzlaff, Jeff Robbin , Arlo Rose, Dav e Schr oit, Bertr and Serlet, Lynn

Shad e, Marc Sinykin , Melissa Sleeter, Stan Taylor, Jeff Tycz, Gayle

Wiesner


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Contents

Ab ou t th is Documen t ...................................5

Design Overview.........................................6Key PrinciplesRhapsody au dience

The basic system m od el

Some exam ples

The rest of this docum ent

D esk top User Experien ce.............................18Basic Desktop Elements

Menu Bar

Global system menu s

TrayDesktop/ Backdrop

Task Monitor

Virtu al D esk top s..........................................29

Fin der Ap p lication .................................29Special Menu Items

Extensible N ew m enu

Snap Shots

Get Info/ InspectorTags

Undo

Cut, Copy, and Paste of icons

Enhanced Clipboard

Preferences dialog

Find er Views

Brow se in p lace

Tool bar

Statu s bar

The Desktop

Selection m od elDrag m odification

Mu lti-line icon n ames

Icon in the titlebar

Path in titlebar

Progress indicators

Notification

Rhapsody User Experience A pple Confidential Page 2 of 115


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Desktop Printing

The Disk Layout

Services menu

Th e Ap plicat ion Experien ce ............................39

Visu al ExperienceWindows

Menus

Standard Panels

Printing

Mac OS Integration........................................51Disk Shar ing

Blue Box in a W ind ow

Full-Screen Sw itch

Du al Boot

Other Blue/ Yellow Synchronization Issues

N etw ork in g UE...............................................63

Configuration and Customization..................64Preferences

Machine Settings

Find fun ction

Syncing Blue an d Yellow Contr ol Panels

Installation Mod el

Font Managemen tPrinter Management

International

Installation......................................................79Feature ManagementBooting

Assistan ce an d H elp .........................................84

Assistants

User ScenariosAccess

Help Tags

Theme-dependent visual design

Tool-tip fu nctionality

Spring-loaded help-tag key

Help Hom e Page



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Custom help browser

Context-sensitive display of help h ome p age

Base-Level H elp

Third-Party Content

Searches

Automatic UpdatingSmar t Help

Rh ap sod y User Notification System ................95Status an d Alerts

Plug-In Architecture

Notifier Specifier

Dismissal

Icon animation

Text bann er

Spoken alert

Other animationSystem beep

Issues from In itia l Design Review ...................98

UE Featu res b y Release...................................107Develop er Release

Premiere Release

Un ified Release

Un ified Release 1.x



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About this documentThis docum ent repr esents the first comp ilation of the various HI

d esigns from each of Rhap sody s prima ry functional elemen ts (Find er,

H elp and Assitance, N etworking, OS integration, etc). The inten t of

this docum ent is to provide a vehicle for review and is not intend ed to

be a corporate edict of design d ecisions. While each of the sections wasw ritten as a result of collaboration w ith engineering an d marketing,

this is the first time anyon e has seen all the p ieces pu t together.

Obviou sly, there ar e going to be holes and inconsistencies in th is

docum ent. In fact, the documen t was assembled in ord er to obviate

those short-comings. Only preliminary reviews of this document hav e

been condu cted , and th erefore, many of the d esign d irections described

herein are likely to change following w ider review.

The rest of this docu men t is a description of the key interface elemen ts

at a fairly high level. It is by no mean s complete, and is not intend ed to

give details of each particular interaction, d isplay, and m enu item .

Instead, it strives to pr esent an overall view that can be comp rehend ed

qu ickly. Detailed UE specifications will be constructed for every

ap plication a user w ill see, as the project moves forwar d from here.

Detailed descriptions of the hum an interactions will be forthcoming in

a set of ind ividu al Hum an Interface Specifications (or H ISs). The list of

HISs and the p eople in the HIDC responsible for d riving those H ISs to

comp letion are as follows:

Don Lindsay - Rhapsody H um an Interface Design Lead

Rhapsod y UE engineering Lead - Kurt PiersolThese tw o guys h ave general respon sibility for the design and

engineering of the Rhapsod y u ser experience which means th ey

coordinate th e activities of the various H IDC and engineering teams

and drive UE issues to resolution. In order to do th is, they work

closely w ith the engineering teams, marketing, managem ent, and the

HIDC compon ent DRIs. The HIDC comp onent DRIs work closely

with engineering an d marketing to jointly create HI d esigns and

accur ately capt ure th ose designs in the H um an Interface Specs.

Finder - Larry Cornett

(e.g. Menu Bar, App le menu , Services menu , Process men u,Activity task m ana ger, Device Tray, Backdrop s, File Brow sers,

Internationa l, Control Panels, Preferences, etc.)

End User Networking and Desktop/ Internet integration - Sue

McGarry

(e.g. users and group s, personal file sharing, personal web



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sharing, web browsing, network configuration)

Help and Assistance - Jose Arcellana

(e.g. Setup & Task assistan ts, Tool Tips, Data Detectors, Help

Brow ser, Help content)

OS Integration - Stan Taylor

(e.g. blue/ yellow integration, Control panel syncronization,

booting, r estarting, installation, feature man agement)

Look & Feel - Don Lindsay

(e.g. Theme d esign, Ap pKit, Global services like Fonts & Color

Picker, Ap plication g uid elines)

User App lications & Developer Tools - Tim McCollum

(e.g. TextEdit, Preview, Mail, Grab, Fax, Interface Builder,

Project Builder , IconBuild er, WebObjects, EOF)

Network Adm inistration - Tim McCollum

(e.g. File Server A d min, Web server Ad min, M ail Server

Ad min , DNS, NetInfo, Directory Services)

A noteable caveat: no sup reme being drop ped by to give us the one

truth about h ow th e system w ill operate. The elements presented h ere

w ill certainly change as d etails are flushed out. We gleefully anticipate

your feedback.

A small caveat: Designs wh ich ad d su bstantial new fun ctionality andhav e not pr eviously app eared in th e Mac OS or NextStep are labeled

Concept.

Yet anoth er caveat:All illu strations in this document are early

concepts and are not finaldesigns. They are used only to illustrate a

specific concept or issue. They do not reflect t he final layouts , desktop,

or vi sual design details of Rhapsody.

Design OverviewRhapsod y is designed to be a leap forward in user experience for our

customers. It takes advan tage of the new infrastructure p rovided by its

Op enStep heritage, and the strong attention to hu man interface

excellence that has char acterized its Macintosh heritage.

Key Principles



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The design of the Rhapsod y experience uses a few key pr inciples to

inform decision making . Rhapsod y should be

Simple to un derstand Sim ple things should be simple, complex thin gs should be

possible. This statement sh ould be at the core of the

Rhapsod y design. Users should imm ediately grasp how to

do basic things on the system. In add ition, users should be

able to und erstand w hy something isnt working as easily

as p ossible.

Min im alist Another key design goal in Rhapsody is a minimalist

app roach to the experience. The MacOS, and to some extent

OpenStep, does not allow users to simply use the p arts of

the system th ey are m ost interested in. A series of integral,

intermingled pa rts of the experience combine to make the

MacOS more comp lex to use than it needs to be.

A mor e minima l exper ience is good in tw o ways. First, it

help with the simplicity goal. Secondly, it allows users to

scale the comp lexity of their exp erience them selves, by

add ing items they feel comfortable w ith to the base

experience. The less minimal a system is, the less scalable

the experience.

Extensible The MacOS has long suffered from a long series of

inapp ropriate extension m echanisms. Each one has low ered

the stability of the system in th e nam e of tighter

integration of features. Rhapsod y intends to p rovide a set

of hooks wh ich allow extensions to the user experience that

are not d angerou s to the stability of the system.

Rep lacea ble The MacOS exp erience has a very strong case of one size

fits all in a w orld w here th is is clearly no long er the case.

While it behooves App le to provide a good experience that

works w ell for most people, we should also be attemp ting to

let users replace almost an y element of the system w ith a

tailored experience.



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Of course, the system shou ld also perform w ell and be stable, but these

are mor e than strictly user experience concerns, and in som e sense they

are so imp ortant and pervasive they almost d ont need to be

men tioned a s special areas of focus.

Rhapsody aud ienceEventu ally, the Rhapsody aud ience is going to include most p ersonal

comp uter u sers. How ever, at the beginning, it is going to include users

w ho are relatively soph isticated an d w ho need pow erful solutions. The

representative core market for Rhap sody is the pu blishing,

entertainment, and new media (PEN) market.

The PEN m arket, however, is not a mon olithic user pop ulation. In

ord er to d eliver successful OS techn ology to the PEN m arket, two broa d

user categories must be considered . The first group of PEN u sers can be

characterized as Technologists. These users are highly

know ledgeable, often h ave m ulti-platform experience, and areresponsible for adm inistering servers and m aking/ influencing

d ecisions abou t their comp anys overall techn ical pu rchasing strategy.

The second primary user d ivision in the PEN m arket are Creators

and they are the u sers who create graphics, advertisements, and other

content. This user group also includ es those people wh o manage and

coordinate the activies of other Creators. Creators tend to use a sp ecific

set of apps t o get their job d one and are often quite efficient at u sing

their app s even though they may know very little about th e OS. They

tend to un derstan d th e comp uter on ly in so far as it specifically applies

to their job and they gr eatly valu e the MacOSs ease of use. Both

Techn ologists and Creators typically work u nd er strict time dead lines.

Users in the PEN market ar e primarily interested in a high

perform ance, highly stable system which p ossesses Macintoshs ease of

use. In add ition they also desire an app ealing visual appearance and,

du e to th e time-sensitive natu re of their bu siness, can tolerate only

minor task flow d isturbances. We mu st strive to give them a p owerful

system that is easy to und erstand , visually appealing, and familiar.

One of the key issues to be add ressed is helping u sers understand wh at

is hap pening on the mu ch more pow erful operating system core that

Rhapsody provides. We mu st help them u nd erstand wh y app lications

ru n or fail to run , what is currently going on in the compu ter, and just

what kind of stability they can expect.

The basic system mod el

In the MacOS, we suggested to th e user that th ere was a large and



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complex system and a set of app lications. Extensions w ere add ed to th e

system and extend ed behav ior in global ways. App lications d id

importan t things, but the system w as the context in w hich a lot of work

got don e. Users spoke of extending th eir system, pu tting the system at

the core of the w orld.

App

App

App

App

App

App

System

In Rhapsod y, we are changing that m odel. The core of system is largely

invisible, and instead the u ser sees a collection of ap plications run ning

atop th e core. Users extend t he system by run ning mor e app lications,

not by ad ding to an ever expand ing and intrusive system core.

App

App

App

App

App

App

This is clearly a d ifferent mod el than th e curren t MacOS mod el. It has

some comp elling ad van tages. First of all, it is self scaling. That m eans

that a u ser chooses the level of comp lexity he or she w ishes to have by

ru nn ing mor e or different ap plications. If a user p refers a very simp le

mod el, he gets one. If the user like a m uch m ore comp lex and dyn amic

w orld, she can have it. The second ad vant age is that users are clear

about w here the trou ble lies when a n ap plication fails. The user w ill

spend less time trying to d ivine the intricate relationship betw een the

system and various ap plications an d extensions.

Its instructive to remem ber just h ow man y w ays to extend the MacOS

have sp ru ng u p ov er the years. Desk accessories, applications,

extensions, control p anels, faceless backgroun d app lications,

Qu ickTime components, p rinting extensions, shared libraries,

Op enDoc par ts, Find er extensions, comm toolbox comp onen ts, ASLM



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libraries, chooser d evices, XCMDs, OSAXs. A MacOS user h as to

un derstand something of the difference between these various kind s of

executable to und erstand w hy something is not working on his system.

With Rhap sody, the typical user will need to u nd erstand tw o kinds of

things: applications and b un dles. Bun dles are way s to extendap plications, not the system as a wh ole.

Some examp lesGeorge d oes illustrations for a living. H e doesnt run a web server, he

d oesnt man age a da tabase, he just ru ns Illustrator all d ay. He has a

simple desktop, w ith nothing m ore than a few folders full of clip art

and completed w ork, a mail client w hich gives him assignments, and

his Illustrator a pp lication.

Susan is a webmaster w ho also runs the m ailing lists and d atabase

program s for the comp anys intranet w eb site. She not only run s a m ail

client, she keeps m onitors open on the w eb site, tracks data base usage,

and adm inisters all three server program s. Her desktop h as a lot of

run ning app lications, and is constantly upd ating her on the status of

her charges. She d oesnt do m uch w eb surfing, she doesnt watch

PointCast for stock p rices.

Phil is a small business mana ger wh o run s his world from h is calendar

program , and uses mail and a special workflow app lication to give his

emp loyees tasks. He does w atch PointCast all day on h is desktop, and

he d oes like to check on th e pr ogress of imp ortan t jobs.

Rhapsod y p rovides a tailored experience for each of these users. George

ru ns m ail, the Finder, and Illustrator. Susan ru ns the Finder, three or

four server mon itor programs, network brow sers, and a Web

auth oring tool. Phil runs th e Find er, a schedu ler, PointCast, and mail.

Each of them th inks they have an integrated system th at gives them

tailored resu lts, bu t none of them h ad t o install special extensions or

control pan els, faceless backgroun d app lications, or oth er MacOS

arcana.

Rhapsod y does this by keeping the basic experience minim al wher epossible, and by provid ing developers with the infrastru cture to keep

app lications working together in an ap parently integrated fashion.



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A Quick Walk-ThroughWhen a Rhapsody user sits dow n in front of a machine, they will log

in as th e first action.

The Rhapsody Login Screen

Some u sers will have single user machines, but m ost w ill share a

machine w ith one or more other p eople. Each such u ser will have a

d esktop of his or her ow n. A Rhap sody u sers desktop is virtual,

mean ing that a u sers desktop w ill follow th em from m achine to

machine. Also, mu ltiple users can use the same machine and eachhave their own p ersonalized d esktop environment.

An ind ividual u ser will not have a login screen, but w ill instead see

the d esktop as soon as the machine has started , just as Op enStep d oes

today.



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The Rhap sody d esktop looks mu ch like a Mac OS d esktop, with a few

key changes.

The Rhapsody Desktop

As can be seen above, the system has a standard menu bar, and a

stand ard MacOS desktop . However, a new ap pearan ce for the process

menu shows th e curren tly active application, and a new desktop

element called the tra y keeps th e users home d irectory visible, along

w ith the trash, the hard disk, and the netw ork. This user has only one

hard disk, and only a few items on his desktop. Note also the presenceof long file nam es, requirin g m ulti-line labels on files.

Lets assum e he w ants to take a look at his hard d isk. He dou ble clicks

on the hard disk icon, and it opens. A stand ard d isk layout w ould give

the u ser a notion of the files shared by all users of the machine, those

specific to ind ividua l users, and those which are strongly associated

w ith the Mac OS comp atibility softw are. These items app ear in d istinct

folders. In the illustration below, the u ser has gon e into the u sers

folder an d found the hom e directories of some of the other users of

this comp uter.



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Exploring the Disk

If the u ser wan ts to check to see wha ts run ning on th e comp uter, he

can visit the p rocess menu . This menu also serves as a wind ow

ma nagem ent interface. By choosing a wind ow, the user can bring it

forw ard using either the m enu or d irect clicking. To bring all wind ows

associated w ith an ap plication forwar d , the user can choose the

ap plication in the p rocess men u. A new class of wind ow, called

backdrop s, allows users to choose to run the d esktop or some other

display as th e background of his screen.



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The Process Menu

A nu mber of hand y access points are available as a par t of the Apple

men u. Un like the M ac OS version, this version is more d irectly

customizable, and users w ill have m ore control of its appearance and

contents.

The Apple Menu



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Rhapsod y is a mu lti-processing system, and u sers can find ou t

everything thats hap pen ing in the task monitor. The Task Monitor is

a w indow wh ich gives the user a complete picture of everything that

his system is doing right now .

The user can ma nage th ese tasks from h ere as well, canceling them , orpau sing them, in order to get more w ork d one. This feature replaces

the command period cancel feature of the Mac OS w hich w ould be

problematic in a m ultiprocessing environment.

The Task Monitor



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By using the n etwork item from the tray, Rhapsody u sers also have

integrated netw ork access. This item d elivers net brow sing of a LAN as

well as wide area n ets, in an extensible way. One access point is the

netw ork item on th e tray, but netw ork integration is pervasive. The log

w indow , below, for instance, was op ened from the Ap ple menu .

Network Browsing

Rhapsod ys Mac OS comp atibility will be available in two m odes, a full

screen mod e and a p artial screen m ode. The full screen m ode w ill be

the d efau lt experience. A full screen sw itch is performed by using acommand key combination, the pr ocess menu , or the special desktop

icon.

By default the Mac OS environment w ill start up w ith two p seud o

volum es wh ich are actually shared pa rts of the Rhapsod y file system.

One su ch volume is the Mac OS section of the d isk noted above.

Anot her is the u sers hom e directory. By d efault, this will encour age

users to pu t their working d ocum ents in the home d irectory, for use by

both Mac OS and Rhapsod y app lications.



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The Full Screen Mode of Mac OS Compatibility

A less comp atible, lower p erforman ce option of sharing th e screen w ill

also be available. While mor e confu sing visua lly, it repr esents a

solutions for those users w ho mu st closely monitor someth ing in one

environm ent wh ile working in the other.

The Shared Screen Mode of Mac OS Compatibility



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Desktop User Exper ienceThe Rhap sodys Desktop User Experience will be largely based on the

familiar interface elements of the Macintosh OS. Rhapsod y w ill carry

forwar d th e featur es introd uced in Ma c OS 8 (Temp o) w hile

integrating the ad vanced u ser interface of Op enStep.

Basic Desk top ElementsRhapsodys desktop env ironment is designed to be minimal and

extensible. Ap ple will pr ovide four basic elements which will combine

to provid e a familiar yet pow erful desktop experience. The four core

elements are: the menu bar, the desktop or backdrop , the shelf, and the

task wind ow. Of the four elements, only the menu bar w ill not be

replaceable.

Men u BarThe Rhap sody m enu system w ill closely mimic the m enu system of

the MacOS. The menu bar w ill ru n across the entire top of the screen

and will be divided into four regions: the App le menu , the app lication

men u region, the system region, and th e Process men u.



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Apple Menu

The App le menu w ill continu e to be a globally-available system m enu

ap pearin g in the sam e location as in todays Mac OS. Today the men u

is user-configurable, it behaves as a laun cher1 , its u sed for navigation

and visibility, and it provid es quick access to items of the u sers

choosing. In Rhap sody, there will be some imp rovements, primarily

in ad vancing the level of customization available to the user.

Items found in this menu are items users w ill wan t to access in an y

ap plications context. These global items allow th e user to rema in in

their current context, meaning they d ont have to switch to the Finderto perform a n op eration; they can activate it from within th e current

context.

Developers shou ld continu e to place access points to their app lications

in this menu if they are needed or u seful on a global, system-wide

basis.2

Items in the Ap ple men u sh ould be aliases to file system objects that

the user can easily add or remove from the m enu w ithout moving the

original object. So, items in the men u shou ld hav e another access

point on th e HD. For example, some of the curr ent DAs and utilities inthe App le menu should be stored together in the Utilities folder at the

root of the hard d isk, and aliases to these items w ould be in th e App le

Menu Item s folder rather tha n the original objects. This allows users

to rem ove any alias wh ile still retainin g the original objects in an easy-

to-find location.

The user can easily u pgrad e any Ap ple-provided app lication w ith a

more powerful 3rd-party application.

1 There has been some discussion abou t allowing th e App le menu to be viewed as a palette but this isnt

a d esign d irection at this time.2 Issue of notification blinking icons can be used for App le menu items, but items in th e Services menu

will need to present a notification alert.Rhapsody User Experience A pple Confidential Page 19 of 115


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Figure 2 : Sample Apple menu

Customization

Its beneficial to make configuring the Ap ple men u more obvious to

the user. Today the user mu st find their App le Menu Items folder in

the System Folder not for the faint-hearted in ord er to p opu late the

menu . In Rhap sody, users will use a control pan el app lication to

pop ulate and configure the menu . Moreover, access to the

configuration interface w ill be available in th e App le menu via the

Customize... item.

Rhapsody w ill provide sup port for changing th e app earance of themenu by allowing the user to reorder and group/ separate items in the

men u; a simple but useful amou nt of customization. In add ition, the

control pan el interface w ill allow users to ad d and delete items in th e

menu . It might still be useful to provid e a way to make the user more

aw are of the Ap ple Menu Items fold er. This may occur as a result of

moving the AMI folder ou t of the System Folder, and into a User



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Preferences folder3 . This wou ld allow th e use of direct man ipulation

for popu lating the menu .

Theres the p ossibility tha t u sers will be confused by ha ving a folder

w hich contains the items appearing in the App le menu , and a separate

interface for pop ulating and organizing the ap pearance of the m enu.We w ill have to w atch for this in user stud ies, but it seems that the

usefulness of the functionality overrides any potential concerns or

objections.

Find

Op ens a m odeless dialog w ith a text entry field that accepts entr y of or

d rags of text or file system ob jects.

When text is entered the u ser can search for name or content on an y

combination of a) the comp ut er b) the local networ k or c) the Internet.

When a file system object is dragg ed in its contents are ind exed and a

search for like content can b e perform ed.

Add itional features

A mechanism should be developed allow ing an app lication to present

comm and s or imp ortant functions in a hierarchical menu off its menu

item. For examp le, as is prov ided by N ow Utilities today, the bit dep ths

are available in a sub-menu off the Monitors control panel men u item.

This w ould improve ou r qu ick access story and enables the u ser to

easily accomp lish th ose frequently-used features w ithout h aving to

open th e app lication.

Though considered a secondary feature, comm and key supp ort should

be available for the Ap ple menu .

We should evangelize d evelopers w ho p lace their app lications in the

3 This was prop osed for Mac OS 8, and though generally accepted as a good direction, was not

implemented du e to time-constraints.Rhapsody User Experience A pple Confidential Page 21 of 115


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men ubar today includ ing all icon m enu s located in th e right-most

system m enubar space or those placed in th e app lication m enubar

space to instead pu t them in the App le menu or the Services menu ,

as approp riate. Using the App le menu allows the user to control what

items they want to app ear in the menu for quick access or system-wide

availability.

App lication menu region

The App lication m enu region is own ed an d controlled by the active

app lication. The stand ard ap plication menu layout will remain mu ch

as it is on MacOS tod ay with a File, Edit, and Help menu . In add ition,

ap plications will includ e a new m enu , Services. Services is d escribed

in detail in the App lication mod el section of this document. The Help

menu is described in the H elp and Assistance section of the document.

System region

The system region is for App le items only. This region inclu d es the

clock and the language m enu that gives users access to input method s

and keyboard layouts.

Global system menusProcess men u

The process menu for Rhapsody is designed to provide a consistent

interface w ith w hich the u ser is familiar, w hile still advan cing th e

features and functionality delivered to the u ser. In add ition, theRhapsody process menu works similarly to th e Mac OS process menu

to insure a consistent experience between the yellow and blue wor lds.



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The Rhap sody p rocess menu is located in th e top right corner of the

menu bar, in the same location as the MacOS process menu . The

Rhapsody p rocess menu allows the u ser to show not only the icon of

the frontm ost app lication, but also its nam e. The in terface for sett ing

this preference has not yet been designed. On e possible interaction is

direct manipulation, allowing the user to drag to reveal or occlude the

name.

At the top of the menu are the menu comm and s that allow the u ser to

show and hide whole applications and individu al windows. The

ability to hide an ind ividu al window is new in Rhapsody. Selecting

the first comm and , Hide , will hide all of the

w indow s of the active app lication. A hidd en app lication and its

w indow s will app ear gray in the process menu. Selecting the

app lication w ill activate the app lication and show all of the wind ows.

The user may also activate single wind ows. Selecting a hidd enRhapsody User Experience A pple Confidential Page 23 of 115


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w indow activates the ap plication but only activates and shows th e

selected wind ow leaving any other wind ows still hidd en. The Hid e

command hides the active wind ow. Command -H is

the comm and key to hide the active wind ow. Option clicking an

inactive wind ow w ill hide the currently active window and activate

the selected w indow . The Show All comman d w ill show all hidd enapplications/ windows.

! Issu e ! - Must have a system registry of comm and keys to supp ort

global keyboard sh ortcu ts. This is necessary to manage conflicts with

applications.

The next section of the men u lists the available backd rop s. The cu rren t

backdrop is indicated by a check. The Backdrop s menu item is not

selectable, only the available backdrops can be selected. Backdrops are

explained in m ore detail below.

! Issu e ! - What is the relation and interaction of the backd rop s to its

app lication? How d o you get backdrops? Does the correspon ding

app lication always ap pear in the ap plication portion of the menu?

The follow ing section of the men u show s the cur rently ru nn ing

Rhapsod y app lications, as well as their open w indow s. Dialogs,

w ind oids and tool palettes are not includ ed in this list. The list of

w indow s is indented u nd er the app lication they belong to. A check is

placed next to the active wind ow. The user can switch to any op en

w ind ow simp ly by selecting it in the menu . If the user selects the

app lication, then all the w indow s of that ap plication come forward (as

they curr ently d o in MacOS).

The last section of the menu lists the various ap plications wh ich m ay

be run ning in the MacOS comp atibility box. If the u ser selects MacOS

then th e blue box is brough t forw ard in th e state in wh ich it was left. If

the u ser selects a p articular ap plication, then th e blue box is brou ght

forward w ith that app lication frontm ost. In the case that the frontmost

blue ap plication is in a mod al state, the other, non-frontmost,

app lications in the blue w orld will be dimmed . This would m ean that

if the user w anted to sw itch back to the blue w orld they w ould h ave toad d ress the mod al situation before they could switch app lications.

The final menu item w ould bring u p a w indow called the Task

Monitor, it is d escribed below.

! Issu e ! - This document discusses several window management



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alternatives including the Process Menu, WindowShade, minimize,

hiding and p op-up s. Rather than evaluating each of these individu al

solutions, the overall issue of w indow man agement w ill be

reconsidered.

Concept: TrayRhapsod y w ill place icons for the users hom e, the network, all

moun ted hard ware d evices, and the Trash on a special window known

as the Tray. The Tray is not u ser configur able, items are p leced on the

tray by the system, not the u ser.

The Tray is a w indow for four reasons:

To separate and differentiate system access points from users

documents.

To improve access to desktop d evice icons which can currently be

obscured by window s.

To keep the basic operation of the system independent of the

Desktop/ Backdrop.



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To imp rove discoverability of mounted items, like flopp ies, by

pu tting them in an obvious place. On the MacOS, these are often

lost in d esktop clutter.

The Tray ma y interleave with other Finder and app lication w indow s.

The Tray follows the wind ow layering and ord ering model. It isrepresented in the process menu as a w indow of the Finder and may be

hidden like any other window .

! Issu e ! - To allow w indow behavior, the Tray m ust hav e an an active

and inactive state. What is the visual app earan ce of these states?

Double clicking an icon on the Tray opens the item into a wind ow in

the Find er.

Clicking in an exposed area of the Tray brings it forward . Users may

dr ag to any exposed region of the Tray to bring the Tray forward as well.Spring load ed n avigation w ill work for the items on th e Tray w ith the

exception of the Trash wh ich d oes not spring . Dragging an item from

the Tray w ill create an alias.

The Tray w ill dynam ically grow to the left w hen th e nu mber of d evices

exceeds w hat can fit in a single colum n. The original items (Hom e,

N etwork, Trash, etc.) will retain their position an d the new items will

be add ed to th e left.

! Issu e ! - Growing the Tray may cover content on the d esktop. Is thisan issue since the user can hide th e Tray?

The intera ction of a dev ices being m oun ted is the same as Mac OS. The

d evice app ears on the Tray but the Tray is not activated . The exception

is if the Tray is hidd en. In this case the Tray is shown but n ot activated .

The following dev ices will not app ear on the Tray: d esktop prin ters

and remote volum es.

! Issu e ! - Should the Tray supp ort an auto hide mod e?

Desktop/BackdropUnlike MacOS, where the d esktop or backdrop is managed by the

Find er and is always a folder full of icons, the plan is to allow th e user

to choose one or m ore app lications to ow n th e backdr op. The Finder

w ill be one of these applications, but oth er ap plications like web

brow sers, animat ion/ screen saver pa ckages, clocks, and chann el tun ers



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might also own th e backdrop . The default backdrop in Rhapsody is the

Finder desktop.

The backdrop is switched using the Process menu.

! Issue ! -Backdrop s other than th e Desktop are consid ered conceptsun til futher review an d d esign can be comp leted and th e feasability of

such a concept from a u sabilty p erspective can be established .

Task MonitorThe Task Monitor is a single place where u sers can go t o get

information about w hat their comp uter is curr ently doing and w hat, if

anyth ing, is tying it up. In add ition, the process monitor gives users

control over not only the a ctive p rocesses, but also their su b-processes.

The Task Monitor is an app lication that has its own m enu bar. The

The app lication is quit on close of the Task Monitor wind ow . Since it

is an ap p lication it is also replaceable.

The main section of the p rocess mon itor show s all of the curr ently

run ning pr ocesses on this comp uter. The user has chosen to disclose

three of the processes in ord er to see their sub-pr ocesses. In the Find er



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pr ocess, there are curren tly two copies going on, and the u ser can see

their pr ogress. Backgrou nd or faceless ap plications (i.e. server

processes, pr inter sp ools, etc.) could be included in this list by checking

the Show Backgroun d App lications checkbox in the dialog.

The user is able to get mor e detailed informa tion abou t a pr ocess orsub-process by selecting it. The add itional inform ation is displayed in

the d etails section b elow th e p rocess list.

In there, the user could also choose to pau se or stop th at sub-pr ocess, or

in the case of a process which is selected, the u ser could qu it that

application.

Und er the MacOS process are its sub-processes, which in th e case of

MacOS, are actual applications. The gau ges shown th ere are not

pr ogress ind icators, but rather ind icate how m uch CPU resources they

are u sing, similar to th e File Sharing Monitor.

! Issu e ! - The pr ogress bars mean d ifferent things. This distinction

mu st be ad dr essed. Will we be able to quit a blue app lication from

yellow?

The next section is wh ere the details of the selected item ap pear . For

examp le if the user h ad clicked on one of the copies, they m ight find

out w hat is being copied from w here to wh ere, estimated time to

completion, etc., similar to w hat h app ens in Tempo if the user

d iscloses more information in the copy d ialog. When information ispresented in this details section, the tw o bu ttons on th e right become

enabled allowing the user to pau se or stop this activity. These butt ons

ma y chan ge depen d ing on the selection. For examp le, if the user had

selected a process the button m ay read Qu it rather then Stop.

The Task Monitor would likely have m enu items or bu ttons in the

d ialog that p rovide access to the Log and Sched ule. The Log allows th e

user to view a history of the events wh ich h ave already taken place, for

examp le Docum ent x finished p rinting at 11:03 am , or Copy of

ReadM e comp leted at 11:01 am . The Sched u le allows the user to

view any events wh ich are schedu led to occur in the futu re, such asBackup of Macintosh H D schedu led to occur at 10:00 pm tonight or

Shu t Down schedu led to occur at 8:00 pm tonight.

In add ition, this window w ill perform the equivalent of the MacOS

comman d-period capability. In a mu ltiprocessing GUI system, a global

keyboard based cancel comman d is dan gerous because users may not



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un derstand wh at is being canceled.

Virtual DesktopsRhapsod y will supp ort both local and remote locations for the users

home d irectory. Since the user s data, app lications, etc. are stored in

the hom e directory, a user can log on an d establish their personaldesktop on an y machine wh ich is properly configured on the netw ork.

Stand alone users not connected to a network will not be presented

w ith a log on dialog. The home directory in this case would be local.

Finder ApplicationThe Rhap sod y Find er ap plication is an evolu tion of the 8.0 Find er

shipp ed in Tempo. As such, many of the features from Finder 8.0 will

be continu ed. These includ e:

p op -u p win d ows spring loaded navigation

b u tt on view

per folder view preferences

con textua l menus

cursor feedback

clean up and arrange functionality

Along w ith these recent features, the Find er w ill adop t as m uch of the

trad itional Find er beh avior as possible (i.e. aliases, pixel levelpositioning of icons, tran slucent drag ging, etc.). This docu men t will

evolve to cover these behav iors.

The following sections covers Finder featu res that ar e either new or a

significant enhan cemen t over those of Finder 8.0.

Special Menu ItemsSome special menu items, such as Shut Dow n, Empty Trash, and Log

Ou t are curren tly kept in th e File menu of the Finder. The final

location of these menu items has not been d ecided, and may m ove to

mor e globally available locations su ch as the Ap ple or Process menu s.

Extensible New men uThe Finder w ill have an extensible New menu in the File menu.

This menu w ill allow th e user to create new file system objects (aliases,

ap plication d ocum ents, etc.) in the cur rently active container. The



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interaction is the same as that of New Folder . The item is created

and the nam e field is opened for edit.

The menu is user configurable. The configuration m echan ism is TBD.

The contents of this menu w ill be kept in the u sers hom e directory

allowing it to be reestablished as par t of the users virtual d esktop.

Concept: Snap ShotsRhapsod y w ill allow the u ser to take snap shots of selected folders or

d evices. Snap shots are objects tha t catalog the conten t of the selected

item. They allows the user to maintain a light w eight image of the

item wh ich can be brow sed and searched. This is extremely valuable

for devices tha t are off line (i.e. Zip cartrid ges, CDs, remote d irectories).

The user creates a snap shot by selecting the folder, device, etc. and

choosing Make Snap Shot from the File menu . A item is created

next to the original. N ote: the interaction is the same as the Make

Alias comm and . The snap shot is denoted by a snap shot icon and is

nam ed date (i.e. Project 5/ 30/ 97). The date is app end ed

to prod uce a unique nam e as well as ind icate when th e snap shot w as

taken. Snap shots are not dyn amic and only represent the content that

w as present w hen the snap shot was taken. The Snap Shot comman d

is also available in the context m enu for selected items.

Snap shots may be searched and brow sed as if they were the real items.

For example, a user could br owse a snap shot of a Zip cartridge that w as

not mounted. Only when the user double clicks a docum ent would thesystem ask to insert the disk in order to open the documen t. The user

may also spring navigate snap shots.

For searching, there may be a n eed to keep snap shots in a special folder

that the system know s about. If this is necessary the design should

accomm odate an easy way to pop ulate the snap shot folder. Design

TBD.

Get Info/Insp ectorThe Open Step Insp ector is far m ore pow erful then th e Find ers GetInfo. It provid es a single extensible interface to d isplay information

and set preferences (i.e. setting the d efault ap plication to op en a

docum ent) for an item. In add ition it is not limited to the Find er,

other app lications can includ e the comm and and bring up the dialog in

their context.



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Rhapsod y will ad opt the mu lti-pa ne Insp ector dialogs. They will be the

main m echan ism for w hich object pr eferences are set. The menu w ill

reside in the File menu . The conten ts of the Insp ector is TBD.

! Issu e ! - Do we ad ditionally sup port selection d riven mod e? Should

the nam e remain Get Info? File Sharing... should be integrated intothe Inspector. We should also look at hierarchical men u access to the

Inspector panes.

Concept: TagsThe labels of the Ma c OS Find er are of little use d ue t o the limited

nu mber , access, and configuration. Rhapsod y will greatly imp rove this

offering n early limitless extensibility, impr oved access, and ease of

configuration.

The num ber and typ e of information associated w ith a tag is extensible

in Rhap sod y. This meta inform ation is stored in the catalog layer

w hich is accessible to not only th e Find er, but all app lications. Such a n

architectur e allows for rich an d n early limitless tagging of items th at

then can be u sed for searching, tracking, and man aging content within

the Find er and oth er app lications. Persistence of this inform ation can

only be insured on volumes that su pp ort storage of meta d ata (i.e.

HFS+). A file transferred to N FS w ould not retain its tags.

Access or the ability to qu ickly assign tags to an item w ill impr ove in

Rhapsod y. The user m ay assign a tag to the item via:

the h ie ra rch ica l menu command in the File menu

th e con text m en u

a pop-up menu in Get In fo / Inspector

other applications who uti lize the common global tags

Configuration of tags w ill no longer hap pen in Preferences. Users will

ad d an d ed it tags via a separate configuration d ialog that w ill be

accessed from an Edit... comm and at the bottom of the tag men u. Third

par ties will be able to replace our tag interface with th eir own.

It is not yet certain pr ecisely how these tags wou ld ap pear to th e user,

but th ey might be visible du ring searches and from sp ecial afford ances

for tags.



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! Issu e ! - Shou ld tags be in the File menu or in the Services men u?

UndoCurrently there is no w ay for the user to recover from mistakes they

may make in the Find er. In Rhapsody the Find er w ill sup port und o

for most all user a ctions.

The Undo command is the first item in the Edit menu. The action

to be undone or redone should appear as part of the menu item.

The Finder suppor ts only one level of Undo and Redo.

The Undo command applies to the last undoable action that was

completed by the user.

The Redo command undoes the la st Undo.

The Undo command switches to Redo once an undo is executed.

Selecting Redo retur ns the comman d to Un d o.

The keyboard equivalent for both commands is command-Z.

Only user act ions are undoable.

Specifics of wh at is and isnt u nd oable as well as the actions th at

clear the u nd o stack is TBD. Also, the initial set of und oable find er

actions is likely to be sma ll.

Cut, Copy, and Paste of iconsCut, Copy, and Paste will be extended in Rhapsody to work for selected

icons in the Finder. These comm and s app ear in the trad itional Edit

men u location.

The Cut and Copy commands will be enabled for all icons except

those on the Tray.

Once the user has selected Cut or Copy the Paste command isenabled. Selecting Paste pu ts the selected item in th e active

container.

A selection that has been cut or copied is represented in the

Clipboard



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Cut, Copy, and Paste would be available from the context menu on

the selection.

!Issue! The Cut comma nd should p robably not be implemented for

Find er objects as it will likely lead to inad vertan t d eletions of Find er

objects.

Concept: Enh anced Clipb oardRhapsod y will enha nce the pow er of the clipboard . The new clipboard

will sup por t mu ltiple pages to allow a history. Selecting paste only

pa stes the imm ediate clipboard selection (much like tod ay). The user

would h ave to open to clipboar d to get at past selections. This is

imp ortant to allow r ecoverability of d ata. More crucial if we allow

cutting of icons. The clipboard sh ould also sup port all stand ard d ata

types and allow d rag and d rop. Once again the clipboard should be

replaceable by a Third par ty.

Preferences dialogThe Find er global p references will continue to be accessed via a

Preferences... comm and at the bottom of the Edit menu . It w ill

continu e to set:

font for view s

spr ing loaded nav igat ion rate

grid sp acing

It will not includ e Labels since that w ill be provid ed by the Tags

interface. A new p references for the Find er will includ e:

global view sett ings for each view type

Finder ViewsThe Finder views are th e equivalent of the folder w indow s displayed

by the curren t Find er. Instead of bu ild ing this fun ctionality into the

Find er, these viewers are replaceable elemen ts packaged as Rhapsod ybun dles. Third parties can w rite new viewers, and either use them in

separa te processes or integrat e them int o the Find er itself.

App le will deliver thr ee distinct viewers for Unified, w ith m ore to

come as the system evolves.



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Icon view The icon view is the stand ard view most commonly

associated w ith the Macintosh. It show s icons of d ocuments

and folder. As with Mac OS, different icon sizes w ill be

presen ted: small, stand ard , and large (the large size is new

and will be the 48X48 size of the OpenStep icons).

Button view The button view is the same as the view that w asintrodu ced in Mac OS 8. As w ith the Mac OS, different

button sizes will be presented: small, standard , and large

(large aga in is new).

List view This view p resents the folder structure as a tree, with

nested levels being p resented u sing the tw isty triangles

interaction style pioneered by th e MacOS Find er. The list

can be sorted by any of the colum ns displayed. How ever,

und er Rhapsody, we w ill add the ability to resize and

reord er colum ns. These settings are on a per folder basis.

In add ition to the Finder views, Rhapsody will deliver a fourthseparate viewer w hich w ill stand alone from the Find er.

Browser This is the mu ltiple colum n brow ser most closely associated

with th e N extStep interface. It has a shelf and a p ath

display. Unlike current NextStep, it should display icons

in the list, allow dragging from the list, and allow rename

in p lace.

Users may choose to use this browser (or another 3rd p arty brow ser)

instead of the Finder. Configuration is via the inspector wh ere the

user can p ick the brow sing tool of choice. While the defau lt choice forthe file browser is likely to be Mac-style file brow sing, a setting w ill be

includ ed to allow system ad mins to choose a different d efault file

browser.

!Issue! Will 3rd p arty file browsers be sup ported in Unified?

Concept: Browse in p laceThe Find er will hav e a global preference to brow se in place. When

enabled, folder s replace the contents of the current w ind ow instead of

opening a new wind ow. The user will turn the option on via a

toggling command in the View m enu.

Tool barThe Finder w indow s will have the ability to includ e a tool bar. The

tool bar will includ e contr ols to navigate th e hierarchy. See the section

on n etwork brow sing for d etails.



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The tool bar w ill also allow fast access to view switching an d

configuration. Design TBD.

Status b arThe Finder w indow s w ill have a d edicated status bar that is separate

from the content region of the window . H eader info and wind ow statew ill be displayed in this area. The user may choose to show or hide the

status bar on a per w indow basis. By default the status area will be

shown.

The DesktopIt will function nearly id entically to the Find ers d esktop in the M ac OS.

The only difference is that the system icons w ill reside on t he Tray

instead of the d esktop. The file system location of the desktop is in the

users hom e directory. Exact location is TBD

Selection m odelThe Find er w ill maintain selections in inactive w ind ow s with

comm and s only effecting a selection in the active wind ow . This is

d ifferent th en th e Mac OS Find er w here th ere is no inactive selection

and that selection can be in an inactive window . The Mac OS model is

the sour ce of much u ser confusion.

Drag m odificationRhapsod y will allow the user to mod ify the default dr ag behavior by

holding down the comman d and op tion key on drop. A menu is

presented p roviding alternate d rag verbs.

The Finder w ill continue to sup port op tion d rag for a copy.

Mu lti-line icon nam esThe Rhap sody Find er will be able to display mu lti-line names for icons.

This allow s for long na mes (255 chara cters for HFS+). This also allows

for ord ered arran gements in folders.



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Icon in the titlebarIn Rhapsody all document w indows th at have an icon in the Finder

w ill also have an icon pr oxy located n ext to the nam e in the titlebar.

This icon is drag gable and w ill act as a pr oxy to the real icon. The same

dr ag & dr op ru les app ly to the proxy includ ing drag m odification.

Path in titlebarIn Rhapsody all docum ent wind ows will have the pop -up path . The

pop -up m enu is accessed by comm and clicking on the titlebar.

Selecting a location in the p ath w ould open that folder.

Progress ind icatorsThe Find er will no longer raise separate p rogress dialogs wh en copying,

emp tying the trash, etc. Instead these tasks and their state will be

rep resented in th e Task Monitor. See the section describing the Task

Monitor for d etails.

NotificationThe Finder w ill utilize the n otifier mechanism d escribed in th e

N otification section of this docum ent. See this section for details.

Desktop PrintingIn Rhapsod y Desktop Printing w ill not be a part of the Find er as in

Find er 8.0. Printing will be a separa te app lication. See the Printing

section of this docum ent for details.

The Disk Layout

! Issue ! -This is a very preliminary layout p roposal and has not been

discussed w ith all the imp acted d esign or engineering teams.

N either the current MacOS disk layout nor th e curren t Open Step d isk

layout w ill be suitable for Rhap sody. This area is un d er construction,

but several key principles are currently known :

Items owned by the users home directory should be segregated

from items av ailable to all users of a system.

Items which are network based should be segregated from items

local to the machine.

Items wh ich are primarily associated with the Blue box should be

segregated from items pr imarily associated w ith the Yellow box.



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None of these segregations are going to be strongly enforced, bu t the

d isk layout sh ould encourage this sort of segregation by the u ser, to

help the u ser und erstand w hy a given item is available or not available

w hen h e is logged in to a p articular m achine.

Even though the layout is not intended to be identical to the MacOS

layout, the disk layout should be familiar enough to a Mac user to

facilitate easy d iscovery of installed app lications and common

locations for d ocuments.

The following is a p roposed layout scheme based u pon these

criteria:

Machine nam e

Shared

Applications

Library

Servers

Network

File Servers

Printers

Applications

LibraryUsers

Users

Me

Desktop

Documents

Applications

Library

Mac OSSystem

App le Extras

Applications

Documents

Root of the file system wou ld be shown as thename of the machine, not / . A symbolic link withthe machine name in / which points to / wouldkeep the command line consistent with the GUI

presentation.

This part of the standard volume w ould hold thefiles shared am ong all users of the system

Set up by the network adm inistrator. This entiresubtree may not app ear on stand-alonemachines.

Users folders would be located here. All thelocal users of this machine would havedirectories here.

The MacOS part of the d isk. This is the placewhere the installer w ould p ut the u sersexisting file tree when Rhapsody is installedover an existing MacOS system, and where itwou ld pu t the MacOS files by defau lt in anew install.



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The Home (Joe Blow) and Machine (Joes Mac) directories as they might appear in Rhapsody

! Issu e ! - The Desktop d irectory will need to be somewh at protected

(e.g. cant be rena med or m oved).

Services menuThe Services men u in Rhap sody w ill consist of context-specific services

w hich a user can app ly to the cur rent ap plication, or a selection in the

app lication. This menu is append ed to the end of an applications

men u s, bu t before the Help m enu , to create a visible association

between this menu and the other application m enus. This furthers the

sense that these items are a p art of the app lications menu s and thu sonly context-specific items shou ld be p laced here.

Context-specific services are typ ically other th ird-p arty ap p lications or

utilities wh ich are u seful and app licable to a particular ap plication.

H owever, its also ap pr opr iate and m ost useful for the u ser if an

ap plication places its service-typ e comm and s in the Services men u.



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The contents of the Services menu w ill vary dep end ing up on the

current ap plication, the services the u ser has installed on th eir

compu ter, and th e services available over the netw ork. Furtherm ore,

the m enu s offerings w ill be synchronized w ith the langu age of any

selection. For examp le, text services such as d ictionaries, thesauru ses,

and spell checkers w ould app ear in the Services menu for a textselection but only those which sup por t the langua ge of the text.

Figure 1: Sample Services Menu

This menu is not u ser-configur able, thou gh, if d esirable and

app ropriate, we can consider th e ability to enable/ disable services, ala

OpenStep.

! Issue ! -A strategy/ conceptu al model of the types of items that should

app ear in the Services menu s, and th e context men us, is cur rently

being w orked out.

! Issu e ! - The service menu can get very large. We will need topr ovide a user p reference which will limit the nu mber of items tha t

can app ear in the services menu .

The Ap plication ExperienceVisual Experience

Rhapsod y will deliver a sup erior, efficient, engaging an d rew ard ing

visual experience to users by exploiting th e best d isplay technologies

and softwa re architectures offered by Mac the OS and Op enStep. This

new advanced look is intended to present Rhapsody as the ind ustrys

most adv anced operating system. An exceptionally high quality andconsistent visual experience will encomp ass all hardw are/ software

platforms supp orted by Rhapsody. New an d innovative solutions to

information p resentation m ay be sup ported by the Unified release.

Developer Release

This release is intend ed to d eliver a recognizable face and establish



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Rhapsod y as the heir to the Mac OS. Delivering developer comfort,

confid ence and security are utm ost priorities in this release and th is

w ill be achieved by d elivering a familiar Ma c OS 8 look and feel.

Opp ortunities presented by the Op enStep architecture to enhance the

ap peara nce will be considered , time p ermitting.

System-wid e adoption of the Mac OS 8 platinum ap pearance for all

Op enStep w indow s, controls and cursors (see Mac OS App earance 1.0

HIS or SDK for d etails on the w ind ow & control ap pear ance).

48x48, 32 bit (OpenStep) tran slation of Mac OS 8 system icons (i.e.

Root, Hom e, Fold ers, all Media, gen eric app lications, all native file

formats). This will also includ e some Op enStep app lications file and

toolbar icons.

Sup port for bitmap PICT as a native image format in add ition to

existing su pp ort for TIFF and EPS.

Modified gam ma tables for Intel hardw are, necessary to ensure

quality across platforms.

Upd ated Op enStep app lication N IB (wind ow layout) files based on

new Mac OS H I Guid elines. The final num ber of ap plications is TBD

and priority will be assigned by anticipated d eveloper need s.

Continued support for Rhapsody on Window s appearance appkit.

Premier Release

This release is intended to d eliver a comm on ap pearan ce across the

entire Rhapsody app kit includ ing supp ort for new w indow types and

controls as required by the HI. All Rhapsod y app lications will pr ovide

a consistent visua l experience.

Completed translation of developers release appearance onto final

suite of window types, controls, cursors and file icons.

All Rhapsody app lications should be AppKit savvy and adh ere to the

Mac OS wind ow and dialog layout guid elines.

Implementation of system-wid e preference suite of all app earance

related elements: fonts, accent colors, highlight colors and backdrop s.

Sup port for App le System Palette on 8 bit maximum d isplays.

Implementation of first visual experience supp ort of Blue-Yellow box

interaction (i.e. screen sw ap ping, shared files/ volum es, etc.).N ot part of the software release, but to be d elivered in the Premier time

frame:

Design d irection established an d Ap pearance HIS comp leted for the

advan ced Rhapsody visual experience.



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Investigation into using ColorSync to ensure a consistent cross-

platform v isual exper ience will be comp leted.

User value investigation of enhanced visual experience elements

comp leted. These may/ could includ e: icon animation, real-time 3D

rend ering of selected interface elements, file age or layer d epth cues

and the incorporation of video as an interface element.

Unified Release

This release d elivers th e final Rhap sody-specific app earance.

Imp lementation is TBD, but the d esired solution is to ad opt th e Mac OS

Ap pear ance Manag er strategy. This will allow supp ort for multiple

app earances (Themes) wh ich w ill be shipping on Mac OS in the

Rhapsod y Unified time frame. All goals listed below assum e this

strategy.

Apple platinum appearance (Premier release) implemented as a

Theme u nder the Rhapsody app earance manager.

New Rhapsody specific appearance imp lemented as a Theme un der

the Rhapsod y app earance manager.

Add itional Themes derived from the available Mac OS suite. New

Themes if time and resources permit.

Backdrop (patterns & pictures) supp ort with a su ite of backdrops.

This is in ad dition to any active backdrop strategy delivered as p art of

the Finder U E.

Sup port for real-time generation of document p roxies.

Consistent cross-platform v isual experience strategy should be

implemented.

Implementation of enhanced visual experience elements as

identified in th e earlier investigation.

Beyond Rhap sody 1.0

In the event that the ap pearance abstraction provided by an

App earance Manager is not d elivered in the U nified release, this will

be escalated an d remain a p riority for follow-on releases.

The investigation and imp lementation of enhanced visua l experience

elements w ill also continue.

WindowsWindow Controls

Rhapsody w ill have standar d controls wh ich are very similar to the

MacOS equivalents. There are two r easons for this. First, we w ant to

preserve user m uscle mem ory as m uch as possible. Secondly, w e d oRhapsody User Experience A pple Confidential Page 41 of 115


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not w ant to d isturb u ser workflow an y more than is necessary. Thu s,

Rhapsod y win dow s will continue to hav e a close box, a zoom box, and

a minim ize box.

The wind ow close box will behave just as the MacOS d oes today, w ith

the ad dition of a document h as not been saved ind icator in the closebox.

The wind ow zoom box will also behave exactly like its MacOS

counterp art. From an un zoomed state, the zoom box will zoom to an

app ropriate size based on the specifics of desktop layout. Hitting the

zoom box again w ill return the w indow to its original unzoom ed

state.

It is not yet clear w hether the m inimize box should match the Ma cOS

w indow shad e behavior, the N extStep tile behavior, or some

combination of the tw o.

Rhapsod y wind ows will be resized from all corners and sides, w ith

some sort of drag from an y side afford ance to be determined at a later

time. They w ill always be d raggable from the titlebar.

Scrolling

Rhapsod y scroll bars are a combina tion of the current Open Step an d

MacOS cont rols. Like MacOS, they w ill scroll a single pa ge when the

user clicks in the gutter, and they app ear to the right of the wind ow.

Like Open Step, the scroll bars hav e live scrolling an d p rop ortionalthumbs.

The position of the scrolling ar row s remain s un decided . MacOS places

them at opp osite end s of the scroll bar, and Op enStep p laces them

together at th e end fur thest from the w ind ow close box. It looks like

this is one of those places wh ere a p reference may p rove u seful. By

d efault, the setting will pr obably mim ic MacOS.

Window Management

Window man agement in Rhapsody w ill probably follow th e OpenStep

mod el more closely than th e MacOS mod el. Users w ill be able tochoose to bring a single wind ow to th e front by clicking on th e wind ow.

Users will be able to use the p rocess menu to move all wind ows in a

given app lication to the front, and w e may also add a special mod ifier

key on wind ow activation to bring siblings forw ard .

Window Activation



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Rhapsody w ill stick with the Op enStep w indow activation mod el,

w hich h as three states instead of two. A w indow can be active, with or

w ithout th e keyboard focus, or be inactive.

Menus

The Rhap sody m enu system w ill closely mimic the m enu system ofthe MacOS. The menu bar across the top of the screen, with a n Ap ple

logo, will be a core pa rt of the experience on Rhapsod y.

Standard Men u Layout

The stand ard menu layout will remain m uch as it is on MacOS today,

with an App le menu, a file and edit menu, a help menu , and a process

men u. Unlike the current system, though , the process men u w ill show

the nam e of the current ap plication, and w ill serve as a w indow

management affordance.

Heres the stand ard men u layou t, arranged as a hierarchical list

Apple Menu (see Desktop section for details)

File

Open

-

Close

Save

Save as

-

(app specific commands, if any)

-Page Setup

Print

-

Quit

Edit

Undo

Redo

Cut

Copy

Paste

Clear

-

Select All

-

Find All

-

Spelling...

Check Spelling

-

Show Clipboard



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Services

Help

Clock

Language Menu

Process Menu (on right hand side of menu bar, special appearance)

Standard PanelsRhapsody w ill adopt most of the standard app lication p anels that

Op enStep p rovided to its users. This set has several extensions beyond

the u sual items p rovided by MacOS. The sp ecific panels are: Font,

Color, Open/ Save, and Info.

Evangelizing ap plication developers to u se these panels should help

Rhapsod y app lications look and feel more consistent that MacOS

app lications do today.

Font Pan el

Rhapsody w ill provide a font p anel wh ich allows u sers to choose a font

family, typeface, and size from a single mod eless d ialog.

Unlike Open Step tod ay, this panel may also pr ovide a list of favorite

settings as d raggable font chips w hich allow a u ser to dra g favoritesettings to a selection.

The font panel, current state



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Rhapsod ys font pan el will need to sup port som e add ed capabilities.

Font man agement is one such issue. Interaction w ith locales is

anoth er. Fur ther information can be found in the section entitled

Font Management in the Configuration and Customization

section.

Concept: Rhap sody Font Attributes D ialog

The d esigns below illustrate a separate Font Attributes d ialog accessed

from the Font men u. The Font Attr ibutes men u item is only enabled

w hen th e selected text contains a font th at has custom izable features

and/ or variations.

Users are able to select pr edefined va riants from th e Preset Variants

pop -up m enu (e.g., Regu lar, Extra Light). The Features p op-u p m enu

lists all featur es that can be customized for th is font (e.g., fractions,

letter case, ligatures, nu mber spacing). The Variations pop -up lists thed esign axes that can be m odified for that font (e.g., weight, wid th). The

slider is u sed to change th e values, which can also be entered directly in

the text field to th e right of the slider.



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The Sam ple field is show n by clicking its d isclosure tr iangle. The u ser

is also able to specify the font size for the sam ple u sing the Samp le Size

pop -up m enu to m ake it easier to preview the m odifications.

Color Panel

A similar pan el manages color, allowing th e user to select variouscolors for use in ap plication content . This pan el also keeps a u ser

created set of favorite colors for easy reu se. Unlike Op enStep, the pan el

w ill allow d irect setting of th e color of the selection from a sm all set

button.

The color panel



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Op en/Save Panel

Rhapsodys open/ save panel will eventually use the same view s

pr ovided by the Find er to allow u sers to create, save, and op en

docum ents in app ropriate folders.

The Open/Save panel, with the OpenStep browser view



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Get Info

Most individu al settings for selections wh ich are n ot han dled in

another p anel are hand led here. This pan el, wh ich w as formerly called

the inspector und er N extStep, is a mod eless, selection d riven w indow .

Various categories of information are d isplayed at th e top of the

w indow in a pop -up m enu. When a category is chosen, the get infow indow will disp lay a new pa nel with specific, editable informat ion.

The info panel



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Cur rent exam ples of inspector pan els includ e file system access control,

choosing editors for docum ents, and examining th e aggregate size of

directories.

We expect the info pan el to be extensively used in the Rhap sody

interface, to provide a consistent w ay to find the settings that ap ply tothe current selection.

PrintingThe Print Dialog has been mod ified to allow u sers to save sets of

settings for a p rinter and choose amon g them using th e Preference Set

pop -up menu . Note: These screenshots d o not reflect the Platinu m

appearance.

The standard print dialog (using old MacOS appearance)

Users are able to specify a d ifferent p rinter to p rint to tem porar ily, other

tha n on e of their favorite prin ters. They click th e Select Temp orary

Printer bu tton to select this temp orary p rinter from th e list of all

available printers. They d o have the op tion of add ing it to their

Favorites list as w ell.



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The temporary printers

Printing status

When a print job is started, the task w indow displays the status of that

particular pr int job. This is in keeping w ith the everything about

status of long tasks goes here mod el the task wind ow is supp osed toprom ote. This is quite different from th e current MacOS model, wh ere

individual printers are ind epend ently queried about status.

Preference sets

Every printer can hav e one or m ore preference sets, wh ich contain a

grou p of related settings for a pr inter. For examp le, one migh t create

pr eference sets for final color pr inting, final gr ayscale p rinting, and

proof printing in each m ode.

Saving a preference set

There is alwa ys a "Defau lt" pr eference set available. This set is created

for a chosen printer by th e system, and can never be removed.

Choosing a preference set



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Users can ad d and delete preference sets as needed.

Deleting a preference set

Printer M anagementSee the section on configuration and customization for details about

printer management.

Mac OS Integrat ionIn order to p rovide a high d egree of backward compatibility, Rhapsody

will be capab le of ru nn ing in tw o OS contexts (a Blue context - a.k.a.

Mac OS comp atibility, and a Yellow context - a.k.a. Open Step

un derp innings with advanced Mac look and feel). Rhap sody will

sup por t three method s for switching contexts between MacOS (blue)

and Rhapsody (yellow) operations/ app lications:

Blue Box in a Window

In this case, the Mac OS app ears in a w ind ow in the Yellow

environment. The Blue environm ent is essentially a w indow ed

application.

Full-Screen switch

In this method, the u ser will see either the Mac OS or Rhap sody bu t

not both at the same time. Both w ill be ru nning, but only one will

hav e contr ol of the screen at a time. The user can sw itch betw een

systems and can share data in a nu mber of ways.

Dual Boot

In this mode, the u ser will set up and run the Mac OS or Rhapsody.

The systems w ill not run simultaneously. Although even in theRhapsody User Experience A pple Confidential Page 51 of 115


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du al boot case, if Rhap sody is installed w ith blue box comp atibility

then a d ual booted Rhapsod y w ill still be capable of full screen

and / or blue in a box context switching. Dual boot capability means

that u sers will be able to run a pu re version of the MacOS on the

same machine without any depend encies on Rhapsody.

Users will use a control pan el to choose w hich context switch

meth od w ill be used. That is, a user can either use full screen or

blue in a box, but n ot both, and that choice will be set via a control

pa nel. (The default context switch meth od is still being d etermin ed

via plann ed u ser stud ies. Also, the interactions to enable Dual Boots

are a lso TBD)

Disk SharingThere are three primary d isk sharing m odels possible in Rhapsod y

and each mod el imp acts imp ortant asp ects of the OS integration UE.

The three file system rep resentat ions are:

Shared File System This is the least comp atible mod e of opera tion, althoug h it

is also the most comm only expected mod e of operation . This

mod e of operation h as disk layout concerns (where d oes the

system folder go, wh ere do the Yellow equivalents go),

synchronization concerns, and m any other subtle problems.

Well behaved app lications are likely to w ork, but m any

extensions and utility app lications w ill fail. This is the

only disk sharing m od el which will allow the Blue box and

Yellow box to see each other's files directly (i.e. w ithou t an

intervening special shared folder)

File System in a File. In this mod e, the entire Blue boot volume is contained in a

single file embed ded in the yellow file system. This mode

is almost as compatible as the third option, Dedicated

Partition, but might break app lications that for some

reason ar e directly talking to th e SCSI hard w are to access

disks (RAID extensions, for instance). This mode, like the

Dedicated Partition m ode, has the extra benefit, and

complication, of allowing multiple blue environments to run

simultaneously.

Dedicated Partition In this mod e, Blue boots from a d edicated d isk partition

(which w ill common ly be the wh ole disk). It is the most

compatible mode of operation. Virtually everything that

cares about disk hard wa re is likely to work in this mode.



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These mod els are not mu tu ally exclusive. It will be possible to have

mixtures of these on a system. Because each m ode has imp ortant

features, all three mod es of opera tion will need to be enabled.

In ord er to pr ovid e all thr ee alternatives, a "MacOS Comp atibility"control panel is requ ired, wh ich allows users to pick the startup

"volu m e" for blue (either a file, d isk pa rtition , or Yellow Volum e).

The "Startu p Disk" control p anel w ill hav e to be mod ified to reflect

the d ifferent options.

Blue Box in a Wind owThe Blue box wou ld be rep resented as wou ld any other app lication in

the Yellow box. In its unop ened state, it would be an icon. Lau nching

the "app lication" w ould op en a w indow (albeit a special wind ow w hich

might have a special app earance). The u ser can switch contexts byclicking in the d esired environm ent. Closing the w indow w ould shu t

dow n th e Blue box.

The Blue Box w indow might have the stand ard w indow border and

title bar of a wind ow in the Yellow box. However, we are investigating

a special border for this window to provid e an afford ance that this is

not a typ ical wind ow (Sugg estions includ e a graph ic repr esentation of a

mon itor). In either case, directly below the w indow s title bar w ill be

the standard Mac OS (temp o) menu bar. Moving the mouse to the top

of the window wou ld move the mouse beyond the menu bar which

results in the loss of an imp ortan t par t of the Mac OS user experience(i.e. the ability to fling th e cursor to th e top of the screen w ithout it

missing the m enu bar).

Within the Blue box wind ow , the behavior wou ld be that of the Mac

OS environment. Drag-and -drop cannot be supp orted at this time

between the Blue and Yellow environm ent, and is therefore only

possible w ithin th e Blue w indow and w ithin th e Yellow environment,

bu t not betw een them . (We are also actively investigating w ays to

make th is limitation m ore palatable by possibly p roviding an imation

(and sound effects) to clearly, but gently, ind icate the d rag bou nd aries)

Switchin g to and Starting the Blue box in a w ind ow

The user can invoke th e Blue box by anyon e of the following m ethods:

Command key combination. If Blue is not currently running,

pr essing the comman d key combination should launch Blue and



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switch focus. The comm and -key combin ation w ill be displayed in

the pr ocess menu once Blue is ru nn ing.

Opening a document which starts an application in the other

environment .

For d edicated p artitions or Disk image installations these files

wou ld reside in a shared folder.

For shared file systems the d ocum ent or app lication might

app ear in any file browser wind ow or on the d esktop.

Clicking on a iconic representation of the other context which

resides on the desktop.

If it is currently running users can select Mac OS in the "Process

menu " for Rhapsody.

Wherever frequently launched app lications or docum ents might

app ear (e.g. Ap ple Menu, Log Window ).

Once one of these method s has been invoked th e user w ill see an open

w indow in the Rhap sody Finder w hich contains a partial view of the

Mac OS desktop . Icons on th e MacOS d esktop w ill be automatically

rearranged to fit within the curr ent area of the wind ow. Should th e

area occupied by d esktop icons exceed the current w indow area,

scrollbars w ill app ear w hich enable the u ser to scroll aroun d the entireMac OS desktop . The follow ing figure illustrates th e Blue box in a

wind ow concept.

Reminder: All illust rations in this document are early concepts and

are not final designs (especially t he ones that follow!). They are used

only t o bet ter illu st rate a specific concept or issue. They do not reflect

the fin al desktop or visu al design details of Rhapsody.



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Early Blue Box Concept

If the user clicks outside of the Blue box, or uses the Rhap sody pr ocess

menu to select some other p rocess, or uses the comman d key

combination for a context switch, the Blue box wind ow w ill be dim med

as wou ld any other non-active w indow in the Rhap sody Find er.



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Working in the M ac OS Wind ow

The user experience when working in the Mac OS in a Window

w ill be similar to w orking with the M