Looking at Leopard Part 2

A few days ago I wrote about my most anticipated feature in Leopard. You can read Part 1 here. Here are some more of Leopard’s great additions.

Finder

One of the most prevalent features of the revamped Finder in Leopard is its iTunes look and feel. This unifying overlay of the OSX interface makes things even easier, and creates a sense of consistency throughout the operating system. The sidebar is extremely useful and adds a ton of options. The best of these is the ability to see available Macs to connect to over the network, and choose the one you want. This is leagues ahead of the current shaky and uninformative Finder networking.

The impressive screen sharing that I previously spoke of in iChat also exists in Finder across networked machines. This basically means you can take control of any Mac in your house from one computer, assuming they all run Leopard. Fear not if you hold Windows machines in your house though, because Leopard interfaces with Windows flawlessly, just as Tiger did.

The screen sharing even extends to some degree when you are away from home. Leopard allows for remote login from any Leopard Mac back into your home computer. The aptly titled “Back to My Mac” gives you the ability to either access your home files, or even take control of your system just as in the previous examples. Unfortunately this is only available to subscribers to .Mac which is $99 per year.

Quick Look

Quick Look is a useful tool that allows you to preview any file before you open it. At first this seems trivial, but I think you will find it is going to become one of the most frequently used features of Leopard. Cycle through your Word documents in Finder (via CoverFlow if you like) and if you need to quickly check files, just hit the space bar. A small window will pop up that lets you view your file without ever opening Word. Quick Look works for most files on your Mac.

Time Machine

Ever accidentally deleted a file? What if you could go back in time and get it? I cannot wait to use Time Machine, though it does require an external hard drive that I need to buy. Its advantage over Windows’ System Restore is that it actually documents files in addition to taking care of system resources. Ever hour Time Machine will check to see if any files have been updated, and back them up. This is an incredibly beneficial feature in our ever-digitalizing world.

Now for some computer science student (read: nerd) excitement.

Automator

Automator is an application that allows you to create simple scripts that can speed up tasks. For example, you could create a workflow that got all the files from a directory, uploaded them to the internet, and then copied them to a different folder. This is a simple (and useless) example, but the new Automator adds exciting enhancements such as the ability to record actions for use in workflows. I know that once I can mess around with it I will be releasing some workflows here for the benefit of all my Mac readers.

Dashcode

I can say the same about Dashcode. This widget development environment allows anyone with coding knowledge to create widgets for the Dashboard. It simplifies the process, and having used the beta when it was available, I can vouch for it. It will hopefully inspire me to code one of the many widget ideas I have floating around in my head.

And the rest

New Airport Menu: You can now see details about possible wireless networks such as security, etc. Basically you get actual information about a network, rather than the guesswork you have to do currently.

Photo Booth Videos: Though this is technically already possible with the use of iMovie, an actual Photo Booth video interface will allow even the most casual computer users to record videos with ease. You can export and share them with your friends or send them to YouTube very quickly and smoothly.

Non-beta Safari 3: I am currently using Camino exclusively because of a few issues I have with Safari regarding keyboard input and the rendering of some pages. I am hoping that the new version, now out of beta, will fix many of my problems. If it does that and increases its speed (reports are that it is noticeably faster) I may be switching back.

Application Based Firewall: This feature will go unheralded for the majority of users, but rather than playing with router settings and forwarding ports via the current OSX firewall, I will finally be able to grant access based on the program. Not a huge deal, but one minor headache I will not have to deal with anymore.

Leopard is full of these useful upgrades and new features. These are only a small listing of the many reasons I cannot wait to get my paws hands on Leopard. It releases today (though I will not have it until Saturday). Anyone else excited?