UNDOING THE MAC OS FACELIFT

 
                                               


Legions of Mac OS X beta testers are revolting against the new interface in Apple's latest operating system.

Some Apple lovers are so unhappy with Mac OS X's new look, they've hacked the OS to make the revolutionary Aqua interface more like the version it's supposed to replace.

The unfinished Mac OS X is currently undergoing extensive public beta testing in preparation for its oft-delayed launch now scheduled for early next year.

Among the many changes in the new operating system is a complete overhaul of the Mac interface, which -- apart from the introduction of color -- has remained mostly unchanged for 16 years.

Apple purists aren't happy with the radical departure, saying that Microsoft's Windows looks more like their beloved Mac user interface.

"Working with Mac OS X Beta, I feel slightly as if an old friend had been kidnapped by aliens," wrote Angus McIntyre in a post to MacInTouch, a popular Mac news site. "Something has taken over my Macintosh, and I'm not quite sure what."

"The most distressing part is feeling like a complete novice again." McIntyre said. "I've been using and programming Macs for ten years, and now I'm sitting in front of it going 'What? Huh? How do I launch an application? Where did my icons go?' Talk about disorientation."

To counter this disorientation, many Mac OS X users have hacked the system or installed special utilities that "Macify" the new OS. Some of the "Macification" hacks available for download include:

    Altering the system's defaults via the command-line interface to put icons representing the Trash Can, local hard drives and CDs back onto the desktop. In Mac OS X, the Trash Can lives in a "Dock" window, and hard drives and CDs are found in the new Finder window. Show Drives, a utility from MacPowerUser.com, makes the changes automatically.

    Classic Menu brings the much-loved Apple Menu back to Mac OS X. The utility puts the Apple menu -- the rough equivalent of Window's Start Menu -- on the top left of the screen and a "Process menu," which shows currently running applications, on the right.

    OpenStrip is an open-source version of the traditional Control Strip, a horizontal menu that displays system and application controls and indicators, like speaker volume or battery status. The Control Strip had been excised from Mac OS X.

While it's impossible to know how many people have "Macified" Mac OS X, all the testers contacted for this story reported installing one modification or another, and said the practice was widespread.

Dozens of Web sites have sprung up to document the modifications, including MacOS X Tips, Tricks & Hacks and Project Freedom, which aims to put the "Mac OS into Mac OS X" by providing information about hacks and utilities.

"(Aqua is) pretty different and there's a lot of people who are not willing to make a drastic shift in how they use their computer," said John Bafford, a long-time Mac user who runs OS X Talk, a clearinghouse for information about the new operating system.

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