Mac Mountain Lion Bites

[T_Dog]

When I went to a Mac eight years ago I was quickly spoiled. Everything worked, everything made sense. I was really excited a month ago when I bought a new Mac with the Mountain Lion operating system. I was expecting another leap in user happiness. Well.... it has not been so. If (IF!) it was simply the same as the Tiger OS, I would be happy, but there are some really annoying problems:

-Up/down scroll arrows are gone. Huh? Who would get rid of those, and why? I used them all the time. Trying to find a photo now in IPhoto when you have about 5000 pics by navigating up and down with the "scroll bar placement" solution is nearly impossible. (If you use the keyboard up and down arrows, you simply tab between functions in IPhoto.)

-Tiger lets you watch a movie or a slide show full screen on one display while you work on a second display. Not so with Mountain Lion: One display will black out as soon as you select full screen. Some of my 3D dual display design tools are now useless. Another "huh"!

-Tiger had these cool gadgets you could find on your dashboard. Now you have to use Mission Control? Can anyone explain what part of life Mission Control makes easier?

If anyone has found any solutions to these, ah, "enhancements", feel free to post away. Also, I would be keen to learn what user improvements you have found with Mountain Lion. Maybe I am missing the boat here in some way.

[rijb]

Go to System Preferences and click 'Always' under 'Show scroll bars'

[T_Dog]

Go to System Preferences and click 'Always' under 'Show scroll bars'

Already done. The scroll bars are there, but no up/down arrows like with Tiger. You had me hopeful there for a minute!

[rijb]

My mistake.

I use the 'fn' and arrow keys on the keyboard.

Sometimes, I also click in the scroll bar area - not on the scroll bar itself.

[JusMe]

I looked at some of the "improvements" in recent upgrades, and figured I just didn't need or want them, so I've stayed very happily with Snow Leopard.

[Jimi007]

I scroll using two fingers up or down on the track pad. I use three fingers to swipe between pages or to go to dash board. I don't have two displays, but you can probably change the setting in system preferences...

[cheeryble]

Does the previous OSX have the marvellous function where you can swipe right to go to the previous page?

ps am still haven't problems dropping or not connecting to wifi....problem I started here a month ago still unresolved.

Don't know if it's OS or Air....

Edited February 11, 2013 by cheeryble

[taninthai]

^

I bought my MacBook air same time as you cherrybie and no problems what's so ever if I remember right you opted for a 2 nd hand model that could be the readon it was for sale although I have heard of a few other people that bought new machines and have the same problem as you.

[nikster]

Does the previous OSX have the marvellous function where you can swipe right to go to the previous page?

ps am still haven't problems dropping or not connecting to wifi....problem I started here a month ago still unresolved.

Don't know if it's OS or Air....

Had issues with WiFi too - resolved it with this set of instructions - it seems to work

http://osxdaily.com/2012/08/02/fix-os-x-mountain-lion-wireless-connection-problems/

Mainly, it's about creating a new "location" in the network settings which seems to un-funk some stuff.

[nikster]

I'd be annoyed with Mountain Lion - if I didn't have a retina MacBook Pro which needs that version for optimal performance. It's not easy pushing 5 megapixels, requires extra driver support for the gfx card.

I got the Dashboard - those useful widgets - back to the F4 key where it belongs using a free Preference Pane called FunctionFlip.

I also find Mission Control utterly useless. I never use it. Filed under solutions waiting for a problem.

Launch Pad is even worse - on my system LaunchPad shows up with 4 screens full of icons. Wow, now that makes starting an app super simple! I know I could clean it up, but between the Dock for my most used apps, and Spotlight for anything else I really don't need this.

Arrows on scroll bars? I haven't used one of those in years. I use two finger scrolling on the trackpad which works just fine and much better than scroll bars ever have. So this one, I am OK with.

I don't know about full screen movies, except that in the year 2012 - now 13 I guess - Apple is still unable to ship a decent media player with their operating system. I alternately use VLC and MPlayerX. The strangest thing vs. QuickTime is: Both VLC and MPlayerX have better usability. QuickTime has lots of bizarre keyboard shortcuts that seem random... the others do what you expect, FFWD with arrows and so on....

[T_Dog]

Found a work around for movies by re-sizing them to almost full screen. At least that way I can keep working on the computer while a movie plays. Slide show running on IPhoto of course on one monitor stops you from working on anything else.

A few moments ago I found a new annoyance. Family was watching a movie with my re-sized workaround and I was reading news about the meteor. Hit mission control so I could find the weight converter and of course it spread all those widgets all over BOTH displays causing an outcry from the movie watchers. Tiger wins as none of the above were ever an issue. Mountain Lion loses.