bizzare changes to 2012/13 iMac's

Hello
I recently bought a new iMac, OSX 10.8.4, and I am really amazed at what appear to be really daft changes which Mac have made to the iMac.
For example, I cannot discern any sensible reason for Mac deciding to do away with the principle of "save as". - I have always used "save as" rather than save. ~It is now very inconvenient when I want, for example, to modify a basic letter template, which is something I do all the time. I find that instead of "save as", I now have to "duplicate" and "rename" That is a really backward step by Mac.
Also (maybe I have not set the correct preferences), I find that the scroll bar at the side of each page seems to have disappeared. - every time I want it, I have to search for it before I can freely use it. Does any one else have these problems?

It is very frustrating, and does not make for ease of use.
I hope that on the next version of iMac, Mac will restore "save as" and restore a usable scroll bar. Any observations on this?

Regards.

??

I have 'Save As' in all the apps where I use it in 10.8.

As for the scrolling, most of us using the trackpad on our notebooks or the Magic Trackpad for the iMac - don't really have use of the scroll bar being permanently displayed. However, you can change the scroll bar to your own personal preferences in:

System Preferences
General

The "Save As" that Bob is talking about, i use all the time in 10.8 as well.
All you need to do is press Option Down once in the "File" menu and "Save As" appears

You just didn't know that, but yet again, people go off blaming Apple for something, when actually that haven't done anything. Just changed it around a Bit.

You would of come across better if you had of asked a question about the feature instead of going off and naming  for something they didn't do

bobtomay said:

??

I have 'Save As' in all the apps where I use it in 10.8.

As for the scrolling, most of us using the trackpad on our notebooks or the Magic Trackpad for the iMac - don't really have use of the scroll bar being permanently displayed. However, you can change the scroll bar to your own personal preferences in:

System Preferences
General

Click to expand...

Thanks bobtomay for your speedy response.
Your tip about the scroll bar is brilliant. - I have checked my Preferences, and have set the scrollbar to show "always".
Thanks a lot.

Regarding the "save as" feature. - I don't seem to have it on my iMac. Is there a way I can set up documents to "save as"?

Cheers.

TattooedMac said:

The "Save As" that Bob is talking about, i use all the time in 10.8 as well.
All you need to do is press Option Down once in the "File" menu and "Save As" appears

You just didn't know that, but yet again, people go off blaming Apple for something, when actually that haven't done anything. Just changed it around a Bit.

You would of come across better if you had of asked a question about the feature instead of going off and naming  for something they didn't do

Click to expand...

Thanks TattoedMac for your tip about "save as". - That is really useful to know. It does seem odd though that the only way I would know that is if someone like yourself tells me about it. wouldn't it be better if "save as" was there all the time, like it used to be on earlier iMac versions?

Best regards, and thanks.

toymaker1 said:

Thanks TattoedMac for your tip about "save as". - That is really useful to know. It does seem odd though that the only way I would know that is if someone like yourself tells me about it. wouldn't it be better if "save as" was there all the time, like it used to be on earlier iMac versions?

Best regards, and thanks.

Click to expand...

Yea true but its second nature to me now, as i use it all the time as well, but thats Apple for you. Happy to help. Enjoy

That 'Save As' disappearing in 10.7 did have the whole OS X community up in arms and was brought back in 10.8.

Right now, not sure if in 10.8 it depends on the app or if I did something so that it shows all the time without having to press the option key.
You may want to have a read of the ML section of this article.

TattooedMac said:

The "Save As" that Bob is talking about, i use all the time in 10.8 as well.
All you need to do is press Option Down once in the "File" menu and "Save As" appears

Click to expand...

How did that get past me? I must really be slipping. Thanks.

In point of fact, for someone who uses templates all the time, the "new" method introduced in Lion is BRILLIANT, as it completely eliminates the possibility of an accidental "overwrite." The failure here wasn't with Apple, it was with developers not adopting the standard universally (same mistake the US made with metric, but that's another story) and stubborn users (not necessarily meaning you sir).

Now I'm not saying you're wrong or anything -- you do what you think works best for you -- I'm just saying that a LOT of things Apple does requires an open mind on why they did it. Once you have that, you find that 99 (okay, 95) percent of the time they made the right decision.

Here's the old way you're using:

1. Open file you've used before.
2. Remember NOT to make changes to it yet.
3. Remember NOT to press command-s as one often does in an automatic way.
4. Make a change (or a bunch of them)
5. Instead of the convenient command-s, you now have to mouse up to the file menu and deliberately (carefully, as "save" is right next to it!!) choose "Save As"
6. Now you have to select where to save your new version, or rename the file if you're saving it in the same place.
7. Six months later, try to remember or look at time stamps to determine which one was the latest version.

THE LION METHOD:

1. Just save. Versions of the document are automatically saved every time you make a change, so you can go back to any version at any time. One document, not dozens. Bliss.

2. If you like having separate documents rather than Versions, you can do that too. Just open the "template" file, duplicate, close the "old" one, type in the new name in the title bar and off you go. That's exactly ONE additional step over the way a practiced "Save As" master would do it, and again ELIMINATES the possibility of an accidental overwrite. IMO, a BIG benefit with a very SMALL "cost."

THE HYBRID (as of Mountain Lion)

If you prefer the old way, it's still there (with the option key held down). If you prefer the new way, it's still there. Best of both worlds IMO.

I've yet to see how versions would at all be helpful in the way I use for example Excel.

I deal with spreadsheets all day everyday - the final page of a workbook is a Proposal that is sent out to a potential client.

I have no need for a bunch of versions - only need the single version that is exactly what was sent to my client. No more, no less.

Sometimes the client asks for a revision to the scope of work.
I open up the original file, make said adjustments, click 'Save As', append an R1 to the file name and I now have a total 2 files - the original and the revision - no more, no less and both match exactly what I have sent the customer. I may do this multiple times a day. No "versions" of my files and no extra two steps of duplicating and closing the original file.

bobtomay said:

I've yet to see how versions would at all be helpful in the way I use for example Excel.

Click to expand...

Excel didn't adopt support for Versions anyway AFAIK.

I have no need for a bunch of versions - only need the single version that is exactly what was sent to my client. No more, no less.

Click to expand...

Then this system works great for you. Save As, R1, done.

Under the Lion system you would have opened the original file, duplicate, close the old one, add R1 to the new one. Save. Done. One extra click over the original system, with zero risk of accidentally overwriting your original with the revision (which I've done countless times).

Duplicate doesn't count as a step because in your way you would do the "save as" and renaming steps. Only closing the original is an extra step.

But this is moot as of Mountain Lion anyway. When you DO have versions turned on and you send the file to the client, only the last version is sent -- so for all intents and purposes, the Versions feature is invisible to anyone but you, and only appears if you need it. Because the Versions only saved changes rather than a whole 'nother copy, it added a negligible amount to the file size over a "flat" copy.