Mac OS 8.5
Released October 17, 1998, Mac OS 8.5 was the first version of the Mac OS to run solely on Macs equipped with a PowerPC processor. If you try to install Mac OS 8.5 on a 68k Mac, the Sad Mac error screen will appear. As such, it replaced some but not all of the 680x0 code with PowerPC code, improving system performance by relying less on 680x0 emulation.
It introduced the Sherlock search utility; Sherlock allowed users to search the contents of documents on hard drives (if the user had let it index the drive), or extend a search to the Internet. Sherlock plug-ins started appearing at this time; these plug-ins allowed users to search the contents of other websites.
Mac OS 8.5 included a number of performance improvements. Copying files over a network was faster than previous versions and Apple advertised it as being "faster than Windows NT". AppleScript was also re-written to use only PowerPC code, which significantly improved AppleScript execution speed.
Font Smoothing, system-wide antialiasing for type was also introduced.
The HTML format for online help, first adopted by the Finder's Info Center in Mac OS 8, was now used throughout. This made it easier for software companies to write online help systems, but would contribute to making physical manuals become a thing of the past.
In this release, the PPP control panel was removed and replaced with Remote Access. The Remote Access control panel provides the same functionality but also allows connections to Apple Remote Access (ARA) servers.
The installation process was considerably simplified in Mac OS 8.5. In earlier versions the installer worked in segments and often required the user to click to continue in between stages of the installation. The Mac OS 8.5 installer generally required very little user interaction once it was started. Customisation options were also much more detailed yet simpler to manage.
From Mac OS 8.5 onwards, MacLinkPlus document translation software is no longer bundled as part of the Mac OS.
Mac OS 8.5 was the first version of the Mac OS to support "themes," or skins, which could change the default Apple Platinum look of the Mac OS to "Gizmo" or "HiTech" themes. This radical changing of the computer's appearance was removed at the last minute, and appeared only in beta versions, though users could still make (and share) their own themes and use them with the OS. The Appearance control panel was also updated to enable support for proportional scroll bars, and added the option for both scroll arrows to be placed at the bottom of the scroll bar.
In addition to the themes support, 8.5 was the first version to support 32-bit icons. Icons now had 24-bit color (16.7 million colors) and an 8-bit alpha channel, allowing for transparency/translucency effects.
The 'application palette' made its debut with 8.5 — the application menu at the right side of the menu bar could be resized to show the active application's name, or 'torn off' into a palette of buttons. This palette could be customized many ways, by removing the window frame and changing the size and layout of the buttons. Apple did not provide a user interface for setting these options, instead making them available via AppleScript and Apple Events, relying on third parties to provide a user interface for the task. By setting it to display horizontally and turning off the window border the pallette could be configured to look and function much like the Windows 95 task bar.
Read more about this topic: Mac OS 8