Is v.4 of Photos (Mojave) different than v.3?

Hi David,

One of the biggest changes is that you can longer create, edit or purchase a photo book. I've taken a screenshot where you can see the purchase option has been replaced with a 'Export PDF' button.

I honestly suggest if you have in projects that you are working on finish them before updating.

One difference, that is nice: In Photos 4.0 you can see the filenames below the thumbnails (as long as you do not add a title to the photo).

The dark mode in Mojave makes it easier to browse the photos.

We can select albums to import to, when importing photos.

Most photo related changes are in the Finder. The Finder is now showing much more metadata for photo files, and the quick actions make it possible to work with photos directly in the Finder.

The Share menu has changed. It is no longer possible to share from Photos to Social Media (unless you install an extension). Share to Facebook or Flickr has gone.

Photos 4.0 does no longer support native Apple print projects. To create print products, you need the project extensions.

The Photos 4.0 User Guide for Mojave is nearly identical to the one for Photos 3.0 on High SIerra.

The URL did not change:

Welcome to Photos on Mac - Apple Support

And even the display of filenames below the thumbnails has been done only half-heartedly. If you look closely at my screenshot, the filenames are gray. We cannot copy them, we just can admire them.

Now to view the photo fullscreen you have to press 'return' instead of 'spacebar'. What a lame shift since finder still has spacebar as preview and spacebar in photos did not get ANY functions. Does anybody know how to change keyboard shortcut back to spacebar?

What a lame shift since finder still has spacebar as preview and spacebar in photos did not get ANY functions

Quite a few users complained, because the the space bar does not start and stop a video. Now it does, even when viewing the animated preview as a thumbnail. I find this quite convenient, compared to previous version, where we had to hit the start/stop button.

You can try to assign a new keyboard shortcut (Application shortcut for Photos in System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts) to the command "Open Viewer" as described in this document: https://support.apple.com/kb/PH25377?locale=en_US&viewlocale=en_US

But I could assign any key combinaton, only the space bar cannot be assigned this way, at least when I tried.

Thanks for the tip, even though I doubt Apple will give away replacement of Spacebar in specific program that easy. It's part of the UX after all.

Regarding video - yep, it does make some sense. However, as I said before, previous spacebar function was similar to Finder's Preview. I browse the files and by pressing spacebar I see them up-close. Same in Photos: I browse my photos-icons-previews and by pressing spacebar I see them up-close. Which behavior is primary and 'more Mac'? I don't think this has right answer.

And then we have: habit breaking added to change. Muscle memory is important factor. Typing in itself relies on that completely. Failings in muscle memory bring uncomfortable feeling and frustration when you numerously press button that is now wrong.

Previewing photos AND videos with spacebar happens more often then playing videos ONLY, because most people will have at least photos AND videos. Spacebar is closer to touchpad where you scroll and rest your hand. And spacebar is better if you're left-handed. Return is simply on the other side of keyboard or the whole laptop in case you're left handed.

And lastly, what might be a potential complaints amount on a keyboard that did not work like that before? As Steve Jobs noted about 'marketing research on mouse and GUI among people who do not know what GUI and mouse', it's safe to go further as 'will there be more complaints about keyboard doing new function than complaints about some key not doing anything'?

People are slaves to habit - Windows 8 and 'start button' clearly showed that people do not understand what button does, they just remember which button to press. That's normal. We do not think how to work or eat. It's good to think about higher concepts and do not let small ones get in your way, that's what progress is all about. Car driving regulations could be better and different if they where designed now from scratch. What we have is a result of a long and winding road of 'patching' rather than a whole design. Yet driving regulations progress only slowly and slightly...

Some things are just too small to be improved instead of others.

PS: analogy with video starting to play in quicktime or elsewhere is not full. You never just have a video on screen 'one spacebar press away' from playing. You have to open the file or preview it or open player (or media juke box like iTunes) and then select a file and so on. Finder parallel with preview is way closer in terms of user journey and percentage of usage cases.

Changing the user interface without adding new functionality is really not user friendly.

I rarely used the space bar to open a photo - I just clicked the trackpad like I always did in Aperture or iPhoto. This still works, so it does not matter that much for me.

You can also un-pinch with two fingers on a thumbnail with two fingers to zoom it to full size. It doesn't need to be selected.

Uhhg. I completely agree. MacOS has conditioned me to slap the spacebar to view objects, and this was an obvious, intuitive and consistent way to open/close photos.

My quantity of photos outnumbers my quantity of videos 30:1, so this change has made the spacebar 30x less useful (not to mention that the spacebar could previously be used to open/close videos as well).

Changing this behavior (without providing an option to restore the previous behavior) is offensive. I will not update to Mojave on my primary machine until an option is available.