It's not great viewing photos in the Finder, is it?

[Karvel]

I'm one of these people who would rather view some photos in the Finder in their respective folder than faff around with iPhoto, but the only way I can do this is, in every folder with pictures, is to go View->Show View Options, choose "This Window Only" and hike the icon size to the highest setting so as to give me the biggest thumbnail possible.

That's hardly ideal. Windows XP seems to be able to recognise if you have a folder with either exclusively or almost exclusively photos and changes the "folder type" to Photo album so it displays the folder's contents as big thumbnails. Is there a way to do this in Tiger, instead of fiddling around with view options?? Clearly Cover Flow in Leopard is a way forward, but until then.. (and don't mention that I should use iPhoto, I just like to look through some holidays photos sometimes)

[Applespider]

Highlight the images (command A if you want all of them), right click and choose 'Slideshow' and you'll get them full screen

[Karvel]

Yepp I know that also (though I usually use the cog-wheel button ).

I'm just stubborn

[Lesser Evets]

That has always been one of Apple's awkward points: finding and viewing what is in folders.

I use an old program called Photogrid X, and now I use Adobe's Bridge CS3 because it will display it all. Cover Flow will help out immensely. So until then; hard luck porn lovers.

[Southernboy]

I agree that it's a shortcoming in OSX. Even with a folder set to preview large icons, it can take a while to redraw them, especially on older machines. I like the slideshow option, but wish there was a keyboard shortcut to invoke it.

By the way whilst viewing a slideshow, hit the 'a' key for actual size, 'f' for full screen, or hit the 'i' key to see an index sheet.

[Eraserhead]

What's wrong with iPhoto?

[Southernboy]

Originally Posted by Eraserhead

What's wrong with iPhoto?

Absolutely nothing for your photo library, but I tend to get images from clients that I don't want in iPhoto. For example I'm currently producing a brochure for a catering supplies company. There are 800+ images - they'll ring me and ask me to use "the red washing up bowl image". Coverflow should help.

[MisterMe]

Originally Posted by Southernboy

I agree that it's a shortcoming in OSX. ...

Actually, it's a strength. Microsoft has thrown everything except the kitchen sink into Windows Explorer. This creates bloat and is a challenge to quality control. To view graphic content, Apple provides Preview, which is the default app for viewing JPEG and most other images. iPhoto is dedicated to browsing, management, and minor edits of photographs. Rather than whining about why the Mac can't be more like Windows, my advice is to learn to use the Mac. That is the only way that you are going to learn the design philosophy behind the MacOS X.

[Spinnetti]

Originally Posted by MisterMe

Actually, it's a strength. Microsoft has thrown everything except the kitchen sink into Windows Explorer. This creates bloat and is a challenge to quality control. To view graphic content, Apple provides Preview, which is the default app for viewing JPEG and most other images. iPhoto is dedicated to browsing, management, and minor edits of photographs. Rather than whining about why the Mac can't be more like Windows, my advice is to learn to use the Mac. That is the only way that you are going to learn the design philosophy behind the MacOS X.

No, thats not it.. I've learned how to use the Mac since my first 8500AV.. I still think that element sucks, and WinXP handles casual photo viewing more intuitively and much faster...

Don't get me started on iPhoto bugs and difficult UI issues either - I have several typewritten pages of them (I track all my Mac bugs and submit them to Apples bug reporter).

Gotta be open minded. The evil empire still has some tricks worth learning from

[weckart]

Originally Posted by MisterMe

Actually, it's a strength. Microsoft has thrown everything except the kitchen sink into Windows Explorer. This creates bloat and is a challenge to quality control. To view graphic content, Apple provides Preview, which is the default app for viewing JPEG and most other images. iPhoto is dedicated to browsing, management, and minor edits of photographs. Rather than whining about why the Mac can't be more like Windows, my advice is to learn to use the Mac. That is the only way that you are going to learn the design philosophy behind the MacOS X.

You are going to hate Leopard, then, because it will reprising Quickview a la Windows. Bloat is the future.

[SWC]

Originally Posted by MisterMe

Actually, it's a strength. Microsoft has thrown everything except the kitchen sink into Windows Explorer. This creates bloat and is a challenge to quality control. To view graphic content, Apple provides Preview, which is the default app for viewing JPEG and most other images. iPhoto is dedicated to browsing, management, and minor edits of photographs. Rather than whining about why the Mac can't be more like Windows, my advice is to learn to use the Mac. That is the only way that you are going to learn the design philosophy behind the MacOS X.

iPhoto also requires you to import all of the images which he does not want to do because they are images from clients. Preview is difficult at best for viewing anything no matter if its pictures, documents or whatever if you have more than 1 item to view. Windows explorer having the ability to display picture thumbnails adds less bloat than coverflow will.

[weckart]

Originally Posted by Karvel

I'm one of these people who would rather view some photos in the Finder in their respective folder than faff around with iPhoto, but the only way I can do this is, in every folder with pictures, is to go View->Show View Options, choose "This Window Only" and hike the icon size to the highest setting so as to give me the biggest thumbnail possible.

You can also try Column View in Finder. That gives you a preview column for all media - photos, PDFs, music and movies. This is probably the quickest way of checking what is in your folder.

[jsw]

Originally Posted by SWC

Windows explorer having the ability to display picture thumbnails adds less bloat than coverflow will.

I dunno. I seriously dig the slideshow's transitions between showing all ('i') and clicking on individual shots.

[Frisco]

I hate viewing pictures on Macs. Preview and iPhoto are awful! And I am a longtime Mac user. Windows XP handles pictures with ease.

[goodcow]

Originally Posted by MisterMe

Actually, it's a strength. Microsoft has thrown everything except the kitchen sink into Windows Explorer. This creates bloat and is a challenge to quality control. To view graphic content, Apple provides Preview, which is the default app for viewing JPEG and most other images. iPhoto is dedicated to browsing, management, and minor edits of photographs. Rather than whining about why the Mac can't be more like Windows, my advice is to learn to use the Mac. That is the only way that you are going to learn the design philosophy behind the MacOS X.

Throwing everything except the kitchen sink into Explorer is what makes it so much better than Finder in basically every single way.

Since this is my first post, a brief history: I've used PCs since Windows 3.1, had friends with System 8 and 9, and had to use the Mac at work starting with 10.1 and loathed it until eventually the OS matured into something actually usable with 10.3 and finally 10.4. Now I own my own MacBook Pro, and my next desktop will be a Mac, because I've begun to hate Windows.

But having said that, Finder is an absolute piece of junk when it comes to file management, and is my main hatred of OSX.

The lack of a thumbnail view in this day and age is ridiculous, and I just hope there's a less obnoxious implementation of it than CoverFlow in Leopard. Because I don't necessarily want to, or need to flip through a folder of mixed file types (images, videos, etc.). This is just needless eye candy. What I want is a fast, working thumbnail view in Finder without having to set the option per window for icon size as you have to do now.

Have you used Explorer on Vista? The column view now has sort filters like Access and Excel, where you can limit file lists to things such as:

0-100K
100K-1MB
1MB-10MB
etc.

Or by alphabetical ranges. Or show only certain file types. There are literally hundreds of different columns you can add in Vista Explorer.

This is extremely helpful. The path system, which thankfully they're bringing to Leopard in the form of breadcrumbs will also make me want to kill Finder less, but why is there no "up one level" button? More so, why is there no "up one level in a new window" option, like holding control and clicking it in Explorer?

Why is it, if I have, say, four files:

1.jpg
2.jpg
3.jpg
4.jpg

If I'm on 2.jpg, hold shift and highlight down to 4.jpg, then realize I don't want 4.jpg highlighted and hit up to de-highlight it, Finder instead highlights 1.jpg as well? (so all four are then highlighted) Is this logical?

I also hope there's an option to copy/paste paths from the breadcrumbs in Leopard's Finder to throw into the "Go to folder" window similar to the run box in Windows, or maybe even to paste directly into a Finder window.

Plain and simple, Finder blows as a file navigation tool in almost every single way.

[Frisco]

goodcow,

Your absolutely correct. Explorer beats Finder any day of the week!

And welcome to Macrumors!

[bbyrdhouse]

Funny, but I recently got into a conversation with a buddy of mine over this very topic. He is considering a Mac for his next computer. After playing around with mine for a while the only negative he had to say was the way you had to jump through hoops to explore what was in a folder, particularly pictures.

Adding pictures to iPhoto is not always the best solution. Soon you will have a gazillion photo's in iPhoto that finding the ones you want will be a pain in the backside.

I have a colleague that mentioned a 3rd party app that was supposed to be a much better finder for OS X but I can't seem to remember it right off. I will see if I can find it and post the info here.

[jsw]

Originally Posted by goodcow

Throwing everything except the kitchen sink into Explorer is what makes it so much better than Finder in basically every single way.

I don't know if I'd go that far, but I do agree that Finder is dragging down OS X. I have hopes for Leopard, but as of now it's far more primitive than it should be.

Originally Posted by goodcow

But having said that, Finder is an absolute piece of junk when it comes to file management, and is my main hatred of OSX.

Agreed. Thank Deity-Of-Your-Choice for Terminal.

Originally Posted by goodcow

Have you used Explorer on Vista?

It is very feature-rich. Agreed. There's no reason not to have similar features in Finder.

Originally Posted by goodcow

but why is there no "up one level" button? More so, why is there no "up one level in a new window" option, like holding control and clicking it in Explorer?

Doesn't ⌘-up do what you want?

Originally Posted by goodcow

Why is it, if I have, say, four files...

I agree. Shift-highlighting is not intuitive to me in Finder. I have never liked it, ever.

Originally Posted by goodcow

Plain and simple, Finder blows as a file navigation tool in almost every single way.

I'm not quite of that opinion, but I do agree it's very old and needs to be replaced.

[Blue Velvet]

Originally Posted by goodcow

long post

Go up one level: hold down command (Apple) and click on the folder icon at the top of a finder window, or hold down command and press the 'up' key... or set all your finder windows to show paths under View>Customise Toolbar.

When you're selecting and deselecting files, using the command button lets you select/deselect individually.

Mac OS X is not Windows.

[Cloudsurfer]

Fortunately, the anwser is OS X 10.5. Highlight an image, and press Spacebar. Then scroll through the images with a scroll wheel, or the arrows on the keyboard.

My only gripe then would be audio files. I can't just play a few audio files in a temporary playlist without importing them into iTunes.

[goodcow]

Originally Posted by jsw

Doesn't ⌘-up do what you want?

o_O

I LOVE YOU!!!

Now how do I go up one level WHILE creating a new Finder window at the same time?

[jsw]

Originally Posted by Blue Velvet

When you're selecting and deselecting files, using the command button lets you select/deselect individually.

Yes, but his specific gripe is how, if you're selecting files in Finder and using the keyboard, shift-down (or up) chooses the next file down (or up), but reversing that doesn't unselect it but instead selects another file at the top (or bottom) of the selected range.

I've never understood this behavior. In what situation is it useful? It's always stuck me as perhaps the single least intuitive aspect of OS X. Maybe I'm just not seeing something, but I think it's a flaw. Not just "OS X is different than Windows", but a true usability flaw. Just MHO.

Originally Posted by goodcow

Now how do I go up one level WHILE creating a new Finder window at the same time?

option-⌘-up will open a new window, but it apparently closes the original one. I'm not sure off-hand how to do what you want.

[Eraserhead]

Originally Posted by jsw

option-⌘-up will open a new window, but it apparently closes the original one. I'm not sure off-hand how to do what you want.

That looks like a bug to me, I can't think why you'd want to open a new window and close the old one .

[spinkb]

The finder by default keeps things in the same window. If you change that finder preference, then when using cmd-up you get a new window. To close the previous window as you are changing, hold option down.

So option cmd-down closes the previous as it goes into the next.
Option cmd-up closes as it goes up a level.

If you want a quick option to change the default list view of a window, use an applescript. Place it in the title bar of the window. Did you know you can drop custom apps into the title bar area?

I have one that forces a refresh of the window. You can ahve one that sets the default view of the window to be large icons, etc. Then your picture preview is just one click away.

Granted I'm a programmer...but that sort of script shouldn't be hard to throw together.

--Ben

[Maui]

Originally Posted by Frisco

I hate viewing pictures on Macs. Preview and iPhoto are awful! And I am a longtime Mac user. Windows XP handles pictures with ease.

Try Xee.