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Stacks will kill your dock productivity - Read this if you use folders in your dock!

jbg232

jbg232

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Oct 15, 2007
1,148
10
So I went out to buy Leopard at the Apple store and waited in line and got my shirt and everything and as I'm playing around with Leopard in the store and stacks specifically, and this is what I found out about Stacks:

In Tiger if you had a folder with folders nested inside you could view those subfolders with the menu bar...

In Leopard if you have the same folder you have to manually go to the finder to view all contents of nested folders...

This is horrible if you use folders in your dock to keep things organized. For example I have 3 Folders - Applications, Documents, and Photos. Each of these has many sub-folders i.e. in Applications I have Internet, Microsoft Office, Games, System Utilities, etc.... Same thing with my photos and documents which are organized by Date. Now I have use my finder to open all these things and is a complete about face in productivity and basically makes the dock useless for me. I do not see the benefit of stacks AT ALL and it is a total letdown and downgrade. I actually am not going to install Leopard now because I don't want to have that feature of Tiger disappear. Apple needs to fix this so that users can navigate their folder system like a tree or disable stacks altogether (Unix junkies - give us a fix here I'm begging you!)

Thoughts? Fixes?
 
i dont really understand, i used it at the store, and the guy doing the presentation on the projector, made a stack with a folder, with folders in it, and everything opened perfectly. It just works best with the grid if you have a lot of folders or apps, maybe it was just a buggy OS.
 
The problem is not that it doesn't fan out - the problem is that you cannot access subfolders within the stack you have to manually open all subfolders in finder. Example: If I have a stack with a folder in it in Tiger you could see the contents of that folder by browsing through it whereas with stacks if you click the folder it opens up in finder and you can't ctrl-click it to see the subfolders. People who use folders nested in other folders for file management will know what they have lost once they install Leopard.
 
Not to sound like I'm no help but I've found that Spotlight is a heck of a lot faster as an app launcher than any mousing. I understand how things are when you're used to them working a certain way ... hopefully someone will figure out how to change it because Leopard is quite a good upgrade.
 
Yeah, I think stacks is a step back as well. At least give us the option of using a folder in the dock the way Tiger worked.
 
I've never understood why anyone would want this in the first place. I tried it myself and didn't like it at all. It's worked just like the Windows start menu which I've always hated. You have 3 options which are to either put the app icon in the dock, use spotlight, or download quicksilver. Any of those are better options.
 
I Totally agree as well. I want my nested folder access back!

I thought maybe if I hold down that mouse over the nested folder it would fan out but not go. Shiat!
 
Agree..it's the one and ONLY thing I'm slightly disappointed in. Not as good as I had hoped. Nested folder access is much better...
 
I wish they had done something like:
click and release folder for fan,
click and hold for folder view.

I like Leopard lots so far, but I think the Dock needs a few more options in the system prefs.

*Maybe settings for the fan/folder views
* Setting for 2d/3d (some folks like 3d on the side, and some folks wand 2d on the bottom)
 
I too was disappointed by this. I preciously used the "right-click on applications folder in the dock" method to launch applications, and thought that stacks would finally be a solution to this less than desirable method.

Its seriously is a step back if you have subfolders in Applications, like iWork '08 folder or Microsoft Office 2004 folder, etc..

How is it 2007 and there is still no good out of the box way to launch applications not in your dock?!
 
powderblue17 said:
You have 3 options which are to either put the app icon in the dock, use spotlight, or download quicksilver. Any of those are better options.
Click to expand...

OK, but two of those require typing and the other clutters up the dock. Some of us like using our mouse to launch apps (my mouse has 11 buttons, all mapped to keyboard commands - some app-specific, some global - so I'd like to keep app launching mouse-friendly if possible) ... The point we're making is the this wasn't a problem in Tiger, it worked fine. Only now with Leopard and these infernal STACKS is it an issue. Hopefully one Apple will address soon. ;)
 
Absolutely!!! I've been excited about leopard, but this is a serious show stopper for me, and now I'm seriously reconsidering buying it. This is not a small issue, this is a big issue.
 
this sucks !

all apple needs to do is enable the right click to work as it did in tiger and have the left click work as a stack.

there should also be an option to see the only the folder in the dock.
 
This is a big issue for people? I used to have a Downloads folder in my Dock in Tiger, and I prefer the stack version in Leopard. I guess I'm not in that big of a hurry that I can't spend .2 seconds opening the folder and accessing subfolders if need be.
 
I hate stacks and am getting more and more frustrated with it by the minute. This is a terrible shame since everything else in Leopard is so much better. I used to just be able to right-click my home directory and browse through its contents. Now I have to click its stack, click the folder I want, open a Finder window and then navigate via the Finder. What a dreadful regression tis is. :mad:

I really hope that Apple fixes this abomination in 10.5.1.
 
djc6 said:
How is it 2007 and there is still no good out of the box way to launch applications not in your dock?!
Click to expand...

Well if you use an application regularly, put it in the dock. If you don’t use it regularly, use Finder or Spotlight.

Anyway, I’ve not used Stacks, but I agree there should at least be options avaliable. They should make it like it was in Tiger, but with a right click option to "Enable Stack” or alternatively have Stacks as default and a right click option to "Disable Stack".
 
Here's a classic example, in Tiger I had my Applications folder in the dock. A quick right click and I could select anything.....as well as go to the Utilities folder and it would expand the list out and I could choose a utility program from there.

Now with these stupid stacks....I have my Applications folder expand in the hard to read Grid view....but when I click on Utilities....it now closes the stack, and opens it in a finder window.

Please, please Apple....at least allow another View option of the old Tiger way.

-Kevin
 
I'm personally not getting the stacks thing. Granted I've not read up much, but for some odd reason, I see my stacks with about 5 folders that I don't even recall opening. I just accidentally 'deleted' one. When I open a folder, it takes me to it's entry in the Finder. I'm not seeing the point, nor do I have any interest in these folders. Perhaps after some coffee. I also thought I was supposed to have a 'downloads' section.
Basically, right now - I'm agreeing with you at least till I get my sorry self edumacated.
 
I agree too. I haven't installed Leopard yet and to be honest this is quite a big issue to me - being able to access nested folders from one click was great, and they NEED to address this issue. Surely there must be some way to get it back? It makes no sense to not have the option.

Spotlight and Quicksilver aren't the answer for everyone, or we'd all be using them for this already.

My father has all his companies and clients files organised in lots of subfolders, making getting to a specific file very easy and logical, all in just one click. He uses nested folder access a lot, every day. This will drive him nuts.

Maybe 'Piles' was a better name for it after all...
 
I'd agree that stacks seem to be a bit of a waste of time, although I never really used the click-hold / right click folder option on the dock previously either so I don't feel like I've lost anything. I can see for people who have been using it a lot it could be annoying though. Maybe there's a market for an app that replicates the old behaviour...

One thing about the stacks / fans thing that does annoy me is that the fans go in a curve to make it easier to follow the line with the mouse, but only if you're right handed! For a left hander like myself it feels really unnatural to move up the fanned out icons.
 
guys, if you really want to open your apps quickly, use Quicksilver. i just started using it yesterday, and so far as an app laucher, it's great. way better than using spotlight. i am playing around with all the millions of other things it can do too, kind of intimidating..
 
You all should try using stacks (specifically where it fans out) with the mouse in your left hand, and be thankful it's only this bad:rolleyes:

The fan view is worse then pointless to anyone using the mouse in their left hand. +1 for the righties of the world :mad:
 
do you seriously use a left handed mouse? why not just learn to use your right hand? i never really saw a mousing as something that requires any left/right kind of coordination. i know a ton of left handed people, and they all use the mouse on the right, but couldn't hold a fork in their right hand. just learn how to use it on the right, and it will also grow you some new brain cells. I broke my finger on my right hand, a while ago, and learned how to write with the left. I can do it almost perfectly now. It's sweet.

but stacks still sounds like it sucks, why would you want the stupid thing to explode out in a fan like that? lame?

my other major gripe with leopard is the way it is all cold and dark like vista (which looks like satan's lair or something), instead of light bright and fun like OS X should be. :(
 
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