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Suggestion for those who want a tabbed Finder?

E

elbirth

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Jan 19, 2006
1,154
0
North Carolina, US
I know a lot of people still want a tabbed Finder, which would be kind of cool.. although I don't really see the great usability of that, maybe someone can enlighten me? Don't get me wrong- I use tabs in my browser extensively and couldn't get along without them now... but in the Finder?

Anyway, the main use that comes to my mind for a use with tabbed windows in the Finder is for having multiple directories open to copy stuff to without having to have multiple windows all over the desktop. In that case, I say why not just simulate a tabbed Finder experience via a function that's already been there? You can drag folders to the top section of the Finder window and have small icons stick that you can click on to go directly to that folder, or you can drag items to the icon, let go, and they'll be moved/copied.
I'm not sure how many people actually use this, but I thought it'd be something worth noting. You can simply right-click the icon and choose remove when you don't want it, and you can of course do away with the name under it, but I put it there for illustration purposes in my screenshot below- it also takes up less space without the text.


finder-20071028-012431.jpg


Simply drag the icon to that area and wait a second and an invisible "space" will open up for you to drop it.

Now, this could also just as easily be done by dragging the temporary items to the left sidebar, but this is just another area of unused space that could be utilized.
 
I don't really see the need for a tabbed finder...
When I took an "intro to mac" course at the Apple store, the genius said that the finder was engineered so you only needed 1 window (in most cases). Considering the spring-loaded functionality for instantly snapping to other directories, it's very effective.

Mac OS X Finder > Windows Explorer
 
benj07 said:
I don't really see the need for a tabbed finder...
When I took an "intro to mac" course at the Apple store, the genius said that the finder was engineered so you only needed 1 window (in most cases). Considering the spring-loaded functionality for instantly snapping to other directories, it's very effective.

Mac OS X Finder > Windows Explorer
Click to expand...

I also don't really see the need for tabs in the Finder, but there seems to be a lot of people that do, so I'm just trying to fully understand it.

I love spring-loaded folders also, and use them all the time. However, I do a lot of moving data around from multiple locations, and constantly springing around my hard drive would be very time consuming when I can have one window open with the destination (which is usually the same for multiple sources) and another window that I navigate around in to find the source folder.. then just drag across to the other window for each.
 
I think I myself would really like a tabbed finder.
I love the spring loaded folders but I think one finder window where I have all the locations open that I frequently use would be very nice and more effective
 
The path bar is pretty cool and is "live" too in as much as you can drop files onto it to copy / move them to a location along the path
 
Mitthrawnuruodo said:
Finder -> View -> Show Path Bar (new 10.5 feature).
Click to expand...

Where you go to turn it on may be new, but that feature was available in Tiger as well. I always had the full breadcrumb path to the current folder I was in with Finder. Also there with searches for quick jumping to the folder a found file is located.
 
jbardi said:
Where you go to turn it on may be new, but that feature was available in Tiger as well. I always had the full breadcrumb path to the current folder I was in with Finder. Also there with searches for quick jumping to the folder a found file is located.
Click to expand...
Not to go completely off topic, but this intrigues me. I'm now on my still-at-Tiger-iMac and cannot see this option anywhere... in Finder nor in TinkerTool, so how did you turn it on?

The only way I know is the path button which can be added to the finder window toolbar:

Picture 1.png
 
elbirth said:
<SNIP>
You can drag folders to the top section of the Finder window and have small icons stick that you can click on to go directly to that folder, or you can drag items to the icon, let go, and they'll be moved/copied.
<SNIP>

Simply drag the icon to that area and wait a second and an invisible "space" will open up for you to drop it.
Click to expand...

I think this is called the "Shelf" and comes from NeXT. It is used for exactly what you are talking about. Moving/copying files.
 
I don't know how useful a tabbed finder would be, but a lot of times I find myself opening two finder windows and making them both wide but short so as to fit on the screen, and then navigate each to the locations I need before I start the moving or copying process.

What would be helpful is to be able to drag up a 2nd window from the bottom of the finder window to split it in 2, and have each half able to go into column, icon, or list view. Also having the bar in the middle makes it easy to adjust size of one half over the other easily.

But I guess the easiest way to copy and move is to navigate to the destination folder, drag it to the sidebar, navigate to the origination folder, drag or copy the items you need to the new sidebar shortcut and then delete it when you are done.
 
Path Finder has a very useful drop stack, which lets you temporarily store files/folders. Then you can navigate to where you want them to go, and drag them in.
 
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