Finder small features wish list

[Ti_Poussin]

Hi, I was looking forward to see what people have for Finder wish list of little irritating behavior (a major overhauled to pass him to Cocoa is already plan for Snow Leopard), but more little twick you would like to see.

1- Merge folder and not replace folder, for a starter
2- Separated network threading or even better process: hate when solving or searching an address to mount is hocking the whole finder.
3- Trash per drive, no more cannot delete a file because an another drive is deleting something.
4- More a quick look stuff, but it's now part of the finder in a way, more support and text highlight build-in.
5- Spotlight index more easy to manage (can remove, but what about one exception in the subtree?!), ok this one is also a bit aside but still be a pain.

 

[mysterytramp]

Just switched from Tiger to Leopard ... and there's a Leopard feature that ought to be developed more.

Whenever you run an app for the first time, it asks to make sure you want to do that ... It seems like a follow-on should be to watch what the software does and then report to the user after quit. For example, you run app XYZ the first time and it creates a hidden file in /Library, cache files inside Application Support and a com.whatzit file in Preferences as well as the files you created that are in Documents.

That info would be damned useful, especially when it comes time to uninstall.

mt

 

[mrchinchilla]

A lot of work needs to be done to Spotlight and it's crazy indexing.

 

[cutcopypaste]

finder is probably my least favourite part of osx.. it's missing a lot of things that could make it more truly useful

i wish i could copy and paste a file path from/to an address bar/save as window to avoid having to navigate there manually

related, i wish the path was always visible without needing to add the path button to the toolbar and clicking it. i also think an 'up' button would be a great idea.. quicker than using the path button. also, why not have a dropdown menu for the back/forward buttons, those are standard in most other applications these days.

i wish the column view could automatically resize intelligently to fit the content of the files in each folder.. it's a great little view but it'a a pain having to micromanage those columns every time you go to a new folder

a merge folder option, if not default behaviour, should definitely be added. it's just practical.

'sort by' should be easily accessible in every view.

should have more options for file metadata to show in list view for instance artist, track number, image dimensions etc

that's all that immediately comes to mind.. but there's probably more

 

[cutcopypaste]

just to add.. trash-per-drive.. do they not already have this? i don't use multiple harddrives on my macbook pro (yet...) so i haven't noticed, but I know when I have a usb key in there, it puts deleted files on the usb key's trash folder which is perhaps the most confusing and frustrating issue i've had with osx.. you have to empty your main trash to empty the usb trash even though they're in different places. otherwise it's not actually freeing up any space on the usb...

 

[mysterytramp]

i wish i could copy and paste a file path from/to an address bar/save as window to avoid having to navigate there manually

Check out this: FilePathCM. I use it all the time for navigating.

related, i wish the path was always visible without needing to add the path button to the toolbar and clicking it.

"Show Path Bar" in View menu? You should be able to set a command equivalent through the Keyboard & Mouse control panel in System Preferences.

i also think an 'up' button would be a great idea.

Until Apple adds the button, command-up does the same thing.

i wish the column view could automatically resize intelligently to fit the content of the files in each folder..

Double click the parallel vertical lines (which resize the column) and it will resize so you can view the longest file name.

mt

 

[mrchinchilla]

just to add.. trash-per-drive.. do they not already have this? i don't use multiple harddrives on my macbook pro (yet...) so i haven't noticed, but I know when I have a usb key in there, it puts deleted files on the usb key's trash folder which is perhaps the most confusing and frustrating issue i've had with osx.. you have to empty your main trash to empty the usb trash even though they're in different places. otherwise it's not actually freeing up any space on the usb...

I think it's more convenient have one trash for all drives. Just ctrl+click the trash in the dock and everything is emptied, you don't forget about some hiding trash on your external drive. And there is a trash file on each drive, it's called .Trashes and it's located at the root of each drive.
As for your complaints about the Finder, it's a hell of a lot better than any other file manager out there. Take Explorer.exe for example, it hogs CPU even when idle, or the GUI of something like Dolphin, Konqueror, Nautilus etc. they're terrible.

 

[miles01110]

related, i wish the path was always visible without needing to add the path button to the toolbar and clicking it.

Open Terminal, enter:

com.apple.finder _FXShowPosixPathInTitle -bool YES

Press Enter, then type

killall Finder

Shows the file path in the title of your Finder windows.

 

[mysterytramp]

I really like QuickLook, though I wish I could peek inside zip files to show their contents.

There are ways to mod TextEdit so QL can show the contents of text files that use other extensions. The OS should provide a simple way to map an alt extensions to .txt.

mt