anyone think that the new finder sucks?

[Festooner]

Here are some issues I've noticed with the Finder that don't relate to the column view...

I've never been an avid user of the column view, instead I've always preferred icon view and list view for my various navigation purposes. However, in Panther, Apple seems to have broken some of the functionality for these. I've always used the "snap-to grid" feature to keep icons arranged, and in Panther, Apple has increased the size of the grid by quite a bit. It seems to be twice as big and a bit off-center. This means that any window that I have icons in, that are arranged using the snap-to grid feature, are much larger than they were in Jaguar. Also, pertaining to this, on the desktop the grid doesn't seem to fit properly. Icons won't sit against the left edge of the screen anymore, which means there's a pretty substantial gap between the left edge of the screen and where the icons begin. Another gripe with icon view is when I click the resize window button to fit the window to the amount of icons I have...what happens is that if I have any icons with two rows of text, that are on the bottom row of the window, it won't resize to fit properly. It will resize to fit, but the scroll bar will still appear because the window is touching the second row of text on the icon. I find this rather irritating.

As for list view, I think someone mentioned this in a previous post but no one actually said anything about it...When you select something now it selects the whole row so you can't use the select box anymore (I know you can click and drag to select multiple thing but it's not quite as useful as the select box I find).

Anyway, these are the issues I've noticed, and so far the good features of Panther are holding me over enough to keep it (Exposé always makes me smile, hehe) but it would be really nice if apple would address some of these problems (at least the ones with icon view, I think I can get used to the list view thing).

Anyway, that's my rant...thanks for reading

 

[Doxxic]

I just want smart folders,

so finally,

after 25 years,

earth is freed of that stupid concept of arranging folders in tree-structures.

But the day will come - the day will come.

I mean, it's really a matter of letting a program like KaZaA or Poisoned search their own computer, using configurable buttons that happen to look like folders, which activate pre-programmed search commands, right?

 

[stcanard]

Originally posted by Doxxic
I just want smart folders,

so finally,

after 25 years,

earth is freed of that stupid concept of arranging folders in tree-structures.

Playing with iTunes, I realized that was what smart folders are supposed to be.

Ximian Evolution uses them for mail, too.

They're coming. People just have to get used to the idea first, and the filesystems have to become fast enough.

But they're coming, one step at a time.

 

[tduality]

Originally posted by stcanard
Playing with iTunes, I realized that was what smart folders are supposed to be.

Ximian Evolution uses them for mail, too.

They're coming. People just have to get used to the idea first, and the filesystems have to become fast enough.

But they're coming, one step at a time.

Looks like I'm one of the people who have to get used to the idea. Though I'm not sure what the idea of 'smart folders' is. Are you referring to the iTunes Smart Playlists? Hmmm... sounds interesting. Any examples what smart folders would actually do? Could this be simulated with folder actions (whatever they are ) and/or Applescript?

 

[Doxxic]

Just imagine file management by the Finder would happen exactly like song management in iTunes.

Even over networks.

For Mac, as well as Windows. Again, just like iTunes.

Like iTunes is an alternative to WMP, Finder could be an alternative to Windows Explorer, so it shares files over local networks in a KaZaA-like manner. Like

Smart Folders (yes, analogue to Smart Playlists) search in this multi OS-network by criteria, instead of by location.

It would amaze me if to Apple, iTunes is anything else but a testing environment for new Finder developments, which is, for reasons of speed, risk-avoiding, simplicity and marketing, only working on mp3 and aac files...

 

[stcanard]

Yep, they're basically like smart playlists.

Rather than organizing your data hierarchically, you give it attributes and build "smart folders" to query on the attributes.

When you think about it, in HFS+, the path is really just an attribute attached to the file (thanks to FileId's), so you probably wouldn't even have to lose that initially!

With good categorization it solves the issue of files that really belong in different directories, i.e. do I put this requirements spec in my "Current Requirements" directory, or in my "Development Version", or in my "To do today"?

I noticed in the O'Reilly's "10 things I love about XCode" article XCode is moving in this direction too (I hope I finally get my Panther today so I can find out for myself), so I do think you will be seeing it moving into the mainstream filesystem in a while.

It would be so useful in Mail -- I'm too lazy to move my mail to different folders, self categorizing mail would be so nice!

 

[killmoms]

So basically what you're talking about is stored queries, like BeOS has had for years and years; a detailed search based on any number of criteria (including any amount of extendabe meta-data for a file) that is stored, and appears like a folder. And thanks to BeOS's indexed and journaled filesystem, the results were instant. Create a new file that met the criteria? There it is in your query.

Yeah, I'd like that (back) too. Get on the ball, Apple! I bought into this whole MacOS X thing because it was like BeOS on steroids and prettier (though a little less Snappy™).

--Cless

 

[j33pd0g]

The (left, right) border edge would be really slick if it was a hairline border. Here is mock up what it could look like: