finder shortcuts like Windows

[dusk007]

It still is very annoying how finder behaves on the keyboard.
Is there any way to make it act like Windows Explorer.

When I want to navigate by keyboard in Windows.
I open some folder
enter 1,2 or more characters, until the cursor is at the folder I wanted
hit enter
another few characters (for the next folder or a file)
hit enter to open
I get one wrong I hit backspace and am back.

Now we all know that finder is really hostile to such simple quick navigation. CMD+O is not exactly convenient and I still don't know how to get back without using the touch pad.

This rename on enter is ridiculous as I do that fairly infrequent and could live with something like CMD+R or something, shift+enter, option+enter, whatever.

Most of the time I navigate to folders directly with Alfred but still opening the file is cumbersome. Is there any way to change it?? I cannot be the first to complain about this behavior.

The space quick look is convenient but enter is a key that is even more on the tip of the fingers when typing something. I type something in Alfred I hit Enter, I type something in a browser and hit enter, everywhere save finder Enter gets me the same behavior (even Spotlight). How did finder end up the way it did??

 

[GGJstudios]

It still is very annoying how finder behaves on the keyboard.
Is there any way to make it act like Windows Explorer.

When I want to navigate by keyboard in Windows.
I open some folder
enter 1,2 or more characters, until the cursor is at the folder I wanted
hit enter
another few characters (for the next folder or a file)
hit enter to open
I get one wrong I hit backspace and am back.

Works the same in Finder. Just replace Enter and Backspace with the left and right arrow when opening folders and moving back to parent folders.

 

[benthewraith]

It still is very annoying how finder behaves on the keyboard.
Is there any way to make it act like Windows Explorer.

When I want to navigate by keyboard in Windows.
I open some folder
enter 1,2 or more characters, until the cursor is at the folder I wanted
hit enter
another few characters (for the next folder or a file)
hit enter to open
I get one wrong I hit backspace and am back.

Now we all know that finder is really hostile to such simple quick navigation. CMD+O is not exactly convenient and I still don't know how to get back without using the touch pad.

This rename on enter is ridiculous as I do that fairly infrequent and could live with something like CMD+R or something, shift+enter, option+enter, whatever.

Most of the time I navigate to folders directly with Alfred but still opening the file is cumbersome. Is there any way to change it?? I cannot be the first to complain about this behavior.

The space quick look is convenient but enter is a key that is even more on the tip of the fingers when typing something. I type something in Alfred I hit Enter, I type something in a browser and hit enter, everywhere save finder Enter gets me the same behavior (even Spotlight). How did finder end up the way it did??

CMD+SPACE to open Spotlight and take you to the folder you're looking for.

You could use a finder replacement such as Pathfinder or TotalFinder.

 

[dusk007]

Works the same in Finder. Just replace Enter and Backspace with the left and right arrow when opening folders and moving back to parent folders.

Well no because right arrow is still far off from where my little finger wants to go by experience from just about any program and it doesn't help with opening files.

CMD+SPACE to open Spotlight and take you to the folder you're looking for.

CMD+Space is Alfred on my MBP and I already said I used most of the times but sometimes I don't know exactly what I am looking for or I navigate in my NTFS external drive which is excluded from spotlight index and thus cannot be searched the same way.

I will check out those alternative finders but I would prefer just editing some pref file and change the short cuts to work the way I want them.

 

[GGJstudios]

Well no because right arrow is still far off from where my little finger wants to go by experience from just about any program and it doesn't help with opening files.

I will check out those alternative finders but I would prefer just editing some pref file and change the short cuts to work the way I want them.

Finder isn't going to mirror Windows Explorer, and it's unreasonable to expect that it would. Mac OS X isn't a mirror of Windows. You have to give yourself time to learn new shortcuts and new methods of doing some things. You can customize shortcuts to some degree, but ultimately, you just need to learn how to use a Mac, in the same way you learned at one time how to use Windows.

 

[r0k]

I used Pathfinder when I first switched. I'm used to finder now. That whole NTFS thing can be solved by formatting it as HFS Journaled unless you still need access to the drive from a Windows box.

I use Win 7 at work and rarely type in Explorer when I'm looking for something. I prefer to sort by date and recent files always bubble to the top. Spotlight is one of the things I like most about OS X and I launch most programs by clicking spotlight and then typing 1 or two characters. I almost never use these features but similar named files show up further down the Spotlight list and emails show up below that. Another thing I used when I first switched was Quicksilver but when Leopard came out and I got used to Spotlight, I stopped using QS.

Another thing I've "gotten used to" is folders sorted alongside files. It seems to make more sense to me now and it annoys me on windows when folders get lumped together either at the top or the bottom of a set of freshly sorted files.

 

[dusk007]

path finder actually seems like some decent program only the back doesn't seem to work but the rest works out of the box just like it is supposed to. It offers loads of stuff I don't want especially in the interface but till now it proves fairly configurable.
Maybe I can configure those remaining short cuts too.