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Mac OS X Updates and Next Generation Finder Development
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The guys from Cocoatech should take the job. I'd love to see Pathfinder features in Finder. Pathfinder rocks! Go Neil!
walkingmac said:
I thought every release of the OS brought Finder downgrades. eg. silly noises in Tiger and a search system that doesn't search everything. In Jaguar, metal windows.
Perhaps Apple should hire the PathFinder guys and John Sircusa.
walkingmac said:
Well, yeah.. ofcourse the Finder should be updated with every major OS release, but this is the first time it seems Apple really is trying very hard.
I can't remember Apple posting a job description specifically trying to hire a Finder Software Engineer.
Many have complained about the Finder's responsiveness while browing folders etc.
It is good to see that Apple is focussing on the Finder!
kingjr3 said:
Pathfinder is pretty sophisticated, probably more so than the 10.5 Finder should be. Aside from the previews being updated to encompass more than just images (such as getting screen grabs for movies like within iTunes or album art for songs), and possibly tabs, I don't expect much more from the new version. Speed and responsiveness boosts are always expected, and rightly so.
File stacking like photos in Aperture, relevance sorting (like search returns in the iTunes Music Store), unified GUI (again, like the iLife design), ... All these things would be nice, but may not show up in 10.5.
If they ever do buy Pathfinder (which is a remote possibility), they could just disable 90% of the features by default, setting up a "Pro" setting available in the Preferences that turns them back on. I don't know if Apple would really embrace a two-faced Finder with "Beginner" and "Pro" settings. Splitting the Finder like that would (on its surface) be interpretted as if OS X had "Home" and "Pro" versions like Windows. Ewwwgh. I don't like it.
iJaz said:
Oh look, I'm a big huge hairy apple fan (as in I am a big fan, not that I like big huge hairy apples, that's just wrong) BUT to say that Leopard will whoop Vista is putting the cart so far before the horse that, well, you can't see it.
Personally the last preview of Vista I saw was a long way off Tiger, but things change quickly in the last 6 months of active development, and the reality is few of us know. We also don't know what our new brain storming developer will come up with... so let's just chill dude. I trust apple to shame MS, but come on... we don't know for sure yet.
crudsponge said:
I'd second that! Moving some of the code out of individual apps and to the OS (such as iPhoto album browsing) makes a lot of sense. It might really help to tidy up iTunes, too. iTunes has got very messy recently and is trying to do too many things. I hadn't realised it until you said, but iTunes does seem to be doing a lot of things that the finder should be. Smart folders and soup folders in the OS would be very cool.
Epicurus said:
I'd like to see pro settings for lots of things - kinda like how TinkerTool or holding down Alt in menus gives you advanced settings. I'm sure Apple could come up with a nice way to hide advanced functionality from beginners - Mac OS X doesn't give the pro user enough control over their machine IMO.
BTW, notice how Mac people say pro-user while PC people say power-user? Perhaps SJ is right about being done with "power" after all
louis_sx said:
I doubt that. Based on 5 years of experience, every time they "fixed" the Finder they just made it suck as much as it did before.
And they are hiring a Finder developer NOW? If that's the case, what's the chance we'll get anything good for Leopard, which will be out in just a year? Not very good.
Better window arrangement please
One area which Apple has neglected from Day 1 and which M$ got right from Day 1. Minimize, Maximize windows that works intelligently to optimize use of screen real estate. There was a utility pre Mac OSX (there were several utilities if I remember correctly) one of which did just this.
One area which Apple has neglected from Day 1 and which M$ got right from Day 1. Minimize, Maximize windows that works intelligently to optimize use of screen real estate. There was a utility pre Mac OSX (there were several utilities if I remember correctly) one of which did just this.
Epicurus said:
They already kind of do when you consider the 'classic' view without the side/top bar vs. the Finder window with side and top/spotlight bar.
P.S. The current finder does do movie/mp3 previews in column/spotlight view, though these previews should be made more flexible and integrated. I also agree that the Windows explorer deals with photo organization better than the Finder, at the moment... I find that a lot of newbie/novice Mac users don't know how to use a lot of features such as slide shows, or contextual menus...
... And the Leopard rumors begin! I think we can expect more and more of these types of tidbits until WWDC, when Jobs will be giving us a true preview of what Leopard will have to offer.
For now though, an improved Finder would definitely be a nice start. Not that the current one has too many flaws, but I'm sure Apple will find many ways to improve it.
I think we can expect more and more of these types of tidbits until WWDC, when Jobs will be giving us a true preview of what Leopard will have to offer.For now though, an improved Finder would definitely be a nice start. Not that the current one has too many flaws, but I'm sure Apple will find many ways to improve it.
kingjr3 said:
Because Pathfinder sucks? Seriously.. I tried it just days ago, it was screaming bloat. Okey, you can configure it to be simpler, but it should be as simple as possible in the default configuration (god there's a lot of menu bar items). The only thing I want from Path Finder really is perhaps the drop box and the path toolbar thingy.. I love it, but it's not enough to bother the extra fuzz using a filebrowser that's not as integrated. I didn't really like the search either.
Nudist said:One area which Apple has neglected from Day 1 and which M$ got right from Day 1. Minimize, Maximize windows that works intelligently to optimize use of screen real estate. There was a utility pre Mac OSX (there were several utilities if I remember correctly) one of which did just this.
Yeah... maximize...
I just wish pushing the little green button actually maximizes a window (or maybe by CTRL-clicking on it orso)
~Shard~ said:... And the Leopard rumors begin!
Going to be a long wait till WWDC!!
After that, it will be "beta-hunting"
mdavey said:I'd like to see pro settings for lots of things - kinda like how TinkerTool or holding down Alt in menus gives you advanced settings. I'm sure Apple could come up with a nice way to hide advanced functionality from beginners - Mac OS X doesn't give the pro user enough control over their machine IMO.
BTW, notice how Mac people say pro-user while PC people say power-user? Perhaps SJ is right about being done with "power" after all
I agree about the control thing. I've been hooked on Path Finder since I first installed it. I've got my computer so heavily modified I've honestly lost my sense of what the default desktop looks/feels like (its a real shock when I see someone else's system, at least for a moment or two).
Having the options available beats not having them, but keep it within reason. Apple can learn a thing or two from Path Finder, but they shouldn't take too much.
MacsRgr8 said:
Er, it makes the window big enough to fit all the content and no bigger. IMHO that's better than maximize on Windows.
I can't wait to see what Apple makes of 10.5. Spotlight already amazes me as it is, so I'm pretty excited about it being heavily implemnted into the new version of Finder. I wonder what else they have up their sleeves. Possibly GUI themes?
Nudist said:One area which Apple has neglected from Day 1 and which M$ got right from Day 1. Minimize, Maximize windows that works intelligently to optimize use of screen real estate. There was a utility pre Mac OSX (there were several utilities if I remember correctly) one of which did just this.
What? You're kidding right. Where as Windows just maximizes everything to use the entire window (waste of space), Mac OS X apps maximize to use as much space as it needs (the width of the page in a document and the entire height of the screen for example), so you still can drag-and-drop and do similar task you'd expect from a windowing system. I'm not sure what you're thinking of with minimizing, but I sure find the Mac OS X minimizing a lot better.
I hope they rewrite Finder completely, and make it a Cocoa app. It's about time. Though the only thing I miss other than general speed/bug improvements is a file path bar and less buggy icon view.
I don't see why the hell people is crying about better image/sound viewing. If you want to browse your photos, but them in iPhoto, if you want to browse your music, go to iTunes. It's logical and effective, unless you download music from the internet or something (which I do, but I put them straight into iTunes). You already have basic previews and slideshows. Besides, if you want to browse a folder of pictures quickly, just select everything (cmd+a) and open it in preview. It works nicely.
MacsRgr8 said:Going to be a long wait till WWDC!!
After that, it will be "beta-hunting"
Absolutely! You know, the usual routine...
Even if Jobs waits for WWDC to talk about Leopard though, I seem to remember a longer wait time for Panther and Tiger. If Jobs does indeed plan on releasing Leopard late 2006/early 2007, then that would mean "only" a 6 month wait until we see the finished product - seems like it was longer with the previous versions - then again, perhaps I'm just smoking crack again.
emulator said:
A control-x option does not a better file system make. Have you seen how files in Windows are organized?
David
aegisdesign said:
I'd love better iLife integration. Imagine opening up a folder containing images, and then the window 'morphs' into a mini-iPhoto, or opening a folder containing music, then the window turns into a scaled-down iTunes window, with an option to copy the tune to iTunes if it's not already there.
NeXT Finder...
Boy, this would be a dream job for me... <sigh>
Anyway, I would hope they would get some of the nice clean features that were there back in the NeXT days.
I miss the shelf badly. It was SO useful & intuitive...
I miss having one inspector. It is really annoying to have to bring up the inspector multiple times on files. This should at least be an option. One inspector by default with some key combination or something to bring up more than one. When I'm clicking around on files, it is annoying to have to keep bringing up another inspector. Perhaps I've overlooked some option in OSX?
And where I appreciate the concern for screen space, I sure preferred the NeXT style menus. Especially the ability to drag one off and keep it persistent on the screen.
And yes... I liked the scroll bars on the left too.
Boy, this would be a dream job for me... <sigh>
Anyway, I would hope they would get some of the nice clean features that were there back in the NeXT days.
I miss the shelf badly. It was SO useful & intuitive...
I miss having one inspector. It is really annoying to have to bring up the inspector multiple times on files. This should at least be an option. One inspector by default with some key combination or something to bring up more than one. When I'm clicking around on files, it is annoying to have to keep bringing up another inspector. Perhaps I've overlooked some option in OSX?
And where I appreciate the concern for screen space, I sure preferred the NeXT style menus. Especially the ability to drag one off and keep it persistent on the screen.
And yes... I liked the scroll bars on the left too.
kingjr3 said:
Please don't. As bad as the current Finder is, it still has better spatial navigation than Pathfinder. (Given that spatial navigation is completely imposible in Pathfinder, that's not hard.)
There are a lot of things I'd like fixed in the current Finder. But I've never been able to use Pathfinder for more than a couple of minutes before quitting it in disgust. It does what it does very well. It doesn't do what I like.