Simple Features for OS X

[sammy2066]

These are some ideas for 10.7 I guess, since we never get "new features" in service releases, no matter how small, insignificant or essential they might be. We're always made to pay for new features.

Anyways,

1) Alphabetical sorting in Finder, but separately for files and folders.
2) A tabbed finder with a dedicated refresh button. 2 panes PLEASE!
3) Ability to quick look in stacks and spotlight results.
4) Ability to right click on items in a stack and spotlight results.
5) Ability to close windows in Expose mode.
6) Better intelligent contextual menus.
7) Unified marble interface.
8) Hot-swap support for iPods.
9) Built-in uninstaller for programs that removes residual files.
10) A simple image and video browser like "Windows Photo Viewer".


That's all I can think of right now. Feel free to add more.

 

[r.j.s]

8) Hot-swap support for iPods

What do you mean by this?

 

[belvdr]

5) Ability to close windows in Expose mode.

What I do is Command-Tab and when the app is highlighted, tap Q to quit it.

6) Better intelligent contextual menus
7) Unified marble interface

I am not sure what you are requesting here.

8) Hot-swap support for iPods

What's not hot swappable about an iPod?

 

[devburke]

These are some ideas for 10.7 I guess, since we never get "new features" in service releases, no matter how small, insignificant or essential they might be. We're always made to pay for new features.

Anyways,

1) Alphabetical sorting in Finder, but separately for files and folders.
2) A tabbed finder with a dedicated refresh button. 2 panes PLEASE!
3) Ability to quick look in stacks.
4) Ability to right click on items in a stack.
5) Ability to close windows in Expose mode.
6) Better intelligent contextual menus
7) Unified marble interface
8) Hot-swap support for iPods

That's all I can think of right now. Feel free to add more.

Well to be fair, 10.5.2 did give us more options with Stacks and allow turning off menu bar transparency. But those are tiny features.

As for number 6, I think we're getting that in 10.6, with services being moved to contextual menus, where they'll actually get used.

 

[Consultant]

1. There are ways to do that, but doing it that way is useless for most mac users. Ever try to sort by date in windows, viewing most recent on top, just try. That windows way = fail.

2. Finder is real time, it's not windows where you have to refresh. Tab might be interesting, but I use keyboard command+~ to switch between finder windows.

9. Third party apps. Easy, fast, free. Mac OSX has no registry so those files, even present, don't slow your system down, unlike windows.

 

[belvdr]

2. Finder is real time, it's not windows where you have to refresh. Tab might be interesting, but I use keyboard command+~ to switch between finder windows.

I'll need to verify in 10.5, but when I had the extra info enabled for my volumes on the desktop, that data would hardly ever refresh.

9. Third party apps. Easy, fast, free. Mac OSX has no registry so those files, even present, don't slow your system down, unlike windows.

Don't you already get some free applications for OS X? If the app is running, it is possible to slow down your system, regardless of OS.

 

[devburke]

1. There are ways to do that, but doing it that way is useless for most mac users. Ever try to sort by date in windows, viewing most recent on top, just try. That windows way = fail.

I have to say, I'm not a Finder-hater at all like some are, but folders on top before files does make a lot of sense. It should at least be an option.

As for 10), are Quick Look and Cover Flow not good enough for you? Personally I never use Cover Flow but it sounds like what you'd want.

 

[devburke]

Don't you already get some free applications for OS X? If the app is running, it is possible to slow down your system, regardless of OS.

But you're talking about apps you uninstalled, aren't you? If you trashed it, it's not running.

 

[belvdr]

But you're talking about apps you uninstalled, aren't you? If you trashed it, it's not running.

Oh, you mean Consultant is talking about uninstalling apps? I thought he meant installing them...

 

[jaw04005]

1) Alphabetical sorting in Finder, but separately for files and folders.

Simple enough to do. However, this mimics Windows Explorer behavior. Personally, I like files and folders all sorted together.

2) A tabbed finder with a dedicated refresh button. 2 panes PLEASE!

Refresh button is unnecessary. Finder should update dynamically.

3) Ability to quick look in stacks and spotlight results.

Agree.

4) Ability to right click on items in a stack and spotlight results.

Agree.

5) Ability to close windows in Expose mode.

Agree. It should work similar to how Dashboard widgets close.

6) Better intelligent contextual menus.

Smarter service choices within contextual menus are a feature of Snow Leopard.

7) Unified marble interface.

While no one knows what "marble" is, I do agree that Apple needs to standardize on an interface. However, I like how Garageband, Final Cut Pro, Aperture, iMovie, etc take on their own interface too. It should depend on the application. Third-party applications should use the standard interface unless they're "special" like Delicious Library 2.

8) Hot-swap support for iPods.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and assume you're talking about how the iPhone is handled within iTunes? There are no "You could damage the disk" warnings when you unplug it.

Smarter disk eject is a feature of Snow Leopard.

9) Built-in uninstaller for programs that removes residual files.

Not necessary. Download AppZapper. If more third-party applications would just follow Apple's guidelines of keeping everything within their respective folders and packages, this wouldn't be a problem (I'm looking at you Adobe). The remnants of such programs are extremely small in size (preference files, application support, etc) and shouldn't really affect your available disk space one way or the other.

10) A simple image and video browser like "Windows Photo Viewer".

We already have Preview, and Finder previews media files. Not to mention Image Capture and iPhoto.

 

[stainlessliquid]

1) Alphabetical sorting in Finder, but separately for files and folders.

It already does this? Sorting by Kind will group types of files and do it alphabetically.

What doesnt make any sense at all is how folders arent given priority to be at the top when sorting by kind. They are navigational elements and should not be treated like regular files. Its a relatively simple fix for that though: http://www.bece.org/Default.aspx?tabid=36&EntryID=5 Apple still needs to stop being a baby and just do things the Windows way sometimes.

3) Ability to quick look in stacks and spotlight results.

quicklook in stacks is pretty much incompatible because of the way quicklook only works for selected files

4) Ability to right click on items in a stack and spotlight results.

This irks me as well. What the hell Apple, it must have been one of the first annoying things you discovered about stacks during testing, fix it.

5) Ability to close windows in Expose mode.

I wanted to do this too

6) Better intelligent contextual menus.

I disagree, I think they should be LESS intelligent. The reason they are a pain in the ass sometimes is because they try to be intelligent where as Windows right click menus work 100% of the time because they dont try to be intelligent. All menu items should be there, the ones that dont do anything should be greyed out or removed (greyed out would be better so they dont leave people wondering why something isnt there), the OS should never assume the user wants to do something by removing perfectly useful menu items. Safari really drives me crazy when I want to search a phrase in google by highlighting it and right clicking only to be presented with "open link in new window" and other things I dont want to do since I highlighted a linked word.

10) A simple image and video browser like "Windows Photo Viewer".

Quicklook does the same thing if you highlight multiple files. Its not perfect though since you cant select any other file or window without quicklook going to that file. Having a separate instance of quicklook per window would solve that.

We already have Preview, and Finder previews media files. Not to mention Image Capture and iPhoto.

Preview isnt the same, its too dumb to be able to tell you have multiple images in a folder and support clicking next to go through all of them. This is an extremely handy feature in Windows. The closest thing to it in Windows is selecting all files and doing Quicklook, but its not as good since it includes ALL files instead of just images and only works while the window is selected.

 

[OldCorpse]

9. Third party apps. Easy, fast, free. Mac OSX has no registry so those files, even present, don't slow your system down, unlike windows.

I wish people would stop saying this. Uninstalling in OSX is broken.

It is not true that files left behind don't cause trouble. Pref files for example are a notorious source of trouble. If you leave an old pref file behind, when you reinstall a new version of an app, often it happens that the old pref is used, with catastrophic results. Also, I have never yet found an app that is a good uninstaller - they always leave stuff behind which they missed.

What we need is some kind of process that journals everything an app does from installation on, and when it's time to uninstall, is capable of removing absolutely everything associated with that app - but it should also give you options. Say, you want to remove Word, it should give you the option of keeping or removing also files created by Word (such as .doc files, f.ex.).

Right now, the whole thing sucks.

 

[devburke]

I wish people would stop saying this. Uninstalling in OSX is broken.

It is not true that files left behind don't cause trouble. Pref files for example are a notorious source of trouble. If you leave an old pref file behind, when you reinstall a new version of an app, often it happens that the old pref is used, with catastrophic results. Also, I have never yet found an app that is a good uninstaller - they always leave stuff behind which they missed.

What we need is some kind of process that journals everything an app does from installation on, and when it's time to uninstall, is capable of removing absolutely everything associated with that app - but it should also give you options. Say, you want to remove Word, it should give you the option of keeping or removing also files created by Word (such as .doc files, f.ex.).

Right now, the whole thing sucks.

Personally, I just fire up Spotlight, include system and hidden files, and search for the app name / company name. Of course, this method can be dangerous, and you have to be careful about what you delete, but if you know what you're doing, no third party app necessary.

 

[sammy2066]

To all those whom I managed to confuse, by hot-swap I mean the ability to disconnect the iPod after syncing even if Disk mode is enabled without having to eject it manually.

And in Expose mode, an ability to close windows like in Dashboard would be fantastic.

By the unified marble interface, i'm asking for a more itTunes-esque interface throughout the system. No aqua scroll bars!

The Finder neeeeds to be completely rethought, its absolutely a shame.

 

[sammy2066]

quicklook in stacks is pretty much incompatible because of the way quicklook only works for selected files

You can use the arrow keys while in a stack to highlight files, and then logically, pressing spacebar should initiate quicklook.

 

[sammy2066]

What do you mean by this?

I don't want to see the "Do not disconnect" message on my iPod. Regardless of whether is is in disk mode or not.

 

[NT1440]

I don't want to see the "Do not disconnect" message on my iPod. Regardless of whether is is in disk mode or not.

 

[belvdr]

To all those whom I managed to confuse, by hot-swap I mean the ability to disconnect the iPod after syncing even if Disk mode is enabled without having to eject it manually.

That is there to ensure the integrity of the filesystem. Not a good idea.

 

[devburke]

The Finder neeeeds to be completely rethought, its absolutely a shame.

I always see people say this, and I don't get it. I see nothing wrong with it. It may not be feature-rich, but that's what third party apps are for. The most common complaints I see are "no cut and paste" and "no tabs". Cut and paste is one thing, but tabs are NOT an essential feature that is shameful not to have. That's a ridiculous statement. What are your reasons?

 

[stainlessliquid]

That is there to ensure the integrity of the filesystem. Not a good idea.

OSX uses a high performance method of connecting external drives, Windows uses a slower but more stable method while giving you the option to enable the high performance method. The high performance method is really unstable and needs to be ejected before being disconnected while the slower method stops messing with the disk when theres no activity making it 100% safe to just pull the drive out.

Theres very little reason to use the high performance way of mounting drives with USB stuff, external hard disks that are constantly being accessed would benefit but things like ipods and thumb drives dont benefit and are just put at unnecessary risk of corruption. Given that the vast majority of USB devices are only for temporary use or backup it doesnt make sense for Apple to only use the fast unstable way of mounting disks.

It is a good idea, Apple needs to leave that old fashioned way to internal and firewire drives only.

 

[Saladinos]

Preview isnt the same, its too dumb to be able to tell you have multiple images in a folder and support clicking next to go through all of them. This is an extremely handy feature in Windows. The closest thing to it in Windows is selecting all files and doing Quicklook, but its not as good since it includes ALL files instead of just images and only works while the window is selected.

Preview is better than you give it credit for. In Snow Leopard, it can handle multiple files (select them in Finder, right click > open) and it does PDFs (in fact, in SL, it has this fancy new PDF column-aware text selection mechanism.

Personally, I think Preview is one of the best apps on OSX.

My suggestions:
1. AppStore. duh.
2. Better Front Row. Include store access and other movie formats. Make it the iTunes of movies.
3. Expand iChat to more IM services. Possibly include facebook, twitter, etc. to make it an integrated social networking hub.
4. MSPaint-like application
5. Better Dock organisation. Make the Applications stack a mini-launcher with filters by application category
6. Central bookmarks database. It would make switching between browsers and syncing between computers much easier.

 

[Saladinos]

I always see people say this, and I don't get it. I see nothing wrong with it. It may not be feature-rich, but that's what third party apps are for. The most common complaints I see are "no cut and paste" and "no tabs". Cut and paste is one thing, but tabs are NOT an essential feature that is shameful not to have. That's a ridiculous statement. What are your reasons?

Agree. Windows Explorer's pretty bare (although it does have excellent filtering and grouping abilities since Vista), and Konqueror's utter tripe.

EDIT: Alright, the Finder probably should scroll vertically rather than horizontally.

 

[beg_ne]

I wish people would stop saying this. Uninstalling in OSX is broken.

It is not true that files left behind don't cause trouble. Pref files for example are a notorious source of trouble. If you leave an old pref file behind, when you reinstall a new version of an app, often it happens that the old pref is used, with catastrophic results. Also, I have never yet found an app that is a good uninstaller - they always leave stuff behind which they missed.

I've never seen such a problem with pref files, this argument seems pretty overblown.

Say, you want to remove Word, it should give you the option of keeping or removing also files created by Word (such as .doc files, f.ex.).

That is absolutely INSANE - worst idea ever. App uninstallation should NEVER destroy user created data. EVER.

In the vast majority of cases left over files cause no problems and take up such small HD space it's not worth inventing a whole new complicated uninstall mechanism.

 

[stainlessliquid]

Preview is better than you give it credit for. In Snow Leopard, it can handle multiple files (select them in Finder, right click > open) and it does PDFs (in fact, in SL, it has this fancy new PDF column-aware text selection mechanism.

Personally, I think Preview is one of the best apps on OSX.

Go into a folder with multiple types of files and select everything then right click and do open. Thats not the same as Windows Picture Viewer. On Windows you can open ONE image and then click next to go through all other images in the directory without having to manually select and find just the images.

Preview is good for certain uses but it is no Picture Viewer when you are going through multiple images in a directory. If it could automatically load all images in a folder when you open one then it would easily be better than Picture Viewer, but its missing that one very special feature.

 

[armoguy94]

These are some ideas for 10.7 I guess, since we never get "new features" in service releases, no matter how small, insignificant or essential they might be. We're always made to pay for new features.

Anyways,

1) Alphabetical sorting in Finder, but separately for files and folders.
2) A tabbed finder with a dedicated refresh button. 2 panes PLEASE!
3) Ability to quick look in stacks and spotlight results.
4) Ability to right click on items in a stack and spotlight results.
5) Ability to close windows in Expose mode.
6) Better intelligent contextual menus.
7) Unified marble interface.
8) Hot-swap support for iPods.
9) Built-in uninstaller for programs that removes residual files.
10) A simple image and video browser like "Windows Photo Viewer".


That's all I can think of right now. Feel free to add more.

Wouldn't #1 be "sort by Kind"?
#10: iPhoto, or Preview
#7: That's totally based on opinion. I can't stand the "marble" interface.
#9: That would take away from the simplicity-ideology that Apple propagandizes us with, so they would need to do it "in secret", so probably when you empty the trash with an application in it, it should delete all the preference files for that as well. That may be inconvenient for some users, though, because not all want their pref files to be gone if they delete an app, so they can add a Finder option for that to toggle it on or off. Perfect idea, IMO.