Stacks will kill your dock productivity - Read this if you use folders in your dock!

[thejadedmonkey]

do you seriously use a left handed mouse? why not just learn to use your right hand? i never really saw a mousing as something that requires any left/right kind of coordination. i know a ton of left handed people, and they all use the mouse on the right, but couldn't hold a fork in their right hand.

That's me!
I used the mouse on the right side of the computer for so long, it's 2nd nature for me to do it. But on my MBP (or any laptop for that matter) I've always used my left hand on the trackpad.

Recently, I also started using my wireless mouse on the left hand side, just because it feels more natural... not that I can't use my right hand, I just prefer the left hand... but then stacks comes along and says become a righty or else.. that just pisses me off!

Anyway.. I can't use grid view either because if I open a stack and click on a folder to open the folder in the grid.. it doesn't open.

No matter how you look at it, Apple needs to do something to fix these glaring issues. I'm gonna go see if a restart doesn't fix my dilemma.

 

[meagain]

I'm again confused re stacks....

I have 4 folders in it (documents). I pull up one folder (recipes) - it pulls up Finder. I selected a recipe, minimized it, and it gave me a page in front of the folders. I fanned the stack, moved the page to the trash thinking it would stay on my hardrive, but saw it instantly delete from the finder. Uh ok....

Now I have these folders that I have no use for. I have no idea why they are there or how to remove them from the documents stack without deleting them. The recipe doc test has me scared. What am I missing here?

I also have been downloading and have no downloads folder/stack. I used to.

 

[gloss]

Agree..it's the one and ONLY thing I'm slightly disappointed in. Not as good as I had hoped. Nested folder access is much better...

I agree. I would be happy as a clam if they would simply give us the OPTION of returning to nested folders.

In most other respects, though, Leopard makes me happy.

 

[meagain]

If there's any consolation, I now have no stacks (download or documents). When I minimize anything, the page icons line up next to each other as in Tiger. Course, I've no clue how this happened. LOL

 

[jbg232]

I think the recipe example is a great one. One point that people are missing that it is not ONLY applications that nested folders were useful for. I have a TON of word documents that I need organized (not just dumped in some documents folder to read in the most small text imaginable in grid view of stacks) and they are organized by date folders within the main folder. Now I cannot access those nested date folders (ie Documents>College>Senior Year>2nd Semester>Ethics as an example of a document from my past) without using finder for every folder. So quicksilver will not help me for this as it only launches applications that I KNOW THE NAME OF and spotlight will only work if I KNOW THE NAME of the file which sometimes is not the case. Also, there are many applications that I use rarely like internet utilities that I don't remember the name of when I want to use them, but as long as they were organized in my Applications>Internet>Utilities folder I could find them. If I don't remember their name, how can I open them in quicksilver or spotlight?

 

[tyr2]

I'm also finding this rather annoying having always had my 'Applications' folder in the doc to use to launch apps that aren't in the dock.

Here's hoping for an option to go back, perhaps a hidden plist change. I'm not holding my breath though.

 

[hippeman]

I hate stacks and am getting more and more frustrated with it by the minute. This is a terrible shame since everything else in Leopard is so much better. I used to just be able to right-click my home directory and browse through its contents. Now I have to click its stack, click the folder I want, open a Finder window and then navigate via the Finder. What a dreadful regression tis is.

I really hope that Apple fixes this abomination in 10.5.1.

I do agree completely with this! There need to be a third option on how to view a stack:
1. as a fan
2. as a grid
3. as nested folders
Hopefully there will be a solution out there soon..

 

[iJed]

Uhhh......Stacks was never intended to be an application launcher. It is intended to keep your desktop free of clutter.

But its even worse at this. If you organise your files into directories then stacks is an absolutely useless way to access them. Stacks appears to come from a day when only flat filesystems existed! Its just a large stack of crap.

Give Apple feedback on this issue if you want to try and make them fix it.

 

[meagain]

Shouldn't these folders be able to 'Quick-Look'? If they were Quick-Look'able, would that solve the issue? (if anyone lost their stack folders & knows how to get this function back - pls give a holler)

 

[Blue Velvet]

A possible temporary solution

Someone has mentioned elsewhere that you can put an alias of your folder in the dock and it will behave the old way. I don't know whether that's true or not as I'm not running Leopard but worth checking out if it works.

 

[GNice]

Someone has mentioned elsewhere that you can put an alias of your folder in the dock and it will behave the old way. I don't know whether that's true or not as I'm not running Leopard but worth checking out if it works.

That's one of the first things I tried...doesn't quite work the old way.

 

[djc6]

Uhhh......Stacks was never intended to be an application launcher. It is intended to keep your desktop free of clutter.

skinnylegs, watch the guided tour:

http://www.apple.com/macosx/guidedtour/

The guy even demonstrates using stacks to launch applications. I was really impressed with that aspect of the guided tour and was looking forward to stacks for launching apps. Now, not so much.

As for all the quicksilver recommendations, I'd like to launch my apps without having to resort to the keyboard.

 

[Jookbox]

when i upgraded i removed the document stack (i rarely use this folder) and i dragged in 'macintosh hd' and my 'firewire hd'. it's kinda cool, but i wish it at least had a secondary and tertiary menu system. or better yet, options to turn them on or off. i hardly rely on the dock anyway, but those are just some suggestions to improve stacks.

As for all the quicksilver recommendations, I'd like to launch my apps without having to resort to the keyboard.

with a little bit of effort, you'll realize this is the fastest way to launch programs.

 

[jbg232]

RIP Single-Click Nested Folder Access, You Will Be Missed

I just walked down the street to the Apple store and tried everything imaginable with aliases and it doesn't work, it just opens finder. I talked to almost every genius there and they stated that this is the new way it is so we must all adapt if we go to Leopard.

So here's a sorrow farewell to the single-click nested folder access, aka Tiger Dock Tree, you will be missed....


Please everyone, if you miss this feature, contact Apple to tell them and we might get it back:

http://www.apple.com/feedback/macosx.html/




Sincerely,
Jon





(picture not my screen, but you get the idea)

 

[seamusk]

setting up stacks

Obviously, the way stacks is set up, it benefits certain styles more than other. Stacks is working perfectly for me. What I've done is create several folders by category (games, productivity, communications, etc..) and put aliases pointed at select applications in each. It works perfect as a quick app launcher by mouse click only. I realize this method wouldn't be perfect for everybody, but it works for me.

 

[hotdamn]

You can't please everyone all the time.
All you whining little kids already had your way with the menubar, at least leave stacks alone.

also, how is there no good out of the box way to open apps? spotlight/dock combination kills Quicksilver in that regard.

It's 2007, not 2001. Get with the times, adapt. Think different.

 

[hotdamn]

Obviously, the way stacks is set up, it benefits certain styles more than other. Stacks is working perfectly for me. What I've done is create several folders by category (games, productivity, communications, etc..) and put aliases pointed at select applications in each. It works perfect as a quick app launcher by mouse click only. I realize this method wouldn't be perfect for everybody, but it works for me.

you don't even have to do it like that, you can just make stacks from the icons you need, it doesn't have to be a folder.
anyway, go you!

 

[sas76]

So I went out to buy Leopard at the Apple store and waited in line and got my shirt and everything and as I'm playing around with Leopard in the store and stacks specifically, and this is what I found out about Stacks:

In Tiger if you had a folder with folders nested inside you could view those subfolders with the menu bar...

In Leopard if you have the same folder you have to manually go to the finder to view all contents of nested folders...

This is horrible if you use folders in your dock to keep things organized. For example I have 3 Folders - Applications, Documents, and Photos. Each of these has many sub-folders i.e. in Applications I have Internet, Microsoft Office, Games, System Utilities, etc.... Same thing with my photos and documents which are organized by Date. Now I have use my finder to open all these things and is a complete about face in productivity and basically makes the dock useless for me. I do not see the benefit of stacks AT ALL and it is a total letdown and downgrade. I actually am not going to install Leopard now because I don't want to have that feature of Tiger disappear. Apple needs to fix this so that users can navigate their folder system like a tree or disable stacks altogether (Unix junkies - give us a fix here I'm begging you!)

Thoughts? Fixes?

I just learn't something
I never new you could no this do this. It is a great feature.

Thanks
ss

 

[chelsel]

yeah, Stacks rule dude... it's a lot easier to have a hard time launching your applications man... try quicksilver, or spotlight... what do you think the keyboard is for man... you don't even need a right mouse button... oh yeah, I suck...

Man, the people that believe the Apple way is the only way are seriously deluded. The current implementation of Stacks sucks. Bring back the right-click method as an option at least... or this switcher is returning his unopened leopard, sticking with tiger until it's fixed and probably going back to Windows... where everything doesn't break when you upgrade a simple dot release.

 

[hotdamn]

yeah, Stacks rule dude... it's a lot easier to have a hard time launching your applications man... try quicksilver, or spotlight... what do you think the keyboard is for man... you don't even need a right mouse button... oh yeah, I suck...

Man, the people that believe the Apple way is the only way are seriously deluded. The current implementation of Stacks sucks. Bring back the right-click method as an option at least... or this switcher is returning his unopened leopard, sticking with tiger until it's fixed and probably going back to Windows... where everything doesn't break when you upgrade a simple dot release.

please do us all favor and buy yourself one of those shiny new vistas that ballmer keeps talking about.
OH NO THEY GOT RIDZ OF MY FAVORITE FUNCTION! OH NOEZ! I HATE THE LEPERDZ!

 

[joseph2166]

Personally I love stacks However I can see the problem if you want a folder to behave in the old way - there should defiantly be an option.

One weird thing in stacks if you have nothing in a folder (for example an empty downloads folder) it doesn't fan out to nothing (just the 'show in finder') but instead opens up the folder in finder - a tad annoying.

 

[hotdamn]

One weird thing in stacks if you have nothing in a folder (for example an empty downloads folder) it doesn't fan out to nothing (just the 'show in finder') but instead opens up the folder in finder - a tad annoying.

I could've sworn the default download stack fans out even if it's empty.
but hey, technically, it's 1 click instead of 2... right?

 

[audioinside]

guys, if you really want to open your apps quickly, use Quicksilver. i just started using it yesterday, and so far as an app laucher, it's great.

Clearly it's not just about app launching - although I use click-hold on docked Applications and Utility folders for this - but about being able to navigate the whole filesystem hierarchically without opening Finder windows (or leaving extraneous Finder windows open after choosing the file.)

As for Spotlight, I often know where to find a file but not its name ("yeah, that casserole recipe is somewhere in /Recipes"), so Spotlight is not the right tool for these circumstances.

The activity people are performing with click-hold on docked folder is browsing, different from finding, or opening a known file. Apple, please bring us a Dock preference to restore "Classic Dock Folders" behavior...

 

[MBX]

THIS is indeed a really BIG disappointment.

Why is apple doing this?

There are so many pro-users who need this feature.

"RIP Single-Click Nested Folder Access, You Will Be Missed"

indeed...

really sad.

 

[disconap]

Yeah, this should be added back in. Stacks is great for organizing files you are currently working with, but I'm sticking with tiger until there's a fix for this or an opensource solution...