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Stacks will kill your dock productivity - Read this if you use folders in your dock!
- Thread starter jbg232
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How do you do that? It won't work for me unless I drag an entire directory to the dock.
Haven't moved to Leopard yet, but based on the video, make a folder, drag it to the dock, then add whatever aliases you want to it?
I got my first mac a year ago. I feel really stupid for opening my apps either via the dock or finder/applications/app. The nested folders thing sounds cool.
Before my Stacks magically dissappeared entirely on me (WTH?).... I saw not much point to it if it just took me to the finder. Why wouldn't I just open the finder straight up then? (heading to watch stacks video....)
Before my Stacks magically dissappeared entirely on me (WTH?).... I saw not much point to it if it just took me to the finder. Why wouldn't I just open the finder straight up then? (heading to watch stacks video....)
That picture kind of looks like the windows start menu 
...but to understand, if you go to any of the folders within that list, it will not branch out giving you further access? Is that what the problem is?
...but to understand, if you go to any of the folders within that list, it will not branch out giving you further access? Is that what the problem is?
That feature of adding whatever you select to the dock and it creating a custom-made stack was removed at the last minute. There is a letter from apple to a user at another forum that I read (can't remember where now) that stated they are not going to put that feature in at the moment. Who knows why? Maybe it was buggy and would have delayed release of Leopard but that feature (as far as I know) doesn't exist and will not exist.
For everyone who is claiming that ctrl-clicking folders in tiger is JUST for applications, this is an example of the power of this feature that was taken away by Leopard. As you can see you can explore your entire computer directory without using finder from your dock, a very useful feature especially when you customized it well. Once again, not my picture.
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Spotlight drives Apple's thinking
Although it is obvious that not everyone uses nested folders, those of us that like it, really like it. With nested dock folders, unless you have your dock on the left, you have to navigate backwards since you will hit the right side of the screen.
This is one bit of functionality that was implemented better in OS9. You could add an alias of a folder to your apple menu and you were done. Unsanity provided this with FruitMenu, but it can be buggy. As of yet it's not 10.5 compatible anyway.
The larger issue is Apple abandoning Fitts law and many of the Human Interface Guidelines that made OS9 so fast to work with.
I hope Spotlight is more refined in Leopard. I think the most ridiculous thing about grep, I mean Spotlight, is how it hides all the drill down options that were the default before.
It's as if Apple believes no one should bother being organized since you can just Spotlight it anyway. This presumes you remember what you were looking for. If anyone remembers Gopher navigation, this is the biggest thing lost by the transition to http. Extraneous results overpower the context that the nest brings you. Even if they are your files, you should be able to interact with them the way you choose.
Personally, I love Quiksilver but occasionally it would be nice to do *everything* with the mouse again.
Although it is obvious that not everyone uses nested folders, those of us that like it, really like it. With nested dock folders, unless you have your dock on the left, you have to navigate backwards since you will hit the right side of the screen.
This is one bit of functionality that was implemented better in OS9. You could add an alias of a folder to your apple menu and you were done. Unsanity provided this with FruitMenu, but it can be buggy. As of yet it's not 10.5 compatible anyway.
The larger issue is Apple abandoning Fitts law and many of the Human Interface Guidelines that made OS9 so fast to work with.
I hope Spotlight is more refined in Leopard. I think the most ridiculous thing about grep, I mean Spotlight, is how it hides all the drill down options that were the default before.
It's as if Apple believes no one should bother being organized since you can just Spotlight it anyway. This presumes you remember what you were looking for. If anyone remembers Gopher navigation, this is the biggest thing lost by the transition to http. Extraneous results overpower the context that the nest brings you. Even if they are your files, you should be able to interact with them the way you choose.
Personally, I love Quiksilver but occasionally it would be nice to do *everything* with the mouse again.
I will have to be a newb and say that I wasnt even aware of the nexted folder thing in 10.4. Was it available in 10.3? I have an older G4 with 10.3 on there so this would be nice to do.
I do this all the time in windows XP and Vista with the Start menu (I put commonly used folders or network resources in the start menu to get similar nested folder usage that I guess is missing in 10.5. Thats a real shame I wonder if it was done on purpose. Maybe its just a bug and will be fixed.
I do this all the time in windows XP and Vista with the Start menu (I put commonly used folders or network resources in the start menu to get similar nested folder usage that I guess is missing in 10.5. Thats a real shame
I wonder if it was done on purpose. Maybe its just a bug and will be fixed.
Read the thread. It's not just about launching apps. And on this issue, they could please everyone - by having nested folder access as an option.
Uhhh......Stacks was never intended to be an application launcher.
Exactly. Stacks is the descendant of Piles, a project that began in 1992 for the Newton interface but never materialized until now. It is specifically for documents, not applications. I think the one thing that might fix people's concerns is by giving them the option to have their text list option and/or to have a "scroll through" feature in stacks like the text lists where the top and bottom of the visible stack have arrows that scroll you through the other contents without opening the whole folder.
The whole idea of stacks is to have a visual reference to documents. It's not useful for things like Applications where you recognize everything by an application name... It's useful particularly when you can't remember a document/image by name and you want to pick one based on a visual reference.
Maybe giving people both options would be better... but I find stacks useful and a neat way to keep the desktop uncluttered. I don't use it in instances where Spotlight and Finder do a better job. In fact, because of the monstrous growth of file systems, Spotlight really should be your primary method of navigation through HD contents if you can bring yourself to trust it. Stacks is strictly for desktop docs/images.
Dock Plist and Stacks
Up until the last beta build you could open subfolders within a stack and you could make a stack of random items without placing them in a folder first. There are still entries for both in the dock plist and one for normal folder menus, but they have no effect, it seems like they may have been a bit buggy so apple removed that functionality in order to get leopard out the door. Hopefully Apple will fix the bugs in an update.
And if anyone at Apple is listening, I'd really like the icon size in stacks to be adjustable, it looks like they are hardwired at 48x48 for fan and 64x64 for grid.
Up until the last beta build you could open subfolders within a stack and you could make a stack of random items without placing them in a folder first. There are still entries for both in the dock plist and one for normal folder menus, but they have no effect, it seems like they may have been a bit buggy so apple removed that functionality in order to get leopard out the door. Hopefully Apple will fix the bugs in an update.
And if anyone at Apple is listening, I'd really like the icon size in stacks to be adjustable, it looks like they are hardwired at 48x48 for fan and 64x64 for grid.
I just noticed that Apple has been deleting forums threads from discussions.apple.com that specifically comment on this issue in Leopard. My suspicions were confirmed on other posts in the apple discussions and other mac forums. My only guess is that apple is afraid that people reading those threads may choose not to upgrade because of this. If so, that seems really sad that they would silence feedback and the cost of increased sales. It also makes me even more upset at apple for this. My question is: Does apple normally delete threads of users giving feedback if it will hurt sales of their products?
Because I was following the threads that apple had on their discussions forum related to this topic and *poof* they disappeared. When it happened the first two times I didn't think much of it but then it kept happening. Now if you go to discussions.apple.com you will see that people are telling others not to write bad things or the post will be deleted. Here's an example:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1198274&tstart=0
Like others, I had no idea I could do that in 10.4. I guess the part I didn't know was putting folders in the (right side) of dock... never knew that. So I guess I won't rush to upgrade to Leopard. Since I now have newly discovered features in my old OS. Thanks!
I personally like stacks, but have found one annoyance when used in conjunction with spaces.
If say in space 1 you have finder opened. You move to space 2, click a stack to open up a folder (e.g. I have an htdocs stacks as I am a web developer, so it gives me quick access to all projects) - I click on a desired directory and leopard moves to Space 1 and opens it, not in Space 2 as I require, so I then need to use Spaces to move the newly opened window to Space 2 as I wanted.
Bar that
If say in space 1 you have finder opened. You move to space 2, click a stack to open up a folder (e.g. I have an htdocs stacks as I am a web developer, so it gives me quick access to all projects) - I click on a desired directory and leopard moves to Space 1 and opens it, not in Space 2 as I require, so I then need to use Spaces to move the newly opened window to Space 2 as I wanted.
Bar that
Apple is known for trying to protect their imagine and control their publicity. It seems totally plausible to me that Apple is trying to hide the fact that some people are unhappy with the new OS. Especially because it's not over a bug or something like that, but it's directly due to a new feature which Apple is trying to market as a big selling point!
Although all internet rumors should be taken with a healthy dose of skepticism, it's hardly an outlandish idea to think Apple would try to quiet the news of unhappy users on their own message boards, especially at a time when the most sales of their product are likely to occur when its new, and they know many people are going to be looking around the message boards for feedback on whether or not they should buy the new OS.
Seems totally plausible.
I agree that stacks are a problem when you want to go through a large list of stuff. For example, now all my apps don't show up in the stack because there are too many. You can right click and select "open", but that kind of defeats the purpose, doesn't it?
Spotlight works great as an app launcher, but not as a file browser. Let's hope with enough feedback, Apple will add a third option to the dock: fan, grid, and LIST.
Spotlight works great as an app launcher, but not as a file browser. Let's hope with enough feedback, Apple will add a third option to the dock: fan, grid, and LIST.
I'm not sure if I believe it but it wouldn't surprise me. Apple is a business with a lot of momentum right now that just released a product to jumpstart a whole new slew of switchers and upgraders. It makes business sense to remove negative publicity from a topic right at its launch when there is nothing that can be done about it for the time being. Maybe a few patches down the road they'll add the feature back in but they want the momentum to continue moving for the time being. Plus, if you click the link I put above or just type in "stacks" in the forums search at discussions.apple.com you will see many people have the same opinion.
Truthfully I don't know why they are doing it but that seem like a reasonable hypothesis and I hope I'm wrong.
