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What feature on Windows you wish is on Lion?

tkermit said:
By the way, do you really have to press F2 on Windows to rename? :confused:
Click to expand...

No, you can slow double-click. Same as OS X (at least I think... I rarely use graphical file managers).

Anyway, this thread is a lot of "But OS X is different, I want it to be like Windows instead of learning something new!" whining. A lot of it by the "6 months later, I'm still whining about Lion being different and requiring me to adapt!" crowd.

Apple should not make OS X into another Windows clone. A lot of the Linux desktop environnements suffer from that symptom. Now they almost all look the same. I remember when there was actual innovation in the Linux stuff. Enlightenment, WindowMaker/AfterStep, Ratpoison, etc.. Now almost all the new ones look the same and the most innovative ones seem to rarely get patches (even though most still work beautifully), with a taskbar on the bottom, a systray, icons on the wallpaper and a pop-up menu... gah...
 
KnightWRX said:
No, you can slow double-click. Same as OS X (at least I think... I rarely use graphical file managers).
Click to expand...

I meant if you wanted to use a shortcut...

Oh and: What would be the fastest way to get rid of a trailing 1 in a list of files via the command line? (And how long did it take you to come up with the solution? :p )
 
tkermit said:
I think renaming is actually pretty efficient in OS X's Finder. What's easier than pressing Enter? Especially if you have to go through a list of files. Unless the task can be automated or you're a command line guru, I don't see how Apple could improve it by much.
Click to expand...

And that is exactly what I love about OSX since the task can indeed be automated and it works brilliantly. It takes about 1 minute using Automator to create yourself a batch renaming utility using Finder actions. I now have a service that is available via the right click menu in Finder - highlight a bunch of files, right click, select my service and then I can batch rename until I am blue in the face.

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tkermit said:
I meant if you wanted to use a shortcut...

Oh and: What would be the fastest way to get rid of a trailing 1 in a list of files via the command line? (And how long did it take you to come up with the solution? :p )
Click to expand...

I assume you mean in OSX or *nix? Well, the fastest way would be to use sed or awk. If you know it, then it would take less than a minute. If you don't, the syntax is a bit of a PITA.
 
tkermit said:
I meant if you wanted to use a shortcut...

Oh and: What would be the fastest way to get rid of a trailing 1 in a list of files via the command line? (And how long did it take you to come up with the solution? :p )
Click to expand...

Code: 
for e in *; do mv "$e" "`echo $e | sed -e 's/1$//g'`"; done

Took me 2 seconds to search for it on Google. ;) (though I had to adapt it to remove your trailing 1).
 
Hey, just saw this thread today, thought I'd read through the replies and post one of my own. If you were to ask me about implementations of features in various OSes I'd have quite a bit to say.

Let's start with menu bars. Both Windows' and Mac OS X's implementation of menu bars have their upsides and downsides. The "global menu" approach used by Mac OS X obeys Fitt's Law the best - you always know where to find the menu bar, no matter where the window is located. However, when multiple monitors are involved, this approach's limitations stand out like a sore thumb. Windows attaches the menu bar just below the title bar of each window. This doesn't fall apart on multiple monitors the way Mac OS X does, but it has s significant downside: It's not always in the same spot, due to differing title bar sizes and window positions, and thus disobeys Fitt's Law. There is a solution to this conundrum, though... and the successor to Lion could conceivably implement such a thing with the changes made to Lion. That is: Add an option to move the menu bar wherever the active application goes. Since even Java applications can have their state saved (though the support is rather primitive), and Mac OS X already has the ability to fix window sizes if they become invalid for some reason (which will happen more often if this suggestion is implemented), the days of needing to mouse over to another screen just to figure out where your menus went will be over.

The second feature from Windows I'd like to see a (better) implementation of on Mac OS X is the ability to further customize the sort order of Finder windows. There are plenty of times when I'm interested only in a sub-folder of a particular folder containing thousands of other files (that aren't folders). Yes, sorting by kind partially addresses this problem - why can't we put the kinds we want to see first in the sort list? Maybe this is already doable in System Preferences -> Spotlight, and I just haven't tried.

Finally, we need a sensible, one-button "Make All My Windows The Same" feature, in View Options. The current system is a mess - there's no way to tell what the defaults are while a non-default window is open, for one thing.
 
KnightWRX said:
Why not just double click on that sub folder then ? I don't get what sort of customization you want here.
Click to expand...
That doesn't work when the folder in question is WELL out of the current view due to the thousands of other files coming before it in the alphabet. Take Python's site-packages folder as an example. In the same folder as site-packages are TONS of .py files that I'm not interested in, and I have yet to find a simple way to take me directly to that folder I want.
 
wrldwzrd89 said:
That doesn't work when the folder in question is WELL out of the current view due to the thousands of other files coming before it in the alphabet. Take Python's site-packages folder as an example. In the same folder as site-packages are TONS of .py files that I'm not interested in, and I have yet to find a simple way to take me directly to that folder I want.
Click to expand...

What's wrong with Spotlight ? Go to the parent folder, Cmd-F, set "Search :" to the folder instead of "This Mac", set Kind to "Folder", type in the name in the search box.

Boom.

2 seconds of searching on Google :

http://hintsforums.macworld.com/showthread.php?t=92863

Google people, Google. ;)
 
KnightWRX said:
What's wrong with Spotlight ? Go to the parent folder, Cmd-F, set "Search :" to the folder instead of "This Mac", set Kind to "Folder", type in the name in the search box.

Boom.

2 seconds of searching on Google :

http://hintsforums.macworld.com/showthread.php?t=92863

Google people, Google. ;)
Click to expand...
Spotlight works... most of the time. I don't use it for this, because the folder I seek happens to be in a place Spotlight doesn't index by default: /Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Lib/site-packages.
 
Joos24 said:
Nice try, but you failed here. He's talking about ease of use when renaming files such as right-clicking to activate the option. He says Windows does that better.....BIG WOW.... My counterpoint was spot on, Mac OS X Lion is much better when it comes to file renaming. :p
Click to expand...

Both Mac and Windows are weak for doing more than simple renaming. On Mac feature I like is that when you select the file name the extension is not included where as in Windows it is. I'm often renaming a file that has up to three versions like mpg, mkv and m4v.

For Mac I use A Better Finder Rename and in Windows I use TheRename. While quite different both are excellent at doing what the OS should be able to do out of the box.
 
scottsjack said:
On Mac feature I like is that when you select the file name the extension is not included where as in Windows it is.
Click to expand...
Windows 7 and windows 2008 server, when you hit F2 to rename, only the file name is selected, the extension is not.
 
wrldwzrd89 said:
Spotlight works... most of the time. I don't use it for this, because the folder I seek happens to be in a place Spotlight doesn't index by default: /Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Lib/site-packages.
Click to expand...

Why ? It still works :

Screen Shot 2012-01-04 at 3.03.52 PM.png

So there you go, we just "implemented" your feature in OS X. :D

(I didn't have the "site-packages" dir as I don't use Python, so I used the python2.7 dir which has plenty of meat in it for such a test).
 
I really haven't found anything as of yet that I miss from Windows that isn't already replicated natively or through 3rd party apps on Mac.

Aeropeek = Hyperdock
Aerosnap = BetterSnapTool

Those are the only 2 things I originally missed when working on a day-to-day basis, then I found the apps. As far as I am concerned, other features I actually like better on the Mac, for example:

Terminal > Command Prompt (UNIX shell vs a DOS recreation... c'mon....)
Prefrence Pane > Control Panel (Takes 4-5 clicks across 3 separate popup windows in Win 7 to get to IP settings for an adapter)
 
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