What I miss from Windows :o

[OldCorpse]

There was a thread somewhere about stuff you miss from windows, and here's one from me. Usually, I try not to think about stuff like this - you change the OS, you take the good with the bad. But this one impacts my productivity dozens and dozens of times a day. It makes me angry.

Windows has this GREAT feature, underappreciated, I realize now. It's how you can click on the start menu, and quickly access the last file/document you worked on. Oh mighty heavens how useful that is!!! I work on some documents randomly over and over again, and I HATE how in OS X there's no way (that I know of!) of quickly accessing them! I have to navigate every blessed time to some folder for the same stupid document - soooooo unproductive! Yeah, you can create shortcuts (aliases) on your desktop, or set the documents on your dock, but that's not only an ugly kludge that soon pollutes your desktop and dock into a mess, but more importantly, it's limited in space - what if you have a fair number of these, too many for the dock? The "GO" menu bar item in the finder is useless - I don't even know why it's there, all it shows is "folders" which are supposed to be "recent" - useless (and by the way, I can never figure out how they count "recent", since I see stuff there that I haven't touched in ages, and the stuff I've used constantly is not there). Using spotlight is not the solution either - I don't want to type every time I need to access a doc, and often I don't remember the exact name - I just want one click and to see a LIST of the recent docs!!!

In windows, you just click on your start menu - and boom, there's the list of your frequently used docs! Now, this is HUGE considering that I do that many dozens of times a day - the chore in OS X is adding up to a GIGANTIC waste of time. So annoying and a real drag on productivity, no kidding.

Are there any hacks or apps that allow a ONE-CLICK access to a list of docs you've been working on recently?

 

[MacsRgr8]

You mean this? 😕

 

[ZiggyPastorius]

There was a thread somewhere about stuff you miss from windows, and here's one from me. Usually, I try not to think about stuff like this - you change the OS, you take the good with the bad. But this one impacts my productivity dozens and dozens of times a day. It makes me angry.

Windows has this GREAT feature, underappreciated, I realize now. It's how you can click on the start menu, and quickly access the last file/document you worked on. Oh mighty heavens how useful that is!!! I work on some documents randomly over and over again, and I HATE how in OS X there's no way (that I know of!) of quickly accessing them! I have to navigate every blessed time to some folder for the same stupid document - soooooo unproductive! Yeah, you can create shortcuts (aliases) on your desktop, or set the documents on your dock, but that's not only an ugly kludge that soon pollutes your desktop and dock into a mess, but more importantly, it's limited in space - what if you have a fair number of these, too many for the dock? The "GO" menu bar item in the finder is useless - I don't even know why it's there, all it shows is "folders" which are supposed to be "recent" - useless (and by the way, I can never figure out how they count "recent", since I see stuff there that I haven't touched in ages, and the stuff I've used constantly is not there).

In windows, you just click on your start menu - and boom, there's the list of your frequently used docs! Now, this is HUGE considering that I do that many dozens of times a day - the chore in OS X is adding up to a GIGANTIC waste of time. So annoying and a real drag on productivity, no kidding.

Are there any hacks or apps that allow a ONE-CLICK access to a list of docs you've been working on recently?

If I understand correctly, almost...Doesn't clicking on the top-left Apple and highlighting Recent items do the same type of thing? I know it's not permanent like the quickstart thing in the start menu, but isn't it close?

Edit: Damn, beaten to it.

 

[GGJstudios]

Most programs that I'm aware of have recent documents under the File menu. If you just open MS Word or Excel, or Preview, etc. and click File > Open Recent, there you are!

 

[MacsRgr8]

If I understand correctly, almost...Doesn't clicking on the top-left Apple and highlighting Recent items do the same type of thing? I know it's not permanent like the quickstart thing in the start menu, but isn't it close?

Edit: Damn, beaten to it.

Eh.. BTW.. edited my pic.. 😉

OldCorpse, if it is disabled, goto Sys Prefs >> Appearance >> "Number of recent items".. you can even make it recall the last 50 Apps, Docs and Servers!

 

[ZiggyPastorius]

Eh.. BTW.. edited my pic.. 😉

OldCorpse, if it is disabled, goto Sys Prefs >> Appearance >> "Number of recent items".. you can even make it recall the last 50 Apps, Docs and Servers!

Doesn't do anything for me. May for the OP, though. To be honest, I always did "Remove this from list" for everything on that start menu thing, and I've never used the Recent Items thing in the Apple Menu 😛

Edit: Nevermind, you edited it xD

Edit 2: Reply to ggjstudio

NOW what do you miss about Windows? If you take out a RAM chip, maybe you can slow Mac OS X down to make it feel more like Windows, but then you'd have to deal with all the silly efficiencies that make a Mac so.... um... Mac-like! 😀

Is this really even relevant at all? For all you know, the OP could have bought 20 Macs before this one, had none of them work, and then bought 100 PCs, had them all work flawlessly, then bought one last Mac and had it work well and is now wondering. Why derail his topic just to post fanboyism?

 

[GGJstudios]

NOW what do you miss about Windows? If you take out a RAM chip, maybe you can slow Mac OS X down to make it feel more like Windows, but then you'd have to deal with all the silly efficiencies that make a Mac so.... um... Mac-like! 😀

 

[MacsRgr8]

Doesn't do anything for me. May for the OP, though. To be honest, I always did "Remove this from list" for everything on that start menu thing, and I've never used the Recent Items thing in the Apple Menu 😛

Edit: Nevermind, you edited it xD

Sorry, mate... just edited quickly enough! 😀
But, yeah.. I never use it either. I use spotlight for finding me my docks. 🙂

 

[OldCorpse]

Thanks for the replies. To the person who advises to go to every individual app and click on their "recent items" - FAIL. That's way, way, way too inconvenient - having to open up the app etc.

And the Apple "recent items" is not the same thing at all - it's just a huge undifferentiated list of items which doesn't bring to the top the most recent docs; I don't want apps I used, or other stuff there - it's not that helpful. I just want a simple list - the most recently used item on top.

And to the other guy - I'm not a windows fanboi - I CHOSE OS X, I'm just pointing out some things that can be improved, that's all.

 

[ZiggyPastorius]

Thanks for the replies. To the person who advises to go to every individual app and click on their "recent items" - FAIL. That's way, way, way too inconvenient - having to open up the app etc.

And the Apple "recent items" is not the same thing at all - it's just a huge undifferentiated list of items which doesn't bring to the top the most recent docs; I don't want apps I used, or other stuff there - it's not that helpful. I just want a simple list - the most recently used item on top.

And to the other guy - I'm not a windows fanboi - I CHOSE OS X, I'm just pointing out some things that can be improved, that's all.

Hahaha, you misinterpreted me completely, OldCorpse, and I apologise. I wasn't accusing you of loving Windows, I was just making up an absurd scenario to yell at studios for posting an unnecessary fanboy post mocking your like of a Windows feature, by saying stupid things about Windows. It was in no way saying anything about you 😱

Anyways, sorry that didn't help at all. I've never used it, like I said. I use spotlight for finding anything and everything on my computer (hell, I don't even use my dock anymore) and it's been a lot more productive (for me) than anything I ever had on Windows. Perhaps someone will be able to chime in here with an add-on or something that suits your needs.

 

[MacsRgr8]

I think what you want is something like the way iTunes handles these things:
Last opened list (last played), most opened list (play count), rating... etc...

Not bad.... not bad idea at all!

 

[Mueslimonster]

Try this:

defaults write com.apple.dock persistent-others -array-add '{ "tile-data" = { "list-type" = 1; }; "tile-type" = "recents-tile"; }'
killall Dock


Then right click Icon to only show documents. Tried it and it works.

Tim

 

[MacsRgr8]

Haven't tried it, but how'dya figure that one out?!? 😎

 

[JNB]

All I gotta say is...

 

[richard.mac]

how come you have stacks in the application side of the dock. isnt that how Leopard beta builds behaved?

 

[OldCorpse]

I'm on 10.4.11 fwiw, so I can't speak to Leopard, but MacsRgr8 hit it on the nose: "something like the way iTunes handles these things:
Last opened list (last played), most opened list (play count), rating... etc..." that describes it perfectly - I don't mean just to copy a windows feature, but improve it! It would be such a great thing for at least MY productivity - and I'm sure for others as well. To Mueslimonster, I'm uneasy about stuff like this, I can try it though - does it matter that I'm on a PPC (G4)?

 

[JNB]

how come you have stacks in the application side of the dock. isnt that how Leopard beta builds behaved?

This is what you get when you use the Terminal command that Mueslimonster mentioned yesterday. I have MacPilot and that's a selectable option.

 

[OldCorpse]

Try this:

defaults write com.apple.dock persistent-others -array-add '{ "tile-data" = { "list-type" = 1; }; "tile-type" = "recents-tile"; }'
killall Dock


Then right click Icon to only show documents. Tried it and it works.

Tim

Doesn't work for me. It kills the dock, but that's it. Nothing changes, still the same old dock, no new icon or anything 🙁 When I try it without the killall Dock, nothing at all happens, no change.

 

[Xander562]

All I gotta say is...

Yeah, this is exactly what he is looking for. Windows doesn't have anything on this.

 

[viceroy]

Windows has this GREAT feature, underappreciated, I realize now. It's how you can click on the start menu, and quickly access the last file/document you worked on. Oh mighty heavens how useful that is!!! I work on some documents randomly over and over again, and I HATE how in OS X there's no way (that I know of!) of quickly accessing them! I have to navigate every blessed time to some folder for the same stupid document - soooooo unproductive! Yeah, you can create shortcuts (aliases) on your desktop, or set the documents on your dock, but that's not only an ugly kludge that soon pollutes your desktop and dock into a mess, but more importantly, it's limited in space - what if you have a fair number of these, too many for the dock? The "GO" menu bar item in the finder is useless - I don't even know why it's there, all it shows is "folders" which are supposed to be "recent" - useless (and by the way, I can never figure out how they count "recent", since I see stuff there that I haven't touched in ages, and the stuff I've used constantly is not there). Using spotlight is not the solution either - I don't want to type every time I need to access a doc, and often I don't remember the exact name - I just want one click and to see a LIST of the recent docs!!!

Are there any hacks or apps that allow a ONE-CLICK access to a list of docs you've been working on recently?

Another simple option that almost as fast is to create a Smart Folder (a saved search) that you can tweak to show exactly what you want - Documents only, less than 7 days old etc. If you put this Smart Folder in the Dock (save to Desktop, drag to Dock), one click on it will show you the list of recent docs you want.

 

[OldCorpse]

Another simple option that almost as fast is to create a Smart Folder (a saved search) that you can tweak to show exactly what you want - Documents only, less than 7 days old etc. If you put this Smart Folder in the Dock (save to Desktop, drag to Dock), one click on it will show you the list of recent docs you want.

Yes, but note - it is you who has to do all the work. I'd like the OS to do the work for me... like windows does in this case 🙂

 

[HLdan]

Yes, but note - it is you who has to do all the work. I'd like the OS to do the work for me... like windows does in this case 🙂

Now I have to say this, Good Grief. Are we all this lazy? I think many of the posters have put in some fair time (myself included) to look for a solution for you, be a bit appreciative. If the solution is to set it up one time, is it all that hard to do? At least there's a solution. The smart folder solution kicks the crap out of the Windows start menu.

 

[erikistired]

And the Apple "recent items" is not the same thing at all - it's just a huge undifferentiated list of items which doesn't bring to the top the most recent docs; I don't want apps I used, or other stuff there - it's not that helpful. I just want a simple list - the most recently used item on top.

you can change what it lists, i got rid of everything but documents and upped the limit a bit. if you look under appearance in system preferences you can tank applications and servers and change the number of documents listed if that helps. i don't think there's a way to change it from listed a to z to listed by last opened though.

 

[Quillz]

Well, I don't "miss" anything from Windows per se, as I use both Vista and Leopard every day, but when I'm on Leopard, the biggest thing I miss is Windows Explorer. Sorry, but I think the Finder is a piece of crap. So badly cripped and underpowered. If only Apple would stop trying to be overly simplistic, perhaps I could actually manage my computer via the Finder. As it is, I have to rely on Path Finder or ForkLift.

Beyond the Finder, there's not a whole lot I really miss, as Leopard often has its own equivalents to Windows-specific behavior, and vice versa. When I'm on Vista, I have access to programs that mimic Spaces and Expose, for example.

 

[OldCorpse]

Now I have to say this, Good Grief. Are we all this lazy? I think many of the posters have put in some fair time (myself included) to look for a solution for you, be a bit appreciative. If the solution is to set it up one time, is it all that hard to do? At least there's a solution. The smart folder solution kicks the crap out of the Windows start menu.

Hey, I do appreciate all the suggestions - I really do, and I'm not ungrateful. We are all adults here (right?). This is not about that. It's about looking for a solution, like adults. No whining, and no consolation prizes. I prefer the OS X way of doing things 99% of the time, but some things are done better in windows - that's just a fact. Now, that doesn't mean there aren't work-arounds, and there were many good suggestions. I'm just trying for a perfect 10 🙂 can you blame me? That's what this is all about - OS X on top, not just "almost as good" in any way 🙂 🙂 🙂