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Road to Mac OS X Leopard: Finder 10.5 - Page 3

post #81 of 107
10/9/07 at 12:50pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by serpicolugnut View Post

I suspect more people will turn their hatred back towards the dock in 10.5. The Finder has gotten about as good as Apple is going to make it. The dock, on the other hand, has many many problems.

Amen, brother.

This flies in the face of the "It's new and different, so it's KEWL!" crowd, but the Leopard Dock throws away so many useful features of the current Dock...I don't know where to start...

\t-- The new white dot-thing under each active application makes it even more difficult to tell at a quick glance which apps are actually open (is that the "open application" dot? a reflection of part of the icon? an element of the Desktop picture showing through the translucent Dock?). For God's sake, has some Microsoft mole infiltrated the Leopard team? You have to pick the correct Desktop picture to get the dot-things to stand out so that you can tell with a quick glance what's open.

\t-- The new Stacks/Piles/Whatever needs an overhaul. For years I've been telling users (I'm the Mac Guy in a college IT department) to hold the mouse button down (or right-click) and you'll see the contents of any folder on the Dock. Now, if you hold the mouse button down (or right-click) you get the same "remove/open/show" menu you get if you perform that function on an application icon. To add injury to injury, single-clicking now brings up the Stacks/Piles/Whatever view, instead of opening the item. So now, the same action gives you two different results for Dock icons, whereas before there was only one -- click once on any item to open it. That Microsoft mole sure is doing a bang up job for Redmond.

And please, Apple, give us some nicer folder icons. It looks like Leopard was designed by Fisher Price.

-- Stacks on the Dock are sorted by default so that the last icon added is the icon that shows up on the Dock. If you add the Utilities folder to the Dock, for example, the icon that appears in the dock is NOT a folder, but whatever item is first in the list of the sort order(!) For real fun, right-click on the Utilities folder on the dock and change the "Sort by" setting.

Sort by Name and the Activity Monitor app icon now represents the Utilities *folder*
Sort by Date Added, and the Java folder icon shows up (at least it's a folder icon)
Sort by Date Modified, and it will change again (I added the latest version of Skim, so that icon now represents the Utilities *folder*
Sort by Date Created, and the VoiceOver Utility is now your Utilities folder icon
Sort by Kind, and we're back to Activity Monitor representing the Utilities folder

So kiss your Applications folder goodbye...dragging it to the Dock gives me the AddressBook icon. Bleah.

-- There is no way to adjust the font size for items in Dock Stacks/Piles/Whatever, so most of the names of items in the Applications folder are cut off. Also, if you want to put a folder onto the dock and actually make it LOOK like a folder, you have to sort the items in that folder so that an actual folder will be "first" and thus show its icon on the Dock. Otherwise, you might wind up with an application icon first in the icon sort, and thus show its icon in the area formerly reserved for actual folders.

It's a mess. Kiss your smooth workflow good-bye -- you'll spend half your time opening the wrong items from the "new and improved" Dock. I've gone back to keeping everything on the Desktop again. With hierarchical folders gone the only way I can access things quickly is with a 3rd party contextual plugin that lets me browse folders using a right-click.

And another thing...this stupid "Quick Look" uses the *spacebar* as it's hotkey (there's another command-key combo as well), so forget about using the spacebar to jump to the top of a folder list anymore. Buh bye! One more useful feature gone.

This is the first OS upgrade I've ever contemplated sitting out. It's that bad. Really.

- N
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post #82 of 107
10/9/07 at 1:07pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nostromo1965 View Post

This is the first OS upgrade I've ever contemplated sitting out. It's that bad. Really.

Agreed. The "cool" changes are mostly window dressing, while the substantial changes (as usual) are mostly a step backwards. The more I see of Leopard, the less impressed I am with it.
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post #83 of 107
10/9/07 at 1:15pm
I don't know how you guys are saying such things.

There are so many features being added to leopard it's difficult to name them all. Most notably finally a real 64bit operating system? Arguably the most easy to use / compatible 64bit OS in the world?

Spaces? Stacks? Those are already changing the way I work on a computer. Sure Linux had "spaces / virtual desktops", but it wasn't done as well and I work on os x.

What about QuickLook? What about coverflow? Coverflow is a big deal. Being able to read your documents without opening them. How is that a bad thing?

Time Machine will be interesting, perhaps I'll be able to finally drop my Synchronize Pro.

These are just the features that affect me. Just Spaces and stacks makes upgrading to leopard worth it. Not to mention the quicker speed. How can someone sit out leopard if they have a powerful enough computer? What is so bad... really?

 

 

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post #84 of 107
10/9/07 at 1:23pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nostromo1965 View Post

Amen, brother.

This flies in the face of the "It's new and different, so it's KEWL!" crowd, but the Leopard Dock throws away so many useful features of the current Dock...I don't know where to start...

\t-- The new white dot-thing under each active application makes it even more difficult to tell at a quick glance which apps are actually open (is that the "open application" dot? a reflection of part of the icon? an element of the Desktop picture showing through the translucent Dock?). For God's sake, has some Microsoft mole infiltrated the Leopard team? You have to pick the correct Desktop picture to get the dot-things to stand out so that you can tell with a quick glance what's open.

\t-- The new Stacks/Piles/Whatever needs an overhaul. For years I've been telling users (I'm the Mac Guy in a college IT department) to hold the mouse button down (or right-click) and you'll see the contents of any folder on the Dock. Now, if you hold the mouse button down (or right-click) you get the same "remove/open/show" menu you get if you perform that function on an application icon. To add injury to injury, single-clicking now brings up the Stacks/Piles/Whatever view, instead of opening the item. So now, the same action gives you two different results for Dock icons, whereas before there was only one -- click once on any item to open it. That Microsoft mole sure is doing a bang up job for Redmond.

And please, Apple, give us some nicer folder icons. It looks like Leopard was designed by Fisher Price.

-- Stacks on the Dock are sorted by default so that the last icon added is the icon that shows up on the Dock. If you add the Utilities folder to the Dock, for example, the icon that appears in the dock is NOT a folder, but whatever item is first in the list of the sort order(!) For real fun, right-click on the Utilities folder on the dock and change the "Sort by" setting.

Sort by Name and the Activity Monitor app icon now represents the Utilities *folder*
Sort by Date Added, and the Java folder icon shows up (at least it's a folder icon)
Sort by Date Modified, and it will change again (I added the latest version of Skim, so that icon now represents the Utilities *folder*
Sort by Date Created, and the VoiceOver Utility is now your Utilities folder icon
Sort by Kind, and we're back to Activity Monitor representing the Utilities folder

So kiss your Applications folder goodbye...dragging it to the Dock gives me the AddressBook icon. Bleah.

-- There is no way to adjust the font size for items in Dock Stacks/Piles/Whatever, so most of the names of items in the Applications folder are cut off. Also, if you want to put a folder onto the dock and actually make it LOOK like a folder, you have to sort the items in that folder so that an actual folder will be "first" and thus show its icon on the Dock. Otherwise, you might wind up with an application icon first in the icon sort, and thus show its icon in the area formerly reserved for actual folders.

It's a mess. Kiss your smooth workflow good-bye -- you'll spend half your time opening the wrong items from the "new and improved" Dock. I've gone back to keeping everything on the Desktop again. With hierarchical folders gone the only way I can access things quickly is with a 3rd party contextual plugin that lets me browse folders using a right-click.

And another thing...this stupid "Quick Look" uses the *spacebar* as it's hotkey (there's another command-key combo as well), so forget about using the spacebar to jump to the top of a folder list anymore. Buh bye! One more useful feature gone.

This is the first OS upgrade I've ever contemplated sitting out. It's that bad. Really.

- N

Most of the things you list, like the item on top, while maybe annoying are cosmetic. Substantive workflow issues...

1) reflective dot - I personally find this easier to see than the black triangle. Now I did change the black to red and found that greatly improved it but there will likely be similar hack to Leopard. I'm not arguing with you assertion, for you, but just that there are both sides.

2) Stack/Piles and access - I find this a great improvement. I only have one action on the dock to do what I want - open an application or access items in a folder. This is the way I've always thought a folder on the dock should work. I'm sure more fine control of presentation will come with 5.X but this is already an improvement for me. I don't understand how you'll open the wrong thing all the time. One click and you see the items then choose what you want, with the advantage the display goes away and cleans up your desktop.

Quote:
Originally Posted by bsenka View Post

Agreed. The "cool" changes are mostly window dressing, while the substantial changes (as usual) are mostly a step backwards. The more I see of Leopard, the less impressed I am with it.

Try using it and you'll change your mind. The network/share changes alone almost make it worth switching. The previous posted listed the other, really valuable items.
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post #85 of 107
10/9/07 at 3:11pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by physguy View Post

Try using it and you'll change your mind. The network/share changes alone almost make it worth switching. The previous posted listed the other, really valuable items.

Meh. People have been saying that since the first public Beta of OS X. They haven't been right yet. Every time it's two steps forward with useless eye candy, one step backwards with functionality.
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post #86 of 107
10/9/07 at 3:13pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nostromo1965 View Post


So kiss your Applications folder goodbye...dragging it to the Dock gives me the AddressBook icon. Bleah.


- N

ugh... tell me there's a way to stop that! That will ruin the way I've configured the Dock for every client I've had in the past 4+ years!
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post #87 of 107
10/9/07 at 3:27pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by bsenka View Post

Meh. People have been saying that since the first public Beta of OS X. They haven't been right yet. Every time it's two steps forward with useless eye candy, one step backwards with functionality.

Huh? So your recommendation is for people to install 10.0 as the best OS X?
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post #88 of 107
10/9/07 at 3:44pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by jwdsail View Post

ugh... tell me there's a way to stop that! That will ruin the way I've configured the Dock for every client I've had in the past 4+ years!

How do you get the APPS folder to the dock? When I try it, I get the smoke icon that threatens to delete the folder. I would love to have the apps folder on the Dock.
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post #89 of 107
10/10/07 at 3:58am
Quote:
Originally Posted by AlmostBoughtaLisa View Post

You're right about column-mode only view of PDF previews, of course. My error.

My larger point, though, was that the statement "Leopard now generates dynamic icon previews for files ..., similar to Windows Vista" made it seem as though Tiger never generated any icon previews dynamically, with the added implication that Leopard was following Vista's lead. That wouldn't be right, either.

True.
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post #90 of 107
10/10/07 at 5:15am
Quote:
Originally Posted by bsenka View Post

Agreed. The "cool" changes are mostly window dressing, while the substantial changes (as usual) are mostly a step backwards. The more I see of Leopard, the less impressed I am with it.

So what is a step backward? could you kindy post a few of those things?
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post #91 of 107
10/10/07 at 6:06am
Quote:
Originally Posted by bsenka View Post

Meh. People have been saying that since the first public Beta of OS X. They haven't been right yet. Every time it's two steps forward with useless eye candy, one step backwards with functionality.

Don't troll!

Quote:
Originally Posted by Nostromo1965 View Post

This flies in the face of the "It's new and different, so it's KEWL!" crowd, but the Leopard Dock throws away so many useful features of the current Dock...I don't know where to start ... And please, Apple, give us some nicer folder icons. It looks like Leopard was designed by Fisher Price.

First you complain about the functionality and then it's the damn look of the icons. I like the blue folders with raised images.. But that is just me. But in reality they are just icons and do nothing to increase your "smooth workflow".

Quote:
Originally Posted by Nostromo1965 View Post

So kiss your Applications folder goodbye...dragging it to the Dock gives me the AddressBook icon. Bleah.
Kiss your smooth workflow good-bye -- you'll spend half your time opening the wrong items from the "new and improved" Dock.

MIne shows a blue icon with a tiny glimp of the next first item in that folder. As for Workflow, I now have to do a single click to see all the items in that folder spread out before me. It has increased my "smooth workflow".

Quote:
Originally Posted by Nostromo1965 View Post

And another thing...this stupid "Quick Look" uses the *spacebar* as it's hotkey (there's another command-key combo as well), so forget about using the spacebar to jump to the top of a folder list anymore. Buh bye! One more useful feature gone.

I'm sure it will have a disable feature eventually. But does it really matter. Scenario: You have an item highlighted and press the Space Bar by accident so just press it again to make it go away. Not really a deal breaker.

Quote:
Originally Posted by bsenka View Post

Agreed. The "cool" changes are mostly window dressing, while the substantial changes (as usual) are mostly a step backwards. The more I see of Leopard, the less impressed I am with it.

Then you haven't seen Leopard. The Finder changes alone are enough to make it worthwhile. I'm ot fond of some of the dock changes but the added functionality is what is really important.

Quote:
Originally Posted by physguy View Post

Try using it and you'll change your mind. The network/share changes alone almost make it worth switching.

Preach on!

Quote:
Originally Posted by 9secondko View Post

How do you get the APPS folder to the dock? When I try it, I get the smoke icon that threatens to delete the folder. I would love to have the apps folder on the Dock.

1) Don't pull it from the sidebar of the Finder. Click on you HDD icon and then drag it from there.
2) Folders and files can only be added next to the Trash can area.
Dick Applebaum on whether the iPad is a personal computer: "BTW, I am posting this from my iPad pc while sitting on the throne... personal enough for you?"
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Dick Applebaum on whether the iPad is a personal computer: "BTW, I am posting this from my iPad pc while sitting on the throne... personal enough for you?"
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post #92 of 107
10/10/07 at 8:19am
Heh, so many whiners... Since you are the master OS programmers, you got build an OS that is better than OS X / w/e you think is so great. Until that time, make your suggestions and move along. There is a reason some things don't make it into an OS. Either because you can't fit it in the next developer cycle, or because it will ruin something else. It's not always easy ADDING features in the middle of a dev cycle. It is easy to plan for them from the beginning. We all want something in our OS that our OS doesn't have (me it's tabbed finder windows). Does it suck that we don't have those features? Sure. But that doesn't take away from the rest of the very important features like Spaces, Exposé, Stacks, Quickview, Workflow, unified finder, 64-bit gui libraries, tabbed terminal, new mail, etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc.

Do you really have nothing better to do than to bicker about something before YOU have even used it?

 

 

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The reason why they are analysts is because they failed at running businesses.

 

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The reason why they are analysts is because they failed at running businesses.

 

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post #93 of 107
10/10/07 at 12:33pm
I just want the Finder to have a list view. A plain old honest-to-goodness one-dimensional list. But apparently that's too difficult. What it currently calls a list is really a tree view with disclosure buttons and inline expansion of folders.
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post #94 of 107
10/10/07 at 1:43pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by physguy View Post

Huh? So your recommendation is for people to install 10.0 as the best OS X?

No, I'd go back a little further. I'm still waiting for OS X to catch up to OS 9's functionality. Under the hood, OS X rocks. But the majority of what you actually see and use is really stupid.

I shouldn't have to track down and install a whole bunch of third party haxies just to get my new Mac be half as functional as they USED to be 8 years ago.
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post #95 of 107
10/10/07 at 2:54pm
Examples?

 

 

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The reason why they are analysts is because they failed at running businesses.

 

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Quote:
The reason why they are analysts is because they failed at running businesses.

 

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post #96 of 107
10/11/07 at 12:28am
Quote:
Originally Posted by bsenka View Post

No, I'd go back a little further. I'm still waiting for OS X to catch up to OS 9's functionality. Under the hood, OS X rocks. But the majority of what you actually see and use is really stupid.

I shouldn't have to track down and install a whole bunch of third party haxies just to get my new Mac be half as functional as they USED to be 8 years ago.

You have to be joking, right?
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post #97 of 107
10/12/07 at 3:51am
Great series, thank you.

Since people are taking this opportunity to say what they would like to see in finder I'd like to add the heretical request that we simply get rid of Finder altogether!

Of course we keep the functionality but I see no reason why the name Finder needs to visible to the user at all. I know some people like the retro finder icon but IMO it just wastes space in the dock, apart from clicking on it to see what the options were I never use that icon. Nor do I ever use the "Show in Finder" option, maybe I'm missing out on part of the OS X experience but I'd not lose any sleep if the word Finder never appeared on my monitor.

As was mentioned in the "Road To" feature on Spaces the Amiga had its "Finder functionality" buried in the Workbench and it never appeared as a separate application to the user, maybe in this regard Amiga OS 3 was better than Leopard, not just the forthcoming OS 5 mentioned by McEwen!


Nonetheless Leopard looks like it has some great new features, both visible and under the hood and I can't wait to get my hands on it.
Steve B
MacBook Pro, Powerbook G4, iMac, iPhone
"Life's too short to screw with windows"
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Steve B
MacBook Pro, Powerbook G4, iMac, iPhone
"Life's too short to screw with windows"
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post #98 of 107
10/12/07 at 6:23am
Stock trading posts split off and moved to their own thread in AppleOutsider.

http://forums.appleinsider.com/showthread.php?t=79781
--Johnny
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--Johnny
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post #99 of 107
10/17/07 at 11:39am
"Windows 95/98/Me promised to deliver preemptive multitasking, but the instability of the underlying system similarly meant that a crashing application would frequently take down the entire Windows session with an "illegal operation" error."

It's called "sanitizing the truth". While the above is true, what is deliberately omitted is that Windows NT had by 1997 already been on the market FIVE YEARS.
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post #100 of 107
10/17/07 at 11:41am
"Because Apple had rewritten the Finder using Carbon in order to prove to third party developers that Mac OS X could run their existing classic applications with minimal work"

Oh yeah right. You have a source you can cite for that incredible mouthful, PRINCE?
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post #101 of 107
10/17/07 at 11:44am
"it's also useful for scanning through a huge pile of HTML files with unintelligible names"

Oh yeah sure. Especially as Safari by default will save an HTML file with the "title" tag as a name. Or maybe you have lots of HTML files on disk with the name "AppleInsider - Reply to Topic", PRINCE?
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post #102 of 107
10/17/07 at 11:50am
"What is interesting about Leopard's Finder is that despite its appearance update and practical new features, there isn't a lot that has obviously changed."

You can say that again!

"There are lots of subtle, useful updates and new technologies."

Can you make symbolic links? Can you make hard links? Can you see how many links you have on a file?

Where is the "ADVANCED" button for system administrators?
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post #103 of 107
10/17/07 at 2:34pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Fairly View Post

Can you make symbolic links? Can you make hard links? Can you see how many links you have on a file?

I never understood why Apple didn't make its Aliases use standard Unix soft links.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Fairly View Post

Quote:
Windows 95/98/Me promised to deliver preemptive multitasking, but the instability of the underlying system similarly meant that a crashing application would frequently take down the entire Windows session with an "illegal operation" error.

It's called "sanitizing the truth". While the above is true, what is deliberately omitted is that Windows NT had by 1997 already been on the market FIVE YEARS.

I thought AI was saying this in context with the old Mac OS. Then again, why mention Windows at all (and if necessary, then also note that Win NT got the functionality way back then).

ps. I found it very frustrating reading a PC Week article in 1995 which said something like "The OS/2 system's pre-emptive multitasking is more stable and works much more effectively than Windows 95's multitasking. However, Windows 95 is a better solution as it runs in 1MB of Ram, while OS/2 requires 4MB!. And if you need the stability, Windows NT can supply that". (and they forgot to mention that Windows NT required 8MB).
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post #104 of 107
10/19/07 at 1:24pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by emig647 View Post

Part of me is really disappointed in apple in not listening to users in adding tabs. They added tabs to the terminal so they obviously know they are needed in some places. Why not finder window?

I'm beginning to wonder,... All the major operating systems are taking up tabs in all their applications and are therefore ending up as one-window, one-app... Perhaps it is time for OSX to make the move to adding the menubar to the app instead of it sat at the top of the screen?

*runs and hides*

At any rate, fantastic informative and interesting article. Thanks!
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post #105 of 107
10/19/07 at 1:29pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by suhail View Post

The other way is dragging any file/foler to the terminal window, it'll display its full path.

This also works in most editable text fields, including editing fields in Safari like the one I am typing in now, and TextEdit.
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post #106 of 107
10/19/07 at 1:54pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Daniluzzu View Post

Hi!
Sorry for being picky, but you wrote that "By the late 90s, Apple renamed the latest version of System 7 to Mac OS 7.6, and then released successive versions under the names Mac OS 8 and Mac OS 9." I clearly remember my old Macintosh LC 630 running Mac Os 7.5 . Am I wrong?
Congratulations on the article, it's really interesting!!

Yes, there was also 7.1 which is what I was running on my Centris 660AV. And then 7.5, as someone mentioned earlier.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_7_(Macintosh)
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post #107 of 107
10/19/07 at 1:56pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by wilen View Post

Wondering: Will the new Finder feature a cut/paste function for files (something like the one in Windows)?
Moving files without using the mouse, for example, would be alot easier that way.

I second that. I've been wanting cut for ages... It's so useful!
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