Finder interface ...
You know, I'm sitting here looking at a directory of a bunch of MP3s, in list view, and i realize, the OSX finder isn't really great at letting me find what I want. I have, for example, 363 items, and coupled with the overall slowness of the finder in general, its hard to find the mp3 i'm looking for. Also, when i push the 'N' key, to jump down to my New Order songs, ... well, i don't really know what the heck the finder is trying to show me! It jumps to a song that does start with N, but not what I want, then if i hit N again, it jumps to a seemingly random song ... i'm not really sure what its doing there.
At any rate, i thought about directories full of a lot of files ... in unix its fairly simple, I could just do 'ls New*' and get everthing that starts with New... but if the file names are long and ugly, it becomes a tab-completion fest ... some things are easy to do with the Finder ... if you can find the file ...
So then i started thinking about iTunes. iTunes has a kick ass interface. Right in the upper right hand corner, you can just type in anything, and it will start to display just what contains what you type. And its pretty fast! Easy to make playlists like that ... and with the 'Browse' function, easy to get even more specific.
So what i'm wondering is, does anyone think its a good idea to sort of fuse that part of iTunes with the finder? Instead of 'song title', it would be file name, but you could also do things like 'created on', 'accessed last', etc etc ... using the file's metadata. Also, that could all be hidden, just like it is in iTunes, and you could just have the little text window ... if you've used iTunes, and if you don't you should, you'd be right at home.
So, any thoughts, flames, comments? I think its a good idea, but i may be missing something simple.
Also, if you've never heard New Order, you should download so... er, i mean, go to your local music shop and buy some
At any rate, i thought about directories full of a lot of files ... in unix its fairly simple, I could just do 'ls New*' and get everthing that starts with New... but if the file names are long and ugly, it becomes a tab-completion fest ... some things are easy to do with the Finder ... if you can find the file ...
So then i started thinking about iTunes. iTunes has a kick ass interface. Right in the upper right hand corner, you can just type in anything, and it will start to display just what contains what you type. And its pretty fast! Easy to make playlists like that ... and with the 'Browse' function, easy to get even more specific.
So what i'm wondering is, does anyone think its a good idea to sort of fuse that part of iTunes with the finder? Instead of 'song title', it would be file name, but you could also do things like 'created on', 'accessed last', etc etc ... using the file's metadata. Also, that could all be hidden, just like it is in iTunes, and you could just have the little text window ... if you've used iTunes, and if you don't you should, you'd be right at home.
So, any thoughts, flames, comments? I think its a good idea, but i may be missing something simple.
Also, if you've never heard New Order, you should download so... er, i mean, go to your local music shop and buy some
Comments
Seriously though, it's a great idea but I'd prefer a speed bump first.
<strong>Also, that could all be hidden, just like it is in iTunes, and you could just have the little text window ... if you've used iTunes, and if you don't you should, you'd be right at home.</strong><hr></blockquote>
This feature existed in some early versions of OS X. There was a text box in the top right corner of Finder windows. For whatever reason, it didn't make the jump to shipping product. I agree it would be a nice feature.
Something else I'd like to see is the subtle color banding in the list window. It makes it so much easier to pick things out.
[ 11-15-2001: Message edited by: Belle ]</p>