I f*ckin' hate the Finder

torifile · May 15, 2004 5:56AM

God damn it! That disk is NOT in use! There are no freakin' open applications! Just eject the damn disk or tell me what's stopping you!

I've decided the single worst thing about OS X for me is the damn finder. All I'm trying to do is eject my CF card properly so that I can go on with my life. Does it do it? NOOOOOOOO. I quit all my applications just to make sure nothing was using it. I relaunched the finder. I even logged out and back in, just to be sure. Finally I gave up and just pulled the damn thing out. Even THEN it didn't let me "eject" it. It still said the disk was in use. WTF!?!?! The only way it recognized that the card was no longer in was to unplug the reader.

(BTW, this happens EVERYTIME I try to eject my CF card. I've never seen it with my SD cards. Just my CF card (same reader). )

I fuckin' hate the finder. HATE IT HATE HATE IT.

/rant

stoo · May 15, 2004 6:24AM

In the terminal type:

Code:

> lsof path-to-your_card

to see what files are open at that path and the processes responsible.

moogs · May 15, 2004 8:43AM

...that, or Apple could just make the Finder more intelligent so we don't have to issue Terminal commands to figure out why our removable media won't eject (even though no visible applications are using the same).

cosmonut · May 15, 2004 9:52AM

Oh, I love it when I try to eject it RIGHT AFTER INSERTING IT and it gives that message. I opened nothing. I changed nothing...and yet it still whines.

Yeah, the Finder needs work.

barto · May 15, 2004 9:54AM

Quote:

Originally posted by torifile

I've decided the single worst thing about OS X for me is the damn finder.

Agreed 100%. The thing that pisses me off most is iDisk support. Using my iDisk in KDE on Linux is fantastic, it's like a slightly slow local drive. In the Finder, CRUNCH.

WTF Apple? You product works better on Linux than Mac OS X! Fix it!

Barto

buonrotto · May 15, 2004 10:03AM

This is a known bug with the Finder IIRC. That means Apple should be working on it since it's in their system as such.

sc_markt · May 15, 2004 10:35AM

I find that when I'm doing a lot of work and have to access files in different

locations, the finder makes it harder for me. At work, I use windows 2000 and

its fast and snappy compared to OS X and, it seems like I can find files faster.

And another thing I don't like. Why does Apple set up the sheets to come out slowly? I just found a hint on how to speed sheets opening up on macoshints and tried it and ended up scratching my head as to why it was set up to be slow in the first place. C'mon Apple, when people are working, they don't want to see special effects everytime they have to print or whatever. Speed up OS X so I can get my work done faster and easier!

torifile · May 15, 2004 12:09PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Stoo

In the terminal type:

Code:

> lsof path-to-your_card

to see what files are open at that path and the processes responsible.

Thanks. I'll have to make that a sticky so I can remember it.

Is there ANY workaround for this? I don't want my 512 meg CF card to become corrupted while I'm on my honeymoon or something. I guess I could just shut the computer down before taking it out.

This is stupid.

havanas · May 15, 2004 1:02PM

Quote:

Originally posted by torifile

Is there ANY workaround for this?

I usually force-Relaunch the Finder in such situations...seems to work.

Hey, I've been meaning to ask.... yer handle.... you like Toris in general or one in particular?......

buonrotto · May 15, 2004 1:46PM

Quote:

Originally posted by sc_markt

I find that when I'm doing a lot of work and have to access files in different

locations, the finder makes it harder for me. At work, I use windows 2000 and

its fast and snappy compared to OS X and, it seems like I can find files faster.

Well, the Finder will likely never be as fast as Explorer because Explorer is launched in kernel space, and the Finder is treated on par with any other app. That means you walk on eggshells with Explorer because while it doesn't go down too often, when it does, it will eventually drag the rest of the system down to the point that you have to reboot. I've abused the Finder quite a bit and it doesn't affect anything else, but if Explorer chokes when creating thumbnails of big pictures in a folder, I save up and get out of my other apps before they go south on me.

Finding files for me is a synch between the instant search and the sidebar. I think OS X's find abilities are less of a hassle than Explorer's big ol' search feature too, though I think they could still be improved quite a bit. I hate it when I right-click on "Search" instead of "Explore" on my windows box at work.

Quote:

And another thing I don't like. Why does Apple set up the sheets to come out slowly?

What version of the OS are you using? Panther seems just fine in this department, much better IMO than Jaguar anyway. By the time it scrolls down completely, the dialog and its contents are ready, maybe a second at most? If Apple isn't doing this now, they should set up these animations to skip frames rather than slow down. This is what Exposé does, and in all it's a good solution when my Mac is chewing on swap space. I know other animations like the genie minimizing effect didn't do this in past version of Mac OS X. I haven't really noticed if this has changed elsewhere.

evo · May 15, 2004 6:04PM

The Finder is a buggy mess that needs to be reinvented from the ground up. EVERY time I use it I discover a new bug, quirk, or inconsistency. I'd be embarrassed if I were Apple, especially when you're touting the Finder as a great new enhancement to Panther.

noleli2 · May 15, 2004 8:48PM

Quote:

Originally posted by sc_markt

I just found a hint on how to speed sheets opening up on macoshints and tried it and ended up scratching my head as to why it was set up to be slow in the first place.

Wow! I was just searching for a hint like this on macosxhints, but couldn't find one. I guess it was just posted on Thursday. Sweet.

My main gripe with the finder is how it handles large file transfers. If I have to transfer more than a few hundred meg between volumes, I always use the terminal.

And why isn't the search-by-content based on grep? It's sooooo much faster.

concord · May 15, 2004 10:16PM

On the subject of copying files... my biggest gripe is when copying files to certain servers at work. You get a dialog saying a file is happily copying over to the server - but it doesn't. It appears on the server for a tenth of second, then vanishes. And if you copy blindly into another folder you may not realize it didn't really copy over (which I've done several times

). It's not a refresh problem either, although that annoys me nearly as much - especially if you're pressed for time. Waiting for those servers to refresh their file lists can take seconds... to hair-pulling minutes.

C.

concord · May 15, 2004 10:54PM

There's one other thing that annoys me to no end and again it has to do with servers. Even if I have the Finder set to default view as list, opening servers will come up in icon view. And because our company is very server oriented you often have to drill down through quite a few sub-folders before you get to where you need to be. You can't do that in icon view with the huge lists of files and folders we have.

To be fair, OS9 did this as well, but if I want to view *everything* in list view (and that includes save dialogs) - you should be able to do that! I mean, if even Windows can do this right, there certainly can't be any reason why OS:X shouldn't be able to. It's just one of those things that you have to do so often that even something that may seem like a little thing can be grating.

C.

buonrotto · May 15, 2004 11:56PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Noleli2

And why isn't the search-by-content based on grep? It's sooooo much faster.

Good point! I also wonder why more system and applications' scheduled tasks don't make use of the cron function.

chucker · May 16, 2004 3:58AM

Quote:

Originally posted by BuonRotto

Well, the Finder will likely never be as fast as Explorer because Explorer is launched in kernel space, and the Finder is treated on par with any other app.

Please prove that Explorer is launched in kernel space. Windows' GUI layer is, yes.

Quote:

That means you walk on eggshells with Explorer because while it doesn't go down too often, when it does, it will eventually drag the rest of the system down to the point that you have to reboot.

On Windows 9x, maybe, but certainly not on NT. Try it: killall -9 "explorer.exe" (using Cygwin, for instance), run a game, or Photoshop, or whatever, use it for a few minutes or hours, then launch "explorer.exe" again. No crash, no instability. Just the lack of the desktop manager, i.e. no taskbar, no desktop background, no file management on its own, unless you launch an alternate tool for that (like geOShell).

barto · May 16, 2004 5:20AM

Quote:

Originally posted by BuonRotto

Well, the Finder will likely never be as fast as Explorer because Explorer is launched in kernel space, and the Finder is treated on par with any other app. That means you walk on eggshells with Explorer because while it doesn't go down too often, when it does, it will eventually drag the rest of the system down to the point that you have to reboot.

Why is KDE's Konqueror so fast then? It runs in userland.

buonrotto · May 16, 2004 2:20PM

I'm just reporting what I've heard. I've understood that for years now. I'm not technically proficient enough to check this stuff out. I'm just relating my experience when it comes to crashes in Explorer from my WinXP box, and previously in Win2k. I'm not saying that the Finder can't be faster either. Just that I suspect windows will always be a little faster, because of what I said about Explorer, and I would assume that having the GUI run out of kernel space like you mentioned would also help. No need to get your panties in a bunch about it anyway.

chucker · May 16, 2004 2:34PM

Yes, having the GUI in kernel space speeds it up a lot, and NT's (quite monolithic) kernel design is generally faster than OS X's (rather Microkernel-ish) one. Microsoft is also often criticized for this decision: 1) crash the GUI, crash the whole OS. (On Mac OS X, the whole GUI can hang and you will *still* be able to control the compie using, for instance, SSH.) 2) in some server situations, you just won't *want* a GUI running, especially not in kernel space! (in Mac OS X, you can boot into non-GUI mode, and even *with* the GUI running, you won't waste resources beyond the needed RAM, and even that is managed nicely).

costique · May 17, 2004 4:19AM

Quote:

Originally posted by CosmoNut

Yeah, the Finder needs work.

No. It needs rework.

zo · May 17, 2004 7:23AM

to reduce wear and tear, I've put "spin down HDs when possible".

Fast is, I have about 5 HDs (FW, internal, iPod, etc).

WHY ON EARTH DOES THE WHOLE OS FREEZE when I do some things that dont even need to look for another HD???? Spinning up blocks iTunes in mid-stutter and is just a pain in the ass! WHY!!!!???

I f*ckin' hate the Finder

Comments