Burnable folders, revised Smart Folders appear in Tiger
The latest pre-release version of Apple's forthcoming Tiger operating system has uncovered several new and undocumented Finder features, according to sources.
Earlier this weekend, the company provided its developers with the first new build of Tiger since its World Wide Developers Conference in June. After installing the new build, sources have noted the presence of a new feature called "Burnable Folders."
Burnable Folders provides users with an easy way to store files that need to be burnt to optical media on a regular basis, offering Mac users an effortless backup option built directly into the Mac OS Finder.
Screenshots: Burnable Folder; Burnable Folder Icon
Users can create burnable folders by selecting "New Burnable Folder" from a updated contextual menu in Tiger's Finder. The folders function like normal Finder folders, but are marked with a radioactive-like "Burn" icon. Items placed into a burnable folder appear as aliases, as not to disrupt the organization of a user's file system.
When opened, burnable folders are marked with a bright yellow stripe and "Burn" button, placed directly beneath the title bar. After a user initiates a folder burn, Tiger retrieves the relevant data from the file aliases and writes it to a users media. The burn folder then remains on the user's system, unaltered and ready for successive backups.
Screenshots: Finder Smart Folder; Burnable Folder Contextual Menu
Another feature discovered in recent builds of Tiger is Finder "Smart Folders." Although this feature was present in previous builds, sources claim that it has gained flexibility and integration with Spotlight.
In addition to adding new search criteria options, Apple has ditched the Smart Folder "Columns View" in favor of a new "Groups View." This view will enable users to display Smart Folder contents in a format very similar to Spotlight search results. The bright blue location bar has also been redesigned in brushed metal.
Apple is currently distributing build 8A294 of Mac OS X Tiger to developers through its Apple Developer Connection. The system weighs in at just shy of 2GB and requires that developers burn the software to DVD media prior to installation. Additional notes on Tiger will follow as Apple continues to refine the OS.
Earlier this weekend, the company provided its developers with the first new build of Tiger since its World Wide Developers Conference in June. After installing the new build, sources have noted the presence of a new feature called "Burnable Folders."
Burnable Folders provides users with an easy way to store files that need to be burnt to optical media on a regular basis, offering Mac users an effortless backup option built directly into the Mac OS Finder.
Screenshots: Burnable Folder; Burnable Folder Icon
Users can create burnable folders by selecting "New Burnable Folder" from a updated contextual menu in Tiger's Finder. The folders function like normal Finder folders, but are marked with a radioactive-like "Burn" icon. Items placed into a burnable folder appear as aliases, as not to disrupt the organization of a user's file system.
When opened, burnable folders are marked with a bright yellow stripe and "Burn" button, placed directly beneath the title bar. After a user initiates a folder burn, Tiger retrieves the relevant data from the file aliases and writes it to a users media. The burn folder then remains on the user's system, unaltered and ready for successive backups.
Screenshots: Finder Smart Folder; Burnable Folder Contextual Menu
Another feature discovered in recent builds of Tiger is Finder "Smart Folders." Although this feature was present in previous builds, sources claim that it has gained flexibility and integration with Spotlight.
In addition to adding new search criteria options, Apple has ditched the Smart Folder "Columns View" in favor of a new "Groups View." This view will enable users to display Smart Folder contents in a format very similar to Spotlight search results. The bright blue location bar has also been redesigned in brushed metal.
Apple is currently distributing build 8A294 of Mac OS X Tiger to developers through its Apple Developer Connection. The system weighs in at just shy of 2GB and requires that developers burn the software to DVD media prior to installation. Additional notes on Tiger will follow as Apple continues to refine the OS.
Comments
My main questions on the burnable folders would be
- Can they support multi-session burns (so we can keep incrmental versions of the directories on one disk). [I guess this would depend on the answer to "Does Tiger finally support this without going through hoops?"
- Can a smart folder be set up as a burn folder, or vice versa. Be nice to be able to tell a smart folder to contain all files changed in the last 7 days, then burn that sucker weekly.
BTW, you guys didn't splash "Appleinsider.com" all over your photos like previous ones. And there's some weird underlining thing going on with the bold text after the pictures.
Well, except for the *ads*...
Originally posted by Louzer
Not sure I like losing column view (I like options, even if they suck!) in smart folders.
My main questions on the burnable folders would be
- Can they support multi-session burns (so we can keep incrmental versions of the directories on one disk). [I guess this would depend on the answer to "Does Tiger finally support this without going through hoops?"
- Can a smart folder be set up as a burn folder, or vice versa. Be nice to be able to tell a smart folder to contain all files changed in the last 7 days, then burn that sucker weekly.
BTW, you guys didn't splash "Appleinsider.com" all over your photos like previous ones. And there's some weird underlining thing going on with the bold text after the pictures.
Smart folders can now use any view - icon/list/spotlight types. And you have the same view options as normal folders.
Wouldn't it be cool when you click burn, the window/folder begins to turn into flames, then melts, and gets restricted into a CD/DVD? Oh animated icons, where art thou?
Keep It Simple, Stupid!
And the other thing is that there's an menu item for 'New Folder', 'New Burnable Folder', but where is 'New Smart Folder'? The only way to create a Smart Folder at the moment seems to be doing the search first and then saving it as a Smart Folder.
I hope Apple irons out the process of creating Smart Anything. Right now it's done differently in almost every app.
Cheers Daniel
Originally posted by kim kap sol
It makes no sense to have 'Burnable Folders'. I don't know what Apple is trying to push onto us. Why couldn't *any* folder be burnable?
At first I thought the exact same thing; then after further thought I realized that Burnable Folders are just a holding place, if you will, for items that you would like to burn to a single CD that may not all be located in a single folder when filed normally.
Originally posted by dahacouk
I don't get it. Surely it makes sense to do this as an action on a smart folder - such as "burn smart folder" - rather than creating a whole new folder type. Hmmmm...
Cheers Daniel
Exactly...all folders should be burnable whether they be normal ones or smart ones. Introducing a new folder type is confusing and unnecessary.
Originally posted by dahacouk
I don't get it. Surely it makes sense to do this as an action on a smart folder - such as "burn smart folder" - rather than creating a whole new folder type. Hmmmm...
Cheers Daniel
The diffence is that you can take a dozen different files from a dozen different folders on a dozen different networked servers and place tham all in a Burnable Folder on your local machine without moving the oiginal files from its current folder.
While not a bad idea it isn't the best one. The best solution would be to insert a blank CD. That CD mounts. Files from multiple locations could be dragged to the icon of the cd. As items a drug to the CD the Finder creates a folder somewhere out of sight from the user and places aliases of the files that have been drug to the CD's icon. Then when the CD is drug to the trash/burn icon the Finder searches out the original files from the aliases, burn the cds and spits it out.
Originally posted by Louzer
- Can a smart folder be set up as a burn folder, or vice versa. Be nice to be able to tell a smart folder to contain all files changed in the last 7 days, then burn that sucker weekly.
If you can't create a burnable smart folder, then presumably you would still be able to create a smart folder and then place an alias to it inside a burnable folder...
Originally posted by fahlman
The diffence is that you can take a dozen different files from a dozen different folders on a dozen different networked servers and place tham all in a Burnable Folder without moving the orginal file from its current folder.
Chorus: But that's exactly what a smart folder is! ;-)
Unless I've got this all wrong a smart folder is just a collection of aliases to real files in other places.
Using this logic of having "burnable folders" doesn't is follow that we should have "emailable folders", "FTPable folders", "speakable folders", etc
Smart folders are a top notch concept but let's not confuse actions with object collections. The whole issue here is about flexibility and decoupling functions. Yeah, keep it simple!
Cheers Daniel
Originally posted by fahlman
The diffence is that you can take a dozen different files from a dozen different folders on a dozen different networked servers and place tham all in a Burnable Folder on your local machine without moving the oiginal files from its current folder.
But that's still an unnecessary distinction. If you were allowed to burn ANY folder, you could just create a new folder, drag some aliases into it, and then burn it.
Originally posted by dahacouk
Chorus: But that's exactly what a smart folder is! ;-)
Unless I've got this all wrong a smart folder is just a collection of aliases to real files in other places.
Yes and no. By definition a smart folder is a representation of a collection of files all of which answer the same search query. So in order to achieve the same functionality as Burnable Folders with Smart Folders, you'd need to make sure that all of the things you wanted to burn, but only them, had exactly the same metadata attached to them, in order that they'd all turn up when you searched for them.
Is that really the simplest solution?
Seems like the icon/list/groups view for smart folders should be icon/list/column/groups, and that view options could be applied to all folders. I think Apple is thinking that showing a path via columns might be misleading for a smart folder, but I don't think that's true, since it's only showing the path to the smart folder, not to the referenced files inside. I don't see why they wouldn't just expand the view options a bit instead of substituting that last one.
Originally posted by staphbaby
Yes and no. By definition a smart folder is a representation of a collection of files all of which answer the same search query. So in order to achieve the same functionality as Burnable Folders with Smart Folders, you'd need to make sure that all of the things you wanted to burn, but only them, had exactly the same metadata attached to them, in order that they'd all turn up when you searched for them.
Is that really the simplest solution?
Like we said...the simplest would be to allow *any* folder to be burned.
Originally posted by staphbaby
By definition a smart folder is a representation of a collection of files all of which answer the same search query.
Ah, yes, now I remember this is an issue I've always had with smart folders...
As long as I can easily add metadata to a file - like tagging it with keyword or whatever then all this is fine. Like "collect all files with keyword: burn2003".
OK. Take iTunes. You have the library (real files), playlists (aliases of dragged files) and smart playlists (aliases of files collected by search query). Now what we really need to be able to do is *combine* the playlists and smart playlists metaphores into a new "very smart playlist" collection type.
OK. Back to the file management. We need a "very smart folder" where you can make a collection of file aliases by both dragging them in *and* also by search query. That would be very powerful. Dragging in an alias can easily be represented by a query if, when the alias is dragged, the original file is tagged with a keyword or something.
Very flexible stuff indeed...
Cheers Daniel
Originally posted by fahlman
While not a bad idea it isn't the best one. The best solution would be to insert a blank CD. That CD mounts. Files from multiple locations could be dragged to the icon of the cd. As items a drug to the CD the Finder creates a folder somewhere out of sight from the user and places aliases of the files that have been drug to the CD's icon. Then when the CD is drug to the trash/burn icon the Finder searches out the original files from the aliases, burn the cds and spits it out.
Er. That's exactly what the Finder does NOW... haven't used it, I take it?
At the risk of starting another flamefest with kks: make ANY folder burnable? They already are, using the above method. Drag, drop, eject.
I suspect a Burnable Folder does several things that a normal folder does not: warns you if you dump in more than the optical media will hold, for instance. I sure wouldn't want every folder in the system doing that on me, or even doing the check. Talk about bloat.
A Burnable Folder lets them provide a single point of various checks for the files, and provide specialized handlers for specific optical-burning situations that may arise. Using the 'burn any folder' approach, you won't be told that your 4GB of data won't fit on that CD-R until you go to burn it, while with a dynamic checking folder, it can say "You are about to exceed the limit of your selected optical media size by N MB. You need to remove that amount before adding this file. Here is a list of files that are candidates for removal: " Much more informative, and at the point of error, not sometime long after.
You can already burn any folder, but it's an action that has to be repeated for every chunk of media you toss in. You want to make five copies? Drag and drop five times. This way you can set it up *once*, then trigger a burn repeatedly. Slick. Or, say, you can have a backend script that continually adds items to the folder, and triggers a burn, empties folder, and repeats with new files, for backing up purposes.
Nifty.
Originally posted by fahlman
The diffence is that you can take a dozen different files from a dozen different folders on a dozen different networked servers and place tham all in a Burnable Folder on your local machine without moving the oiginal files from its current folder.
Hey, you got the whole point (which just seems to be completely missed by too many people here). A 'burn' folder is similar to a 'smart' folder in the sense its not a real folder, its a holder of aliases to files that you want to burn REGULARLY to a CD (its pointless if you're only doing it once). The files you may want to back up can come from anywhere, not just one folder. So you can fill it with files from various directories on your computer and file server. Then, whenever you want to gather that information, you just open your folder and click burn.
The problem with just making ANY folder burnable and losing this 'special' folder is that you'd either have to copy all files to the folder, which would be stupid, or specifically copy aliases to the files to the folder (which you'd have to manually do, holding the correct keys to get the alias to be made while you copy).
But then you run into the problem of whether aliases should be burned as aliases, or should the original file be copied.
Now, if you created a special folder to hold your aliases, you'd know you'd want the originals. But let's say you just clicked on your library folder and clicked 'burn'. Well, if there's an alias to your music folder in there, then should it burn your 20 GB music collection, or just the alias itself? [Stuffit has the same problem. You can tell it to stuff originals or the aliases, but then you may not realize your stuffing the same directory three or four times because you have aliases of it everywhere.]
My overall point is that you have to think about ALL the possibilities/probabilities before just saying "Hey, ALL folders should be burnable".
Originally posted by Kickaha
Er. That's exactly what the Finder does NOW... haven't used it, I take it?
At the risk of starting another flamefest with kks: make ANY folder burnable? They already are, using the above method. Drag, drop, eject.
I suspect a Burnable Folder does several things that a normal folder does not: warns you if you dump in more than the optical media will hold, for instance. I sure wouldn't want every folder in the system doing that on me, or even doing the check. Talk about bloat.
A Burnable Folder lets them provide a single point of various checks for the files, and provide specialized handlers for specific optical-burning situations that may arise. Using the 'burn any folder' approach, you won't be told that your 4GB of data won't fit on that CD-R until you go to burn it, while with a dynamic checking folder, it can say "You are about to exceed the limit of your selected optical media size by N MB. You need to remove that amount before adding this file. Here is a list of files that are candidates for removal: " Much more informative, and at the point of error, not sometime long after.
You can already burn any folder, but it's an action that has to be repeated for every chunk of media you toss in. You want to make five copies? Drag and drop five times. This way you can set it up *once*, then trigger a burn repeatedly. Slick. Or, say, you can have a backend script that continually adds items to the folder, and triggers a burn, empties folder, and repeats with new files, for backing up purposes.
Nifty.
I don't think you get it. There are several more elegant ways Apple could have done this. Making a special 'Burnable Folder' is just the simple (or Microsftian) way out of a more complex problem.
Any folder should be burnable. There are ways to warn the user before burn (during normal usage of folders) and when the burn is about to be initiated...Apple just needs to put in subtle warnings that don't disrupt workflow. Really...a special Burnable Folder is a joke...it's no surprise that Apple comes up with half-baked solutions at the rate they're introducing new features. They should slow down and plan their shit.
At the very least, one should be able to make his normal folders burnable without creating a new 'Burnable Folder' for this whole thing to be taken seriously.