Making Finder column sizes permanent?

Posted:
in Genius Bar edited January 2014
I enjoy using the Finder, it's a very good solution, much easier to use than Windows Explorer and it's trees. However, i get a bit ticked off with having to resize the colums all the time to see different sized filenames.



I've got the Finder set to open all windows in column view, but i can't figure out how to resize the colums and then make those sizes permanent. Is there a way to do this? If so, how do you do it?

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 11
    mr. hmr. h Posts: 4,870member
    Hi Maffrew,



    Welcome to OS X! (I assume you are new due to the Windows Explorer comment)



    Unfortunately, there is no way to do what you want to do. This ticks me off too. (I've been thinking of starting a thread about OS X things that annoy me...)



    Given that column view is Job's favourite (it's the default view in the NeXT OS), I find it surprising that it has a very, very poor number of options relative to traditional classic OS list and folder views. For example, why can't columns have background pictures or colours? Why can't I control the size of the icons in column view? Why can't I keep items in column view arranged by something other than name? And why, like you say, can the Finder not remember column widths? It is incredibly annoying, especially when you consider it should take a competent, experienced programmer an absolute maximum of a week to implement all these things. grrr.



    All I can do is suggest that you leave feedback for Apple on this issue:



    http://www.apple.com/macosx/feedback/
  • Reply 2 of 11
    Hey, thanks for the informative reply!



    I totally forgot i'd started this thread and only just found it again, oops.



    I am indeed new to OS X. Generally I really, really enjoy it. It's certainly the best OS i've used to date. However, as you say, it's small things like this that niggle at me.



    I'll leave feedback at Apple and hope that one day we get what we want
  • Reply 3 of 11
    I thought you could?



    This is completely from memory and I am not sitting at my laptop to test it, so I could be completely wrong.



    Experiment with dragging the columns while holding the option key (or was it one of the other keys).



    As I said not sure if it is correct. I can only be wrong (and get flamed by the masses!)



  • Reply 4 of 11
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Mr. H

    ...

    Why can't I keep items in column view arranged by something other than name?

    ...




    This is the point to be adressed.
  • Reply 5 of 11
    You can do what the original poster inquired about by holding the OPTION key when dragging the columns to a new size.



    Just position your cursor over the area in the scrollbar that has two little lines on it and hold OPTION and drag the bar to the size of the column you want. This will effect all columns but will remain if you close the finder and open it again.



    rberry88
  • Reply 6 of 11
    mr. hmr. h Posts: 4,870member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by rberry88

    You can do what the original poster inquired about by holding the OPTION key when dragging the columns to a new size.



    Just position your cursor over the area in the scrollbar that has two little lines on it and hold OPTION and drag the bar to the size of the column you want. This will effect all columns but will remain if you close the finder and open it again.



    rberry88




    Cheers rberry, didn't know you could do that.



    Whilst this is helpful, it isn't exactly what is required. It should be possible to resize individual columns and have their sizes remembered. Maybe one day...
  • Reply 7 of 11
    rokrok Posts: 3,519member
    i think the big problem would be, how would you store this information? would the system need to store "column width" for each possible view of a directory? right now, the finder only has to recall one number for column view, which i assume is more efficient from the OS's point-of-view.



    i think the closest you could hope for is a global "finder column view" setting, where you could toggle a switch saying "automatically resize columns to best fit", and holding the option key while opening a new finder window would disable that back to a default setting. this does open a problem where a directory has one very long named file, and you'd have to scroll laterally to find that slider thumb to crank it back.



    if it helps any, right now, you can double-click on the slider thumb between the columns for a quick "best fit." of course, this is lost after you close the window.



    i would like some straightforward "example window" where you could set all of these settings at once, instead of the mysterious "open a new window, set it the way you want it, close it, and then those settings will stick" undocumented way.
  • Reply 8 of 11
    mr. hmr. h Posts: 4,870member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by rok

    i think the big problem would be, how would you store this information?



    If they can do it for classic view and list view, they can do it for column view. I believe an individual window's view preferences for classic and list views are stored in the invisible ".DS_Store" file in that directory (i.e. the classic view preferences for ~/documents/ is stored in ~/documents/.DS_Store)



    Quote:

    Originally posted by rok

    i would like some straightforward "example window" where you could set all of these settings at once, instead of the mysterious "open a new window, set it the way you want it, close it, and then those settings will stick" undocumented way.



    That's a very good idea, have you suggested it to Apple?
  • Reply 9 of 11
    maccrazymaccrazy Posts: 2,658member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by rok

    i would like some straightforward "example window" where you could set all of these settings at once, instead of the mysterious "open a new window, set it the way you want it, close it, and then those settings will stick" undocumented way.



    It's not very good for an intuitive, state of the art operating system.
  • Reply 10 of 11
    mr. hmr. h Posts: 4,870member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by MacCrazy

    It's not very good for an intuitive, state of the art operating system.



    Sorry to ask a dumb question, but what is not very good: the suggestion or the current behaviour?



    I assume you mean the current behaviour, but I thought I'd check.
  • Reply 11 of 11
    maccrazymaccrazy Posts: 2,658member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Mr. H

    Sorry to ask a dumb question, but what is not very good: the suggestion or the current behaviour?



    I assume you mean the current behaviour, but I thought I'd check.




    sorry - I'll clarify, it's not very good for a 'state of the art operating system' to not allow the user to specify how he/she wants the computer to run. Apple have always lacked in the customisation department but altering the column width and then closing the window is not an intuitive way to save how you want you're folder to be. Although everybody has worked it out!



    The problem with column view is that in finder you set the window width, in column you have the individual windows and their columns, it is quite complicated to save preferences for each folder - it's also nice to change things temporarily! Maybe an automatic resize option would be best. But the first paragraph answers your question.
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