[Socially Awkward Solo]

If we didn't know but this one is more educated and more helpful then "Make it Cocoa"

http://arstechnica.com/paedia/f/finder/finder-1.html

[moonmonkey]

Originally posted by Socially Awkward Solo:
If we didn't know but this one is more educated and more helpful then "Make it Cocoa"

http://arstechnica.com/paedia/f/finder/finder-1.html

Good article, dont think some of the changes are possible though, we have come to far to do a U turn.

[moonmonkey]

Originally posted by moonmonkey:
Good article, dont think some of the changes are possible though, we have come to far to do a U turn.

Yikes! I take some of it back, an Address Bar in the finder, jesus, is it still April the 1st?

[Gul Banana]

I've always wondered just why the Fider sux.

[sushiism]

some of it was good but common sense, most of it was pretty damn insane, I can see lots and lots of people confused by 2 ways of browsing files, and personally i'd just be annoyed by it. Also it seems to me if you turn the toolbar off on osx finder you get something alot more similar to os9 finder ?.
But metadata, live folders and labels are good. Err multiple dockable shelfs? O_O madness

[beb]

I just wish the damn thing were a bit faster,included popup folders and list shaded windows.

[KidRed]

Maybe that jornaling BeOS guy Apple just brought on/back who is rumored to do the file system will also have his hand in the finder?

[Sven G]

... BTW, Steve Jobs at his best in the "New Finder" browser...



(As always, the drawer should be available also and first of all as an internal pane.)

Like all John Siracusa's OS X articles, there are many interesting concepts, albeit maybe in a little too "traditionalist" Mac way in some instances. I particularly like the part on Finder Plug-Ins: this is the way to go, IMHO - similarly, for example, to KDE's KParts concept.

[cpac]

I read the article.

Basically the guy wants 3 things:


(1) retain the integrity of the old-style Finder to preserve its spacial metaphor. (no toolbar, things stay where you tell them, no column view, each folder has a single window, etc.)

(2) add, especially for pros, a Finder Browser that can do lots of good column view type things, has a shelf, works with plugins, etc.

(3) vastly expand the finders use of meta-data allowing people to create folders that work like iTunes smart playlists, or the "Recent" folders.

I'm simplifying a bit, but each of these ideas sound ok to me - the meta-data has already been rumored many places, you can choose a couple of options to (almost) recreate System 9's "spacial metaphore" and similarly you can change those options to get something beginning to approach the "file browser."

Mostly it seems like he just wants a little more spit and polish on the finder, which I think we can all agree is needed. (but give it time - it's new compared to the Classic finder).

[SubGeniux]

john siracusa won't be happt till X, opr the finder works like the olden days, let go of it, yeah some of his ideas are sound, but i'm not going back to that old hack of an operating system. Embrace the new, its much better than clinging onto the old. I'm sure the finder will advance for the better in good time. It really amazes me when people want the old classic way of doing things back into X, i can understand it to a degree, but honestly, going into classic is a nightm,are, thank god the apple menu of old has gone, the new one is more sensible, here's to the dock. that old app switchere menu thing was just crap. lol

sub

[malvolio]

Originally posted by cpac:
I read the article.

Basically the guy wants 3 things:


(1) retain the integrity of the old-style Finder to preserve its spacial metaphor. (no toolbar, things stay where you tell them, no column view, each folder has a single window, etc.)

No column view?!? The guy is nuts! Column view is the single best addition to the OS X Finder.

[cpac]

Originally posted by malvolio:
No column view?!? The guy is nuts! Column view is the single best addition to the OS X Finder.

Nope - read more carefully.

No column view in regular Finder windows. Plenty of column view in the whole File Browser (#2 above).

Mostly I think he just wants more polish, and clearer separation between the old finder type stuff and the new.

[moonmonkey]

Originally posted by cpac:
Nope - read more carefully.

No column view in regular Finder windows. Plenty of column view in the whole File Browser (#2 above).

Mostly I think he just wants more polish, and clearer separation between the old finder type stuff and the new.

He wants Windows Expolorer.

[voodoo]

He wants consistancy. I do too. The OS X Finder needs a lot of work still. Mostly spit & polish but also a UI consistancy, like the article is talking about.

I think the "shelves" thing is a neat idea, btw.

[foamy]

Here's my take on what John's "file browser" should be. I took the iCal window and poorly photoshopped it into what I'd like to see as a file browser. The main components are an integrated, resizeable preview window on the right (I hate drawers) and an integrated, resizeable shelf at the bottom. Some sort of forward/back and search functionality is shown on the top.

Items in the shelf can be moved (or copied) to a new location as individual items, or as multiple items via shift click. Items in the shelf would be "proxies", that is, they are not the real items and the real items aren't moved/copied until the items are removed from the shelf.

[fireside]

Originally posted by beb:
I just wish the damn thing were a bit faster,included popup folders and list shaded windows.

i would like list shaded windows, but do people not realize that if you minimize the toolbar you get *gasp* popup folders?!

[SpeedRacer]

He makes some incredibly interesting points. As a long time Mac user, i find that X's Finder has really changed to be much more like Windows Explorer - an attempt to have a one-window file navigation system, a "window" into the hierarchy of directories on a drive, rather than a seemless spacial metaphor. In fact, ever since i started using X, i've felt more "detached" from the files on the computer. Never really knew why, but the points Siracusa makes in this article clear a lot of concepts up.

Unfortunately, you really can't work 100% in the way that the new Finder intends you to work (a single column window). You end up with exceptions to the "browser" metaphor, open up another window, move things around a bit, and you're right back at those multiple Finder windows of Classic Mac OS anyway. Clearly the X Finder is a new beast. Looking at the NeXT system that it has evolved from it's clear to see Apple is trying to give its users the best of both worlds.

However, given this article's points and that we're now 2 years into this OS "Xperiment" the ultimate question remains unanswered:

Can you have a GUI that provides both "file browser" AND a true spatial file/directory analogy simultaneously?

I still think it's possible, yet if Siracusa's use of distinct file browser is any indication the answer right now appears to remain "no".

Speed

[tgrundke]

I thought it was a rather brilliant article. Siracusa did a good job of taking something that we really don't think much about (the Finder) and explaining WHY it is that we enjoy (or don't) using it.

In a way, I call it "information for your 'so-what' department": things you normally wouldn't think about, but just 'understand.'

I think his most salient argument is about the lack of uniformity throughout the Finder, which I do find troubling. The whole "one to one" relationship that is a bit mind boggling.

The file browser I find to be a great idea for power users. I think what he's getting at is something that many of us are miffed about - and that is that Steve Jobs ordered OS X to be different for the sake of being different, and in the process he threw out a lot of concepts that have worked really well over the years.

The Finder needs some major spit and polish and cleaning up - we're getting there, slow but sure.