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kcmac · Oct 28, 2003, 09:28 AM

I really enjoy the Mac OS and this has been enhanced with Panther. Still, I find some things confusing and wonder why they are as they are.

Zipping a file.

Why is this called "Archive" in the finder File menu?

Faxing a file.

Why is this found under "Print"?

Creating a PDF.

Why is this found under "Print"?

Panther lets you do a lot of things out of the box. Why the confusing terminology and unneccessary clicking? I would like to go to the file menu and click on Zip this file (Or compress file), Make a PDF, Make a Fax, etc and for the appropriate window to come up.

ZackS · Oct 28, 2003, 10:50 AM

A compressed file is called an archive.

Faxing has always been in the print dialog since the super happy fun classic days.

Creating a PDF is a function of print services, not the application.

Developer · Oct 28, 2003, 11:27 AM

Originally posted by kcmac:
Zipping a file.

Why is this called "Archive" in the finder File menu?

Because "zipping" means nothing to computer illiterate people (that's the other 90% that is not on this forum and in our circle of friends. "Compress" might have been a better term.

Faxing a file.

Why is this found under "Print"?

Because faxing is printing to a remote printer.

Creating a PDF.

Why is this found under "Print"?

This is for technical reasons. Every app is free to add PDF as file format to save, but automatic PDF support is only possible via printing.

kcmac · Oct 28, 2003, 11:57 AM

Does the average person think of faxing as "remote printing"? I don't think so. In fact I know as much. Responding that this is the way it has always been done is not good enough.

While technically it really is printing, what would be wrong listing it as "send fax" or "create fax" in the menu bar. It could then take you to the print window for final setup, etc.

Same with PDF. Does the average person think of PDF as a printing method? I would think it is thought of more as a cross platform way of displaying your documents. (I guess you could probably ask if the average person even uses the PDF feature.)

Clicking on "make/create PDF" could take you to the printing windows for set up, etc.

They should use the word "compress file". Archive to the average and most users means backup. In fact, that's what it means in mail, does it not?

I don't think using more simple and direct terminology dumbs down the system. Making things easier and more intuitive makes the system and the user smarter.

redwood · Oct 28, 2003, 12:59 PM

You gotta love it when a new OS comes out and four days later the active gripe on the local forum board is why faxing is under the print menu. I think that's a good sign for panther.

Thanks though, I had no idea you could archive from the finder menu, that's cool!!

Chuckit · Oct 28, 2003, 02:36 PM

Originally posted by kcmac:
Does the average person think of faxing as "remote printing"? I don't think so. In fact I know as much. Responding that this is the way it has always been done is not good enough.

While technically it really is printing, what would be wrong listing it as "send fax" or "create fax" in the menu bar. It could then take you to the print window for final setup, etc.

Same with PDF. Does the average person think of PDF as a printing method?

The thing is, Apple does not control what third parties put in their menu bar. Every app would have to have been updated to take advantage of the Save As PDF feature, and then again to take advantage of the Fax feature. The only way to give the option globally is to put it in an already-existing menu item that uses the same underlying mechanism -- Print.

This isn't the ideal situation, I agree, but this is the best Apple could do. If you want a more logically placed Save As PDF option, go complain to the developers of apps who don't have one. Apple isn't stopping them from doing it themselves.

proton · Oct 28, 2003, 11:51 PM

Originally posted by kcmac:
While technically it really is printing, what would be wrong listing it as "send fax" or "create fax" in the menu bar. It could then take you to the print window for final setup, etc.

The OS does not control what menu items an application puts in its own menus. While technically Apple could code the OS to add a "Fax" item underneath a "Print" item every time a Print item is created, this would be a very ugly hack. It is not something that is good for doing at the OS level for many many reasons.

It is much more sensible to just put it in the Print dialog box. If someone can't find the Fax feature, they can check the Help or ask a friend. Once they've been told once to find something like Fax in the Print box, they won't think twice about it.

- proton

lenox · Oct 29, 2003, 09:53 AM

As for calling zip files archives...a zip file _is_ an archive, even according to stuffit (in it's contextual menu).

Having the fax and pdf options under the print dialog has always made sense to me. I believe (at least with pdf) this is how it's done in Windows, too (i.e. 'print to pdf').

I guess I am not the 'average joe', but, truthfully, is there anyone that uses mac os x that would be considered the average joe?

malvolio · Oct 29, 2003, 02:54 PM

Originally posted by lenox:
I guess I am not the 'average joe', but, truthfully, is there anyone that uses mac os x that would be considered the average joe?

My wife. Well, an "average Jane" anyway.

If it weren't for me, she would still be using OS 9.

Brass · Oct 29, 2003, 04:18 PM

1. ARCHIVE. This is a correct term, however I agree that it could be made more specific. I disagree that it should be "zip", even though it produces a zip archive. "Compress" is probably best, and I wonder why Apple didn't use that term, as it is more specific that "archive" and not specific to any type of archive. BTW, I think that archive is not specific enough, because archive does not necessarily imply compression (take "tar" for example, which produces old unix style tape archive files which archive a group of files into a single file, preserving all ownership/permissions, but does NO compression). Perhaps Apple used "archive" instead of "compress" because they wanted to make the system more modular, such that one day it could do any one of a set of user-configurable actions (eg, tar, zip, stuff, etc).

2 & 3. These are very similar. I actually agree with you that it is confusing for newbies to have these accessed only by the Print command. Although for technical reasons it makes sense, we should not be designing these things for techies, but for simple users (especially in the Mac world!). However, having said that, Apple does NOT tell developers what commands to put in their menu, therefore you cannot blame the OS, but only the developers for this omission. Any developer could add a "Fax..." and/or "Save as PDF..." command to their "File" menu (or whereever they wanted) that would then hook into Apple's printing API's using either the standard printing dialogue configured to fax/pdf instead of normal print, or using their own custom dialogue that for only fax/pdf. Again, this is a developer issue, not an OS issue. Apple provides the API's in the OS and it's up to developers to decide how they use them.

Orion27 · Oct 29, 2003, 05:10 PM

Apple was always and is about elegance sniff sniff. Compress is just a little too low brow,
especially if you reall want to 'archive" sniff sniff. It's about the language my good fellow, the language, sniff sniff..

MickS · Oct 31, 2003, 05:30 AM

To me "compress" would indicate that the file(s) selected would be compressed in place. The current versions would be replaced by a compressed version of them.

"Archive" creates a compressed file containing the file(s) selected.

tooki · Oct 31, 2003, 08:03 AM

"Archive" means combining multiple files into one file. Compressing means shrinking files (individually). Zip archives are archives that use ZIP compression (that is, it's a compressed archive).

tooki

fat mac moron · Oct 31, 2003, 08:34 AM

I just wish Apple would have added a keyboard shortcut for creating zip files.