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Richard Harrison · Mar 31, 2004, 05:34 AM

After using the live search facility of a finder window to narrow down the list of files displayed, I find that certain finder operations are disabled (e.g. duplicate). Basically, once the search has been performed, the finder window containing the results no longer behaves in exactly the same way as a normal finder window. Is this a bug or a feature? Either way it is very annoying. Why are certain operations not allowed in a search-results window?

Panther 10.3.3

Cheers

Rich

voodoo · Mar 31, 2004, 06:01 AM

It is a feature. The search result window isn't a real window and only contains links to the files. Different rules must apply to that window because a normal window displays the contents of one folder in a path.

Annoying? A little, I don't like Finder inconsistancies either. The search result window should look obviously different from a normal Finder window.

Chalk it up to yet another Finder UI hiccup.

Developer · Mar 31, 2004, 06:14 AM

Originally posted by voodoo:
The search result window isn't a real window and only contains links to the files.

Actually it is a real window. As real as a window can get. It doesn't represent a folder however. Features that apply to a folder but not to a search result list are disabled. The path popup would be an obvious example. The search result has no place in the file system, so it has no path. Why Duplicate is amongst the disabled features I can not tell for sure, but Apple probably had its reasons.

voodoo · Mar 31, 2004, 06:27 AM

Originally posted by Developer:
Actually it is a real window. As real as a window can get. It doesn't represent a folder however. Features that apply to a folder but not to a search result list are disabled. The path popup would be an obvious example. The search result has no place in the file system, so it has no path. Why Duplicate is amongst the disabled features I can not tell for sure, but Apple probably had its reasons.

Nope it isn't a real window. A real window has multiple view options, represents the contents of one folder and you can access all Finder functions in a window.

Whatever it is it most certainly is NOT a real window.

lenox · Mar 31, 2004, 09:09 AM

Certain operations are not allowed in a search results window because of this : were you to duplicate a file...the new file may or may not fit the search criteria that you used to 'create' the results window. Therefore, it might just disappear, were this feature enabled. Also...where would the finder store this new duplicate file? As you are not "in a folder", it'd really have no clue where to put it. Luckily, it's pretty easy to get to a 'real' folder containing one of the search results, so I don't see it as a problem.

Richard Harrison · Apr 7, 2004, 10:37 AM

Originally posted by lenox:
Certain operations are not allowed in a search results window because of this : were you to duplicate a file...the new file may or may not fit the search criteria that you used to 'create' the results window. Therefore, it might just disappear, were this feature enabled. Also...where would the finder store this new duplicate file? As you are not "in a folder", it'd really have no clue where to put it. Luckily, it's pretty easy to get to a 'real' folder containing one of the search results, so I don't see it as a problem.

Surely if the file is a duplicate, then it would have to fit the search criteria you entered for the original file, as the name of the file is the same, but with the word 'copy' added.

I agree that there might be some confusion as to where the duplicate would be made, if the search brought up different files from lots of different locations. However, if you have the search set to only search in the current selection it wouldn't harm for duplication of files to be allowed. I would like to see that added, as I often use the search facility in this way to limit the files displayed in the current folder (a little like typing ls *.dat in the terminal to only see those files with the .dat extension).

How do you get a real folder showing only the search results?

Cheers

Rich

Boondoggle · Apr 7, 2004, 11:44 AM

Originally posted by lenox:
Certain operations are not allowed in a search results window because of this : were you to duplicate a file...the new file may or may not fit the search criteria that you used to 'create' the results window. Therefore, it might just disappear, were this feature enabled. Also...where would the finder store this new duplicate file? As you are not "in a folder", it'd really have no clue where to put it. Luckily, it's pretty easy to get to a 'real' folder containing one of the search results, so I don't see it as a problem.

I think it would be perfectly acceptable for a collection of files grouped by criteria to be displayed and operated on as files in a folder. Functions such as Path and duplicate are still valid, with the caveat that not all the files in the "folder" would have the same path. One could argue that the Path function is even more appropriate in this case where it is not obvious what folder the file may be in.

As far as duplicate goes, there is a default location in which all duplicate files go, which is in the same folder as the original. If the search criteria matched the duplicate it would show up in the search window by default. If not, it could be shown in a different color or otherwise flagged to indicate that it did not match but was created.

I think as time goes by and various OS's evolve, it will become less important where the files are located in a file system, the representations of which are an abstraction in any case. iPhoto is one fairly successful attempt at this.

What is imporant is being able to easily find what you need when you need it.