[bgmccollum]

http://daringfireball.net/2002/11/th...der_thing.html

bg

[Emotionally Fragile Luke]

Oh bitch bitch.

[bgmccollum]

Originally posted by Emotionally Fragile Luke:
Oh bitch bitch.

obviously someone cant comprehend a well thought out argument...blind as a mole...

http://daringfireball.net/2002/11/thanksfindering.html

http://daringfireball.net/2002/12/finder_reflux.html

http://daringfireball.net/2002/12/we...he_finder.html

[Emotionally Fragile Luke]

Look, here is all I can say.

1) If you don't like OSX for whatever reason go back to OS9. No one is forcing you to stick with OSX.

2) Send Apple your resume and promise them that you can correct all the problems you have with OSX.

3) Sell your Mac and get a PC. You will see that it does not have the problems mentioned in that article. Right.

4) What do you hope to accomplish by posting these articles and threads? Do you think we are going to be like "Oh he is right OSX does suck" and Apple will be forces to fixed the problems overnight?

Personally, I had a LinkSys router that I had lots of problems with, I got rid of it and bought a Netgear. I works the way I want it to and I am very happy with it.

Going to the LinkSys boards and bitching didn't change a damn thing.

[BuonRotto]

point and�

http://www.workingmac.com/article/185.wm
http://www.workingmac.com/article/186.wm
http://www.workingmac.com/article/187.wm

�counterpoint.

[Atef's corpse]

I've used the MacOS since the 7.x days. I love OS X, and HATE using OS 9 now. It feels frail and rickety compared to OS X, even if X is just a shade slower on new machines.

[RMXO]

daym, another article why OS X sucks. blah blah blah. if you dont like it then dont use it. why dont u go post this in the OS 9 forum & say why OS 9 is better. there is no need for you to post articles on why this OS 9 is better than OS X in the OS X forum. everyone has difference OS preferences. if one OS 9 works for u, then good for u.

[mrtew]

Originally posted by Emotionally Fragile Luke:
Look, here is all I can say.

1) If you don't like OSX for whatever reason go back to OS9. No one is forcing you to stick with OSX.

I love OSX a LOT more than OS9 but he is right on about the finder design!

2) Send Apple your resume and promise them that you can correct all the problems you have with OSX.

I can't fix it but he sure is right about the finder design!

3) Sell your Mac and get a PC. You will see that it does not have the problems mentioned in that article. Right.

PC's have much worse 'finder' designs... he even says that.... why bring up PCs?

4) What do you hope to accomplish by posting these articles and threads? Do you think we are going to be like "Oh he is right OSX does suck" and Apple will be forced to fixed the problems overnight?

I think a lot of ideas get fixed by people talking about them and figuring out what the problems are. Why are you even here? Just to shoosh everyone that brings up something that needs to be fixed?

Personally, I had a LinkSys router that I had lots of problems with, I got rid of it and bought a Netgear. I works the way I want it to and I am very happy with it.
Going to the LinkSys boards and bitching didn't change a damn thing.

Did you even try the bitching on the LinkSys boards? LinkSys releases updates all the time... just like Apple.... maybe they would have fixed your problems. Instead you just threw your equipment in the trash and spent more money on another product that almost certainly has shortcomings of its own. Some Apple people buy the best and then tell Apple how to make it even better; why not you?

[suhail]

These are great articles, and yet quite disturbing.
I have run into erasing the wrong folder and thus lost a whole slew of scans. I could not retrieve them from the Trash because OSX does not support move to trash from a Server. And I'm using OSX Server too!!
I often get annoyed ending with multiple windows showing the same Folder.

[Millennium]

I'm going to go with Luke on this, actually. While this guy does have a few legitimate notes -certainly more than most- the article as a whole boils down to "OSX's Finder sucks because it's not OS9's Finder".

I'll start by noting the legitimate arguments he makes; that's only fair.

• No reason for "Replace All" to not be added till Jaguar: Correct, technically. But irrelevant, since it's there now. The mistake has been corrected.
• Inability to change sort criteria in Column View: Correct. This is a real problem. However, note the lack of proposals for just how changing the sort criteria ahould be done. However legitimate the complaint is, without a proposal for a solution -no matter how scatterbrained- it is nothing more than a whine.
• Finder windows still have trouble remembering their preferences: Correct. Though oddly enough, this seems to vary from machine to machine. I have one machine which remembers fine, and one which does not. Very strange indeed.

Now, for whines:

• "Replace All" not being the default, like it was in OS9: This is a serious usability issue. Destructive actions should never be made the default, and "Replace All" is most certainly destructive. If you go by Apple's own UI guidelines, making "Replace All" not the default actually corrects a UI mistake from OS9.
• The relocation of the Close and Minimize buttons is listed as a change to how the OS works: Incorrect. That's a cosmetic change, nothing more.
• NuKernel mentioned as superior to Mach: No facts to back this up. The link provided has little more information than the name, and makes no attempt to draw any kind of comparison. No evidence = whine.
• System Preferences: "Show All" looks like other icons but does something unique: um, no. This would be why it's very clearly separated from the other icons, precisely because it does something unique.
• Non-spatial orientation: No evidence is given to why spatial orientation is even superior. This is just Tog-parroting. For that matter, he completely ignores the fact that by turning off column view and hiding the toolbar, one gets a more or less identical experience to the OS9 Finder if this is what one really wants (click-and-a-half spring-loading notwithstanding). Argument as to why Column View is supposedly inferior to spatial orientation is pretty lame: only one issue is raised, and while that issue is legitimate it has nothing to do with spatial orientation at all.
• Apple roolz, NeXT droolz, when it comes to UI design. Nuff said. Again, no evidence given.

I am happy to debate UI issues. But I want real debate, and not the pathetic bleatings of most anti-OSX whiners (and most blind OSX cheerleaders, to be fair). John Siracusa is a man who knows how to debate: clear, well-thought-out, and most importantly, backed-up arguments. The writer of this essay clearly knows this, as he quotes Siracusa at one point, and seeks to emulate his style. Sadly, he falls short of that.

[Emotionally Fragile Luke]

Originally posted by mrtew:

Did you even try the bitching on the LinkSys boards? LinkSys releases updates all the time... just like Apple.... maybe they would have fixed your problems. Instead you just threw your equipment in the trash and spent more money on another product that almost certainly has shortcomings of its own. Some Apple people buy the best and then tell Apple how to make it even better; why not you?

Bzzz WRONG! I spent about 1.5 years on Linksys boards trying to sort out the linksys router problems everyone had. Yes you are right that they release updates all the time, one killed wireless compleatly, the other rebooted the router ever 4 hours.

I did not trash my linksys actually. After putting up with 1.5 years I thought of a way to return it and get ALL of my money back for it. They I bought a netgear that cost $80 less and works 10x better.

I do tell Apple how to make things better. I go to the Apple web page and use the submit form. I don't beat a dead horse on an old topic on these forums though.

[TC]

Originally posted by Millennium:
[*]Inability to change sort criteria in Column View: Correct. This is a real problem. However, note the lack of proposals for just how changing the sort criteria ahould be done. However legitimate the complaint is, without a proposal for a solution -no matter how scatterbrained- it is nothing more than a whine.

What about a drawer to give us these kinds of options? Pops out when you ask for it and doesn't get in the way for people who don't want it. Only prob with this is I would like them to stick the preview out there in a drawer.

They now have drawers in the carbon API so they should be able to do this.

While they are working on the finder how about showing info for jpegs. Centre of your digital hub but doesn't display the file size of the standard format for most digital cameras.

[DSHwrd]

Originally posted by TC:


What about a drawer to give us these kinds of options? Pops out when you ask for it and doesn't get in the way for people who don't want it. Only prob with this is I would like them to stick the preview out there in a drawer.

They now have drawers in the carbon API so they should be able to do this.

I don't know, I think a drawer would be overkill for those options. Not to mention the fact that the drawer would take up more screen realestate, meaning the finder windows would have to be shorter (length wise, I presume you wanted the drawers to open on the right or left edge). Personally, I think a toolbar item, such as the View toolbar item (the three buttons combined), would be ideal for sorting. When in Column View the toolbar item becomes active, and you can chose from 'Size', 'Date', 'Name', etc... That's just my dream... Maybe one day it'll become reality.

Cheers,
- Daniel

[Sven G]

Personally, I think that, with time, the OS X Finder will become more and more browser-like, also incorporating powerful - and, at the same time, basic - features from other systems; the Classic Mac, "Tog-like" days are over, my friends: at most, there could be the option for preserving the Classic Mac OS Finder behavior, but OS X is a completely different - and better - thing!

As for file browsing, it would be cool if future revisions of the Finder could incorporate - besides the column, list and icon views - also the "directory tree" and "double browser" modes of view - as in Directory Opus (derived from the glorious Amiga days, BTW), for example:

[Mithras]

That article started to lose me when the first two things it complained about were problems fixed in Jaguar.

"But, it should have been fixed earlier!" Okay. But it is fixed. Move on.

And as mentioned above, i completely lose interest with this tidbit:

(It�s also the case that Apple did not need any help in kernel design; the NuKernel project developed internally at Apple was, by all credible accounts, superior to the Mach kernel at the heart of NeXT system. But that�s another story.)

Everyone knows that NuKernel was flopping around, very, very dead, which was why Apple was willing to fork over $450 million for an OS that worked.

[pat++]

I love OS X, and I would never have bought a Mac without OS X. But I think his comments on the Finder do make sens. (I have almost never used OS 9).

[crayz]

You people really are sad. This is an intelligent and well-reasoned critique of the Finder, and you are all just throwing out blind knee-jerk responses.

It would be like reading some detailed criticism of the Pentium 4s pipeline length and being like "ehh well I can listen to my MP3s and play Snood at the same time - fast enough for me. this criticism is crap"

All you thick-headed dolts need to just stay out of debates occuring well above your level of "Apple good. PeeCees bad"

[Ron Goodman]

I don't feel "sad" at all. I am thoroughly sick of all the whining about why OS X isn't like OS 9. If anything, I think that Apple spent too much time and effort trying to appease a bunch of people who will never be happy with the new OS. (And just for the record, my first Mac was a 512K.)

[wadesworld]

Why do I give a rip what this individual thinks? His opinion is somehow special because he posted it to a webpage?

He's wrong on a number of points.

Wade

[GoGoReggieXPowars]

Originally posted by Millennium:
[*]Apple roolz, NeXT droolz, when it comes to UI design. Nuff said. Again, no evidence given.

I don't even think I want to read this link, but everything NeXT did in their UI design was deliberately different from Apple to avoid getting sued! Scollbars on the left, double arrows on the bottom, menu palette instead of menubar, etc.

[JLL]

Originally posted by GoGoReggieXPowars:

I don't even think I want to read this link, but everything NeXT did in their UI design was deliberately different from Apple to avoid getting sued! Scollbars on the left, double arrows on the bottom, menu palette instead of menubar, etc.

But they did think it over before they made their UI.

Microsoft just made many things the exact opposite without thinking about usability.

[macmike42]

Originally posted by Sven G:
As for file browsing, it would be cool if future revisions of the Finder could incorporate - besides the column, list and icon views - also the "directory tree" and "double browser" modes of view - as in Directory Opus (derived from the glorious Amiga days, BTW), for example:

Oh for God's sake no!

Directory tree = list view with no files!
Double browser = why not just open another window!

Don't get me wrong, it beats explorer any day, and it beat anything else available when the Amiga was state-of-the-art, but there is nothing that this can do that the Finder can't, and many things that the Finder can do that this can't. The OS X Finder is still far from perfect, but the only file manager it is worse than (in a few ways) is the OS 9 Finder, and not much worse. In many ways, it is much better. It simply needs refinement.

One thing I'm sure the OS X Finder does not need is 2 new views that are basically variations of 2 of its 3 existing views. I can just picture clicking on the change view toolbar button and this massive sheet slides down:

"How would you like to view your files today?"

Your choices are as follows: icon view, list view, detail view, column view, thumbnail view, double browser view, smart view, idiot savant view, tree view, burning bush view, shrubery view, quad browser view, tri browser with tree view, web page view, simple view, confusing view, 3d view, temporal view, waveform view, 65535 character filename view, widescreen view, impossible to read 31337 view, show me what I think I want to see view, double browser with bacon cheeseburger deluxe and a side of curly fries view, I'd like to supersize that view, and nevermind i'll just type a damn terminal command view.

[Sven G]

Originally posted by macmike42:
Directory tree = list view with no files!

Double browser = why not just open another window!

Come on... One of the GUI goals of OS X was (and I definitely hope it still is) also to avoid having to open a myriad of windows cluttering the desktop (remember the emphasis SJ laid on single window mode during the pre-Public Beta days?): double (or multiple) browser view caters precisely for this need. The directory tree is a variation of list view, of course: one of the good things in DOpus is indeed to have the option for a mix of views that best fits your working needs in one window.

LOL for the MS "wizard-style" caricatural view options - but the optimal solution should IMO be somewhere in between the way too basic Finder of today and something more powerful and refined.

P.S.: Another - this time native OS X - app with the "double browser" interface is the secure FTP client Fugu - rather cool:

[Nonsuch]

macmike: LOL.

That browser picture Sven G posted is terrifying. Some poor Switcher confronted with the likes of that would quake in her boots.

[Vanquish]

By macmike42:
Your choices are as follows: icon view, list view, detail view, column view, thumbnail view, double browser view, smart view, idiot savant view, tree view, burning bush view, shrubery view, quad browser view, tri browser with tree view, web page view, simple view, confusing view, 3d view, temporal view, waveform view, 65535 character filename view, widescreen view, impossible to read 31337 view, show me what I think I want to see view, double browser with bacon cheeseburger deluxe and a side of curly fries view, I'd like to supersize that view, and nevermind i'll just type a damn terminal command view.

I'll take the double browser with bacon cheeseburger deluxe and a side of curly fries view thank you. Oh yeah and add a optional terminal view with lot's of ice to that.

[bgmccollum]

Originally posted by Sven G:
Personally, I think that, with time, the OS X Finder will become more and more browser-like, also incorporating powerful - and, at the same time, basic - features from other systems; the Classic Mac, "Tog-like" days are over, my friends: at most, there could be the option for preserving the Classic Mac OS Finder behavior, but OS X is a completely different - and better - thing!

As for file browsing, it would be cool if future revisions of the Finder could incorporate - besides the column, list and icon views - also the "directory tree" and "double browser" modes of view - as in Directory Opus (derived from the glorious Amiga days, BTW), for example:

how the hell could anyone ever learn to use this thing? its one hell of a mess. as far as the browser tree thing goes, ever wonder why it sucks? look at the left-right scrollbar at the bottom of the pane. since every time you click a folder, its items are indented, it moves over. keep doing this a few folders deep, and you wont be able to read any of the directories, forcing a scroll to the right. if you scroll back up, you have to scroll to the left as well to see the directories above. its a shlty design, and noone should be using it, thats why microsoft implements it.


bg

[diamondsw]

Originally posted by Mithras:
Everyone knows that NuKernel was flopping around, very, very dead, which was why Apple was willing to fork over $450 million for an OS that worked.

Well, actually from what I recall NuKernel was actually some good code. The problems started with trying to port the existing Mac OS API's onto it. Things like QuickDraw being non-reentrant, trying to make data structures opaque when apps had been built already with access to them, etc. And at that point, they hadn't gotten the filesystem stable yet (HFS+), so it made it rather hard to develop on. I have the release notes for a Copland build, and it refers to having to run Disk First Aid on every boot as the filesystem will corrupt itself.

Nah, everything else might have been flawed, but the kernel was okay. That still doens't mean it was better than Mach - we know nothing about it. Might have been, might not have been.

[macmike42]

Originally posted by Sven G:
Come on... One of the GUI goals of OS X was (and I definitely hope it still is) also to avoid having to open a myriad of windows cluttering the desktop (remember the emphasis SJ laid on single window mode during the pre-Public Beta days?)

Also note that single window mode was ripped out before shipping 10.0, along with almost all associated APIs by 10. Now it is gone. There are too many situtations where displaying one window at a time just doesn't work. Imagine what single window mode would have done to Photoshop! Porting After Effects or GoLive simply would have been impossible.

As an advanced option, a ProjectBuilder-style window splitter in the Finder would certainly be cool, but that feature would certainly not displace my desire to open more than one Finder window at the same time (much as it usually, but not always, prevents me from opening multiple windows in ProjectBuilder). I also don't think it such a feature should be enabled by default in application like the Finder.

I think the idea keep an interface as simple as human(e?)ly possible without sacrificing power.

[ASIMO]

Sven G.: Thank you dearly for the headache. The day was going way too well. Did anyone else suddenly get a headache from that pic?

MacMike: Thank you ever more kindly for the Caf�-Latt�-Out-the-Nostrils-inducing verbiage. A much needed comic relief after experiencing Sven G's post.

[Sven G]

... You know, people, there also are power users, not only "poor" switchers. And none of the (IMO, rather non-existing) problems you exposed are unsolvable: that's precisely what Apple is for - providing options (not only for the newbie, but also for the UNIX/Windows/Linux "switcher" and power user), while at the same time making things as elegant as possible.

I don't know... the directory tree seems to be such a basic feature (almost all other main OSs/file managers have it) that it should definitely be included as an option in the Finder, if not for other reasons than compatibility with other platforms. The Mac is not - and cannot be - an island, anymore...

[mrtew]

Originally posted by Sven G:
...I don't know... the directory tree seems to be such a basic feature (almost all other main OSs/file managers have it) that it should definitely be included as an option in the Finder, if not for other reasons than compatibility with other platforms. The Mac is not - and cannot be - an island, anymore...

You wanna see directory tree??? I'll show you directory tree!

[Sven G]

Originally posted by mrtew:


You wanna see directory tree??? I'll show you directory tree!

OK - now find the option in the Finder to have that view (as a left side pane, maybe) and at the same time have other views in the same window: don't find it?

You see... in the current implementation of the Finder, it's "either or" (excessive "simplicity", instead of meaningful complexity) - which might be rather limiting, in the long run!

BTW, why do some of you get sooooo upset when one just tries to criticize some of Apple's too simplistic attitudes? It's not a cult: Apple should do all they can in order to accomodate as many user options as possible - from the "absolute" (?) newbie to the super-ultra-mega-�ber-geek: if OS X is to become an "OS for all", it must cater for all these kinds of persons, and also actively promote "informatic expertise" for as many people as possible!

Ok, end of rant: here, as a merry Xmas, is the most accurate DOpus clone, yet (already posted some time ago, I know) - Worker ...



[Edit:] BTW, the latest version of Worker (2.7.0-1) is indeed also available as a Fink package, albeit in the unstable tree (you must set up Fink accordingly); it compiles in a few minutes without problems, and also seems to run fine with the new OroborOSX 0.8.5!

[Coxy]

Why is it that ********s on MacNN can't take the time to crop or scale their images?
</rant>

[mrtew]

Originally posted by Sven G:


OK - now find the option in the Finder to have that view (as a left side pane, maybe) and at the same time have other views in the same window: don't find it?

Yeah, I don't find that, and am not really opposed to it, but I don't know the reason for that option. I see that all the time on my Windoze computer at work and have yet to figure out a use for it. Why would you want that?

[Sven G]

For example, in the first - horribly complex for some! - screenshot I posted (tree + double browser), in the left, "global" pane (resizable, of course) you could have your entire computer's directories for easy navigation, while in the two browser panes on the right you could have two different folders/partitions/disks (even on remote servers) displayed in whatever view you like, allowing for easy drag-and-drop moving/copying of files (see iDisk, for example); it seems to be a quite flexible layout, which could very well integrate the current view options in the Finder.

Not that it is absolutely necessary, but it could make life easier, while also looking more compatible with other platforms - and even rather elegant!