[suhail]

The following cool features were lost since OS8.

Displaying, in a window's title bar, how much used-space is on the HD.
Quickly calculating folder sizes, in a window or in the Get-Info window.
Searching for files inside a certain folder.

These features have been lost in OS 9 why? They were excellent features.

One other thing that I'm quite sure is going to go missing, is the speed of file searching. In OS-X's new UNIX file system, the searching is going to be as slow as NT(I think). Belive it or not, the Mac searches for a file in a 200GB drive more than TEN times faster than NT. NT has to read every file name on the HD and compare it to the one you are looking for, the Mac uses a much better strategy. But I think that this strategy is dependent on the OS's file hirarchy.

I know that these are not everybody's problems, but searching a Folder saves so much time compared to searching through a whole HD. And calculating folder sizes is so SLOW in OS 9, if a folder holds 4Gigs of files and nested folders, it takes ages to calculate, this NT does quickly and (I think) OSX will too.

[Adam Silver]

The cool features you speak of are still there. You have them disabled.

[Cipher13]

The reason some folder take ages to calculate is depentant on the number of files...
I have almost 45000 item now, and its a b***h!
Anyone know if spring loaded folders will remain in OS X, and also will the ability to use arrow keys and Apple-down arrow to open stuff?
Those are my main methods of navigation so...
I know the browser window is faster, but I just don't like it.

Cipher13

[suhail]

Mr. Adam Silver,
Can you please tell me how to activate these features, since I have 'deactivated'!!

Displaying, in a window's title bar, how much used-space is on the HD.
Quickly calculating folder sizes, in a window or in the Get-Info window.
Searching for files inside a certain folder.

[yoyo52]

I don't know that you CAN deactivate the features you say you're missing. I know that I have them working fine and dandy on my computers, all running 9.04. The exception is searching for a file inside a folder, and I'll trade that for the wonders of Sherlock any day

The only thing I can suggest is that the Finder Preferences windows allow you some measure of control over what windows display, although none of the controls involve the features you mention.

[This message has been edited by yoyo52 (edited 06-28-2000).]

[suhail]

The current OS 9.04 shows how much space is available on a windows title bar, OS 7.x showed both how much is used and how much is available. If you get-info on a large nested folder, it takes much longer in OS 9.0. In OS 7.x the result came out instantly.

I'm not saying that I prefer OS 7.x but why were these features removed? Especially the one which allows you to search a folder. The search within a folder command was available in Sherlock I, but Sherlock II it was gone, why would anyone remove the code for that?

I know not everyone deals with a terabyte archiving solutions, but this feature was crucial for finding stuff. You knew what you were looking for and which client folder it's in, therefore you searched that folder. Whereas now you have to search the whole archive. And it was something that NT or UNIX never did.

[reader50]

Searching a folder is easy. Open Sherlock II, then drag the folder icon into the upper pane of Sherlock II and let go. That folder will appear along with available volumes. Checkbox the folder and uncheck the volumes.

>Displaying, in a window's title bar, how >much used-space is on the HD.

Now it gives you a much more meaingful number, how much is left.

>Quickly calculating folder sizes, in a >window or in the Get-Info window.

Multithreading and cooperative multitasking don't go well togethor. Fast foldersize calc were lost with System 8 and not after.

>Searching for files inside a certain folder.

Drag the folder into sherlock, it will become searchable.

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t+ 5 X+ R- tv b+ DI+++ D G e++ h-- r++ z+
------END GEEK CODE BLOCK------ http://www.ebb.org/ungeek

[This message has been edited by s1mpl3 (edited 06-29-2000).]

Arrow-Commands are still there in MacOS X. Spring loaded folders aren't there in DP4, but I think it will be in the final release (it's too slow now anyways).
If you use HFS+ as your hard drive format in OSX (which is recommended), Sherlock does still search the fast way (the technology that enables this called B-Tree), but it will support formats without this feature.
OS9 takes longer to calculate the folder sizes because it does this in the background. If you get info on a very large folder in OS7, the computer is halted for about 5 minutes (even if you didn't want to check the size but anything else).

>And it was something that NT or UNIX never did.

Excuse me?

find /path/to/folder filename.txt

[tonymac]

That trick with Sherlock II was great. I had no idea how to search within a folder. Thanks!

Regarding spring-loaded folders being "too slow:"

I agree completely with that statement, but there's a cute way around it. If you drag something onto a folder, you can hit the space bar to instantly "spring" that folder open. So if you're springing through severals levels you can actually move extremely quickly to what you want by just hitting the space bar when you're pointing to your next destination instead of waiting for the time limit to elapse.

That's truly one of the best tricks anyone has ever shown me in the MacOS. It completely changed the way I navigate the Finder, because before I didn't like waiting for the folders to spring. Now they're almost all I use. :-)

Also, if you have a multi-button mouse you might be able to assign one button to the space bar and be able to "click" the folders instantly open while you're dragging. I haven't tried this with my Thinking Mouse, though, so don't bet the farm on it!

Cheers!
Promot

Actually, Sherlock II can search any Finder selection(s). Just select item(s), start Sherlock and a new menu item Finder Selection appears in the Find Items drop down menu. I just did it and it works fine

Originally posted by tonymac:
That trick with Sherlock II was great. I had no idea how to search within a folder. Thanks!

[Jaharmi]

You can also do a lot of searching that appears to missing using the pop-up menu in the Sherlock II search window -- the one that lets you do custom searches. Hint: you can save custom searches, too, if you do them a lot.

As for spring-loaded folders ... don't forget the delay is a Finder preference. (The trick with the Space bar is neat; I'll have to try that.)

Lots of cool shortcuts like this can be found in the on-line help, by searching for "keyboard shortcuts."

On title bars and drive info: you get more info by using "Get Info" on a drive/volume icon in the Finder. The info you get is dependant on what kind of item you selected -- you get different info for a drive vs. a desktop printer vs. an alias and so on. There's really a lot you can learn there, and with Mac OS 9 (at least, I can't recall where this started) you can change the names of files -- not just their icons!

------------------
Jeremy J. Reichman, aka "Jaharmi"

The one cool feature I'd like that Sherlock doesn't have is the ability to index server volumes. This would make searching much faster, esp. content searching, esp. on NT/UNIX ASIP implementations. NT is slow on file finds, as is UNIX. Linux does have a "locate" command which also employs indexing, and is much faster. You'd probably want a public index, regularly updated by the server itself, that client Macs could access during Finds. Unfortunately, I'm told Apple's index structure isn't documented. There are Mac disk catalog utilities which can make indexes, but the index is local to the indexing Mac, not on the server.

[suhail]

Race Builder,
I couldn't get your trick to work, the one where you select a folder then launch Sherlock II. Are you sure you are using Sherlock II. If you are, then PLEASE explain it one more time.

thanx =)

[P. Accas]

What I don't like about Sherlock II is that Apple has eliminated the ability to quickly select specific volumes for the search via the keyboard. Find File/Sherlock allowed you to use Cmd.-1, -2, etc. to select mounted volumes in order - very useful when you have 4, 5, 6 or more volumes mounted. Does anyone know of a Sherlock II command-key shortcut that I'm missing to be able to do this? (I find the checkboxes - or any forced mouse usage - cumbersome.)

Originally posted by suhail:

Displaying, in a window's title bar, how much used-space is on the HD.

Agreed - though some dismiss this, it was a very quick way to figure the total size of a drive, WITHOUT having to Get Info. This is quite useful under many circumstances. I understand Apple was trying to lose some of the window clutter, but it never seemed that bad to me...

And yes, I think RaceBuilder's "trick" is confusing Sherlocks I and II - SII doen't have a "drop down menu" that I recall (I"m still on 8.6 for various reasons).

[GORDYmac]

suhail, open Sherlock first, then drag the folder to the pane with your hard drive in it. Uncheck the hard drive and search away.

[RichardS]

If you want to search a folder under Sherlock 1, then you simply select the folder, open Sherlock, and choose 'Find in the Finder Selection.'

[Cipher13]

Okay, no flame please. But I really think Apple has to rethink some of their ideas - Sherlock 1's interface is so much better than Sherlock 2's, yet Apple decided to make it pretty rather than more functional. I'm afraid they are making these mistakes quite often - Appleworks 6 has a nice interface to look at, but it is absolute crap to use!
From what I know OS X is ok, so I won't go into that as I have no experience with it.
Another example is the new iMac - they got rid of the cooling fan so that it was quieter. Now I don't care how cool a processor runs, but anything running at 400 MHz needs a fan. A giant heatsink just won't do it (and even the iMacs heatsink is rather small, from memory) and I have heard a lot of complaints about constant crashing, especially with DVSE's - is this due to the bus overheating? Most likely.
I hope issues like this have been brought to Apple's attention, as they need to be rethought.
As of now I am reinstalling Sherlock 1 (theoretically it should work) and screw S2. It sucks.
About the spring loaded folders thing, I have been using the space bar thing forever - I couldn't imagine navigating without it! I'm not a very patient person .

Cipher13

[Herr Newton]

Originally posted by Cipher13:

Another example is the new iMac - they got rid of the cooling fan so that it was quieter. Now I don't care how cool a processor runs, but anything running at 400 MHz needs a fan. A giant heatsink just won't do it (and even the iMacs heatsink is rather small, from memory) and I have heard a lot of complaints about constant crashing, especially with DVSE's - is this due to the bus overheating? Most likely.

The G3 runs amazingly cool, even at higher clock speeds. I've touched a G3 (450 MHz in a B&W G3) after several hours of heavy use and, though it's hot, not hot enough to warrant heavy duty cooling *if* the case is engineered to allow enough cooling by convection. Besides, most heat in computers (Macs, at least) isn't coming from the processor---it's coming off those high speed hard drives, power supplies (it's a transformer, which means it gives off heat), graphics cards, CD-Roms, etc. That's where your heat is coming from.

[suhail]

Apple's hardware chief engineer, is a very respected engineer worldwide. I read stories about him in a few publications, and what he accomplished with the new iMac is phenominal. There is no shielding around the monitor tube, the radiation is improved due to excellent engineering. The iMac is the only Hi-Res color monitor without shielding, that passes government radiation regulations. The omission of the shielding increased space inside the iMac, thus maximizing air volume. This air, flows from bottom to top, due to heat, causing a chimney effect, that cools the processor as much as a fan would. He basically harnessed the effect of heat to create air flow. The design of the new iMac is the highlight of his life, it looks cute but it is an engineering marvel. Crashing is basically due to software, OS8-9 had major adjustments made to it. Mac software has taken second priority to many developers like Netscape and AOL. Software stability on OS9 is a tough issue, many Mac users don't do the Software-Update often enough. Many Mac users don't know how or which extensions/control panels to switch off or on.

[Cipher13]

I understand the iMac for what it is - sure it is an engineering marvel (no sarcasm). But, as I said, no processor (bar PDA POS's) run cool enough to warrant leaving out the cooling fan. I understand the use of convection currents and all that stuff in the iMac, but it isn't as effective as a cooling fan.
Anyway, Sherlock 1 works fine and is now mapped to Command-F.
Check out ResExcellence if you wanna know how to do that.

Cipher13