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TheSpaz · Jan 27, 2006, 10:56 AM

I had to use Windows XP today and I wanted to move some files into a folder. I had this crazy idea that I'd minimize the window into the task bar and just drag my icons onto that.... and to my surprise... it opened right up and I was able to drag my files into it. I wish OS X had a spring loaded Dock. That would ROCK. I usually hate Windows XP... but, I like this one feature.

On a side note... one small thing I hate about Windows XP is that there is no documented keyboard command to create a New Folder... you either have to right click and find it. Or you have to deselect any folder you may have selected and choose "New Folder" from that side bar thing. Does anyone know a key command for creating new Folders in XP? I find it odd because delete couldn't be easier... just hit delete... but, to make a 0k Folder... you gotta work for it... ugh.

SMacTech · Jan 27, 2006, 11:09 AM

Originally Posted by TheSpaz

Does anyone know a key command for creating new Folders in XP? I find it odd..

I find it odd that this is posted in a Mac forum.

TheSpaz · Jan 27, 2006, 11:57 AM

Originally Posted by SMacTech

I find it odd that this is posted in a Mac forum.

My actual post was about OS X implementing a feature that Windows XP had... then as a side note I was wondering if anyone actually knew a command to make a new Folder... not everyone uses ONLY Macs... some people have to use PCs at work but, use a Mac at home.

Back to topic... I hope Leopard has spring loaded folders in the Dock.

Horsepoo!!! · Jan 27, 2006, 12:26 PM

Originally Posted by TheSpaz

My actual post was about OS X implementing a feature that Windows XP had... then as a side note I was wondering if anyone actually knew a command to make a new Folder... not everyone uses ONLY Macs... some people have to use PCs at work but, use a Mac at home.

But this is a Mac forum...you'd have an easier time finding answers to your XP questions in a Windows XP forum.

Originally Posted by TheSpaz

Back to topic... I hope Leopard has spring loaded folders in the Dock.

People have been hoping for this one since 10.0.

undotwa · Jan 27, 2006, 05:54 PM

Originally Posted by Horsepoo!!!

But this is a Mac forum...you'd have an easier time finding answers to your XP questions in a Windows XP forum.

But surely there are some Mac users that use Win XP?

olePigeon · Jan 27, 2006, 06:31 PM

There's no command I know of.

The closest to a key-command would be (and only if you have it) that Context Menu key on the keyboard, then W, then F.

If you're in Windows Explorer, Alt, F, W, F.

Spring loaded Dock folders I think was a pretty big request. We'll see when Liger, I mean Leopard comes out. (I STILL THINK IT SHOULDA BEEN LIGER!)

goofticket · Jan 27, 2006, 10:17 PM

Everything on a mac is spring loaded, except the dock.
You can drag something on the hard drive and keep dragging into folder after folder until you arrive to your location.
the dock is for launching apps, primarily.
This is a learning curve thing and something I doubt Apple will take from Windows.
It seems to add another step in the process, Apple likes the least path of resistance.

ghporter · Jan 27, 2006, 10:48 PM

Yeah, that's a kicker alright. The one really "Mac-like" function I might name is the ability to drag a document or files to a minimized app's button on the task bar and have the right thing happen-and there is NO MacOS equivalent. My head is sore from scratching.

Jellytussle · Jan 28, 2006, 12:34 PM

Originally Posted by ghporter

Yeah, that's a kicker alright. The one really "Mac-like" function I might name is the ability to drag a document or files to a minimized app's button on the task bar and have the right thing happen-and there is NO MacOS equivalent. My head is sore from scratching.

Could you give a better example? I can certainly drag files onto Dock icons and have them open; holding down Apple-alt while doing so forces the app to try and read the file, even if it's not associated with that filetype. Dragging a file onto Mail will open a new compose window with that file as an attachment. What does XP do beyond these examples?

cla · Jan 28, 2006, 01:17 PM

Brings the app/window to front.

Frankly, I still think the Dock sucks. I always did. I probably always will. Phew, nice to get that off my chest. Again.

:>

TheSpaz · Jan 28, 2006, 03:10 PM

Originally Posted by Jellytussle

Could you give a better example? I can certainly drag files onto Dock icons and have them open; holding down Apple-alt while doing so forces the app to try and read the file, even if it's not associated with that filetype. Dragging a file onto Mail will open a new compose window with that file as an attachment. What does XP do beyond these examples?

I'm talking about minimizing a window to the Dock... and dragging a file onto that minimized window or Folder even... then have the window un-minimize and pop to the front so you can drop your files onto it.

Also... having Apps pop to the front when dragging a file to it would be helpful... it works this way in App switcher... why not the Dock too? If I wanna send a file to someone in iChat... I wish I could just drag the file to the iChat icon in the Dock, have iChat come to the front, and drop the file on the appropriate name or chat window.

mduser63 · Jan 30, 2006, 02:34 AM

I agree that folders and minimized windows should be spring loaded. I really get frustrated when I use a Windows XP machine and can't use spring loaded folders. I find it funny that the one place that Windows has spring loaded stuff is the one place OS X doesn't have them.

11011001 · Jan 30, 2006, 06:15 AM

Originally Posted by Jellytussle

Could you give a better example? I can certainly drag files onto Dock icons and have them open; holding down Apple-alt while doing so forces the app to try and read the file, even if it's not associated with that filetype. Dragging a file onto Mail will open a new compose window with that file as an attachment. What does XP do beyond these examples?

Thank you!! I never knew about Apple-alt.. I have wanted something like this for like.. forever!

P · Jan 30, 2006, 12:11 PM

Originally Posted by Jellytussle

Could you give a better example? I can certainly drag files onto Dock icons and have them open; holding down Apple-alt while doing so forces the app to try and read the file, even if it's not associated with that filetype. Dragging a file onto Mail will open a new compose window with that file as an attachment. What does XP do beyond these examples?

You can't drag files onto a minimized window in the Dock and have it open. This is sad, because it's a fairly obvious feature to add. The workaround is to never minimize it. With all windows open, find the one that includes the files, start dragging them and hit Exposé's all windows button. You can then find the window you want to drop it on and holding for a sec over it will bring the window forward (IIRC). You can then drop the files onto it. There are also other ways, like cmd-tabbing and then cycling windows, to find an open window to drop them on, but in general you cannot bring out a minimized window once you've started dragging.

cla · Jan 30, 2006, 05:35 PM

Minimizing, hiding, closing, relocating is a mess althogether. User's don't know which to use when. Hell I don't know which to use when...

papworth · Feb 2, 2006, 08:48 AM

this doesn't answer your question but is a way of doing something similar. ish.
If you've got a work folder you can drag that to the dock, left of the bin, where it will sit as an alias and you can drag stuff to that icon and drop it into the folder. The stuff will then be moved to that folder. Ermm, I'm not sure if i'm telling gran how to suck eggs, but you can then quickly see the contents of the folder by control clicking the icon.

no spring loading though.

ghporter · Feb 2, 2006, 10:36 PM

Maybe I should explain what hasn't worked for me. Safari should let me drag an HTML file to it and open it, right? I haven't gotten that to work yet, though I can open these files from Safari. And I have similar issues with both Text Edit and Word doing similar things -- or rather similarly not doing what I expect with appropriate files. I haven't tried with other apps because of these problems on our iBook. Maybe I just don't have enough experience on it, or maybe it's not configured right or something, but this is something I really expected to see OS X do, and I haven't gotten it working yet.

ApeInTheShell · Feb 2, 2006, 11:11 PM

If you use TextEdit than you need to change the document to plain text. After you have written your code, uncheck the "include .txt extension" box and save as an html file. Than drag your file(s) from their new location and onto the Safari icon.

The personal assistants like the searching dog that sniffs around and the paper clip that gives you advice about your documents. That would be one killer feature!

ghporter · Feb 3, 2006, 08:03 PM

Ape, thanks. That's indeed the kind of Safari issue I was messing with, and it's something I had just completely failed to consider. Thanks!

As for the search puppie and Clippie, well they're annoying more than they're helpful. The puppie uses up resources and you often have to wait for him to stop his animation before you can move forward. Clippie is, well, irritating. He comes up with WRONG advice more often than not-much like MS's grammar checker (you'd think they'd make it understand tense and number agreement, like any 5th grader, but NOOOO). My wife uses the kitty with Word on her iBook, so these assistants are there in Office, but I don't even install them on my Windows machines.

ApeInTheShell · Feb 4, 2006, 01:38 AM

Searching for 'Windows' in Mac OS X is more helpful than searching for 'Mac' in Windows XP. Seriously, the help system in Windows XP is not helpful

ApeInTheShell · Feb 4, 2006, 01:39 AM

Oh yeah, I just saved money on my car insurance by switching to Geico.

NeilCharter · Feb 4, 2006, 01:52 AM

The feature that I like in Windows is if you copy something from one application and paste it into say word or powerpoint, that the object can be opened from the orignal program. This is great if you need to edit the object - it is not necessary to to go back to the orignial file, edit, copy and paste again.

techtrucker · Feb 4, 2006, 07:14 AM

Yeah, I remember dragging folders to the bottom of the screen and having them turn into tabs, ready to spring into action. That was either OS 9 or 8.x (8.5.1?). Maybe there's still hope, they did implement Labels...

SMacTech · Feb 4, 2006, 09:52 AM

Originally Posted by ghporter

Safari should let me drag an HTML file to it and open it, right? I haven't gotten that to work yet, though I can open these files from Safari.

I do this ALL the time. Well I drag then to the Safari dock icon and the html files are from several source programs.

Horsepoo!!! · Feb 4, 2006, 03:24 PM

Originally Posted by NeilCharter

The feature that I like in Windows is if you copy something from one application and paste it into say word or powerpoint, that the object can be opened from the orignal program. This is great if you need to edit the object - it is not necessary to to go back to the orignial file, edit, copy and paste again.

As a counterpoint, I feel like flinging the PC across the room when I want to copy or rename a file within Explorer or send it via MSN (or whatever IM) but I can't because the file is open. Can you believe that ****? It's like I'm using an OS from the stoneages. System 6 allowed one to move files around the HD even if they were already open...why the heck can't XP do it?

ghporter · Feb 5, 2006, 12:34 PM

Originally Posted by Horsepoo!!!

As a counterpoint, I feel like flinging the PC across the room when I want to copy or rename a file within Explorer or send it via MSN (or whatever IM) but I can't because the file is open. Can you believe that ****? It's like I'm using an OS from the stoneages. System 6 allowed one to move files around the HD even if they were already open...why the heck can't XP do it?

The thing here is that the OS doesn't know which version to send-the original, the edited version? So it won't let you send a file that's open in another application because it really can't tell what to send. Can you do that in OS X? (I've never tried, frankly.)

Horsepoo!!! · Feb 5, 2006, 03:06 PM

Originally Posted by ghporter

The thing here is that the OS doesn't know which version to send-the original, the edited version? So it won't let you send a file that's open in another application because it really can't tell what to send. Can you do that in OS X? (I've never tried, frankly.)

Huh? It should send whatever was saved last. That's how OS X does it. It's not magic. Why can't XP do it? They're afraid people will send something without saving first and then wonder why their unsaved changes weren't sent?

edit: Ok, OS X sucks too. I just wrote something in TextEdit, saved it, moved the file elsewhere, wrote a bit more in the TextEdit document, saved it, and it created a new copy of the file where it was first saved. Bad, OS X, bad.

Still...you can send a file even though it's opened within a program. That's already a big plus for OS X.

I don't understand why the two most modern OSs can't even keep track of files and versioning.

ghporter · Feb 5, 2006, 03:22 PM

Sure, send the saved version. Except that, to keep other processes from messing with your document, Windows usually locks the file so only the app that's currently editing the file can access it. This is typically found with Word and other Office apps; they will cooperate with each other, but they don't want something else wandering in and goofing up what they're doing.

I ain't sayin' it's "good," only that's how it works and why...