[Millennium]

I'm amazed that none of the critics have used the word "spatial" in any of their post-4k78 complaints. It used to be their favorite word, it seems.

Anyway, when they used the word, they were for the most part talking about three things:

• Each window remembers its position, and will open to it again after being closed.
• Each window remembers its size, and will open to that size again after being closed.
• Only one window can be open for a folder at any given time; attempts to open another one will simply bring the original window to the front.

Although they haven't used the word, people have been bemoaning its loss in OSX. But I've been poking around the system, and guess what: it isn't gone. In fact, restoring it only takes two steps. It should only take one, but the second step I consider a bug (and will be filing it as such with Apple once their Feedback page is back up).

So, how do you do it?

1) The first step should seem pretty obvious. In the Finder, go to "Finder Preferences..." and uncheck "Keep the same view when you open another folder in the same window."

2) Unfortunately, that doesn't work out of the box. In order to make it work, you must hide the toolbar. If you have the header going (the one that shows you how many items are in the folder and how much space is left on the drive) that's fine; you can keep that. But the toolbar has to go. This is what I consider to be a bug; why should the Finder care whether or not the toolbar is up?

But anyway, the end result is that your Finder windows will remember their position and size when you close them, and furthermore only one window will ever be open for any given folder. It's just like OS9's Finder in this mode (except for the Trash-on-Desktop bit, but pinning the Dock to the lower right corner makes that point moot).

Still, there you have it. One strange bug, but otherwise very OS9-ish. Comments?

and, of course, you CAN put the trash on the desktop if you'd like.
currently a terminal hack but it works. With the trash on the desktop and the toolbar hidden, you can basically have a very OS 9ish finder.
TinkerTool is a great app that does a lot of the common terminal hacks through a GUI. It's dock commands don't work in later builds/Final. You need terminal hacks to reorient/pin the dock.

[torifile]

The different behavior without the toolbar is not a bug. It's a feature prominently mentioned by SJ at MWSF. If you turn off the toolbar, you get classic finder behavior (spawning windows, etc). With it on, you get the single window browsing. I suspect that's why there are differences when the toolbar is off...it affects other things than the toolbar.

[sharumpe]

Originally posted by Millennium:
It's just like OS9's Finder in this mode (except for the Trash-on-Desktop bit, but pinning the Dock to the lower right corner makes that point moot).

If you want the trash on the desktop, open a Terminal window, and type the following:
defaults write com.apple.finder Finder.HasTrash -boolean true

Then either kill the Finder (it will restart itself) or log out and back in.

Personally I don't mind the trash in the Dock, but if you want it on the DT, there it is.

Mr. Sharumpe

[Xeo]

Originally posted by: Millennium
If you have the header going (the one that shows you how many items are in the folder and how much space is left on the drive) that's fine; you can keep that.

How do I "get the header going?" It doesn't seem to be an option anywhere. I'm familiar with XML editing and "defaults" command editing. I just need to know where and what to put in.

[edit: grammatical error fix]
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[This message has been edited by Xeo (edited 03-23-2001).]

Originally posted by Xeo:

Originally posted by: Millennium
If you have the header going (the one that shows you how many items are in the folder and how much space is left on the drive) that's fine; you can keep that.

How do I "get the header going?" It doesn't seem to be an option anywhere. I'm familiar with XML editing and "defaults" command editing. I just need to know where and what to put in.

[edit: grammatical error fix]

Finder->view->"Show status bar"

Originally posted by Xeo:

Originally posted by: Millennium
If you have the header going (the one that shows you how many items are in the folder and how much space is left on the drive) that's fine; you can keep that.

How do I "get the header going?" It doesn't seem to be an option anywhere. I'm familiar with XML editing and "defaults" command editing. I just need to know where and what to put in.

[edit: grammatical error fix]

Finder->view->"Show status bar"

[Xeo]

Doh! Now I feel stupid...

I thought I looked around... guess not enough.

Ah well. Ya live, ya learn.

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