[Weyland-Yutani]

Originally Posted by OreoCookie

I think Apple is simply convinced that an OS9 style Finder can't cope with today's challenges as well as OS X' Finder which is already very much beyond NeXT's file manager. I for one prefer the new style as do all Mac heads I have personally met.

Yes and I personally prefer spacial orientation.

Apple is not convinced of anything. It is a company that will do whatever they think will make them the most money. If that would be making the Finder truly spacial again, then that's exactly what would happen. Right now they aren't taking any chances and holding on to most of the spacial elements without going all the way.

Whatever. As soon as Apple feels they need to distinct themselves from the sheep (i.e. Windows users and some people posing in this thread) they'll go for perfect spaciality.

cheers

W-Y

[Horsepoo!!!]

Originally Posted by Weyland-Yutani

Yes and I personally prefer spacial orientation.

Apple is not convinced of anything. It is a company that will do whatever they think will make them the most money. If that would be making the Finder truly spacial again, then that's exactly what would happen. Right now they aren't taking any chances and holding on to most of the spacial elements without going all the way.

Whatever. As soon as Apple feels they need to distinct themselves from the sheep (i.e. Windows users and some people posing in this thread) they'll go for perfect spaciality.

cheers

W-Y

Maybe you're not understanding the difference between OS 9 and what Apple's current goal when it comes to browsing your HD.

OS 9 (and previous Mac OS versions) *required* that someone be organized. Back in the days, someone that was disorganized and didn't bother creating folders to group files wasn't hugely at a disadvantage over someone that was organized and grouped everything logically. Why? Because there just wasn't a whole lot of files to organize or lose. So it wasn't a very big problem.

Today, it's becoming increasingly difficult for people that are disorganized to find things on the computer. A lot of people have accumulated a lot of files over the last several years. Digital photography has allowed people to store thousands of pictures on their computers. The internet has allowed people to pirate thousands of songs (or store thousands of legit copies of their songs if you want to look at it the other way). Soon people will store hundreds of movies on their computer. Mail. Contacts. IM conversations. Bookmarks. Widgets. etc.

Do you seriously expect a spatial environment to satisfy everyone?

A computer is a tool. It's supposed to things easier. Spending time to manually categorize files isn't easy or fun to most people.

The current spatial Finder (even though it is less spatial than OS 9 was) and the metadata browser that Apple is slowly moving towards can coexist. But the Finder just can't be the default browser because the Finder is currently biased towards the folks that love manual organization while metadata browsing can cater to both (there certainly is a way to fit spatiality with metadata by limiting manipulation of metadata.)

[mAxximo]

A computer is a tool. It's supposed to things easier. Spending time to manually categorize files isn't easy or fun to most people.

Don't forget that the Mac used to be the tool of choice of the entire creative industry. When you are creating content, what you call “manually categorising files” translates into “putting what I just created in a place that makes sense”. That won't change. For those using their computers for passive entertaintment it may work, but there's no way we will start dumping our files all over the HD just because there's Spotlight to find them later.

[JLL]

Originally Posted by Weyland-Yutani

Whatever. As soon as Apple feels they need to distinct themselves from the sheep (i.e. Windows users and some people posing in this thread) they'll go for perfect spaciality.

You just can't accept that people have different opinions without calling them names?

Why don't you just accept that many of us actually have a better experience when working with column view and one window file browsing without calling us sheep?

Greg's Browser was a popular tool back in the Classic days - wonder why. It even won the MacUser Shareware Award for Best Utility - in 1994.

Get off your high horse, please!

[OreoCookie]

Originally Posted by Weyland-Yutani

Yes and I personally prefer spacial orientation.

That's ok, it's a matter of taste.

Originally Posted by Weyland-Yutani

Apple is not convinced of anything. It is a company that will do whatever they think will make them the most money. If that would be making the Finder truly spacial again, then that's exactly what would happen. Right now they aren't taking any chances and holding on to most of the spacial elements without going all the way.

I do think Apple (or rather Steve) is convinced of it. I haven't seen that the spatial part of the Finder (I take it you refer to the `collapsed toolbar view') has received much attention by the developers nor has that feature been advertised a lot. So I do think two things are going on at Apple: Steve comes from NeXT, so he prefers a NeXTish style. So the Finder is as it is, coz Steve said so. And second of all, it seems to me that the large majority seems to prefer the new way as well (I'm not saying `everybody', but the majority).

[OreoCookie]

Originally Posted by mAxximo

Don't forget that the Mac used to be the tool of choice of the entire creative industry. When you are creating content, what you call “manually categorising files” translates into “putting what I just created in a place that makes sense”. That won't change. For those using their computers for passive entertaintment it may work, but there's no way we will start dumping our files all over the HD just because there's Spotlight to find them later.

But the creative industry is not the only stronghold of Apple. Another one is education. And then Apple is targeting the average consumer as well.

For me it doesn't make as much sense as it does for you to put everything in folders. Most of my files are `reusable' and belong to several categories. How do I sort my downloaded papers? By topic? By author? Sure, I could do everything with aliases, but they are by far not as flexible.

Spotlight has not been invented to replace folders, but later on, with more metadata (and that was one of the good points of the Mac, metadata), I could have a much easier life.

[Horsepoo!!!]

Originally Posted by mAxximo

Don't forget that the Mac used to be the tool of choice of the entire creative industry. When you are creating content, what you call “manually categorising files” translates into “putting what I just created in a place that makes sense”. That won't change. For those using their computers for passive entertaintment it may work, but there's no way we will start dumping our files all over the HD just because there's Spotlight to find them later.

That's why both can coexist. Metadata for those that don't care about spatiality or organization. The Finder for those that do.

Just saying that if one had to go...it would have to be the Finder we know today (unless it changed radically.)

Look at it this way, the Finder = limited metadata. The only metadata that is used on a regular basis in the current Finder is the following:

-file name
-file path
-that's it

With Spotlight, you get:

-file name
-file path
-and a bunch of other metadata you can sort your files with that you don't care about

If the file path is your favorite piece of metadata, you can still limit yourself to just that. Nothing's stopping the OS from creating a virtual hierarchy via some 'file path' metadata. Doesn't matter if the file system is hierarchical or not. The metadata Finder could create 'on-the-fly' a hierarchy of folders using metadata that would act exactly like how things work today and back in 1984.

[mAxximo]

I'd like to see that theory working in a real-life situation...I've seen so many good concepts fail because of bad implementation, I can't trust Apple anymore....

[Horsepoo!!!]

Originally Posted by mAxximo

I'd like to see that theory working in a real-life situation...I've seen so many good concepts fail because of bad implementation, I can't trust Apple anymore....

I'd like to see it working too. Apple makes a lot of cool stuff...but also botches a ton of things. Spotlight in its current incarnation is pretty weak. I can see where the frustrations come from. Apple needs to make a browser that can be switched between full spatial/hierarchical to full metadata depending on someone's needs.

Right now it's neither...so it's the worst of both worlds...IMO.

[leperkuhn]

Originally Posted by Timan

well link... have you ever plugged something in to your mac, and wonder if its working or not? I know when I plugged my printer in, I got no indication that it is working, there has to be some sort of alert to let us know things are working.

Least on windows it says your device is ready to use in a little tooltip down at the bottom right.

Could have like one of those transparent boxes (like the volume, eject) with a printer (example) and a small check box, that fades in then fades right out. To let you know things are working and are ready to use.

PICTURE TIME - http://img83.imageshack.us/img83/2285/printcheck4we.jpg

And about sacraficing screen space... most pc these days are starting to come with somewhat of a widescreen, yet apple and ms keep adding crap to the top and bottom of the screens, but not the sides, what is the reason for this? You guys can sacrafice a few damn pixels for a info box, if not when you have the get info box it takes more...

Growl notifications do this, and it rocks. I find them most helpful for e-mail - it's so nice to know who something is from without having to bring mail to the front. I'm sure someone could write something for printer alerts..

I want an application launcher Dashboard widget. Anyone know of one?

[teszeract]

Get Info needs an icon next to it in the contextual menu!!

There are many things that the windows does better, or functionally better. That is a fact. However the presentation of it reminds me of pseudo designers having access to Photoshop filters or too many fonts. Nice ideas but crap delivery.

Anyway take a look at this from the site with all the preview screenies (it may be a beta thing, or maybe not):

Slow Motion Aero Animations
By Super Admin | Published 08/4/2005 | Fun Tips | Unrated
Slow Motion Aero Animations
Open Registry Editor
HKEY_local_machine > Software > Microsoft
Create a new KEY called DWM if it is not there
Create a new DWORD called AnimationsShiftKey inside the DWM folder
Set the new DWORD that you just created to a value of 1
Restart your computer for to activate
Hold down the shift key to see any of the window animations in slow motion.

[stesteG5]

ok, its transparancey skin change and theme change. It looks no different form the skinning programs for XP, what a waste of time. No doubt it'll fix pc freaks hunger for a Mac Looking OS, that is as bog standard as XP. sorry to sound negative, but until we see it moving it looks like a skinned XP.

[ryaxnb]

Originally Posted by runejoha

I also like the idea that ie and explorer is the same application. Why navigate your partitions with a different tool than navigating on internet?

**** **** ***. I HATE WITH BURNING PASSION THE DUALING IDEA!!!!!!!!

I WILL NEVER ALLOW APPLE TO DO IT!!!!
edited to remove anger!

[Weyland-Yutani]

Originally Posted by ryaxnb

**** **** ***. I HATE WITH BURNING PASSION THE DUALING IDEA!!!!!!!!

I WILL NEVER ALLOW APPLE TO DO IT!!!!
edited to remove anger!

cheers

W-Y

[Link]

I swear you guys just want windows with an aqua theme, running on apple machines with dell hardware.

You guys lack any sort of desire to be innovative at all don't you.