[Barto]

Look familiar?

The developers over at GNOME have switched to what can only be called an improved version of the Mac OS Classic finder for their 2.6 release.

I'm the first person to say the concept of a window BEING a folder is trashing usability for ideology, but come on Apple: is it so hard to get windows to stay in the same place and keep their view settings properly? No. These guys have done it.

Gah. Finder pisses me off so much.

Barto

[DMBand0026]

First, I think your link is broken, it was for me at least.

Second, I agree. I used to never have problems with the finder, but now that I'm into some more power usage (graphics, mulitmedia, some programming, recording...ect) its made me realize that the Finder sucks, and needs improvement, fast. It's truly one of the (if not the) weakest app that Apple has right now. You can't easily copy large files, it's slow, I've had random crashes for no reason just because the finder decides to crap out. Networking through the finder is a joke...this needs to change, and fast. For OS X to become the best of the best, the finder needs to be improved, or tossed.

Not that OS X isn't already the best, I was just venting.

[staph]

There's a good review of it at arstechnica: http://arstechnica.com/reviews/004/s...ome-2.6-1.html

I for one look forward to Apple scrapping the current Finder and starting again. Oh please god.

[Barto]

I've mirrored the image on my iDisk. Uploaded using Konqueror on Linux because it works with iDisk - it is slightly slower than a local drive when browsing. Unlike the Finder. Grrrr, yet another fault (as DMB pointed out, networking in general in the Finder is terrible).

Barto

[Wickers]

This is kinda funny...

SO many people are up in arms because of Gnome's change. A lot of people hate it. I don't blame them, they have been using a browser based file manager in Gnome for quite a while (sense the start) and the change is not sitting right for them. I am using Gnome 2.6 right now, and I love it. Gnome had me at 2.4 but 2.6 is a nice update.

But yah, it is funny how so many people hate Gnome's new file manager and how so many Apple users want it.

I guess it's all about your user base.

Correct me if I am wrong, but could you not load an X server (not Xserve but X11), then load Gnome, then kill the dock and other Apple branded UI?

Something stacked up like this.

---------------
Gnome
---------------
X11
---------------
Quartz ex.
---------------
Darwin
---------------

Just wondering.

[DMBand0026]

You may be able to...not sure. I know how to kill the dock, finder...crap like that. But I think there is a process that automatically launches them, cause when you kill them, they re launch almost immediately. That would have to be figured out, but I'm pretty sure it's easy enough and I'm just missing something.

[staph]

Originally Posted by DMBand0026 You may be able to...not sure. I know how to kill the dock, finder...crap like that. But I think there is a process that automatically launches them, cause when you kill them, they re launch almost immediately. That would have to be figured out, but I'm pretty sure it's easy enough and I'm just missing something.

PathFinder manages it, so it must be possible.

Alternatively, you could just run X11 in full screen mode and take the extremely minimal performance hit of Finder idling in the background. I think that'd be viable.

I think I'll be waiting until 22/6 to see whether Apple get their act together though.

[Wickers]

Well it was just an idea.

Maybe Apple can make it an option for people doing work/development on Gnome/KDE/etc but want Apple hardware.

It would be a neat course of action.

[HOM]

I would love for the spatial Finder to come back. The current half assed implementation in Panther is just a slap in the face. It's like Avi decided to mock the million of Mac users by showing us that Apple could build a spatial Finder, but they won't because it was an old Apple technology and not an old NeXT technology.

[Ryan]

Maybe after the break in OSX updates Apple is taking, they'll hit us with a truly cool Finder.

Just in time for Longhorn...

[Barto]

Originally Posted by \/\/ickes SO many people are up in arms because of Gnome's change. A lot of people hate it. I don't blame them, they have been using a browser based file manager in Gnome for quite a while (sense the start) and the change is not sitting right for them. I am using Gnome 2.6 right now, and I love it. Gnome had me at 2.4 but 2.6 is a nice update. But yah, it is funny how so many people hate Gnome's new file manager and how so many Apple users want it.

I for one don't want a return to the days of hard-core spatiality - I like having a file browser - I just want a Finder that works reliably and is consistent. Too much to ask? As GNOME 2.6 shows us, not at all.

You can't run Aqua apps on top of an X11 window manager, although it would be possible to port Natilus to Mac OS X. Killing the Finder isn't difficult but you would need to kill the dock - it is essentially too tied to the Finder (bad Apple! bad puppy!). The trouble is finding a dock replacement. That would require some coding and possibly a haxie to get working.

Barto

[DMBand0026]

Originally Posted by CubeDude Maybe after the break in OSX updates Apple is taking, they'll hit us with a truly cool Finder. Just in time for Longhorn...

I don't even care about cool, just good. Functional, crap like that. Finder is cool now, but it's not good enough for the world class OS that X is. I hung the finder no fewer than 10 times trying to mount a fire wire HD (actually another computer in target disk mode). It was redicilous. After getting the finder to hang 5 times, I tried to do it over my network, but like I said earlier...networking is a joke too. Fix this now, Apple!!!

[Mac+]

...well, the rumour over there is that a new Finder is indeed in the works for Tiger. Maybe they will provide what you want - not too long to wait now for the preview anyway. :shrugs:

[DMBand0026]

Apple has been "improving" the finder since the days of the Public Beta, and quite honestly, it hasn't gotten much better. It's slow, buggy, crappy, and all around just not worthy of being a part of OSX (IMO).

In other words, I doubt that tiger will be the magical savior of the finder.

[chucker]

Originally Posted by DMBand0026 Apple has been "improving" the finder since the days of the Public Beta, and quite honestly, it hasn't gotten much better. It's slow, buggy, crappy, and all around just not worthy of being a part of OSX (IMO). In other words, I doubt that tiger will be the magical savior of the finder.

Yet strangely, besides PathFinder (which is way overdone and doesn't fit into Mac OS X's one-app-one-purpose concept anyway), there seems to be no serious attempt at replacing it.

On the other hand, it is friggin' time Apple *lets* us replace the Dock and the Finder!

[Costique]

I used to believe that Apple is really working on Finder. However, when Panther appeared, I got a suspicion that if Apple had cool usability ideas, not quite ready for the public eye, they would not make a half-metal mess of Finder in Panther. If you can't show the next great thing, don't show anything. Instead Apple made this stupid app even clumsier than ever before. I don't think it was a user tolerance test or a sort of poll to see what people like (nobody ever reads poor users' complaints they send). It was a design decision. Apple tried changing the way we work with files.

The problem is that Finder gets buggier with every version beyond hope. Its windows take more and more space, icons farther from one another, the button-per-window ratio is through the roof. If they intend to copy Windows Explorer, please, provide that damn preference: a group under the title I came from: with two radio buttons: Macintosh and Windows. I would even suggest adding the third: Command Line which immediately shuts down the window manager.

I wonder who the hell drives these decisions upon us.

[ShiggyMiyamoto]

I'm gonna sound like a n00b here (which I'm not) but what do you guys mean by "spatial" or whatever you're calling it?

[dglow]

Originally Posted by ShiggyMiyamoto I'm gonna sound like a n00b here (which I'm not) but what do you guys mean by "spatial" or whatever you're calling it?

It comes from (or was, at least, popularized by) this article on Ars Technica.

When screenshots of Panther were first leaked, many thought (hoped?) that Apple had taken some of Siracusa's critique to heart. As it turns out they just scrambled modes and metaphors even more than Jaguar.

<sigh>

But credit where credit is due: Apple improved the Open/Save dialogs dramatically with Panther.