Not a tame lion...
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Narnia
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I was just thinking about the iPhone and how Steve seemed fairly impressed with the fact that rather than using a standard UI across applications, each application's UI was tailored to what you needed.
We also have other examples like Front Row, Dashboard, Expose, Time Machine, and Aperture, that follow the same kind of philosophy. I was wondering how this concept might be applied to the humble Finder in Leopard. For example take moving files from one location to another but having to navigate through multiple folders. Not especially hard but even using the space bar to quick open folders it can be pretty tedious. What if when you selected some items to be moved and started dragging them the screen dimmed a la Dashboard and you were presented with graphical (but flat) representation of your home folder and all its sub folders arranged in a tree diagram. Of course it wouldn't have to all fit on the screen at once but as you move the mouse it should scroll with in the direction you wanted to go. When you reach the destination folder you simply drop the files like you normally would in and they are moved. When repeatedly moving files to particular folder that folder would become weighted so that when you started moving files in the same direction again, the scrolling would speed up and be guided to that folder, perhaps using some those neat swarm algorithms to correct course or move the folder towards you if you overshoot or something like that. There could be multiple special Finder interfaces that detected what you were trying to do and presented you with the best interface for that particular task. Anybody else think we might begin to see more customized interfaces or perhaps have any ideas for what could be improved with a custom interface? EDIT: Regarding that tree idea above, just a slight modification. I think it would be even cooler if instead of automatically popping up when you dragged the selected files (which might get irritating say if folders are close to each other) you first had to drag the files to an edge of the screen. Then the tree would shoot in from the opposite edge and you would browse back i.e. if you move them to the top edge, the tree comes in from the bottom and you navigate down, if you move them to the left edge, the tree comes in from the right and navigate to the right. Last edited by AsLan^ : 2007-02-05 at 02:28. Reason: Refined tree idea |
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Member
Join Date: Dec 2006
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Instead of automatically the side something like a hotkey or you can set it as a mouse button(mighty mouse) or the sides, just like Dashboard. I think it would be a good addition. If you don't like it in no way would you be forced to do it, and surely some will live by it.
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Veteran Member
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Pittsburgh
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Windows, at one extreme, suffers from this. Sure, everything is optional but now microsoft has to support more code as developers and users come to rely on those features. Legacy support is primarily responsible for Vista's multi-year delay. Invariably, at some point users are forced to use said optional features. Trouble viewing a website? Try enabling option 7 in tab 4 of window 11. Added feature complexity can never be solely justified with the word "optional". |
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Senior Member
Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Hampshire (the original one)
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I like where you are coming from Aslan, and I can "see" it quite clearly in my head and how it should work. The idea of the entire screen turning into a finder window seems like a neat solution to a traditional style Finder/Explorer
The only downside I could see is that it may not be to everybody's taste. |
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Not a tame lion...
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Narnia
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I think Apple is going to try and find some way to seriously differentiate OS X from Vista and desktop Linux so we might start to see radical changes such as more full screen interfaces. Which really isn't a bad thing... even if you are multi tasking, you can still only do one thing at a time and thus having specialized and intuitive interfaces for each task that swapped around on the fly should enhance your flow. |
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Veteran Member
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Amsterdam
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Aha, I love this kind of speculation!
I don't think we should look for folder tree travelling enhancements, though. Apple has built Spotlight and it doesn't look like it's just a search engine; it's an OS layer which enables developers to approach files in many different ways. It enables Apple to live up to their standards when it comes to hiding the technical side of things (archiving, in this case). I do see this 'darkened-screen' interface happening, but I think that it would rather be used for editing tags and other properties belonging to (multiple) files/folders, like editing mp3 tags in iTunes. I think in general, Finder should become much like iTunes and iPhoto. Remains the question how in that case Finder's "Library" will be organized... |
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Senior Member
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Chicago
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Personally, I think we're at the end of the age of hierarchical file systems, and we should move to a metadata/search-based system (see: Gmail's labels) which would draw far more heavily on the Spotlight, and essentially take the Finder out of the picture. |
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Selfish Heathen
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Zone of Pain
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I certainly wouldn't trust a search-only method of retrieving my files any time soon. Even Google's improved searching is far from perfect and fails me at times. The quality of this board depends on the quality of the posts. The only way to guarantee thoughtful, informative discussion is to write thoughtful, informative posts. AppleNova is not a real-time chat forum. You have time to compose messages and edit them before and after posting. |
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skates=grafs
Join Date: May 2005
Location: New York
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You nailed one of my major gripes with Spotlight -- synonyms and alternate spelling. Maybe it'll get those in Leopard?
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rams it
Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Seattle
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Sometimes I go to my documents folder to open a keynote file and think, "Why didn't I Spotlight it?"
Getting rid of files and folders would be hard for me to get used to, and I'm pretty technical. You had me at asl ....... |
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Veteran Member
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Promise Land of Trustafarians
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My experience with Spotlight has been quite different. I've found that it has almost completely replaced the Finder for me. Even for opening applications, I just hit -Space and type in the name. I tend to keep my hands on the keyboard rather than the mouse, so perhaps that has something to do with it.
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Senior Member
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What really makes sense and is way cooler than anything I've seen before is the interface that is present when you actually make a call. Most of the other screens we saw during the presentation were not what I had hoped for. You may as well take a box of colorfull candy and shake it. The "home" menu looks horrible, there really is not much difference to my SE K500i. videoplayback: OK, onscreen controlls: nice But why change between the dark and bright scheme all the time? I am really missing some consistency here. Tailoring to what people need is great, but please have it look alike! I think Apple is headed in the right direction and hopefully we did not see the final interface and there will be some changes, once Leopard is out in all its glory. |
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Hates the Infotainment
Join Date: May 2004
Location: NSA Archives
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This is why I stay out of this forum. You guys, with your intelligent discussion of Future Finderisms, are leading my mind astray from the cold, hard reality that we haven't seen a single screen shot that would indicate anything has changed about teH Leopard's Finder.
Now I'll start seeing all these possibilities and will come crashing down to reality when the final product is announced and the evil thing we have come to know as Finder rears its same old, ugly head once more. ...into the light of a dark black night. Last edited by Moogs : 2007-02-10 at 11:38. |
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Veteran Member
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Amsterdam
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I think Finder is ok. Since the sidebar came, the Finder is very easy to shape to my needs.
My worst gripe with Finder (if it's really a Finder thing) is that the Open and Save dialogs are so extremely limited. Precisely when you need to move files around and change names, you can't do it. Why don't they have all Finder's features? The Open and Save dialogs are a pretty crucial part of an OS, and here the Windows interface is better than Mac OS's. I'm also looking forward to easily see file previews in Finder's list view. I hope it works with audio, too. |
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