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Finder Wishlist (and why you think the current Finder sucks)


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Finder Wishlist (and why you think the current Finder sucks)
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JK47
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
 
2005-12-01, 15:48

Ok, so a significant sore spot for many Mac users seems to be the improvements needed in the Finder. It seems that people are posting one issue in one thread, another complaint in another, etc. This thread is a place for you to voice ALL of the problems/dislikes/wishes you would like to see addressed in 10.5 that pertain to the Finder. I'll start with some topics posted by both myself, and others throughout the forum. Feel free to add to or correct the list as you see needed, and be specific!

1. Resolution Independent UI
2. *(Native)* Spotlight functionality across networks
3. Burnable DVD folders
4. Quartz 2D Extreme enabled
5. Instant (see Firefox/Spotlight style) searching within a page on Safari
6. FTP and/or SFTP support
7. Folders retaining their display setting properties

PS: "Stop the Finder from ever crashing again" isn't specific, and is also very unlikely to happen, try to keep this realistic...
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Kickaha
Veteran Member
 
Join Date: May 2004
 
2005-12-01, 15:51

*PWEET*! Brad! Get yer butt in here!
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JK47
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
 
2005-12-01, 15:54

Quote:
Originally Posted by Dr. Kickaha
*PWEET*! Brad! Get yer butt in here!
To be honest, I made this thread with the intention of luring you and Brad in....
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Kickaha
Veteran Member
 
Join Date: May 2004
 
2005-12-01, 16:02

Bastard.
  quote
WMD
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2005-12-01, 16:21

Quote:
PS: "Stop the Finder from ever crashing again" isn't specific, and is also very unlikely to happen, try to keep this realistic...
How about "Stop the Finder from crashing all the damn time?"
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julesstoop
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Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Leiden, the Netherlands
 
2005-12-01, 18:07

Stop the Finder?
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Brad
Selfish Heathen
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Zone of Pain
 
2005-12-01, 19:48

Quote:
Originally Posted by JK47
1. Resolution Independent UI
2. *(Native)* Spotlight functionality across networks
4. Quartz 2D Extreme enabled
5. Instant (see Firefox/Spotlight style) searching within a page on Safari
What do these have to do specifically with the Finder?
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jonnycherry
New Member
 
Join Date: Dec 2005
 
2005-12-01, 19:56

I want stickies that you can literally stick anwhere...

for example on a finder window, folder, inside a document etc. When you close the doc or window the stickes go away, when you open them up they re appear. Just like the real world.

Cant see this being very difficult to implement.
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JK47
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
 
2005-12-01, 20:05

Quote:
Originally Posted by Brad
What do these have to do specifically with the Finder?
The resolution independent UI deals with the way one views the Finder (litterally), Spotlight is destined to replace many of the functions of the Finder (searching through folder after folder to find documents, smart folders), Quartz 2D Extreme enabled will drive the resolution independent UI, and as for the Safari gripe....errrr.....well that's just always bugged me
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chucker
 
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2005-12-01, 20:08

Quote:
Originally Posted by JK47
The resolution independent UI deals with the way one views the Finder (litterally)
Or any other application, for that matte.r

Quote:
Spotlight is destined to replace many of the functions of the Finder (searching through folder after folder to find documents, smart folders)
Smart folders are a Finder feature. They work through Spotlight, and Spotlight improvements are thus also Finder improvements, but the two are still separate.

Quote:
Quartz 2D Extreme enabled will drive the resolution independent UI
Presumably. So far, the Res-Ind UI works fine (well, it's buggy as hell) without Q2DE. But Q2DE will give Res-Ind a decent boost, without doubt.

Really, though, a lot of your items aren't exactly Finder-specific concerns any more than they are, say, iTunes-specific concerns or NetNewsWire-specific concerns.
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Brad
Selfish Heathen
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Zone of Pain
 
2005-12-01, 20:10

Exactly. Those are general system enhancements, not Finder enhancements.
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FFL
Fishhead Family Reunited
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Slightly Off Center
 
2005-12-01, 20:19

mine is short

1. More responsive & faster
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Brad
Selfish Heathen
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Zone of Pain
 
2005-12-01, 20:54

Okay, you've opened a floodgate. Stand back...
  • Metadata. The use of metadata in the current Finder is a pale flicker of a shadow of what's possible. Windows already does a better job of this. Look to BeOS for some inspiration. For crying out loud, you hired the designer of Be's filesystem.
  • Offer variable icon spacing. The default is way too wide unless you're blind and use the 128px-size icons.
  • Make WebDAV/iDisk transfers move data faster than I can type it over a telegraph. It can't be too hard; see Transmit and Goliath.
  • Make directory listing faster, especially on network devices. You have a placeholder icon in the system. USE IT.
  • Stop resizing the sidebar every time some drive/DMG with a long name mounts. I set it to a certain size for a reason.
  • Spotlight integration. Scrap the whole UI and start over. This monstrosity should have been aborted long before any sort of release candidacy.
  • Regarding the previous item, I STILL CAN'T CLICK TO THE LEFT OF THE TEXT IN THE SEARCH FIELD. WTF.
  • Also regarding the previous, 1) searches should not overtake a window if it is not frontmost and 2) there needs to be an easier way of escaping a search and returning to what you were looking at.
  • Why is there a tiny clickable "reload" button in the bottom right of the window when my search field is blank? Get rid of it.
  • Make the interface actually accessible with the tab key. If I was handicapped, I would have to resort to typing Terminal commands (or using a Windows machine, regrettably) to get things done because the Finder is so bad in this area.
  • Get rid of the idiotic nonstandard horizontal "menu item" thing for setting labels. Regarding the previous item, it's IMPOSSIBLE to set a label on an item without very carefully mousing over a tiny square. Every single normal menu item everywhere else in the system responds to arrow keys except the special label thing. What idiot designed that thing anyway? What dodderhead in the UI department decided that you should interrupt a rapid vertical stroke with a pause for slow horizontal precision into such minscule areas?
  • The labels themselves: a joke. Classic Mac OS's tinting did a better job. Try using labels in list view. It's a mess.
  • Desktop icon text looks fine on dark backgrounds. It looks terrible on white or light backgrounds.
  • The drive size on the desktop STILL doesn't update EVER. This has been reported yet completely untouched since the earliest pre-release 10.3 builds!
  • The toolbar toggle widget is a joke.
  • Expect for spring-lodaded folders (which were late to the party anyway, as I recall), column view has been untouched since before Apple bought the OS from NeXT and made it into Mac OS X. Give it some options, for crying out loud.
  • Why is the toolbar and menu icon for the "computer" the sunflower iMac G4? Why can't some genius put together a dozen icons and a few lines of code to actually set the icon based on what kind of computer the user has? Heck, a no-name developer did this very thing several years ago. Why can't you, Apple? I don't own an iMac G4, I never have, and I never will. Why am I looking at its icon?
  • Fix the undo. Too often it forgets the very last thing I did.
  • When I drag a window proxy and release it over a non-target, why does it shoot to the top of the screen? It shouldn't. Fix it.
  • Why can't I drag the proxy for the trash? It's a folder just like any other.
  • When I change the default application for a document, don't just change the icon for one's I haven't seen in this session; change them all immediately!
  • When I change the default application for a document, present a dialog that actually makes sense.
  • Why does Spotlight Comments get a gaudy bright blue bar in the info window? It should be like every other disclosure triangle.
  • In the info window, fix the behavior of the Ownership & Permissions block. It works most of the time for things I already own. It rarely works properly for things that I don't own (yet I've authenticated and should be able to change).
That's it; I'm cutting myself off! I could keep going on, but thinking about all these problems is so frustrating and... bad thoughts... BAD THOUGHTS.

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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billybobsky
BANNED
I am worthless beyond hope.
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Inner Swabia. If you have to ask twice, don't.
 
2005-12-01, 21:49

You scare me, Brad.

I want to give my mac a hug now...

But you are right on everything that you said...

How did these things get through?
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Brad
Selfish Heathen
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Zone of Pain
 
2005-12-01, 21:56

Quote:
Originally Posted by billybobsky
How did these things get through?
Simple.

This is a photograph of the current Finder development team:

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BuonRotto
Not sayin', just sayin'
 
Join Date: May 2004
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2005-12-01, 22:19

I hope they don't change the Finder. I want to see Brad's head asplode.

Oh, yeah, I want to see full content-meta-whatnot tagging with a good UI, file grouping a la Aperture's light box view and different ways to organize/filter column view. I want to be able to see content in any number of views within the same window arbitrarily chosen by the user, i.e., panes (one for columns, one for previews/groupings of all files, one with the file path, one with folder/file info, etc.).

Last edited by BuonRotto : 2005-12-01 at 22:26. Reason: actual content added
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AsLan^
Not a tame lion...
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Narnia
 
2005-12-01, 22:55

I want that thing where I can create a new folder, move, copy, rename a file etc. in any file chooser dialog.
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chucker
 
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2005-12-01, 22:58

Quote:
Originally Posted by AsLan^
I want that thing where I can create a new folder, move, copy, rename a file etc. in any file chooser dialog.
Ugh! No. Please, no.
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Brad
Selfish Heathen
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Zone of Pain
 
2005-12-01, 23:00

Although that's not really related to the Finder, you can already create a new folder in any file save dialog. With the dialog expanded, there should usually be a New Folder button at the bottom. Even if there's not, I believe command-shift-n does the job for you.

Quote:
Originally Posted by chucker
Ugh! No. Please, no.
Agreed. Hehe. Right tool for the right job, etc.

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.
  quote
AsLan^
Not a tame lion...
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Narnia
 
2005-12-01, 23:03

It's not that I specifically need to create new folders, I was talking about that functionality that I got used too whilst (formerly) doing my work on windows boxen

Please, no ? You don't have change the look of the file dialogs, hide it in a contextual menu or the menu bar.
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AsLan^
Not a tame lion...
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Narnia
 
2005-12-01, 23:04

Quote:
Agreed. Hehe. Right tool for the right job, etc.
Why isn't a file dialog box the right tool for manipulating files ?
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chucker
 
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2005-12-01, 23:07

Quote:
Originally Posted by AsLan^
Why isn't a file dialog box the right tool for manipulating files ?
An open file dialog box is for, tada, opening files. A save file dialog box is for, gasp, saving them. In the process of saving files, you may need to create new folders to put them in, which is why that option is there.

Manipulating files inside a dialog box is stupid.

I would like a button, though, that opens the current folder in the open/save box in a Finder window. That would be smart.
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JK47
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
 
2005-12-01, 23:13

Quote:
Originally Posted by Brad
  • Why is the toolbar and menu icon for the "computer" the sunflower iMac G4? Why can't some genius put together a dozen icons and a few lines of code to actually set the icon based on what kind of computer the user has? Heck, a no-name developer did this very thing several years ago. Why can't you, Apple? I don't own an iMac G4, I never have, and I never will. Why am I looking at its icon?
While you're on the topic, the "Displays" icon in System Preferences is the old Apple display that went with the old Power Macs.
  quote
AsLan^
Not a tame lion...
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Narnia
 
2005-12-01, 23:15

Quote:
Originally Posted by chucker
Manipulating files inside a dialog box is stupid.
That may be your opinion, but that particular feature has increased my productivity in the past. I don't want to argue about whether I *should* have saved the file in some arbitrary location and used another program to manipulate it later.

There is nothing wrong with every file chooser dialog allowing you to manipulate files. In fact if the functionality was present but hidden from you, how would it even effect you ? (rhetorical)
  quote
chucker
 
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2005-12-01, 23:20

Quote:
Originally Posted by AsLan^
In fact if the functionality was present but hidden from you, how would it even effect you ? (rhetorical)
No, not rhetorical. If the functionality was so obscure as to not affect me, it wouldn't be of much use to begin with. If it was, on the other hand, anywhere near as extensive as it is on Windows, it would be very much in my way.
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AsLan^
Not a tame lion...
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Narnia
 
2005-12-01, 23:28

Quote:
Originally Posted by chucker
No, not rhetorical. If the functionality was so obscure as to not affect me, it wouldn't be of much use to begin with. If it was, on the other hand, anywhere near as extensive as it is on Windows, it would be very much in my way.
I have never found any of the functionality of a windows "Save As.." dialog box to get in my way.

And... I even thought of an example that I commonly came across.

I am working in a shared folder, where the documents are all the same type and the filename is a date (maintenance records in this case). I'm in charge of the maintenance for this particular piece of equipment and responsible for keeping orderly records but I don't always do the maintenance or the paperwork. So while saving my paperwork one day I notice that the last guy who did it saved the date with an all caps month which just bugs me, or they reversed the month and day. Why shouldn't I be able to just rename the file then and there when I see it and then continue with my work. I can do this on windows but not in OSX
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WMD
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2005-12-02, 00:05

Quote:
Originally Posted by Brad
Okay, you've opened a floodgate. Stand back...

<really long post>
You, good sir, are winner.
  quote
PB PM
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2005-12-02, 00:07

Quote:
Originally Posted by WMD
How about "Stop the Finder from crashing all the damn time?"
I don't see what the problem is, I've had the Finder crash maybe 5-10 times in the 2 1/2 years I've been using OSX. OS9 on the other hand, well, no need to even go there.
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intlplby
Veteran Member
 
Join Date: Dec 2004
 
2005-12-02, 00:24

replace file dialog needs more info

when i copy files and folders from one folder to another i want to be able to see filesize and file date of the files i am about to replace and the one i will replace it with......i hate having to cancel and then do ctrl click Get Info for the two files in question..... if you want to keep it simpler by default for most users you can, but give more advanced features for those of us that want it

give a merge option for folders in addition to replace......i hate having to merge folders manually......

-set color label toolbar button would be nice..... kind of like choosing a color from a preset palette in many other programs....

column view..... allow an option to automatically set the column widths to the longest file name by default. (like option double clicking the dividers)

how about an Auto-Hide the side-bar option..... i like the toolbar... the side bar wastes space most of the time..... have the option to set the side bar so it only shows the icons ALL OF THE TIME

meta-data - ctrol-click gives the option "Add comment to all folder contents"

someone said something about stickies in folders earlier..... how about a "New Stickie" option in addition to new folder option when you control click...... it automatically makes a file with a yellow label that popups a stickie note with single click and hides with single click ..... it would have a title and content...the file name would be determined by the title...... in addition you can set other options like due date, this would automatically be linked to your iCal..... this can also be added to files instead of folders in column view in the rightmost column with file info.... you can then have a smart folder containing all your stickies and giving you ability to jump straight to the folder or file from that smart folder

ability to view MP3 tags in the preview column... currently i use the MP3 Contextual Menu add-on but it is not the best solution...

ability to duplicate the menu bar on additional screens so you don't have to mouse over to the other screen

ability to automatically tile finder windows like in the operating system whose name we shall not speak......cascade would be nice as well

the width of the label column in list view need only be as width as the widest label (Orange/Purple)

when i have the "View options" open and i have All windows selected and i resize column in list view (like date modified for example) don't make it switch to This Window Only, instead modify the width of it for All Windows

if my system clock is set to the 24hr clock all the file info in list view should be on the 24 hr clock for date modified/created

ability to abbreviate months to 3 letters in "date modified/created" in list view.... just like the weekday is abbreviated in the menu bar (Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec)

basically i want to get the most out of the viewing window for list view.... on my 12 inch powerbook, screen real estate is valuable.

ability to change finder text color...... for example.... if you change the desktop to white..... the text labels are white too and you can only read it with difficulty because of the drop shadows...... another example.... in icon view if you set the background to black the names become unreadable because they are black too.

that's all i can think of before i have to go
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Moonmonkey
Member
 
Join Date: Jan 2005
 
2005-12-02, 07:43

Have a look at my finder mockup in this thread, it doesn't cover everything but its an improvement.

http://forums.applenova.com/showthre...&page=19&pp=30
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