Finder

Archives Forums/MacOS X Discussion/Finder

D4NM4N(Posted 2011) [#1]
Is there an alternative to that crap finder thing?
It shows no useful info like image sizes etc... (not that i can see/find a setting for anyway)

It is doing my head in to be honest.


*(Posted 2011) [#2]
right click on the picture and choose 'Get Info' there will be image width and height in there :D


D4NM4N(Posted 2011) [#3]
thanks :)

but is there no way i can have it as a bar column?


ima747(Posted 2011) [#4]
There are multiple views in the finder, most show quite a lot info. I personally prefer the multicolumn view, when you get down to a file it gives you a preview inline (pictures, videos, audio files, etc) file size, dimensions, creation date etc.

There also detail list view, etc. I'm guessing you have it in simple icon view...
There's the covflow view as well which is great for image previews but I find it useless for everything else...


D4NM4N(Posted 2011) [#5]
no i have it in detail view (i only use this on all my Osses except when searching an image folder in which case i switch to thumbs, but then i expect cursor hover to give me info)

All i get in finder though is
-Name
-date modified
-size
-filetype
-no hover info

I would like to add image dimensions eg "64x64" and permissions eg. "drwxr-xr-x" or "755" (as i use unix/linux NFS networking on my home network).

Last edited 2011


therevills(Posted 2011) [#6]
I hate Finder too... but I dont use the Mac enough to buy/use an alternative...


D4NM4N(Posted 2011) [#7]
***warning rant ahead***

OMG!
With everything else that apple does, the oozing quality and control, strict everything and massive pricetag, you would think they could come up with a file manager that is useable / nice to use.

I had a nightmare today i simply tried to move cmd+x form files (no can do) but in the end i had to copy and paste. Copying and pasting to that monsterous monolithic "tree" is a joke! It does not even put stuff in the folder you are "in". If you select a folder and do "new folder" it creates it in the parent folder... WTF!!!
In addition to this a simple rename operation ended up with my file being deleted, how i have no idea.

I have also tried alternatives but they only work as an app, you cannot use them from inside apps (open/save as) which kind of defeats the object.

My only solution so far has been to install a VM with ubuntu and share out my /projects/ folder. To do any -complex- file management i have to boot the VM and use linux just to make it remotely useable.

My other gripe is how the hell do you tell what folder you are in? sure it says "whatnot" on the top, but if you are a programmer you may have many versions of "whatnot" or use several "wotnots" on various servers, making it a real nightmare. WHY CAN IT NOT HAVE A BREADCRUM OR ADDRESS BAR!!! is this too much to wish for with a 2 grand computer???????
****** end of rant ******

Now someone please tell me what i am missing (shortcuts etc) because i cannot believe apple really made it this bad.

Last edited 2011


OscarBraindeaD(Posted 2011) [#8]
Hi all,
@D4NM4N, in order to show the complete path in the finder window, open a terminal session and type:

defaults write com.apple.finder _FXShowPosixPathInTitle -bool YES
Killall Finder

Now the windows shows the complete path you are.

Hope it helps you.
Regards

Last edited 2011


D4NM4N(Posted 2011) [#9]
Thanks for that.... that is certainly one of the best bits of advice i have heard yet for osx
That is certainly one "finder moan" down.

thanks! :)

Last edited 2011


Shortwind(Posted 2011) [#10]
This:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3q8_40GBuI


(No, I do not hate macs. Just think this is funny and seems to be a reflection of D4MN4N's frustration.)

:)

Last edited 2011


Oddball(Posted 2011) [#11]
@D4NM4N: To show image dimensions when using icon view in finder; Menu>View>Show View Options>Show item info. Click use as default to always have it shown.

Last edited 2011


D4NM4N(Posted 2011) [#12]
There is no "show item info". There is date created etc and size but that is not what i want. The only way it seems to get useful info is to rightclick on the file and do it that way.
I never thought i would say it, but when compared to windows explorer (at least from a usage point of view despite crashes), explorer completely pounds finder in terms of usefulness.

Such a shame because there are so many things about the OS i like (especially the NIXy bits).

Last edited 2011


ima747(Posted 2011) [#13]
Personally I love the finder, but I certainly understand that once you get comfortable with one pattern for something changing is a nightmare (it's why I still use photoshop instead of GIMP :0)

To that end, here's a little article contrasting a few alternatives. No idea how dated it is but hopefully it's a starting point.
http://www.simplehelp.net/2006/10/08/10-os-x-finder-alternatives-compared-and-reviewed/

Coming from an old-school power user of explorer approach as D4NM4N seems to be (non power users never use the keyboard, and it's pretty old school IMO to cut/paste as your primary method of file movement...) here's a philosophical suggestion that might help better understand the finder, and by extension be less enraged by it's conventions.

The finder is designed with 1 consistency and 2 intended methods of use.
The consistency is EVERYTHING can be done with a mouse with 1 button. There are plenty of things you can do with keystrokes, or right clicks, etc. but absolutely everything can be accomplished with the left mouse button. This is an old old design from when the mac was first created and has carried through. This is largely (imo) why the mac gets it's "easy to use" moniker, you can't click with the wrong button if there's only 1... This is inherently more basic than one might expect as a power user from linux or windows where 2 buttons is almost mandatory.

The 2 intended methods of use are:
1) The single window approach (largely pushed since OS X)
2) The multi window approach (which was the standard prior to OS X)
By multi window I mean if you want to move something from point A to point B, you need a window open at point A and another open at point B. To this end mac OS of old (and today with settings tweaks) didn't open folders in the same window, every folder you opened got a new window... it got messy which is why they've moved away from it but it's still a concept that macs are inherently designed around. It's often easier to work in multiple windows at once than try to do EVERYTHING in one, especially if you're working in 2 places at once.
The OS X focus has been on a single window however to keep with the mac's "look in more than one place at one time" approach they use the columns view as the default view, allow 1 window to show multiple folder contents in a path at once, not just the contents of the top folder of the navigation path. The second tool to help specifically moving files in a single window approach is the spring loaded folders. If you begin dragging some thing(s) and hover over a folder it will open, you can then hover over a folder inside that and it will in turn open, allowing you to navigate while dragging...

Hope something there helps! If all else fails there's probably a way to get a GUI you like running under X11 straight from the linux world :0)

Last edited 2011


Oddball(Posted 2011) [#14]
There is no "show item info".
Really?! What version of OS X are you using. Here's what I see.



It also shows the song length for mp3s.


D4NM4N(Posted 2011) [#15]
Ok so you can get it in icon view. (I did not see it because i do not use i icon view) I prefer a detail list view with a thumbnail on hover. I don't like icon views, especially ones that do not autowrap when the window is resized. :D

To be honest this guy hits it on the head tbh;
http://netthink.com/?p=38
It really is NOT for someone who needs to work quickly with files all the time, plus it it completely lousy for organizing files.

How i would like it to be is like the second screenshot in that article... and on mine i have columns showing both permissions and dimensions. The image icons are legible enough in this view to not need an icon view (also when you hover them you get a bigger thumbnail)

I guess using icon view is better than nothing i suppose.
thanks. :)

Last edited 2011


Winni(Posted 2011) [#16]
Maybe you'll like Path Finder: http://www.cocoatech.com/

Haven't used it myself because I a) prefer working with what comes out of the box as much as possible and b) got used to living with Finder.


Corum(Posted 2011) [#17]
hehe I also hate Finder. :-)

Last edited 2011


ima747(Posted 2011) [#18]
While I appreciate the problems people have with finder, I have the exact same problems with windows explorer so I still chalk it up to interface intent.

To counterpoint the article D4NM4N linked above (http://netthink.com/?p=38) because I'm feeling contentious today :0)
If the keyboard is better than the mouse why use a full GUI at all? The keyboard is an excelent augment to the mouse, but it is far less intuitive to the uninformed (give your mom a keyboard and ask her to navigate a HDD) and requires a large base of knowledge to be able to operate smoothly. Enter being rename instead of open is not an inherently flawed idea, it's just different that what windows has trained people to do, opinion and preference are all that matters for an individual so they are vital for choosing something you're comfortable with, but they can't be applied to all people. I prefer command backspace to delete for trashing a file because it prevents accidental deletion. Part of the design concepts may feel like training wheels when you're used to blasting around your computer linux style with root access, but those same choices keep the OS from being either daunting to the uninitiated (for general use obviously) as well as preventing people from making mistakes they don't understand (my cat brushed my keyboard now all my files are gone... I've received this exact tech support call from the same guy 3 times in the past year...). I WOULD like to see an option to customize the keys built into the OS but I think everything everywhere should be customizable :0) I'm sure you can get an application to do this already if you really can't live without enter being open...

I can't stand the layout of windows explorer details view. When I sort alphabetically I expect my contents to be sorted alphabetically, NOT grouped into folder or other, and THEN sorted alphabetically. This is not intuitive, it's counter intuitive. Why can't it calculate folder sizes without me getting info? I'm more likely to have a big folder than 1 single massive file, if I care about size I care about folder size too. Smaller fonts are not better, they're just smaller, lots of new computers ship with font zoom enabled these days because so many people have a hard time reading the default windows font size... You can change the icon size in detail view on a mac, you can change the font size, you can toggle columns... in Icon view you CAN have it auto wrap (tell it to arrange by in the folder's View Options found at the bottom of the view menu...), hell you can set a background image for the folder if you like so you remember where you are... If you really need large icons to see a particular folder's contents more clearly that's what cover flow view is for...

Regarding scripting you can script the pants off the finder if you like with apple script and automator (and via apple script you can call shell scripts if you like etc...). Using automator you don't even have to program to make a lot of things happen... for example I have an automator action watching my downloads folder, whenever I download a particular file type it moves it over my network to another computer where I store that stuff. I can right click anything and throw it over the network to other computers as well through another automator script...

I appreciate the consistency argument, that when you set something up you want it to be like that everywhere... except where you don't which is where this falls down. Unique settings for each folder is specifically a power user type feature, and bemoaning it as confusing is counter to bemoaning the rest of the features for not being power user friendly enough... This is just a personal taste issue, either you like to set it and forget it, or you want control... and if you don't go mucking with individual folders it uses consistent layout so I really don't see where the problem comes in...

Regarding design, having not used Nautilus I don't know what he means by being able to select what the left column shows, but changing the left column seems again to be counter to NOT wanting to change the folder layouts specifically...

This has all been a rant but I hope there are a few useful tips in there somewhere (specifically check your view options window if you don't like something in finder...). Finder is not without fault by any stretch, but saying it's worse than explorer because it conforms to different standards that apple created before windows explorer came to be in any modern form is just opinion... you may not like those standards, in the same way I don't like the explorer standards, but I don't think explorer is bad because of it... I think explorer is bad because it crashes and anything that crashes is bad :0)


D4NM4N(Posted 2011) [#19]
If the keyboard is better than the mouse why use a full GUI at all?
speed more than anything. A gui is nice for when you want a more visual approach, or are searching/thinking/organizing but if you know -exactly- where to go and what you want, keyboard rules hands down.

It is not all bad, there are some handy things in finder, but when you move and organise as much as me who has to use 3 different OSses as part of my Job (6 if you incude command line ones!) it quickly becomes very frustrating to say the least:
In short
I think if finder had "." and ".." and a folders detail list view (which is not a windows thing, this is a standard on ALL osses, even OSX - finder just chooses to hide them) Also when i click on a folder and "create new folder" or paste files then i want it in that highlighted folder, not the folder at the root of the view scope! <-these 2 things might be a standard but they are really awful.

If these were fixed then i would have much less to moan about.

Last edited 2011


ima747(Posted 2011) [#20]
Ah, actively using multiple OS's raises a whole host of new issues with all of them, and for that the finder is DEFINITELY a large offender. When you have to jump boxes a lot the more familiar everything is definitely saves times (breeds confusion when you forget for a second what you're using too :0).


ima747(Posted 2011) [#21]
this is a bit of a dead thread, but I just bumped into an article that should help a bit

http://lifehacker.com/5809967/how-to-get-windows-best-features-on-mac-os-x

It's a run down of a slew of apps that re-create windows features in mac OS. Hope it's useful to someone making the switch... personally I want to go the other way and strip most of these features from windows (especially snap... god I hate that...) but everyone likes what they like :0) enjoy!