35 ms·
I can't believe I'm saying this... but someone please port this to MacOS. Finder is still a hot mess.
by cowmix 9y ago
I can't believe I'm saying this... but someone please port this to MacOS. Finder is still a hot mess.
- ygra 9y agoDoes Wine run on OS X? Because I guess a straight port would actually have to be a rewrite.
- comex 9y agoYes.
- willio58 9y agoOut of pure curiosity, what about finder is a mess to people these days? I feel like I can move around it smoothly and I use it many times daily. Adding some services like opening a file/folder in terminal has also helped me a lot.
- lev99 9y agoHow can I quickly open a directory in Finder? If, for example I want to go to ~/source or ~/pem what is the quickest way to do this? I've used macOS for about 2 years now, and I never found a method to do this that is intuitive. Windows Find has a large directory bar at the top where a user can go to any directory by just typing it.
- akandiah 9y agoHit Command+Shift+G and it will pop up with a dialog box requesting the path.
- zf00002 9y agocmd+space, type in folder path.
- simscitizen 9y agoCmd+Shift+G to bring up a go to location sheet.
- mikeplaysgames 9y agoI think you're looking for Shift-Command-G. Here's a list of other useful shortcuts for Finder and other contexts. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201236#finder https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201236#finder
- salgernon 9y agocmd-shift-g => ~/source/ This also works in application file dialogs. Personally, I've always preferred the Mac OS <= 9 Finder. I don't care for applications that have a web-browser-esque back-arrow to get to some presumed previous context. I'd much rather have multiple windows viewing the same content. (In Xcode, for instance, I loathe the default "one window to rule them all" behavior and I end up using CMD-shift-O and typing there name of the file I want to open - even if it was one that I know is already opened recently. Back arrow takes me to "some content" - but I have to look carefully to know what that content was. But if I'm able to place two windows side by side, I can easily cmd-twiddle between them and know which is which based on its location on my screen.) All that being said, I do everything from Terminal anyway. (where you can type 'open ~/Documents/' to jump to that location in the Finder.)
- pletnes 9y agoIf you’re in the terminal, just use «open /what/ever». Open = doubleclick, works for files, too.
- majewsky 9y agoNote that "open" is Mac-specific. On Linux (and possibly BSD), one can use "xdg-open" to the same effect.
- geraldcombs 9y agoAlong with the other suggested methods you can type type `open ~/source` or `open ~/pem` from the command line. I use it all the time to open /tmp in Finder.
- fiddlerwoaroof 9y agoIn addition to cmd-shift-g, cmd-shift-h will open a new finder window in your home directory from the desktop and will change the current directory of any finder window or file dialog to your home directory.
- eltoozero 9y agoShift-Cmd-A: Applications Shift-Cmd-H: Home Shift-Cmd-U: Utilities Shift-Cmd-C: Computer
- akandiah 9y agoNo functionality to cut and paste for one... Adding extensions (for example installing XtraFinder) has become a pain due to the new security features that need to be turned off.
- wumms 9y agoInstead of cut & paste you can copy (command+c) & move (command+option+v).
- fiddlerwoaroof 9y agoInteresting, I thought I remembered something about this, but I always forgot the details. It's worth mentioning that you can discover a lot of these details by opening the edit menu, pressing the option key and seeing how the menu items change. On the Mac, the Option key is frequently used to distinguish related actions: e.g. clicking on the wireless or sound icon will display one menu while option-clicking on either icon will provide another, more detailed, menu.
- eltoozero 9y agoAlso you can force an unprompted shutdown/restart by holding option when selecting the Apple > shutdown/restart menu items. Alt/Option also toggles the “quit” on dock context menu to “force quit” without waiting for the app to go unresponsive or invoking the command-ESC force quit dialog.
- SPBS 9y agoI know that at least since El Capitan there was already the 'cut and paste' built in, you just have to Cmd-Opt-V instead of Cmd-V after Cmd-C-ing a file. Slightly different paradigm but essentially the same as Ctrl-X Ctl-V in windows.
- Benjamin_Dobell 9y agoI don't mind the design too much, my biggest issue is all the bugs. - Files not displaying until you navigate away from a directory and return again. - The visibly selected file not being the actual selected file. This is most obvious if you hit spacebar to preview contents and it previews the wrong file contents (typically one file above in the list). However, it can occasionally happen with copy and paste, meaning you paste the wrong file! - Crashes. I don't actually use Finder all that often, typically command line. Nonetheless, I do still experience the occasional Finder crash. However, in addition to bugs, there is one design issue that I dislike: - "Recents" being the default when you open a new window. Finder tends to come to a grinding halt unless you swap location quickly as macOS does who-knows-what trying to determine your "recents".
- makecheck 9y agoGo to Preferences in the Finder and change the setting under "New Finder windows show:" to do something else (such as show your Home directory).
- srgpqt 9y agoIn Finder preferences, you can set the default finder view to somethng other than Recents. Anecdotally, i’ve never experienced any of the other issues in 15 years of using macOS. YMMV i guess.
- Benjamin_Dobell 9y ago> In Finder preferences, you can set the default finder view to somethng other than Recents. Cheers :) > Anecdotally, i’ve never experienced any of the other issues in 15 years of using macOS. I've only got just over 10 years up my sleeve, but I suspect most of the issues I run into are because I don't exclusively use Finder. File system changes originating from other processes (typically terminal) seem to be what trips Finder up.
- fiddlerwoaroof 9y agoThe Command+, preferences window lets you change the default folder. I don't think I've really experienced the other things you list.
- jeswin 9y agoOne, a tree view to navigate the directory structure is missing in Finder. Sadly, Gnome decided to copy this as well. I can't explain well enough why the treeview is better, you'll have to use it. 1) less mouse travel for switching, 2) you can expand multiple branches simultaneously and switch back and forth easily.
- squiggleblaz 9y agoI used to like winfile. Then I switched to the GNU command line, before eventually adopting ROX-Filer. ROX-Filer, now ageing, has no treeview. I do not miss it. (I'm about to tell you my experience. Not because it contradicts yours or because I believe you're wrong, but just because it's different. I'm a different person, so it's no surprise.) I have no solution to (1). It's not something that worries me. The solution to (2) is for it to be conceptually light and easy to have multiple windows open. I use "new window on button 1" and single click to open. This more-or-less does the trick. However the thing which really converted me was the shear ease of using ROX-Filer by keyboard; it gives you access to a nice command-line style interface insofar as you can navigate to the folder you want easily and you can pick the operation first, then the files (i.e. on the commandline you say "rm thisfile", but most guis require you to say "thisfile delete it". ROX-Filer lets you say press DEL and then select the file.) It also has super awesome navigation. And I think most of all, you can switch modes (i.e. between navigating and interacting with files) with the keyboard - ESC or / depending on direction. Most other file managers require you to use the mouse or the TAB to switch modes, and if it's TAB you can't predict how many times you need to press it.
- saagarjha 9y ago> a tree view to navigate the directory structure is missing in Finder I'm not sure I understand. Doesn't Finder have a tree view?
- gschier 9y agoHaving to press CMD+Down to enter a folder, or not being able to cut (only copy) files. It was designed to be used via mouse for only the most basic of operations. I used Ubuntu for years and much prefer the Nautilus (not sure if they still use that) file manager.
- derefr 9y ago> Having to press CMD+Down to enter a folder Personally, this has grown on me. It makes sense that Enter edits the filename, because the filename is a form field, and the Enter key seems to be assigned universally by the OSX HIG to switch the keyboard's arrow keys et al between having movement between form fields, and movement of the text caret inside a form field. Basically, consider your desktop to be an Excel spreadsheet. Would it make sense for Enter to not do what it does? It also, separately, makes sense that CMD+Down enters a folder (or, y'know, opens files/starts applications), because it's the complementary operation to CMD+Up. You go "up out of" a folder; you go "down into" a folder (or document, or application.) Nicely, unlike with Enter (which is overloaded with text-editing uses), this allows there to be a universal HIG-approved accelerator for an application's "descend" or "invoke" (or hopefully both) action. (But if that isn't a sensible justification, some people just take the stance that Enter being "edit this field"—being a system-wide universal—has priority over whatever the Finder might want to use it for, so the Finder just has to get its own accelerator. Thus, CMD+Down.) See also: CMD+[ and CMD+] as universal Back/Forward shortcuts. If they were anything else (say, if Back was mapped to Backspace), they couldn't be universal. But nothing was already using CMD+[ and CMD+], so they're free to be a universal convention. (Seriously, they work in iTunes! And in System Preferences!) > not being able to cut (only copy) files People think this functionality isn't there in the Finder, but it is! It just... has slightly different semantics than in all other apps... for some reason. From https://support.apple.com/en-ca/HT201236 https://support.apple.com/en-ca/HT201236: > Option-Command-V — Move: Move the files in the Clipboard from their original location to the current location. IOW, you don't decide whether something is a "cut" or a "copy" when starting the async-buffered-drag-and-drop-operation; you decide whether something was a "cut" or a "copy" when performing the drop part of the async-drag-and-drop-operation. (Which is similar to the synchronous drag-and-drop operations you perform with the mouse: to turn a "move" into a "copy" of a dragged file, you hold the Command key as you let go of the mouse button. You're modifying the drop event, not the drag event.)
- beedogs 9y agoFinder is an abomination. The fact that it sometimes just simply stops updating the directory contents of a remote fileshare is enough to make me distrust it. It's so poorly implemented and buggy that sometimes I just open a terminal window to move files around.
- ramijames 9y agoEven after a decade on macos, I find it incredibly irritating that I can't just edit the path to go to another directory. No, go to folder is not the same. For development purposes this is doubly irritating.
- mherrmann 9y agoYou may be interested in (my) https://fman.io https://fman.io. One of its most useful features is a Sublime Text-like GoTo command (Cmd+P) for jumping to a directory.
- eltoozero 9y agoYou can command click on the icon in the titlebar to drill down in the path if you like that better. Also it works everywhere there are document proxy icons in the title bar. Final cool tip, you can drag and drop the tiny file/folder icon in the titlebar, it’s a proxy for the file/folder itself. Oh and that icon goes grey when the file isn’t saved and that’s also when the close button gets a dot... As long as we’re talking macOS tricks: you can enable tabbing through the UI with Command-F7 and space activates the outlined button, while enter always activates the “solid” button.
- speby 9y agoI dunno... a quick Cmd-Shift-G is pretty easy & will let you edit the path however you like. And as someone else mentioned, a Cmd-Click on the title/path area of the window will let you move up the path arbitrarily.
- eXpl0it3r 9y agoI'm not macOS user so it's not a surprise that whenever I have to use Finder I get stumbed quickly, however reading the full thread here, it becomes quite obvious that while Finder can do pretty much everything like any other file browser, it tends to not be very intuitive about it. You need to know all the commands on how to open a path, navigate one directory up, etc.
- craigds 9y agoAfter 5 years of being a macos user it still hasn't grown on me. Then again, neither did Nautilus when I was a Linux user for ~8 years. For me, it's faster and easier to just use the CLI than try and figure out how these GUI file managers behave. If I need to switch to Finder after navigating somewhere for some reason, `open .` is handy.
- d99kris 9y agoYou can probably run it through Wine. I do that with Total Commander, which is another nice file manager.