6 ms·

Finder on macOS does this too. It's maddening... There was an article recently about "hostile architecture" and this is similarly a "hostile software design" t

by mholt 7y ago

Finder on macOS does this too. It's maddening... There was an article recently about "hostile architecture" and this is similarly a "hostile software design" to prevent users from doing something the developers don't want them to do.

Consultant32452 7y ago
And requires you to jump through non-obvious hoops to make "hidden" files and folders visible.
- twodayslate 7y ago
  Command + Shift + Period to show hidden files. To show extensions you can enable the setting in Finder's preferences under Advanced.
  - Consultant32452 7y ago
    Yeah, I have to google it every time I want to do this. It should be easy to find. Like maybe right click, show hidden files. Could be in the "View" menu. There's several obvious places it could/should be, but it's not. It's horrible ux.
  - mrkstu 7y ago
    Nice, didn't know that one- very handy.
- dreamcompiler 7y ago
  And now ~/Library is invisible by default, so that's yet another thing I have to fix on any new installation.
  - sneak 7y ago
    https://github.com/sneak/osximage https://github.com/sneak/osximage - i encourage you to snag the user setup scripts from here. the complete nbi building is out of date as it’s fallen out of favor with current releases but the configuration scripts can all still just be batch run on a fresh install to make osx sane.
TazeTSchnitzel 7y ago
Oh macOS is worse. It shows or hides extensions based on whether the user chose to include it in the save box or not. Command-line apps' output will always have the extension included.
- ihuman 7y ago
  If you set finder to always show extensions, it will always show them in the save box too.
jorvi 7y ago
Its hostile for power users but it prevents grandpa from renaming 'IMG_144.jpg' to 'Idaho_grandkids', hammering enter on the 'are you sure you want this' nag screen and then wondering what broke his picture.
- ken 7y ago
  On Macs before 2001, that used to work! We didn't used to cram pieces of file metadata into file names. File type was stored its own slot. The hidden-ness of a file was stored in its own slot. I find it amazing that despite the industry's trend in recent years away from string-typing and towards static-typing, metadata-in-file-name just won't die. I'm all for removing old ways of doing things that were bad, when we have a better way to do them. What we have here, with type-in-extension (and visibility-in-prefix), is a legacy system for which there is so far no workable substitute (on any system, much less all systems). A person can't be fully computer literate and not know what extensions are. UTI has some nice features, but it's still based on extensions (which are keys into the database with the information you really want). This weird halfway point, where every user has to be a "power user" of the filesystem in order to not break their own files, will live on until either types are made primary again, or until we're all reduced to using standalone "apps" with app-specific storage and we can't share any data except as the app author decided to allow.
  - dreamcompiler 7y ago
    Apple used to be the innovator in file metadata. They stopped when Steve came back because proper metadata made it more difficult to share files with Windows and Unix. And we're still stuck with crap metadata to this day.
    - munk-a 7y ago
      Given the implementations I've seen of file metadata outside of the extension I'm okay with this - every time OSes (especially windows) tries to strip away the extension it ends up switching the file type from being a description of "what am I" to "what can open me", I really dislike "what can open me" especially when we get into a lot of common office work file formats. Knowing the difference between .rtf, .txt, .doc and .docx is important because of the special attributes of those files - additionally I frequently run into issues with character encoding and that should be an even easier problem to solve so... my outlook is not very optimistic.

by mholt 7y ago

Consultant32452 7y ago

And requires you to jump through non-obvious hoops to make "hidden" files and folders visible.

twodayslate 7y ago
Command + Shift + Period to show hidden files. To show extensions you can enable the setting in Finder's preferences under Advanced.
- Consultant32452 7y ago
  Yeah, I have to google it every time I want to do this. It should be easy to find. Like maybe right click, show hidden files. Could be in the "View" menu. There's several obvious places it could/should be, but it's not. It's horrible ux.
- mrkstu 7y ago
  Nice, didn't know that one- very handy.
dreamcompiler 7y ago
And now ~/Library is invisible by default, so that's yet another thing I have to fix on any new installation.
- sneak 7y ago
  https://github.com/sneak/osximage https://github.com/sneak/osximage - i encourage you to snag the user setup scripts from here. the complete nbi building is out of date as it’s fallen out of favor with current releases but the configuration scripts can all still just be batch run on a fresh install to make osx sane.

TazeTSchnitzel 7y ago

Oh macOS is worse. It shows or hides extensions based on whether the user chose to include it in the save box or not. Command-line apps' output will always have the extension included.

ihuman 7y ago
If you set finder to always show extensions, it will always show them in the save box too.

jorvi 7y ago

Its hostile for power users but it prevents grandpa from renaming 'IMG_144.jpg' to 'Idaho_grandkids', hammering enter on the 'are you sure you want this' nag screen and then wondering what broke his picture.

ken 7y ago
On Macs before 2001, that used to work! We didn't used to cram pieces of file metadata into file names. File type was stored its own slot. The hidden-ness of a file was stored in its own slot. I find it amazing that despite the industry's trend in recent years away from string-typing and towards static-typing, metadata-in-file-name just won't die. I'm all for removing old ways of doing things that were bad, when we have a better way to do them. What we have here, with type-in-extension (and visibility-in-prefix), is a legacy system for which there is so far no workable substitute (on any system, much less all systems). A person can't be fully computer literate and not know what extensions are. UTI has some nice features, but it's still based on extensions (which are keys into the database with the information you really want). This weird halfway point, where every user has to be a "power user" of the filesystem in order to not break their own files, will live on until either types are made primary again, or until we're all reduced to using standalone "apps" with app-specific storage and we can't share any data except as the app author decided to allow.
- dreamcompiler 7y ago
  Apple used to be the innovator in file metadata. They stopped when Steve came back because proper metadata made it more difficult to share files with Windows and Unix. And we're still stuck with crap metadata to this day.
  - munk-a 7y ago
    Given the implementations I've seen of file metadata outside of the extension I'm okay with this - every time OSes (especially windows) tries to strip away the extension it ends up switching the file type from being a description of "what am I" to "what can open me", I really dislike "what can open me" especially when we get into a lot of common office work file formats. Knowing the difference between .rtf, .txt, .doc and .docx is important because of the special attributes of those files - additionally I frequently run into issues with character encoding and that should be an even easier problem to solve so... my outlook is not very optimistic.