6 ms·

> Or how about the fact that you can't get full file paths shown in the default file manager, I often know what directory I want to get to but have to figure ou

> Or how about the fact that you can't get full file paths shown in the default file manager, I often know what directory I want to get to but have to figure out what maze of files I have to go through to get there. Did you mean MacOS?

roblabla 6y ago
Windows also has a similar problem: The URL might not actually have the "true" path. It's so infuriating each time I try to get the path to my Downloads folder on Windows, and end up getting "This PC\Downloads". Please. I'm a grown up. Give me the real damn path... Seriously, Linux has a lot of UX issues, but hiding the full path of files is a problem that plagues literally every single OS file manager. It seems that at some point, all the major OS makers agreed that users are too stupid to understand a file hierarchy, and came up with tricks to hide it.
- HeckFeck 6y ago
  > It seems that at some point, all the major OS makers agreed that users are too stupid to understand a file hierarchy, and came up with tricks to hide it. And this is why I find myself mostly in the text shell. Were I to go graphical the minimum I want is a simple address bar that I can override the current path with a specified path at will. Maybe a tree view like in Windows 95 Explorer just to pretty things up. Some of the modern comforts like thumbnail images would also be welcome. I wish they would stop insulting their users who have taken the time to understand the underlying technicalities of a file system. All this should be user-configurable in a good file manager. SpaceFM and PcmanFM come closest to what I've specified.
  - groby_b 6y ago
    Hm. Cater to the 1% who have shown that they're able to learn complex concepts easily, or support the 99% who would rather not think about internals and use a computer as a simple tool. That's not a difficult question. The only time it makes sense to expose the internals is if you build a specialist tool for people who like internals exposed. This means that no, it shouldn't be "user configurable" either. You don't want a combinatorial explosion of states in your UI for a tiny set of users in the general purpose case, and you don't want to create a honking fat tool for specialists who'll only use the specialist path. The computer industry is discovering what the mechanical tools industry has known for a while: You can build a general purpose tool that's simple & straightforward, or you can make a specialist tool. Pretty much any specialist will be slightly unhappy with the specialist tool and modify it to their own requirements, but you can't build a specialist tool that makes even close to all specialists happy. The specialists will also continue to use the generalist tool if it gets the job done, but they'll complain every step of the way.
    - wtetzner 6y ago
      Being able to see the path in Finder doesn't seem like something that only 1% of users would want, though. I've seen "normal people" get very frustrated because they couldn't figure out where they saved a file. They saved it in a folder called "Documents", but they then tried to find it in a different folder also called "Documents". Hardly seems problematic to show the path to the folder.
- teh_klev 6y ago
  > "This PC\Downloads" I find this annoying as well, but it only happens when you use quick access shortcuts. And then once you're in a sub folder it'll display the full path in the title bar provided you turn on "Display the full path in the title bar" in the Folder Options. Navigating directly to c:\Users\MyUser\Downloads will also show the full path in the title bar. It seems some of these shortcuts have "special" behaviours in explorer.
  - joshuaissac 6y ago
    According to https://superuser.com/questions/1362386/always-show-absolute-path-in-file-explorer-address-bar https://superuser.com/questions/1362386/always-show-absolute... Windows does not mess up the path (yet) if it is a UNC path of the format \\Computer-Name\Users\MyUser so you can pin these folders to Quick Access to benefit from bookmarking folders while keeping the ability to copy folder paths easily.
    - teh_klev 6y ago
      Thanks for that.
- andrewflnr 6y ago
  After reading r/talesfromtechsupport for a while, it's apparent that there are quite a few people who are too stupid to understand a file hierarchy.
matthewmacleod 6y ago
Seems unlikely, given that in MacOS you could e.g.: - Drag and drop the file into a terminal to insert the path - Copy and paste the file into the terminal, which inserts the path - Press Command+I to show a popover describing the path to the file - Enable the "show path bar" option in the Finder's "view" menu, which will show a nice graphical representation of the path to the current location at the bottom of the window (which lets you copy the POSIX path to each item) - For more advanced users, run the command `defaults write com.apple.finder _FXShowPosixPathInTitle -bool YES` to show the full path to the current folder in each Finder window title
- jonplackett 6y ago
  > defaults write com.apple.finder _FXShowPosixPathInTitle -bool YES THANK YOU!
- the_other 6y ago
  Here's one more: - use columns view
- aasasd 6y ago
  Also in the same ballpark, you can right-click on the window title and see a dropdown with the parent directories. Which primarily lets you navigate to them. Ah, and also if you alt-rightclick on an item, you can copy its path to the clipboard. Or you can open the ‘Edit’ menu with alt pressed and copy the path to the current folder. Apparently there's even a shortcut for this.
- eek04_ 6y ago
  MacOS has been a pain for me with this; in some of the later revisions it's always a pain to get around to the right place. I don't spend time learning Mac in depth; I'm mostly a Unix person, using a Mac as just a terminal to the stuff I actually deal with (which mostly is web based or run on a datacenter somewhere.) It's certainly fine if you work a lot locally with the Mac; but for me, the cost-effective thing has been to fumble around each time (since I only do this a few times a year) rather than memorize handling that I use so seldom.
chaos_a 6y ago
> Did you mean MacOS? In macos I don't have to edit random .conf files in system/application directories just to make my wifi work correctly. The graphical UI is configurable enough that I rarely need to modify anything outside of my normal user directories. Where as in ubuntu the forums/stack overflow usually say "go to this file at /sys/whatever and write in this". Hence the need for full file paths.
- dsego 6y ago
  Oh really? MacOS is fine when things works, but when they don't it's pretty much the same as linux, for better or for worse. Quick example, because I'm trying to make my nas usable on a mac and it's given me a headache. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208209 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208209
  - vetinari 6y ago
    On your NAS, put /.DS_Store/ into veto criteria.
- vetinari 6y ago
  Really, don't you? The first thing I do on any Mac is to drop into Terminal to run this: defaults delete com.apple.systempreferences AttentionPrefBundleIDs And don't get me started on the wiping `/private/var/db/mds/messages/${UID}/se_SecurityMessages` after each update, without which SMB doesn't work.
- wtetzner 6y ago
  I mean, I just learned that to show the path in the title of the Finder window I need to run: defaults write com.apple.finder _FXShowPosixPathInTitle -bool YES
- ric2b 6y ago
  Please tell me how to turn off mouse acceleration in MacOS without opening a terminal, because I didn't find another way. It's quite a basic thing, most games include it in their settings yet it doesn't seem important enough to have a setting in the OS itself.
rewgs 6y ago
View/Show Path Bar.
incanus77 6y ago
My most-used MacOS shortcuts for navigation: Terminal -> Finder: open . Finder -> Terminal: I made a Bash function: function cdf { DIR=$(osascript -e 'tell app "Finder" to POSIX path of (insertion location as alias)') cd "$DIR" }

roblabla 6y ago

Windows also has a similar problem: The URL might not actually have the "true" path. It's so infuriating each time I try to get the path to my Downloads folder on Windows, and end up getting "This PC\Downloads". Please. I'm a grown up. Give me the real damn path... Seriously, Linux has a lot of UX issues, but hiding the full path of files is a problem that plagues literally every single OS file manager. It seems that at some point, all the major OS makers agreed that users are too stupid to understand a file hierarchy, and came up with tricks to hide it.

HeckFeck 6y ago
> It seems that at some point, all the major OS makers agreed that users are too stupid to understand a file hierarchy, and came up with tricks to hide it. And this is why I find myself mostly in the text shell. Were I to go graphical the minimum I want is a simple address bar that I can override the current path with a specified path at will. Maybe a tree view like in Windows 95 Explorer just to pretty things up. Some of the modern comforts like thumbnail images would also be welcome. I wish they would stop insulting their users who have taken the time to understand the underlying technicalities of a file system. All this should be user-configurable in a good file manager. SpaceFM and PcmanFM come closest to what I've specified.
- groby_b 6y ago
  Hm. Cater to the 1% who have shown that they're able to learn complex concepts easily, or support the 99% who would rather not think about internals and use a computer as a simple tool. That's not a difficult question. The only time it makes sense to expose the internals is if you build a specialist tool for people who like internals exposed. This means that no, it shouldn't be "user configurable" either. You don't want a combinatorial explosion of states in your UI for a tiny set of users in the general purpose case, and you don't want to create a honking fat tool for specialists who'll only use the specialist path. The computer industry is discovering what the mechanical tools industry has known for a while: You can build a general purpose tool that's simple & straightforward, or you can make a specialist tool. Pretty much any specialist will be slightly unhappy with the specialist tool and modify it to their own requirements, but you can't build a specialist tool that makes even close to all specialists happy. The specialists will also continue to use the generalist tool if it gets the job done, but they'll complain every step of the way.
  - wtetzner 6y ago
    Being able to see the path in Finder doesn't seem like something that only 1% of users would want, though. I've seen "normal people" get very frustrated because they couldn't figure out where they saved a file. They saved it in a folder called "Documents", but they then tried to find it in a different folder also called "Documents". Hardly seems problematic to show the path to the folder.
teh_klev 6y ago
> "This PC\Downloads" I find this annoying as well, but it only happens when you use quick access shortcuts. And then once you're in a sub folder it'll display the full path in the title bar provided you turn on "Display the full path in the title bar" in the Folder Options. Navigating directly to c:\Users\MyUser\Downloads will also show the full path in the title bar. It seems some of these shortcuts have "special" behaviours in explorer.
- joshuaissac 6y ago
  According to https://superuser.com/questions/1362386/always-show-absolute-path-in-file-explorer-address-bar https://superuser.com/questions/1362386/always-show-absolute... Windows does not mess up the path (yet) if it is a UNC path of the format \\Computer-Name\Users\MyUser so you can pin these folders to Quick Access to benefit from bookmarking folders while keeping the ability to copy folder paths easily.
  - teh_klev 6y ago
    Thanks for that.
andrewflnr 6y ago
After reading r/talesfromtechsupport for a while, it's apparent that there are quite a few people who are too stupid to understand a file hierarchy.

matthewmacleod 6y ago

Seems unlikely, given that in MacOS you could e.g.: - Drag and drop the file into a terminal to insert the path - Copy and paste the file into the terminal, which inserts the path - Press Command+I to show a popover describing the path to the file - Enable the "show path bar" option in the Finder's "view" menu, which will show a nice graphical representation of the path to the current location at the bottom of the window (which lets you copy the POSIX path to each item) - For more advanced users, run the command `defaults write com.apple.finder _FXShowPosixPathInTitle -bool YES` to show the full path to the current folder in each Finder window title

jonplackett 6y ago
> defaults write com.apple.finder _FXShowPosixPathInTitle -bool YES THANK YOU!
the_other 6y ago
Here's one more: - use columns view
aasasd 6y ago
Also in the same ballpark, you can right-click on the window title and see a dropdown with the parent directories. Which primarily lets you navigate to them. Ah, and also if you alt-rightclick on an item, you can copy its path to the clipboard. Or you can open the ‘Edit’ menu with alt pressed and copy the path to the current folder. Apparently there's even a shortcut for this.
eek04_ 6y ago
MacOS has been a pain for me with this; in some of the later revisions it's always a pain to get around to the right place. I don't spend time learning Mac in depth; I'm mostly a Unix person, using a Mac as just a terminal to the stuff I actually deal with (which mostly is web based or run on a datacenter somewhere.) It's certainly fine if you work a lot locally with the Mac; but for me, the cost-effective thing has been to fumble around each time (since I only do this a few times a year) rather than memorize handling that I use so seldom.

chaos_a 6y ago

> Did you mean MacOS? In macos I don't have to edit random .conf files in system/application directories just to make my wifi work correctly. The graphical UI is configurable enough that I rarely need to modify anything outside of my normal user directories. Where as in ubuntu the forums/stack overflow usually say "go to this file at /sys/whatever and write in this". Hence the need for full file paths.

dsego 6y ago
Oh really? MacOS is fine when things works, but when they don't it's pretty much the same as linux, for better or for worse. Quick example, because I'm trying to make my nas usable on a mac and it's given me a headache. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208209 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208209
- vetinari 6y ago
  On your NAS, put /.DS_Store/ into veto criteria.
vetinari 6y ago
Really, don't you? The first thing I do on any Mac is to drop into Terminal to run this: defaults delete com.apple.systempreferences AttentionPrefBundleIDs And don't get me started on the wiping `/private/var/db/mds/messages/${UID}/se_SecurityMessages` after each update, without which SMB doesn't work.
wtetzner 6y ago
I mean, I just learned that to show the path in the title of the Finder window I need to run: defaults write com.apple.finder _FXShowPosixPathInTitle -bool YES
ric2b 6y ago
Please tell me how to turn off mouse acceleration in MacOS without opening a terminal, because I didn't find another way. It's quite a basic thing, most games include it in their settings yet it doesn't seem important enough to have a setting in the OS itself.

rewgs 6y ago

View/Show Path Bar.

incanus77 6y ago

My most-used MacOS shortcuts for navigation: Terminal -> Finder: open . Finder -> Terminal: I made a Bash function: function cdf { DIR=$(osascript -e 'tell app "Finder" to POSIX path of (insertion location as alias)') cd "$DIR" }