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> The modern Macintosh Finder is a usability disaster compared to the original Macintosh Finder. Can you expound on this or link to someone who does? I've read

> The modern Macintosh Finder is a usability disaster compared to the original Macintosh Finder. Can you expound on this or link to someone who does? I've read this many times, along with comparisons to some sort of utopic "spatial Finder", but I've never seen it explained. As someone who only started using Macs around Tiger I'd be curious to hear what was so good about the old Finder. (I don't find the modern one to be that bad, especially in comparison to Windows Explorer, although admittedly that's a very low bar)

leejoramo 5y ago
John Siracusa wrote the definitive posting about the spatial Finder back in 2003. He returned to this issue many times in his annual macOS reviews https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2003/04/finder/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2003/04/finder/
- marcellus23 5y ago
  Thank you! I was thinking of John's reviews when I wrote that comment actually, I wasn't aware he wrote a whole article on it.
- Eric_WVGG 5y ago
  Although I am something of a "fan" of Siracusa (enjoyed his MacOS reviews for years, and still listen to a couple of his podcasts), I think he's just dead wrong about this Finder thing. The spatial Finder was a great idea when someone's collection of files was, say, the size of the contents of a set of desk drawers or a small filing cabinet. We busted through that limit over a decade ago. The typical computer user now has file collections the size of a municipal library. I don't think anyone would agree that a city library could be organized "spatially," where one librarian remembered where they left that copy of Twilight: New Moon. Libraries need a dewey decimal system. Likewise, modern file systems are best searched via keyword search (Spotlight), and organized via a file browser. And it appears that the contemporary evolution of all this is iOS and ChromeOS, which throw in the towel on organization altogether. I personally arrived at this conclusion all the way back with the release of Windows 95, where I decided that Windows Explorer, warts and all, just worked better for a big file collection than OS 7 Finder, and only came back to Mac with the advent of OS X. I certainly appreciate the beauty and psychological theory of the spatial Finder, but it just doesn't scale.
  - tambourine_man 5y ago
    >I don't think anyone would agree that a city library could be organized "spatially," Of course they can. The scales are larger than a desk, but spatial arrangement is crucial to a librarian. You don't know exactly where Twilight: New Moon is, but Literature -> Fiction is the second shelf near the door. >And it appears that the contemporary evolution of all this is iOS and ChromeOS, which throw in the towel on organization altogether. And it's a disaster.
bitwize 5y ago
The spatial Finder treated files and folders like physical objects. There was only one window on the screen for a given folder because a physical folder can only be at one place at a time. The location of each file and folder on the desktop or in a window was saved, as is the size and location of each open window, because objects remain where you left them unless moved. It's not something that surfaces in conscious memory, but subconsciously this takes advantage of millions of years of evolution of the human brain to cope with and manipulate objecrs in the physical world, something other file managers don't do. Apple invested millions of dollars and thousands of user-hours of experimentation into making the OS take advantage of innate human psychology like this, something NO other computer manufacturer (including Xerox) had done at the time. It's a big part of why the original Mac OS was, objectively, the easiest operating system to use in the world (and far easier than many operating systems that postdate it including modern macOS).
- Someone 5y ago
  Yes, it was great, but that feature doesn’t work with multi-user systems or network storage. Say user 1 has a large screen, and sizes the window of a folder accordingly, keeping spacing of icons in it large. Next, user 2 opens the folder on their desktop. Firstly, should it disappear from user 1’s screen, as it would if it were a physical object? That probably is undesirable. Also, if the window doesn’t fit on user 2’s screen, what should the UI do? Resize the window? On user 2’s screen or on both screens? If user 2 changes the looks of the window, and user 1 opens it again, should user 1 see it the way user 2 left it behind? Access rights introduce other problems with this metaphor. What should happen if user 2 doesn’t have write rights to a networked folder? Should they be allowed to move icons within a folder? Change window sizes? If so, where should the information about icon layout be stored? Those physical folders also don’t work well with disks with millions of files.
  - setpatchaddress 5y ago
    There's no reason a spatial layout shouldn't be remembered (by default) per-user on a multiuser system.
thought_alarm 5y ago
When Apple ported the classic Finder to OS X they added a NeXT-style "browser" mode (browse between folders inside of a single window) in addition to the Classic MacOS mode (each folder is its own window). Unfortunately, they did a very poor job of trying to blend the two modes into a single user interface, to the point that ruined both modes. A signature feature of the classic mode is that each folder window saves its own customizable view state. Whenever you return to a folder is looks exactly the way you left it. Unfortunately, browser mode clobbers the classic view state of any folder you visit. There's no way to customize the look of a specific folder (like /Applications) and have it stick, because the settings are always getting rewritten by the last browser window to visit the folder. Similarly, there's no way to set a preferred browser window size or style. Instead, it always adopts the classic view state of the first folder you open. And as you browse around the view state of that first folder spreads to all other folders you visit. If you open a folder that has no classic view state, you get a hard-coded default browser window. You see this tiny hard-coded default browser whenever you create a new folder on your desktop and open it.
- diskzero 5y ago
  I was part of the team that "ported" the classic Finder to OS X. I left Apple in 2006, but was there at the time of the NeXT acquisition. Trying to appease the spatial Finder advocates and at the same time trying to appease Steve's desire to never have to know where a file existed in the filesystem was a constant source of grief. The seeming utopia of the System 7/8/9 Finder was possible because the job of the Finder, and the system itself, was relatively simple. The current Finder is managing a ton of features that are quite complex. If you were to say that many of these features are not needed, or detract from some pure vision of the Finder, I would probably agree with you. It is always interesting to get feedback, positive or negative, on the Finder. In general, most users seem to interact with it in a shallow way, using the Desktop as a giant catch all storage location. We were always aware of the various bugs involving the loss of layout preferences and fixes ended up being fragile and exposing confusing bits of UI. The team tried (tries) hard to balance all of the competing requests for Finder functionality. Working on the Finder team could be joyous and miserable at the same time.
thom 5y ago
The “spatial finder” is a thankfully long dead idea that your file system is a series of places you want to revisit, instead of just another component in whatever task you’re performing. It survives in your desktop and nowhere else, and despite the hushed, reverent tones in which it’s discussed in some circles, would be the first thing any user switched off in their preferences on any modern machine.
- tambourine_man 5y ago
  iOS home screen is spatial. You know the App you want is on 3rd page at the top and you expect and rely on your OS never to change that. The position is extremely imporant. It also a huge success, since it's been copied everywhere, by Android, macOS and Windows.
  - thom 5y ago
    Yes, that’s the iOS desktop and the one place it makes some vague sense (although I search just as often and recent versions have added features to help people who clearly don’t know where half their apps are). What doesn’t make sense is persisting this spatial info _everywhere_ and launching obnoxious amounts of new windows every time you go back.
  - astrange 5y ago
    It's easy to mess up the home screen by deleting an app, or by dragging one back through the pages and accidentally letting go early. I also think search is pretty common these days.
  - andrekandre 5y ago
    > It also a huge success, since it's been copied everywhere, by Android, macOS and Windows. maybe so, but personally i get tired of swiping through pages and pages of icons that look nearly identical... i don't know if its an issue of flat design or something else, but i think "wall of icons" paradigm is a bit limiting compared to something a bit more spacial (icon sizes, layout, swipe up/down etc)
jayd16 5y ago
Usability suffers for a clean looking UI. Copying a path is much harder in Finder. You need to just know to right click on a plain text element to even see the breadcrumb. You need to google the hotkey to show hidden items, its not in the menu AFAICT, you can't search for it anyway. There's a long list of common features that have become power tools you need to already know about.

leejoramo 5y ago

John Siracusa wrote the definitive posting about the spatial Finder back in 2003. He returned to this issue many times in his annual macOS reviews https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2003/04/finder/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2003/04/finder/

marcellus23 5y ago
Thank you! I was thinking of John's reviews when I wrote that comment actually, I wasn't aware he wrote a whole article on it.
Eric_WVGG 5y ago
Although I am something of a "fan" of Siracusa (enjoyed his MacOS reviews for years, and still listen to a couple of his podcasts), I think he's just dead wrong about this Finder thing. The spatial Finder was a great idea when someone's collection of files was, say, the size of the contents of a set of desk drawers or a small filing cabinet. We busted through that limit over a decade ago. The typical computer user now has file collections the size of a municipal library. I don't think anyone would agree that a city library could be organized "spatially," where one librarian remembered where they left that copy of Twilight: New Moon. Libraries need a dewey decimal system. Likewise, modern file systems are best searched via keyword search (Spotlight), and organized via a file browser. And it appears that the contemporary evolution of all this is iOS and ChromeOS, which throw in the towel on organization altogether. I personally arrived at this conclusion all the way back with the release of Windows 95, where I decided that Windows Explorer, warts and all, just worked better for a big file collection than OS 7 Finder, and only came back to Mac with the advent of OS X. I certainly appreciate the beauty and psychological theory of the spatial Finder, but it just doesn't scale.
- tambourine_man 5y ago
  >I don't think anyone would agree that a city library could be organized "spatially," Of course they can. The scales are larger than a desk, but spatial arrangement is crucial to a librarian. You don't know exactly where Twilight: New Moon is, but Literature -> Fiction is the second shelf near the door. >And it appears that the contemporary evolution of all this is iOS and ChromeOS, which throw in the towel on organization altogether. And it's a disaster.

bitwize 5y ago

The spatial Finder treated files and folders like physical objects. There was only one window on the screen for a given folder because a physical folder can only be at one place at a time. The location of each file and folder on the desktop or in a window was saved, as is the size and location of each open window, because objects remain where you left them unless moved. It's not something that surfaces in conscious memory, but subconsciously this takes advantage of millions of years of evolution of the human brain to cope with and manipulate objecrs in the physical world, something other file managers don't do. Apple invested millions of dollars and thousands of user-hours of experimentation into making the OS take advantage of innate human psychology like this, something NO other computer manufacturer (including Xerox) had done at the time. It's a big part of why the original Mac OS was, objectively, the easiest operating system to use in the world (and far easier than many operating systems that postdate it including modern macOS).

Someone 5y ago
Yes, it was great, but that feature doesn’t work with multi-user systems or network storage. Say user 1 has a large screen, and sizes the window of a folder accordingly, keeping spacing of icons in it large. Next, user 2 opens the folder on their desktop. Firstly, should it disappear from user 1’s screen, as it would if it were a physical object? That probably is undesirable. Also, if the window doesn’t fit on user 2’s screen, what should the UI do? Resize the window? On user 2’s screen or on both screens? If user 2 changes the looks of the window, and user 1 opens it again, should user 1 see it the way user 2 left it behind? Access rights introduce other problems with this metaphor. What should happen if user 2 doesn’t have write rights to a networked folder? Should they be allowed to move icons within a folder? Change window sizes? If so, where should the information about icon layout be stored? Those physical folders also don’t work well with disks with millions of files.
- setpatchaddress 5y ago
  There's no reason a spatial layout shouldn't be remembered (by default) per-user on a multiuser system.

thought_alarm 5y ago

When Apple ported the classic Finder to OS X they added a NeXT-style "browser" mode (browse between folders inside of a single window) in addition to the Classic MacOS mode (each folder is its own window). Unfortunately, they did a very poor job of trying to blend the two modes into a single user interface, to the point that ruined both modes. A signature feature of the classic mode is that each folder window saves its own customizable view state. Whenever you return to a folder is looks exactly the way you left it. Unfortunately, browser mode clobbers the classic view state of any folder you visit. There's no way to customize the look of a specific folder (like /Applications) and have it stick, because the settings are always getting rewritten by the last browser window to visit the folder. Similarly, there's no way to set a preferred browser window size or style. Instead, it always adopts the classic view state of the first folder you open. And as you browse around the view state of that first folder spreads to all other folders you visit. If you open a folder that has no classic view state, you get a hard-coded default browser window. You see this tiny hard-coded default browser whenever you create a new folder on your desktop and open it.

diskzero 5y ago
I was part of the team that "ported" the classic Finder to OS X. I left Apple in 2006, but was there at the time of the NeXT acquisition. Trying to appease the spatial Finder advocates and at the same time trying to appease Steve's desire to never have to know where a file existed in the filesystem was a constant source of grief. The seeming utopia of the System 7/8/9 Finder was possible because the job of the Finder, and the system itself, was relatively simple. The current Finder is managing a ton of features that are quite complex. If you were to say that many of these features are not needed, or detract from some pure vision of the Finder, I would probably agree with you. It is always interesting to get feedback, positive or negative, on the Finder. In general, most users seem to interact with it in a shallow way, using the Desktop as a giant catch all storage location. We were always aware of the various bugs involving the loss of layout preferences and fixes ended up being fragile and exposing confusing bits of UI. The team tried (tries) hard to balance all of the competing requests for Finder functionality. Working on the Finder team could be joyous and miserable at the same time.

thom 5y ago

The “spatial finder” is a thankfully long dead idea that your file system is a series of places you want to revisit, instead of just another component in whatever task you’re performing. It survives in your desktop and nowhere else, and despite the hushed, reverent tones in which it’s discussed in some circles, would be the first thing any user switched off in their preferences on any modern machine.

tambourine_man 5y ago
iOS home screen is spatial. You know the App you want is on 3rd page at the top and you expect and rely on your OS never to change that. The position is extremely imporant. It also a huge success, since it's been copied everywhere, by Android, macOS and Windows.
- thom 5y ago
  Yes, that’s the iOS desktop and the one place it makes some vague sense (although I search just as often and recent versions have added features to help people who clearly don’t know where half their apps are). What doesn’t make sense is persisting this spatial info _everywhere_ and launching obnoxious amounts of new windows every time you go back.
- astrange 5y ago
  It's easy to mess up the home screen by deleting an app, or by dragging one back through the pages and accidentally letting go early. I also think search is pretty common these days.
- andrekandre 5y ago
  > It also a huge success, since it's been copied everywhere, by Android, macOS and Windows. maybe so, but personally i get tired of swiping through pages and pages of icons that look nearly identical... i don't know if its an issue of flat design or something else, but i think "wall of icons" paradigm is a bit limiting compared to something a bit more spacial (icon sizes, layout, swipe up/down etc)

jayd16 5y ago

Usability suffers for a clean looking UI. Copying a path is much harder in Finder. You need to just know to right click on a plain text element to even see the breadcrumb. You need to google the hotkey to show hidden items, its not in the menu AFAICT, you can't search for it anyway. There's a long list of common features that have become power tools you need to already know about.