4 ms·

I switched over from Windows to Mac hardcore for 3 months as well. I did all my development on Mac and used Mac tools for everything. I simply didn't enjoy th

by kjackson2012 14y ago

I switched over from Windows to Mac hardcore for 3 months as well. I did all my development on Mac and used Mac tools for everything. I simply didn't enjoy the change, so I switched back. It's just personal preference, but I didn't like switching keys, or having to do finger-Twister in order to get certain things to work. I found that most of the programs were at best equal to Windows-equivalents, and most were much poorer. It's just personal preference, I'm not trying to incite a religious war. I can adequately still use the Mac, and my wife had no such problems switching to the Mac, but I personally prefer Windows. The one thing I really despise, though, is Finder. I believe Windows Explorer is clearly superior to Finder in that sense, but then again, I think Windows 7 Explorer is a downgrade from Windows XP Explorer, by an order of magnitude.

panacea 14y ago
I switched to Mac almost exclusively about a decade ago. I still miss Windows Explorer. The Finder is a piece of shit. FTFF.
- tr4656 14y ago
  What do you dislike about Finder?
  - visarga 14y ago
    No Cut&Paste. Column mode is brain dead and doesn't auto-size columns even when I have ample screen space. I have to fix the columns by hand. Difficult to compute the total size of the selected files and folders. A drawback that I have with Mac OS in general is that in some dialogue boxes it's impossible to keyboard navigate from OK to Cancel, you have to select by mouse. At least in the default setting.
- steveax 14y ago
  Check out Path Finder from Cocoatech.
thetabyte 14y ago
I myself am rarely in Finder (or Spotlight, for that matter). Alfred (https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/alfred/id405843582?mt=12 https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/alfred/id405843582?mt=12) has been an absolute dream. I find every program, file, and everything else through Alfred, with just a few keystrokes and fuzzy search. My OS wouldn't be the same without it.
- bane 14y ago
  The problem with Finder is not so much finding things, but handling them once you've found them. Finder is probably the worst piece of file management software I've used in the last 20 years by far. Directory Opus on the Amiga was a better tool for moving things around. Finder is so bad that I prefer dropping down to a Terminal and just doing things that way instead.
  - thetabyte 14y ago
    Yeah, I have to give you that, the Finder UX isn't fantastic for moving files around, and I often use the terminal like you. However, I never found Windows Explorer any better. Even on Windows, I wished I had a UNIX terminal to move things with—on Mac, I do. Out of interest, what do the good file managers have? My biggest annoyance with Finder is lack of tabs/split panes.
    - bane 14y ago
      It's more what don't they do that Finder does poorly? Personally, I find that explorer pretty much does what I'm expecting (most of the time). And it's not really just a Windows thing, as far back as I can remember, across several OSs, you don't really have to "figure out" how the file manager works. You click on something and it pretty much does what it says. You drag something and it moves there. Various *nix window managers, Amiga, geos, BeOS, and on and on and on are pretty much just walk-up usable. With Finder I feel like I'm gambling. Where in the filesystem hierarchy will the new folder I just created get made? Why is enter rename? Why do you show me a useless file path that I can't use for any navigation? Network shares disappear. It's never wide enough to actually see the names of my files. All my files is probably one of the dumbest notions I've ever seen in a file management tool -- yay, I have a uselessly long list of all 2.7 million files I can go through, and we'll default to it also! and on and on and on, hour after mind-numbing hour. How about this folder? How much space do I have left? How big is the selection of files I have currently selected? Why don't the unintuitive iconoglyphs have some kind of description? Why are these ones down in the window, but other ones I need to use a million times a day up in the tool bar? Almost every interaction with Finder feels like I'm about to lose data, or the default is so completely brain dead that I have to go into preferences to fix almost every interaction to make finder even remotely useful. It's no wonder there's a dozen or so finder replacements that end up as default installs for most of the old-timer Mac guys I know. It's unbelievably unintuitive bitrot -- endless preference fiddling, and the feeling of walking a tightrope anchored with eggshells with every interaction. There's really few pieces of software I loathe to use, and it's a shame that it's pretty much the most basic piece of software in the OS. In the context of how abysmal finder is, it actually makes sense that Apple has gone out of its way to abstract the user away from the file system. From the perspective of a Windows user it seems like madness, but after enough time in OS X finder hell it makes perfect rational sense. You simply don't want to subject users to this level of frustration just to organize their mp3s or pictures. It may also explain why similar efforts in Windows land don't do as well, managing and organizing files is no less mysterious or confusing than any other organizational app, usually less so.

panacea 14y ago

I switched to Mac almost exclusively about a decade ago. I still miss Windows Explorer. The Finder is a piece of shit. FTFF.

tr4656 14y ago
What do you dislike about Finder?
- visarga 14y ago
  No Cut&Paste. Column mode is brain dead and doesn't auto-size columns even when I have ample screen space. I have to fix the columns by hand. Difficult to compute the total size of the selected files and folders. A drawback that I have with Mac OS in general is that in some dialogue boxes it's impossible to keyboard navigate from OK to Cancel, you have to select by mouse. At least in the default setting.
steveax 14y ago
Check out Path Finder from Cocoatech.

thetabyte 14y ago

I myself am rarely in Finder (or Spotlight, for that matter). Alfred (https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/alfred/id405843582?mt=12 https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/alfred/id405843582?mt=12) has been an absolute dream. I find every program, file, and everything else through Alfred, with just a few keystrokes and fuzzy search. My OS wouldn't be the same without it.

bane 14y ago
The problem with Finder is not so much finding things, but handling them once you've found them. Finder is probably the worst piece of file management software I've used in the last 20 years by far. Directory Opus on the Amiga was a better tool for moving things around. Finder is so bad that I prefer dropping down to a Terminal and just doing things that way instead.
- thetabyte 14y ago
  Yeah, I have to give you that, the Finder UX isn't fantastic for moving files around, and I often use the terminal like you. However, I never found Windows Explorer any better. Even on Windows, I wished I had a UNIX terminal to move things with—on Mac, I do. Out of interest, what do the good file managers have? My biggest annoyance with Finder is lack of tabs/split panes.
  - bane 14y ago
    It's more what don't they do that Finder does poorly? Personally, I find that explorer pretty much does what I'm expecting (most of the time). And it's not really just a Windows thing, as far back as I can remember, across several OSs, you don't really have to "figure out" how the file manager works. You click on something and it pretty much does what it says. You drag something and it moves there. Various *nix window managers, Amiga, geos, BeOS, and on and on and on are pretty much just walk-up usable. With Finder I feel like I'm gambling. Where in the filesystem hierarchy will the new folder I just created get made? Why is enter rename? Why do you show me a useless file path that I can't use for any navigation? Network shares disappear. It's never wide enough to actually see the names of my files. All my files is probably one of the dumbest notions I've ever seen in a file management tool -- yay, I have a uselessly long list of all 2.7 million files I can go through, and we'll default to it also! and on and on and on, hour after mind-numbing hour. How about this folder? How much space do I have left? How big is the selection of files I have currently selected? Why don't the unintuitive iconoglyphs have some kind of description? Why are these ones down in the window, but other ones I need to use a million times a day up in the tool bar? Almost every interaction with Finder feels like I'm about to lose data, or the default is so completely brain dead that I have to go into preferences to fix almost every interaction to make finder even remotely useful. It's no wonder there's a dozen or so finder replacements that end up as default installs for most of the old-timer Mac guys I know. It's unbelievably unintuitive bitrot -- endless preference fiddling, and the feeling of walking a tightrope anchored with eggshells with every interaction. There's really few pieces of software I loathe to use, and it's a shame that it's pretty much the most basic piece of software in the OS. In the context of how abysmal finder is, it actually makes sense that Apple has gone out of its way to abstract the user away from the file system. From the perspective of a Windows user it seems like madness, but after enough time in OS X finder hell it makes perfect rational sense. You simply don't want to subject users to this level of frustration just to organize their mp3s or pictures. It may also explain why similar efforts in Windows land don't do as well, managing and organizing files is no less mysterious or confusing than any other organizational app, usually less so.