― Allyzay must fight Zolton herself. (allyzay), Wednesday, 18 January 2006 21:30 (eighteen years ago) link
First off, throw out Suitcase completely. Extensis' developers have been completely out to lunch when it comes to proper OS X development and are currently racing with Quark as to how fast they can alienate their user base.
Second, download a copy of Font Explorer. It's free and it works fantastically.
― Elvis Telecom (Chris Barrus), Wednesday, 18 January 2006 21:38 (eighteen years ago) link
I haven't been really happy with any of the Finder augmentation apps, but Path Finder seems to be pretty good - and it will sort by date in column view.
― Elvis Telecom (Chris Barrus), Wednesday, 18 January 2006 21:42 (eighteen years ago) link
― gabbneb (gabbneb), Wednesday, 18 January 2006 21:43 (eighteen years ago) link
― gabbneb (gabbneb), Wednesday, 18 January 2006 21:45 (eighteen years ago) link
Apple don't include enough RAM for how their OS runs. this thing cost me 2 grand ffs!
― jed_ (jed), Wednesday, 18 January 2006 21:52 (eighteen years ago) link
tears before 7pm EST.
― Allyzay must fight Zolton herself. (allyzay), Wednesday, 18 January 2006 22:01 (eighteen years ago) link
― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Wednesday, 18 January 2006 22:02 (eighteen years ago) link
They're all non-issues unless you like to painfully nit-pick over things or are affronted that Steve Jobs didn't personally call you for your input in development. I'm a programmer, database developer, network cop, iPod owner, p2p user, etc. and I'm 85% satisfied with my set-up. If I sat down and thought about it some more I could probably work up a good series of complaints about that remaining 15% but since that 85% satisfaction is responsible for 100% of my income I don't really have the time.
― Elvis Telecom (Chris Barrus), Wednesday, 18 January 2006 22:03 (eighteen years ago) link
― Dan Selzer (Dan Selzer), Wednesday, 18 January 2006 22:05 (eighteen years ago) link
― Allyzay must fight Zolton herself. (allyzay), Wednesday, 18 January 2006 22:07 (eighteen years ago) link
― Allyzay must fight Zolton herself. (allyzay), Wednesday, 18 January 2006 22:08 (eighteen years ago) link
hence, my latter-day lack of reasons to hate Microsoft anymore, and instead be perturbed at Apple because just-as-reliable ugly Dell gear comes with 1.5x better price/performance/compatibility ratio.
I think it's the coming-home-to-relax factor as opposed to working-with-it factor that's responsible for a lot of my OS X Finder et al. animosity. It's just not as easygoing or fun(ctional) as I remember it being.
― TOMBOT, Wednesday, 18 January 2006 22:10 (eighteen years ago) link
xpostI'm not sure about that 1.5x price-to-performance ratio. When I was buying my G5, I looked pretty close at Windows machines and saved very little money for the same quality.
― Erick Dampier is better than Shaq (miloaukerman), Wednesday, 18 January 2006 22:13 (eighteen years ago) link
this is one of those philosophical questions, isn't it? besides l'interweb-retina fusion, yer basic Word-based notepad-type stuff, plus I guess lots of music (and photo? dvd?)-downloading/storage type stuff, which i'll be totally new to.
gabby, just buy shitloads of RAM from a third party and never use the volume keys.
WHAT?! I CAN'T HEAR YOU!
They're all non-issues unless you like to painfully nit-pick over things
ok, that's what i was looking for
one thing i've noticed on my parents' OSX - these sidebar application icons that JUMP. OUT. AT. YOU. when you get within half a mile of them. is this what i have to look forward to?
― gabbneb (gabbneb), Wednesday, 18 January 2006 22:15 (eighteen years ago) link
― gabbneb (gabbneb), Wednesday, 18 January 2006 22:17 (eighteen years ago) link
― Erick Dampier is better than Shaq (miloaukerman), Wednesday, 18 January 2006 22:18 (eighteen years ago) link
*opens up Font Explorer and counts fonts*
I've got 2672 fonts loaded of which 314 are active right now. FWIW, a designer at one of the places I consult at has 5500 or so fonts loaded in Font Explorer and hasn't reported any issues with it (they were running Suitcase which caused problems daily)
― Elvis Telecom (Chris Barrus), Wednesday, 18 January 2006 22:38 (eighteen years ago) link
― Dan Selzer (Dan Selzer), Wednesday, 18 January 2006 22:40 (eighteen years ago) link
-- grimly fiendish's scrotal sac
I didn't get much (any) sleep last night, was posting ... with nothing much to add.
The level of hate though is generated by the fact I would LOVE to use the thing. There are plenty reasons why Windows sucks too you know! And I'm sick of fixing desktop PC's, and Windows laptops are often fugly and poorly thought/laid out in comparison. I would love to use it but... it makes me tear my hair out in frustration. So I don't. Yes I'm crabby! I fell for the hype and I feel like a fool.
The piss-poor state of the finder though is something that I just can't ignore (and believe me I've tried!!) in regular use, it just gets in my way and confounds me at every turn. It really is the elephant in the room. It took me what... five minutes? to get my head around Windows Explorer's folder tree. SIX MONTHS struggling with the finder and I still wasn't really sure if I was using it right, and was mostly just AWARE of it being there.
This isn't a "geek" rant. Or an anti-Apple screed (mostly). I couldn't give a shit about brushed metal, I don't even mind the dock... I really like my iPod (but they NEED to fix the LAME VBR bug asap!)
I'm just a fairly competent PC user who is plain amazed that everyone else can get along with something so wrong and broken on a basic usability level. It isn't even the slowness of the thing that grates. And frustrated that it'll basically NEVER be fixed because Apple seems to think bells, whistles & PR will somehow bridge the gap. All I see in the future if I was to hang onto this thing is lies, self-denial, and excessive further costs to come. I dunno about "long term" but I still feel I'm doing the right thing by jumping off now before it gets worse. I hate them for putting me in this position.
"I can find my files okay" is SUCH a 'mac' response too. As if that's ALL a file browser does. ffs.
― fandango (fandango), Wednesday, 18 January 2006 22:58 (eighteen years ago) link
I'm not trying to be knee jerk here, nor am I invalidating your crappy iBook/iPod but there's a lot of "Macs don't do this one thing EXACTLY so it SUCKS!" talk in this thread that bothers me. Most likely, that iBook G3 you had was just crap and from looking at the results of this iBook and PowerBook survey quite a few people had problems with it...
"The iBook G3, which sold quite well, had the most failures of any Apple laptop we surveyed and the failures were critical (the motherboard). Some other Mac models have had quite a few failures as well, but they generally were due to specific component problems. The iBook G3 simply appears to have been a flawed design, but it took a long time for Apple engineers to get a handle on the problem and fix it."
Every manufacturer has a flawed design sooner or later (don't get me started on Dell laptops), but it doesn't necessarily extend to the entire product line. Gabbneb just wanted to know if he would be making a mistake if he bought a new laptop (I don't believe he would, but I think he should get AppleCare with it)
Of course I'm biased to some degree because much of my livelihood depends on having more Macs out there.
― Elvis Telecom (Chris Barrus), Wednesday, 18 January 2006 23:20 (eighteen years ago) link
(I jumped to Mac in 2002, so I've never actually used the old Finder, but so far, the only thing that really bothers me sometimes is that it can sometimes be difficult to create a new directory when it's in list mode. I also seem to remember fuss about it being Carbon-based rather than written in Cocoa)
― carson dial (carson dial), Wednesday, 18 January 2006 23:23 (eighteen years ago) link
Going the Mac->Windows direction isn't much better either. I dread the Windows folder tree and still hate how it slows me down.
― Elvis Telecom (Chris Barrus), Wednesday, 18 January 2006 23:27 (eighteen years ago) link
I used to find it a bit fiddly to get to non-dock applications, but then I realised I could put an alias to the Application folder in my dock.
Other than that I have no problems. Oh, integrated FTP and CD copying support would be nice.
― Alba (Alba), Wednesday, 18 January 2006 23:31 (eighteen years ago) link
This bothered me for a long time also, but upgrading to the latest DivX 6 driver seemed to have sped things up a lot (using OS X 10.4.4 with QuickTime 7.0.4 if it matters)
― Elvis Telecom (Chris Barrus), Wednesday, 18 January 2006 23:35 (eighteen years ago) link
The windows folder tree is hardly perfect I'll admit! But it slow me down less because it behaves consistently, you can rely on it (except when it crashes obv.). That's the key.
OS X behaves in ways that are unexpected, unusual, random, illogical and stop you "just getting on with it". It's like a slippery electric eel, when it should be your pet dog & friend.
― fandango (fandango), Wednesday, 18 January 2006 23:38 (eighteen years ago) link
― gabbneb (gabbneb), Wednesday, 18 January 2006 23:50 (eighteen years ago) link
There's so much wrong with the fucking thing.
― fandango (fandango), Thursday, 19 January 2006 00:01 (eighteen years ago) link
― fandango (fandango), Thursday, 19 January 2006 00:05 (eighteen years ago) link
― fandango (fandango), Thursday, 19 January 2006 00:09 (eighteen years ago) link
The first thing to understand is they're not windows anymore like they used to be...when you double click a folder you're not opening the folder, you're opening a little browser window that shows you what's in the folder. If you don't think to hard about it it may seem like I'm splitting hairs, but remembering that difference is one major way I'm able to understand how finder works now differently then before.
― Dan Selzer (Dan Selzer), Thursday, 19 January 2006 00:18 (eighteen years ago) link
I honestly haven't experienced most of the things you mention! I do find Desktop icons are sometimes invisible in XP though... And XP's 'map network drive' view is appalling, where if the directory path is longer than about 12 characters it just truncates it and there's no way of scrolling or even copy-pasting it to see the full thing.
― Alba (Alba), Thursday, 19 January 2006 00:25 (eighteen years ago) link
xpost: yeah, dan's precise summary of the New Way explains why column view is k-1,000,000 times better than the alternatives (although you STILL have to use list view to get date sorting, and you still have to use icon view if you want thumbnails without the irritating potential of accidentally firing up a QT preview)
― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Thursday, 19 January 2006 00:28 (eighteen years ago) link
― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Thursday, 19 January 2006 00:29 (eighteen years ago) link
I don't understand the difference :( In practical terms nothing is a "folder" anyway, its a portion of the hard drive with your data stored on it, that is marked for quick reference as a 'directrory'.
I just don't understand how what you call the window you view things with (folder, broswer window) affects the end experience? Maybe I'm being simple.
I'd LOVE to think I could still get "used" to it. Whatever it takes! Maybe a rusty nail in my brain might do it :X
Honestly, I thought I came close once to "stablizing" it. I was happy, but it didn't last. I've never had such a problem getting used to an application (including alomst everything else about OS X) in my life!! Perhaps because I wouldn't have had to persist with other ones....
And no, none of those points are big in isolation, but they REALLY add up when they recur again & again in daily use.
― fandango (fandango), Thursday, 19 January 2006 00:33 (eighteen years ago) link
when you double click a folder you're not opening the folder, you're opening a little browser window that shows you what's in the folder
I don't understand the difference either.
― Alba (Alba), Thursday, 19 January 2006 00:38 (eighteen years ago) link
Ok, now you are just being silly. What crashes on you? Honestly, my beloved firefox locks up the most of anything. And by that I mean, "I gotta use force quit"
― A BOLD QUAHOG (ex machina), Thursday, 19 January 2006 00:38 (eighteen years ago) link
In Finder preferences, I checked the 'Open New Windows in column view' and that works fine.
It doesn't though! My LAST CHOICE EVER would be "icon view" to use. In Windows I NEVER have to see this, never, and certainly not a fucked-up broken snap-to-grid-way-off-yonder-requiring-the-use-of-random-window-size-change-button which even in that case doesn't always maximise properly...
All sorts of windows open up in Icon view still. Like network drives, and... just no! Apple don't seem to understand the meaning of "system wide" preferences (particularly for file types). Maybe it's a Unix thing.
― fandango (fandango), Thursday, 19 January 2006 00:39 (eighteen years ago) link
http://www.filerun.info/
I feel like I've bullshitted myself so hard trying to become convinced that mac's are worth the effort it takes to get along with them already.
― fandango (fandango), Thursday, 19 January 2006 00:43 (eighteen years ago) link
the change in metaphor is very neatly summed up by the fact that Apple-N once created an Empty Folder; now it creates a New Finder Window
xpost: it is a unix thing; it's a permissions thing. there's a hack to change this globally, i think, but you have to be logged in as root
― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Thursday, 19 January 2006 00:43 (eighteen years ago) link
but the difference has to do with things like where you are/going back etc. The issue you have, which I share, is that you think you're going back up in the directory but you're going to the last thing you browsed, for instance. That's when I have to remember it's not OS9.
But I just find the quick and simple placement of key alias folders in the sidebar, in the toolbar, and in the dock make it easy for me to do anything I need to do/go anywhere I need to go.
and if you have the icon view, type command-2 everytime you open a window to get to list view.
― Dan Selzer (Dan Selzer), Thursday, 19 January 2006 00:43 (eighteen years ago) link
― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Thursday, 19 January 2006 00:46 (eighteen years ago) link
I have 11 or 12 of my most-used Applications in the Dock at the bottom, with auto-hide on. I have an alias to my Apps folder also in the dock, so I right-click that to get at other Apps quickly.
That's my set-up, and it works well enough for me not to have to think about it much.
x-post
All sorts of windows open up in Icon view still. Like network drives, and... just no!
I hate icon view too, but I don't get this problem. Can't say I use network drives on my mac though, so maybe you're right.
― Alba (Alba), Thursday, 19 January 2006 00:48 (eighteen years ago) link
I tried this, but then came across another wondrous piece of Apple logic. You can't name them after the file path, it only keeps the final folder name.
I know WHY they think that's useful, but it's actually UNUSEFUL for me! *BANGS HEAD ON IBOOK*
The whole idea of a graphical display in the first place is to make the idea of file storage seem more tangible & realistic. Apple... I don't know what the fuck Apple are trying to achieve by working against this model frankly but it makes EVERYTHING HARDER.
― fandango (fandango), Thursday, 19 January 2006 00:51 (eighteen years ago) link
― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Thursday, 19 January 2006 00:55 (eighteen years ago) link
-- Tracer Hand
I'm not sure if that's sarcasm, but I am thankful here! I'm not totally resistant to everything suggested. I think I wanted to post this morning saying "convince me (again) OS X isn't a dud". But I missed that bit out really.
There isn't much so far I haven't tried already but, maybe I will give it another go :|
― fandango (fandango), Thursday, 19 January 2006 00:59 (eighteen years ago) link
― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Thursday, 19 January 2006 01:06 (eighteen years ago) link
apologies for misreading the tone.
― fandango (fandango), Thursday, 19 January 2006 01:10 (eighteen years ago) link
GUI's have been around for twenty years now so is the "desktop" metaphor even necessary?
― Elvis Telecom (Chris Barrus), Thursday, 19 January 2006 01:30 (eighteen years ago) link
One thing that helped me a lot was to put my most used "drag/drop" apps (StuffIt Expander, MacPAR, Photoshop, VLC) into a Finder window toolbar so I don't need to drag a file down to the dock.
― Elvis Telecom (Chris Barrus), Thursday, 19 January 2006 01:34 (eighteen years ago) link