Leopard to Feature Redesigned Finder

Well, better start saving my money in order to buy Leopard, a better file system means that we continue to beat Windows in every possible way, lol. Now Windows users cannot complain about the ALREADY easy-to-use File system.
 
The current Finder is pretty good I think, but it can be improved on. It'll be interesting to see what they come up with.
 
I personally think it's too early for "real" information on Leopard's Finder. And that article just seems like guesswork to me. I mean: Of _course_ they're going to do something with the Finder. And _of course_ Spotlight will become better implemented (they can't NOT do it...). The soft factors he claims, have even been already claimed for Tiger (work with files like with songs in iTunes thing...) by Steve Jobs, so I, too, would guess he won't walk away from that.
 
Well, he _did_ have interesting information in the past, I give him that (was on this forum as a user, too, IIRC?), I'm merely looking at _this_ article now...
 
its a blog site- looks like its powered by wordpress etc. maybe they are looking for 'hits' as leopard will be the next big rumour...

although - it's more than likely a no brainer - but spotlight has such a wealth of underlying power / functionality that Apple could still tap into...the 2nd iteration of spotlight - good times.
 
I agree, it's too early, far too early to start to speculate or spread rumors about Apple's next thing.

"Leopard" will of course have some very interesting new features, probably a re-write of Finder. Or maybe a new dock. Maybe a new GUI altogether. Who knows?

It's supposed to come out late next year, so let's just wait.
 
It is too early to know what is going to happen in Leopard, but i wouldn't be surprised if Spotlight eventually becomes Finder.
 
I think he has a credible source. He posts some info on there before anyone else from other sites (Think Secret, AppleInsider, etc). So I'd say this is real info.
 
I agree that it's something of a no-brainer. Apple needs better Spotlight integration. I just hope that they don't replace the Finder with some strictly-Spotlight system.

I hope they rewrite the Finder from the ground up. It's just sad how poorly written it is. For such a vital part of the OS, there's no excuse for it to be anything but perfect. It's been neglected for 5 years, updated only to tack on new features here and there. And then they proceed to neglect those new features for the rest of their lifespan.....

If they fix the Toolbar Madness™ and make file renaming work the way it did in OS 9 again, I'll be happy. But those are big IFs.
 
Hmm, just started using a Mac and I'm using Tiger, so I've been a Windows person for a good portion of my computer life. I have a question, what's so wrong with Finder, why does it need an upgrade? I just haven't noticed anything yet, but interested in what you guys have to say.
 
My only issues with it are the inconsistencies within the Finder as far as overall look and feel. As for anything else, I haven't had a problem with Tiger. I'm hoping that Leopard does improve on the look-and-feel aspect.
 
NarutoSasuke said:
Hmm, just started using a Mac and I'm using Tiger, so I've been a Windows person for a good portion of my computer life. I have a question, what's so wrong with Finder, why does it need an upgrade? I just haven't noticed anything yet, but interested in what you guys have to say.
Click to expand...

it's, for me, the inconsistency.
* you open a folder, it could be in any view before you find out, icon, list or column, so then you have to change it if it is wrong.

* there's no true 'up-one-level' button, only back

* disk images can be in any view format they want, (including sans-toolbar) again, another inconsistency.

* there's not enough different ways of sorting the views in list

* "Kind" only specifies between video, or image, not file extension. (a jpeg is drastically different to gif, for example

* there is no way of previewing the file in the ist view. (last column in column view, icon preview in icon view, but then this only works well if you have full 128x128 icons set).

* the fact that if you click on a file in column view, it dissappears to the left, away from your mouse cursor to accomodate the last, new column for previewing

* In column view, the name appears to stretch as far as the column, but actually you can only click on the length of the text.

* also in column view, you can only sort by name (default), not kind, size or date etc. (see above for kind issues)

i can't think of any more right now, but that's my look on it.
 
The "up one level" is actually there and is a hold-over from the Pre-OS-X days. If you hold down the Command key (aka the Apple key) and click on the title name of the finder window, you'll get a hierarchical list of the folders traversed. I found it by chance once. Apple should make this known to the user if they haven't already, IMO.

I do share a lot of the gripes that you do, Burns. One that especially annoys me is when you are in Column View and you select the application icon that you want to launch. Normally if you just select it, it will show a Preview that will tell you some information on the icon. However, if you double click on a specific icon without thinking of viewing the following column containing the Preview info, that Preview colum still shows up while loading the app from having double clicked the icon within the list and it moves everything around causing a bit of confusion in the whole process. If I double click on the icon, it shouldn't show me the information about it in the Preview column...just launch the darned thing and be done with it. If I just highlight it, then let me know what it is.
 
For me, it's the virtually incomprehensible way toolbars are handled. Sometimes they're there, sometimes they're not. You can't specify it on a window-by-window basis.....except, of course, when you can. If you don't think that made any sense, good. That means you're sane.

The problem stems from the fact that windows are no longer directly associated with the folders they represent (except, of course, when the are. Yay!). You can have a dozen different window open, all displaying the same folder, and all with different settings. So when you close a window...where are those settings saved? Good luck figuring THAT one out. It seems like Apple just doesn't give a darn about anyone who likes to do things the "old" way. "If you don't like column view in toobar windows, then you don't matter!" seems to be Apple's new motto with OS X.

Furthermore, newly created folders all have the same view options, no matter what. Icon view, blah blah blah. In OS 9, a new folder inherited the view options from the folder that contained it, and its window position was offset a bit so it would not entirely overlap its parent folder.

Also, a lot of little things have just gotten worse since OS 9, like, again, renaming files. It was so simple in OS 9. In OS X it's a chore. You click on the file name. You wait. You realize it's not going to bring up the editor. So you click again. You wait again. The editor finally comes up! But it's...blank, and doesn't respond to anything. So you select another file, and try again. In OS 9 this "just worked". You click the name, and it'll wait a split second to allow for double clicking. After that, you were in editing mode. And if you didn't want to wait, all you had to do was move the mouse after clicking (since obviously you're not interested in double-clicking if you've moved the mouse) and the editor popped up immediately. Soooo nice. This feature is completely gone in X.

Finally, the "snap to grid" option is all but useless in OS X, because for some reason it insists on spacing the grid spaces more than 128 pixels apart, no matter what size your icons are. Greeeeat. In OS 9 the grid was TIGHT, and it would snap objects the nearest point where the names wouldn't overlap the next one. It was so much better. Icon view in X is a pain in the butt.

There are more little quirks in the Finder. Apple mixes a lot of metaphors when they designed it, and they never made the effort to make them play nice with each other. The result is an interface that is unpredictable and defies logic.

End rant.
 
it is actually one area where i like windows. explorer, is (don't kill me), a very good way of accessing files. it's very consistent, it's always the same! if it isn't, it's because you've turned the sidebar off, or changed the view yourself!. explorer windows are ALWAYS the same. it's just the lack of technology in the appearance of it that lets it down.
 
I can see where you guys come from and I can see how stuff like that can get annoying. Hopefully, many of these issues can be handled with a new version of Finder, one that works with the already wonderful "Spotlight" would be a good upgrade.
 
One thing that pisses me off about Finder, is generally how long it takes to open eg. Applications folder. Finder just seems really slow to me in some ways. The Finder in Tiger is the best so far, but still has a lot to be desired. In comparison Panther to Tiger, Finder would take ages to actaully get a thumbnail pic of around 130 image files. In Tiger it is alot quicker, so I can defanitly see a major overhual trend of the Finder in Leopard.

Lt Major Burns, i can't belive you like windows explorer!!! Actually don't worry i do to for some reason. It does seem zippy even on the slowest of machines, but like you said it is just the lack of technology, appearance and stability that lets it down.
 
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