>>>Its a lot like changing the hot keys on us. Whats up with cmd-n now making a new window in list view? Why on earth did they change it?<<<
After I'd used OS X for a while, it became very obvious why they assigned cmd-N to 'New Finder Window' and shift-cmd-N to 'New Folder.'
In the OS 9 world, there is no such thing as a 'new finder window'. If you want to open a folder, you double-click it. Once it is open, double-clicking on the same folder simply takes you back to the already open window. In this environment, cmd-N to create a new folder made perfect sense.
In OS X, however, the 'new finder window' is a very basic command. I use it quite often to set up a copy or move from one spot to another. I probably do this several times an hour, if not more. Go to the Desktop, and hit cmd-N to get a new window, navigate where I want to be, repeat, etc.
On the other hand, I create a new folder only maybe once a day (depending on how much stuff I download, basically!).
So the assignment of the most used function ('New finder window'
to the easiest keystrokes (cmd-N), and the least used function ('New folder'
to the harder keystrokes (shift-cmd-N) makes perfect sense.
In addition, there's some logic to it from a new user's perspective. If they mess up and hit cmd-N, all they get is a new view window. Under OS 9, they wind up with a hard drive littered with 'Empty Folder', 'Empty Folder 1', 'Empty Folder 2' etc. It's hard to accidentally hit shift-command-N.
Now that I've been in OS X almost exclusively since October, it feels very natural to have them assigned as they are.
[<b>NOTE:</b> If you're curious, I avoided the backslash-quote problem (' ends up with a \ in front of it) by using the HTML code for a single-quote, which is "&#039;". You could also do this for the backslash, which is 92, or double-quotes, which are 94. Type the code once, copy it, and then just hit cmd-V whenever you need a quote!]
-rob.