A year ago today I installed Mac OS X 10.0.0 on my PowerBook. In that year, I've come to appreciate it more and more, and it's definitely the most powerful and extensible OS I've ever used. And yet, I'm not blindly in love with it, and I recognize that it still has a long way to go.
The OS X Finder has always been my least favorite part of OS X, and so I'm going to focus exclusively on that for my "OS X Anniversary" post. So without further ado, here are ten problems I still have with the OS X Finder (as of 10.1.3) (though there are many more):
- Text/Picture/Etc Clipping Icons no longer distinctive - In the classic Mac OS, text clippings and picture clippings and so on (a feature Windows users have probably never seen) had very nice, distinctive icons. In OS X, clippings of any time get a generic icon, making them not only indistinguishable from each other, but also indistinguishable from a directory full of other "generic" files. I use clippings a lot, so this problem is staring at me from my desktop every day.
- Alias names aren't italicized - Back in the day, you could tell the difference between an alias and a real file because the alias name was in italics. When Microsoft introduced Windows 95, they introduced shortcuts, which were distinguished from a real file by an ugly little error. When Apple came out with Mac OS 9, they added a little arrow in addition to the italic file name to signify an alias. While the arrow was ugly, presenting the information in more ways than one isn't such a bad thing. But then, in OS X, they got rid of the italics, and now the arrow is the only indicator that a file is an alias. This sucks when you're looking at files in list view, because that arrow it tiny.
- Command-~ is inconsistent with other applications. - Since 10.1 came out, command-~ has been one of my most used key shortcuts. It cycles through the open windows on an application level, so it's useful for quickly flipping through my open Terminals, or open OmniWeb windows, or what have you. However, the Finder doesn't support Command-~, which irritates me daily. I'm so used to hitting Command-~ at this point that I do it without thinking, and then have to deal with the Finder thinking as it pops up the "Go To Folder" Sheet/Dialogue, and then have to hit cancel, and then have to find my mouse... Ugh.
- Off-by-one error on the Desktop - This one doesn't actually irritate me so much as it endlessly amuses me. Hide everything and stare at your Desktop. Nice, isn't it? Go ahead and click and drag your mouse around and look at that nice shaded drag box. Now, move your mouse to the absolute left edge of your screen and start a drag box. Now, move your mouse to the absolute right edge of the screen and try to start a drag box. Also, try the bottom while you're at it. Ah, the difference between < and <= makes all the difference!
- Command-click now toggles the selection - I already wrote about this one at length, so I won't repeat myself here. Suffice it to say that I hate this, and it drives me crazy when I'm organizing files.
- It takes two clicks to rename a file. - In the classic Mac OS, you had a few options for renaming a file. You could click on a file and hit return, or you could click on a filename and wait a second, or you could click on a filename and quickly pull the cursor away to open the edit box quicker. It's important to note that in all three of those scenarios, it didn't matter whether or not you already had the file selected. Luckilly (sarcasm), in OS X, the file has to already be selected before clicking on the filename has any effect. Even better, the "pull away" trick doesn't work any more. Your best bet now is probably just to hit return before you start typing. Subtle, but irritating.
- Disappearing cursor while editing file names - Heh, click on a file. Hit return to switch to edit filename mode. Hit right and watch as your cursor disappears, so you have no idea where it'll be when you stop moving it. It'll show back up after you stop hitting arrows and wait a few seconds, but basically, this makes editing file names even harder, because if you want to insert some text in a file name, you're better off using your mouse, but then you have to deal with the "two clicks to rename" problem. This one is probably qualifies as the "most obviously a big problem and how come it wasn't fixed in 10.1.1, 10.1.2, or 10.1.3?" bug in the Finder.
- Finder windows don't update. - This one is only debatably the Finder's fault, but: If you're manipulating files in the Terminal and you have a Finder window open to that same directory, the Finder window doesn't get updated to reflect moved/copied/deleted files until you click in that Finder window and wait a few seconds. I suppose this is my fault for using the Terminal so much, but it'd be cool to use an open Finder window as a sort of "graphical ls" to see what's in a directory and what isn't while manipulating files from the Terminal.
- Replace, Replace, Replace... - Basically, the copy dialogues need a "Replace All" option. Try this: Make a copy of a folder, open the original, select-all, and then option drag (to make copies, so you don't mess up your original) the files onto the copy of your original folder. Hit "Replace." Hit "Replace." Hit "Replace." Scream when you realize that you're trying to copy 1000 files, hit "Stop," (at which point you're left with an incomplete copy), clean out the target folder, and and do the move again. This is actually a big problem if you were doing a move instead of a copy, because if your target folder has an incomplete move, you're going to have to sit there and figure out which files need to be kept (because they were part of the incomplete move), and which ones need to be gotten rid of so you can finish your move without hitting "Replace" 986 more times. Solution: Add a "Replace All" button or something, fer chris'sake.
- Age old keyboard shortcuts that got changed - "Make Alias" is now Command-L instead of Command-M (because Command-M is now "minimize window"), and "New Folder" is now Command-Shift-N instead of Command-N (because Command-N is now New Window). Both of these still give me fits every day, even after a year with OS X.
And lordy, I didn't even touch file extensions or the Dock... This was just the Finder.
So, what irritates you about the OS X Finder? (Or the Classic Finder, or the Windows Explorer, or KDE's Konquerer, or your file browser of choice?)