The Finder’s GUI tax can be very expensive • Hacker News Board

Re: The Finder’s GUI tax can be very expensive

#11

Post by hyperpape » Thu, Dec 08, 2016, 9:55 PM UTC

blt wrote: post #8

hyperpape wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also thought that was wrong. One idea is a progress window if the task takes more than a few seconds, plus some visual indicator for success.

This isn't a dichotomy. It's possible to make a fast-performing GUI for this task. The GUI is slow due to poor engineering.

That's true, but I'd argue that a window that appears and disappears within substantially less than one second is often a bad idea anyway. Progress indicators are for things you wait on.

Re: The Finder’s GUI tax can be very expensive

#12

Post by DominoTree » Thu, Dec 08, 2016, 9:58 PM UTC

The window animations in Mac OS itself can make things feel very sluggish as well, although the velocity-based ones seem better with Sierra.

Re: The Finder’s GUI tax can be very expensive

#13

Post by module0000 » Thu, Dec 08, 2016, 10:01 PM UTC

Just want to add, `unzip` from your terminal window can be used as well. If opening those gz's every month is a pain, you could handle it with something like: `unzip -r my_stuff_{1..99}.zip`

Re: The Finder’s GUI tax can be very expensive

#14

Post by nayuki » Thu, Dec 08, 2016, 10:06 PM UTC

hbosch wrote: post #10

hughw wrote: post #3

"Finder (nee Archive Utility) should just execute the task without any visual feedback" -- no.

I agree there should be visual feedback, but maybe more of a compromise. E.g. bundle all unzip tasks into 1 single progress bar and rotate text strings for informing which task is underway. The "dancing" modal is quite ridiculous.

This is basically what happens in third-party tools. For example if you use 7-Zip on Windows to unzip multiple archives, there is only one progress window and progress bar, and it will display the names of each archive being extracted one after another.

Re: The Finder’s GUI tax can be very expensive

#15

Post by jcoffland » Thu, Dec 08, 2016, 10:20 PM UTC

Windows explorer unzip is even worse. Recently in a VM I tried unzipping boost 1.62.0 using explorer in Windows 10. It said it would take over 3 hours. The same file was decompressed on the command line in about a minute using 7zip on the same VM.

Re: The Finder’s GUI tax can be very expensive

#16

Post by patio11 » Thu, Dec 08, 2016, 10:23 PM UTC

I wonder whether this is not an example of a UI interaction which is slow on purpose, to emphasize how much work the OS is doing for you.

TaxAct and TurboTax, for example, both operate on (in the typical case) kilobyte scale data requiring trivial math. They also make both saving the data and calculating taxes take 5+ wall-clock seconds when they actually require milliseconds and nanoseconds respectively. This is largely because (non-technical) users don't trust your computer did the math right if the answer comes back instantly. (I also suspect there is an element of "Wait if it is so easy to calculate my taxes why am I paying you to do that.")

Re: The Finder’s GUI tax can be very expensive

#17

Post by TazeTSchnitzel » Thu, Dec 08, 2016, 10:32 PM UTC

patio11 wrote: post #16

I wonder whether this is not an example of a UI interaction which is slow on purpose, to emphasize how much work the OS is doing for you. TaxAct and TurboTax, for example, both operate on (in the typical case) kilobyte scale data requiring trivial math. They also make both saving the data and calculating taxes take 5+ wall-clock seconds when they actually require milliseconds and nanoseconds respectively. This is lar…

This reminds me of how some PlayStation game's developers complained that they were required by Sony to add a false multi-second delay to their game's save routine, so the user would have enough time to read the mandatory warning not to turn off the console. Their game in fact saved so quickly there needn't be a warning at all.

Re: The Finder’s GUI tax can be very expensive

#18

Post by curun1r » Thu, Dec 08, 2016, 10:33 PM UTC

TheAceOfHearts wrote: post #4

If someone is looking for an alternative with a GUI, I use The Unarchiver [0] and I'm generally happy with it. I don't usually have to expand lots of small files like the OP, so I don't know how it compares with that task. [0] http://unarchiver.c3.cx/unarchiver

Seconded. The Unarchiver is always one of the first things I install on a new Mac.

The same author is also responsible for another program, Xee, which is a great, no nonsense image viewer. The 3.x version costs a few bucks, but the last 2.x version can still be downloaded for free.

Re: The Finder’s GUI tax can be very expensive

#19

Post by robotmlg » Thu, Dec 08, 2016, 10:44 PM UTC

__jal wrote: post #9

They should make the UI idiom feeding your file a mushroom and then double the icon size on completion.

only if they want to get sued by Nintendo...

Re: The Finder’s GUI tax can be very expensive

#20

Post by Piskvorrr » Thu, Dec 08, 2016, 10:46 PM UTC

jcoffland wrote: post #15

Windows explorer unzip is even worse. Recently in a VM I tried unzipping boost 1.62.0 using explorer in Windows 10. It said it would take over 3 hours. The same file was decompressed on the command line in about a minute using 7zip on the same VM.

For a tool that's supposed to be on most desktops by default, Explorer has some strange inefficiencies, such as the estimation and the loooong "preparing to copy" phase. Perhaps they are carried over from the old Windows NT codebase?