Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Finder is so frustrating and has been since day one

kepter.app

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 213 posts

Re: Finder is so frustrating and has been since day one

#81

Post by hirvi74 »

scubbo wrote: post #69
hirvi74 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean by "see the file system?" It's not exactly hard to enable in Finder. In Finder's settings, one can have the root directory, home directory, etc. enabled in the sidebar. Not to mention, one can easily drag & drop common folders into the sidebar too. Those settings with the hierarchy view makes seeing the file system quite clear in my opinion.

Not the person you're replying to, but I assume they're referring to the ability to see something like: ``` src ├── app │ └── page.tsx └── components └── header.tsx ``` EDIT: Lol. I'm not even going to edit it. Hacker News, you also suck.

I can see that easily in Finder. List View or Column View displays files like that.

https://support.apple.com/en-au/guide/mac-help/mchldaafb302/...

Re: Finder is so frustrating and has been since day one

#82

Post by tpmoney »

mikestew wrote: post #37
userbinator wrote: post #8

Thinly veiled marketing post. I've had to use Finder, and it's definitely frustrating in a "Think Different" sort of way, but this article doesn't actually mention why beyond vague statements. Here's a concrete one: Enter enters rename mode .

Here's a concrete one: Enter enters rename mode. I can make the apologetics for just about anything in macOS. After over 20 years of using OS X/macOS, I still can't make the case for this one. Imagine a button has focus, you hit Enter, and it allows you to change the text on the button instead of executing the code behind button.click() . That behavior is just as dumb if a file has focus in Finder.

Aside from “it’s historically always done that”, I’d argue that because you use arrow keys to navigate around the finder (left, right, up, down to select, CMD-up to go up a directory, it only makes sense that CMD-down would open a directory (or file/application). And within that context it makes more sense than “enter”.

Re: Finder is so frustrating and has been since day one

#85

Post by maltch »

lapcat wrote: post #71

This submission appears to be a self-promotional advertisement by the developer, who created a HN account literally an hour ago. "Please don't use HN primarily for promotion. It's ok to post your own stuff part of the time, but the primary use of the site should be for curiosity." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html If anything, this should be a Show HN.

Fair, and I should have posted it as a Show HN. It's my app and my essay, and I said so in the thread as soon as it came up. New account because I've read here for years without commenting. Happy for a mod to relabel it.

Re: Finder is so frustrating and has been since day one

#86

Post by rufo »

mikestew wrote: post #37
userbinator wrote: post #8

Thinly veiled marketing post. I've had to use Finder, and it's definitely frustrating in a "Think Different" sort of way, but this article doesn't actually mention why beyond vague statements. Here's a concrete one: Enter enters rename mode .

Here's a concrete one: Enter enters rename mode. I can make the apologetics for just about anything in macOS. After over 20 years of using OS X/macOS, I still can't make the case for this one. Imagine a button has focus, you hit Enter, and it allows you to change the text on the button instead of executing the code behind button.click() . That behavior is just as dumb if a file has focus in Finder.

Because, as one of the original GUIs, when they conceived of how the Macintosh worked, you used the command keys to perform actions on files, and you could rename the file just by typing. Cmd-O was the shortcut for opening files, which makes sense for obvious reasons.

When they released the Macintosh to the world, Andy Hertzfeld realized that people were renaming items in the Finder by accident; so he added the "return" key (already used to confirm actions) as an "arming" step[1].

Now, one might ask: wouldn't that interrupt people navigating via the keyboard? No, because the original Macintosh didn't have arrow keys on the keyboard. This was an intentional choice—or, perhaps, mandate from Jobs—as a way to get users to use the mouse as their primary input device, and to force developers to create mouse-driven interfaces. With no arrow keys, no typeahead search implemented, and a clean slate for designing an interface, I'm guessing using Return to open a file wasn't a strong consideration at the time.

Why wasn't it changed? Because Mac OS X was made for Mac users, and we all have muscle memory dating back decades :P

[1]: https://www.folklore.org/A_Floppy_named_lsadkfjalhkjh.html

Re: Finder is so frustrating and has been since day one

#87

Post by alsetmusic »

muppetman wrote: post #28

As a Windows user for years until 2 years ago, I can’t believe how unusable finder is. It’s just terrible. I feel like it actively hides the filesystem from you at every turn. Windows was bad but at least Explorer (windows 10 version anyway) let you easily SEE the file system I’m sure as hell not buying a subscription project to fix that though lololol

This may be of use:

> defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles -bool true

Change to `false` to reverse it. You have to `killall Finder` or force quit it for each to take effect.

Also, Shift-Command-. (dot) in Finder. You can find a lot of useful settings that can be adjusted to your preferred mode digging through this repo (not affiliated): https://github.com/mathiasbynens/dotfiles

Re: Finder is so frustrating and has been since day one

#88

Post by blokey »

muppetman wrote: post #67
hirvi74 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean by "see the file system?" It's not exactly hard to enable in Finder. In Finder's settings, one can have the root directory, home directory, etc. enabled in the sidebar. Not to mention, one can easily drag & drop common folders into the sidebar too. Those settings with the hierarchy view makes seeing the file system quite clear in my opinion.

So I’m in Microsoft Word. I hit the open file button and get the finder chooser window thing. I want to go up one level. How?? I’m sure there’s some magical key combination to do it but I can never remember it. That’s the first thing I can think off atop my head. I’ve never played in Finder settings. Do I have to do that to get something useable? I didn’t even know it had settings it doesn’t seem like the sort of app…

Command + Uparrow.

In the Finder, look at the 'Go' menu, all those keyboard shortcuts works everywhere the file open/save window is displayed.

Like Command+Shift+D for Desktop, Command+Shift+O for Documents.

Re: Finder is so frustrating and has been since day one

#89

Post by kqp »

I’d like to propose a rule that all the Finder bashers in this thread accompany their complaint with at least one concrete example.

I’m no Apple fanboy, but blind hate is just as bad as blind love, and so far 100% of the specifics brought up have turned out to be people who just don’t have a basic familiarity with the software. I genuinely don’t begrudge a person sticking to what they know, but it’s a point towards what’s good for you and maybe whether it’s intuitive, not towards whether Finder is objectively good or lacks features. I’d be happy to read both real issues and people learning more about Finder, but just “Finder sucks” doesn’t help anybody.

Re: Finder is so frustrating and has been since day one

#90

Post by maltch »

tpmoney wrote: post #72

Apple has repeatedly over the years attempted to create interfaces where knowing where the actual data was saved was no necessary to using and finding that data. iTunes, iPhoto, most of iOS. It’s usually met with a lot of resistance from people who have carefully and painstakingly crafted their perfect file hierarchies and hate it when Apple messes with that. Some of the content recognition stuff in this seem pretty…

Time is merely the default order. You can also sort by what the document says. The amount. The date printed on it. Who it's from. So a receipt search isn't "when did I save this" it is "the $1200 one from March." That's what makes it work beyond photos, where all you have is time and place.
Post reply on HN