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Finder is so frustrating and has been since day one

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

#131

Post by simondotau »

VCFundedGenYer wrote: post #122

Finder is missing so many basic features that explorer.exe and Linux file managers have had standard for decades. Simple things like easily copying paths (and no, not with a weird keyboard shortcut nobody uses - a simple GUI method, preferably with an address bar, which Finder also lacks), copy queuing (pause queued copies rather than shotgun them all at once), cutting files (FFS why is this feature outright missing?…

With respect, most of your complaints fall under the banner of "waaah, I'm used to the weird way Windows does things, so I don't like the weird way macOS does things."

A relatively universal aspect of macOS is that menu/context menu options can dynamically change as you hold down option. So for anyone vaguely familiar with the macOS operating system, it's easily found from a context-click or the edit menu while holding option.

If you're doing this more than once a week, it's command-option-C on Mac and control-shift-C on Windows. Learning this is as simple as any other keyboard shortcut.

Of course if you're just copying a path, chances are it's to paste into the terminal. There's an easier way. Just drag the file over the terminal.

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

#132

Post by api »

peanball wrote: post #63
maltch wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Explorer is a much better tool than Finder. Couldn't agree more.

And yet copying multiple large files from or to the same disk grinds the throughput to a halt on Windows where Finder keeps up close to theoretical bandwidth in sum.

Windows file I/O has always felt slower than Linux, Mac, anything. Still does. I don’t know what’s wrong with it or why it’s unfixable.

SSDs make it tolerable… not by fixing it but by being fast enough to hide it. Back in the spinning disc days you could tell a windows machine by how much kerchunking the drive was doing.

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

#133

Post by simondotau »

hirvi74 wrote: post #56

I find this entire rant to be utterly ridiculous. Everyone is entitled to their opinions, but I do not think there is anything wrong with Finder. It's honestly no worse than any other file manager that I have used. I much prefer Finder to any alternative I have tried. I really enjoy the various keyboard shortcuts [1]. I honestly wish more file managers had some of these features. I probably use "shift+command+g" the…

And unlike Windows, the obscure shortcuts are discoverable by holding the modifier key down while a menu is open.

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

#134

Post by klodolph »

jakevoytko wrote: post #53
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 was my instant reaction when I started using a Mac. But 15 years later, even knowing more tricks for interacting with it, it still baffles me. Once you've used Windows Explorer and a few Linux distro navigators, there's no denying that Finder is unquestionably worst in class.

As a Mac user since the 1980s, I feel feel like Finder is easily best in class, even after ten or fifteen years of design. I would describe Windows Explorer as “embarrassingly bad” in comparison, despite having a good hold on the shortcuts.

I honestly think it is a matter of what you like rather than what is good or bad.

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

#135

Post by BatchJob »

I rather enjoy Finder as a power user and software engineer who stopped using windows 20 years ago. Although I do have to use it for work occasionally. Windows explorer is nothing to crow about. Its definitely worst of breed. It misrepresents the file system more than any tool I have used and its a buggy disgusting piece of software that has 3 generations of windows trash still left in it that MS refuses to clean up.

Say what you want about Finder, but only a Windows devotee would dare put Explorer in a pile of anything to emulate. It is the worst of all possibilities and in that sense fits the host OS to a "T"

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

#136

Post by kstrauser »

bhaak wrote: post #84

I expected people here to recommend several dual-pane file manager (aka orthodox file manager) as a replacement for Finder. But I see not a single comment recommending one? No good UI ones on macOS?

Forklift.

Lots of people like QSpace, but I’ve bumped into weird privacy issues with it every time I considered trying it. Life’s too short to worry that my file manager is spying on me.

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

#137

Post by deadbeef7f »

api wrote: post #130
maltch wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Explorer is a much better tool than Finder. Couldn't agree more.

I find Explorer slow and frustrating, while Finder works but is basic and cumbersome and useless for anything more than basic opening or moving. I remember outstanding file managers way back in the MS-DOS days. Sidekick, QuickDOS, and Norton Commander were great. My take is that expert users use the terminal while regular users don’t like to do much with files. So there’s no push for a powerful graphical file manager…

If you are a windows user, you may want to check out File Pilot https://filepilot.tech/

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

#138

Post by ed_mercer »

ivankra wrote: post #57
SwellJoe wrote: post #24

My most recent laptop purchase was a Macbook Pro, because the price/performance is just so lopsided with the price of memory pushing everything up to Apple-like prices, it didn't make sense to buy an x86 laptop. But, coming from Linux it's a miserable user experience. I genuinely hate macOS. Every time I use it, I'm surprised by some weird thing about it, some limitation, some annoyance, some weird bug. Installing so…

You know you can just use Linux on it. I work from a Linux VM in UTM as my main desktop whole day, with Mac OS just being a VM hypervisor for me, it's pretty good!

Hi, can you elaborate on this? Why not use Asahi Linux?

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

#139

Post by hirvi74 »

simondotau wrote: post #133
hirvi74 wrote: post #56

I find this entire rant to be utterly ridiculous. Everyone is entitled to their opinions, but I do not think there is anything wrong with Finder. It's honestly no worse than any other file manager that I have used. I much prefer Finder to any alternative I have tried. I really enjoy the various keyboard shortcuts [1]. I honestly wish more file managers had some of these features. I probably use "shift+command+g" the…

And unlike Windows, the obscure shortcuts are discoverable by holding the modifier key down while a menu is open.

I learn something new on this site everyday.

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

#140

Post by arjie »

simondotau wrote: post #125
arjie wrote: post #9

In the end, it turns out for me that the classic explorer Tree View is the most intuitive. I know where things are as a sub-tree system. I get that hard links etc. complicate this and perhaps there are smart folders etc which do not fit this model well but I find I frequently want to “Go Up” in the hierarchy and this requires an uncomfortable shortcut on a Macbook (arrow key) or a menu button rather than a toolbar ic…

Once I got used to column view, I miss it on other operating systems. I don't feel like there's anything I can't do with two Finder windows in column view. And for everything else there's the terminal.

For the main pane? I used to have Windows Explorer with the column view in the main pane and the tree view on the left pane and it was perfect. I don't really mind Nautilus with the breadcrumbs on the top and columns in the main pane. But I think simply going up and down in a Finder window is quite hard unless you navigated there manually, but I'm usually in finder because of `open ~/Folder/Path` and so I end up manually going Cmd-G and typing my path in because it's too hard to navigate otherwise.
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