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

161–170 of 219 posts

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

#161

Post by anon7000 »

muppetman wrote: post #114
alsetmusic wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This suggests that you were genuine in not knowing. But had you never done a quick web search? It's the kind of thing that I'd feel compelled to find whether I could change the behavior to fit what I would prefer. Anyway, if you're unaware, here are a couple useful shortcuts for kbd-driven navigation: Command-Down (arrow) to dig one level down the file tree and Command-Up (arrow) to move to the enclosing directory /…

The problem I've been having is that in Word "Recents" is selected by default. So I pull down that menu and it's useless (full of random Recent folders) The comment above made me realise if I pick "Documents" in the left hand side, that top menu changes from having a bunch of useless "Recents" in it and exposes the filesystem. No I've never thought to Google how to use the Finder - it seems like that one thing that s…

But this is like the same as windows explorer right? It opens whatever view you used for the app (say, “recents”) and then you click something in the sidebar to go to the “real” filesystem?

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

#162

Post by anon7000 »

AlotOfReading wrote: post #151
lungeloslx wrote: post #149

Each and every comment that is in agreement here is a bunch of former Windows users who wanted to move Explorer to Mac with them. I have used MacOS for over 15 years. Finder has never stood in my way. I don’t even know what “see the file system” means. Too many words to say “I don’t know how to organize my files on a computer but I consider myself a power user”

I don’t even know what “see the file system” means. It just means they want to see the hierarchy that the filesystem exposes. Here's a useful diagram [0] from the Wikipedia page on hierarchial file systems [1]. There are ways to show paths and directory structure in finder, but you're fighting against the intended usage. [0] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/2c/Fi... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/…

I don’t get how this is any easier in windows explorer. In both windows and Mac I can just pin the drive itself or just the root directory to the sidebar and then use list/grid/nested columns to pop in and out of the hierarchy however I want. In both Mac and windows, the default home folders (like “documents”) sort of hide the rest of the filesystem from you.

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

#163

Post by ShinyLeftPad »

re wrote: post #65
gkoberger wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand your point, but "Finder" does make it harder to organize things. When you save, they hide away folder browser by default, make it really difficult to navigate to different folders, and push for a "just hit save and search for it later!" mentality. I agree you can overcome this, but you find yourself fighting against macOS a bit to do it. (Also, I'm surprised nobody's mentioned this isn't a blog post... i…

I don't know where you get "really difficult" and "fighting against macOS" from. You only have to hit the disclosure arrow next to "Where" in the save dialog one time and it remembers it and shows it by default from then on. (Okay, maybe it's once per app? I don't remember for sure, but I can't remember the last time the save panel didn't show me the folder browser by default.)

It's once forever, not once per app.

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

#164

Post by ShinyLeftPad »

GiorgioG wrote: post #21
Lt_Riza_Hawkeye wrote: post #6

Finder is frustrating but this guy is just complaining about the fact that he's unable to organize his own files into directories in a way that lets him find them later. He then calls himself a power user. Finder even has tags to help with this, which is more than most operating systems get

He’s complaining…because he sells a solution to this problem. I hated Finder when I switched to Mac back in 2007. So much so I bought PathFinder. One thing that pissed me off and still does, is when I copy over a folder with the same name, it doesn’t merge the contents, it deletes everything in the existing folder. That’s not what I expected as a Windows user and it still seems like the wrong behavior almost 20 years…

This is not true, it asks to merge or replace (though merge is not always available). It's like that for years already.

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

#165

Post by Atariman »

haaz wrote: post #33
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

Yes one of the first things I did when moving to mac was pinning Macintosh HDD root folder to Finder, but that kept going away every time I restarted my Max so I bought Bloom which is way better

Yes, Bloom is really great and easily worth the price!

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

#167

Post by thrwkmmshf00083 »

etrautmann wrote: post #95
monkey_monkey wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

or you click on "Go" in the menu bar. What key combo did you want that would be less 'magical'?

A path bar anywhere in the interface? I also want this to be able to copy a file’s path. Right now I’m not even sure how to do that aside from cmd-i to get info and then clunkily drag select the parent dir to copy. Repeat for the file name. Am I insane or is there a better way? Just use terminal? For a time I used pathfinder which had a feature to copy the full path but I ended up hating the subscription and constant…

Why not just enable the path / breadcrumb bar that shows at the bottom of the window and lets you copy a path or open a terminal via the context menu? I currently don't have a Mac in reach but I'm pretty sure the option for that is in the "view" menu.

Not a fan of Apples approach of making many functions invisible but I never understood all the complaints about Finder. I use Arch, MacOS and Windows (if I have to) and apart from having to reconfigure it slightly, I never had any particular issues with Finder. You also have to give Apple credit for their long-form manuals - which exist for most things they offer. It's pretty easy to see in threads like this one that many people apparently do not read them, though.

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

#168

Post by sparqlittlestar »

AlotOfReading wrote: post #151
lungeloslx wrote: post #149

Each and every comment that is in agreement here is a bunch of former Windows users who wanted to move Explorer to Mac with them. I have used MacOS for over 15 years. Finder has never stood in my way. I don’t even know what “see the file system” means. Too many words to say “I don’t know how to organize my files on a computer but I consider myself a power user”

I don’t even know what “see the file system” means. It just means they want to see the hierarchy that the filesystem exposes. Here's a useful diagram [0] from the Wikipedia page on hierarchial file systems [1]. There are ways to show paths and directory structure in finder, but you're fighting against the intended usage. [0] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/2c/Fi... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/…

I'm however so confused by Windows' top level of the hierarchy. Like the Desktop contains the computer which contains the Desktop, yet that one doesn't have the computer in it. And likewise for the bin, the Configuration Panel, yet not Settings, etc. etc.

    Desktop > My Computer > C > Users > Me > Desktop
or perhaps even on my work laptop

    Desktop > My Computer > C > Users > Me > OneDrive > Desktop

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

#169

Post by dTal »

wrs wrote: post #62
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…

“Weird for the sake of being weird”…you know Finder existed first , right?

Not true by any stretch, though parent didn't mention any competitor

MacOS's current Finder dates from 2001. Earlier versions of "Finder" were a completely different piece of software - different code, different interface, different UI metaphor. File manager software predating it:

  Windows Explorer
  GNOME/Nautilus
  KDE/Konqueror
  X11/xfm (X File Manager)
  sundry proprietary Unix workstations
All of the above interfaces share the same interface lineage as Mac OS, lying as they all do downstream of Xerox PARC. And all have converged on the same interface principles - visible path, a button to ascend to the parent directory, etc.

Everyone who comes to Finder from anywhere else complains. Finder is weird for the sake of being weird.

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

#170

Post by thrwkmmshf00083 »

pan69 wrote: post #91
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

When I started using a Mac many years ago, I also could not believe how terrible Finder is. This is software from the "design" company. One of the biggest pitfalls I ran into at the time (and remember from the top of my head) was that when you copy a folder, and a folder with the same name already exists at the destination, it will quietly replace it, rather than giving me a dialog asking if I want to Replace or Merg…

Of course MacOS asks you what you want to do when you copy over a folder and has done so forever. The keyboard shortcut to show hidden files has been mentioned already (it's even a logical one for once in Apple-Land) and the terminal command is straightforward and logical as well. Should they include a perma-toggle in the UI as well? I, personally, think yes but I also think it's pretty consistent with a certain approach to UI design to not include said button.
Post reply on HN