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

111–120 of 215 posts

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

#111

Post by Wevah »

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…

You can press Command-Shift-. (period) to toggle hidden files. This isn’t very discoverable, though.

You can also hold Option while stopping a folder to get an additional Merge button, but at least one folder needs to have unique items.

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

#112

Post by userbinator »

everyone wrote: post #54
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

Imo tech companies want people to be as tech-illiterate as possible. Tech illiterate people will not realise how the tech company did extra work to make their product less capable and less empowering to the user in favour of being more beneficial and empowering to the tech company itself. Obfuscating the file system has been a popular move in this regard. A file system is so elegant and empowering and useful for so m…

A file system, especially a local one, invites interoperability and control over one's data. Hiding this from users makes it more difficult for them to have that control, and now they have to rely on the application vendor to do in a proprietary way, what would otherwise be a simple file operation.

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

#113

Post by userbinator »

hkpack wrote: post #100

Computer files are very unintuitive concept for humans. That’s why iOS / ipadOS were trying so hard to get rid of files completely. Because any research shows that whatever your solution is - users don’t get it. Professionals came up with their own ways navigating through that complexity. Most people prefer the first solution there were introduced to. So people preferring Windows Explorer were using it before Finder…

Computer files are very unintuitive concept for humans.

That's just an excuse they give to justify the cycle of learned helplessness and control by Big Tech.

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

#114

Post by muppetman »

alsetmusic wrote: post #96
muppetman wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you!!

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 should be super intutitve - I've never had to Google how to use any other filesystem manager, Windows or Linux. Or iOS. Or Android.

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

#115

Post by timmytokyo »

spdustin wrote: post #110
pan69 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

⇧˖⌘˖. (Shift-Command-Period) will show/hide hidden files in Finder

A shortcut that isn't visible in any of Finder's menus. Which makes it virtually undiscoverable.

Finder is full of these kinds of hidden secrets.

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

#116

Post by doubled112 »

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.

Dolphin in KDE has to be one of my favourite GUI file managers ever.

Simple to use until you need it to be complicated, then it probably does what you’re looking for.

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

#118

Post by pupppet »

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

To Apple, files are an unsightly thing they need to sweep under the carpet, if you have to interact with files they probably believe they’ve done something wrong.

Look at Apple Mail, they used to bury attachments behind a button and even now they just drop them at the end of the email.

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

#119

Post by krackers »

ch_sm wrote: post #58

unpopular opinion apparently, but i don‘t understand the finder hate. as a real-life, non-software-developer user, i couldn‘t care less about library folders, root folders, or a unix-tradition file system at all. i want my folders with my documents, pictures, etc. to me that‘s far more user-friendly and comprehensible than what explorer exposes to normal people.

I've never quite understood the hate either. But the way I see it is that it's not fundamentally inferior to explorer, but rather just has annoyances and warts that Apple has bizarrely not fixed for decades which makes tedious to use for anything other than casual browsing.

You can still navigate by path via cmd+shift+g (this works in the file picker too), but I feel like the popup animation used to be a lot quicker on older versions. You can customize views, but to get them to actually stick you have to use an arcane incantation (delete all existing ds_store, then go to view options menu and hit "make default").

You can cut-paste but you have to use cmd+c and cmd+option+v instead of cmd+x. There is an option to merge, it only appears under conditions: only when copy/pasting and only when "alt" is held in the dialog I think.

It also is really bad at browsing networked volumes, partly due to poor defaults as it tries to litter ds_store and generate thumbnails.

Opening a new tab always takes you back to the root directory instead of cloning your existing view. All of it is stuff that could be added in a simple point update rather than a ground-up rewrite.

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

#120

Post by kqp »

maltch wrote: post #94
kqp wrote: post #89

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 w…

I think frustrating is the most appropriate word. Finder is great if my files are organized and I know exactly where something is. My concrete one... The save dialog opens where it was last, so files land in places I didn’t choose, and nothing in Finder or Spotlight helps me later unless I remember the name or the contents.

Thanks for something concrete.

In the open and save file dialogs, the location is a dropdown containing, amongst other things, recent locations, which would list where the file ended up. I think the number of recents is configurable in System Settings.

It should also show up in the Recents sidebar entry, though I don’t use it so I’m not sure.

The save dialog sidebar is configurable, I’ve put my “inbox” there.

I agree it would be better for this to be an option, but I think the status quo is more clicks, not nothing exists.

Post reply on HN