Linked by Thom Holwerda on Thu 27th Aug 2009 13:07 UTC
We're certainly not done yet with Snow Leopard on OSNews! The operating system will be officially released tomorrow, but that hasn't stopped various news outlets from cranking out reviews of Apple's latest big cat. As usual, the reviews are fairly consistent: this latest release is the best yet. In addition, very welcome news for Tiger users: the Snow Leopard "upgrade" disk can upgrade Tiger installations too, and performs no checks to see if Leopard is installed.
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Member since:2009-06-11
- ENTER to rename is way better than F2 (Why the hell F2? What's the logic?)
Enter launches the selected file in Windows. Makes sense to me since that's what people probably do most often with files; definitely more often than they rename them.
It's something you get used to, either way. I suspect you're just complaining about something because it's not what you're used to rather than because it's worse.
- I don't like to use F5 all the time (again, this shouldn't be necessary at all)
You shouldn't, unless you're pointing at a filesystem that doesn't send change notifications properly (e.g. some Samba network shares, due to reasons that aren't worth getting into). Changes should automatically appear and do for me.
- I don't want that duplicated files are added - out of order - at the bottom of an alphabetically ordered list till you make some actions that restores the order (totally annoying)
That no longer happens in Windows 7 and I think has been changed since Vista, but I'm not sure. Used to annoy me as well (back when I used Explorer) but it's a thing of the past now.
- Finders naming behaviour for multiple copies or aliases is way better
If that's in the top 10 list then it's not a very major list. It's just automatic name-conflict avoidance. Surely you usually rename whatever automatic name the things got anyway, if you care about what names they have at all.
- CMD+ARROW DOWN to open a file is a consisten behaviour - it also opens folders and is easy to learn together with all the other CMD + ARROW shortcuts
As above, I think you're arguing about what you're used to and not what is inherently better or worse. Windows and OS X are different; if you come from one and expect it to be the same as the other, right down to the keyboard shortcuts, then of course you'll be disappointed. If you are that stuck in your ways then you will never be happy with anything other than OS X; fine, use OS X, but your personal hotkey preferences mean nothing to anyone else.
- I don't like the silly UP behavior of Explorer, that sometimes goes to the parent folder - but somtimes not
That I can agree with. It's something they messed up in Vista and Win 7, IMO. There is the Alt-Up hotkey which will always go up but not many people know about it and it's not convenient for mouse users (nor European keyboard users as there's only a left alt key). You can always go up using the breadcrumbs bar or the folder tree but in my brief moments using Explorer I miss having an easy-to-push Up button that is always in the same place and requires no thought or parsing of the display.
- I do like a trash that behaves like a trash no matter if you use a lokal or a server file system (a bug that should have been squashed in Windows a long time ago!)
I agree; the recycle bin should be available for network drives as well as local ones.
- I do like when Finder tells me that a file is to large to copy to a destination before it starts
Makes sense I guess. Can't say I've run into that problem since my Amiga days. :-)
- I do like that Finder is always able to put a file into the trash even if it is locked by a process - unlike Windows, you don't have to search for the process that lockes the file to put it on the hit list to nirvana
Ah, the age-old debate about file deletion/lock semantics. As a developer I agree with the way Windows does it. If my process has a lock on a file then the file should stay there... But I can see why people dislike that concept and Unix seems to survive fine allowing in-use files to be deleted... Too late to change it in Windows, though, with much code depending on the existing semantics.
- I absolutly don't like Explorers "merge" behaviour when copying/pasting folders (you never know what will be merged in deeper levels of that folder hierarchy and it get's really ugly, if the copy job suddenly stops because it hits a locked file or a disk full or ..)
Personally, I absolutely despise the idea that I could overwrite one folder with another one. Merging seems like the natural operation to me. (Or being asked which operation to perform, I suppose.) Again, though, it's probably more about what you're used to than one being inherently better than the other...
I can't think of many times when I want to replace a whole folder, though. There are loads of times where I want to merge folders. (e.g. An archive or backup of files that I want to merge into a larger collection. I do that multiple times a day.)
...
Now, having said all of that, would you guess that I absolutely cannot stand Explorer?
I've always disliked Explorer and I think it's gotten a lot worse in Vista and Windows 7. I've been using an alternative file manger (Directory Opus) for years and I love it. I've seen quite a few OS X users ask for an Opus port as well. It seems a lot of people aren't that happy with Finder just as people look alternatives to Explorer. OTOH, I know people who like Finder and also ones who like Explorer... They don't know what they're missing from a proper file manger, IMO, but to each their own. Everyone has different needs and tastes.
RE[6]: Comment by me
by StephenBeDoper on Sat 29th Aug 2009 17:24
in reply to "RE[5]: Comment by me"
Member since:2005-07-06
- ENTER to rename is way better than F2 (Why the hell F2? What's the logic?)
I agree with you that using F2 for rename operations is pretty random, but that doesn't mean that Enter to rename is much better. FWIW, I find the Ctrl-E (E for Edit) keyboard shortcut in Tracker (the BeOS/Haiku filemanager) makes way more sense than either the Windows or OS X shortcuts.
- CMD+ARROW DOWN to open a file is a consisten behaviour - it also opens folders and is easy to learn together with all the other CMD + ARROW shortcuts
No, it isn't consistent. Do you use Ctrl-Down to activate the default button on a dialogue box? To execute a command in the terminal? Elsewhere, Enter is consistently used for "execute/run" actions - but not in the Finder.
- I don't like the silly UP behavior of Explorer, that sometimes goes to the parent folder - but somtimes not
Examples? The only time I've seen that behaviour is when you try to go "up" from search results; annoying, yes - but understandable. What's the parent folder of a list of search results, after all?
- I do like when Finder tells me that a file is to large to copy to a destination before it starts
Agreed. In fairness, though, I think that has finally been fixed in Win7 (or possibly Vista).
- I absolutly don't like Explorers "merge" behaviour when copying/pasting folders (you never know what will be merged in deeper levels of that folder hierarchy
That can be annoying, granted. But the OS X approach completely nukes the contents of folder that you're overwriting - personally, I think that outright data loss is a much more serious problem than unpredictable folder merging.
it get's really ugly, if the copy job suddenly stops because it hits a locked file or a disk full or ..)
Agreed, although - again - I believe that has (finally) been addressed in Win7.
Member since:
2005-07-12
It is OK. And I would be very sad if those ugly Windows Explorer annoyances pop up on OS X just to make some switchers happy: E. g.
- ENTER to rename is way better than F2 (Why the hell F2? What's the logic?)
- I don't like to use F5 all the time (again, this shouldn't be necessary at all)
- I don't want that duplicated files are added - out of order - at the bottom of an alphabetically ordered list till you make some actions that restores the order (totally annoying)
- Finders naming behaviour for multiple copies or aliases is way better
- CMD+ARROW DOWN to open a file is a consisten behaviour - it also opens folders and is easy to learn together with all the other CMD + ARROW shortcuts
- I don't like the silly UP behavior of Explorer, that sometimes goes to the parent folder - but somtimes not
- I do like a trash that behaves like a trash no matter if you use a lokal or a server file system (a bug that should have been squashed in Windows a long time ago!)
- I do like when Finder tells me that a file is to large to copy to a destination before it starts
- I do like that Finder is always able to put a file into the trash even if it is locked by a process - unlike Windows, you don't have to search for the process that lockes the file to put it on the hit list to nirvana
- I absolutly don't like Explorers "merge" behaviour when copying/pasting folders (you never know what will be merged in deeper levels of that folder hierarchy and it get's really ugly, if the copy job suddenly stops because it hits a locked file or a disk full or ..)
- ..
Agreed that it would be nice to have some additional features in Finder like compressed archive browsing or a decent built-in FTP client. But frankly, I don't miss that very often. There are good tools which are - thanks to spotlight - only a few keystrokes away. However I miss Finder when having to work with Windows Explorer ..