MacBook 4- Software Part 2, Finder and UI
Finder, for all those who are not totally aware, is a core component to Mac OS X. This makes it a pretty important program. I would equate it to Explorer in Windows. It shows the file system and lets you interact with it. Finder controls the Trash, lets your access remote locations, removable media and built-in hard disk drives. This can lead to many problems, because if you don't like Finder, you don't like a major aspect of OS X. I will probably group things in here that don't necessarily belong to Finder, but are still part of the general UI.
Mouse
It's puny.
OS X mouse cursor
Image from Anil's Technica
You can't customize its colors or size without using some third party program, what gives Apple? Windows has had this option since at least Windows 95! Oh and it's still super small.
Windows 95 Mouse pointers
Image from GuideBook gallery
Why isn't this option in OS X? Maybe Apple just wants complete control over their UI, even if it's extremely limiting.
Not being able to change the cursor really isn't that big of a deal, I guess, I just find that a black cursor gets lost on a screen much easier than a white one. The thing that really drives me nuts is where OS X considers the "point" of the cursor to be.
OS X cursor, red "point"
Instead of the tip of the cursor being the point of the icon, it drops down a few pixels and drops right a few pixels to where the black actually starts. This is less precise and leads to many, many missed clicks. Try it, ctrl+scroll up to zoom in and try to accurately click on something, you'll find that the cursor don't provide as much precision as you would have hoped.
Window Management
I'll admit, the Close, Minimize and Maximize (or zoom) buttons are kinda cool, kinda. The buttons look different if you are hovering over them, or not and the especially great part is that when the document is unsaved, the close button looks differently to represent that.
Window, neutral state
Window, hovered over
Window, neutral but unsaved state
I think they should be on the right side, but that's just me saying that, coming from a Windows world. The close button works as expected, the minimize works as expected but the maximize (or zoom) button works like a third grader designed it. For being so obsessed with having a consistent UI, the zoom button basically does the opposite of that.
In Finder it fits to the contents, which makes sense for some folders but definitely not all. In Safari it tries to fits to the contents, sometimes... it is janky and doesn't work the same for every web site, try Google Maps, it goes nuts... with multiple clicks, for me, it resized the window for a total of four different sizes, none of which filled the entire screen. PowerPoint didn't resize the window and all. Firefox actually maximized the window, but upon a second click in made a little box, which was totally unusable.
Mini Firefox
Thankfully someone came up with a mostly-useful and free program called RightZoom to fix this problem. It makes most of the dumb zoom problems go away and can be customized to only work for certain programs or so that it will work with all programs with exclusions.
Without this extension, all programs and windows are a pain to force them to fill the entire screen. You can even manually resize windows so that they will go behind the dock... like that was ever a good idea.
iTunes resized behind the dock
Even if windows are maximized so that they fill the entire screen, it is possible and very easy to accidentally move it out of its position, effectively moving part of the visible window off the screen. This is because the windows edges are not locked to the edges of the screen, like they should be when maximized.
Why is there only one place on a resizable window to actually re-size it? The bottom right corner, a very annoying place. Why can't it be whichever side I want to resize, I can just grab that side and resize it? Can't use the top, can't use the bottom, can't use either of the sides. Only one measly corner. In Windows you can resize 8 different sides, the top, the top right, the right, the bottom right, the bottom, the bottom left, the left and the top left. What happens if that one magical corner flies off the screen because of a resolution change? How convenient Steve, how convenient.
Corner Resize
While I'm looking down in the corner, take a look at the default setting of the scroll bars. Grouped arrows. I think Apple likes to make their users work as much as possible, by making you move your mouse to where they think the scroll arrows should be, together. The logic escapes me of why anyone would want this turned on by default. What I mean is that if I want to go up in a document the natural instinct is to look towards the top of the document to find some sort of control to force the content to scroll upwards. Not in the world of OS X, they would rather you look to the most unnatural place, the bottom.
Grouped scroll bar arrows
Thankfully it can be turned off in Preferences>Appearance.
Place scroll arrows: Together
Finder
There are a few things I like about how Finder operates. First, the four main views can be switched to/from very easily. Either as CMD+1,2,3,4 or by pressing the buttons in the toolbar. I'm going to show the same folder of pictures in the four different views to display some of their differences.
Icon view
I don't like icon view and almost never use it, mainly because the icons get moved around too easily and don't automatically align to some sort of grid without explicitly telling that specific folder to act that way. It is nice for looking at pictures, since it shows thumbnails, and you can easily size the icons to different sizes with the slider in the bottom right corner of the window (or the top right when in mini mode).
Icons gone crazy!
This is my downloads folder about two months ago, why are these icons totally disorganized when I never come into this folder, except through stacks? Oh well, let's clean it up and make it nice and pretty.
Icons are still pretty crazy..
Pictures in Icon view
List view
List view is my view of choice for pretty much every type of file except pictures. It allows you to quickly see what is in a subdirectory without much commitment; by using with the tree-like arrows next to every folder (as seen by the indentation on images 0031-0038-1) you can drop down a file structure very fast if you know what you're looking for. Plus, in list view, icons are not spread all over the place however they feel like arranging themselves that day. In the various columns it shows pertinent information, such as the modified date, the file size and what type of file it is (if you can't tell by the visible extension, which I have turned on quite recently).
Pictures in List view
Column view
Column view was probably the single coolest thing about OS X, until I actually used it. It looks neat, it looks functional... but the truth is, it really isn't. It feels slower than any of the other views and doesn't display any useful information like the other views do; small thumbnails, no file size or modified date makes this view virtually useless to me.
Pictures in Columns view
Cover Flow
Since the Preview.app doesn't have an effective way to show an impromptu slideshow, Coverflow is the best you're going to get with OS X. Coverflow works in Finder the same way it does in iTunes, it shows big ol' pictures of what you're looking at on the top half and a list of the files on the bottom half. This is useful for quickly finding a file just by scrolling through the folders contents, but most of all I find it just gimmicky without a whole lot of actual practical use.
Pictures in Cover Flow view
Quick Look
The single most useful thing in a file management program I've ever seen. Want to look at a picture without opening a picture editor or even Preview.app? Hit the space bar and all your dreams will come true. Pictures and PDF's are the most useful thing to look at, but they work for a myriad of file types: Pictures, PowerPoint presentations, PDF's, Word documents and others. It's much faster to find out specific information on a folder or file than going to the context menu and hitting "Get Info". As a bonus, if you want to view it full screen option(alt)+Space will do the trick.
Quicklook on Siblings dog
Gripes
- The Enter (Return) key does not launch a file/application, instead it initiates a file-rename. CMD+downarrow launches a file/application. Even though in iTunes, the Enter key starts the playing of a song.
- Most of the time, my other Windows computers don't show up in the shared section on the sidebar until I CMD+K and smb:// to them.
- Trying to find out information on more than one file at a time is kind of a nightmare, see what happens when you select multiple files and click "Get Info". Why can't I get one window that has the aggregate information contained in it?
Multiple Information windows
- The fact that items are sorted alphabetically no matter what (folder or not) used to really bother me and now not so much. Why isn't this an option? I don't want to have to sort by "Kind" every time I want folders on the top, then files. From the ever springing fountain of knowledge that OS X forums bring:
making os x more like windows SHOULDN'T be doable. nor should anyone want it to be. -edX, from this thread. How rude.
Sort by...
- Icon transparencies shouldn't be treated as if the icon isn't even there. For example, in the GarageBand picture, you can see that the cursor is well within the bounds of the icon, yet if you decide to click there (not on a tangible part of the icon) you will simply be clicking on the background. Why why why would you ever want this for any reason? WHY? In Windows (XP, Vista and 7 at least) once you enter the boundaries of the icon, you are fair game to click.
GarageBand icon Fail
VLC icon Win
- This might not be part of Finder, but why isn't there a hotkey to lock the computer like Win+L in Windows? If you are so concerned about security, Apple, why wouldn't that be a first-party solution? I don't want to download another third-party application to get OS X functioning the way it should be. Through the depths of the keyboard shortcuts, I managed to get the hotkey set, but it doesn't respond when I press them. Oh well, more mouse exercise for me.
Hotkey all set up...
Even shows up here, still no dice
There has got to be many other things that bug me about how OS X inefficiently works... I'm sure I'll complain about them later.