Existing users, 
Still no spatial layout - oscarruitt_dotmac
"I think he means that you can't (apparently) re-arrange icons in pathfinder windows."
That's exactly right. Apple and other UI interface experts have strenuously made the point that a file manager have a mode in which the user gets to put things where he/she wants. You know, just like the real world. But with Path Finder, you can't go looking for things where you last left them, you have to remember the name of the thing that you're looking for. And no putting stuff next to other stuff so that you are reminded of where things are by association. Instead, Path Finder takes the anal retentive approach of sorting stuff and then putting it where it thinks it should go. So, say you have things sorted (and arranged) alphabetically (in icon view, of course) and you add a file that begins with the letter "m." Then all of the stuff that comes after "m" gets re-arranged and you can't f***ing find it without conducting your own visual search.
Path Finder is very un-Mac-like in this regard, and I for one simply can't use it to replace the Finder until this problem is fixed—It will continue as my favorite utility. The odd thing is that the layout information is available in the .DS_Store files that the Finder uses, and writing the code to do the layout I suppose would be easy compared to many of the other things in PF.
A spatial layout is the one feature that I thought would surely appear in 4.0. Let's hope for 4.1.
Sunday, January 15 2006 @ 02:16 PM PST
Still no spatial layout - oscarruitt_dotmac
"I think he means that you can't (apparently) re-arrange icons in pathfinder windows."
That's exactly right. Apple and other UI interface experts have strenuously made the point that a file manager have a mode in which the user gets to put things where he/she wants. You know, just like the real world. But with Path Finder, you can't go looking for things where you last left them, you have to remember the name of the thing that you're looking for. And no putting stuff next to other stuff so that you are reminded of where things are by association. Instead, Path Finder takes the anal retentive approach of sorting stuff and then putting it where it thinks it should go. So, say you have things sorted (and arranged) alphabetically (in icon view, of course) and you add a file that begins with the letter "m." Then all of the stuff that comes after "m" gets re-arranged and you can't f***ing find it without conducting your own visual search.
Path Finder is very un-Mac-like in this regard, and I for one simply can't use it to replace the Finder until this problem is fixed—It will continue as my favorite utility. The odd thing is that the layout information is available in the .DS_Store files that the Finder uses, and writing the code to do the layout I suppose would be easy compared to many of the other things in PF.
A spatial layout is the one feature that I thought would surely appear in 4.0. Let's hope for 4.1.
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Sunday, January 15 2006 @ 02:13 PM PST