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Whenever Apple updates Mac OS X, the Finder is one app that surely undergoes a lot of changes. But that's natural: the Finder is perhaps the most commonly-used application that ships with the OS. It's the one that forms its most integral part. You use the Finder to launch applications and/or documents, browse your file system, connect to servers, manage files and removable media, etc.
It's also the one that has undergone the most important paradigm shifts with the release of Mac OS X. First of all, the Finder has been stripped of some of its previous functionality – it's no longer the place to start up or shut down your Mac. It's "just another app," that Apple may even choose to completely replace one day, as Steve Jobs said a few years ago. More significantly, the way the Finder works with the file system has changed dramatically, as has the layout of the file system itself. Both have to do with the NeXT heritage of Mac OS X. And ever since Mac OS X was first released, the Finder has been looking for its true identity: is it a Mac Finder, or a NeXTSTEP browser? Until that dispute is settled, Apple will stay busy rewriting the controversial Finder, in an attempt to make users happy (and entice them to upgrade).
If you want to see a complete list of what's new and improved in Panther's Finder, Apple's New Finder and New Features pages will be happy to tout them all. Let's take a look at that list, and eliminate some items so we can focus on the bigger or more interesting ones.
Action menu: this is just a widget that brings up the same contextual menu that you'd get by Ctrl-clicking on something in the Finder. This probably helps novice users.
Archive Files and Folders: the Finder can now archive and dearchive files or folders using the gzip format (similarly to using Stuffit, except that the Finder's own zip utility will show up instead).
Local iDisk with Sync: now you can mirror the contents of your iDisk to your local hard disk, and automatically synchronize it with the online version. This way, you'll only need to work online when necessary: a great time saver. Of course, your online backup folder, as well as the huge online software catalog (as well as the folder named "Library") will only be available when you go online, as storing them on your local disk would defeat their purpose (or simply wouldn't be feasible).
Network browsing: your local network is now accessible from a Finder icon, without the need to use the Network Browser. The "Connect to Server" dialog is still there; it lets you enter addresses, and add them to (or remove them from) a list. Passwords, as always, can be stored in the Keychain. Connecting to a server doesn't seem to slow down the Finder any more.
Now, on to some details.
A Colorful Selection
The new Finder has a lot of new visual changes on the menu. Remember how hard it has been in OS X to tell which icons were selected on the Desktop (or in Icons view)? Only the icon itself was darkened as a visual clue, the file name was unaffected, thus if you didn't know what an icon was supposed to be like, you may not have been able to tell whether it was highlighted or not.
This has changed quite greatly. Now, selected icons have a rounded light frame around them, a dark semi-transparent background, and their names are highlighted with a blue (yes, always blue, you can't change that color) background.
So, here's an exercise. What icons are selected in the following picture, and what's wrong with some of them?
A look at icons in Panther
Well, the first two are selected, the others aren't. That much you can tell by the blue thing around their names, and the changes on their icons. But how about the two on the two sides? Yes, everyone, labels are back! It might have taken Apple four OS X releases, but this classic Mac OS feature has finally found its way back to the Mac. As you can see, they only affect the names of Finder objects, not their icons. The "new" labels are compatible with OS 9, though there are two more in Panther, or a total of seven. (Yet OS 9 will also recognize the new ones.) You can change their names in a Finder preferences window pane, but not their colors:
The Label Preferences Panel
The OS X Finder displays labels even more strangely in the Columns and List views, by giving them a rounded color background. When selecting a labeled object in those views, the Panther Finder will highlight their entire line in the same color, leaving a small circle around its disclosure triangle (or in its place, if there's none) tinted with the label color:
Labels in Column View
Labels in List View
Couple all that color with the new metallic windows (which we'll get to in a second), and you'll start scratching your head: did Apple go too far this time? Isn't the new Finder too cartoonish and Microsoft-like? We'll see how the public reacts.
Of All the Sidebars in the World…
The most notable change the Finder has received in Mac OS X 10.3, a.k.a. Panther, is its two very distinctive modes: for the sake of simplicity, let's call them "sidebar" and "non-sidebar" modes. Any Finder window will have either of the two (with "sidebar" being the default), and you can easily switch between the two modes by the show/hide toolbar command, window by window.
With the sidebar and without
These two differ significantly from each other. In the "sidebar" mode, a Finder window is textured, i.e. it has a metallic look. Thus, it also has borders, by which you can drag them, just like in the old classic Mac OS days. Many will find this look somewhat disconcerting, but it has an important purpose: setting the "sidebar" mode aside from the other one, which has a "traditional," textureless, borderless Aqua window look. With good reason: the differences between the two modes are numerous. First, the sidebar (which I'll detail very soon) is only present in the, well, "sidebar" mode. So is the Finder toolbar: in fact, the "Show/Hide Toolbar" menu command, with its keystroke (Command-Option-T) and widget is the way to switch between the two modes. Thirdly, with the sidebar turned off, windows behave differently: they will open new windows for any double-clicked folder icons, even when this behavior isn't set in the Finder Preferences. (Thus, that preference only affects windows in the "sidebar" mode.)
So what does this sidebar do? Chiefly, it replaces the Jaguar way of adding favorite folders (and other locations) to the titlebar of Finder windows. And we should be glad it does: a sidebar is a much better place to keep all that stuff anyway. Here's why:
First, it can accommodate much more icons than a toolbar, simply because it can grow and shrink as needed. (As you may have realized, a titlebar can only contain fixed-size icons.) Just try fitting all these favorites in the titlebar of a Jaguar Finder window (though you need to scroll down here to see all):
Secondly, it can display long names much better than a titlebar. There's some added flexibility, too, here: you can easily change the width of the sidebar by dragging its resize widget, and the Finder will remember the width you specified. It will be a default for any windows created subsequently, though windows belonging to folders will remember their sidebar width, along with other settings. (What do I mean by "windows belonging to folders"? See my historic overview below.) You can also set a width of zero (having a "sidebar" mode with no sidebar, if that's your thing), or a sidebar with icon width: both can be accomplished by dragging the resize widget to approximate locations where the sidebar will snap in place.
Thirdly, it's much more logical as a starting point for a window in Columns View, as the entire view is left to right-aligned.
Fourth, it's consistent with other Mac OS X applications, such as iTunes, iPhoto, etc.
But what does the sidebar actually do? Quite a lot. Clicking on volumes, folders (locations) will get you there, obviously. Single-clicking on an application or document icon will launch it, just like in the Dock. Actually, the sidebar's behavior resembles that of the Dock in other ways too: you add items to it by simply dragging them there, and dragging them off will make them disappear in a puff of smoke. (Any changes to the contents of the sidebar of any Finder window will immediately affect all sidebars on all Finder windows.) I've already mentioned resizing (that happens with window height changes), though after a certain decrease in size, scrolling will be necessary as icons will refuse to get any smaller.
And when you resize the sidebar to icon width, it will be a relative setting: as you make the window taller, the icons will grow larger, and the sidebar wider, accommodating them carefully. In icon width mode (yep, it deserves to be called a "mode"), mousing over an icon will display a tooltip-like caption showing the name of the location – yet another Dock-esque phenomenon.
Dragging items to the sidebar, however, result in more versatile actions than what you can see on the Dock. You'll get very nice (and intuitive) visual clues as you drag, letting you know what will happen to your object once you finish dragging.
If you drag an object between two icons on the sidebar, you'll place it there, just like on the Dock.
If you drag an object to a location icon, it will be moved/copied/aliased there (depending on the modifier keys you press, as well as on the characteristics of the location and the object: just like in the case of any Finder copy/move operation). If you hover your object on the location for a while, the "spring-loaded" effect known from the Finder will take place: the Finder window's contents will switch to the location you're dragging to. This way, you'll be able to dig deeper into the hierarchy – something you still can't do with the Dock.
And finally, if you keep any application icons in your sidebar, dragging a document on that icon will open it in that app, if the Finder thinks the app will open your document. This will result in a very cool visual effect that I've been unable to capture: the document icon seems to drop "into" the app icon, as if in a well. You have to see it for yourselves.
Locations like "Computer," your iDisk, mounted volumes, the local network are easily accessible from the sidebar, but if you think the list is too exhaustive, you can reduce it in the Finder's Sidebar preferences, though you can drag those off, too, with a smoke puff.
Sidebar Preferences
You can also use the sidebar to eject disks by clicking on the small eject icons next to them. And as far as replacing the toolbar as a place to store favorites: that isn't entirely true. If you want, you can still store favorite objects in the toolbar, but you can no longer do that by just simply dragging them there. You need to go to "Customize Toolbar" mode first.
Why It's Called "Finder"
Searching for things has undergone some serious improvements in Panther. It's now hard to imagine that between OS 9 and OS X 10.1, we used a monstrously bloated, slow beast called Sherlock 2 for our local file searches. Jaguar surprised us with Sherlock 3 that spun off file searches into a streamlined, small app that formed a part of the Finder – and now we're treated to search-on-the-fly functionality. Looks like Apple is serious about consistency between its apps, and after iTunes and Mail, the rounded Search field has not only made its way into the Finder (back in Jaguar), but has finally became capable of working the right way: letting you enter text, and presenting you with a narrowed-down list of files (and folders) containing that phrase, right there, in your original window.
Searching in the Finder
Clicking on the small magnifying glass icon will bring up a list of possible search locations, including "Local Disks," "Selection," "Home Folder" and "Everywhere." Selection is the default, and denotes the location that your window currently shows.
It should be noted that this file search is recursive: it doesn't just search the files in the first level of hierarchy. It searches all the files in all the folders and subfolders within the location you specify. And this search is really fast, too – and powerful, because it doesn't just search for some letters in the beginning of a file name.
As you can see it on the screenshot, I searched for
the phrase "a s bo da." This has brought
up files whose names include all of the following
sequences: "a," "s," "bo"
and "da." You can *use* space as a separator
to quickly locate files whose names include several
bits. Want to find all the JPEGs whose name contains
"Joe"? Just enter "joe jp," and
you'll get pretty close *to* the list you want.
But what if you want to do a more complex search, based on not only file name, but also some other criteria? Fret not: Command-F still brings up the old "Find" window.
Again, you can read plenty of information from the above screenshot (that's why I keep making 'em!). You can maintain a list of specific places for your searches, these will remain consistent. As for the criteria themselves, there are some good news and some bad news.
Finally, Apple seems to have come to terms with the fact that many professionals still use file types and creators (old HFS staples) to search for files, rather than surrendering to Apple's now-preferred way of using those horrible file extensions. So now you can search for those as well. Also, you can have several "Name" and "Date" criteria, narrowing your search easily.
But on the down side, you cannot specify a lot of negatives: how about files whose names "are not," or "do not contain" something? Files whose creators aren't something? Even Sherlock 2 in OS 9 could do that! You can't set ranges for sizes (though you can for dates). One wonders why Apple chose to make an excellent tool just this shy of perfect by leaving out some basic things. But still, searching is now one of the Finder's strengths.
Saving the Day?
While it isn't the Finder per se, Open and Save panels have always mimicked Finder behavior, and have accordingly received significant updates in Panther. In every Carbon or Cocoa application (without a need to rewrite or recompile them), you can see the Finder sidebar, as well as a back-forth navigation button pair, plus a widget to switch between Columns and List view.
You can access your local network, and all the favorites you've dragged to the sidebar. New in Panther is your ability to click on a (dimmed) file name when saving your document, "borrowing" its name and extension (though some applications will complain if you choose the wrong file extension), just like you can do in Windows, or using St. Clair's Default Folder.
On the down side, Apple thought that by giving you the sidebar, you'll no longer need the Favorites folder. That folder still exists, and you can put it in your sidebar, but the only way to add items to it is by adding them manually in the Finder. Recent items are still being remembered on an application by application basis, but there's still no global list of those places. It looks like power users might still need the above-mentioned Default Folder for maximizing their efficiency in working between several folders.
The way Open and Save dialogs resemble Finder windows is somewhat deceiving, too. Instinctively, you'll look for file manipulation capabilities in them, like deleting, renaming, or just re-labeling files – all in vain. At least, one should be able to add files or locations to the sidebar – but no such luck. All in all, I have a nagging feeling that Open/Save panels and Finder windows are all awaiting some major design breakthrough that would unify them somehow into one: interface elements looking like something else yet with a fraction of their functionality are frustrating and tantalizing. If a user decides to move stuff around, or do a little housekeeping, while opening a file, he or she should be able to do that right away. With a real world example – if you walk into a room to pick up a book and notice some junk on the table, you can throw it away while still being there for the book. You don't need a separate trip with a separate purpose. Neither should you on the Mac.
Home is Where the Habit is
As I said way back in the beginning, one major difference between the OS X Finder and its Classic predecessor(s) is the new file system layout in OS X. Previously, you had the Desktop as your root location. Your hard disks and all mounted volumes were "on" it, alongside documents saved directly on the Desktop, i.e. in the Desktop Folders of each volume. There was no way of opening a Finder window except by clicking on something residing on the Desktop, or within another Finder window.
Mac OS X is a whole new world. The root folder is called someone's "Computer," that's the point where all volumes are mounted. Your desktop is several levels down – it's something like Computer/Hard disk/Users/you/Desktop. It's just like another folder, except that the files you put there are displayed on the background. Imagine a document window with a textured backdrop, opened wide behind all your other windows – that's your desktop in Mac OS X, except that Apple (grudgingly) allowed you to display your hard disks and other items there, for nostalgia's sake, but illogically.
So how do you navigate to your documents? Not by clicking on desktop icons: you should do that by opening a Finder window, and using the built-in navigation tools (like the new sidebar) to go to places. This is why Mac OS X has a completely new idea of how the Finder should work. Apple wants you to look at the Finder as a navigator, not as a graphical representation of your file system. But that's not what users want. They never opened a Finder window before, they only opened locations like folders and disks (that were displayed as Finder windows.) Coming to terms with that, Apple has done quite a lot to make sure users feel at home. The Finder now tries to be like the old Classic Finder in many ways – but as we've seen, it can't be exactly like that.
Panther includes some new changes to make OS X less
like a strange place to Mac users. Previously, clicking
on the "Home" or "Desktop" or
"Documents" folder in a Finder window's
toolbar, Columns view displayed those locations as
belonging to a certain place in the file system. You
could scroll backwards from "Documents"
to your Home folder, then through Users to your hard
disk, and finally, to your computer's root folder.
What's wrong with that? It's the truth, isn't it?
Yes, but users could use some sugarcoating there. OS 9 didn't tell you that your file on the Desktop actually belonged to the Desktop Folder of a hard disk that was mounted at another point in the hierarchy, did it? It just told you that it's on the Desktop, and that's it. Now we can experience something similar in Panther.
As you can see on the screenshot, there's no scrolling back from your Music folder. In Columns view, that folder seems like a root folder, and the same is true of all the favorites you see in the sidebar, whether they're built-in or your additions. For novices, this can be welcome: they needn't worry about where their folders are; they're just there. In the sidebar. Why scare them by filling them in with the entire hierarchy?
But not all users are novices. Knowledge is power. If you're interested in the hierarchy, you can Command-click on the proxy icon (also shown in the screenshot), and the real hierarchy is revealed… Or is it? Not entirely: it looks like the user's home comes right after the very root (Computer), as though the hard disk name and the Users folder didn't exist.
You can argue whether this is a useful simplification or a case of needlessly lying to the user – but I tend to side with the former viewpoint. Why not give novices a feeling of some stability and simplicity? Power users will find those intermediate locations anyway, and most of the time, I'm sure even they will like the new, simplified layout. We'll see how users are going to react to this change.
Identity Finder
Finally, let's take a look at the schizophrenic state
of the Panther Finder: how there can be a browser
metaphor coexisting with a spatially oriented, traditional
Finder; why metallic windows are needed, and how it
all comes together.
Mac OS X has inherited NeXTSTEP's celebrated "columns" view, which acts more like a browser that lets you quickly dig through a system hierarchy than the classic Mac OS's spatially oriented "one folder – one window" representation of your Mac's folder system. The classic Mac OS enforced a strict rule: only one window can represent the contents of a folder on screen at the same time. Trying to open a second one merely highlighted the first. Also, in List view, clicking on the disclosure triangle of an icon and thus revealing the contents of a folder that already has a window open will close that original window. This approach has also enforced a consistency in displaying the contents of a folder. In both Icons and List views, each folder kept its view settings between two "openings:" it would look just like it did the last time you closed it.
Obviously, once a NeXTSTEP-like Columns view showed up, it messed up the entire consistency. The Columns view is the only one of the three that doesn't strictly belong to one folder (or volume, or other level in the folder hierarchy): it's a rootless, homeless, cosmopolitan browser, traveling between various destinations. As such, it needs freedom: you can't have browsers fighting each other whenever they step on each other's toes. If the "one window – one folder" rule was going to be maintained, one of two solutions would be necessary:
(a) Navigating in a browser window would forcibly close any open Finder windows that represents the same folder. But in this case, Columns view would be seen as an obnoxious, destructive phenomenon, and its excellent browsing capabilities would be less prominent than its notoriety as a window killer.
(b) Columns view would fail to navigate to a folder that already has a window open, highlighting it instead. This way, Columns view would cease to be a powerful navigating tool, and would end up causing way too much frustration with its disruptive behavior.
Thus, the Columns view has to coexist with the other two traditional, spatially oriented views, and ever since the first release of OS X, the Finder's one new and two old view settings have been fiercely fighting each other. At stake is the Finder's own identity.
It's obvious that the Columns view is almost like an independent app, a "Finder Browser," as it differs so significantly from the other two Finder views in that it alone isn't the graphical representation of one folder. As Ars Technica's John Siracusa argues in his (typically learned and comprehensive) criticism of the OS X Finder, that "view" shouldn't even be considered a view, but rather should be rolled into a separate application.
One may argue about this idea pro and con, but this is definitely not the path Panther has chosen. Instead, what you have here is a simple set of rules:
If you open a new Finder window, either by launching a location from the Desktop or the Dock, or by pressing Command-N, any windows originating from that one will inherit its sidebar status. That status will also be remembered the next time you open that location. However, this is only true of locations capable of being displayed in new windows, i.e. locations having icons or aliases on the Desktop, or the location that comes up when pressing Command-N in the Finder, as specified by the Finder Preferences (it can be any location, and defaults to your Home folder).
View settings, however, are remembered for every location.
Thus, you have browser-like behavior mixed with a traditional, spatially oriented Finder. You can have as many windows of any location open at the same time as you want (by navigating to it in each window from somewhere else). At times, you'll end up with sidebars on windows you wouldn't want them on, occupying considerable screen real estate. The new Finder is fun to use, and has a lot of power navigating features, but its new features seem a bit haphazard. It doesn't seem as though it had settled down, and become a reliable, mature application. Even in Panther, it still hasn't found its true identity.
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