Frequently in these discussions complaints will be voiced regarding the 
Finder. I'm at this time using Mac OS X 10.4.9 and, at least to me, the 
Finder behaves as I expect and want.

If I am diving into or out of a hierarchy I want the containing window and 
properties to remain the same as I change from level to level.

If I minimize a Finder window I want that window to maximize exactly as I 
left it.

If I close all Finder windows I want the next opened Finder window to have 
the position and size of that which was most recently opened.

The above are behaviors that I experience. What different behaviors are 
people wanting?

-- 
James Leo Ryan ..... Austin, Texas ..... taliesinsoft@mac.com

In article <0001HW.C267EB860004BB31B022094F@news.supernews.com>,
TaliesinSoft <taliesinsoft@mac.com> wrote:

> The above are behaviors that I experience. What different behaviors are 
> people wanting?

despite having been written a few years ago, this sums up some of the
fundamental issues:

<http://arstechnica.com/articles/paedia/finder.ars>

In article <0001HW.C267EB860004BB31B022094F@news.supernews.com>,
TaliesinSoft <taliesinsoft@mac.com> wrote:

> Frequently in these discussions complaints will be voiced regarding the 
> Finder. I'm at this time using Mac OS X 10.4.9 and, at least to me, the 
> Finder behaves as I expect and want.
> 
> If I am diving into or out of a hierarchy I want the containing window and 
> properties to remain the same as I change from level to level.
> 
> If I minimize a Finder window I want that window to maximize exactly as I 
> left it.
> 
> If I close all Finder windows I want the next opened Finder window to have 
> the position and size of that which was most recently opened.
> 
> The above are behaviors that I experience. What different behaviors are 
> people wanting?

An interface that doesn't allow windows to only display a few pixels
and still be considered "on screen".

An interface that will actually scroll to the item one selects through
"display in Finder".

An interface that doesn't refuse to load at startup because it suddenly
decides it doesn't like something about one or more items in ~/Desktop/

Next?

-- 
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0

Pass it on...

TaliesinSoft wrote:

> Frequently in these discussions complaints will be voiced regarding the 
> Finder. I'm at this time using Mac OS X 10.4.9 and, at least to me, the 
> Finder behaves as I expect and want.
> 
> If I am diving into or out of a hierarchy I want the containing window and 
> properties to remain the same as I change from level to level.
> 
> If I minimize a Finder window I want that window to maximize exactly as I 
> left it.
> 
> If I close all Finder windows I want the next opened Finder window to have 
> the position and size of that which was most recently opened.
> 
> The above are behaviors that I experience. What different behaviors are 
> people wanting?

Feature-wise, I think the Finder is just fine. But fire up a fast (for
its era) G3 or G4 running OS 9. The OS 9.x (and OS 8.x) Finder is waaay
more responsive than the OS X Finder.

Coincidentally, Just before I read your post my wife put her Dual G5 to
sleep while I was connected to it. That caused the Finder on this 24"
iMac/2.2GHz Core 2 Duo/2GB RAM to lock and display the Colorful
Spinning Beach Ball of Eternal Perdition for exactly six minutes until
a message appeared telling me that the server had gone down. Once I
clicked off that message all was well again. /Sometimes/ it is possible
to get out of this situation by forcing the Finder to relaunch -- and
sometimes not.  In the current instance the Finder would not quit and
relaunch. Meanwhile, I was trying to bring some files from a second
server -- a MacBook Pro -- and I was unable to perform any Finder
operations during the aforementioned six-minute period.

In terms of convenience -- navigation, file access, file manipulation,
spring-loaded folders, renaming, et al, it is infinitely better than
the Windows Explorer environment. But the Finder needs optimizing.
Apple, like every other company, uses Windows computers for certain
tasks. They must have noticed  how much better Windows handles
networking (it's fast!) and multitasking in the Windows Explorer. IMO
it is unconscionable that the Finder is still broken so many years
after OS X was released.

Davoud

-- 
usenet *at* davidillig dawt com

In article <0001HW.C267EB860004BB31B022094F@news.supernews.com>,
 TaliesinSoft <taliesinsoft@mac.com> wrote:

> Frequently in these discussions complaints will be voiced regarding the 
> Finder. I'm at this time using Mac OS X 10.4.9 and, at least to me, the 
> Finder behaves as I expect and want.
> 
> If I am diving into or out of a hierarchy I want the containing window and 
> properties to remain the same as I change from level to level.
> 
> If I minimize a Finder window I want that window to maximize exactly as I 
> left it.
> 
> If I close all Finder windows I want the next opened Finder window to have 
> the position and size of that which was most recently opened.
> 
> The above are behaviors that I experience. What different behaviors are 
> people wanting?

The one that impacts me most as a user is that in, I believe, 10.4 they 
made significant changes in how the process of selection works in Finder 
windows in list view. I consider it a design error that the white space 
in a data row is "live" space when you're making a selection - clicking 
on it will select the row - but "dead" space when you want to manipulate 
a selection. Unlike previous versions of Mac OS, when a file is selected 
in list view, the whole row is highlighted so the whole row _should_ be 
valid to initiate a drag or a multi-selection double-click.

You also can't initiate drag selection from below the bottom item in a 
list that doesn't fill its window.

One that affects me as a programmer is that for a window in columns 
view, Finder will reproducibly return incorrect information when queried 
for it's "insertion point."

One that's not a terrible problem for me but that I know annoys some 
people is that Finder windows sometimes show stale data for extended 
periods of time. Like hours, unless the user does voodoo to force them 
to refresh. This has improved with each major release, but it's still 
present and doesn't seem to get any attention between major releases.

In article <uce-894FA4.07152210052007@comcast.dca.giganews.com>,
 Gregory Weston <uce@splook.com> wrote:

> In article <0001HW.C267EB860004BB31B022094F@news.supernews.com>,
>  TaliesinSoft <taliesinsoft@mac.com> wrote:
> 
> > Frequently in these discussions complaints will be voiced regarding the 
> > Finder. I'm at this time using Mac OS X 10.4.9 and, at least to me, the 
> > Finder behaves as I expect and want.
> > 
> > If I am diving into or out of a hierarchy I want the containing window and 
> > properties to remain the same as I change from level to level.
> > 
> > If I minimize a Finder window I want that window to maximize exactly as I 
> > left it.
> > 
> > If I close all Finder windows I want the next opened Finder window to have 
> > the position and size of that which was most recently opened.
> > 
> > The above are behaviors that I experience. What different behaviors are 
> > people wanting?
> 
> The one that impacts me most as a user is that in, I believe, 10.4 they 
> made significant changes in how the process of selection works in Finder 
> windows in list view. I consider it a design error that the white space 
> in a data row is "live" space when you're making a selection - clicking 
> on it will select the row - but "dead" space when you want to manipulate 
> a selection. Unlike previous versions of Mac OS, when a file is selected 
> in list view, the whole row is highlighted so the whole row _should_ be 
> valid to initiate a drag or a multi-selection double-click.
> 
> You also can't initiate drag selection from below the bottom item in a 
> list that doesn't fill its window.
> 
> One that affects me as a programmer is that for a window in columns 
> view, Finder will reproducibly return incorrect information when queried 
> for it's "insertion point."
> 
> One that's not a terrible problem for me but that I know annoys some 
> people is that Finder windows sometimes show stale data for extended 
> periods of time. Like hours, unless the user does voodoo to force them 
> to refresh. This has improved with each major release, but it's still 
> present and doesn't seem to get any attention between major releases.

It's also possible, in icon view, to have scroll bars that only go away 
when the window is enlarged a *lot* more than it  should need to be, and 
to have portions of icons that are off-window, with *no* scroll bars.

Personally I consider the vanishing of scroll-bars in a Finder window to 
be a bad idea.

The OS9 Finder did a better job, typically, for this sort of thing.

TaliesinSoft wrote:
> Frequently in these discussions complaints will be voiced regarding the 
> Finder. I'm at this time using Mac OS X 10.4.9 and, at least to me, the 
> Finder behaves as I expect and want.
> 
> If I am diving into or out of a hierarchy I want the containing window and 
> properties to remain the same as I change from level to level.
> 
> If I minimize a Finder window I want that window to maximize exactly as I 
> left it.
> 
> If I close all Finder windows I want the next opened Finder window to have 
> the position and size of that which was most recently opened.
> 
> The above are behaviors that I experience. What different behaviors are 
> people wanting?
> 

Generally I'm quite happy with the Finder, but then I don't use it all
that much, and this in itself could be because a lot of what is said
about it is true. I just subconciously avoided it maybe. I have aliases
in the dock to an apps folder which has subdirectories I have organised.
Apple's apps are just aliases in ther, because apple's installer won't
look outside Applications for the things it is supposed to be updating,
but everything else gets installed in an appropriate subfolder of
'apps'. I can access any app I want easily from this dock item. Similar
with the documents folder.

Reading through the comments and links in this thread, I can now see why
I did this. Column view I found most annoying because it was so
promising, but it is too easy to delete the enclosing folder of some
file you just deleted. If you're not careful, the cmd-delete will go
straight on to the next in the hierarchy and delete that too. There
should at least be some kind of delay built into that, like with the
spring-loaded folders.

I got used to working in pop-up submenus with the excellent FinderPop
back in OS 8/9. It's really fast if you set it up right in the first
place, and there is no clutter of open windows. I have the four most
used apps permanently in the dock, and deleted most of the defaults from
there. It's not as good as FinderPop was, but not bad either. The great
thing about that program was its simplicity, most dock replacements and
finder replacements seem to be complicated, and I prefer not to add more
things if it is at all possible to use what is there already. It's worth
a bit of organising work to remove 90% of your operations from the finder.

Andy

On Thu, 10 May 2007 07:15:39 -0500, Tim Streater wrote
(in article <tim.streater-5A9F64.13153910052007@news.individual.net>):

> It's also possible, in icon view, to have scroll bars that only go away when 
> the window is enlarged a *lot* more than it  should need to be, and to have 
> portions of icons that are off-window, with *no* scroll bars.
> 
> Personally I consider the vanishing of scroll-bars in a Finder window to be a 

> bad idea.

I've just experimented with a window that starts by having ten icons arranged 
in two rows and the window being wide enough so that no scroll bars are 
present.

If I slowly narrow the window a horizontal scrollbar will appear as the right 
margin is about half of an icon width to the right of the rightmost icons. If 
I continue narrowing the window until I'm about half of an icon width to the 
left of the now out of sight rightmost icons the horizontal scroll bar will 
disappear and a  vertical scroll bar will appear. The icons in the window 
will rearrange to a three row arrangement with four icons in each of the 
first two rows and two icons in the third row. I should mention that I have 
my view options set to keep the icons arranged by name.

Once the icons have been rearranged into three rows they will not return to 
the two row arrangement until thee is enough space in the window for them to 
be completely visible.

As for the vanishing scrollbars, I'm one that doesn't like to see nilpotent 
ones edging a window. But that's certainly a matter of taste and a possible 
preference setting.

-- 
James Leo Ryan ..... Austin, Texas ..... taliesinsoft@mac.com

In article <0001HW.C268907A002B6455B022094F@news.supernews.com>,
 TaliesinSoft <taliesinsoft@mac.com> wrote:

> On Thu, 10 May 2007 07:15:39 -0500, Tim Streater wrote
> (in article <tim.streater-5A9F64.13153910052007@news.individual.net>):
> 
> > It's also possible, in icon view, to have scroll bars that only go away 
> > when 
> > the window is enlarged a *lot* more than it  should need to be, and to have 
> > portions of icons that are off-window, with *no* scroll bars.
> > 
> > Personally I consider the vanishing of scroll-bars in a Finder window to be 
> > a 
> 
> > bad idea.
> 
> I've just experimented with a window that starts by having ten icons arranged 
> in two rows and the window being wide enough so that no scroll bars are 
> present.
> 
> If I slowly narrow the window a horizontal scrollbar will appear as the right 
> margin is about half of an icon width to the right of the rightmost icons. If 
> I continue narrowing the window until I'm about half of an icon width to the 
> left of the now out of sight rightmost icons the horizontal scroll bar will 
> disappear and a  vertical scroll bar will appear. The icons in the window 
> will rearrange to a three row arrangement with four icons in each of the 
> first two rows and two icons in the third row. I should mention that I have 
> my view options set to keep the icons arranged by name.
> 
> Once the icons have been rearranged into three rows they will not return to 
> the two row arrangement until thee is enough space in the window for them to 
> be completely visible.

I think Tim's talking about situations where the scrollbars have no 
reason to be scrollable, but are. I don't see it often, but I do. It's 
probably a manifestation of the stale data I referenced.

> As for the vanishing scrollbars, I'm one that doesn't like to see nilpotent 
> ones edging a window. But that's certainly a matter of taste and a possible 
> preference setting.

I think you'll find two categories of response to what you asked, 
though. On the one hand there are documented (and in some cases 
acknowledged) aspects of the Finder that diverge from what's documented. 
Those would be bugs.

Aside from that, though, you'll see complaints from long-time users 
about abrupt and seemingly gratuitous changes to behavior that break the 
idioms internalized by anyone who's been using a Mac longer than OS X 
has been out. To take your scrollbar example, I've always been a fan of 
the notion that if a control is not valid right now but could be as a 
result of trivial and expected user actions it should be disabled rather 
than hidden. It doesn't really strictly bug me that Apple now hides 
irrelevant scrollbars in Finder windows, but it does bug me that they 
put engineering resources into something that disrupts the user 
experience for a very debatable gain while other problems with the 
product exist.

In article <uce-A23C13.11431510052007@comcast.dca.giganews.com>,
 Gregory Weston <uce@splook.com> wrote:

> In article <0001HW.C268907A002B6455B022094F@news.supernews.com>,
>  TaliesinSoft <taliesinsoft@mac.com> wrote:
> 
> > On Thu, 10 May 2007 07:15:39 -0500, Tim Streater wrote
> > (in article <tim.streater-5A9F64.13153910052007@news.individual.net>):
> > 
> > > It's also possible, in icon view, to have scroll bars that only go away 
> > > when 
> > > the window is enlarged a *lot* more than it  should need to be, and to 
> > > have 
> > > portions of icons that are off-window, with *no* scroll bars.
> > > 
> > > Personally I consider the vanishing of scroll-bars in a Finder window to 
> > > be 
> > > a 
> > 
> > > bad idea.
> > 
> > I've just experimented with a window that starts by having ten icons 
> > arranged 
> > in two rows and the window being wide enough so that no scroll bars are 
> > present.
> > 
> > If I slowly narrow the window a horizontal scrollbar will appear as the 
> > right 
> > margin is about half of an icon width to the right of the rightmost icons. 
> > If 
> > I continue narrowing the window until I'm about half of an icon width to 
> > the 
> > left of the now out of sight rightmost icons the horizontal scroll bar will 
> > disappear and a  vertical scroll bar will appear. The icons in the window 
> > will rearrange to a three row arrangement with four icons in each of the 
> > first two rows and two icons in the third row. I should mention that I have 
> > my view options set to keep the icons arranged by name.
> > 
> > Once the icons have been rearranged into three rows they will not return to 
> > the two row arrangement until thee is enough space in the window for them 
> > to 
> > be completely visible.
> 
> I think Tim's talking about situations where the scrollbars have no 
> reason to be scrollable, but are. I don't see it often, but I do. It's 
> probably a manifestation of the stale data I referenced.
> 
> > As for the vanishing scrollbars, I'm one that doesn't like to see nilpotent 
> > ones edging a window. But that's certainly a matter of taste and a possible 
> > preference setting.
> 
> I think you'll find two categories of response to what you asked, 
> though. On the one hand there are documented (and in some cases 
> acknowledged) aspects of the Finder that diverge from what's documented. 
> Those would be bugs.
> 
> Aside from that, though, you'll see complaints from long-time users 
> about abrupt and seemingly gratuitous changes to behavior that break the 
> idioms internalized by anyone who's been using a Mac longer than OS X 
> has been out. To take your scrollbar example, I've always been a fan of 
> the notion that if a control is not valid right now but could be as a 
> result of trivial and expected user actions it should be disabled rather 
> than hidden. It doesn't really strictly bug me that Apple now hides 
> irrelevant scrollbars in Finder windows, but it does bug me that they 
> put engineering resources into something that disrupts the user 
> experience for a very debatable gain while other problems with the 
> product exist.

Yes, this is a fair summary of my POV. Note also that, e.g., 
MT-Newswatcher, and TextWrangler, both of which I have been using today, 
do *not* make the control (scrollbar in this case) disappear when it's 
not valid. So the FInder must be doing something extra to make this 
happen. It's a Windows-like behaviour that I consider inferior.

On Thu, 10 May 2007 10:43:15 -0500, Gregory Weston wrote
(in article <uce-A23C13.11431510052007@comcast.dca.giganews.com>):

> Aside from that, though, you'll see complaints from long-time users about 
> abrupt and seemingly gratuitous changes to behavior that break the idioms 
> internalized by anyone who's been using a Mac longer than OS X has been out. 
> To take your scrollbar example, I've always been a fan of the notion that if 
> a control is not valid right now but could be as a result of trivial and 
> expected user actions it should be disabled rather than hidden. It doesn't 
> really strictly bug me that Apple now hides irrelevant scrollbars in Finder 
> windows, but it does bug me that they put engineering resources into 
> something that disrupts the user experience for a very debatable gain while 
> other problems with the product exist.

As an aside of sorts, I've been using Macs continuously since I bought my Mac 
128K back in 1984 -- I bought it on the very first day it was possible to do 
so. And that aside aside (My eighth grade English teacher would kill me for 
that one!) I still prefer having scroll bars disappear when not needed. But 
as I say, that behavior could well be a preference.

-- 
James Leo Ryan ..... Austin, Texas ..... taliesinsoft@mac.com

On Thu, 10 May 2007 07:48:42 -0500, nospamatall wrote
(in article <f1v4bf$u7v$1@aioe.org>):

> Generally I'm quite happy with the Finder, but then I don't use it all that 
> much, and this in itself could be because a lot of what is said about it is 
> true.

Although I don't avoid the Finder I find that my most common vehicle for 
locating things is Spotlight. My default dock contains just two icons, one 
for the Finder and one for the Trash. To launch an application or to open 
folder or document I enter Command-Space to open Spotlight, type a few 
relevant letters, and then enter Down-Arrow to my desired selection and then 
strike Enter.

-- 
James Leo Ryan ..... Austin, Texas ..... taliesinsoft@mac.com

In article <tim.streater-311314.17352210052007@news.individual.net>,
 Tim Streater <tim.streater@dante.org.uk> wrote:

> Yes, this is a fair summary of my POV. Note also that, e.g., 
> MT-Newswatcher, and TextWrangler, both of which I have been using today, 
> do *not* make the control (scrollbar in this case) disappear when it's 
> not valid.

Conforming to the Apple HIG. (But note, of course, that slavish and 
unquestioning adherence to the HIG is not a flawless path to good UI 
design. The G does stand for 'guideline' after all.)


> So the FInder must be doing something extra to make this 
> happen. It's a Windows-like behaviour that I consider inferior.

I suspect that's the key: It's Windows-like behavior. The Mac way of 
_not_ hiding and showing controls in situations like this is something 
that has caused consternation to more than a few Windows users I know 
who've switched. I've found that the little details are far more 
annoying to switchers than the HUGE divergences. It would not surprise 
me at all if certain of these changes were considered practical 
non-issues that would reduce the aversion of a large class of potential 
new users.

User-Agent: Unison/1.7.9

On 2007-05-10 06:15:22 -0500, Gregory Weston <uce@splook.com> said:

> The one that impacts me most as a user is that in, I believe, 10.4 they
> made significant changes in how the process of selection works in Finder
> windows in list view. I consider it a design error that the white space
> in a data row is "live" space when you're making a selection - clicking
> on it will select the row - but "dead" space when you want to manipulate
> a selection. Unlike previous versions of Mac OS, when a file is selected
> in list view, the whole row is highlighted so the whole row _should_ be
> valid to initiate a drag or a multi-selection double-click.

For this, certainly you can thank the NeXT-head developers who seem to 
prefer the browser-like column view Finder window behavior over the 
behavior of the past, and want to enforce that behavior on all views.

-- 
JR

User-Agent: Unison/1.7.9

On 2007-05-10 11:35:22 -0500, Tim Streater <tim.streater@dante.org.uk> said:

> Yes, this is a fair summary of my POV. Note also that, e.g.,
> MT-Newswatcher, and TextWrangler, both of which I have been using today,
> do *not* make the control (scrollbar in this case) disappear when it's
> not valid. So the FInder must be doing something extra to make this
> happen. It's a Windows-like behaviour that I consider inferior.

Actually, it's a NeXT-like behavior, but you were close.

-- 
JR

In article <090520071950357345%nospam@nospam.invalid>,
 nospam <nospam@nospam.invalid> wrote:

> despite having been written a few years ago, this sums up some of the
> fundamental issues:
> 
> <http://arstechnica.com/articles/paedia/finder.ars>

People float that article up quite often, but I don't think he does a 
very good job of explaining why the ideas he proposes are better than 
what already exists.

By the time he's finished, he's basically only really talked about a 
handful of things:
1. A separate Spatial Finder.
2. Popup folders like Mac OS 9.
3. Smart folders, which for some reason he sees strictly as a feature of 
the Spatial FInder, nevermind that they really don't belong there at all.
4. A shelf.

I'm not very excited.

In article <0001HW.C267EB860004BB31B022094F@news.supernews.com>,
TaliesinSoft <taliesinsoft@mac.com> wrote:

> The above are behaviors that I experience. What different behaviors are 
> people wanting?

In OS 9, when you do Get Info on a folder, it tells you how many items
are in the folder in addition to the size of the folder. Seven years
later, OS X still won't show the count of items in a folder unless you
open the folder! You have to install a 3rd party utility to get the
functionality back.

Renaming items in OS X requires twice as many mouse clicks as in OS 9.

In OS 9 you can move the trash can anywhere on the desktop you want it.
Maybe someday this freedom will be restored to OSuX?

In OS X when you're viewing a folder's contents in List mode and you
change the font size a couple of times, sometimes there are glitches in
the display of filenames; the text is slightly cut off at the bottom of
each line.

PS. In OS 9 we have neat, handy, easily grabbed applets called Desk
Accessories. This functionality wasn't restored until dashboard widgets
came along with OS 10.4 ... so basically I think what's lacking in the
OS X Finder can be summed up as, all the intuitiveness and smoothness
that the OS 9 Finder has!

In article <tim.streater-311314.17352210052007@news.individual.net>,
 Tim Streater <tim.streater@dante.org.uk> wrote:

> Yes, this is a fair summary of my POV. Note also that, e.g., 
> MT-Newswatcher, and TextWrangler, both of which I have been using today, 
> do *not* make the control (scrollbar in this case) disappear when it's 
> not valid. So the FInder must be doing something extra to make this 
> happen. It's a Windows-like behaviour that I consider inferior.

That's one of my pet peeves, actually. I'd rather have 2 scroll bars on 
my screen than 12 scroll bars, 10 of which are disabled. What a visual 
mess that would be!

nospam wrote:
> despite having been written a few years ago, this sums up some of the
> fundamental issues:
>
> <http://arstechnica.com/articles/paedia/finder.ars>

*fascinating* article, thank you for posting it.


sm

On Thu, 10 May 2007 15:05:52 -0500, Nihongo Matsuri wrote (in article 
<100520071605521343%nickname@nospam.com>): 
 
> In OS 9, when you do Get Info on a folder, it tells you how many items are 
> in the folder in addition to the size of the folder. Seven years later, OS 
> X still won't show the count of items in a folder unless you open the 
> folder! You have to install a 3rd party utility to get the functionality 
> back. 

With Finder being the active application select "Show View Options" from the 
View menu. Then check "Show item info" and then the number of items within a 
folder will be displayed in the Finder when in icon view. 


-- 
James Leo Ryan ..... Austin, Texas ..... taliesinsoft@mac.com

In article <100520071605521343%nickname@nospam.com>,
 Nihongo Matsuri <nickname@nospam.com> wrote:

> PS. In OS 9 we have neat, handy, easily grabbed applets called Desk
> Accessories. This functionality wasn't restored until dashboard widgets
> came along with OS 10.4 ...

Unless, of course, you count any small, single-purpose application that 
was available during the whole run of OS X. That's what DAs had become 
by the time OS X shipped anyway, so the distinction is virtually 
meaningless.

G

In article <0001HW.C268EE4E000E4271B022094F@news.supernews.com>,
 TaliesinSoft <taliesinsoft@mac.com> wrote:

> On Thu, 10 May 2007 15:05:52 -0500, Nihongo Matsuri wrote (in article 
> <100520071605521343%nickname@nospam.com>): 
>  
> > In OS 9, when you do Get Info on a folder, it tells you how many items are 
> > in the folder in addition to the size of the folder. Seven years later, OS 
> > X still won't show the count of items in a folder unless you open the 
> > folder! You have to install a 3rd party utility to get the functionality 
> > back. 
> 
> With Finder being the active application select "Show View Options" from the 
> View menu. Then check "Show item info" and then the number of items within a 
> folder will be displayed in the Finder when in icon view.

What version of OS X is that in? I don't have it in 10.4.9, and I don't 
ever recall seeing it before that.

....

Oh. Icon view. And it takes up more space within the Finder window 
itself to do it.

In article <100520071605521343%nickname@nospam.com>,
 Nihongo Matsuri <nickname@nospam.com> wrote:

> In OS 9 you can move the trash can anywhere on the desktop you want it.
> Maybe someday this freedom will be restored to OSuX?

Not only that, you could make aliases of it in every window.

On 10 May 2007 13:40:37 -0700, spacemarine@mailinator.com wrote:

> nospam wrote:
>> despite having been written a few years ago, this sums up some of the
>> fundamental issues:
>>
>> <http://arstechnica.com/articles/paedia/finder.ars>

> *fascinating* article, thank you for posting it.

Upon reading this, I wondered whether the author also objects to the fact
that a TV set can display more than one channel, or even different
programs at different times on the same channel.


-- 
Dave Seaman
Oral Arguments in Mumia Abu-Jamal Case to be heard May 17
U.S. Court of Appeals, Third Circuit
<http://www.abu-jamal-news.com/>

nospam wrote:
> >> despite having been written a few years ago, this sums up some of the
> >> fundamental issues:

> >> <http://arstechnica.com/articles/paedia/finder.ars>

spacemarine@ 
> > *fascinating* article, thank you for posting it.

Dave Seaman
> Upon reading this, I wondered whether the author also objects to the fact
> that a TV set can display more than one channel, or even different
> programs at different times on the same channel.

I have a TV that can display two channels at once and a TiVo that can
record two HDTV Programs at once. I don't object to that at all.

I do object to the fact that not one of my 10 Macs can copy a 1MB file
over the 802.11g network and open a folder in the Finder at the same
time.

I just spent 4 minutes staring at the Colorful Spinning Beachball of
Eternal Perdition while copying a 785KB folder because I attempted to
change an open Finder window from column view to list view on the
remote machine while the copy was in progress. One gets the distinct
impression that the system knows it can't do these two tasks at once,
so it just doesn't do anything at all until it decides which to do
first.

I swear the following is true: My MB Pro has XP Pro on it. If I need to
copy a large amount of data to another Mac I can reboot in XP Pro, copy
the files, and reboot OS X faster than I could simply copy the files
from OS X to OS X. Thus, for heavy-duty Mac-to-Mac file transfers I
carry around a 160GB bus-powered portable FW drive. That's not my idea
of 21st-century networking.

I don't know what's broken here -- AirPort, Finder, Networking, but it
needs fixing.

Davoud

-- 
usenet *at* davidillig dawt com

On Fri, 11 May 2007 02:00:47 GMT, Davoud wrote:
> nospam wrote:
>> >> despite having been written a few years ago, this sums up some of the
>> >> fundamental issues:

>> >> <http://arstechnica.com/articles/paedia/finder.ars>

> spacemarine@ 
>> > *fascinating* article, thank you for posting it.

> Dave Seaman
>> Upon reading this, I wondered whether the author also objects to the fact
>> that a TV set can display more than one channel, or even different
>> programs at different times on the same channel.

> I have a TV that can display two channels at once and a TiVo that can
> record two HDTV Programs at once. I don't object to that at all.

> I do object to the fact that not one of my 10 Macs can copy a 1MB file
> over the 802.11g network and open a folder in the Finder at the same
> time.

You've got to be kidding.  I just tried this with a 3-year-old PowerBook
G4.  I copied a 16 MB file over my home 802.11g network and opened a
folder while the copy was in progress.  I think if I had copied a 1 MB
file, I would not have been quick enough on the draw to double-click on a
folder before the copy finished.  As it was, I had to try several times.

> I just spent 4 minutes staring at the Colorful Spinning Beachball of
> Eternal Perdition while copying a 785KB folder because I attempted to
> change an open Finder window from column view to list view on the
> remote machine while the copy was in progress. One gets the distinct
> impression that the system knows it can't do these two tasks at once,
> so it just doesn't do anything at all until it decides which to do
> first.

No trouble here.  I started copying a 38 MB file from office to home over
my DSL line, and while that was in progress, I changed from column view
to list view on the remote (office) machine.  Instant response.  The copy
finished in about 2 minutes.

> I swear the following is true: My MB Pro has XP Pro on it. If I need to
> copy a large amount of data to another Mac I can reboot in XP Pro, copy
> the files, and reboot OS X faster than I could simply copy the files
> from OS X to OS X. Thus, for heavy-duty Mac-to-Mac file transfers I
> carry around a 160GB bus-powered portable FW drive. That's not my idea
> of 21st-century networking.

> I don't know what's broken here -- AirPort, Finder, Networking, but it
> needs fixing.

I agree.  But that web page that started this discussion was concerned
with human interface issues, not with performance.



-- 
Dave Seaman
Oral Arguments in Mumia Abu-Jamal Case to be heard May 17
U.S. Court of Appeals, Third Circuit
<http://www.abu-jamal-news.com/>

Davoud wrote:
> I swear the following is true: My MB Pro has XP Pro on it. If I need to
> copy a large amount of data to another Mac I can reboot in XP Pro, copy
> the files, and reboot OS X faster than I could simply copy the files
> from OS X to OS X. Thus, for heavy-duty Mac-to-Mac file transfers I
> carry around a 160GB bus-powered portable FW drive. That's not my idea
> of 21st-century networking.
 >
 > I don't know what's broken here -- AirPort, Finder, Networking, but it
 > needs fixing.

I started to ask, "Is there some threshold of size at which this 
phenomenon begins?"  But then I re-read your post, which mentions
(1) a one megabyte file; and (2) copying over 802.11

That enables me to answer your implied question:
What's broken is Airport.

I just dragged a 62 MB file from another Mac to my desktop.
While it was copying, I moved the Copy widget out of the way,
and dragged it to a folder (making to simultaneous copy widgets,
both moving).

I then put focus back on the other Mac's window, chaanged it to list 
view and minimized it to reveal the two widgets still going.  Both 
copies completed.  Total time of all this, about fifteen seconds.
Popped over to Terminal, and timed a copy of the remote file to the 
local /tmp - 10.032 seconds.

Comparing that to your 1MB on 802.11, I conclude that
Finder is multitasking, Airport is not.

-- 
Wes Groleau
http://groleau.freeshell.org/teaching/

Gregory Weston wrote:
> In article <0001HW.C268EE4E000E4271B022094F@news.supernews.com>,
> 
>> On Thu, 10 May 2007 15:05:52 -0500, Nihongo Matsuri wrote (in article 
>>  
>>> In OS 9, when you do Get Info on a folder, it tells you how many items are 
>>> in the folder in addition to the size of the folder. Seven years later, OS 
>>> X still won't show the count of items in a folder unless you open the 
>>> folder! You have to install a 3rd party utility to get the functionality 
>>> back. 
>> With Finder being the active application select "Show View Options" from the 
>> View menu. Then check "Show item info" and then the number of items within a 
>> folder will be displayed in the Finder when in icon view.
> 
> What version of OS X is that in? I don't have it in 10.4.9, and I don't 
> ever recall seeing it before that.

In 10.3.9, ALL views (Icon, List, Column) show both number of files
in the selected folder, and amount of free space on the drive the folder
is in.  This is with "Show item info" OFF.  And it is not wasting space,
unless you know a way to collapse the bottom part of the window frame.

But "Nihongo Matsuri" wanted the "Show Info" widget (select a folder
and do Cmd-I) to show the number of items.  In 10.3.9, it does not.

Seems like a silly thing to remove.  Even if only five percent want it,
I can't imagine very many complaining about a single line of text.
Can't take much time to compute it--at least not as much as doing a
recursive 'du' to measure the size.

-- 
Wes Groleau

http://Ideas.Lang-Learn.us/
For lovers of language and learning

bearclaw@cruller.invalid wrote:
>  Nihongo Matsuri <nickname@nospam.com> wrote:
> 
>> In OS 9 you can move the trash can anywhere on the desktop you want it.
>> Maybe someday this freedom will be restored to OSuX?
> 
> Not only that, you could make aliases of it in every window.

Not something I consider earthshaking, but I can do it if I want.

cd
ln -s .Trash Desktop/BitBucket

makes BitBucket visible on my desktop (but as a folder, however, I can 
change the icon if I want.)

drag something into it, the basket icon in the dock shows
it's not empty.

If you want to avoid the command line (and maybe even get
the right icon), delete "Trash" from the file  /.hidden
(oops, you need Command line to do that!) and then reboot.

-- 
Wes Groleau

There are some ideas so wrong that only a
very intelligent person could believe in them.
                         -- George Orwell

bearclaw@cruller.invalid wrote:
> Not only that, you could make aliases of it in every window.

Speaking of aliases, if you do a lot of them, learning "ln"
in the command line is worthwhile.  An HFS alias makes a minimum
of 4K unavailable.  A softlink always makes exactly 4K unavailable,
and a hard link makes only the size of directory entry unavailable.

-- 
Wes Groleau

   Promote multi-use trails in northeast Indiana!
   http://www.NorthwestAllenTrails.org/

In article <100520071605521343%nickname@nospam.com>,
 Nihongo Matsuri <nickname@nospam.com> wrote:

> In article <0001HW.C267EB860004BB31B022094F@news.supernews.com>,
> TaliesinSoft <taliesinsoft@mac.com> wrote:
> 
> > The above are behaviors that I experience. What different behaviors are 
> > people wanting?
> 
> In OS 9, when you do Get Info on a folder, it tells you how many items
> are in the folder in addition to the size of the folder. Seven years
> later, OS X still won't show the count of items in a folder unless you
> open the folder! You have to install a 3rd party utility to get the
> functionality back.
> 
> Renaming items in OS X requires twice as many mouse clicks as in OS 9.
> 
> In OS 9 you can move the trash can anywhere on the desktop you want it.
> Maybe someday this freedom will be restored to OSuX?

I'd like to have freedom to put it on the window sidebar.

> In OS X when you're viewing a folder's contents in List mode and you
> change the font size a couple of times, sometimes there are glitches in
> the display of filenames; the text is slightly cut off at the bottom of
> each line.
> 
> PS. In OS 9 we have neat, handy, easily grabbed applets called Desk
> Accessories. This functionality wasn't restored until dashboard widgets
> came along with OS 10.4 ... so basically I think what's lacking in the
> OS X Finder can be summed up as, all the intuitiveness and smoothness
> that the OS 9 Finder has!

In article <uce-462A42.20415110052007@comcast.dca.giganews.com>,
 Gregory Weston <uce@splook.com> wrote:

> In article <0001HW.C268EE4E000E4271B022094F@news.supernews.com>,
>  TaliesinSoft <taliesinsoft@mac.com> wrote:
> 
> > On Thu, 10 May 2007 15:05:52 -0500, Nihongo Matsuri wrote (in article 
> > <100520071605521343%nickname@nospam.com>): 
> >  
> > > In OS 9, when you do Get Info on a folder, it tells you how many items 
> > > are 
> > > in the folder in addition to the size of the folder. Seven years later, 
> > > OS 
> > > X still won't show the count of items in a folder unless you open the 
> > > folder! You have to install a 3rd party utility to get the functionality 
> > > back. 
> > 
> > With Finder being the active application select "Show View Options" from 
> > the 
> > View menu. Then check "Show item info" and then the number of items within 
> > a 
> > folder will be displayed in the Finder when in icon view.
> 
> What version of OS X is that in? I don't have it in 10.4.9, and I don't 
> ever recall seeing it before that.
> 
> ...
> 
> Oh. Icon view. And it takes up more space within the Finder window 
> itself to do it.

It's in OS 10.4.9.  I have it activated.

On 2007-05-10 22:06:46 -0500, Wes Groleau <groleau+news@freeshell.org> said:

> Gregory Weston wrote:
>> In article <0001HW.C268EE4E000E4271B022094F@news.supernews.com>,
>> 
>>> On Thu, 10 May 2007 15:05:52 -0500, Nihongo Matsuri wrote (in article
>>>> In OS 9, when you do Get Info on a folder, it tells you how many items 
>>>> are in the folder in addition to the size of the folder. Seven years 
>>>> later, OS X still won't show the count of items in a folder unless you 
>>>> open the folder! You have to install a 3rd party utility to get the 
>>>> functionality back.
>>> With Finder being the active application select "Show View Options" 
>>> from the View menu. Then check "Show item info" and then the number of 
>>> items within a folder will be displayed in the Finder when in icon view.
>> 
>> What version of OS X is that in? I don't have it in 10.4.9, and I don't 
>> ever recall seeing it before that.
> 
> In 10.3.9, ALL views (Icon, List, Column) show both number of files
> in the selected folder, and amount of free space on the drive the folder
> is in.

That's not the same thing.  In Mac OS 9 and earlier, the Get Info 
window shows the *total* number if items in a given folder, including 
items in all sub-folders.

-- 
JR

On 2007-05-10 22:22:34 -0500, Wes Groleau <groleau+news@freeshell.org> said:

> bearclaw@cruller.invalid wrote:
>> Not only that, you could make aliases of it in every window.
> 
> Speaking of aliases, if you do a lot of them, learning "ln"
> in the command line is worthwhile.  An HFS alias makes a minimum
> of 4K unavailable.  A softlink always makes exactly 4K unavailable,
> and a hard link makes only the size of directory entry unavailable.

But soft links aren't aliases.  For instance, you can't move a soft 
link file and still expect it to work.

-- 
JR

In article <100520071605521343%nickname@nospam.com>,
 Nihongo Matsuri <nickname@nospam.com> wrote:

> In article <0001HW.C267EB860004BB31B022094F@news.supernews.com>, 
> TaliesinSoft <taliesinsoft@mac.com> wrote:
> 
> > The above are behaviors that I experience. What different behaviors 
> > are people wanting?
> 
> In OS 9, when you do Get Info on a folder, it tells you how many 
> items are in the folder in addition to the size of the folder. Seven 
> years later, OS X still won't show the count of items in a folder 
> unless you open the folder! You have to install a 3rd party utility 
> to get the functionality back.

On the plus side, OS X calculates folder sizes about a zillion times 
faster. (And it's not just that machines have gotten faster. I remember 
noticing this on the same hardware when first installing OS X.)

> Renaming items in OS X requires twice as many mouse clicks as in OS 
> 9.

And it's less likely to happen accidentally.

> In OS 9 you can move the trash can anywhere on the desktop you want 
> it. Maybe someday this freedom will be restored to OSuX?

On the other hand, the OS 9 trash was usually covered by windows. OS X 
doesn't have that problem.

> In OS X when you're viewing a folder's contents in List mode and you 
> change the font size a couple of times, sometimes there are glitches 
> in the display of filenames; the text is slightly cut off at the 
> bottom of each line.

Which is a big problem if you flip back and forth between font sizes in 
list view mode all the time. Which I've never seen anyone actually do.

> PS. In OS 9 we have neat, handy, easily grabbed applets called Desk 
> Accessories. This functionality wasn't restored until dashboard 
> widgets came along with OS 10.4

Since 10.0, OS X has shipped with small apps that serve many of the same 
roles as OS 9 desktop accessories. Dashboard is rather different, from 
both a technical standpoint and in terms of interface.

> ... so basically I think what's lacking in the OS X Finder can be 
> summed up as, all the intuitiveness and smoothness that the OS 9 
> Finder has!

If by "smoothness" you mean that it created a lot of windows the user 
had to manually manage and behaved in unexpected ways.

-- 
"That's George Washington, the first president, of course. The interesting thing
about him is that I read three--three or four books about him last year. Isn't
that interesting?"
                     - George W. Bush to reporter Kai Diekmann, May 5, 2006

In article <_jR0i.22208$pW5.20133@trnddc07>,
 Wes Groleau <groleau+news@freeshell.org> wrote:

> bearclaw@cruller.invalid wrote:
> > Not only that, you could make aliases of it in every window.
> 
> Speaking of aliases, if you do a lot of them, learning "ln"
> in the command line is worthwhile.  An HFS alias makes a minimum
> of 4K unavailable.  A softlink always makes exactly 4K unavailable,
> and a hard link makes only the size of directory entry unavailable.

At current market prices for storage, if you save 4K per link, you'll 
need to create over a million of them before you've saved a dollar.

-- 
"That's George Washington, the first president, of course. The interesting thing
about him is that I read three--three or four books about him last year. Isn't
that interesting?"
                     - George W. Bush to reporter Kai Diekmann, May 5, 2006

On May 10, 2007 TaliesinSoft wrote:

> Frequently in these discussions complaints will be voiced regarding the 
> Finder. I'm at this time using Mac OS X 10.4.9 and, at least to me, the 
> Finder behaves as I expect and want.

Yes I think the Finder in OS X is excellent and for me a vast improvement 
on the classic OS Finder which had used ever since 1984.

The OS X Finder solves what were for me the two significant problems of the 
classic OS Finder.

1. With the classic OS Finder it was quite difficult to access deeply 
nested files.

2. The classic OS Finder was based on the idea of clicking on icons or 
dragging things to them, but the icons themselves would become covered up 
by open windows.

With respect to issue 1 the columnar view of the OS X Finder is a great 
thing to have and that allows once to access deeply nested files very 
easily. For general file and folder management the columnar view is 
brilliant.

With respect to issue 2 the Dock presents a brilliant solution. The joy of 
the Dock is that the screen estate it uses up is very well respected by 
open application windows. This means that icons in the Dock are always 
available to either click on or drag things to.

It is true that in some details the classic OS Finder was better. I think 
that selecting multiple files in list view was easier for example (except 
of course it used "shift" for non-contiguous selections which was a bit 
daft).

However weighing up the tremendous advantages for me of the OS X Finder 
there is no way personally I would want to return to using the classic OS 
Finder.



-- 
Patrick - Brighton, UK
If you wish email me from my web-site: <http://www.patrickjames.me.uk>
Inventory service in Sussex: <http://www.inventoryworks.co.uk>

On May 10, 2007 Steven Fisher wrote:

> People float that article up quite often, but I don't think he does a 
> very good job of explaining why the ideas he proposes are better than 
> what already exists.
> 
> By the time he's finished, he's basically only really talked about a 
> handful of things:
> 1. A separate Spatial Finder.
> 2. Popup folders like Mac OS 9.
> 3. Smart folders, which for some reason he sees strictly as a feature of 
> the Spatial FInder, nevermind that they really don't belong there at all.
> 4. A shelf.
> 
> I'm not very excited.

I wasn't very excited by it either :)

-- 
Patrick - Brighton, UK
If you wish email me from my web-site: <http://www.patrickjames.me.uk>
Inventory service in Sussex: <http://www.inventoryworks.co.uk>

On 2007-05-11 09:08:35 -0500, patrick j <usemywebsite@googlemail.com> said:

> However weighing up the tremendous advantages for me of the OS X Finder
> there is no way personally I would want to return to using the classic OS
> Finder.

Reluctantly agreed.  : )

-- 
JR

ZnU wrote:
> In article <_jR0i.22208$pW5.20133@trnddc07>,
>  Wes Groleau <groleau+news@freeshell.org> wrote:
> 
>> bearclaw@cruller.invalid wrote:
>>> Not only that, you could make aliases of it in every window.
>> Speaking of aliases, if you do a lot of them, learning "ln"
>> in the command line is worthwhile.  An HFS alias makes a minimum
>> of 4K unavailable.  A softlink always makes exactly 4K unavailable,
>> and a hard link makes only the size of directory entry unavailable.
> 
> At current market prices for storage, if you save 4K per link, you'll 
> need to create over a million of them before you've saved a dollar.

Now *that's* perspective.....

-- 
john mcwilliams

On 2007-05-11 10:01:18 -0500, John McWilliams <jpmcw@comcast.net> said:

> ZnU wrote:
>> In article <_jR0i.22208$pW5.20133@trnddc07>,
>>  Wes Groleau <groleau+news@freeshell.org> wrote:
>> 
>>> bearclaw@cruller.invalid wrote:
>>>> Not only that, you could make aliases of it in every window.
>>> Speaking of aliases, if you do a lot of them, learning "ln"
>>> in the command line is worthwhile.  An HFS alias makes a minimum
>>> of 4K unavailable.  A softlink always makes exactly 4K unavailable,
>>> and a hard link makes only the size of directory entry unavailable.
>> 
>> At current market prices for storage, if you save 4K per link, you'll 
>> need to create over a million of them before you've saved a dollar.
> 
> Now *that's* perspective.....

The rule of thumb when creating a reference to a file or folder is: If 
you may need to move the reference in the future and don't plan to use 
the reference with command-line tools, make it an alias.  Soft links 
can't be moved once they are created.  Aliases can't be used with most 
command-line tools (for instance you can't use the "cd" command-line 
tool to change into the directory to which an alias file points).

-- 
JR

On 2007-05-11 10:01:18 -0500, John McWilliams <jpmcw@comcast.net> said:

> ZnU wrote:
>> In article <_jR0i.22208$pW5.20133@trnddc07>,
>>  Wes Groleau <groleau+news@freeshell.org> wrote:
>> 
>>> bearclaw@cruller.invalid wrote:
>>>> Not only that, you could make aliases of it in every window.
>>> Speaking of aliases, if you do a lot of them, learning "ln"
>>> in the command line is worthwhile.  An HFS alias makes a minimum
>>> of 4K unavailable.  A softlink always makes exactly 4K unavailable,
>>> and a hard link makes only the size of directory entry unavailable.
>> 
>> At current market prices for storage, if you save 4K per link, you'll 
>> need to create over a million of them before you've saved a dollar.
> 
> Now *that's* perspective.....

For the curious, the reason alias files can vary in size is due to the 
fact that the amount and type of data stored in alias files varies 
depending on the item being referenced. The data that the system stores 
in aliases is what makes aliases so resilient. Aliases will resolve 
even after you change the name and placement of the referenced item. 
You can replace the referenced item with a new item with the same name, 
and the alias will resolve. You can even create aliases that refer to 
removable/unmountable filesystems (disks, AppleShare volumes, iDisks, 
and son on), and the system will mount the referenced item.

-- 
JR

Jolly Roger <jollyroger@R.E.M.O.V.E.pobox.com> wrote:

> The rule of thumb when creating a reference to a file or folder is: If
> you may need to move the reference in the future and don't plan to use
> the reference with command-line tools, make it an alias....

And never make it a hard link. Hard links are evil. :-(

I've not time to categorize all their evils here. Most particularly
don't make it a hard link if it is a directory (aka folder). I doubt
that the OS will let you do that anyway. I don't think most current
Unices do. But darned if I'm going to check experimentally.

Long ago (probably about 25 years), when Unix was younger (and so was I
:-)), I made the mistake of making a hard link to a directory on an SGI
machine. Turned out that you could make one, but then you could never
remove it (without wiping and recreating the file system). I still
recall the pains from that experience.

-- 
Richard Maine                    | Good judgement comes from experience;
email: last name at domain . net | experience comes from bad judgement.
domain: summertriangle           |  -- Mark Twain

On 2007-05-11 10:12:24 -0500, Jolly Roger 
<jollyroger@R.E.M.O.V.E.pobox.com> said:

> On 2007-05-11 10:01:18 -0500, John McWilliams <jpmcw@comcast.net> said:
> 
>> ZnU wrote:
>>> In article <_jR0i.22208$pW5.20133@trnddc07>,
>>>  Wes Groleau <groleau+news@freeshell.org> wrote:
>>> 
>>>> bearclaw@cruller.invalid wrote:
>>>>> Not only that, you could make aliases of it in every window.
>>>> Speaking of aliases, if you do a lot of them, learning "ln"
>>>> in the command line is worthwhile.  An HFS alias makes a minimum
>>>> of 4K unavailable.  A softlink always makes exactly 4K unavailable,
>>>> and a hard link makes only the size of directory entry unavailable.
>>> 
>>> At current market prices for storage, if you save 4K per link, you'll 
>>> need to create over a million of them before you've saved a dollar.
>> 
>> Now *that's* perspective.....
> 
> For the curious, the reason alias files can vary in size is due to the 
> fact that the amount and type of data stored in alias files varies 
> depending on the item being referenced. The data that the system stores 
> in aliases is what makes aliases so resilient. Aliases will resolve 
> even after you change the name and placement of the referenced item. 
> You can replace the referenced item with a new item with the same name, 
> and the alias will resolve. You can even create aliases that refer to 
> removable/unmountable filesystems (disks, AppleShare volumes, iDisks, 
> and son on), and the system will mount the referenced item.

Details here:

<http://developer.apple.com/documentation/mac/Files/Files-342.html#HEADING342-0>

-- 


JR

In article <hugh_gibbons-75DE04.21373310052007@newsgroups.comcast.net>,
 Hugh Gibbons <hugh_gibbons@dontsendmeemail.net> wrote:

> > In OS 9 you can move the trash can anywhere on the desktop you want 
> > it. Maybe someday this freedom will be restored to OSuX?
> 
> I'd like to have freedom to put it on the window sidebar.

Hey, and then you can drag the window's icon from its title bar into the 
trash in its sidebar.  :)

-- 
Support the troops:  Bring them home ASAP.

On 2007-05-11 10:33:22 -0500, Michelle Steiner <michelle@michelle.org> said:

> In article <hugh_gibbons-75DE04.21373310052007@newsgroups.comcast.net>,
>  Hugh Gibbons <hugh_gibbons@dontsendmeemail.net> wrote:
> 
>>> In OS 9 you can move the trash can anywhere on the desktop you want
>>> it. Maybe someday this freedom will be restored to OSuX?
>> 
>> I'd like to have freedom to put it on the window sidebar.
> 
> Hey, and then you can drag the window's icon from its title bar into the
> trash in its sidebar.  :)

*Poof*

-- 
JR

In article <ogR0i.22198$pW5.4159@trnddc07>,
 Wes Groleau <groleau+news@freeshell.org> wrote:

> If you want to avoid the command line (and maybe even get
> the right icon), delete "Trash" from the file  /.hidden

I can't find a file by that name either at the root level or my user 
level.  (I was using Applescript's "choose file" command that shows 
invisible files, and can see other invisible files in those folders.)

-- 
Support the troops:  Bring them home ASAP.

In article <uce-462A42.20415110052007@comcast.dca.giganews.com>,
 Gregory Weston <uce@splook.com> wrote:

> > With Finder being the active application select "Show View Options" from 
> > the 
> > View menu. Then check "Show item info" and then the number of items within 
> > a 
> > folder will be displayed in the Finder when in icon view.
> 
> What version of OS X is that in? I don't have it in 10.4.9, and I don't 
> ever recall seeing it before that.

It's right below the "Snap to grid" checkbox.

-- 
Support the troops:  Bring them home ASAP.

In article <michelle-A0FE3F.08451211052007@news.east.cox.net>, Michelle
Steiner <michelle@michelle.org> wrote:

> In article <ogR0i.22198$pW5.4159@trnddc07>,
>  Wes Groleau <groleau+news@freeshell.org> wrote:
> 
> > If you want to avoid the command line (and maybe even get
> > the right icon), delete "Trash" from the file  /.hidden
> 
> I can't find a file by that name either at the root level or my user 
> level.  (I was using Applescript's "choose file" command that shows 
> invisible files, and can see other invisible files in those folders.)

the .hidden file is no longer used in tiger.  if it's there, it is
because the user upgraded from an older version of osx.

In article <1hxxvzq.575pc4onszkmN%nospam@see.signature>, Richard Maine
<nospam@see.signature> wrote:

> And never make it a hard link. Hard links are evil. :-(
> 
> I've not time to categorize all their evils here. Most particularly
> don't make it a hard link if it is a directory (aka folder). I doubt
> that the OS will let you do that anyway. I don't think most current
> Unices do. But darned if I'm going to check experimentally.

it will, come october...

<http://arstechnica.com/staff/fatbits.ars/2006/8/15/4995>

  Leopard, HFS+ supports hard links to directories as well�an ability
  wholly alien to any other Unix-like operating system that I can think
  of. This is how Time Machine builds its sparse trees. The very first
  backup is a full copy. All subsequent backups contain hard links to
  the unchanged portions of the previous backup.

In article <_jR0i.22208$pW5.20133@trnddc07>,
Wes Groleau  <groleau+nntp@freeshell.org> wrote:
>bearclaw@cruller.invalid wrote:
>> Not only that, you could make aliases of it in every window.
>
>Speaking of aliases, if you do a lot of them, learning "ln"
>in the command line is worthwhile.  An HFS alias makes a minimum
>of 4K unavailable.  A softlink always makes exactly 4K unavailable,
>and a hard link makes only the size of directory entry unavailable.

In HFS+ on OS X, a hard link is implemented by a symbolic link to a hidden
directory, with a few flags to tell HFS+ to pretend it really is a hard
link.  So there is no disk space advantage to soft links.
-- 
  There's no such thing as a free lunch, but certain accounting practices can
  result in a fully-depreciated one.

In article <110520071304043360%nospam@nospam.invalid>,
nospam  <nospam@nospam.invalid> wrote:
>
>it will, come october...
>
><http://arstechnica.com/staff/fatbits.ars/2006/8/15/4995>
>
>  Leopard, HFS+ supports hard links to directories as well�an ability
>  wholly alien to any other Unix-like operating system that I can think
>  of. This is how Time Machine builds its sparse trees. The very first
>  backup is a full copy. All subsequent backups contain hard links to
>  the unchanged portions of the previous backup.

It's not "wholly alien" to other Unix systems; it has been allowed in
the past but caused lots of problems.

Hard links themselves are "wholly alien" to HFS+, though; I suspect
that Apple is using a similar scheme to fake them on Time Machine.
-- 
  There's no such thing as a free lunch, but certain accounting practices can
  result in a fully-depreciated one.

In article <michelle-BB013D.08465411052007@news.east.cox.net>,
 Michelle Steiner <michelle@michelle.org> wrote:

> In article <uce-462A42.20415110052007@comcast.dca.giganews.com>,
>  Gregory Weston <uce@splook.com> wrote:
> 
> > > With Finder being the active application select "Show View Options" from 
> > > the 
> > > View menu. Then check "Show item info" and then the number of items 
> > > within 
> > > a 
> > > folder will be displayed in the Finder when in icon view.
> > 
> > What version of OS X is that in? I don't have it in 10.4.9, and I don't 
> > ever recall seeing it before that.
> 
> It's right below the "Snap to grid" checkbox.

Right. I acknowledged that further on in my post.

In article <uce-7E8326.17473211052007@comcast.dca.giganews.com>,
 Gregory Weston <uce@splook.com> wrote:

> > > What version of OS X is that in? I don't have it in 10.4.9, and I don't 
> > > ever recall seeing it before that.
> > 
> > It's right below the "Snap to grid" checkbox.
> 
> Right. I acknowledged that further on in my post.

When I saw the three dots, I stopped reading.

-- 
Support the troops:  Bring them home ASAP.

In article <110520071300079105%nospam@nospam.invalid>,
 nospam <nospam@nospam.invalid> wrote:

> > > If you want to avoid the command line (and maybe even get the 
> > > right icon), delete "Trash" from the file  /.hidden
> > 
> > I can't find a file by that name either at the root level or my 
> > user level.  (I was using Applescript's "choose file" command that 
> > shows invisible files, and can see other invisible files in those 
> > folders.)
> 
> the .hidden file is no longer used in tiger.  if it's there, it is 
> because the user upgraded from an older version of osx.

Thanks.  I upgraded from earlier versions, so it must have gotten 
deleted by the Tiger upgrade or one of the updates to it.

-- 
Support the troops:  Bring them home ASAP.

In article <michelle-E2DA08.15381611052007@news.east.cox.net>, Michelle
Steiner <michelle@michelle.org> wrote:

> Thanks.  I upgraded from earlier versions, so it must have gotten 
> deleted by the Tiger upgrade or one of the updates to it.

don't you have an intel imac which can only run tiger?

On May 11, 2007 ZnU wrote:

> In article <100520071605521343%nickname@nospam.com>,
>  Nihongo Matsuri <nickname@nospam.com> wrote:
> 
>> In OS 9 you can move the trash can anywhere on the desktop you want 
>> it. Maybe someday this freedom will be restored to OSuX?
> 
> On the other hand, the OS 9 trash was usually covered by windows. OS X 
> doesn't have that problem.

*applause*

This is very true indeed. I far prefer having the trash icon on the Dock 
rather than sitting on the Desktop for this very reason.

The classic OS trash icon was pretty useless because it was very frequently 
covered by an open window.

>> ... so basically I think what's lacking in the OS X Finder can be 
>> summed up as, all the intuitiveness and smoothness that the OS 9 
>> Finder has!
> 
> If by "smoothness" you mean that it created a lot of windows the user 
> had to manually manage and behaved in unexpected ways.

My experience of the classic OS Finder which dates back to the beginning of 
the Mac was that it was very difficult to get to deeply nested files. This 
would produce either lots of open windows or a window with loads of 
disclosure triangles open.

When Macs first arrived generally people had fewer files than they do today 
and they didn't have very complicated nested folder systems but by the 
beginning of the 90s the classic OS was already becoming a problem for the 
user to navigate through complex file structures.

The columnar view in OS X solves all of this and is imho the best system 
for navigating through many nested folders.

It is extremely smooth and elegant in that respect and much better to use 
than the classic OS.


-- 
Patrick - Brighton, UK
If you wish email me from my web-site: <http://www.patrickjames.me.uk>
Inventory service in Sussex: <http://www.inventoryworks.co.uk>

In article <110520071616024440%nospam@nospam.invalid>,
 nospam <nospam@nospam.invalid> wrote:

> > Thanks.  I upgraded from earlier versions, so it must have gotten 
> > deleted by the Tiger upgrade or one of the updates to it.
> 
> don't you have an intel imac which can only run tiger?

True; I guess that was a Mulligan in so far as the OS is concerned.  
Having transferred all my third-party apps, documents, and preferences 
caused me to forget that important fact.

-- 
Support the troops:  Bring them home ASAP.

On 2007-05-11 18:43:12 -0500, patrick j <usemywebsite@googlemail.com> said:

>> On the other hand, the OS 9 trash was usually covered by windows. OS X
>> doesn't have that problem.
> 
> *applause*
> 
> This is very true indeed. I far prefer having the trash icon on the Dock
> rather than sitting on the Desktop for this very reason.
> 
> The classic OS trash icon was pretty useless because it was very frequently
> covered by an open window.

I don't mind the trash being in the Dock as long as the Dock is pinned 
to the bottom-right corner, so the trash can never moves.

-- 
JR

On Fri, 11 May 2007 21:11:19 -0500, Jolly Roger wrote (in article 
<200705112111199098-jollyroger@REMOVEpoboxcom>): 

> On 2007-05-11 18:43:12 -0500, patrick j <usemywebsite@googlemail.com> said: 
> 
>>> On the other hand, the OS 9 trash was usually covered by windows. OS X 
>>> doesn't have that problem. 
>> 
>> *applause* 
>> 
>> This is very true indeed. I far prefer having the trash icon on the Dock 
>> rather than sitting on the Desktop for this very reason. 
>> 
>> The classic OS trash icon was pretty useless because it was very 
>> frequently covered by an open window. 
> 
> I don't mind the trash being in the Dock as long as the Dock is pinned to 
> the bottom-right corner, so the trash can never moves. 

And a control-click (right-click) on an icon in the Finder to send that item 
to the trash is really that awkward?    :-)


-- 
James Leo Ryan ..... Austin, Texas ..... taliesinsoft@mac.com

Wes Groleau wrote:
> That enables me to answer your implied question:
> What's broken is Airport.

I take it back.  Dave Seaman's answer suggests that
what's broken is your installation.

-- 
Wes Groleau

   Promote multi-use trails in northeast Indiana!
   http://www.NorthwestAllenTrails.org/

Jolly Roger wrote:
> On 2007-05-10 22:06:46 -0500, Wes Groleau <groleau+news@freeshell.org> 
>> In 10.3.9, ALL views (Icon, List, Column) show both number of files
>> in the selected folder, and amount of free space on the drive the folder
>> is in.
> 
> That's not the same thing.  In Mac OS 9 and earlier, the Get Info window 
> shows the *total* number if items in a given folder, including items in 
> all sub-folders.

Yes, and in 10.0.3-10.3.9, it doesn't show _any_ number of items.
I was clarifying what someone else said about the finder directory
window, and then I also pointed out that the complaint was about
an Info widget, not a directory window.

And I have to agree with the complaint--why remove something
that only takes one line of text?  Can't be due to slowness--they
still compute total size, which is slower.

-- 
Wes Groleau

   A bureaucrat is someone who cuts red tape lengthwise.

nospam wrote:
> the .hidden file is no longer used in tiger.  if it's there, it is
> because the user upgraded from an older version of osx.

So in Tiger, how do you control what's hidden?

Or is this another case of Father Steve Knows Best?


-- 
Wes Groleau

    You're all individuals!
           Yes, we're all individuals!
    You're all different!
           Yes, we are all different!
                                I'm not!

                      ("Life of Brian")

Jolly Roger wrote:
> On 2007-05-10 22:22:34 -0500, Wes Groleau <groleau+news@freeshell.org> 
> said:
> 
>> bearclaw@cruller.invalid wrote:
>>> Not only that, you could make aliases of it in every window.
>>
>> Speaking of aliases, if you do a lot of them, learning "ln"
>> in the command line is worthwhile.  An HFS alias makes a minimum
>> of 4K unavailable.  A softlink always makes exactly 4K unavailable,
>> and a hard link makes only the size of directory entry unavailable.
> 
> But soft links aren't aliases.  For instance, you can't move a soft link 
> file and still expect it to work.

Depends on whether the symlink contains a relative or an absolute path.

If you move the _target_, a symlink always breaks.

With the original kind of alias, you could move either end and
it would still work unless you moved it to a different device/partition.

With a soft link, the partition doesn't matter, just the path.

And Apple has changed aliases so that they can be the old type or
similar to a symlink or a combination.  When they are "like a symlink"
they contain only the path of the target (but in a resource fork)
and break under the same rules as a symlink.

-- 
Wes Groleau

A pessimist says the glass is half empty.

An optimist says the glass is half full.

An engineer says somebody made the glass
        twice as big as it needed to be.

In article <vwa1i.3336$NY3.458@trnddc03>, Wes Groleau
<groleau+news@freeshell.org> wrote:

> nospam wrote:
> > the .hidden file is no longer used in tiger.  if it's there, it is
> > because the user upgraded from an older version of osx.
> 
> So in Tiger, how do you control what's hidden?

the file's invisible bit, the way it used to work. :)

Richard Maine wrote:
> And never make it a hard link. Hard links are evil. :-(

Hard links for files are not evil.
There is little point in having multiple
copies of the same _large_ file differing
only in name or path.

Directories--I don't know.  If you can't delete
a hard link of a directory, that sounds more like
a screwed-up implementation than a flaw in the
design.

-- 
Wes Groleau
Alive and Well
http://freepages.religions.rootsweb.com/~wgroleau/

Matthew T. Russotto wrote:
> Hard links themselves are "wholly alien" to HFS+, though; I suspect
> that Apple is using a similar scheme to fake them on Time Machine.

I don't know how HFS+ implements them, but they do exist
in 10.3.0 to 10.3.9

sh and bash are hard links of the same file
csh and tcsh also.

And I've made hardlinks of large files to test whether 'ditto' 
duplicates them correctly (it does).

But ditto fails softlinks, because to work correctly,
it would have to determine whether the target is in
or out of the dir being copied, in order to know whether
to change the path or not.

Ditto also fails aliases: It leaves them pointing
to the original rather than to the copy.  Sometimes.

-- 
Wes Groleau

There are some ideas so wrong that only a
very intelligent person could believe in them.
                         -- George Orwell

Matthew T. Russotto wrote:
> In HFS+ on OS X, a hard link is implemented by a symbolic link to a hidden
> directory, with a few flags to tell HFS+ to pretend it really is a hard
> link.  So there is no disk space advantage to soft links.

All three kinds provide a disk space advantage
if the target is large.  (Advantage over having
an extra copy.)  But the soft link itself is always
four KB--an alias _can_ be larger.

If a hardlink is only a symlink in disguise, then it's
the same size as the symlink, _but_ if a hardlink requires
the existence of a hidden directory, that directory takes up
at least four KB, making the symlink smaller.

In "old" Unix, a hard link was only a directory entry,
so it did not have to consume a whole disk block, making
it smaller than a soft link.

-- 
Wes Groleau

Change is inevitable.  We need to learn that "inevitable" is
neither a synonym for "good" nor for "bad."
                                -- WWG

> I don't mind the trash being in the Dock as long as the Dock is pinned 
> to the bottom-right corner, so the trash can never moves.

It's loads of fun trying to drag something from the left half
of the screen to the trash.  If you forget to go around and
approach the trash from the right, the trash can politely
moves aside so you can put the thing in the Dock next to it!  :-)

-- 
Wes Groleau

    "There ain't nothin' in this world that's worth being a snot over."
                                  -- Larry Wall

patrick j wrote:
> With respect to issue 2 the Dock presents a brilliant solution. The joy of 
> the Dock is that the screen estate it uses up is very well respected by 
> open application windows. This means that icons in the Dock are always 

Well-respected by "proper" OS X apps.  Some ported programs don't know 
the Dock exists and will cover it up.  Sometimes OS X catches them and 
forces them to go "behind" the Dock.  Other times, OS X prevents them
trespassing in Dock Space and if they are trying to resize, they can end 
up with a title bar off the top--no way to get them back!

-- 
Wes Groleau
Genealogical Lookups:
http://groleau.freeshell.org/ref/lookups.shtml

Wes Groleau <groleau+news@freeshell.org> wrote:

> Richard Maine wrote:
> > And never make it a hard link. Hard links are evil. :-(
> 
> Hard links for files are not evil.
> There is little point in having multiple
> copies of the same _large_ file differing
> only in name or path.
> 
> Directories--I don't know.  If you can't delete
> a hard link of a directory, that sounds more like
> a screwed-up implementation than a flaw in the
> design.

Not only the hard link, but the original directory as well. After all,
once you have a hard link, you can no longer tell the difference between
the original and the link.

I forget the details, but I think it has something to do with the "."
and ".." entries. You'd get messages about the directory not being empty
when you tried to delete it. "Normally" (i.e. for non-hard-linked dirs),
those entries got deleted as part of deleting the directory. But of
course, you wouldn't want to delete them when deleting only one of the
links to the dir.

Hard links to files have evils bits also. One such evil bit is that all
hard links to the same file have the same owner and other permissions;
that stuff "belongs" to the node (of which there is only 1) instead of
to the links. This results in oddities and confusions if you try to have
two different users have hard links to the same file. Of course, if the
two links didn't have the same permissions, there would be other
oddities. The only way to avoid oddities is not to have hard links at
all. (Soft links do fine for avoiding multiple copies of a large file; I
use them all the time and have for decades).

I've also had to explain to confused users why deleting a large file
didn't free up any disk space... because it was only one of multiple
hard links to the file. (Ok, technically, they weren't deleting a file;
they were unlinking, but most users just think of it as deleting a
file.)

-- 
Richard Maine                    | Good judgement comes from experience;
email: last name at domain . net | experience comes from bad judgement.
domain: summertriangle           |  -- Mark Twain

On 2007-05-11 22:27:06 -0500, Wes Groleau <groleau+news@freeshell.org> said:

> Jolly Roger wrote:
>> On 2007-05-10 22:06:46 -0500, Wes Groleau <groleau+news@freeshell.org>
>>> In 10.3.9, ALL views (Icon, List, Column) show both number of files
>>> in the selected folder, and amount of free space on the drive the folder
>>> is in.
>> 
>> That's not the same thing.  In Mac OS 9 and earlier, the Get Info 
>> window shows the *total* number if items in a given folder, including 
>> items in all sub-folders.
> 
> Yes, and in 10.0.3-10.3.9, it doesn't show _any_ number of items.
> I was clarifying what someone else said about the finder directory
> window, and then I also pointed out that the complaint was about
> an Info widget, not a directory window.
> 
> And I have to agree with the complaint--why remove something
> that only takes one line of text?  Can't be due to slowness--they
> still compute total size, which is slower.

As with most things Mac OS X, it's not that Apple removed it - it's 
that they didn't implement it in the replacement for the Finder.  The 
Finder we see in Mac OS X started out as the NeXT file browser and was 
tweaked to look more like the classic Mac OS Finder to which Mac users 
were accustomed.

-- 
JR

On 2007-05-11 22:38:45 -0500, nospam <nospam@nospam.invalid> said:

> In article <vwa1i.3336$NY3.458@trnddc03>, Wes Groleau
> <groleau+news@freeshell.org> wrote:
> 
>> nospam wrote:
>>> the .hidden file is no longer used in tiger.  if it's there, it is
>>> because the user upgraded from an older version of osx.
>> 
>> So in Tiger, how do you control what's hidden?
> 
> the file's invisible bit, the way it used to work. :)

Yep.

BTW, you can use the chflags command-line tool with the opaque/noopaque 
switch to set file visibility.   Alternatively, if you have Xcode 
installed, you can use the command-line tool /Developer/Tools/SetFile 
to set file visibility.

For details:

	/Developer/Tools/SetFile --help
	man chflags

-- 
JR

On Fri, 11 May 2007 23:03:02 -0500, Wes Groleau wrote (in article 
<W%a1i.3396$NY3.1650@trnddc03>): 

> patrick j wrote: 
>> With respect to issue 2 the Dock presents a brilliant solution. The joy 
>> of the Dock is that the screen estate it uses up is very well respected 
>> by open application windows. This means that icons in the Dock are always 
> 
> Well-respected by "proper" OS X apps.  Some ported programs don't know the 
> Dock exists and will cover it up.  Sometimes OS X catches them and forces 
> them to go "behind" the Dock.  Other times, OS X prevents them trespassing 
> in Dock Space and if they are trying to resize, they can end up with a 
> title bar off the top--no way to get them back! 

I have the dock normally hidden at the bottom of the screen and it pops up in 
front of all applications when my cursor hits the bottom edge of the screen. 
I have no recollections of otherwise behavior. I'd be interested in some 
specific examples. 



-- 
James Leo Ryan ..... Austin, Texas ..... taliesinsoft@mac.com

On 2007-05-11 22:35:02 -0500, Wes Groleau <groleau+news@freeshell.org> said:

> Jolly Roger wrote:
>> On 2007-05-10 22:22:34 -0500, Wes Groleau <groleau+news@freeshell.org> said:
>> 
>>> bearclaw@cruller.invalid wrote:
>>>> Not only that, you could make aliases of it in every window.
>>> 
>>> Speaking of aliases, if you do a lot of them, learning "ln"
>>> in the command line is worthwhile.  An HFS alias makes a minimum
>>> of 4K unavailable.  A softlink always makes exactly 4K unavailable,
>>> and a hard link makes only the size of directory entry unavailable.
>> 
>> But soft links aren't aliases.  For instance, you can't move a soft 
>> link file and still expect it to work.
> 
> Depends on whether the symlink contains a relative or an absolute path.
> 
> If you move the _target_, a symlink always breaks.

That's what I'm saying. The point was that aliases are much, much more 
flexible.

> With the original kind of alias, you could move either end and
> it would still work unless you moved it to a different device/partition.

Exactly.

> And Apple has changed aliases so that they can be the old type or
> similar to a symlink or a combination.  When they are "like a symlink"
> they contain only the path of the target (but in a resource fork)
> and break under the same rules as a symlink.

I'm not aware of a new kind of alias.  Are you referring to the feature 
that lets developers decide how the alias manager should resolve 
aliases (perform a simple or an exhaustive search, whether to search 
multiple volumes, what the order of searches should be, etc.)?  Found 
it:

<http://developer.apple.com/documentation/mac/Files/Files-346.html#HEADING346-0>

That 

functionality has been around as far back as I can remember ever using 
the alias manager.

-- 
JR

On 2007-05-11 21:39:34 -0500, TaliesinSoft <taliesinsoft@mac.com> said:

> On Fri, 11 May 2007 21:11:19 -0500, Jolly Roger wrote (in article
> <200705112111199098-jollyroger@REMOVEpoboxcom>):
> 
>> On 2007-05-11 18:43:12 -0500, patrick j <usemywebsite@googlemail.com> said:
>> 
>>>> On the other hand, the OS 9 trash was usually covered by windows. OS X
>>>> doesn't have that problem.
>>> 
>>> *applause*
>>> 
>>> This is very true indeed. I far prefer having the trash icon on the Dock
>>> rather than sitting on the Desktop for this very reason.
>>> 
>>> The classic OS trash icon was pretty useless because it was very
>>> frequently covered by an open window.
>> 
>> I don't mind the trash being in the Dock as long as the Dock is pinned to
>> the bottom-right corner, so the trash can never moves.
> 
> And a control-click (right-click) on an icon in the Finder to send that item
> to the trash is really that awkward?    :-)

Depends on the situation. In some situations, yes.

-- 
JR

On 2007-05-11 22:58:55 -0500, Wes Groleau <groleau+news@freeshell.org> said:

>> I don't mind the trash being in the Dock as long as the Dock is pinned 
>> to the bottom-right corner, so the trash can never moves.
> 
> It's loads of fun trying to drag something from the left half
> of the screen to the trash.  If you forget to go around and
> approach the trash from the right, the trash can politely
> moves aside so you can put the thing in the Dock next to it!  :-)

Huh?  With the Dock pinned to the bottom-right corner?

With my Dock pinned to the right-bottom corner, the trash never moves - 
not even during drags.

-- 
JR

Richard Maine wrote:
> I forget the details, but I think it has something to do with the "."
> and ".." entries. You'd get messages about the directory not being empty
> when you tried to delete it. "Normally" (i.e. for non-hard-linked dirs),
> those entries got deleted as part of deleting the directory. But of
> course, you wouldn't want to delete them when deleting only one of the
> links to the dir.

I've gotten that with directories that were _not_ hard links.

> Hard links to files have evils bits also. One such evil bit is that all
> hard links to the same file have the same owner and other permissions;
> ..... (Soft links do fine for avoiding multiple copies of a large file; I
> use them all the time and have for decades).

I generally prefer soft links, but that doesn't make hard links evil.
If some peope can't understand them, those people shouldn't use them.

> I've also had to explain to confused users why deleting a large file
> didn't free up any disk space... because it was only one of multiple
> hard links to the file. (Ok, technically, they weren't deleting a file;
> they were unlinking, but most users just think of it as deleting a
> file.)

So are these people trying to delete something they shouldn't (like
the /usr/bin/bash they think they never use?  Or are they trying to
delete a hard link they created when they didn't understand them?

-- 
Wes Groleau
   "Grant me the serenity to accept those I cannot change;
    the courage to change the one I can;
    and the wisdom to know it's me."
                                -- unknown

Wes Groleau <groleau+news@freeshell.org> wrote:

> Richard Maine wrote:
> > You'd get messages about the directory not being empty
> > when you tried to delete it...
> 
> I've gotten that with directories that were _not_ hard links.

That shouldn't normally happen. Of course, file system corruption can
cause it. And "invisible" files can cause simillar syptoms. There might
be some other ways, I suppose. It happened 100% of the time for hard
links to directories and was unrecoverable without rebuilding the file
system (or low-level direct hacking of the internal directory structure
on the disk); it was even documented that this was the consequence.
Unfortunately, I didn't see that documentation until after I had made
one. (It was my first Unix system).

> I generally prefer soft links, but that doesn't make hard links evil.
> If some peope can't understand them, those people shouldn't use them.

People don't always get a choice... as when they inherit an account of
someone else, or when they are sharing data among multiple people. In
fact, the sharing data thing is one of the situations where I've seen it
quite a bit.
 
> > I've also had to explain to confused users why deleting a large file
> > didn't free up any disk space... because it was only one of multiple
> > hard links to the file.... 
> 
> So are these people trying to delete something they shouldn't (like
> the /usr/bin/bash they think they never use?  Or are they trying to
> delete a hard link they created when they didn't understand them?

Life isn't that simple; those aren't the only two choices. But creating
hard links that they didn't understand was certainly one common
scenario. Heck, sometimes they created them by accident. It isn't as
though that's hard to do. You just leave the -s option off of the ln
command. Or, since hard links were the default, they used that, not
knowing why they should want this symbolic thing. These were mostly user
types - not computer scientists. Or, in the early days, hard links were
the only option - symlinks came later.

Or a common case where this came up was when they were trying to clean
up the files left behind by some other user that had left.

If hard links can exist (as they can), then people sometimes will end up
having to deal ith them.

-- 
Richard Maine                    | Good judgement comes from experience;
email: last name at domain . net | experience comes from bad judgement.
domain: summertriangle           |  -- Mark Twain

 Wes Groleau (referring to Davoud's post) wrote:

> > That enables me to answer your implied question:
> > What's broken is Airport.

And then he wrote:

> I take it back.  Dave Seaman's answer suggests that
> what's broken is your installation.

Sorry, that's too convenient an answer for someone who has only heard a
description of an issue and not seen it personally. There is nothing
wrong with my installation. There are no 802.11b nodes on my
802.11g-only network, and no 802.11g nodes on my 802.11n network.

I have seen OS X networking tie-ups in my little consulting enterprise
often enough to know that they come and go for no apparent reason and
do not require a faulty installation or faulty settings.

Davoud

-- 
usenet *at* davidillig dawt com

In article <0001HW.C26ABE200040801BB02A194F@News.Individual.Net>,
 patrick j <usemywebsite@googlemail.com> wrote:

> On May 11, 2007 ZnU wrote:
> 
> > In article <100520071605521343%nickname@nospam.com>,
> >  Nihongo Matsuri <nickname@nospam.com> wrote:
> > 
> >> In OS 9 you can move the trash can anywhere on the desktop you want 
> >> it. Maybe someday this freedom will be restored to OSuX?
> > 
> > On the other hand, the OS 9 trash was usually covered by windows. OS X 
> > doesn't have that problem.
> 
> *applause*
> 
> This is very true indeed. I far prefer having the trash icon on the Dock 
> rather than sitting on the Desktop for this very reason.

And as others have pointed out, the Trash can moves as the dock expands 
and shrinks. And no, I don't want to anchor the dock at one end. That 
just looks untidy.

This is why I use iCan at home, to have the Wastebasket on the desktop 
as God intended. Unfortunately it doesn't appear to work properly on the 
new Mac Pro I have at work.

> The classic OS trash icon was pretty useless because it was very frequently 
> covered by an open window.

Use fewer windows then.

On May 12, 2007 Wes Groleau wrote:

>> I don't mind the trash being in the Dock as long as the Dock is pinned 
>> to the bottom-right corner, so the trash can never moves.
> 
> It's loads of fun trying to drag something from the left half
> of the screen to the trash.  If you forget to go around and
> approach the trash from the right, the trash can politely
> moves aside so you can put the thing in the Dock next to it!  :-)

I think you have a point, but I found that while that sort of arose when I 
first started using OS X nearly a year ago after a very short time it never 
happened to the extent that I'd forgotten its possibility.



-- 
Patrick - Brighton, UK
If you wish email me from my web-site: <http://www.patrickjames.me.uk>
Inventory service in Sussex: <http://www.inventoryworks.co.uk>

On May 12, 2007 Wes Groleau wrote:

> patrick j wrote:
>> With respect to issue 2 the Dock presents a brilliant solution. The joy of 
>> the Dock is that the screen estate it uses up is very well respected by 
>> open application windows. This means that icons in the Dock are always 
> 
> Well-respected by "proper" OS X apps.  Some ported programs don't know 
> the Dock exists and will cover it up.  Sometimes OS X catches them and 
> forces them to go "behind" the Dock.  Other times, OS X prevents them
> trespassing in Dock Space and if they are trying to resize, they can end 
> up with a title bar off the top--no way to get them back!

I haven't experienced this but I tend to use "proper" OS X apps only. I 
think the only thing I've had which some might describe as ported was 
"NeoOffice" which behaved very well. However I get Microsoft Office for 
free as I work at a university and while NeoOffice is very impressive 
Microsoft Office really is better imho, even running in rosetta as mine 
does.

However your posting does remind me of something I really like about OS X 
which is that the top of the application windows do not go above the menu 
bar. For me this is great. I tend to keep them up against the menu bar and 
just slide them from left to right. This simple but imho brilliant thing 
greatly simplifies moving windows about and positioning them.

When I have to use OS 9 or when I use Microsoft Windows I tend to find a 
sort of vague insecure feeling about window positioning because I'm used to 
them just sliding across the top.

I confess I prefer Windows XP to OS 9. I'm so glad that Steve Jobs 
introduced OS X because I would have switched to Windows XP when my OS 9 
equipped Mac died about a year ago.

-- 
Patrick - Brighton, UK
If you wish email me from my web-site: <http://www.patrickjames.me.uk>
Inventory service in Sussex: <http://www.inventoryworks.co.uk>

On May 12, 2007 Tim Streater wrote:

> In article <0001HW.C26ABE200040801BB02A194F@News.Individual.Net>,
>  patrick j <usemywebsite@googlemail.com> wrote:
> 
>> On May 11, 2007 ZnU wrote:
>> 
>>> In article <100520071605521343%nickname@nospam.com>,
>>> Nihongo Matsuri <nickname@nospam.com> wrote:
>>> 
>>>> In OS 9 you can move the trash can anywhere on the desktop you want 
>>>> it. Maybe someday this freedom will be restored to OSuX?
>>> 
>>> On the other hand, the OS 9 trash was usually covered by windows. OS X 
>>> doesn't have that problem.
>> 
>> *applause*
>> 
>> This is very true indeed. I far prefer having the trash icon on the Dock 
>> rather than sitting on the Desktop for this very reason.
> 
> And as others have pointed out, the Trash can moves as the dock expands 
> and shrinks. And no, I don't want to anchor the dock at one end. That 
> just looks untidy.
> 
> This is why I use iCan at home, to have the Wastebasket on the desktop 
> as God intended. Unfortunately it doesn't appear to work properly on the 
> new Mac Pro I have at work.
> 
>> The classic OS trash icon was pretty useless because it was very frequently 
>> covered by an open window.
> 
> Use fewer windows then.

Well I don't want to use fewer windows or make them smaller just to 
accommodate a trash icon on the Desktop.

Personally I'm very glad that the Trash is in the Dock now imho it is far 
more sensible than the Desktop.

The irony of the Desktop folder on the classic OS was that it was the most 
inaccessible part of the interface because it was a window that by default 
was always behind the others.

This is why it was always stupid imho to put things on the Desktop such as 
the Trash or the Volumes. They were then in the most inaccessible part of 
the Finder.

It all looked great until you actually started to do something then you 
realised that to get into your hard drive you had to minimise your windows 
to the title bar just to get at the hard drive icon. Then you'd find that 
your minimised (okay "shaded") window title bar would have accidentally 
disappeared behind some other window.

With OS X if you do put things on the desktop you can access them by going 
to the Desktop folder displayed in a regular Finder window (hooray!).

I think the classic OS Finder design was brilliant when people used a very 
small number of applications and kept just one or two windows open at max.

However it had for a very long time become a very inappropriate design for 
using many windows and for complicated Folder structures which is how 
everyone I know works today.

It is true that many people had become very used to the Finder in the 
classic OS but I think they are frequently blinded to the fact that it was 
full of design flaws for the modern age. In fact I think it should have 
been replaced by OS X in about 1990 or indeed earlier.

-- 
Patrick - Brighton, UK
If you wish email me from my web-site: <http://www.patrickjames.me.uk>
Inventory service in Sussex: <http://www.inventoryworks.co.uk>

In article <0001HW.C26B4DCB00622C2AB042494F@News.Individual.Net>,
 patrick j <usemywebsite@googlemail.com> wrote:

> On May 12, 2007 Tim Streater wrote:
> 
> > In article <0001HW.C26ABE200040801BB02A194F@News.Individual.Net>,
> >  patrick j <usemywebsite@googlemail.com> wrote:
> > 
> >> On May 11, 2007 ZnU wrote:
> >> 
> >>> In article <100520071605521343%nickname@nospam.com>,
> >>> Nihongo Matsuri <nickname@nospam.com> wrote:
> >>> 
> >>>> In OS 9 you can move the trash can anywhere on the desktop you want 
> >>>> it. Maybe someday this freedom will be restored to OSuX?
> >>> 
> >>> On the other hand, the OS 9 trash was usually covered by windows. OS X 
> >>> doesn't have that problem.
> >> 
> >> *applause*
> >> 
> >> This is very true indeed. I far prefer having the trash icon on the Dock 
> >> rather than sitting on the Desktop for this very reason.
> > 
> > And as others have pointed out, the Trash can moves as the dock expands 
> > and shrinks. And no, I don't want to anchor the dock at one end. That 
> > just looks untidy.
> > 
> > This is why I use iCan at home, to have the Wastebasket on the desktop 
> > as God intended. Unfortunately it doesn't appear to work properly on the 
> > new Mac Pro I have at work.
> > 
> >> The classic OS trash icon was pretty useless because it was very 
> >> frequently 
> >> covered by an open window.
> > 
> > Use fewer windows then.
> 
> Well I don't want to use fewer windows or make them smaller just to 
> accommodate a trash icon on the Desktop.

Fine with me. I do and will continue to do so.

> Personally I'm very glad that the Trash is in the Dock now imho it is far 
> more sensible than the Desktop.
> 
> The irony of the Desktop folder on the classic OS was that it was the most 
> inaccessible part of the interface because it was a window that by default 
> was always behind the others.
> 
> This is why it was always stupid imho to put things on the Desktop such as 
> the Trash or the Volumes. They were then in the most inaccessible part of 
> the Finder.

I never found them inaccessible - at least, not enough to consider 
changing. 

> It all looked great until you actually started to do something then you 
> realised that to get into your hard drive you had to minimise your windows 
> to the title bar just to get at the hard drive icon. Then you'd find that 
> your minimised (okay "shaded") window title bar would have accidentally 
> disappeared behind some other window.
> 
> With OS X if you do put things on the desktop you can access them by going 
> to the Desktop folder displayed in a regular Finder window (hooray!).

Except it's in the wrong part of the file system. It should be the root, 
since I see my volumes on it.

> I think the classic OS Finder design was brilliant when people used a very 
> small number of applications and kept just one or two windows open at max.
> 
> However it had for a very long time become a very inappropriate design for 
> using many windows and for complicated Folder structures which is how 
> everyone I know works today.
> 
> It is true that many people had become very used to the Finder in the 
> classic OS but I think they are frequently blinded to the fact that it was 
> full of design flaws for the modern age. In fact I think it should have 
> been replaced by OS X in about 1990 or indeed earlier.

This Finder is somewhat buggy and the scroll bars are shit compared to 
the previous ones.

In article <0001HW.C26B47CF0060C510B042494F@News.Individual.Net>,
 patrick j <usemywebsite@googlemail.com> wrote:

> On May 12, 2007 Wes Groleau wrote:
> 
> > patrick j wrote:
> >> With respect to issue 2 the Dock presents a brilliant solution. The joy of 
> >> the Dock is that the screen estate it uses up is very well respected by 
> >> open application windows. This means that icons in the Dock are always 
> > 
> > Well-respected by "proper" OS X apps.  Some ported programs don't know 
> > the Dock exists and will cover it up.  Sometimes OS X catches them and 
> > forces them to go "behind" the Dock.  Other times, OS X prevents them
> > trespassing in Dock Space and if they are trying to resize, they can end 
> > up with a title bar off the top--no way to get them back!
> 
> I haven't experienced this but I tend to use "proper" OS X apps only. I 
> think the only thing I've had which some might describe as ported was 
> "NeoOffice" which behaved very well. However I get Microsoft Office for 
> free as I work at a university and while NeoOffice is very impressive 
> Microsoft Office really is better imho, even running in rosetta as mine 
> does.
> 
> However your posting does remind me of something I really like about OS X 
> which is that the top of the application windows do not go above the menu 
> bar. For me this is great. I tend to keep them up against the menu bar and 
> just slide them from left to right. This simple but imho brilliant thing 
> greatly simplifies moving windows about and positioning them.
> 
> When I have to use OS 9 or when I use Microsoft Windows I tend to find a 
> sort of vague insecure feeling about window positioning because I'm used to 
> them just sliding across the top.
> 
> I confess I prefer Windows XP to OS 9. I'm so glad that Steve Jobs 
> introduced OS X because I would have switched to Windows XP when my OS 9 
> equipped Mac died about a year ago.

I must say Xp is *much* better than previous versions. But you still 
have major irritations like:

1) You can never tell whether an app has actually launched, when you 
double-click an icon. All too often I wait and nothing happens.

2) There is still this rubbish that I cannot move a file just because 
some app has it open.

3) XP's paging volume must be the other side of Saturn. I go away and 
come back to the machine, and the browser - any browser - takes years to 
page enough of itself back in to do any work - even with 768meg of 
memory.

On May 12, 2007 Tim Streater wrote:

> In article <0001HW.C26B4DCB00622C2AB042494F@News.Individual.Net>,
>  patrick j <usemywebsite@googlemail.com> wrote:
> 
>> On May 12, 2007 Tim Streater wrote:
>> 
>>> In article <0001HW.C26ABE200040801BB02A194F@News.Individual.Net>,
>>> patrick j <usemywebsite@googlemail.com> wrote:
>>> 
>>>> On May 11, 2007 ZnU wrote:
>>>> 
>>>>> In article <100520071605521343%nickname@nospam.com>,
>>>>> Nihongo Matsuri <nickname@nospam.com> wrote:
>>>>> 
>>>>>> In OS 9 you can move the trash can anywhere on the desktop you want 
>>>>>> it. Maybe someday this freedom will be restored to OSuX?
>>>>> 
>>>>> On the other hand, the OS 9 trash was usually covered by windows. OS X 
>>>>> doesn't have that problem.
>>>> 
>>>> *applause*
>>>> 
>>>> This is very true indeed. I far prefer having the trash icon on the Dock 
>>>> rather than sitting on the Desktop for this very reason.
>>> 
>>> And as others have pointed out, the Trash can moves as the dock expands 
>>> and shrinks. And no, I don't want to anchor the dock at one end. That 
>>> just looks untidy.
>>> 
>>> This is why I use iCan at home, to have the Wastebasket on the desktop 
>>> as God intended. Unfortunately it doesn't appear to work properly on the 
>>> new Mac Pro I have at work.
>>> 
>>>> The classic OS trash icon was pretty useless because it was very 
>>>> frequently 
>>>> covered by an open window.
>>> 
>>> Use fewer windows then.
>> 
>> Well I don't want to use fewer windows or make them smaller just to 
>> accommodate a trash icon on the Desktop.
> 
> Fine with me. I do and will continue to do so.

Of course everyone has their own way of working.

>> Personally I'm very glad that the Trash is in the Dock now imho it is far 
>> more sensible than the Desktop.
>> 
>> The irony of the Desktop folder on the classic OS was that it was the most 
>> inaccessible part of the interface because it was a window that by default 
>> was always behind the others.
>> 
>> This is why it was always stupid imho to put things on the Desktop such as 
>> the Trash or the Volumes. They were then in the most inaccessible part of 
>> the Finder.
> 
> I never found them inaccessible - at least, not enough to consider 
> changing.

Is it possible you just got used to working around it?

>> It all looked great until you actually started to do something then you 
>> realised that to get into your hard drive you had to minimise your windows 
>> to the title bar just to get at the hard drive icon. Then you'd find that 
>> your minimised (okay "shaded") window title bar would have accidentally 
>> disappeared behind some other window.
>> 
>> With OS X if you do put things on the desktop you can access them by going 
>> to the Desktop folder displayed in a regular Finder window (hooray!).
> 
> Except it's in the wrong part of the file system. It should be the root, 
> since I see my volumes on it.

It is very welcome to see it.
 
>> I think the classic OS Finder design was brilliant when people used a very 
>> small number of applications and kept just one or two windows open at max.
>> 
>> However it had for a very long time become a very inappropriate design for 
>> using many windows and for complicated Folder structures which is how 
>> everyone I know works today.
>> 
>> It is true that many people had become very used to the Finder in the 
>> classic OS but I think they are frequently blinded to the fact that it was 
>> full of design flaws for the modern age. In fact I think it should have 
>> been replaced by OS X in about 1990 or indeed earlier.
> 
> This Finder is somewhat buggy and the scroll bars are shit compared to 
> the previous ones.

I do agree that the OS X Finder has some bugs but they are minor. It would 
be great to get rid of them. The classic OS did have the rather major bug 
of crashing quite frequently if for example there was some extension 
conflict. In nearly a year of using OS X I haven't actually had a crash and 
I've installed all kind of things.

However for me the overall design is a vast improvement on the classic OS.

The classic OS did have some lovely details about it, but imho it had just 
become basically the wrong design for the current computing environment.

If your approach to using the computer is like that of someone in 1984, 
using few windows and only having a couple of applications running at any 
time then the classic OS will suit you very well indeed.

-- 
Patrick - Brighton, UK
If you wish email me from my web-site: <http://www.patrickjames.me.uk>
Inventory service in Sussex: <http://www.inventoryworks.co.uk>

On May 12, 2007 Tim Streater wrote:

> I must say Xp is *much* better than previous versions. But you still 
> have major irritations like:
> 
> 1) You can never tell whether an app has actually launched, when you 
> double-click an icon. All too often I wait and nothing happens.
> 
> 2) There is still this rubbish that I cannot move a file just because 
> some app has it open.
> 
> 3) XP's paging volume must be the other side of Saturn. I go away and 
> come back to the machine, and the browser - any browser - takes years to 
> page enough of itself back in to do any work - even with 768meg of 
> memory.

It's all true of course. I really don't want to get into a Windows XP v Mac 
OS discussion although it's true that it was me that accidentally started 
it.

I was just saying that while for me OS X is far better than Windows XP in 
many ways, if Apple had not changed to OS X then I year ago when my OS 9 
equipped computer died I would have moved to a Windows XP computer. This is 
because I do prefer Windows XP to OS 9. XP has many limitations but it is 
better designed imho for the modern day computing environment that OS 9.
In 1984 when the Mac OS arrived it was a breathtaking leap forward for the 
computer user. There has never been such a significant step in computing 
for the home or work environment. I remember the introduction of the Mac OS 
very well.

However the computing environment has changed radically from 1984. Many 
more applications are used, typically very many windows are open at once, 
extremely complicated systems of nested folders are created by users. The 
classic Mac OS was bad at those things because it simply hadn't been 
designed with that in mind.

-- 
Patrick - Brighton, UK
If you wish email me from my web-site: <http://www.patrickjames.me.uk>
Inventory service in Sussex: <http://www.inventoryworks.co.uk>

On Sat, 12 May 2007 06:46:44 GMT, Davoud wrote:
>  Wes Groleau (referring to Davoud's post) wrote:

>> > That enables me to answer your implied question:
>> > What's broken is Airport.

> And then he wrote:

>> I take it back.  Dave Seaman's answer suggests that
>> what's broken is your installation.

> Sorry, that's too convenient an answer for someone who has only heard a
> description of an issue and not seen it personally. There is nothing
> wrong with my installation. There are no 802.11b nodes on my
> 802.11g-only network, and no 802.11g nodes on my 802.11n network.

> I have seen OS X networking tie-ups in my little consulting enterprise
> often enough to know that they come and go for no apparent reason and
> do not require a faulty installation or faulty settings.

I see network problems too, but as you say, they come and go.  Your
original description made it seem that this was not a transitory problem,
and that it was seen on all 10 of your Macs.


-- 
Dave Seaman
Oral Arguments in Mumia Abu-Jamal Case to be heard May 17
U.S. Court of Appeals, Third Circuit
<http://www.abu-jamal-news.com/>

Davoud wrote:
> Sorry, that's too convenient an answer for someone who has only heard a
> description of an issue and not seen it personally. There is nothing
> wrong with my installation. There are no 802.11b nodes on my
> 802.11g-only network, and no 802.11g nodes on my 802.11n network.

I don't have any subversion of 802.11 so I have no clue
how to distinguish among b, g, n, or Airport.

So to me, it sounded like the media you were complaining
about was the same thing Dave was saying worked great.
Sorry for the confusion.

I _can_ say that such slowdowns have never happened to me
on Ethernet.

-- 
Wes Groleau
-----------
Curmudgeon's Complaints on Courtesy:
http://www.onlinenetiquette.com/courtesy1.html
(Not necessarily my opinion, but worth reading)

Wes Groleau wrote:
> I _can_ say that such slowdowns have never happened to me
> on Ethernet.

Except with VNC, but that's probably my config and
not Apple's networking)

-- 
Wes Groleau
-----------
I've been framed! ...
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/9612.html

Jolly Roger wrote:
> I'm not aware of a new kind of alias.  Are you referring to the feature 
> that lets developers decide how the alias manager should resolve aliases 
> (perform a simple or an exhaustive search, whether to search multiple 
> volumes, what the order of searches should be, etc.)?  Found it:
> 
> <http://developer.apple.com/documentation/mac/Files/Files-346.html#HEADING346-0> 

That's not the document I read (at least a year ago).  It was much
longer, and one of the things it said was that in addition to the
type of file ID that came with HFS aliases originally, an alias could
now have also OR instead just the text path.  The latter would make
it the same as a symlink except that the path is in the resource fork 
instead of the data fork.

I agree that aliases are more flexible in their original state,
except that I have verified that if I clone a directory or volume
with ditto, copied apps and frameworks that have aliases (or
absolute path symlinks) within them stop working if the original
is deleted.

-- 
Wes Groleau

    "A man with an experience is never
     at the mercy of a man with an argument."
                       -- Ron Allen

Jolly Roger wrote:
> On 2007-05-11 22:58:55 -0500, Wes Groleau <groleau+news@freeshell.org> 
> said:
>> It's loads of fun trying to drag something from the left half
>> of the screen to the trash.  If you forget to go around and
>> approach the trash from the right, the trash can politely
>> moves aside so you can put the thing in the Dock next to it!  :-)
> 
> Huh?  With the Dock pinned to the bottom-right corner?

no, with dock in its default position


-- 
Wes Groleau

Pat's Polemics = http://Ideas.Lang-Learn.us/barrett

In article <0001HW.C26B5ACC0065384BB042494F@News.Individual.Net>,
 patrick j <usemywebsite@googlemail.com> wrote:

> XP has many limitations but it is better designed imho for the modern 
> day computing environment that OS 9.

Maybe that's the reason that Apple replaced OS 9 with OS X six years ago.

-- 
Support the troops:  Bring them home ASAP.

patrick j wrote:
> many ways, if Apple had not changed to OS X then I year ago when my OS 9 
> equipped computer died I would have moved to a Windows XP computer. This is 
> because I do prefer Windows XP to OS 9. XP has many limitations but it is 

I considered shifting from OS 9 to Windows 2000.
I liked OS 9 better, but Win2K crashed less often.
I detest XP and am not interested in even _looking_
at Vista.

The only reason I hung on to OS 9 as long as I did
was because of the MachTen imitation of Unix.

Apple narrowly avoided extinction IMHO with OS X.

-- 
Wes Groleau

Answer not a fool according to his folly,
    lest thou also be like unto him.
Answer a fool according to his folly,
    lest he be wise according to his own conceit.
                         -- Solomon

Are you saying there's no good way to answer a fool?
                         -- Groleau

On 2007-05-12 08:15:33 -0500, Wes Groleau <groleau+news@freeshell.org> said:

> Jolly Roger wrote:
>> I'm not aware of a new kind of alias.  Are you referring to the feature 
>> that lets developers decide how the alias manager should resolve 
>> aliases (perform a simple or an exhaustive search, whether to search 
>> multiple volumes, what the order of searches should be, etc.)?  Found 
>> it:
>> 
>> <http://developer.apple.com/documentation/mac/Files/Files-346.html#HEADING346-0>

That's 
>> 
> not the document I read (at least a year ago).  It was much
> longer, and one of the things it said was that in addition to the
> type of file ID that came with HFS aliases originally, an alias could
> now have also OR instead just the text path.  The latter would make
> it the same as a symlink except that the path is in the resource fork 
> instead of the data fork.

That sounds like just a plain bad idea to me. In fact, it wouldn't 
surprise me at all if that change was driven by the NeXT engineers 
(ahem... Avie Tevanian) who, had they been able to have their way, 
would have just as well dogmatically abolished every single Mac 
technology in favor of NeXT technologies.

Anyone remember tech note 2034, and the complete-and-utter uproar it 
caused among all Mac developers? Direct PDF download link:

<http://daringfireball.net/misc/2003/07/tn2034.pdf>

I remember it well (as I'm sure most any other Mac developer who was 
around at the time would).  My god, what utter crap. If Apple wasn't 
completely embarrassed by it, they well should have been. And they must 
have been embarrassed - the tech note was taken offline soon after the 
backlash started, never to be seen again. Daring Fireball had an 
excellent write-up about the situation:

<http://daringfireball.net/2003/07/the_good_the_bad_and_the_avie>

And here's a sample response which is in-line with the response of most 
Mac developers at the time:

<http://www.drissman.com/avi/misc/tn2034/reply.txt>

Anyway, sorry for the digression. A lot of us still find ourselves with 
a bitter taste in our mouths, I guess.  ; )

> I agree that aliases are more flexible in their original state,
> except that I have verified that if I clone a directory or volume
> with ditto, copied apps and frameworks that have aliases (or
> absolute path symlinks) within them stop working if the original
> is deleted.

How sure are you that those were aliases, not symbolic links?  I 
believe most references to frameworks and the like are symbolic links, 
not aliases.

-- 
JR

On 2007-05-12 08:22:03 -0500, Wes Groleau <groleau+news@freeshell.org> said:

> Jolly Roger wrote:
>> On 2007-05-11 22:58:55 -0500, Wes Groleau <groleau+news@freeshell.org> said:
>>> It's loads of fun trying to drag something from the left half
>>> of the screen to the trash.  If you forget to go around and
>>> approach the trash from the right, the trash can politely
>>> moves aside so you can put the thing in the Dock next to it!  :-)
>> 
>> Huh?  With the Dock pinned to the bottom-right corner?
> 
> no, with dock in its default position

Ah ok.  Yep - that's why I pin it to the bottom-right - then the trash 
won't budge.

-- 
JR

Wes Groleau <groleau+news@freeshell.org> wrote:

> Apple narrowly avoided extinction IMHO with OS X.

I think that is a pretty common perception. IMHO, though, the iMac was
what saved Apple from immediate death back in 1997-98, but Mac OS X
started reviving the still very sick patient. And yes, Mac OS X was
significant even that early, as Rhapsody/Copland were scrapped in favour
of OpenStep et al., and Mac OS X Server was launched and showed a
glimmer of the future in 1999. Then Mac OS X Client Beta in 2000 and
10.0 in 2001, the iPod a little later, and as they say, the rest is
history.
-- 
/Jon
For contact info, run the following in Terminal: 
echo 36199371860304980107073482417748002696458P|dc

In article <1hy0hq5.7vvygh16sinitN%see_signature@mac.com.invalid>,
 see_signature@mac.com.invalid (Jon) wrote:

> Wes Groleau <groleau+news@freeshell.org> wrote:
> 
> > Apple narrowly avoided extinction IMHO with OS X.
> 
> I think that is a pretty common perception. IMHO, though, the iMac was
> what saved Apple from immediate death back in 1997-98, but Mac OS X
> started reviving the still very sick patient. And yes, Mac OS X was
> significant even that early, as Rhapsody/Copland were scrapped in favour
> of OpenStep et al.,

Nit: Rhapsody was the development name for the OPENStep-based OS. It 
wasn't at all related to Copland and wasn't scrapped..

G

In article <0001HW.C26B5ACC0065384BB042494F@News.Individual.Net>,
 patrick j <usemywebsite@googlemail.com> wrote:

> On May 12, 2007 Tim Streater wrote:
> 
> > I must say Xp is *much* better than previous versions. But you still 
> > have major irritations like:
> > 
> > 1) You can never tell whether an app has actually launched, when you 
> > double-click an icon. All too often I wait and nothing happens.
> > 
> > 2) There is still this rubbish that I cannot move a file just because 
> > some app has it open.
> > 
> > 3) XP's paging volume must be the other side of Saturn. I go away and 
> > come back to the machine, and the browser - any browser - takes years to 
> > page enough of itself back in to do any work - even with 768meg of 
> > memory.
> 
> It's all true of course. I really don't want to get into a Windows XP v Mac 
> OS discussion although it's true that it was me that accidentally started 
> it.
> 
> I was just saying that while for me OS X is far better than Windows XP in 
> many ways, if Apple had not changed to OS X then I year ago when my OS 9 
> equipped computer died I would have moved to a Windows XP computer. This is 
> because I do prefer Windows XP to OS 9. XP has many limitations but it is 
> better designed imho for the modern day computing environment that OS 9.
> In 1984 when the Mac OS arrived it was a breathtaking leap forward for the 
> computer user. There has never been such a significant step in computing 
> for the home or work environment. I remember the introduction of the Mac OS 
> very well.
> 
> However the computing environment has changed radically from 1984. Many 
> more applications are used, typically very many windows are open at once, 
> extremely complicated systems of nested folders are created by users. The 
> classic Mac OS was bad at those things because it simply hadn't been 
> designed with that in mind.

True enough :-)

In article <ruk1i.14040$b67.8028@trnddc06>,
 Wes Groleau <groleau+news@freeshell.org> wrote:

> patrick j wrote:
> > many ways, if Apple had not changed to OS X then I year ago when my OS 9 
> > equipped computer died I would have moved to a Windows XP computer. This is 
> > because I do prefer Windows XP to OS 9. XP has many limitations but it is 
> 
> I considered shifting from OS 9 to Windows 2000.
> I liked OS 9 better, but Win2K crashed less often.
> I detest XP and am not interested in even _looking_
> at Vista.
> 
> The only reason I hung on to OS 9 as long as I did
> was because of the MachTen imitation of Unix.
> 
> Apple narrowly avoided extinction IMHO with OS X.

By the way what happened to AUX and how come we didn't simply move to 
that?

On 2007-05-12 10:04:28 -0500, see_signature@mac.com.invalid (Jon) said:

> Wes Groleau <groleau+news@freeshell.org> wrote:
> 
>> Apple narrowly avoided extinction IMHO with OS X.
> 
> I think that is a pretty common perception. IMHO, though, the iMac was
> what saved Apple from immediate death back in 1997-98, but Mac OS X
> started reviving the still very sick patient. And yes, Mac OS X was
> significant even that early, as Rhapsody/Copland were scrapped in favour
> of OpenStep et al., and Mac OS X Server was launched and showed a
> glimmer of the future in 1999. Then Mac OS X Client Beta in 2000 and
> 10.0 in 2001, the iPod a little later, and as they say, the rest is
> history.

Yep - I'd agree - that's pretty accurate.

-- 
JR

Gregory Weston <uce@splook.com> wrote:

> In article <1hy0hq5.7vvygh16sinitN%see_signature@mac.com.invalid>,
>  see_signature@mac.com.invalid (Jon) wrote:
> 
> > Wes Groleau <groleau+news@freeshell.org> wrote:
> > 
> > > Apple narrowly avoided extinction IMHO with OS X.
> > 
> > I think that is a pretty common perception. IMHO, though, the iMac was
> > what saved Apple from immediate death back in 1997-98, but Mac OS X
> > started reviving the still very sick patient. And yes, Mac OS X was
> > significant even that early, as Rhapsody/Copland were scrapped in favour
> > of OpenStep et al.,
> 
> Nit: Rhapsody was the development name for the OPENStep-based OS. It 
> wasn't at all related to Copland and wasn't scrapped..

Quite independently of whether I am right or wrong, please refrain from
name-calling.
-- 
/Jon
For contact info, run the following in Terminal: 
echo 36199371860304980107073482417748002696458P|dc

On 2007-05-12 11:43:08 -0500, see_signature@mac.com.invalid (Jon) said:

> Gregory Weston <uce@splook.com> wrote:
> 
>> In article <1hy0hq5.7vvygh16sinitN%see_signature@mac.com.invalid>,
>> see_signature@mac.com.invalid (Jon) wrote:
>> 
>>> Wes Groleau <groleau+news@freeshell.org> wrote:
>>> 
>>>> Apple narrowly avoided extinction IMHO with OS X.
>>> 
>>> I think that is a pretty common perception. IMHO, though, the iMac was
>>> what saved Apple from immediate death back in 1997-98, but Mac OS X
>>> started reviving the still very sick patient. And yes, Mac OS X was
>>> significant even that early, as Rhapsody/Copland were scrapped in favour
>>> of OpenStep et al.,
>> 
>> Nit: Rhapsody was the development name for the OPENStep-based OS. It
>> wasn't at all related to Copland and wasn't scrapped..
> 
> Quite independently of whether I am right or wrong, please refrain from
> name-calling.

Who called anyone a name?  "Nit" is short for "nit pick", if that's 
what you are talking about.

-- 
JR

In article <1hy0luq.v1tqzh1kjpxj1N%see_signature@mac.com.invalid>,
 see_signature@mac.com.invalid (Jon) wrote:

> > Nit: Rhapsody was the development name for the OPENStep-based OS. 
> > It wasn't at all related to Copland and wasn't scrapped..
> 
> Quite independently of whether I am right or wrong, please refrain 
> from name-calling.

He wasn't calling you a nit; he was saying that he was picking a 
nit--nitpicking.

-- 
Support the troops:  Bring them home ASAP.

Jolly Roger <jollyroger@R.E.M.O.V.E.pobox.com> wrote:

> On 2007-05-12 11:43:08 -0500, see_signature@mac.com.invalid (Jon) said:
> 
> > Gregory Weston <uce@splook.com> wrote:
> > 
> >> In article <1hy0hq5.7vvygh16sinitN%see_signature@mac.com.invalid>,
> >> see_signature@mac.com.invalid (Jon) wrote:
> >> 
> >>> Wes Groleau <groleau+news@freeshell.org> wrote:
> >>> 
> >>>> Apple narrowly avoided extinction IMHO with OS X.
> >>> 
> >>> I think that is a pretty common perception. IMHO, though, the iMac was
> >>> what saved Apple from immediate death back in 1997-98, but Mac OS X
> >>> started reviving the still very sick patient. And yes, Mac OS X was
> >>> significant even that early, as Rhapsody/Copland were scrapped in favour
> >>> of OpenStep et al.,
> >> 
> >> Nit: Rhapsody was the development name for the OPENStep-based OS. It
> >> wasn't at all related to Copland and wasn't scrapped..
> > 
> > Quite independently of whether I am right or wrong, please refrain from
> > name-calling.
> 
> Who called anyone a name?  "Nit" is short for "nit pick", if that's 
> what you are talking about.

OK - I read "nitwit". Thanks. Sorry for the negative vibes.
-- 
/Jon
For contact info, run the following in Terminal: 
echo 36199371860304980107073482417748002696458P|dc

Jolly Roger wrote:
> On 2007-05-12 08:15:33 -0500, Wes Groleau <groleau+news@freeshell.org> 
> said:
>> I agree that aliases are more flexible in their original state,
>> except that I have verified that if I clone a directory or volume
>> with ditto, copied apps and frameworks that have aliases (or
>> absolute path symlinks) within them stop working if the original
>> is deleted.
> 
> How sure are you that those were aliases, not symbolic links?  I believe 
> most references to frameworks and the like are symbolic links, not aliases.

Within frameworks, most of the time they were symlinks.
Unfortunately, most of them had full absolute target paths
and so when they were copied by ditto, they no longer pointed
to something within their own directory.

Some of them, however, were aliases (size zero in a CLI 'ls' output),
and though I don't know exactly which variant of encoding was in them,
I do know they were broken after "ditto --rsrc"

I have taught my sons how to make aliases by drag-and-drop, but
most of the time, I prefer symlinks or hard links because I do
a lot of things in the shell.  And I always make symlinks
with absolute path if they point outside their own tree,
relative if inside.

-- 
Wes Groleau
Genealogical Lookups:
http://groleau.freeshell.org/ref/lookups.shtml

Wes Groleau (referring to Davoud's post) wrote:
> 
> >> > That enables me to answer your implied question:
> >> > What's broken is Airport.
> 
> > And then he wrote:
> 
> >> I take it back.  Dave Seaman's answer suggests that
> >> what's broken is your installation.

Davoud replied:
> > Sorry, that's too convenient an answer for someone who has only heard a
> > description of an issue and not seen it personally. There is nothing
> > wrong with my installation. There are no 802.11b nodes on my
> > 802.11g-only network, and no 802.11g nodes on my 802.11n network.
> 
> > I have seen OS X networking tie-ups in my little consulting enterprise
> > often enough to know that they come and go for no apparent reason and
> > do not require a faulty installation or faulty settings.

Dave Seaman replied:
> I see network problems too, but as you say, they come and go.  Your
> original description made it seem that this was not a transitory problem,
> and that it was seen on all 10 of your Macs.

We Groleau also replied:

> > I don't have any subversion of 802.11 so I have no clue
> > how to distinguish among b, g, n, or Airport.
> 
> > So to me, it sounded like the media you were complaining
> > about was the same thing Dave was saying worked great.
> > Sorry for the confusion.

> > I _can_ say that such slowdowns have never happened to me
> > on Ethernet.

My mistake. I should have said that I rarely have problems on the
802.11N network; it seems to work pretty much as advertised. But for me
the kicker on my 802.11g network is that if I boot my MB Pro in
Windows, transfers between the MB Pro running XP Pro and other Macs are
much faster than when the network is all Mac OS. That's just one reason
I'm convinced this is an OS issue, not a configuration problem. I have
noticed that when a wireless connection between two Macs is really
bogging down, toggling file sharing off and on (on both Macs) often
fixes the problem for some days.

But, as someone observed, this is not a Finder issue per se, so I'll
just shut my gob now.

Davoud

-- 
usenet *at* davidillig dawt com

In article <timstreater-113746.17383812052007@individual.net>,
 Tim Streater <timstreater@waitrose.com> wrote:

> In article <ruk1i.14040$b67.8028@trnddc06>,
>  Wes Groleau <groleau+news@freeshell.org> wrote:
> 
> > patrick j wrote:
> > > many ways, if Apple had not changed to OS X then I year ago when my OS 9 
> > > equipped computer died I would have moved to a Windows XP computer. This 
> > > is 
> > > because I do prefer Windows XP to OS 9. XP has many limitations but it is 
> > 
> > I considered shifting from OS 9 to Windows 2000.
> > I liked OS 9 better, but Win2K crashed less often.
> > I detest XP and am not interested in even _looking_
> > at Vista.
> > 
> > The only reason I hung on to OS 9 as long as I did
> > was because of the MachTen imitation of Unix.
> > 
> > Apple narrowly avoided extinction IMHO with OS X.
> 
> By the way what happened to AUX and how come we didn't simply move to 
> that?

It didn't really provide a modern environment for writing GUI 
applications. NeXTSTEP had Cocoa.

-- 
"That's George Washington, the first president, of course. The interesting thing
about him is that I read three--three or four books about him last year. Isn't
that interesting?"
                     - George W. Bush to reporter Kai Diekmann, May 5, 2006

In message <0001HW.C26AAE87001CE3B9B022094F@news.supernews.com>
          TaliesinSoft <taliesinsoft@mac.com> wrote:

> On Fri, 11 May 2007 23:03:02 -0500, Wes Groleau wrote (in article
> <W%a1i.3396$NY3.1650@trnddc03>):
> 
>> patrick j wrote:
>>> With respect to issue 2 the Dock presents a brilliant solution. The joy
>>> of the Dock is that the screen estate it uses up is very well respected
>>> by open application windows. This means that icons in the Dock are always
>> 
>> Well-respected by "proper" OS X apps.  Some ported programs don't know the
>> Dock exists and will cover it up.  Sometimes OS X catches them and forces
>> them to go "behind" the Dock.  Other times, OS X prevents them trespassing
>> in Dock Space and if they are trying to resize, they can end up with a
>> title bar off the top--no way to get them back!
> 
> I have the dock normally hidden at the bottom of the screen and it pops up in
> front of all applications when my cursor hits the bottom edge of the screen.
> I have no recollections of otherwise behavior. I'd be interested in some
> specific examples.

Mailwasher Pro when first installed. Resolved it by changing screen 
mode.

-- 
Fred

On May 12, 2007 Jon wrote:

> Wes Groleau <groleau+news@freeshell.org> wrote:
> 
>> Apple narrowly avoided extinction IMHO with OS X.
> 
> I think that is a pretty common perception. IMHO, though, the iMac was
> what saved Apple from immediate death back in 1997-98, but Mac OS X
> started reviving the still very sick patient.

This is certainly true of my experience. My LCII was really no longer 
suitable for me and I was looking at getting a PC then as the whole feeling 
was that Apple was very soon going to be finished.

Then Apple came out with the iMac and being a lover of design I was smitten 
with it, so I got one, in fact I got it at 12 midnight on the day they 
first arrived in the UK. I got it on the Tottenham Court Road in London.

I lived in London at that time and when the iMac was up and running in my 
flat all my neighbours popped in to visit me and have a look at it. I don't 
remember anything like that since the launch of the Mac itself.

In the West End of London there are many television production companies 
who wanted the new iMac because it looked so cool. I remember the shops in 
the West End started getting them to manage their accounts and that kind of 
thing.

The iMac really was truly an inspired move and caused a transformation of 
the perception of Apple from that of a company that was going bust to one 
that was cool.

It is I believe true that OS X was essential for the continued success of 
the Mac.

-- 
Patrick - Brighton, UK
If you wish email me from my web-site: <http://www.patrickjames.me.uk>
Inventory service in Sussex: <http://www.inventoryworks.co.uk>

> On May 12, 2007 Jon wrote:
>> Wes Groleau <groleau+news@freeshell.org> wrote:
>>> Apple narrowly avoided extinction IMHO with OS X.
>> I think that is a pretty common perception. IMHO, though, the iMac was
>> what saved Apple from immediate death back in 1997-98, but Mac OS X
>> started reviving the still very sick patient.

Probably true of some people.  However, I bought
the iMac so that I could run MachTen Unix along
with an O.S. my family could tolerate and not
have to reboot between them.

But I was seriously considering tolerating
the dual-boot in order to give the family
something more stable than OS 9 and me
something more truly Unix than MachTen.

Then OS X appeared, and I got what I what
I had wanted all along.

-- 
Wes Groleau
-----------
Curmudgeon's Complaints on Courtesy:
http://www.onlinenetiquette.com/courtesy1.html
(Not necessarily my opinion, but worth reading)