Comments on: making life easier – quick filing in visible folders

By: Graham

Graham — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 16:55:22 +0000

There is an interesting article by Tog on Apple’s “flatland” approach to user interface and its failure to scale as we grow more experienced:

http://www.asktog.com/columns/075AppleFlatlandPart1.html

By: alan

alan — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 05:44:45 +0000

yea, I found it ‘by accident’ some time ago, but if the folder is already open in finder that is the quicker path … but there again maybe I have an unusually deeply nested folder structure!

By: Graham

Graham — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 19:55:47 +0000

“When I get into the save box, I notice I haven’t got the folder I want easily available, so go out to finder, go ‘up’ the folder hierarchy on the chosen window, drag the selected folder to the favourites, then go back to the application and continue the save using the favourite! ”

DId you know you can do all this from within the save dialog without going up to the Finder?

Graham

By: alan

alan — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 12:20:12 +0000

You are right of course – it is ‘discoverable’, you discovered it. Indeed I know there are some drag-and-drop tricks I have shown others and they as “ah I never knew you could do that” … so clearly ‘discoverable’ as I discovered it. However, as I said, more like a video game .. “ah do you know if you press left cursor shift left cursor twice really quick, you can do a spinning head kick”. Fun, and engaging, but far from usable. But of course, as in a video game, there is a great joy to finding these things.

In fact I do a similar, but sightly different ‘trick’ myself, which is to use the left-hand-side favourites in the finder. When I get into the save box, I notice I haven’t got the folder I want easily available, so go out to finder, go ‘up’ the folder hierarchy on the chosen window, drag the selected folder to the favourites, then go back to the application and continue the save using the favourite! Sometimes I remove it pretty quick form the favourites, but often leave it there for a while as I have got used to using the folder favourites for “things I am currently doing”. If I leave it then next time I do a save/open it is sitting there ready, including in a different application.

Of course both of our solutions involve a ‘breakdown’ step, where we have to step outside the application and the context. Perhaps save/open dialogues by their nature are in this breakdown mode anyway, so maybe doesn’t matter so much. And notice I have a little bit of pride in my own method … just like the video game gambits.

Also both our solutions are evidence that you ‘can do it’ on the Mac, but I find that this can-do-it-ness is the bane of computer science, both in formal areas with Turing equivalence or with applications like this on the Mac. Something may be possible, but is it easy, likely that you will find it or do the right thing … who wants to program a Turing machine?

By: Graham

Graham — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 21:35:45 +0000

I agree that it is a bit indirect, but undiscoverable? I didn’t know this worked until I read your article. I figured that there would be a way to do it, and the second thing I tried worked. (The first thing I tried was to look for the desktop in the sidebar of the dialog, but it wasn’t there) The one thing Mac OS X has going for it is that its features are very discoverable.

By: alan

alan — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 10:41:40 +0000

Someone else mailed me to say the same. So not has hard as I thought, … but still rather indirect, and not discoverable. I’m not sure of the same is true of Windows, but on the Mac whenever you talk to another user you find some sort of trick they use all the time that you didn’t even know existed. I guess a sign of the general replacement of instruction manuals with user forums; why tell the users when they can stumble upon it themselves – the OS like a video game :-/

By: Graham

Graham — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 20:30:37 +0000

Mac OS X does something pretty similar to what you describe: if you can see a folder on the desktop while navigating a save dialog then click and drag the folder onto the dialog and the dialog will automatically switch to the folder you want. If instead you want a directory of recently opened folders use a saved search (kind is folder, opened in last n hours) and drag that into the sidebar places section to make it available in save dialogs. Hope this helps. All the best, G.