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No more Finder... a premonition!

2.7K views 16 replies 10 participants last post by  heavenlyevil  
#1 · (Edited)
I had one of those thoughts again in that state just when you are starting to wake up... I think it's not the first time I've thought about it. I may have just read about this at one point somewhere and now it keeps popping up as a subconscious thought.

Anyway, it's basically this... At some point Apple drops the "Finder" as we know it all together. Instead, there is something for lack of a better name called "NotTheFinder".

Essentially it was a "superset" of iTunes, with essentially the same layout we are familiar with now.

In addition to categories on the left like Music, would be categories like Applications, Utilities, Documents, Movies, Photos (yep, iPhoto also just becomes part of "NotTheFinder" too!)

The quick search feature of iTunes is still there, and so searching for an application or document or song to play or picture to view is really just all the same. Also, the ability to have "favourite" items is also there on the left side below the fixed items. Call them "collections" or whatever, we know them as things like Albums in iPhoto and folders in our current Finder. This new launcher would keep our drives organized for us by creation date regarding all our documents... we normally wouldn't bother doing any folder management like we do today in the Finder. Finding that most recently worked on file would always be easy as you could just go to the group on the left side for today or yesterday, etc. The "NotTheFinder" launcher would actually MOVE a file for us if we change it. Either that or it would just generate an alias to it and keep that alias in the appropriate location for when it was last modified. After all, most of us think that way with everything else we do in our lives... We tend to keep recent work near at hand on our desk, and we tend not to care so much about older stuff, as long as we know it is around somewhere in a filing cabinet.

I wouldn't be surprised if this idea is around in Apple but is waiting for the public to accept the end of the old Finder. I don't think I'd miss managing my stuff... After all, much of my recent files just ends up on the desktop anyway in a folder called "unsorted"!

There's probably launchers out there right now with this sort of interface that copies the look and feel of iTunes so that you avoid the Finder. However, any such shareware is just another program and the files on your drive are not going to be DIRECTLY managed by it all the time. And Finder would still be there hovering around in the background.

Some things could then also be dropped... things like the dock wouldn't be all that important for example.

Anyway. Maybe OS 11.0 will be when this debuts? Or as soon as OS X 10.6? Keep watching for it and you heard about it here first!
 
#2 ·
Calgary Guru said:
Keep watching for it and you heard about it here first!
People have been predicting the death of the Finder for years, and with the introduction of Spotlight in 10.4, many more people joined the chorus of "What's the point of the Finder".

http://www.wired.com/news/mac/0,2125,67774,00.html

That being said, the Finder is a very simple interface that people tend to grasp very easily. Trying to change the entire computer world for the sake of change would be disastrous. The Finder is not going anywhere soon. Remember, the vast majority of computer users still clutter their desktop with their "important" files, because it's easy for them.
 
#3 ·
guytoronto said:
Remember, the vast majority of computer users still clutter their desktop with their "important" files, because it's easy for them.
Yes, but this wouldn't even happen any more in my vision...

Say you are in Word, Excel, etc.

You do a SAVE...

All that is presented to you is a box to provide a name (or export to another volume instead). If it's not going to be saved to your primary user area, a traditional save window would let you save to an external drive, etc.

Otherwise, the new management program would look after keeping the file in an organized structure for you, with an alias in a "today" folder as well.

This could be so much simpler. It wouldn't even have to be windowed... This launcher/viewer that replaces Finder could just always be in behind any windows of currently frontmost applications. Essentially it would be the "desktop" layer. It could be "hidden" so that some sort of desktop picture was viewable instead because to see it behind a Photoshop window instead of a plain tone background is likely not desirable. Anyway, it's all just an idea.

IDEA FOR FINDER REPLACEMENT (C) 2007 by me!
 
G
#4 ·
That could be a useful directioon for some users, but personally it would drive me batty. I have somewhere around 60 Gigs of work related files on my laptop and if I couldn't drill down and keep them in my own type of folder directories I'd go nutso and stop using OSX :D
 
#5 ·
Well, the reality is that more and more large organizations are now using Document Management Systems that function in this manner rather than storing information in file and folder structures.

It is a far more useful way of storing data once you get used to it, but of course it also involves a bit more than giving a file a name... Rather a taxonomy has to be developed that works, such that you can tag files with reasonable metadata to assist in locating them (for example, a law firm would use additional fields like client and matter, for instance).

This is the same concept in which iTunes catalogues music by artist, album, genre, and so forth (rather than just track name).

It's the logical evolution of file storage, but it's going to take some getting used to for people, and it's hard to say when it will be able to take hold. There are still people out there who despise iTunes simply because it organizes their files for them, to which my usual response is, "Why do you care?"

If the application on the surface does a fast and efficient job of locating your information based on a reasonable set of metadata, you really no longer need a folder structure, which when you think about it is an artificial construct created to replicate an outmoded paper-based filing system.

Folders were required for paper, but in an electronic storage system, where you can rapidly search hundreds of "pages" of data, and store information easily in multiple locations, the folder structure is really more limiting than it is helpful.
 
#6 ·
This sounds like a great idea, and I think it would work beautifully. If you wanted to organized stuff in different ways, you would just use smart folders (or collections, like playlists) to display the info you want based on the criteria you specify. For those of you who rely on folders, you would just tag your files with keywords which would allow you to accomplish the same thing with collections.

I could see this being a problem for web developers though, since web sites are reliant on folder structure. I suspect this NotTheFinder would have to give you the ability to work with folders as well for compatibility and for those people who would have a hard time adjusting, much like iTunes gives you the option to not have it keep the music folder organized for you.
 
#7 ·
It all sounds fine and dandy until you need to try to find something.

I often remember where I placed something, rather than what I called it.

If I download a file, I know it will be my Downloads folder. I know all my old versions of resumes are in my Resumes folder. Opening that one folder gives me at a glance a history of all my past resumes. A search would not give me the same results.
 
#8 ·
Well, a search would give you the same results if you tagged the information properly. A tag like "Resume" would easily locate all of your resumes, no matter where you had placed them, and likewise applications like Safari could easily tag things as "Downloaded".

Again, the problem is that people have become accustomed to a file/folder structure because it resembles the way that paper works, but in reality it really isn't the most efficient way to organize electronic data.

Using the "resume" example, for instance, what if you maintained different resumes for different applications? You could put them all in a "Resumes" folder, but then what about locating them based upon who you submitted them to? Or the date you submitted them? The problem with a file/folder structure is that it's really messy in terms of wanting to use a more complex taxonomy... You end up with sub-folders, or complex file-naming standards just to accomplish the most basic organizational workflows.

In paper terms, if you need something referenced in multiple folders, you end up making photocopies, or posting notes in other folders to cross-reference back to the original. In electronic terms though, what's the point of that when something can easily be catalogued and instantly searchable in any number of different contexts?

The problem ultimately is coming up with the relevant taxonomy to best organize your data, and trusting that methodology. The problem really is that most people don't really trust that their computer will be able to find the information they need, and therefore feel more "secure" if they're organizing things into folders.... but at the end of the day, even a folder structure is really just another underlying organization in the disk subsystem (albeit one that we've come to trust from years of working in this manner).

Again, most of my larger clients actively use document management systems, and have long since abandoned the need for a file/folder structure to organize their information. The increase in productivity of a proper document management system is a hundred-fold over a traditional file/folder structure, particularly in an organization when many people may need to reference and/or collaborate on the same documents.
 
#10 ·
I work in the GIS field where Metadata is critical to understanding the waht, where and when's of our data so this concept makes perfect sense to me and I'd welcome the change...though it'd be an adjustment for me given the history we've had with folders...esp in the PC world. Since switching to OSX I've become less linear in thinking and you're right if it performed as well as iTunes does it'd be a welcome shift in paradigm.
 
#11 ·
jhollington said:
Well, a search would give you the same results if you tagged the information properly.
Exactly. This is why it won't work. Computers should adapt to the way people want them to work, not vice-versa.

The OS should have many options for organizing and finding my files. Limiting my options makes the whole experience less pleasant.
 
#12 ·
Maybe I'm old-fashioned, but I don't see any reason to change the paradigm completely, just fix the existing finder so it works like it should (FTFF!).

I use spotlight extensively, and it's great to be able to find things by metadata etc., but frequently I just want to drag an icon to an app, or browse around in my directories to see what's there that I may have forgotten about.

I hope that Apple rewrites the finder so that it's a better behaved application that better integrates some of the nice technologies Apple has developed for OS X, but I don't think they should scrap the idea of a finder application.

That being said, the current finder is one of the worst problems with OS X. It's badly designed, very buggy (still!), and generally no where near the level of other Apple Applications. The fact that Finder has matured so little since 10.0 makes me wonder if there might be plans to replace it completely with something radical.

Cheers
 
#14 ·
guytoronto said:
Exactly. This is why it won't work. Computers should adapt to the way people want them to work, not vice-versa.
Well, to be fair, what would actually require less effort... Browsing through a file/folder structure to find the folder where you want to save a file, or simply typing in a tag or three to identify it properly (and even selecting from a drop-down list of options). The systems that allow for the tagging of files with metadata generally do so when you're saving the file, so the difference in effort is actually quite minimal if you have a reasonable system in place.

Personally, the number of clicks often required to get to a folder into which something needs to be stored is more of a nuisance than it's worth. I'd simply welcome to the ability to fill in Spotlight metadata when saving a document, in which case I'd likely store everything in one big folder (or at the most perhaps three or four broad categories for personal/business/etc).

Again, not every individual necessarily needs to adapt to this paradigm, but those corporate organizations who have done so have seen a massive increase in both productivity and their ability to find the information later on. Of course, in an environment where information sharing is paramount, a proper taxonomy is even more important.

However, to the original point I honestly don't expect that Finder will go away, and the truth is that we'll likely end up with a hybrid of the two systems.... A file and folder structure combined with the ability to enter additional metadata to help further organize things.
 
G
#16 ·
I use no clicks when I navigate to a folder, no matter how deep it is :) Columned view and the keyboard are very fast ways of navigating.

A hybrid approach would be nice for some stuff .. it depends on what type of documents you are talking about. I do pro audio and video work, which as you can imagine is a data logistics nightmare on all counts .. while metadata helps for some things in this area I have a real need to be able to manually organize and group my files so going fully to a metadata approach is not in my best interest. I also disable spotlight on my media drives. It can be a real liability if you're dealing with very large files on a steady basis. Your machine spends too much time grinding through gigs and gigs of files to glean metadata that I don't need, and it doesn't always choose the best time to use up your drive bandwidth :rolleyes: Now if we could also (easily) disable the HFS+ "feature" that automatically defrags large files on access of them ... users of large media could be much better off!!

Also something important to consider is where your files need to be stored. Sure, you can build "rules" into your folksonomy based setups to select destinations for certain tags ... but in the end isn't it much simpler for power users to just point it to your desired folder? beejacon

But now if you expand this into the realm of a workplace localized/network document management system ... then I'm all ears. This type of approach makes a lot of sense for users who just end up saving a boatload of files loose to their ~/Documents folder. Also for business related stuff it's a CRM built into your OS .. you can't ask for much nicer than that! Picture an Open Directory based data collection/backup system that automatically pulls all correspondances, files and anything related into sets based on tags, when your job is done you hit the archive button. Right now you pay big $$ for systems like this. OSX server could do this quite easily (relative term!) with the right hooks in place given this type of approach. Also throw in all the Time Machine data ... and wow. You can kill a lot of birds with that stone.
 
#17 ·
I definitely would appreciate a hybrid of this, but at the same time most of my computer experience has been in the last three years and I have a hard time thinking outside of the 'folder' as it were. I suck at tagging things on my blog so I can find them later, and I can see something similar happening with this. I realize I would probably eventually come up with a system that works, but it would require some time and trial/error. It seems from the comments presented so far that I am not the only one.