Can’t find my way home

By Adam Gillitt, 15 December, 2001

For those of you familiar with my writing, I have been a torch-bearer for OS X and all it offers since my time at ZDNN. I have been using it pretty much exclusively since it was released, and for the most part I am completely comfortable with it. It is stable, fast (with 10.1, anyway) and addresses all of my needs. I am learning simple Unix commands and how to use the terminal to control and modify OS X’s capabilities. These days, I only drop back into OS 9 to play some games and use Quark.

With all my enthusiasm and experience using OS X, there is still one major area of the OS that I can’t get used to: file navigation. It always trips me up. I try to go one place and end up in another. I can’t remember where to find things. Open and Save dialog boxes do not consistently operate the same way as Finder windows. The spatial relationship between files and directories is changed from OS 9 and lacks its consistency. Ars Technica first raised this issue in its review of the public beta, and I would like to expand upon it.

The primary example of this is in the different concepts of the Desktop in OS 9 and OS X. In OS 9, (although technically a folder in the file structure) the Desktop is set up as the starting point of file navigation, or the root of the computer, and is where the mounted volumes can found. It is always in the background, and is a handy storage space for frequently used documents, applications and aliases.

Under OS X, this behavior can be approximated, but instead of being the starting point for navigation, the Desktop is just another folder. It is now located in an entirely new place (/Users/[current user name]/Desktop) even though its contents can be displayed like the OS 9 Desktop. Mounted volumes now appear in a separate location, called “Computer,” or the equivalent of “/” under UNIX, which is now the navigation starting point, This structure makes some sense for Finder navigation, but causes inconsistencies with Open and Save dialogs.

Oddly, the root folder (or Computer, as Apple refers to it) is represented by an iMac icon in the toolbar, regardless of what model Macintosh you are using. Maybe it would be gilding the lily, but how hard would it be to make the Root/Computer icon at least match the model of the computer it is running on?

Another confusing behavior is allowing multiple windows of the same directory to be open at the same time. In OS 9, a directory can be open in one window at a time only. When a user navigates through windows and directories and tries to open a directory that is open in another window, the window already containing that directory becomes active. It is disorienting enough to have a screen full of a jumble of windows without some of them being duplicates and causing more confusion.

When I was using OS 9 on a daily basis, I had my files organized at the root of my main hard drive in seven basic categories: Apps, Documents, Downloads, Fonts, Music, System Folder and Things. Inside each of these folders I further divided things into categories. This took some preparation, but gave me a system that made sense to me and that I could quickly navigate to find what I needed.

Although OS X allows for multiple users ably and more powerfully than OS 9, its Unix underpinnings require a rigid directory structure. Many installers and applications require that files be located in specific and exact locations, which will not work if they are misplaced. Each user also has his or her own set of directories within the Users directory – other than applications, just about everything each user needs is in his or her Home directory. This does not leave for much flexibility for organizing files according to the user’s needs.

My OS X Applications folder is now a jumble; some applications install themselves in subdirectories, others just install the package directly into the Applications folder. I find it takes me a lot longer to find things than it did under OS 9. Is the Terminal in the Applications folder or the Utilities folder? Furthermore, all my OS 9 applications, which get plenty of use, are on another volume.

Navigating around directories with the Finder has other complexities as well. Depending on how you view folders, your spatial relationship differs. Column view has a horizontal orientation: As you progress to the right you delve deeper and deeper into subdirectories. Icon view has a more vertical orientation; you feel like you are going down as you open subdirectories. List view has a mix of the two; as you navigate into subdirectories, you can go both vertically and horizontally, depending on whether you click on the triangle to reveal the contents indented within the existing listing or double click on the folder icon to show the next subdirectory.

Resolving this takes persistence; each different user has a different preference for how to use the file system. I find that I use different views depending on what task I am performing. I like to stay in Icon view, because it is the least cluttered. However, when I need more information about a file, I switch to List view. And Column view is useful for when I am copying files or trying to find something and want a clear trail back to the Root.

But each time I change views, the spatial orientation of the file system changes. Honestly, it gets confusing sometimes. I never play around with X’s Finder windows with the toolbar hidden, causing a new window to open for every directory and subdirectory. Although this behavior is a welcome holdover for some from OS 9, I find it causes too much clutter and confusion, having to click on a series of windows before finding the right one.

I have become a real fan of single window file navigation, and its similarity to a Web browser. But some of the differences throw me off, especially the Back button. I expect it to take me up one subdirectory each time I click it. Instead, it works like a browser history button, taking you back to each directory you have visited, in order, while that window has been open. I will find myself sometimes opening a new Finder window to a specific subdirectory, then hitting the Back button expecting to navigate up the file hierarchy.

There are two solutions to this problem within the Finder: Users can modify the toolbar to include a Path button, that when clicked on shows a vertical popup menu of the hierarchy, even when chosen from the horizontally oriented Column view. The other solution, another familiar shortcut from OS 9, is the ability to Command-click on the icon in the menu bar of a Finder window to bring up the same vertically oriented file structure.

Well, that is how the Finder deals with file management. Further clouding the mix are the Open and Save dialogs under OS X. The default for Open dialogs is to show files in Column view, regardless of how the user chooses to view files in the Finder. Although there is a familiar popup menu at the top of the dialog, it’s not a hierarchical list like it is in OS 9. Instead, it’s a combination of the current directory, the Desktop and Home folders, your iDisk, Favorites and a short list of recently viewed folders.

The default Save dialog box is more cryptic, at first only displaying the entry box for the filename; the same popup menu found in Open dialogs; and a disclosure triangle. When the triangle is clicked, the same Column view file structure is displayed.

If your dialog box opens in one directory while the file you need is several levels down on another volume, there is no easy way to get to the Root to select the other drive. The default display for Open and Save dialogs shows only two columns at a time, not the whole file structure. Under OS 9, if a user types Command-D while in one of these dialogs, it brings the user to the OS 9 Desktop, which is also Root.

Under OS X, Command-D brings the user to his or her Desktop folder, which has nothing to do with the Root. Instead, the user has to manually scroll the view of the columns to the left to get to the Root and then select the other volume and navigate down into it.

Now, if I added my most used locations as Favorites, they would immediately pop up whenever I tried to open or save anything. But I work on lots of different projects and directories, not the same one all the time, so that really isn’t practical for my needs.

As if that wasn’t enough complexity, Classic applications still use the OS 9 Open and Save dialog boxes. The Classic style of dialogs works very differently from that in OS X, employing a vertical spatial orientation.

My last gripe is a bug. It’s a bug that has been in OS X since I first dabbled with pre-beta copies. And it is an annoying bug: Windows do not maintain their View preferences. I don’t know what causes it, but from one day to the next, I can’t be sure if my files will be organized the way I specified. Folders don’t keep their custom views, nor do they stay hooked into the global settings. Column widths change and icons don’t keep their size or stay aligned.

This issue is something that Apple should have taken care of a long time ago. One could argue that the structure of the file system and the way the Finder and Open/Save dialogs work is a philosophical choice on Apple’s behalf, or required by the Unix underpinnings, but the inability of the Finder to retain custom settings is a real flaw, and should be addressed.

All of this together has left a seasoned Mac veteran such as myself kind of frustrated. There is not one consistent metaphor or system for file navigation when using OS X, so instead of navigating instinctively as I do under OS 9, I am always fumbling. Yeah, I muddle through, but the elegance and simplicity and instinctive relationships between directory and file locations are missing.

I have two tricks that I have employed to help myself navigate around my Mac more easily. I created a Downloads folder and put its icon in my Finder Toolbar; my computer is on a network and I want the files to be available to the other people using it, which requires special placement under OS X. I don’t quite remember where it is, but I have the link always there. Any directory can be added to that toolbar; I recommend customizing the icon so you can tell one from another.

My other trick is to use a launcher where all my most used applications and directories are located. I use Snard, which I discussed in a previous column; DragThing is also really useful for organizing.

I am interested to know what your experience navigating files with OS X has been like. Do you know of any utilities that make it easier? Or do you have any suggestions that have worked for you? Do you have gripes that I haven’t covered? Post your comments below and share your knowledge.

— Adam Gillitt (adam@gillitt.com) is currently waging war against made-up words like Altria, Beneful, Wellbutrin and (shudder) Pentium. Unsurprisingly, the last one is the only one MS Word doesn’t flag as misspelled. As you might expect with observations like these, he is currently unemployed, but he has plenty of time to maintain his own site at http://adam.gillitt.com.

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