Comment by aloer | Hacker News Reader

Comment by aloer | Hacker News Reader

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Finder is probably the worst part of using a Mac. But explorer isn’t that much better either

I am currently forced to use windows and it’s near impossible to get anything done with it without feeling frustrated. It simply doesn’t follow my speed and line of thought on anything.

I am quite shocked after using Mac for 7 years how little progress or even regression windows 10 went through. Without making this into a windows bashing thread only the explorer related things I can think of:

- unzip hidden behind right click or freaking menu button. And a dialog with checkbox to “show files after extraction”. Mac: double click. New folder. Done

- rename through right click or f2. Laptop means fn+f2. Mac: press enter, type, done

- quicklook on Mac is the single greatest feature ever. Mainly because it works in file dialogs. Need to upload a file but don’t know which one? Just quicklook. Windows afaik has no equivalent

- somewhat related, maximum length of file paths. There is no excuse for that in 2019. If unzipping fails because of this the software is just plain bad

And this is just explorer which I barely use. Shocking

Interesting! Having used a Mac for 6 months after years of Windows, I had quite the opposite feelings:

> unzip hidden behind right click or freaking menu button

By default double click or Enter will cause Explorer to peak into .zip files, which is more natural to me as I might not want to unzip the whole file to see the contents.

> rename through right click or f2

The fact that in Finder the Enter button does not actually enter a directory or run/open a file but let me rename it was the biggest surprise. I personally rename filesystem objects rarely, while I 'execute' them all the time, it does not make sense!

> quicklook on Mac is the single greatest feature ever. Mainly because it works in file dialogs. (...) Windows afaik has no equivalent

Fully agree - it is a very useful feature. Explorer also has it under 'Preview pane' name, but it's disabled by default. I think that Mac version is better, because if I remember correctly it does preview PDF files, while Explorer does not. Other typical files work fine.

> somewhat related, maximum length of file paths.

Fully agree.

As for QuickLook on Windows I can recommend the brilliantly named "QuickLook": https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/p/quicklook/9nv4bs3l1h4s

> The fact that in Finder the Enter button does not actually enter a directory or run/open a file but let me rename it was the biggest surprise. I personally rename filesystem objects rarely, while I 'execute' them all the time, it does not make sense!

You are right, I hadn’t thought of that. But there is an easy solution that imho in a way is better anyways:

CMD arrow allows you to navigate through file structure including drill down, I.e. open folder.

CMD o opens/runs any file selected (also opens folders so it’s a not-so-elegant replacement for open on enter)

This to me makes more sense though now that I think about it because it differentiates between running (potentially unsafe/slow) and quick keyboard navigation through folders. I admit the CMD arrow functionality is a bit hidden

I feel like much of that is a matter of convention. Why wouldn't you put extract in the right-click menu, which can be extended by any number of applications with whatever useful functions. It's just functional in a way that makes sense.

Renaming with anything other than Enter makes sense because Enter opens the file.

The file path thing is bizarre. Windows 10 supports a path length of 32767 characters. But last I checked you had to change a registry setting before it was the default. And getting W10 to respect a long file path in Python programmatically was a huge pain.

> Renaming with anything other than Enter makes sense because Enter opens the file.

Does it? Enter is “text confirmation, make new line”. With single line inputs it’s expected to work like a submit for e.g. a search. Submitting a file name change happens with enter on windows as well. Now if you rename with f2, then submit with enter and accidentally press enter a single time you suddenly have executed or opened something you only wanted to rename. Enter, the most prominent big button with a single function after space, suddenly becomes a completely orthogonal context sensitive option. That’s weird

And don’t get me started on the use of enter in Microsoft teams based on context of your message...

If you are in a list or ‘’’ code formatted block the first enter will break out and allow you to write plain text below in the same message, the second enter will send the message

> Enter is “text confirmation, make new line”.

Ehm. If you're in the middle of writing text, yes. Which you aren't if you're going through a directory with the explorer. "Enter" also activates buttons. Enter is always context-sensitive. It changes depending on the application and context. I don't see what's wrong with this.

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