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Open is Cmd-o

Expecting Return ("Enter" on Win PC) to open a file is a convention you learned from other OSes. Conversely, imagine my confusion having grown up with Mac OS and being shocked at Windows opening a file I expected to edit the filename of by pressing Enter? :)

Deleting a file? Command... wait for it... Delete

I mean, all of your gripes seem to be about expecting behaviour from other OSes/software and you're not open to learning something new. Different operating systems have different conventions and ways of allowing the user to interact with them.

There are myriad key-commands which can also make your life easier, and they are all pretty easy to remember. I mean, I learned all this stuff when I was literally like 6 years old. As a child I was able to easily remember literally every key command available to the user, in every program I used, including fairly complex DTP software like Quark XPress.

>Return ("Enter" on Win PC) to open a file is a convention you learned from other OSes.

Yes, every other OS on the planet, since the beginning of time. This is just Apple being weird for the sake of being weird.

Hey, I'm not saying the person has to like it, but they're complaining at length about an OS strictly because they are unfamiliar with it.

Also, sorry to disappoint you, but pressing Return has entered name-edit mode for files and folders since literally the very first Macintosh, running System 1.0. I just tried it. I'd love to hear the long list of GUI-based OSes from January 1984 (or earlier) that used Enter to open/execute the selected file/folder, though.

I never said GUI-based. And the list of OSes using Enter to execute commands from <1984 is:

1. All of them.

Even the Alto which Apple... ahem... were "inspired" by.

Yeah, we were talking about a graphical file manager, and selecting a file/folder/executable and pressing Return. Not the same as entering text commands in a CLI. I can see why you'd try to make this argument if you were conflating the two though. /shrug

Guess which came first? It was Finder, and with ⌘O.

Alto had a graphical file manager way before Apple, because of course it did.

Good evening downvoters.

It was called "Neptune", so go ahead and duckduckgo that instead of downvoting facts you don't like.

Not sure I'd take advice on UI/UX behavior from someone who professes to not leave a terminal window... 35 years after better things came along. I know I live back when terminals were all we had. Boy were we happy when that wasn't true anymore.

No matter how much you like typing everything in a terminal, it is the least efficient environment for file system navigation. It lists file systems in 1-D where you...have....to...type...out...paths and cache the organization in your own memory. The poor UX of the terminal leads to lot of bad habits, like shortening names to acronyms, reducing hierarchy for typing convenience, and dumping files an unorganized mess (looking at you usr/local/bin). GUI file navigation is 2-D or even 3-D organizations of files that together with spotlight indexing I know I outrun terminal navigators by 10X in a real-world file system.

> The "finder", which is a terrible name btw, is a completely useless file explorer.

…it finds files. Is "Explorer" somehow a better name? No comment on it being useless, as that's not something I can respond to, obviously.

> For everything a shortcut is needed, and they never make sense.

Uh, no? You can literally do everything with your mouse, and they all make sense as the other commenters have mentioned.

> don't spend too much time scrolling on top of a folder or it will autommatically expand

You can configure that, it's call the "spring loading delay" in System Preferences.

> first off you have airdrop, which I never enabled and never will

That sounds like a "you" problem.

> They are not recent files created via command line, but some random collection of files that Finder thought they knew better about what to call recent, a complete waste of your time.

They're recent as in what you opened recently.

> Next you have Applications: What a wonderful idea, to list programs in the file explorer, even though they cannot be interacted in the usual way not have any file navigation to be seen.

You can copy them, move them around, delete them…I fail to see your point.

> I suppose let you aggregate files by color for children that haven't been taught about folders yet.

As opposed to the mature adult writing this.

I was about to call you out on ⌘-Down opening a file but I just tried it and was amazed that it works (most of us do ⌘-o or just double click).

Deleting a file is ⌘-Delete.

Everything in the Finder sidebar is removable (I've removed Recents and Tags, though I find Airdrop and iCloud Drive useful) and you can add custom stuff if you want something else (I always put my home folder at the top of the sidebar, it used to be there by default on earlier OSes).

⌘-Q is useful for closing apps, but I usually just open up the switcher (⌘-Tab) then while keeping ⌘ pressed you can tab over to other apps and just press Q to quit them.

⌘↓ mirrors ⌘↑ for going up a directory, except if you invoke it on a file the logical thing is to open it rather than navigate.

You've spent half of the post ranting about a sidebar you're free to rearrange, add new folders to it and remove the ones you don't like!

Honestly, not understanding a difference between file tagging and file hierarchy is something I wouldn't expect here on HN.

Also, you can, wait for it, create your own tags, rearrange them and remove the ones you don't like!