> Or how about the fact that you can't get full file paths shown in the default file manager, I often know what directory I want to get to but have to figure out what maze of files I have to go through to get there.
Did you mean MacOS?
Did you mean MacOS?
- Drag and drop the file into a terminal to insert the path
- Copy and paste the file into the terminal, which inserts the path
- Press Command+I to show a popover describing the path to the file
- Enable the "show path bar" option in the Finder's "view" menu, which will show a nice graphical representation of the path to the current location at the bottom of the window (which lets you copy the POSIX path to each item)
- For more advanced users, run the command `defaults write com.apple.finder _FXShowPosixPathInTitle -bool YES` to show the full path to the current folder in each Finder window title
THANK YOU!
- use columns view
Ah, and also if you alt-rightclick on an item, you can copy its path to the clipboard. Or you can open the ‘Edit’ menu with alt pressed and copy the path to the current folder. Apparently there's even a shortcut for this.
It's certainly fine if you work a lot locally with the Mac; but for me, the cost-effective thing has been to fumble around each time (since I only do this a few times a year) rather than memorize handling that I use so seldom.
Also, nothing to memorize about copy & paste or drag & drop. I would say you’re used to Linux GUIs not doing what you expect so the obvious solutions aren’t even considered.
Showing the Finder path bar is the more obvious option. Nautilus, the file browser on some Linux distros, supports this as well.
To a terminal. I thought Linux was the one where you needed to open a terminal to do basic things, yet from my experience it's usually MacOS that needs a terminal for such basic things as turning off mouse acceleration.
- Drag and drop the file into a terminal to insert the path
- Copy and paste the file into the terminal, which inserts the path
- Press Alt + Enter to see details describing the path to the file
- Press Ctrl+L to see full path. Or just use better file manager like Nemo
Seriously, Linux has a lot of UX issues, but hiding the full path of files is a problem that plagues literally every single OS file manager. It seems that at some point, all the major OS makers agreed that users are too stupid to understand a file hierarchy, and came up with tricks to hide it.
I find this annoying as well, but it only happens when you use quick access shortcuts. And then once you're in a sub folder it'll display the full path in the title bar provided you turn on "Display the full path in the title bar" in the Folder Options.
Navigating directly to c:\Users\MyUser\Downloads will also show the full path in the title bar.
It seems some of these shortcuts have "special" behaviours in explorer.
And this is why I find myself mostly in the text shell.
Were I to go graphical the minimum I want is a simple address bar that I can override the current path with a specified path at will.
Maybe a tree view like in Windows 95 Explorer just to pretty things up. Some of the modern comforts like thumbnail images would also be welcome.
I wish they would stop insulting their users who have taken the time to understand the underlying technicalities of a file system. All this should be user-configurable in a good file manager. SpaceFM and PcmanFM come closest to what I've specified.
That's not a difficult question. The only time it makes sense to expose the internals is if you build a specialist tool for people who like internals exposed.
This means that no, it shouldn't be "user configurable" either. You don't want a combinatorial explosion of states in your UI for a tiny set of users in the general purpose case, and you don't want to create a honking fat tool for specialists who'll only use the specialist path.
The computer industry is discovering what the mechanical tools industry has known for a while: You can build a general purpose tool that's simple & straightforward, or you can make a specialist tool.
Pretty much any specialist will be slightly unhappy with the specialist tool and modify it to their own requirements, but you can't build a specialist tool that makes even close to all specialists happy. The specialists will also continue to use the generalist tool if it gets the job done, but they'll complain every step of the way.
Terminal -> Finder:
open .
I made a Bash function:
function cdf {
DIR=$(osascript -e 'tell app "Finder" to POSIX path of (insertion location as alias)')
cd "$DIR"
}In macos I don't have to edit random .conf files in system/application directories just to make my wifi work correctly. The graphical UI is configurable enough that I rarely need to modify anything outside of my normal user directories.
Where as in ubuntu the forums/stack overflow usually say "go to this file at /sys/whatever and write in this". Hence the need for full file paths.
Quick example, because I'm trying to make my nas usable on a mac and it's given me a headache.
The first thing I do on any Mac is to drop into Terminal to run this:
defaults delete com.apple.systempreferences AttentionPrefBundleIDs
defaults write com.apple.finder _FXShowPosixPathInTitle -bool YESIt's quite a basic thing, most games include it in their settings yet it doesn't seem important enough to have a setting in the OS itself.