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Comment by pan69 | Hacker News Reader

When I started using a Mac many years ago, I also could not believe how terrible Finder is. This is software from the "design" company.

One of the biggest pitfalls I ran into at the time (and remember from the top of my head) was that when you copy a folder, and a folder with the same name already exists at the destination, it will quietly replace it, rather than giving me a dialog asking if I want to Replace or Merge.

Oh, that I can't switch on/off show hidden files, I have to run some command line command to do that...

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You can press Command-Shift-. (period) to toggle hidden files. This isn’t very discoverable, though.

You can also hold Option while stopping a folder to get an additional Merge button, but at least one folder needs to have unique items.

Considering there's a Unix underneath, the logical of showing "dotfiles" that are usually hidden is possibly the connection.

But MacOS keyboard shortcuts have always been undiscoverable unless they were part of the menu, which is a problem.

That has changed. I'm not sure when but it definitely asks me if I want to replace or merge.

Just checked and this behaviour came with Lion in 2011.

But not changed enough, I can't merge everything from the top, I can only do that whenever the first Mergeable conflict appears, but there could be a bunch more of conflicts with Replace option only

⇧˖⌘˖. (Shift-Command-Period) will show/hide hidden files in Finder

A shortcut that isn't visible in any of Finder's menus. Which makes it virtually undiscoverable.

Finder is full of these kinds of hidden secrets.

Of course MacOS asks you what you want to do when you copy over a folder and has done so forever. The keyboard shortcut to show hidden files has been mentioned already (it's even a logical one for once in Apple-Land) and the terminal command is straightforward and logical as well. Should they include a perma-toggle in the UI as well? I, personally, think yes but I also think it's pretty consistent with a certain approach to UI design to not include said button.

They certainly design --- to look good at first glance, but not necessarily be practical.

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