Finder list view selection and stuff

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From: Paul Mison
Subject: Finder list view selection and stuff
Date: 20:21 on 07 Apr 2004
In every Finder, ever, up to and including Mac OS X 10.2, you could 
drag a rectangle to make your selection in both list and icon views. 
This meant that you could do some slightly clever things in a list 
with disclosed items (you know, that little triangle pointing down 
instead of across? Yes, them), such as selecting the top level 
folders only by dragging a narrow vertical selection.

Well, I've just realised that you can't do that in 10.3's Finder. 
(I'm very tempted to call it rude names, by the way. Loser, perhaps?) 
No, in 10.3, you don't get a little rectangle. You just select every 
folder as you go up the list. So you can't do anything clever to just 
view the top folders. You can't even do tricks to do with opening the 
parent of the folder and playing with option click to disclose, 
because

* the Finder doesn't handle 'disclose all' properly (should be option 
click, but actually this only works for the immediate children)
* the Finder doesn't enforce a single view per folder (as a true 
spatial interface would, and as the pre Mac OS X Finder did), so it 
wouldn't record your change properly anyway

Oh, and what do you expect to happen if you drag a selection like:

folder
   child_one
   child_two

to the Desktop? Well, it thinks you want to keep child_one and 
child_two inside folder. (I thought it might make child_one and 
child_two wind up at the same level as folder; I think the Mac OS 
Finder would have, anyway.) Of course, it doesn't copy the view 
settings or anything. No, that would be TOO EASY.

Oh, and sometimes Finder forgets how to respond to command keys. 
Like, oooh, command W. Or command O. You know, little things, like 
BEHAVING LIKE EVERY OTHER FUCKING APP ON THE MAC EVER.

Right. I need to move files about. Time to start up a Mac OS machine 
and connect the Ethernet network to this one.

-- 
:: paul
:: historic light cone

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