[Kent_A._Signorini]

Well, I was hoping this would be cleared up in Panther, but I guess it wasn't.
I'm still very confused by the setting "All windows" in the Finder's Show View Options. It seems to me that "All windows" should mean that ALL WINDOWS get these settings applied to them, regardless of "This window only" settings.
Could someone please explain, clearly, how a person should use these two options?
I perfer a consistant look to 99.9% of my folders and have just a few that I've set different options on. What I've been doing is going to each folder, choosing "All windows" from the View Options and then going on to the next folder.
The thing is that I don't want to have to setup EVERY single folder to settings that I want to see it with--I have thousands. I thought that removing the .DS_Store file makes the folder default to whatever is set in the "All windows" settings, but that doesn't seem to be working.
1. Could someone please explain the use/proper-use of the "Show view options"?
2. Does anyone have a script/shell-script that could walk through a hierarchy of folders and set them ALL to the "All windows" settings so that I only have to go and fiddle with the few exceptional ones where I do want something different?
Thanks.
Kent!

[sjbartnik]

I've also found this to be confusing sometimes, but I think I've identified a pattern that mostly works.
First, if you're like me and want almost all your windows to look the same, I think it matters how far up the hierarchy you are when you set All Windows. So if I want everything on the machine to look a certain way, I would highlight the Macintosh HD-level icon in the Finder and then use command-J to access the view options and set my All Windows settings.
In my observations this seems to affect all Finder windows below that level in terms of file/folder arrangement options and icon size. Sometimes you still never know what you're going to get when you open a new Finder window in terms of list/column/folder view but that really depends on how you open that Finder window.
Now I've also noticed that even after you've set your All Windows options, new folders that are created after the fact (such as when you install an application) often have their own settings, which you can fix manually by going into View Options and selecting All Windows instead of This window.
I can't promise that the above is true all the time. The mutability of Finder windows appears to be Apple's way of keeping us on our toes /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

[Kent_A._Signorini]

Thanks for the help. I've also experimented with all of this and have found a method that kinda works for me, too--go into each folder that ISN'T set for All windows and change it.
Unfortunately, that sucks. I wish Apple would offer predictability for something so simple.
Anyone else have methods that work? How about a script for me?
Thanks,
Kent!

[AKS9]

I understand it like this:
A window can have two settings:
1) It's own setting (This Window Only)
2) The common setting (All Windows)
So any window will have the All Windows setting, unless it is set to This Window Only. If you give it the All Windows setting, and change the All Windows setting, then it will only change the windows that are set to "All Windows". The windows set to "This Window Only" will stay how they are.
However, column view overrides this, since you can navigate throughout your whole drive in column view regardless of other views. This is also why there isn't an "This Window Only" or "All Windows" setting when in column view.