[MW Forums]

Few OS X 10.5 features have generated as much feedback as Stacks, Leopard's organizational feature aimed at keeping your Desktop uncluttered. Dan Frakes looks at what works -- and what doesn't -- with Stacks, and proposes a few fixes. more

[Axl]

I Agree. I specially find the changing icons really confusing. They certainly do nothing to sell the stack experience above previous solutions. In particular, I want my hierarchal menus back. I'll gladly take enhancements, however. One would be an option to place a (smart) stack in the dock with aliases for ALL my apps. Putting the Apps folder there is useless because of all the other crap in there. Oh, and one for utilities. I also would like to decide how high a stack goes before it turns to grid view. I find the items are too few and too far apart at the moment.

[David_A._Alden]

You can get grid display consistently if you have the dock on the side rather than the bottom.
(I keep my dock on the left and I wanted to see what 'fan' looked like. It isn't even a view option. I was so confused until I temporarily moved my dock to the bottom.)

[Hurley42]

The lack of perfection in stacks should be expected since Apple plans to release a new OS every 12 -18 months. They NEED stuff to work on - purposely. Otherwise their business model would not hold up of milking people out of money for "new" OS's every year or so. I highly doubt Apple wanted this feature to be perfect out of the gate. They wanted it to look cool in the retail stores to sell computers - not to make current users happy - since they already have our money.
Welcome to capitalism!

[Ken_Franklin]

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The lack of perfection in stacks should be expected since Apple plans to release a new OS every 12 -18 months. They NEED stuff to work on - purposely. Otherwise their business model would not hold up of milking people out of money for "new" OS's every year or so. I highly doubt Apple wanted this feature to be perfect out of the gate. They wanted it to look cool in the retail stores to sell computers - not to make current users happy - since they already have our money.
Welcome to capitalism!

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Remember the hill dwarf's corollary to Clarke's Law:
Sufficiently advanced stupidity is indistinguishable from malice.
--Ken (which means we err when we ASSUME it is malice - after all, there is a large Reality Distortion Field in play) Franklin

[jmincey]

Dan, thanks for this article; it's well thought out, reasoned, and to the point.

[LearningMac]

I like some things about stacks. Drop all of iLife or iWork in a folder and make a stack out of it--perfect, and it saves space. Folders we go to often (like games) make great stacks. However, the blue folders seem a little retro. And I wish, as others have pointed out, that I could select which icon sits at the front. Sorting by date last accessed would be nice. A right-click, Hide Folder in Stack would be helpful (so I don't have to have 15 Adobe folders show in the grid). How about throwing in skimming across the contents of the folder like iPhoto and picking the icon for the stack?

[Rhywun]

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I highly doubt Apple wanted this feature to be perfect out of the gate.

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I suppose they deliberately crippled Time Machine and Spaces, too?
Businesses do lots of things to attract customers, but putting out crap is generally not very successful in the long run.

[doglesby]

...for the Downloads stack, not the Documents stack. It's great for folders where the contents change, like Downloads or smart folders (note to self: try using a smart folder as a stack). What bugs me is that the only way to delete a file in a stack is to drag it to the trash. I never drag files to the trash. Couldn't I at least right click and select "Move to Trash"?

[John_Dewar]

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In particular, I want my hierarchal menus back. I'll gladly take enhancements, however. One would be an option to place a (smart) stack in the dock with aliases for ALL my apps.

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I never really used Docked folders, but I love the download stack, so I suppose I benefited from the new features. However, I want two enhancements to stacks: arbitrary stacks (smart stacks), and I agree that we need application stacks. However, I would go so far as to suggest that Application Stacks are allowed in the Application half of the dock. For example, right now I have a stack with the Adobe Master Collection aliases. It would be much better if I could just have the bridge icon represent all of them in the app side. I'd also like Final Cut Studio to be stacked. And while I'm at it, I'd like my text editors stacked, my IDE's stacked, my web applications stacked, the system utilities stacked...I could really clean up my completely overstuffed dock.
Smart stacks -- It's hard to believe they're not in there already. If you make a smart folder and drag it to the dock, it just sits there and if you click on it you're taken to its finder window. Why can't it turn into a stack? One could simulate arbitrary docks by using Spotlight comments...a little applescript droplet utility could add the comments to files you drag to it, and if you stored it in the smart folder at the base of the stack you would have an arbitrary stacks solution. Anyway, that's a workaround utilizing a feature they didn't give us, so oh well...
But arbitrary stacks would be very useful. Sometimes certain projects utilize folders that are in different places on the hard drive, and it's not practical to reorganize them. I'd like to have instant access to my Final Cut Capture Scratch folder for a specific project, for example, but keep the rest of the files in another location. Or it would be nice to store the code archive for a programming manual within easy reach of your project files. Then stacks would make sense. They wouldn't just be glorified folders.

[lwdesign]

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The lack of perfection in stacks should be expected since Apple plans to release a new OS every 12 -18 months. They NEED stuff to work on - purposely. Otherwise their business model would not hold up of milking people out of money for "new" OS's every year or so. I highly doubt Apple wanted this feature to be perfect out of the gate. They wanted it to look cool in the retail stores to sell computers - not to make current users happy - since they already have our money.

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I'm not used to seeing this kind of "life sucks and they're all out to get us" viewpoint in a MacWorld forum, as Mac users are normally better educated and more intelligent than the rank and file.
Apple seems to have made a bad choice with Stacks that what seems like the majority of Mac users dislike. A bit of reprogramming could bring back the functionality that's now missing. Apple has a consistent track record of pleasing its customers and turning them into zealots. I wouldn't count Apple as the evil empire just yet. With enough negative reaction, which I'm sure Apple is seeing, Steve and Co. will do the right thing and bring back the functionality we most miss. I've been a Mac user since 1989 and what keeps me on the platform is that Apple does a far better job of pleasing its customers with great interfaces and ease of use.

[scotty321]

Dan, you are the man! Thank you for posting an EXCELLENT ARTICLE on the #1 biggest problem with Leopard -- THE FACT THAT APPLE MADE THE DOCK ALMOST COMPLETELY UNUSABLE in Leopard. Your article sums up everything excellently, and I wish Apple was listening. Even more, I wish Apple wouldn't release things without testing them on their users first.

[folklore]

Thanks for the sane, sober analysis of the problems with stacks.

[butisitart]

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You can no longer open a folder youve placed in the Dock by simply clicking on it; there isnt even a way to do so by clicking while holding down a modifier key.

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Ah ... but there is a key combination that will open the stack's folder directly. Use Command-click on the stack icon .... and the folder opens. /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif At least it works for me.
There is an anomaly (bug?) associated with this Command-click feature. If I Command-click on the Downloads stack, and the resulting window is set to open in Cover Flow, it does not open to the contents of the Downloads folder, it opens to the enclosing directory which is Home with the Downloads folder selected. This happens with any other stack too. Very odd behavior.
I've also contributed this hint at MacOSXHints ... but I'm waiting for it to be posted.
If anything, Apple should give you the choice for a stack to act like "folder classic" View as > Fan, Grid, Folder. Why would you take away a function, and sell it as something new & improved?