[elroth]

glide, you seem to be saying that piling papers on top of each other is how you are best organized, and how you work best.
Well, many of us are highly organized in a different way - we have hundreds, even thousands of folders organized hierarchically, sometimes eight levels deep. And we know how to find what we're looking for by drilling down quickly (by click-and-hold or right click on the Documents folder in the dock, for example). It's important enough that I'm waiting to buy a new computer until Leopard lets me do that.
Also, I don't pile papers in stacks on the desk, i put them in files in the filing cabinet (except for ones that need to be dealt with soon - for those, stacks could be useful).

[glide]

Quote:

---

But that's my point: the fact that a stack is in some way a "group" of files -- identified by one particular file/icon -- is the only way in which Stacks' interface is analogous to a real-world stack of papers.

---

Well, maybe I misunderstood. Your original statement was as follows: "The only thing that's truly analogous is the idea that you can group files together." A feature that groups files together does not necessarily include the concept that the icons representing such groupings might vary based on the appearance of the actual items grouped. So one would think that the variable dock icon is a separate feature/issue, providing another point of analogy.

Quote:

---

Like folders in the Finder, Stacks is a computer-interface element roughly inspired by a real-world concept. However, just like folders, Stacks isn't limited by real-world restrictions, so it can provide the user with additional functionality. On a computer, I can click a button to sort a folder's contents by name, date, last modified, size, etc. Should Apple remove this feature just because I can't do that with a real-world folder? If your answer is "no," then why should Stacks' displays be artificially limited?

---

I follow your rationale, but my answer is, "No." Here's the reason: It is perfectly acceptable for Apple to limit the functionality of Stacks in a way that focuses it to serve whatever purpose it was intended to serve. As an example, consider the Trash. Functionality of the Trash could have included internal pockets (automatically activated) for different categories of items so that a user desiring to go back and root through their trash might do so more efficiently. Although not commonly seen in practice, this sort of segmentation is something that can be achieved easily with real-world trash bins, but in order to keep the purpose and performance of the Trash both simple and focused, Apple has chosen not to include it. From my point of view, that is perfectly acceptable. Similarly, it is certainly appropriate to place artificial limitations on Stacks if one is doing so in order to simplify and clearly establish its purpose. The fact that a feature such as Stacks is easily capable of providing additional functionality is never sufficient reason to present that functionality.

[glide]

Quote:

---

glide, you seem to be saying that piling papers on top of each other is how you are best organized, and how you work best.

---

No, actually I'm not saying that at all! In fact, I only occasionally have a stack on my real-life desk. Everything is carefully orgnized in my file cabinets. I make it a point to get things into folders in the file cabinets as quickly as possible. On my computer, though, I have approximately 20 icons sitting on the right side of my desktop; things that I haven't gotten around to filing via the Finder. (If I were running Leopard, I would probably put these items in a Stack.) In the Dock, I have a special Applications folder which gives me hierarchical access to a bunch of applications that I may need occasionally. I find that I don't use it very often even though I've set it up. I tend to go right to the Finder.

Quote:

---

...we have hundreds, even thousands of folders organized hierarchically, sometimes eight levels deep. And we know how to find what we're looking for by drilling down quickly (by click-and-hold or right click on the Documents folder in the dock, for example).

---

In my opinion, you should still be able to do so. I can see this ability coexisting with stacks. I think it would be great if Apple somehow restored that functionality but as a feature associated with typical folders in the Finder, not Stacks. (Just my preference.)

[JaxbNimbel]

Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard has removed a feature ( hierarchical dock menus ) from the dock that goes way back to Mac OS X 10.2 Jaguar!
Power users who've organized all of their data based on this premise are not just going to change and relocate all of their data because of an Apple GUI trick or whim! Get real!
Fix stacks Apple! At the very least add the old functionality back in some way!

And dont forget to file your complaint about Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard with Apple here...
http://www.apple.com...ack/macosx.html

[Edited to remove all-cap formatting.]

[Panglos]

Quote:

---

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!

---

Planned obsolescence--a concept from the automotive industry in the 1970s and 1980s. Remember how well that panned out, consolidating Detroit's global domination?

[garyg12]

Directory utility programs that originally appeared on the Amiga 15 years ago are much easier to use. One, Directory Opus, was ported to Windows some years ago.
I'd like to see a shareware author write such a program for the Mac

[John_Sawyer]

Quote:

---

It is perfectly acceptable for Apple to limit the functionality of Stacks in a way that focuses it to serve whatever purpose it was intended to serve.

---

No, it's not perfectly acceptable, since Stacks pointlessly breaks something that many people found very useful, and which could have been included in Stacks, with no impingement on the concept of Stacks. If the old ability to view folders had been included in Stacks, I doubt if you would have claimed that it violated the pure purposes of Stacks--you would have accepted it as another Stacks feature.
It all boils down to this: Under previous versions of OS X, it was very handy to be able to click on folder icons in the Dock, and see a Finder-like listing of the items in that folder. That feature has been removed. Stacks doesn't include that very useful behavior. It could, along with all of the new Stacks behavior--there's no conflict in having both the old and new in Stacks. That's the main point. It's pointless to try to rationalize why this simple behavior should no longer be available, included in Stacks, just because Apple has decided it so, or that you find it unnecessary.
I remember the early days of Hypercard, with its card size limited to 512 x 384 since that was the only screen size available, and then non-Apple companies figured out how to shoehorn video cards into the Mac to run big external screens. The author of Hypercard was asked if he planned to allow it to make bigger cards. He said it wouldn't make any sense to have cards larger than 512 x 384, even with large screens, due to some mysterious "perfection" and "optimization" factors he believed to be inherent in (or that he wrote into) that size. It turned out he was wrong, and with many loud complaints (including mine), it was only a few more months before Hypercard had user-selectable card sizes. There was even a rumor that a variable-sized Hypercard was already available in Europe, but that may have been a hack. Hooray for hacks!

[John_Sawyer]

I don't know whether Hurley42's take on one reason Apple makes changes many people dont like, and breaks things and doesn't fix many of them until the next major-point increment of OS X, is to increase user desire for buying the next version of OS X, butit certainly sometimes seems that way, doesn't it? Could that have been one reason Apple didn't include so many of the carefully-constructed Mac OS elements that were developed prior to OS X, and only gradually brought many of them back into subsequent versions of OS X? The real motivations as to why someone does something are what matter, but unless someone makes some inside knowledge public, we won't know.
Another working model of Apple's OS X development, may have been to throw out and change as much as possible, and sit back and wait to hear from users about what they were really missing. If Apple didn't hear back from enough users about something that was changed or thrown out, then Apple decided Apple was right, and went on to spend time on other things. Hence the usefulness of making sure Apple knows about our complaints, by sending them bug reports, wish lists, etc. None of this is whining.
But I think we can agree that most, maybe all, of the undesirable changes and things that break, are due to excess zeal, ego, deadlines, inertia, being out of touch with reality, etc., and the good changes we don't like initially, are due to Apple thinking up some genuinely better ways of doing some things. Throwing out hierarchical menus in favor of Stacks, isn't one of these genuinely better ways.

[bastion]

I remember the early days of Hypercard, with its card size limited to 512 x 384 since that was the only screen size available, and then non-Apple companies figured out how to shoehorn video cards into the Mac to run big external screens. The author of Hypercard was asked if he planned to allow it to make bigger cards. He said it wouldn't make any sense to have cards larger than 512 x 384, even with large screens, due to some mysterious "perfection" and "optimization" factors he believed to be inherent in (or that he wrote into) that size. It turned out he was wrong, and with many loud complaints (including mine), it was only a few more months before Hypercard had user-selectable card sizes. There was even a rumor that a variable-sized Hypercard was already available in Europe, but that may have been a hack. Hooray for hacks!
I have to say, you don't remember the early days of HyperCard very well, because you've made some interesting errors.
HyperCard was a personal project started by one of Apple's chief engineers when the high-end Mac was the Plus, only much later appropriated by the company. And it wasn't just any engineer; it was the guy who was responsible for the Mac's graphics subsystem and he was doing it for his own use. As such he almost certainly heavily optimized it for his high-end (512 x 342 x 1 bit) machine. That optimization by someone deeply familiar with the graphics hardware and software in use would have made extending it to handle arbitrary screen size and (more importantly) depths a very expensive task for a free product. But it would have been necessary to commit to that (or kill the product) because...
HyperCard didn't actually ship until after the Mac II, so Macs already had screens that were larger than 512x342 by the time any end user saw it. Given that they were $7,000 machines, they weren't exactly the mainstream environment in the beginning, but everyone knew they were coming.

[ajunginator]

Sent to where the actually listen:
http://www.apple.com...ack/macosx.html
Hello, very excited to use Leopard, but now my dock is completely inefficient for launching my applications and files as it used to be. For example, I have my Documents folder in my dock. I use folders to sort everything that I have. With the old folder in the Dock, all I had to do was click and hold and get my listing of document folders, then fly off to the hierarchal menu of the sub folder and bamm! my document is opening, all in one click. Now, I have to click on this stack, that changes all the time, scan for the folder, click on the folder, which opens in the finder, scan for the file which might be below the scroll line and then double-click again, if I opened the wrong folder, I then have to do the whole process again (and that is even if it is displayed in the grid). I also have as many do, the Applications folder in my dock. Many of my applications such as my Adobe products come in their own folders in the Application folder. Now to open Photoshop I have to click on the Application stack, then click on the folder and then open it from the finder. I know that I could store the Application directly in the Dock, but sometimes I don't have it there as my Dock as I am not using it as much.
Believe me, I think stacks are cool, but not when you have a folder with folders or with many items.
So, please add as a third option, View as Menu
and have it able to be used as such when the Dock is on the right or left side of the screen, not just grid.
Also, add key-combos to get this to come up as an override.
Also, in Grid mode, could you add a scroll bar to the side?? Then at least we could scroll through our list of files. And clicking on a folder in Grid mode, instead of opening the folder in the Finder, refresh the grid to show the contents of the grid with a UNIX-like ".." icon to go one level up. That would make grid mode actually useful.
Cheers and hope that this is in a subsequent update.
Sincerely your crippled user, Andrew Jung.