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[packbat]

Warning: this is going to be very random and probably completely uninteresting. I'm only making an entry so I can remember it. End warning.

A few days ago, at the infamous ASME lounge, we were discussing the relative merits of Apple- and Microsoft-powered computers. After telling my favorite Mac-vs-PC story - the one where my lab mates and I set up IP printers on OSX 10.3.9 and Windows XP, respectively - I enthusiastically extended myself beyond my experience to sum up the difference as follows: Windows computers make most things consistently hard, where Macs make the tasks they expect you to do incredibly easy but leave everything else even harder. One of the participants in the debate replied to this by saying he'd never seen anything that he wanted to do that Apple had not thought of already.

Well, here's one they've missed in 10.3.9. When you're using Finder in "View: As List" mode and select a folder, the right arrow opens the folder as an indented subdirectory and the left arrow closes it. This is well and proper. However, if your cursor is within the indented subdirectory, the left arrow does not make the cursor "jump" to the folder in the parent directory. If it did, as it does in (for example) Firefox and Second Life, repeatedly pressing the left arrow would allow you to close directories all the way back to the top level being viewed.

Is this a major flaw? Absolutely not. Did they fix it in 10.4? Quite possibly. (If anyone has a computer running 10.4 handy, please check - I'm curious.) (Edit: kirabug confirms that it has been fixed by 10.5.2.) But it is an avoidable aggravation, something they didn't think of.

Comments

It's fixed.

[kirabug.livejournal.com]

If I'm reading you right, it's fixed in 10.5.2, which is what I'm running. Not sure what version they fixed it in... anyway, if you left-arrow, the cursor jumps to the parent directory, where left-arrow again closes it, and then on up the line.

Re: It's fixed.

[packbat.livejournal.com]

Ah, excellent. I guess that sort of thing is too low-priority to write into the patches for 10.3.9.

Re: It's fixed.

[majoru.livejournal.com]

It wasn't fixed by 10.4.11, either.

Re: It's fixed.

[packbat.livejournal.com]

Fascinating - so it's recent. Thanks for the heads-up.

[roaminrob.livejournal.com]

Ehh. I shouldn't post this, but I will come up with an excuse later for my poor judgement...

I work every day with both the MacOS and Windows. At home I have a Windows workstation and an Apple laptop. Most of my clients are Windows-only; I have one client that has nothing but Macs. Two days a week I provide tech support to people running all the various versions of both, including Leopard and Vista.

They both suck. I hate them both.

I hate that Apple's Mail program still has stupid, buggy behavior. I hate that Windows has a bug in the way it handles DHCP, of all things. I hate all of their idiosyncracies, all the various different things that I have to know and remember and keep track of in order to walk some user through something. I hate that Apple is gradually straying away from its own Human Interface Guidelines, the brilliant document that set the standard in user interfaces. I hate that they're selling keyboards that introduce typos for you, and that damn Mighty Mouse that I have to deal with every day is going to mysteriously end up in the middle of the busiest freeway I can find.

So, basically, having to deal with both of them on a regular basis, I don't see that one very clearly sucks less than the other. They just suck differently.

[packbat.livejournal.com]

Nah, this is just the sort of thing I wanted to know. Thanks!

"I'm only making an entry so I can remember it."

[(Anonymous)]

re your warning, "I'm only making an entry so I can remember it." --- that's absolutely the best reason to make an entry! (^_^) - ^z (http://zhurnaly.com/)

Re: "I'm only making an entry so I can remember it."

[packbat.livejournal.com]

Might could be I disagree with you there, mate - I personally see "entertain somebody" as the best reason. ;)