Submission details
Finder: Folders first please! (folders on top)
When I open Finder and try to find some file I have to scroll all the page down to see the folders. And this is so anoying, because I have to scroll down a hundred times to find something.
Folders should be first "type of file", and be always the first to appear in each drive, folder or subfolder on Finder and on Open / Save dialogs of all Apps.
Apple could create a button “show folders first”. Thus who want they in the top could activate the function.
Medium
High
Not fixed
Discussion (6 comments)
Changed title from [Finder: Folders first please!] to [Finder: Folders first please! (folders on top)].
I like it the way it is - but I'd agree with it being made an option.
Heck no. Option, maybe... but not by default. This is another case of someone being used to the way Windows does things and therefore thinking there is something wrong with Mac OS X. Not true. For me, the Windows method is frequently annoying. (not wrong, just different)
The way the Mac does it is very logical, everything is in alphabetical order. I notice that, in your screenshot, you have all the folders at the bottom. I'm not sure how you managed to do that, but it's not the default on any system I've worked on.
When you browse for something, it's faster when the folders are on top, because you don't need to scroll down every time you want to access subfolders, and "sub subfolders", etc...
They should make a checkbox with the option "Show folders on top (first)".
Changed solution description.
Changed severity from [High] to [Medium].
Having an option for it is one thing... But as a long time Mac user, I'm often amused at some suggestions that seem a bit nearsided. For example, you ate presupposing that someone more often needs to get to a folder than a file. You are further supposing that the user is frequently faced with folders with large numbers of sub folders. Both of these are certain use cases that affect UI development, but suggesting that folders at the top is *necessarily* better is logically flawed.
I think the update makes it sound better since the fact is that this one is a preference issue, not a global usability problem.
BTW, I would say that if you have hundreds of files in folders you frequently browse though, you could reorganize to make it easier to us (true of both mac and windows). Other features, like favorites and shortcuts, can also make navigating the filesystem more efficient. Finally, spotlight can eliminate the need for the finder at times. I use it Ina similar fashion as the windows "run" prompt.
yeah I know that I prefer folders on top, but many of my mac-user friends prefer it as is. There is a workaround for it (here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=208068) where you change the name id for a folder from 'folder' to '~folder', so that when you arrange by kind, folders appear at the top.
I agree that neither the windows nor mac method are better than the other but they have strengths for different tasks. I work for a company that has an extensive library on a raid server. I can't index the whole thing in spotlight either. It's obnoxious to have missed a subfolder because it blended in with the 400 stupid jpegs contained in the same folder.
The reason the windows method makes so much sense to a lot of people is that it's like traveling in a car: You just want to take the highways; you don't care about the houses you're passing in the meantime. I know where a file is; I know how to get there; let me get there quicker.
victoranselme wrote on July 14, 2009, 3:47am
Changed problem description.
Changed solution description.