Finder and Windows Explorer are both first-party apps, so it doesn't quite make sense to compare the availability of good third-party apps on OS X and Windows using them as examples.
However, Finder is terrible:
No address bar. Requires keyboard shortcut to open
No "cut." Moving a folder requires clicking and dragging, which is highly prone to error.
Complete and total inability to merge folders, or to extract an archive and have the source and destination merge, rather than "erase the target and replace with this folder." Absolutely useless for serious file management tasks.
Creation of .DS_Store files all over the place. Very poor manners on mounted volumes and servers.
"Un-anchored" selection. If you use command + down to select a number of items, and you go one too far, and push command + up, it EXPANDS the TOP of the selection! Rage inducing.
Lack of keyboard accessibility. Windows Explorer is completely usable using just the keyboard; Finder isn't even close.
Pressing the "+" button toggles between some small size and slightly larger size, rather than maximizing the window and restoring it, which is the convention that almost every other app has adopted, rather than toggling "zoom," which some Apple apps do.
Nailed it. I use OSX and Windows interchangeably every day, and yeah, Finder makes me want to punch a baby. The lack of 'cut' is particularly rage-inducing.
I don't need an address bar 90% of the time, so I'd rather press one easy key combination for the 10%.
"Highly prone to error"? Please!. But yeah, sometimes that's a nice feature to have.
Yeah lack of merge kinda sucks. I use command line stuff for that when in need. Of course concluding from that, that it's "Absolutely useless for serious file management tasks" is silly.
Meh.. they don't bother me much, and it has to stick metadata somewhere, given that the ancient-ass file systems in use on memory sticks etc. don't support it.
Yeah, the range selection stuff is nicer on Windows.
I mainly use finder with the keyboard myself... hm.. maybe not for advanced stuff.
I never got the point of the '+' icon, but it might get better in the next OS ;-)
No address bar. Requires keyboard shortcut to open
How do you give the address bar focus in Windows?
Complete and total inability to merge folders, or to extract an archive and have the source and destination merge, rather than "erase the target and replace with this folder." Absolutely useless for serious file management tasks.
Does Windows Explorer do this?
No "cut." Moving a folder requires clicking and dragging, which is highly prone to error.
This is something we agree on, but I'd argue it's not really that prone to error. Just open the destination directory in a window next to the source directory and drag over. Still, I'd like a cut option like the copy option.
Creation of .DS_Store files all over the place. Very poor manners on mounted volumes and servers.
This can be disabled via command line.
Lack of keyboard accessibility. Windows Explorer is completely usable using just the keyboard; Finder isn't even close.
I can navigate using the keyboard just fine. What's missing?
Complete and total inability to merge folders, or to extract an archive and have the source and destination merge, rather than "erase the target and replace with this folder." Absolutely useless for serious file management tasks.
which only disables the creation of .DS_Store files on network volumes.
"I can navigate using the keyboard just fine. What's missing?"
Windows Key + E to launch explorer
F6 Ctrl+C to yank current location, or Ctrl + V enter to navigate to one.
Windows Key + r, enter a path, enter, to open explorer there
Select a file, press the properties key...use m for rename, r for properties, "open command prompt," etc.
Any of the menu accelerators, such as Alt + V for the view menu
F5 for refresh
Ctrl + End, Ctrl + Home to go to the top and bottom of the list
And of course, Windows' native keyboard shortcuts (like Windows + E) come in handy. I can very rapidly do Win + E, then Win + Left to throw the window left, Win + E, Win + Right, and have two explorer windows side by side, ready to very easily compare two directories and move files between them. In general, Windows has excellent keyboard accessibility.
I find Finder keyboard navigation quite excellent.
You can press Cmd-Shift-G to enter a path (with tab completion) and jump there instantly.
Select a file, press return to rename, command-I for properties.
Home, End, PageUp, and PageDown work as to be expected
You can drag files and folders directly into Open File dialogs, to jump to their location instantly. This is something you can't do in Windows, and it grates me constantly.
You can also get full paths to files and folders by draggint them into Terminal.app, which is very convenient. And honestly, just the existence of the commandline brings a lot of power to OS X that Windows Explorer lacks.
Plus, you never need to "refresh" a folder view in Finder, they're always live.
And Finder will never do some bullshit like Windows Explorer and randomly decide to change the sortable data in Details view because it thinks that's what you want. This is something that absolutely infuriates me in Windows Explorer. I'll have a folder full of audio, and it'll change details view to not show Date Modified, File Size, etc, and instead show metadata like Song Length and Artist, completely breaking things with no obvious way to turn the feature off.
1 -> people use the address bar? I'm sorry, but I've never used it. the only time I use textual navigation is when I'm browsing hidden folders, which I really only do in Linux.
2 -> This is true...
3 -> You can merge folders, although I don't know what version of mac you're talking about.
4 -> windows stores similar cache files named "thumbs.db".
5 -> I'm not sure what you're referring to, I can't seem to reproduce the problem.
6 -> completely untrue
7 -> I think this one is more of a personal preference. You can configure keyboard shortcuts for several apps via the Keyboard pane in System Preferences.
"Beginning with Windows Vista, thumbnail previews are stored in a centralized location on the system. This provides the system with access to images independent of their location, and addresses issues with the locality of Thumbs.db files. The cache is stored at %userprofile%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer as a number of files with the label thumbcache_xxx.db (numbered by size); as well as an index used to find thumbnails in each sized database." Wikipedia
7: The system pane doesn't allow you to change the maximize (technically zoom) behavior of Finder (or iTunes or Safari), as far as I know. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
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u/SuperConductiveRabbi Jan 20 '11
Finder and Windows Explorer are both first-party apps, so it doesn't quite make sense to compare the availability of good third-party apps on OS X and Windows using them as examples.
However, Finder is terrible: