Comments on: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard): The non-spatial Finder, or when ‘always’ does not always mean ‘always’

By: AlanY

AlanY — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 01:00:51 +0000

The problem is that there is no good middle ground. Both metaphors cannot coexist without introducing some global modal setting (spatial/non-spatial), and Apple isn’t about doing that. Nor are most modern UI designers for that matter. They cannot coexist because you have to make conflicting decisions at the most basic level. If you’re going to be purely spatial, you cannot allow the user to open a second window to a directory if one is already open. You also cannot allow column view, because it’s inherently incompatible with the metaphor, unless you have special column view windows that cannot be taken out of that view. You cannot allow Finder windows on separate monitors or virtual desktops viewing the same folder. If you allow any of these things, then the spatial metaphor no longer becomes predictable from the user’s perspective (without understanding complicated rules about what overrules what)… basically losing the promised advantages of the metaphor.

You can try to meet both camps halfway, in the few areas where you can accommodate both, as Panther/Tiger did, but it only leaves both camps complaining.

In Leopard, someone put his/her foot down and said spatialism is going away, and so it was. I found Siracusa’s comment about this being a “denial of service attack” on the spatial metaphor to be silly and overdramatic. Apple simply made the decision and implemented it. They also added hooks so the Finder can finally be replaced by third-party applications (Path Finder has taken advantage of this), so if there truly is demand for the spatial metaphor, someone will provide it.

By: ssp

ssp — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 23:18:02 +0000

Oh sure, there are situations where browsing is useful and I’m sure Siracusa is aware of that. I just dislike the “I fail to see the point of spatial browsing, so why are people complaining?” attitude that seems quite common.

By: Pierre Igot

Pierre Igot — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 18:06:31 +0000

To be fair, I think John Siracusa appreciates the value of the non-spatial stuff as well. He’s not arguing that it should be eliminated, simply that it should be clearly separated from the spatial stuff.

By: ssp

ssp — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 18:05:14 +0000

Replying, in part, to AlanY: I think there are two types of people. Some speak about directories and prefer the Finder’s browsing mode. While others speak about folders and appreciate the spatial behaviour as they have the expectation that things remain in the position they put them on screen. – Just as on a real desktop you can hope that things have ‘their place’ on screen and remain there. On a real desktop everything only exists once and if you are using your computer in this way you will find that you don’t need to open the same folder twice when working with it.

The main point here is that it’s excellent if people enjoy non-spatial navigation and they should be happy to use it. _However_, this shouldn’t come at the cost of destroying spatial navigation for the people who prefer using that.

By: AlanY

AlanY — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 17:47:21 +0000

I’ve never understood the appeal of the “spatial” metaphor. The Ars Technica reviewer seems rabidly in favor of it, and thus very opposed to the Finder changes, but I think in most cases the Finder changes in Leopard were in exactly the right direction. As you point out, the “spatial” metaphor in its purest sense is fatally flawed because it assumes you’ll only have one view (window) per directory open at any one time, and of course that is not realistic. There are so many other problems with the idea of a spatial browser… I just don’t understand people’s attachment to the concept. It only made sense in the earliest days of the Mac, when we had small black and white screens with next to no real estate.

By default, I’d like my Finder windows to have my usual view mode, except special folders that I’ve indicated I want to always have a special view, which is what Leopard does. With the exception of column mode, as you point out, but column mode has to maintain the column metaphor or it doesn’t make sense.