Tabbed Finder: What do you think?

We already have expos鮠- That does a 'tabbing' thing, but with much more visual feedback, and very unobtrusively. And if you want to make windows fill up the screen, you can. Can make them true full screen much easier on a windows PC though,.. And this so called 'tab' idea looks like the windows taskbar,.. It almost sounds like some of the guys here want windows XP with a Mac windowsblinds theme installed, and Objectbar (a windows dock program). I thought - Like others here, That the titular reference was to tabs in the metal finder window. That might be useful,.. But you can put folders that you like to use in the side bar for very easy access. Still, tabs might be nice optional feature. A mouse over popup for file size, and thumbnail previews in the icons for movie files would be more useful though. :-)

What I would like is sticky windows. By this, I mean it would be great to be able to stick one finder window to another so that they share the same toolbar and sidebar but you have two scrolling panes that facilitate copying from one folder to another, using up less screen real estate. How I see this happening is that you drag one finder window onto another just like you can do with the palettes in photoshop etc and then they are combined in such a way that you aren't perpetually trying to resize windows so that you can move one file to annother.

I Love it in theory. I like your view better than what I saw on pathfinder. I think I would like it to be integrated directly into the current finder system to avoid maximum confusion, with all of the Firefox extension goodies, double click a tab to open a duplicate or new tab depening on where you click it, double click elsewhere on the bar to open an entirely now window, close all windows options, a circle or place to close each tab individually. The problem with the dock is that it keeps getting in the way with other windows no matter where you put it. Over and over again I go for the scroll bar and zap there it is, move it to the bottom, it interferes with something else. It should act like the edge of a browser window and not act up until you get there. Then sometimes you get all the way to the right edge and nada. Aaaaugh! Maybe I have my preferences screwed up. Peter, the Peter Files http://thepeterfiles.blogspot.com/2005/07/where-to-find-free-copies-of-harry.html

Functional voice recognition has been coming SOON! for about five years now, but that seems like an extremely efficient way to switch apps if Apple could get it to work smoothly. You're working on Photoshop and want to hear some Beastie Boys, you just say "iTunes ... Beastie Boys ... background" and stop what you're doing. Automator could be an absolute dream here, and if anyone could do voice commands that are easy to figure out without a book and two hours of training the machine it's Apple.

Marco, what I miss in OS X is the ability to quickly switch to a specific window. For example, if I have code open in 2 different text editor windows, and I'm readking SDK documentation in Safari, I like being able to instantly select the text editor with the code I'm currently working on. The taskbar in windows shows me an icon for each instance of the app and the filename that's open. So, I can quickly jump to the proper file. OS X has too much clicking or cmd-tab/alt-tab/cmd-` to even compare. I'm a very recent switcher, so maybe I'll get used to it eventually. What are these other apps you speak off which offer taskbar like functionality?

What you're talking about here is a virtual desktop. You can already get three different virtual desktop apps for OS X. Try one. Some people like them, some people don't. Codetek Virtual Desktop Desktop Manager Virtuality Me, I'd like Apple to turn Dashboard into a virtual desktop. It's a nice interface, but it's crippled by not taking advantage of Apple's hooks for multiple desktops. How about being able to put any applications you like into a dashboard-like layer, or even multiple layers you could cycle through, with "lower" layers getting progressively darkened so you could see if something on them changed without them being distracting? Or, they could extend Expose, let you "lean back" to a view that showed all your desktops at once, at a reduced scale, then let you select one to view. Since Apple would be doing all the "heavy lifting" in the graphics card, you wouldn't even see the impact in the processor. It'd be transparent (as well as translucent).

I think the idea of multiple fullscreen workspaces sounds like a step back. I like the way windows stack in OS X <-> OS9, that new windows come out on top, regardless of the app they're associated with. I can imagine multiple desktops being handy. You could open a Desktab for working with pics, and one for working on your website, etc.

Take a look at this write-up about window/task management: http://elempoimen.wincustomize.com/Articles.aspx?AID=80423

Um - isn't that exactly what Desktop Manager does? http://desktopmanager.berlios.de/

I for one would appreciate tabbed workspaces similar to KDE or Gnome. I believe this is what he means, not just tabbed finder windows (although that would be a great thing as well). This does not recreate the taskbar, because if it did, then KDE wouldnt have both workspaces and a taskbar. I can't remember the specific name for the workspace tab-switcher thingy, but there is one. Anyway, OS X could use multiple workspaces, that i am sure of. We could stick the workspace buttons in the menu bar, just left of the clock and volume and whatever other buttons you have there. Possibly you could select how many workspaces you would like - from 1 (no other tabs or workspaces other than the main one) to 16. It would make a great addition to the already wonderful aqua interface.