Filed under: Audio, Video, Features, Mac 101
Mac 101: Preview Media with Column View
Finder's column view doesn't seem to be a big favorite among switchers, which is a shame. Switchers tend to prefer using icon views or lists but column view offers a huge win over these other when working with media, allowing you to preview your media directly in Finder. To switch to column view, choose View -> as Columns or just press Command-3. Finder changes over to this view which shows a tree-like structure of your disk.
Not only do you see the contents of your current folder, but you can see other folders higher up the directory tree. And here's the good part: when you select an image, audio or video file, you can preview its contents directly in the Finder window. Select any media file and Finder shows you its name, kind, size and other file information. It shows you the contents of the file as well.
If it's a picture, you see a small version of the image. If it's sound or video, a QuickTime-style player appears and you can play it back directly in Finder. Got a lot of pictures or other media to sort through? Use the up and down arrow keys to scroll through your files. Finder will update the preview to reflect your current selection until you find the file you were looking for.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
ME said 10:11AM on 4-27-2007
I prefer Path Finder, it does everything regular finder does, only it does it the way it SHOULD be done!
It's the one issue i have with the mac os, and where Windows beats the mac....until i tried Path Finder.
http://www.cocoatech.com/
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brian said 10:12AM on 4-27-2007
And here's why I, and so many others, don't like it:
- you can't sort by size, type, date, or anything else
- you can only see the contents of one folder at a time
- keyboard navigation doesn't work well in this mode
The only thing I ever use column view for is to preview videos. If you've got pics to look at, switch to icon view and turn on previews in your view settings. You can also have it show the picture dimensions.
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Aron Trimble said 10:30AM on 4-27-2007
I'm not gonna lie, i'm REALLY curious what's in Erica's Pictures folder!
;)
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Justin said 10:57AM on 4-27-2007
I've used Macs my entire life, and I still don't like this view mode. For the same reasons as brian, lack of sorting really gets me in this view. Meh!
Erica, I'm glad to know that I'm not the only one with 116CANON type folders laying around my drive :)
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Rogeriogal said 11:28AM on 4-27-2007
This is my default view for Finder windows. It is extremelly easy, and fast, to navigate using only the arrows. I prefer this method to double clicking on ƒs to open them, especially if you go into a ƒ you did not intend to, just press the left arrow and you're up one directory. I never use icons anymore. I prefer to use the keyboard than the mouse.
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russell said 11:35AM on 4-27-2007
Eh, the Finder debate. column view is great for quickly running back and forth in the hierarchy, and for these previews. As for PathFinder - it is a great browser when all you want to do is browse, but it does not do spacial layout at all, nor does it remember window-specific view or layout preferences. Sometimes you need lots of minimally adorned windows with the icons staying in place where you put them. Other times you need one big honkin browser window with all the gizmos at your command.
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brian said 11:55AM on 4-27-2007
Rogeriogal--arrow keys are OK, but I press letters on the keyboard to quickly jump to the folder I want, and column view makes it tough to tell which column has focus, so the behavior is a pain, especially since it's so volatile--a couple wrong presses and you've got to re-navigate to where you were.
BTW, you can expand and collapse folders in list view (which I call 'useful view') with left- and right-arrows. That plus letters makes for fast and easy navigation. I only use icon view for showing pics and column view for movies like I described--EVERYTHING else is done in 'useful view.' (With 'new folders open in new windows' turned on.) Now if only the green button did something more useful than "changes the size of the window." Occasionally useful to "right-size" a small folder, but am I alone in wishing Macs had true "Maximize"?
Also, +1 for wondering what pics she's hiding. :-)
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Ralph said 12:04PM on 4-27-2007
If you guys are curious about what she looks like, here you go
http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/au/1796
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me duh said 12:25PM on 4-27-2007
I never use anything but column view. I really miss the functionality in list view that OS9 used to have and the column view makes a better replacement than does the current 'list'. Back in the old days when i learned to navigate a hard drive on windows 95 the explorer worked somewhat similarly. I tried Pathfinder for a bit but ended up using it like twice before the demo expired, column view serves my needs very well.
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Shaun said 3:23PM on 4-27-2007
I'm a big fan of column view, but after seeing "PathFinder", I'm thinking I know a product Apple needs to buy/integrate into OS X :)
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Neil said 7:43PM on 5-16-2007
I hope this isn't too opportunistic, but here's a Path Finder tip: you can sort in Path Finder's columns! Just right / control-click on the column's header and you will get a menu that allows you to sort by a bunch of different criteria.
Here's a screenshot:
http://www.cocoatech.com/stuff/column-sort.png
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nevyn said 4:46AM on 6-23-2007
Column view is absolutely awesome. It's by far the fastest navigation of hierarchical data (such as the file system) I've ever used. Arrow keys work great, and type-ahead works too once you figure out the quirks in which column has the focus (and the esc key!). A switcher friend of mine found column mode pretty fast, and he's amazingly fast using it, much faster than I am.
When I need sorting (which isn't *that* often), I'll just cmd-double click the folder and do list view on it in its own window.
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