Filed under: OS, Software, Apple, Leopard
24 Hours of Leopard: Stacks
Feature: Stacks, which are what Apple is calling clickable icons on the Dock that fold out to show other clickable icons.How it works: It's actually an updated implementation of the old "Piles" idea, in that you can have one icon that gives you access to lots of different things. But Apple's Stacks fill another role-- they get icons off of the Desktop for good, and down into the Dock without looking cluttered. For years and years, almost every Desktop on every computer ever has had icons all over it, from apps to various downloads to whatever ended up there. But Leopard is different-- all of its icons aren't spread on the Desktop, they're piled into the Dock. Click them, and they span across the Desktop (or line up in a grid, if you're boring), click them again and they disappear. That's the real innovation here-- now, finally, you can work your way down to a completely empty, icon-free desktop.
Oh, and I should also mention that Stacks aren't just static. Leopard comes with two stacks-- Documents and Downloads, and the Downloads stack will automatically fill out with anything you download from Safari, Mail, or iChat. No more downloading random files to the Desktop and using Expose to let you go find it. Now, just click open the Stack, and get access to everything you need without ever leaving the window you're working in.
Who will use it: Everybody! And Windows users in 2010, too, since it's almost guaranteed that Microsoft is already working on a way to get this into Windows 7.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
HUELEN10 said 4:17AM on 10-26-2007
Can you disable stacks? I actually LIKE things directly on my desktop.....
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Sam said 4:28AM on 10-26-2007
dude, theres only one default stack in leopard, which is for downloads
i guess you can move them to the desktop so yeah, you don't have to use stacks.
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HUELEN10 said 4:29AM on 10-26-2007
see, you guess. I would like confirmation though.....
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shak said 4:31AM on 10-26-2007
... and to make this review less fanboyistic and get rid of this "everyone does it, everyone needs it' theme to bring some arguments from the 'other side', stacks is not good for 'everyone' some people like their icons on desktop (not me) and some people will prefer one click access to their downloaded files on the desktop rather to go click the dock icon first and then wait till the coreanimation does its thing and then look for the icon in that fancy fanned out array before you get your file ..
I agree with you on several points but please try to come with some neutral reviews Schramm, this new two click approach to something that had one click access for well over a decade should atleast be mentioned..
my verdict: stacks is one of the best features of Leopard, although it is not for everybody, still I am certain it will come useful for almost everyone somewhere down the line.
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Adrian vG said 5:33AM on 10-26-2007
In case everyone forgot: you can hold sown shift when using any of these eye-candy features - and they will animnate in slow motion :D
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Anke said 3:13PM on 10-26-2007
Looking forward to disabling that straight away!! I like my downloads going to a specific folder, where I know they can stay for days, weeks or months.
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Ben the Dog said 6:44AM on 10-26-2007
Can the download stack be used as a target by any program (specifically Firefox)?
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Terek said 7:37AM on 10-26-2007
It's important to realize the "Download" stack isn't some kind of special stack. There is a simply new folder in your home folder called "Downloads", and Leopard downloads things to there instead of the desktop by default. The stack is simply a stack of that folder. You can remove it and add it back like any other folder. I love having my apps stacked, but my Documents folder is too full for it to be useful. It only shows the first 70 item. Clicking a folder just opens it in the Finder. To see the rest, it must open the finder. So, not useful for full folders.
Also, the desktop is 2D, but the dock is only 1D; the dock is going to fill up a lot faster. Think of it like windows, and using the taskbar to hold your running programs *and* every file on your desktop. It is possible to organize it that way, but without a 30" monitor, it's going to get cramped fast. And if you have a 30"monitor, I don't think you're going to be worried about desktop space. Stacks are useful, but I don't believe it will replace the desktop for quick-access file management, especially on a 13" Macbook.
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jonathan ober said 8:20AM on 10-26-2007
I could have used this feature earlier in the year at my last job. I had a boss, with ADHD, who would sit at my workstation and download stuff off the internet, or move files from the server to another computer via my station. My desktop needed cleaning everyday...no joke. I wish I could have had a downloads folder just for him.
Anyways, I think stacks will be sweet.
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fd said 8:26AM on 10-26-2007
One question: Can the stack be simply vertical instead of curved like a banana? I don't like the curved look. Feels like stuff's gone slide off the top of the pile.
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fatavatar said 8:44AM on 10-26-2007
I guess everyone forgets that Windows can ALREADY do this, it doesn't need to be added!
You can make a toolbar in your taskbar out of any folder, then just resize it until all you see is the name. Then click the >> and BAM, a stack.
Is it as elegant? Nope. Same functionality? Yep.
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Rob said 8:44AM on 10-26-2007
#9 -- I beleive the answer is No. Get used to the leaning tower of Pisa.
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Michael H. said 9:02AM on 10-26-2007
Do have one complaint about stacks. If you have your Dock on the Left or Right side of the screen, stacks will only show in the Box format, not the nice curved layout. Its minor and silly, I know, but still I want the curviness!
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Jon H said 10:42AM on 10-26-2007
I don't like stacks. Apple's badly overextending them. Like coverflow, stacks have their place, but it makes little sense to always use them in place of folders on the Dock.
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girlgirl said 10:43AM on 10-26-2007
Stacks really remind me of a feature I used a lot in Classic and have missed ever since -- I don't recall the name of it per se, but you could drag a an open finder window down to the bottom of your screen and it would turn it into a little tab down there, so when you clicked on it, the tab would spring up to reveal the contents and pop back down when you were done.
Does anyone else remember this or am I alone in my spring-y file love?
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Mike Schramm said 11:22AM on 10-26-2007
Shak, these aren't really reviews of features, they're just to have fun and get excited about the new operating system.
If I was really reviewing stacks, I'd ask why they didn't work more like tags-- I don't like that they're just folders, and that files in a stack have to be put in a certain folder to appear there. I also am not a big fan of the "leaning tower," and wish there were more ways to show off the icons in there.
But like I said, this 24 hours of Leopard thing isn't really about reviewing these features-- I haven't even tried Leopard yet. It's more about being the fanboys we are, and getting excited about the release.
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Gene Cowan said 11:36AM on 10-26-2007
I find Stacks useful for only a small number of files. For instance, the default Downloads folder is pretty good because it keeps my desktop from getting cluttered, and I generally remove items regularly from downloads and put them somewhere else.
I created another folder that I call the Junk Drawer and dragged it into the Dock, where it became a stack. That's where I put the stuff that I used to just drop on the desktop. Again, a sort of temporary hopper for files I'm playing with.
The generic Documents folder is stuck in the dock as a stack by default. Of course, most of us have hundreds if not thousands of files in Documents, and this is where Stacks is pointless. It will only show the first 79 files in a folder, so there is no reason to put those folders in the Dock -- it no longer gives on a hierarchical menu to access all the files.
Shortcut: command-clicking on a stack icon will open the folder in a new window instead of fanning it out.
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brian said 11:39AM on 10-26-2007
Stacks is the one thing I hope to God I can disable. I don't know if this is how it is in the final version, but I played with some preview releases and they SUCK OUT LOUD. Besides the fact that it uses a random icon, instead of the folder icon (watch the MW keynote--see the 'Address Book' icon for the Applications folder? not to be confused with the address book icon that's ALREADY IN THE DOCK on the other side) the worst thing is that functionality is actually REDUCED. IIRC, clicking on a stack pops up the stack, and right clicking on a stack does the same thing (or nothing, I can't remember.) This is a DOWNGRADE from the old behavior--where clicking opened the folder and right-clicking popped up a menu. There are other problems too, but a LOSS of functionality--functions that I use DAILY--would really suck. There's already a hack to make it not look like ass, hopefully another 'defaults write' command will make it not ACT like ass.
By the way, you don't have a choice between fan and grid--once you get over a certain number of icons, it goes from fan to grid.
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Jon H said 11:43AM on 10-26-2007
"and that files in a stack have to be put in a certain folder to appear there."
See, that's because there is no such thing as a "stack". It's just how the Dock displays a folder. Period. And it sucks.
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tuaw said 1:31PM on 10-26-2007
One thing that is horribly annoying with Stacks is if you have dock magnification enabled. (Note they do not have it enabled in the guided tour video.)
When you go to click on a stack, the icon is magnified in the dock. You click on it, and it fans out. Then, when you go to click on one of the items in the stack, the dock magnification starts to shrink down the stack icon, causing the fanned out (or grid of) stack items to wiggle all over the place while you try to click on what you want.
What they should have done was disable the de-magnification animation when a stack is opened, and re-enable it when the stack is closed.
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