Redefining File Organization
Mac OS has had the feature Simple Finder for a number of years but in all reality, it’s not really simpler in concept or function, it just hides away things that are possibly dangerous to remove from the OS.
Personally, Finder, the public facing file organizer/file system is long overdue for an update. When trying to think of a new way to view files, I had to step away from a few preconceived needs of Finder in the first place.
State of the File System
The first need is to be able to move through a hierarchy of folders to organize information. While this may work for those who are familiar with computers and file systems, I don’t feel I’m going to far off on a limb to argue that this is not the majority of users. Most users when they receive an attachment or download a file have no idea where those files are placed or where they are saving them. While a large number of users may not know a files location they usually know some information about the tile itself. Things like “its a document” or “picture” or “I just got it yesterday”
Filter it out
With this in mind I decided to change the favorite locations on the left side of Finder to favorite filters. Think of it kind of like the Apple Online Store. You can choose accessories, which shows all available items then you can filter by type or manufacturer except in Finder, you are filtering by type of file or a tag you’ve placed on it, or any combination of info such as last opened on, created on, etc just like smart folders.
Not a huge change in the look of Finder, but part of that is because of the All My Files Section I’m currently in but its a great way to show exactly what the future would work like. Imagine each one of those sections of Kind being their own “Favorites” section on the left. Of course, by mixing these with Tags and other filters, you can make very specific filters to show the information important to you quickly and effectively without hunting for files.
The Full Finder Experience
While everything I’ve talked on so far could easily be a very robust new version of Finder but I also know there would be a lot of legacy/power users that would be upset with the purposed changes. For that reason, I’ve decided to also build a more “pro” or “full” Finder that can be turned on if requested.
First of all, the under lying file system is visible. Much like showing the Library option inside OS X’s “Go” menu, turning off Simple Finder would show show a more traditional File System in Finder on top of the new Filters. I’ve also moved the “Go” menu to the top of the Toolbar. so you can easily move backwards through the file system or type in a specific directory.
Why Finder, why now?
So why is all of this important? Why does Finder really need an update? Well to be honest with you, because iOS really needs Finder and the current version of Finder just isn’t good enough for iOS. That’s right, I said it. Part of the reason why iOS works so well and has so few problems is its ability to sandbox pretty much everything. Taking a similar approach to both the file system by keeping all files in a single sandbox and the invoking apps feature from iOS 9, you should be able to have the Finder App isolate a file & open it in a different app without an issue.
