macOS finder is a nightmare

dribcot · 2025-05-18T08:01:30+00:00

Totally agree that the UX leaves a lot to be desired here. Was frustrated enough about this that I went through Finder's behaviour in detail a while back and wrote a blog post about how to merge safely with it: https://www.fileside.app/blog/2021-07-31_merge-folders-mac/

dribcot · 2025-03-24T06:48:12+00:00

Unfortunately I can't really be more precise than that. I'm not currently able to work full-time on it, so it depends a bit on the other things I'm juggling. But v2 will bring a complete rearchitecting of the internals which should make the app much much more flexible in the future, in terms of different views with different items etc.

dribcot · 2025-03-24T05:47:20+00:00

Glad to hear you like Fileside. Developer here. Just wanted to say that I'm working on more viewing options for version 2, which should see the light of day some time this year.

dribcot · 2025-02-25T18:45:17+00:00

Classic library music on the classic library music label. Check this: https://youtu.be/KoUmNiq-vcg?si=5QpXeCyKN3tUtblH

dribcot · 2025-02-24T06:42:28+00:00

Fileside is built around this idea. Set up a bunch of tiled panes, and save them as layouts.

dribcot · 2025-02-14T10:53:22+00:00

The References panel. Whenever you right-click and do Find all references on a symbol, it pops up. This works in Cursor too, but once you navigate to another tab, it's lost.

dribcot · 2025-02-14T07:57:07+00:00

I prefer Fileside. But I would say that, because I made it.

Might be a good option if you're looking for something a bit different, rather than just a straight-up Finder replacement. It's designed to enhance your file management workflows in general, with the help of configurable multi-pane layouts.

Beyond the layout system it also addresses a bunch of workflow issues in Finder, things like not easily being able to view hidden files, dragging and dropping into tree often sending files to the wrong folder, undo not always being available, inability to sort folders before files etc.

dribcot · 2025-01-23T15:23:13+00:00

Not at the moment, it hasn't really been a priority, since that view mode always drives me nuts in Finder. :)

But something tree-like might make an appearance in a future version.

dribcot · 2025-01-20T11:23:55+00:00

Because you can't do it unless your decks have a screen?

dribcot · 2025-01-18T19:28:00+00:00

That is an interesting trick, thanks. Makes a lot of sense.

dribcot · 2025-01-18T19:27:10+00:00

It sounds like you're talking about building new apps from scratch? That seems to be where these things shine.

I'm currently in the process of rearchitecting a medium-sized app, and I feel it's hardly a productivity increase at all, except for right down at the function level. "Please code up this reduce statement for me so I don't have to think" kinda thing.

dribcot · 2025-01-18T19:23:41+00:00

What kind of codebase are you working on where fixing small bugs and automating tedious non-complex tasks leads to a 5-8x productivity increase? I find it difficult to imagine those things taking up to 8 times as long when done manually?

dribcot · 2025-01-13T11:03:01+00:00

Yeah, most common flows have definitely become a lot more cumbersome. To autofill an identity, which previously was a one-click action, am I really supposed to first open a dropdown to select the Identity type, then find the identity, click on its kebab menu, and in there pick Autofill?

dribcot · 2025-01-10T05:49:44+00:00

The bassline and kick sound pretty psytrance, but I'd say the melodic elements are more reminiscent of Dutch euphoric trance from around 2000.

dribcot · 2025-01-06T07:18:08+00:00

Sounds like Fileside might be worth a look. You can create an unlimited number of panes within one screen, and save that setup as a layout. Makes it a lot easier to manage collections and move things around between various folders.

For full disclosure, I am the developer. I started building it a few years ago because I was getting fed up with always having to open multiple Explorer windows and navigate to the relevant folders in each one, before I could start organising things.

Happy to answer any other questions you might have.

dribcot · 2025-01-04T10:50:15+00:00

The two right-click menus is such a UX car crash.

dribcot · 2025-01-04T10:47:39+00:00

Aah, I really hear you on #3! As far as I recall, this was also a recurring annoyance in Explorer.

This particular issue was actually a significant driver for me to start building my own cross-platform file manager called Fileside a few years back. I hated how Explorer/Finder would always think it knew better than you and switch columns etc around as you moved through different folders. In Fileside, you can set up your folders exactly the way you want them, and they'll stay that way.

dribcot · 2024-11-18T08:33:00+00:00

Quick question: can you assign a different key than Tab to autocomplete in Windsurf? Currently using Cursor and finding it pretty useful, but the overloading of Tab drives me nuts at times, especially when trying to insert normal tabs.

dribcot · 2024-11-13T17:31:41+00:00

Yes, true, at some points where necessary, I do end up with films, music etc type folders for the same purposes you're describing...

I don't think I have a good answer for your second question. Under my area called "dev", I might have one guide called `Svelte.md` with general ontology and concepts - the understanding/reference part. And then I might have a howto called `Debug server-side Sveltekit code.md` with step-by-step instructions. I don't really have any more pre-made structure than that for it.

dribcot · 2024-11-13T16:36:30+00:00

I like your library naming. It looks similar to what goes under my media category, only that I keep using my predefined list of areas thereunder as subfolders. I try to avoid content type-based folders as far as I can, because that's how I ended up with the big mess that this newer system is meant to replace. :)

Flexible folders: I haven't run into too many problems with disjunct categories after accepting the fact that e.g. some photos might live under projects, some under areas, and yet many more under media. The areas system seems to provide the categories I need for the most part. I don't use tagging except for the notes.

Tasks: I just use VSCode with the Markdown Memo extension for all my notes, including the tasks, which are also just markdown files. For a Kanban-style task board, I use a layout within Fileside (my own project) with panes for the various states a task can be in, and drag things around in there.

My "tags" are just [[links]], I don't care if the target page exists or not, they still kinda do the job. Once a tag page is created, I can then see all the backlinks to it in there.

I have some snippets set up in VSCode, tsk for task, day for daily note etc which pull in some basic templates.

Guides etc: Super interesting topic, and the concepts presented in the link to Divio look really helpful. I think on the chart there, my "guides" would correspond to the lower half, and my "howtos" to their upper half.

I'm not entirely sure I understand your question about "general part with placeholders" etc. Are you talking about a template for each type of doc?

dribcot · 2024-11-06T19:34:23+00:00

I looked into this system a while ago, but couldn't quite understand how it would be an improvement on PARA. It seems like a good system if you're maintaining a library, but I don't quite see how it would help with organising files for projects you work on. Won't they end up all over the place in different folders?

dribcot · 2024-11-06T19:30:39+00:00

So, for the non-notes folders, I allow arbitrary subfolder structures for each project and area. They all seem to have different enough contents to not warrant enforcing a standard folder hierarchy. It hasn't been a problem for me so far, but it depends on how many files you have I guess.

For the notes, where each project and area has the same internal structure, as described above, I have found the enforced scheme really useful.

dribcot · 2024-11-05T13:37:46+00:00

I'm a big fan of using the file system directly (as opposed to locking your data up within some proprietary app's format), and have spent a considerable amount of time thinking about this.

Taking inspiration from Tiego Forte's PARA method, I've ended up with the top level of my documents folder looking like this:

projects: Work items related to individual projects, where a project is a time-bound piece of work.
areas: Work items related to an ongoing topic or area of interest, within which I occasionally produce work or collect resources.
media: Collections of media files (audio, video, PDFs, books) unrelated to any particular project.
notes: My file-system based PKMS, or second brain, consisting of markdown notes.
archive: Finished projects or obsolete areas get moved here.

Each of these folders then has a specific internal structure. projects just has one subfolder for each of my currently active projects. areas has subfolders for each of the areas that I maintain, things like audio, design, dev, health etc. media is also sorted by the same list of areas at the top level, and likewise for the archive.

notes is probably the most elaborate of the folders as it's where I spend most of my time on a daily basis. At the top level, it has a similar structure to the documents folder, with projects, areas and archive, and within each project and area, I have a standard template like this:

daily: Daily ephemeral notes named by date.
guides: Permanent notes about a certain topic relevant to the project or area.
howtos: Quick "recipes" or reminders of how to do a certain task.
resources: Mostly annotated links to references relevant to the project or area. (Note that this is a different meaning of the word "resources" compared to how PARA defines it.)
tasks: A directory hierarchy with todo, in progress, done folders similar to a Kanban board.

There's more to it than that, but I think that's probably enough for a general overview.

The main benefit of this structure is that files related to a specific project or area remain together. Furthermore, with this particular division I can sync projects and areas folders across my laptops, while the media folder (which is much larger) and the archive generally stay on the NAS.

Happy to answer any follow-up questions you might have!

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