Finder (Mac)

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finder

Finder icon macOS Yosemite.png
Basic data

developer Apple
Current  version 10.13.5
(March 29, 2018)
operating system macOS , Mac OS Classic , GS / OS
programming language C ++ , Objective-C , Swift
category File manager
support.apple.com/HT201732

The Finder is the standard file manager of the current Apple operating system macOS (OS X, Mac OS X; from 2001) and the classic Mac OS (1984–2001).

The Finder, which has the same version number as the operating system from 1991 onwards , offers a graphical view of the file system and the devices used. Files of all kinds can be managed and sorted with it. The desktop metaphor documents are represented with an icon following; Connected devices such as the iPod MP3 player , hard drives and USB sticks or inserted CDs also appear on the desk with a corresponding symbol (if desired). Documents and programs are opened by double-clicking. Deleting files causes them to be placed in the recycle bin , from which they can be restored. Only when the recycle bin is emptied does it irrevocably delete the files it contains.

The Finder offers a good overview when dealing with relatively few files and folders; it is often criticized for being inconvenient when dealing with a large number of files. Alternative file managers complement the Finder at this point. Under macOS, the standard file manager can be set arbitrarily, so that other file managers can completely replace the Finder; for example Path Finder .

Development of the Finder

The Finder was already part of the simply "System" operating system of the first Macintosh from 1984. It was developed by Bruce Horn and written together with Steve Capps. The file manager was largely inspired by what was already seen on the Apple Lisa . The operating concept of Lisa OS was heavily inspired by the graphical user interface of the Xerox Alto , but the Lisa OS was the first to use drop-down menus . During the development of the Macintosh, the Xerox Star (successor to the expensive Xerox Alto) was inspected in 1981 and together with the ideas of Lisa OS, the Finder was created.

For System 1, there were numerous updates to the Finder, which had its own version number. System 2 (April 1985) already included Finder 4.1, which introduced the Macintosh-typical drag & drop of a floppy disk symbol into the trash to eject a floppy disk.

On the Macintosh, were key features of the operating system, but also of the Finder in Macintosh ROM, called Macintosh Toolbox ( English Macintosh Toolbox ), outsourced. The program loaded on floppy disk could therefore be very slim and also required little memory, since many of the functions were called in ROM. This wasn't about to change until the 1990s when RAM became cheaper. The Macintosh Toolbox was then loaded from a file into the fast RAM when the operating system started up. However, newer versions of the Finder have become more complex and with the development of Mac OS X from 1998 (which is based on OPENSTEP and is a BSD - Unix system), support on the Macintosh modular system is completely eliminated.

In 1988 the Finder was also shipped with GS / OS 4.0 for the Apple IIgs . The identity of the names is no coincidence, as the operation is identical to that of the Macintosh, but this version was reprogrammed for the Apple II.

With the Macintosh System Software 5 from 1987, a finder with limited multi-tasking capability was available for the first time: The “MultiFinder” allowed cooperative multitasking and could be activated instead of the previous Finder, although a restart was required to switch. For the time being, however, the old Finder remained the standard setting, because not all programs ran with the MultiFinder - since this was retained in the memory, less of the already scarce working memory was available for other programs. As of System 7 , the MultiFinder completely replaced the previous Finder.

In the Copland project , the finder was equipped with multithreading capabilities. After the end of the project, these were adopted in Mac OS 8 .

From 1996, a successor to the classic Mac OS was worked on: Rhapsody . The workspace manager from NeXTStep / OPENSTEP was used as a file manager and desk. It was not until the launch of Mac OS X, which was developed in 1998, that the Finder was also ported from the classic Mac OS (then Mac OS 8) to the new operating system. This was made possible by the development of the largely Macintosh-compatible programming interface (API) Carbon . The Workspace Manager was combined with parts of the Finder.

With Mac OS X Snow Leopard (10.6, 2009) the Finder was completely rewritten in the more modern Cocoa API and thus also for 64-bit use.

The Finder Icon

Startup logo from system 7.5.1.

The icons of the original Macintosh from 1984 were created by graphic designer Susan Kare, who also created the Finder icon. Up to Mac OS 9, it showed the original Macintosh in stylized form. In the start screen of the operating system (" System " or " Macintosh System Software "), however, an abstract representation of the original Macintosh was used, which was designed by Tom Hughes and John Casado. In the press, the logo used up to and including System 7.5 (late 1994) was referred to as the " Picasso style", although according to John Casado it was the French painter Henri Matisse who served as inspiration.

As of System 7.5.1 (as of 1995), a new symbol is displayed on the start screen, which can be seen above the word "Mac OS". This symbol was designed in 1994 by the Californian design company AlbenFaris on an order from Apple. It has also been used to identify Macintosh software , e.g. B. on the packaging of programs or games . Under Mac OS X , the icon can be found as the program icon for the Finder - apart from a more three-dimensional design, nothing was changed until OS X Mavericks (10.9, 2013). It was not until OS X Yosemite (10.10, 2014) that the symbol was modernized and “friendlier.” Many speculations about the creation of the new logo see it as being inspired by Picasso's painting “ Deux personnages ” (German “two people”). In fact, according to AlbenFaris, it should stylize the game between the computer (monitor) and the user's face.

Functions

The finder is the central application of the operating system. In addition to being the file manager, he's also the process responsible for displaying, managing, and interacting with the desk .

Mac OS Classic

Starting with System 7, the user can assign metadata to any document , such as the label and comments, and a list view with fold-out folders has been introduced. As of System 7, file links are also possible, which are referred to as "Alias". A file is created that is processed by the operating system (or by the Finder) and is thus interpreted as a reference to another file.

From Mac OS 8 onwards, thanks to multithreading, several copy and delete processes can run simultaneously. Pop-up folder windows, which are “docked” as tabs on the edge of the screen, as well as a special “button view”, in which every symbol is displayed as a button in the window, which is started by a simple click, have also been introduced.

With Mac OS 9 " spring-loaded folders " were introduced. I.e. If you went over a folder while dragging a file symbol and waited for a moment, this folder opened automatically and you could navigate as deeply as you like through the folder hierarchy. You could also set tones for certain events with the help of so-called " sound sets ".

Finder 10

With Mac OS X 10.0 a newly developed Finder was introduced, which should combine the concepts of the NeXTStep Workspace Manager and the Finder from Mac OS 9 . It was written in C ++ with the Carbon API, in contrast to the Workspace Manager, which was written in Objective-C with the Cocoa framework.

The Finder also received the “column view” for folder contents, which was adopted by NeXTStep , and was adapted to the new Aqua user interface . This finder does not yet support labels or the "search for metadata" of the previous finder.

Finder 10.3

The Finder 10.3 can again handle the functions of assigning labels and searching for metadata .

  • Labels are properties for every document that can be assigned for better organization. Later you can search for and select all documents from a category (label, file type, program manufacturer).

Finder 10.4

Here Spotlight was introduced, an index-based, very fast system-wide search. A Spotlight search field is integrated in every Finder window, and search queries can be saved as intelligent folders in the sidebar introduced in 10.3 . So you always had the results of a specific search ready, e.g. B. All documents that were opened within the last three days. The Finder 10.4 also mastered the event sounds function of the Finder 9.0 again.

Finder 10.5

The following innovations were introduced with the Leopard Finder (10.5, 2007):

  • Design: Instead of “Brushed Metal”, a simpler, uniform appearance is used.
  • Extended sidebar : The objects are now grouped into categories (Places, Devices, Shared Computers and Searches - similar to the iTunes sources area ).
  • Cover Flow: With this new view, files, folders and programs can be displayed in the style familiar from iTunes .
  • Quick Look allows you to quickly preview many files without having to open the respective program.
  • Spotlight : The criteria “Today”, “Yesterday” and “Last week” as well as “All videos”, “All photos” and “All documents” are already displayed in the sidebar. You can now use Boolean operators to limit the search results using “AND”, “OR” and “NOT”. You can also search for exact expressions (with the help of quotation marks), dates, ranges (with greater-than- [>] and less-than-signs [<]), absolute dates and simple calculations.
  • Communication between Macs : Computers that are shared (Macs and other PCs ) in your own network are automatically displayed in the sidebar. With the “Back to my Mac” function and a .Mac user account, you can connect to any computer that has the same .Mac user account over the Internet.

Finder 10.6

In Snow Leopard (6/10/2009) the Finder was rewritten as a 64-bit application based on Objective-C and Cocoa . New functions were not added, except for the support of Grand Central Dispatch ( multithreading ).

Finder 10.9

From Mavericks (10.9) of the so-called finder support tabs: a finder window may represent multiple folders between which by means of riders ( English Tabs ) is switched. The tab navigation saves too many open Finder windows when several folders and files are to be managed in parallel and thus reduces the number of windows in the taskbar (the dock ).

Finder 10.10

With Yosemite , the "iCloud Drive" tab has been added to the sidebar, which can be used to access documents in the iCloud .

Finder 10.13

The All My Files menu in the sidebar has been renamed Recently Used with the High Sierra release . As the name implies, it can no longer access all files on the Mac, only those that have recently been opened. In addition, the new file system APFS has been added, which should reduce the storage space of the files and make the operating system and the Finder fundamentally faster. Furthermore, it is now possible to share all files from iCloud Drive directly using a link.

Finder 10.14

With the latest version of the macOS Mojave operating system , the Finder supports a dark mode and the desktop background can be set so that it adapts dynamically to the course of the day. Furthermore, files can be tidied up more easily with the aid of “stacks” and certain files can now be edited directly from the Finder.

Hidden files

To save the window position and size as well as the arrangement of the file icons for a folder, the Finder creates hidden files with the name .DS_Storein each folder. Local files with names beginning with a period are not displayed by default on the Mac itself. .DS_StoreAll view options of a folder are saved in these files; they are comparable to those desktop.iniunder Windows from Microsoft . This procedure irritates some users of other operating systems who access such directories via a network, since other operating systems cannot interpret this information and display error messages when double-clicking on it. Accordingly, such Unix-like "DOT files" can be hidden on network drives or the creation of these files can be deactivated from the start, which can be achieved by third-party configuration programs or by manually editing a configuration file .

Aside from network operation, the existence of this metadata is also irritating on removable media if such media is activated on a computer with a different operating system ( new German "ge mount et" from English to mount ). If you use a USB stick on a Mac, the Finder first creates .DS_Storefiles and a recycle bin ( .Trashes). If the Mac user now deletes files on the USB stick, they are moved to the trash. Since the recycle bin is a hidden directory (i.e. a folder with the name .Trashes), the files cannot be seen under other operating systems in the standard configuration, but they still take up space if the recycle bin on the Mac has not been emptied. In addition to the recycle bin and .DS_Storefiles, the Finder creates a hidden dot file with the same name for each file it accesses. So if a Mac user copies a single file to an empty USB stick, you will find three files and the trash on it afterwards. Unlike in the network, this finder function cannot be deactivated. There is, however, the option of using programs such as B. Log off FinderCleaner so that all hidden files are deleted. Invisible files and system directories can be found in the Finder via the terminal or e.g. B. be made visible with TinkerTool.

If under macOS the FUSE file system NTFS-3G is resorted to, with the mount option hide_dot_filesthe so-called. Dot files ( English dot files at the same time Versteckt-) attribute to be assigned; so these files are also recognized as hidden under Windows. The files will then only be displayed if the option "Show hidden files, folders and drives" is activated in the Windows Explorer settings.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Apple Confidential 2.0, page 85ff, "The Making of Macintosh"
  2. ↑ Apple's Cross-Platform Bait & Switch (English), Scott Anguish tells his impressions as a participant in the WWDC 1997–1999; Quote: "[...] a demonstration [...] showed two apps, one written in Carbon (called Finder) and the other in Cocoa [...]"; Retrieved October 9, 2016.
  3. ↑ Behind the Icons: An interview with Susan Kare, the woman who helped create Apple's graphic interface. ( Memento of the original from October 9, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (English), Alex Ronan, July 27, 2016; accessed on October 9, 2016. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.lennyletter.com
  4. ↑ Cult of Mac: Macintosh “Picasso” Artwork Was Actually Inspired By Matisse, Artist Says (English), Adam Rosen, February 14, 2014; accessed on October 9, 2016.
  5. ↑ The Story Behind Apple's New Finder Icon (English), Ray Vellest, September 22, 2014; accessed on October 9, 2016.
  6. ↑ OS X Yosemite: Did Apple's Dock Get Better? (English), E. Werner Reschke, June 6, 2014; accessed on October 9, 2016.
  7. ↑ The Finder icon and the influence of fine art on the Mac , Christopher Phin for Macworld magazine , May 12, 2015; accessed on October 9, 2016.
  8. ↑ Cult of Mac: Did Picasso Influence the Mac Finder Icon? (English), Adam Rosen, January 6, 2011; accessed on October 9, 2016.
  9. ↑ What is the design story behind the OS X two-face / one-face Finder icon? (English), Darren Geraghty, September 20, 2011; accessed on October 9, 2016.
  10. ↑ What Are Aliases, Symbolic Links, and Hard Links in Mac OS X? (English), version dated October 6, 2016; " Link Types " section; Quote: Aliases: This type of shortcut is the oldest for the Mac; its roots go all the way back to System 7. Aliases are created and managed at the Finder level, which means that if you're using Terminal or a non-Mac application, such as many UNIX apps and utilities, an alias won't work. OS X seems to see aliases as small data files, which they are, but it doesn't know how to interpret the information they contain .; Retrieved October 9, 2016.
  11. ^ Bjarne Stroustrup: C ++ Applications. October 11, 2007, accessed October 19, 2007 .
  12. ↑ Matthias Zehden: Using tabs correctly in the Finder. In: Macwelt . IDG Tech Media GmbH, January 22, 2015, accessed on August 21, 2018 .
  13. ↑ a b macOS High Sierra. Apple Inc., accessed on August 20, 2018 (German).
  14. ↑ macOS - Mojave Preview. Apple Inc., accessed on August 20, 2018 (German).
  15. ↑ NTFS-3G Manual. Options. In: manpage . Tuxera, accessed September 1, 2018 .