Cut menu option usually grayed out in Panther applics?

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Hello there. I know this is a simple question. Am I missing something?

I'm quite new to the Mac scene, having a lot of PC experience. I bought my PowerBook last November. Obviously I'm very pleased with it and I hate Windows even more now.

But one thing I have a problem: Cutting and Pasting in OS X applications. I have no problem Copying and Pasting - that's as straightforward as in Windows. But what if, say I want to move lots of files from one directory to another within Finder?

Almost every time I try to cut and paste in Mac OS applications (i.e. with option-X or in an "edit" pull down menu), the option to cut is almost always grayed out. Why?

Is there a preference or clipboard setting somewhere where I can enable this? Or is the cut option only going to become more available when I upgrade to Tiger? I find it hard to believe that an option as basic as "Cut" is almost impossible to do in such a Utopian operating system as Mac OS.

Dragging is OK but gets very difficult to do when moving large amounts of items between directories. Obviously I can get around the problem by copying and pasting, then deleting the original data. But this gets incovenient when trying to move, for instance, large directories containing subdirectories.

If anyone can help with this question I would be very grateful...
 
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cut has different meaning in mac. it is used to "cut off" the selected content of the file.
why no just drag and drop?
you may already know, but if you try o move items to the directory which is inside another directory and so on, just drag and hold the files over mother directory, the directory will blink and reveal sub directories where you can drop the files
 
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Hi!
I have this exact same issue: Sometimes a quick cut/paste would just be quicker than drap&drop...

So I asked apple-x.net for help in their question time feature, this is the response I received:
Apt prods me via e-mail to answer his question: "If I want to move a document out of Y into X I can't just cut and copy it since the filesystem doesn't support cut. [...] Can you enable 'cut' in the filesystem (possibly via a hack?)".

While the Finder doesn't support cut and paste of files, it does support copy and paste. That means you have to go through the extra step of deleting the files you originally copied, but it may be sufficient for most people. (The Finder also supports drag-and-drop moving of files, too.) However, you explicitly wanted a cut-and-paste solution, so let's see if we can solve this one via AppleScript.

We'll make two scripts, one for the cut command and one for the paste command. The cut command is simply going to save the location of any selected items to a preference file. The paste command is going to move them from their original location. To minimize damage, if you cut one file, and then cut another, the first file you cut will not be touched.

Below is the Cut AppleScript. Open up Script Editor (located inside the AppleScript folder inside your Applications folder), and paste the following text into a new script file. Save it as a script inside your home folder --> Library --> Scripts, and name it "Cut". (If the Scripts folder doesn't exist, create it.)

tell application "Finder"
set the_selection to selection
end tell
set prefs_file_location to (path to preferences folder as string) & "CutAppleScript Prefs"
delete prefs_file_location
set ref_num to open for access prefs_file_location with write permission
set eof of ref_num to 0
repeat with i in the_selection
write (i as string) to ref_num
write "\n" to ref_num
end repeat
close access ref_num
And here's the Paste AppleScript. Do the same thing as you did with the Cut AppleScript and save it as a script in your Scripts folder, with the name "Paste".

set sorry to false
try
tell application "Finder"
front Finder window
end tell
on error
set sorry to true
end try
if sorry is false then
set prefs_file_location to (path to preferences folder as string) & "CutAppleScript Prefs"
set ref_num to open for access prefs_file_location
set the_items to read ref_num using delimiter "\n"
repeat with next_item in the_items
tell application "Finder"
display dialog next_item
move next_item to (target of front Finder window as string)
end tell
end repeat
close access ref_num
delete prefs_file_location
else
display dialog "There is no target window."
end if
The AppleScripts should be pretty much self explanatory. The preference file is named "CutAppleScript Prefs" and is located in your normal preferences folder inside your home folder. If you have the Script menu extra activated (see the Question Time article from two weeks ago), you can now simply select something in the Finder, choose "Cut" from the script menu extra, navigate to the new folder, and select "Paste" from the Script menu.

That's just part of the solution, though. You probably want to be able to run these AppleScripts simply by using a command key sequence. You can't use the Keyboard and Mouse preference pane to do this, though -- you'll need to use a third-party utility. Spark, a free third-party utility, works perfectly in this case. Download it and launch it. Select "AppleScript" from the Action menu (click the gear in the toolbar), click the "File" tab, click "Choose..." and find the Cut AppleScript you saved. Then click in the "Shortcut" box and press a key combo. Then click the "Create" button. Do the same thing for the Paste AppleScript. Then just click the Play button in the toolbar to make Spark active (the window should say "Spark is Active" at the bottom). Now your Finder cut and paste is just a command sequence away!

You might not want to assign Command-X and Command-V to your new Cut and Paste AppleScripts, however, because it may hinder you from using the regular Cut and Paste operations in other applications.


Spark, showing how to create a Finder Paste shortcut
Other shortcut applications should be able to work as long as they can run AppleScripts. Just search for "hotkey" on MacUpdate.com, and you'll get a big list of other possible applications, if you don't like Spark.


As you can see, its not a straightforward 'tick an option box in the system preferences' solution though...

Here's the link to the article: http://www.apple-x.net/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=1342

Hope this helps!

(I've just gotten used to drag&drop, although maybe automator is another possibility)
 
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No I do drag and drop all the time but it gets inconvenient when moving multiple files and subdirectories (say like 100 .jpegs or something like that) from a given directory.

Although I could press option-A to select them all (or hold down option and select just the ones I wanted) and drag them to the folder, what if the folder isn't visible in finder or the current view in finder doesn't allow me to drag and drop? Yes I could use expose but it would be more convenient to have the cut or move option as on Windows.

Now don't get me wrong. I CAN'T STAND Windows, it's AWFUL, but this is clearly a rare occasion where Windows has an advantage over Mac OS X.

If there are any Apple programmers reading this who will be working on "Lion" or whatever the next OS will be called, perhaps they might consider implementing this feature because it would not be difficult to code, because Longhorn will certainly allow cutting and pasting of files by use of menus or keys!

Hmmm. Perhaps I might even email Apple myself...
 
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Oops thanks aptmunich, I just posted the above note when I noticed you had posted that helpful advice. I will definately try it and let you know...

I still hope Apple programmers working on the next OS will implement this feature anyway, if it isn't already in Tiger.
 

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