Spatial Finder... "unspatializing?"

Hey guys. I'm a recent switch from the Open Source world of Linux, and I'm rather accustomed to the spatial "nautilus" file manager used in Gnome. I was glad to learn that Panther's Finder has a spatial mode, and since this discovery, I find it's all I care to use.

I have a question about it, however. Whenever I log out and log back in and open a new Finder window, it'll have reverted from spatial to browser-mode. I can remedy this by switching it back to spatial mode, but it's only a temporary fix as it won't remember it for next time. Also, when I mount disks and disk images, they open in browser-mode. I've searched the Finder Preferences and Google for a solution, but came up with nothing. Is there some hidden options or softwares I can use to set Finder to spatial mode, for all directories, forever?

I'm not familiar with the terminology you're using...could you explain what you mean by "Spatial Mode" in terms of the settings you apply?

When you look at the default Finder window, it's brushed metal (like Safari and iChat) and has a sidebard on the left with a bunch of shortcuts. Clicking the pill button in the upper-righthand corner switches that window to spatial mode, which is an "Aqua" style window (like Mail or TextEdit). Some functions always change, for example, it always opens in a new window, and icon positions and window size is saved for each individual folder.

However, changing a folder to spatial only applies to that Finder session, and it seems to forget the setting on the next reboot. I'm looking for a way to permanently set all future Finder sessions to "Spatial" mode.

cde_woods said:

When you look at the default Finder window, it's brushed metal (like Safari and iChat) and has a sidebard on the left with a bunch of shortcuts. Clicking the pill button in the upper-righthand corner switches that window to spatial mode, which is an "Aqua" style window (like Mail or TextEdit). Some functions always change, for example, it always opens in a new window, and icon positions and window size is saved for each individual folder.

However, changing a folder to spatial only applies to that Finder session, and it seems to forget the setting on the next reboot. I'm looking for a way to permanently set all future Finder sessions to "Spatial" mode.

Click to expand...

Could you post a screenshot showing the pill? I'd like to see what it is.

vuschejan said:

Could you post a screenshot showing the pill? I'd like to see what it is.

Click to expand...

Attached. The "pill" button is the oblong button in the title bar, that clear one that hides the toolbar in most OS X applications. I also took the liberty of labelling the spatial and browser modes of Finder.

What you describe is the way the old Finder (MacOS 9 and older) worked. Everytime you click a folder to open, it opens in a new window. As this clutters my screen with windows, I personnally don't like it, but that's my opinion.

I think (but not sure) that there is somewhere a setting in the System Preferences that's called Simple Finder...I think it does what you want, but am not sure...
As I'm actually at work on a Win machine, I can't check it right now...

Yeah. It's the way the old Finder worked, as well as a lot of older file managers. Gnome (A Linux desktop) is trying to bring it back into style. Also, a John Siracusa picks apart the Spatial Finder of Mac OS X in particular here. It's all quite trivial geek stuff, but I've been hooked on the basic "Spatial" concept for computer use.

Also, I know about the "Simple Finder". That's a feature for non-administrative accounts to restrict them to particular folders. Not necessarily what I'm looking for. Upon further review, I don't think there's *any* way to lock the Finder in spatial mode. I'll just have to keep changing it manually every time I reboot, I guess. Thanks for the help anyway though, pals.

Checking the "Always open folders in new windows" in the Finder preferences checkbox forces "spatial" behavior even on brushed metal windows (except column view.) Most of the time, anyway.

I *hated* that in Win95 and was so glad when IE4 and Win98 put a stop to it. Perhaps it's just the way I have such complicated folder structures and so would end up with windows all over the place. Still everyone has their own tastes.

(I'm not sure if 'pill' is more of a Brit term, but it means a drug in the form of a tablet or digestable plastic-like container, usually for a headache or whatever. I think you usually call them lozenges over there.)

This might be what your looking for:
http://www.zathras.de/programming/filie.htm

Hope this helps!

*iWhat points at the date*

*apt groans and bangs rock against head*

Seems like a quick way to clutter your desktop with a lot of open windows. Pill means a drug in the form of a tablet over hear too, its called a pill button because the shape of it matches most drugs in pill form.