Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.system
Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!van-bc!ubc-cs!uw-beaver!mit-eddie!news.media.mit.edu!media-lab.media.mit.edu!mjkobb
From: mjkobb@media-lab.media.mit.edu (Michael J Kobb)
Subject: Re: Cleaning up with System 7
Message-ID: <1991Jun2.012547.1462@news.media.mit.edu>
Summary: Clean up; icons, etc.
Sender: news@news.media.mit.edu (USENET News System)
Organization: MIT Media Laboratory
References: <17525@chaph.usc.edu> <53555@apple.Apple.COM>
Date: Sun, 2 Jun 1991 01:25:47 GMT

In article <53555@apple.Apple.COM> keith@Apple.COM (Keith Rollin) writes:
>In article <17525@chaph.usc.edu> leavens@aludra.usc.edu (Justin Leavens) writes:
>>Is it just me or is the new Clean Up function completely useless?
>>Clean up window does nothing if you have files set to align automatically,
>
>??? What do you expect it to do? Aren't your icons, then, already
>"cleaned up"???  
>

No, actually.  Try this:  Turn on "Always snap to grid" in the Views Control
Panel.  Open a window with a bunch of documents in it.  Make sure it's cleaned
up.  Now, take an icon, and drag it over another.  It will snap to the grid,
ON TOP OF that icon.  Add another.  And another.  Pick "Clean up".  Nothing.
The problem is, this can happen accidentally (either you just missed the spot,
or, I've seen it happen during copy operations), and if the item on the bottom
has a shorter name, it can disappear from view!

>>and Option-Clean Up does some kind of organize-by-name function that spreads 
>>files out over a huge area, leaving me to retrieve them all back to being at 
>>least somewhere near each other.
>
>The only time I see my files spread out after I do an Option-CleanUp
>is when my icon names are very wide. In that case, the Finder spreads
>the icons out so that their names don't overlap. It was probably felt
>that this was an even cleaner 'Clean Up'.

Well, I disagree with whomever thought that!  Give me back the way it worked
in 6!  I'd much rather have the names overlap the icons a bit (yes, I use
staggered grid -- can anybody tell me how to change the stagger spacing??????)
than have the files look like an explosion happened in the folder, leaving
HUGE amounts of blank space lying around, and forcing me to scroll the window.
If the Mac supports file names of up to 32 characters, then people who take
advantage of that feature shouldn't be screwed over.  I'd really rather have
the names overlap, and save the space!

>Otherwise, Option-CleanUp should work much the same as it did before.
>In other words, it will put as many icons as it can fit in the window
>horizontally before moving down to the next line. This hasn't changed
>in 7.0.

Wrong again!  It works BETTER than it did before, in one respect.  It fits
them in the window.  None of this "I can fit a little bit of it in the window;
they won't mind having to scroll half an icon-width" business from the System
6 and before days.

All in all, I think the Apple folks did a great job with 7.0.  I'm looking
forward to 7.0.1, however, when a few of the little annoying bugs are fixed.
More than that, I'm looking forward to 7.1, when the printing architecture is
supposed to show.  I DO wish whoever wrote the ReadMe wouldn't have put the
"Rock Solid" graphic at the top.  A remarkable first-release it is.
Rock-solid it ain't.  :-)

Thanks, Apple!  I love the Macintosh!

--Mike



