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This product is uninspiring and not only lacks lust
appeal, but it also lacks even the possibility of lust-production.
Two Bounces: Lack-Luster
If you need what it is that this product does, look
elsewhere or wait, it lacks lust-appeal.
Three Bounces: Lustworthy
A few rough spots here and there, but overall a high
quality item worthy of lust.
Four Bounces: Pure Lust
Unalloyed lust.
With Mac OS X, Apple introduced
a change in the Finder interface that hasn’t
exactly met with universal approval: the traditional
“Get Info” command was replaced with a
command called “Show Info”. Beyond the
name change (of little relevance in itself), the major
problem with this new command is that its basic behavior
is no longer to open a new information window for
each file to which the command is applied, but to
open a single information window whose contents change
depending on the item(s) that is(are) currently selected
in Mac OS X’s Finder.
Mac OS X's
Finder's Show Info inspector window
This single window behaves, in effect,
like what is known in software design as an “inspector”
type of window, i.e. a non-modal window (it can be
left open in the background) whose contents change
as soon as you select a different item in the application.
If my “Show Info” inspector
window is open, for example, and if I click (with
a single click) on any item on my desktop (or in any
Finder window displaying a series of files) to select
it, the contents of the inspector window, including
its title, icon picture, etc. change to reflect
the item I have selected. It can be any file, folder,
alias or volume.
It can also be more than one item:
if I select more than one item, the title of the inspector
window changes to “Multiple Selection Info”,
the icon disappears (the Show Info window cannot show
more than one icon at a time), the name of the item
is replaced with a phrase such as “2 items are
selected”, and the information lists the kinds
of items (“1 document, 1 folder”, for
example), their location, size, etc.
This new approach has one main benefit,
which is to reduce window clutter. On the other hand,
it introduces several new limitations that can be
of major annoyance to Mac users. One of the most glaring
limitations is that there is no longer an easy way
to visually compare the modification dates of two
items if you want to determine which of the two copies
of a file is the most recent — a fairly ordinary
task in modern computing.
Now, in OS X’s Finder, if you want to
do such a comparison, you need to open the Show Info
inspector window, click on one of the files, look
at the date, memorize it, click on the other file,
look at the date and compare it with the date you
have memorized. It can no longer be accomplished visually
by opening two “Get Info” windows and
putting them side by side in order to be able to look
at both dates at the same time.
Needless to say, this will be a source
of great frustration for those Mac users who are used
to the “old” way of doing things in the
Mac OS — and I am not sure that they
will be easily convinced that the benefits of the
new approach outweigh the inconvenience.
Enter Super Get Info
Luckily for us, several developers have quickly jumped
in to fill this new void created by Apple’s
radical departure from the tradition Mac OS interface.
“Show Info” alternatives
include a product from the fine folks at Bare Bones
Software, who are behind the award-winning text editor
BBEdit. It is called “Super
Get Info” and, as the name indicates, is
not just a replacement for “Show Info”
that simply restores the functionality provided by
the “Get Info” command in the traditional
Mac OS. It is basically a “Get Info”
on steroids, with functionality that covers everything
from file permissions (a new concept inherited from
OS X’s Unix underpinnings) to file/creator
issues (the traditionally hidden information that,
when used properly, enables the Mac OS not to
rely on file extensions to determine the type of the
file and what application should be used to open it)
to editable creation/modification date fields, etc.
The fundamental challenge for any third-party
utility that aims to take the place of a built-in
feature is accessibility. Given Mac OS X’s
new solid architecture, which essentially prevents
third-party developers from modifying the core of
the system, thereby threatening its stability —
like they used to do with extensions and control panels
in the traditional Mac OS — this would
appear to be even more of a challenge. And, in fact,
by itself, Super Get Info couldn’t match the
easy accessibility of the “Show Info”
inspector window — until version 1.0.4, that
is.
Super Get Info’s Accessibility
First of all, Super Get Info is an application,
which means that it needs to be opened first before
you can use it. However, you can, of course, use the
“Login” pane in System Preferences to
get it to open the application automatically as part
of your startup sequence.
In order to get Super Get Info to open
a window for a Finder item, until version 1.0.4 came
out, you then had to take the item and drag it to
the Super Get Info icon. (You can add Super Get Info
to your Dock, or you can put an alias of it on your
desktop, in an easily accessible place.)
By comparison, the “Show Info”
inspector window is accessible by simply selecting
the item and typing cmd-I.
Luckily for us, as for version 1.0.4,
Super Get Info can now be invoked through a keyboard
shortcut (cmd-shift-I) directly from the Finder.
Select an item in the Finder and hit cmd-shift-I,
and Super Get Info will come to the foreground and
display an information window for the selected item.
And if the application is not open yet, it will automatically
launch for you. (There will then be a slight delay
before the window opens, of course, which is why you
might want to add Super Get Info to your startup sequence,
so that it’s already open when you start working.)
It should also be noted that the most
recent version of Super Get Info (version 1.0.4) is
tightly integrated with DragThing.
The latest version of this excellent dock-based utility
lets you check an option, in its preferences, to “enable
Super Get Info support”. What this does is that
it changes the behavior of the “Get Info”
command in DragThing itself (accessible through the
contextual menu when control-clicking on a DragThing
dock item) so that it uses Super Get Info’s
functionality instead of the Finder’s inspector
window. The same level of integration is also available
with Bare Bones’ own flagship product, BBEdit,
whose latest version (6.5) includes a “Super
Get Info” button right in the document tool
bar.
Super
Get Info button in BBEdit's document tool bar
Of course, Super Get Info also includes
other, more traditional ways to access its functionality:
you can use its “Open Finder Selection”
command in the “File” menu to open
a “Get Info” window for the item that’s
currently selected in the Finder. (In that case Super
Get Info needs to be in the foreground in the first
place.)
Super Get Info’s “File”
menu also includes an “Open Recent” command
that gives direct access to the most recently accessed
files.
Finally, it includes a “Open
Hidden” command that lets you access information
about Mac OS X’s hidden files. While
accessing this information (which then becomes editable)
is not recommended unless you know exactly what you
are doing, it’s good that the functionality
is there for advanced users.
Three Panes
In this review, I will not get into
all the details of the functionality of Super Get
Info’s information windows once they are open.
There is simply too much material to cover, and discussing
it in full detail would require digressions on all
kinds of related issues, such as file permissions,
file extensions, etc.
Let’s just say that the window
includes an icon view of the file in the top-left
corner, just like the Finder’s own inspector
window (but you cannot edit this icon like you can
in the Finder), a field with the file name in editable
form (which brings back another feature available
in Mac OS 9 and eliminated by Apple in the inspector
window in Mac OS X), the full path to the
file, along with a small “clipboard” icon
that lets you copy the path to the Clipboard (you
can also select a part of the path and copy it if
you don’t want to copy the full path), and then
three panes respectively titled “Info”,
“Permissions”, and “Preview”.
Super
Get Info's "Info" pane and its OS X Finder
counterpart
The first pane provides basic information
about the file (with a breakdown of the data fork
size and the resource fork size for files that use
that architecture), as well as editable fields for
the creation and modification dates.
As you can see in the screen shot above, however,
Super Get Info still has a few problems with dates
in non-US format. It displays the correct date and
time information, but not in the correct format, which
the Finder does. (albeit in abbreviated and non-editable
form).
Super Get Info also gives you access
to the file’s “Invisible” flag —
which you should, of course, use with a certain level
of caution — as well as the type and creator
information, again in editable fields. For people
who know what they are doing and how Mac OS X
deals with file extensions and type/creator codes
respectively (which has been the subject of much discussion
on the web already), this is very useful stuff, especially
since Super Get Info now supports dragging-and-dropping
a file onto these type and creator fields to change
their contents based on the file dragged.
The “Permissions” pane
echoes the “Privileges” section in the
Finder’s inspector window. It lets you change
the Owner and Group settings, however, and the
read/write/execute permissions are presented in a
more intuitive and convenient form (with checkboxes)
than the Finder’s pop-up menus.
Super
Get Info's "Privileges" pane and its OS X
Finder counterpart
Finally, the “Preview”
pane works similarly to the “Preview”
section in the Finder’s inspector window, by
showing either text, a picture or a sound/movie clip
depending on the type of file selected. In the case
of text, however, as you can see in the screen shots
below, Super Get Info gives you more flexibility by
letting you scroll through the preview text. More
generally, the previews are bigger than their Finder’s
counterparts.
Super
Get Info's "Preview" pane and its OS X
Finder counterpart
Don’t Throw Away the Inspector Window
Even with all the functionality provided
by Super Get Info, however, the Finder’s inspector
window still has its own uses. In its current incarnation,
Super Get Info, in addition to the lack of icon editing
features mentioned above, doesn’t deal with
file extensions at all — i.e. those “.txt”,
“.rtf”, “.jpg”, etc.
suffixes that are, unfortunately, becoming a fact
of life in Mac OS X.
Given Bare Bones’ well-known
attachment to the traditional Mac platform, and given
Apple’s own hesitations, which have turned file
extensions under Mac OS X into something
of a moving target, this reluctance to deal with the
issue in Super Get Info is understandable.
Let’s just hope that Apple continues
to listen to its user base and takes the decidedly
lukewarm reaction to this use of file extensions in
Mac OS X as seriously as they have taken
user interface issues in the past.
Miscellaneous Notes
Super Get Info also offers more functionality
that is more loosely related to traditional “Get
Info” functionality. For example, it has an
“Empty Trash” command in its application
menu that works better than the Finder’s own
command when the Trash contains files or folders with
permission-related problems. If you have ever encountered
a dialog box saying: “The Trash cannot be emptied
because you do not have sufficient privileges.”,
you know what this command is about. It’s about
letting you bypass this error dialog box, which is
based on good intentions (i.e. preventing unauthorized
users from deleting certain files), but whose implementation
is still significantly buggy in Mac OS X.
Super Get Info also lets you easily
arrange its windows — something that used to
be a problem in the traditional Mac OS, with
the mess that could be created by opening many Get
Info windows.
In my experience, Super Get Info is
a very stable application. The only “bug”
I’ve encountered is a purely cosmetic glitch
that occurs when you select an item with a long file
name and ask Super Get Info to display an information
window on the item.
Visual
glitch in title bar
As you can see in this screen shot
(based on a file with the name “file with a
very long name that Super Get Info doesn't deal with
too well”), the long file name in the title
bar ends up covering the last of the three buttons
on the left (i.e. the Maximize button). This button
is disabled anyway, but it still is a visual glitch
that will need to be corrected.
Same thing goes for the way the name
is cut off on the right-hand side: having a character
cut in half like the “a” in “that”
in the screen shot above is not exactly smooth; an
abbreviation scheme such as the one used in the Finder’s
inspector window would be more appropriate:
Same
file with long name in Finder
Mind you, as you can see in this screen
shot of the Finder’s inspector window for the
same file with the long file name, the Finder has
its own issues: the file name field, for example,
only displays the beginning of the name and, since
it’s not editable, there is no way to see the
end of it.
Regarding the visual glitch in Super Get Info with long file names, I should mention that, according to Bare Bones’ developers, it is due to a bug in the Cocoa environment, and not in Super Get Info itself. Apple has been notified of this bug.
Finally, it should also be noted that
Super Get Info is not yet, as of version 1.0.4, scriptable.
Given that it is easy to access its functionality
directly from the Finder through the cmd-shift-I shortcut
and that it’s tightly integrated with BBEdit
and DragThing, this is not a great source of concern.
If Bare Bones Software’s track
record is any indication, however, those few shortcomings
and glitches will all be addressed, and probably sooner
that you’d expect.
Note: Bare Bones techs have now told
us that this is due more to a glicth in Cocoa than
in their program.
Conclusion
Aside from the issue of scriptability
and the lack of support for certain Mac OS X
features (mostly editable icons, file extensions),
Super Get Info is a powerful tool that, given Bare
Bones’ track record with BBEdit, will become
even better in its future revisions.
If the fact that it is impossible to
have more than one inspector window in Mac OS X’s
Finder is a source of annoyance to you, or if you
are a more advanced user with specific needs relating
to file information, then Super Get Info is the tool
for you.
On the other hand, I think that Mac
users should continue to exert pressure on Apple,
through the Mac OS X Feedback page in particular,
and ask them to restore at least some of the functionality
that used to be available in the traditional Mac OS.
There is nothing that prevents Apple, for example,
from adding a command such as “Open New Show
Info Window” to the Finder’s “File”
menu, so that people can view the creation/modification
dates of two or more files at the same time. People
shouldn’t have to purchase a third-party utility,
no matter how reasonably priced it is, in order to
have access to such basic functionality. (The same
thing goes for the failures of the Finder’s
“Empty Trash” command, of course.)
In other words, at present, Super Get
Info is both a power tool for advanced users and a
basic tool for everyone that restores missing functionality.
Let’s hope that future versions of Mac OS X
will bring back the functionality that so many users
demand, so that the fine folks at Bare Bones Software
can focus on what they do best, i.e. design elegant
and powerful tools for advanced Mac users.
Stuffit
7 (10-18-02) Dr. Neale Monks. What purpose does file compression have
in this day of 100 GB hard drives? Is version 7 worthy of the upgrade fees?
Fireworks
MX (10-8-02) Dean Browell. Fireworks is more than just a pretty face;
The last app I needed to convert entirely to OS X delivers in upgrades and
features as well...
Dreamweaver
MX (10-8-02) Joel Davies. Not being satisfied with just carbonizing it's
product, Macromedia made sure that Dreamweaver MX was the killer app for web
design.
SliMP3
(9-6-02) Pat St-Arnaud. The SliMP3 is a small, simple and elegant network
devices that connects to any audio component with RCA inputs and lets you
browse, search and play music directly from your computer's MP3 collection.
Voyager
III v.3 (8-16-02) Dr. Neale Monks. Carina's Voyager is the grandfather
of Mac planetarium programs, but does it still have what it takes to keep
up the current generation?
CodeWarrior
8 (8-16-02) Douglas A. Welton. Doug dives into the latest version of this
robust multi-platform programming tool.
STM
Sports Backpack (8-9-02) Pierre Igot. How will this backpack designed
for the "global digerati" stack up when Pierre puts it to the test
with his mobile digital lifestyle?
Scope
Driver (8-2-02) Dr. Neale Monks. An alternative to the 'point and click'
telescope control paradigm: a powerful list-based utility for Autostar and
LX200 telescopes.
Apple
Final Cut Pro 3.0 (7-19-02) Michael Tate Jones. Tate reviews the video-editing
powerhouse Final Cut Pro 3 and sizes up its competition. Does Final Cut Pro
3 hold its ground?
Strata
DVpro RME (7-16-02) Matt Frederick. Matt Frederick. Matt takes a comprehensive
look at Strata DVpro, Strata's pro-level non-linear editor for digital video.
Stargazer's
Delight (6-28-02) Dr. Neale Monks. Looking for a viable shareware alternative
to the big commercial astronomy software packages? Neale may have found one.
TheSky
(6-21-02) Dr. Neale Monks. Neale takes a look at the easiest to use planetarium
program for the Mac.
NI
FM7 (6-21-02) Matt Frederick. Matt takes this software replica of Yamaha's
DX7 synthesizer for a test drive.
The
Digital Universe (6-14-02) Neale Monks. Planetarium program, astronomy
encyclopaedia and space flight simulator all rolled into one - could The Digital
Universe be the ClarisWorks of astronomy software? Neale Monks takes a look.
After
Effects 5.5 (5-31-02) Michael Tate Jones. Tate reviews the OS X native
version of After Effects and likes what he sees.
InDesign
2.0 for Non-Professional Designers (5-24-02) Pierre Igot. In the second
part of our review of Adobe InDesign 2.0 for Mac OS X, Pierre Igot looks at
InDesign from the point-of-view of the non-professional designer - and finds
plenty to like.
Corel
Graphics Suite, Part 2 (5-24-02) Dean Browell. CorelDraw returns in full
force and Corel R.A.V.E makes its debut.
Corel
Graphics Suite, Part 1 (5-17-02) Dean Browell. CorelDraw is back, and
it's brought some powerful friends that makes this Suite worth the look...
OmniGraffle
2.0 (5-10-02) András Puiz. Analog napkins are so 20th century --
this gem from OmniGroup knows (almost) all about diagramming. András
Puiz wishes all Mac developers developed a similar understanding of Aqua,
and of Mac OS X in general.
Watson
(5-03-02) Michael Tate Jones. Tate discovers a 'Swiss Army Knife' for OS X...
it's called Watson.
Luckily for us, several developers have quickly jumped
in to fill this new void created by Apple’s
radical departure from the tradition Mac OS interface.
