Hands-on with OS X Mavericks: Finder tabs and tagging
Apple’s relationship with the OS X Finder has been a funny one. Since 1984, the Finder has been how Mac users interact with their files, but it’s always been a bit too confusing for many users. Starting with the introduction of the Dock in OS X’s first release, moving on to Spotlight in Tiger, and culminating with the addition of Launchpad in OS X Lion, Apple has long been adding alternatives to using the Finder to dig through folders.
And yet with OS X Mavericks, Apple has added features that seem positively Finder-centric. Perhaps the OS X team has simply come to terms with the fact that the Finder isn’t going away, so it might as well be improved. In any event, Mavericks takes a cue from Web browsers (and decades of alternate-Finder apps such as Path Finder) by adding tabs in Finder windows. In addition, there’s a new way to organize files via metadata, using the new Tags feature. It’s a fine time for Finder fans, for sure.
Keep tabs on the Finder
Web browsers used to feature separate windows for every webpage. At some point, someone clever decided that window clutter was bad, and that it might be easier to allow several pages to be contained in a stack of tabs inside a single window. A revolution was born, one that, as of OS X Mavericks, has finally made it all the way to the Finder.
Tabs in the Finder work just like they do in Safari.
If all you do in the Finder is double-click on things, you’ll never actually see a tab. Double-clicking a folder in the Finder opens it in the same window. (Apparently gone is the option to automatically open double-clicked folders in a new window—a shame, since I always preferred that setting. Would it be too much to ask to let users open folders in new windows by default if they choose? And how about a modifier key, and a contextual-menu option to open a folder in a new window?) If you want to open a folder in a new tab, hold down the Command key while double-clicking. Just as in Safari, you can also type Command-T to open a new tab manually. If you end up with a whole lot of Finder windows open, you can gather them all together as a series of tabs in one window by choosing Merge All Windows from the Window menu.
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