OSX Questions

[Jadzia]

Help me to do this:

I want to change the way my Finder windows display directories, but it doesn't seem to be remembering my settings.

I want files to be displayed as a List with Small icons, to not use Relative Dates, and with columns in the order {Name|Size|Date Modified|Kind}. And I want date to be in numbers (31/01/2011, 19:45)

So I open View Options, and make these changes, but when I select apply to All Windows, the changes revert and don't take.

If I tick the All Windows option before making the changes, the tick disappears as I'm making those changes, forcing me to apply to This Window Only.

How do I apply my settings of choice to all windows?

 

[Flavius]

Now, this is Snow Leopard, I forget what it used to be: Finder/View/Show View Options. You need a finder window open. Is that it?

 

[Jadzia]

I have a finder window open. The view options box doesn't display without having one finder window open and under focus.

I tried having two finder windows open, looking at the same directory. With All Windows ticked, any changes I make to one's view options are applied to both windows. The changes are then persistent, but only for that one directory.

So if I browse to another directory, it reverts to another layout.

What I want is for my setting to be applied to all directories, regardless of what window I open them in, whether it's today or 6 months from now. It doesn't seem to want to do that.

 

[Irishman]

I have a finder window open. The view options box doesn't display without having one finder window open and under focus.

I tried having two finder windows open, looking at the same directory. With All Windows ticked, any changes I make to one's view options are applied to both windows. The changes are then persistent, but only for that one directory.

So if I browse to another directory, it reverts to another layout.

What I want is for my setting to be applied to all directories, regardless of what window I open them in, whether it's today or 6 months from now. It doesn't seem to want to do that.

Apple keeps changing their mind about letting users do global settings changes or per-folder settings changes.

I'm not 100% sure, but they might be of the latter mind at the moment.

 

[Flavius]

I have a finder window open. The view options box doesn't display without having one finder window open and under focus...

I checked all the Macs in my house, can't find one with anything else but Snow Leopard; Snow L.. will allow you to change view options on the desktop if you must, but with a finder window open, it will offer up the 'Use as Defaults' button. I understand that doesn't help you much, since you must be running something older. I remember using this setting with older versions of OS X. I suggest you take to the Apple forum for your version of OS X and ask there: http://discussions.apple.com/index.jspa?categoryID=1

 

[Jadzia]

Well thanks for having a look You're right that I don't have Snow Leopard. It says version 10.4, whichever one that is.

It's not a big problem, but it's one of those things that's a constant minor nuisance, that makes browsing through directories take twice as long as it should because the layout keeps changing to big icons, using relative dates and putting the size in the third column

 

[ngc7293]

Try Repairing permissions
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=DiskUtility/10.5/en/duh17.html