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that's what so annoying about this!
Authored by: schaps on Sep 30, '04 12:51:59PM

It is inconsistent! I am getting pissed, because I see now how I deleted the folders I needed.

Try this-- create a folder on your desktop, call it "test folder" or something similar.

CMD-F to bring up the search dialog. Adjust "Search in" to say "Specific Places", if it doesn't already (That is my default mode)-- most flexible.

Drag your newly created "test folder" into the Specific Places window. Now, if you uncheck your other disk(s), you will be able to search for some file only in that folder. It is very slick, especially when you manage a lot of folders and files.

(Note: the finder-integrated search box in OS X is great for this, too, but you need to have the folder open to search it. With Find, you can have a deeply nested folder on your search list and just check mark it when you want to search that folder-- no need to open it.)

Now, here is the inconsistency: When you search, a new Search Results window opens. If you want to delete a file or folder found in those results, you can either select the item and press CMD-delete or drag the item to the trash. And then it remains in your Results window, but it shows its location as the Trash with EITHER procedure.

But in the Specific Places window, if you select the search folder you no longer want to search and then press CMD-delete or click "Remove," that removes it from the search pane, but does not disturb the folder. HOWEVER, if you drag the folder out of the Specific Places window to the trash, it REMAINS in the Specific Places window, but the Finder actually DELETES the folder to the trash (try it with a test folder, you'll see). It's behavior is not only not like the Dock, it's not even like the Search Results window! Apple apparently intended that we all click the "Remove" button to remove a Search In item, but with all the drag-drop, drag-poof stuff in OS X, why would they not think of this?

This is likely how I lost my important folders. I dragged the item I was finished searching out of the Specific Places window to the desktop, and it didn't go Poof. So, the sixteen-year Mac veteran I am dragged the search folder icon from the Specific Places window to the trash-- and there probably was a trash "click," but I probably had the volume down, so I did not notice that I had just deleted my actual folders, because the icons remained in the Specific Places window! I probably then clicked Remove to remove the icon, but by then it was too late-- my folders were gone. I wonder if this could happen with a whole disk?

Bad Apple!



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that's what so annoying about this!
Authored by: stetner on Sep 30, '04 06:15:38PM

It is logical, by dragging the folder to the trash, you have not said I want to remove this search item, you have said I want to move this folder to the trash.

You can still search on it there, so it is not removed from the 'places'.



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that's what so annoying about this!
Authored by: schaps on Sep 30, '04 06:47:07PM

Perhaps it's logical to you, but I still use OS 9 on one of my machines, and using Sherlock 2, the OS 9 Find which is quite similar to OS X's, if you want to remove a Search location, you either drag it to the trash or CMD-delete. There is no remove button, and hitting delete alone does nothing. In short, this is not only different behavior, it's dangerously different.

Whether or not one is used to the concept of dragging things to the Trash to just "disable" them, not get rid of them, it has been part of the Mac UI since at least the late 80s to eject floppies and CDs and unmount network and local drives.



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that's what so annoying about this!
Authored by: zpjet on Oct 04, '04 07:57:18PM

i'm sorry that you'd lost your files. i was near to loose my library folder with all my mail at least.

i'm glad that more people get the point. the behaviour of the list of specific places is very bad. i've just set up a test account and, guess what, it even let me to drag and delete the home directory!

the drag-delete also unmounts disks. it doesn't unmount the disks which are in use, such as startup disk. i think this is where the design started, as the disks appear dynamically.



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