37 degrees and raining... bleh

maybe it's the weather that's put me in such a foul mood. maybe it's the severe (and i do mean SEVERE) lack of sleep that's doing me in. or event he fact that my brain is attempting to xit my skull via my right ear canal.

but i've got to ask... since when did all of computer using-dom fall in love with the "three-pane window" look? Personally, i have detested it, strictly from a standard layout standpoint that trapped whitespace lacking purpose = BAD. and that darn sidebar either has too much of it (if your sidebar list is too short) or not enough, because your list is too long and now requires scrolling. personally, i think i have only apple to thank, via itunes. generally, as apple goes UI-wise, so does everyone else, but i think this may be an example of "well, everything else they have done is great, why wouldn't this be, too?" without actually stopping and asking WHY?

for instance, before i left my last job, i took the nitiative to clean up their image library. and i mean spic-and-span clean. and one of the things that had to be done was clean up HOW the folders appeared. when you are browsing folders for images, column-view works fine for seeing your directory structure, but you only get ONE 128x128 view at a time (whatever is selected). just look at ANY online image bank, and you see that we think in terms of contact sheets. we need head-to-head comparisons to truly feel what images we need. so column view doesn't work. it's GREAT for seeing your folder structure, though, so you can jump back to any point instantly without having to manually collapse folders in your wake. you know what view works best? you guessed it: icon view. but what about that sidebar? i don't need to see my documents folder every time i cruise my image bank. and putting directories in there is useless if someone else opens the folders on computer and starts rummaging away. so what now?

remember that button int he upper gith hand corner of a window? that's right: DITCH the sidebar for something like this. go back to good ol' fashioned multi-window cascade of icon views. positioned correctly, you can still make jumps between directories, all the while having huge preview to search with. and the finder will plant the window positions and views in the preferences for each window so they won't be lost. works great. 

just like the old ways often do.