Sort and sort files in Lion Finder

Network administration - Like its predecessors, Lion's Finder offers you four ways to view files: icon view, list view, column view and Cover Flow view. However, it also has some new ways to organize files inside this view: Arrange By, Sort By and Clean Up By.

Three sorting tools have three different functions: Arrange By allows you to organize files in groups. The Sort By option allows you to do more than what Arrange By allows before. And Clean Up By is a temporary type of Sort By. However, all three options are not always available in all Finder views. Sometimes you can combine them; sometimes can't. There are several ways to overcome this and below are specific ways to do it for each Finder display type.

Icon View

These new sorting tools are easiest to interpret and demonstrate in the icon view (icon view); Many working options in this view also work in other views.

Start by clicking Control (or right-click) on the open space in the Finder window. In the context menu that appears, you will see three options: Clean Up, Clean Up By and Arrange By. Let's start with the last option.

From the lower-level menu Arrange By, you can sort files and folders by Name, Kind, Application, Date Last Opened, Date Added, Date Modified, Date Created, Size, Label or None. Sorting by name is simply the sort of files and folders in alphabetical order. None means no sort. However, if you choose one of the other options, Finder will divide its window into sections and organize files and folders according to those sections. For example, if you choose Kind, you will see groups of different file types: Folders, Images, Spreadsheets, Documents, . Select Size, your icons will be divided into sections of 100MB to 10GB, 1MB to 100MB, . If no files or folders match the above group, the share will not appear. Within each group, files are displayed in rows; If there are too many items in a group, you can drag across to see them all.

Sort and sort files in Lion Finder Picture 1
Menu Arrange By

When organizing files in groups using Arrange By, hold down the Option key and click Control in the Finder window again. The Arrange By option in the context menu will change to Sort By. This allows you to categorize files within groups. For example, if you've sorted the files by Kind, you can use Sort By to arrange them within each group by name. Menu Sort By does not provide all options like Arrange By; You cannot classify by Application application. If sorted by None, you can use Sort By to sort.

When combining Arrange By and Sort By, there are some things that make you a little messy: Suppose to sort by Kind, then open the Sort By menu: You can now sort your files within groups. By Name, Label or other standards. However, if sorted by Date or Size, all Sort By options will not be active. If sorted by Name, you cannot classify them because this sort does not include files in groups; It only sorts by name. Because of this, you cannot combine Arrange By and Sort By.

Context menu is not the only way to call Arrange By and Sort By. You can choose View -> Arrange By ; click the Arrange By button in the Finder toolbar; select Arrange By from the Action menu in that toolbar; or open View Options . In many cases, using the Option key you can change Arrange By to Sort By.

Some directories have the standard Arrange By and Sort By specific. For example, in the Applications folder, you can sort applications by Application Category (Productivity, Games, Social Networking, .). These items are inherited from the Mac App Store (Mac App Store); If there are multiple applications from different sources, they will be added to Other.

Sort and sort files in Lion Finder Picture 2
Sort by Kind, classified by Date Added

If you arrange icons by Name or None, you have the option of Clean Up in the context menu. This option allows to arrange icons according to the standard Name, Kind, Date Modified, Date Created, Size or Label, but can then move icons inside the viewport; When using Arrange By, you cannot move them. Clean Up By is also a one-time option ; This means that if you add new files to that folder, their icons will not follow the Clean Up By previous arrangement. If you select Arrange By, the new files that you add to that folder will be automatically assigned to the appropriate group. The Clean Up option simply moves the file icons to the table without any sorting.

List, Column and Cover Flow

As the icon view, in list and column views, you can use Arrange By to classify files and folders according to groups. However, these groups are easier to use than in the icon view, especially when you are viewing multiple files; The files appear in vertical columns, not in horizontal rows. If the list or column extends down to the bottom of the window, you cannot use the context menu to access Arrange By or Sort By (there is no free space at this time); You will have to use one of the other options.

Sort and sort files in Lion Finder Picture 3
View Options table

Arrange By Kind is useful in list and column type views because it displays the folders above, allowing easy navigation up or down in the directory tree. Just like the icon view, you can combine Arrange By and Sort By. With that, if you sort by date or size, you can't classify within those groups.

Regardless of which view you can click Control on the column headers: This allows you to choose which header to display. By default, you can choose by Name, Modified Date, Size and Kind but you can also add other types, or you can remove all but leave the Name field. Since the items in these views are represented by vertical lists, there is no Clean Up By option for them.

Cover Flow view is a hybrid view: at the top of the window, you will see the files and their contents, below is a list-style view. The options for this view are similar to the options in the list view: you can use Arrange By or Sort By the same way.

Used in combination

When organizing files in some way in a window, such as in the icon view, you can set OS X to always use those options whenever using this view: after setting Set options, open the View Options panel, click Use as Defaults below. (You cannot do this in the column view). The settings in the current window will then be applied in all windows opened in the icon view. (You can perform undo by pressing the Option key in View Options : then Use as Defaults will become Restore to Defaults ).

You can choose a specific view in a directory. To do this, open a folder, select the desired view, then, in the View Options panel, check Always Open in ____ View . The settings that you apply to a folder will not be valid for other folders.

As you can see, the organization of files and folders in Lion can still be confusing. In fact, in Apple's own help system it is also recommended to use a test method to configure different options. (Select View > Show View Options , then select the checkboxes and radio buttons and select from the menus. The changes will take effect immediately so you can see your results).

The best advice is to find an interface you like, then experiment with the sorting and customizing styles for each view. In addition, if you have time to experience, you can find new organizational tools that make finding and managing files easier.