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Finder vs. Explorer Customization

Overview

In addition to being able to customize the look of the interface to one's liking, it's also important to be able to customize how it works. The way one person likes to work on their computer might not be the same as another. Thus, both Mac OS X's Finder and Windows XP's Explorer let you change their look as well as their behavior to a certain degree, so you can work according to the way you feel most comfortable.

Mac OS X

Perhaps the easiest way to customize the Finder is to add or remove links to the sidebar for quick access to certain items or locations. You can drag files, folders, applications, and even printers to the sidebar. Clicking on a folder will bring you right to that location, while clicking a file or application will open it. You can move documents by dropping them onto a folder in the sidebar. Drag a document onto a printer, and it will print immediately without opening another application.

Adding Safari for quick access

Sidebar items can be rearranged at will, simply by dragging and dropping. If you have many items in your sidebar and the Finder window is too small to display all of them, OS X will smartly shrink their icons down, removing the need for a scrollbar until absolutely necessary:

In addition, you can choose to show only icons in the sidebar. Text labels will pop up when you move over an item with your mouse:

The Finder has general configurable options, such as what items to show on the desktop, whether each folder should open in its own window, etc. "Spring-loaded" folders will pop open as you hold an item over them with your mouse, letting you drag and drop an item to a location many levels deep in the filesystem.

The Finder's general options

You can also customize the toolbar of Finder windows. Apple's default is sparse (back/forward, view, and action buttons, plus a search field), but there are many additional buttons you can add. Choosing "Customize Toolbar..." from the View menu (or control- or right-clicking the toolbar and choosing the same) will present a sheet of all the additional buttons you can add. To add or remove buttons, simply drag them on or off the toolbar; changes take effect immediately. Rearrange items by dragging them to the location you want - existing items will slide out of the way.

Customizing the Finder's toolbar

You can add handy eject and burn buttons to the toolbar, and the "flexible space" item will let you adjust on which side of the toolbar you would like items to appear (i.e., Apple's default has a flexible space in between the action button and the search field, so that the latter appears at the far right of the window). You can show toolbar items as icons and text, icons only, or text only. Icon sizes can be set to small or large.

Although it's not immediately obvious, the toolbar is capable of storing shortcuts to anything that the sidebar is (such as folders or applications). Drag an item to the toolbar, and after a short delay, existing items will slide out of the way to show that it can be dropped. Then, simply drop the item in.

Power user tip: You can remove and/or rearrange toolbar items without calling up the "Customize Toolbar" sheet. Press and hold the command key, and you will be able to drag-reorder items or remove them entirely by dragging them out of the toolbar. Command-clicking the oval button at the top right of a Finder window will cycle through the toolbar display options (icon and text, icon only, etc.).

Folders have many options, such as a slider for icon size (see Icons), text size and position, and various ways to arrange and sort icons. You can even set a background picture (see Advanced Customization). All of these options can be set on a per-window basis.

Folder view options

You can set your desktop picture to change automatically at set intervals, or even every time you log in. The picture will change with a smooth cross-dissolve transition.

Windows XP

Windows Explorer has several customization options to accommodate your preferred method of working with the system. For instance, in a folder's "View" menu, you can select which parts of the window are shown, such as the toolbar, status bar, address bar, or shortcuts. You also can enable or disable panes for searching, a tree view of folders, browsing history, and favorites. You can even add new functionality through toolbars such as the MSN Search Toolbar (discussed in another section).

An Explorer window's toolbar

The default toolbar can be customized to show additional buttons for common tasks, like the standard cut, copy, and paste (although it oddly lacks an "add new folder" button). You can even add an "undo" button to quickly and easily undo the last action (such as moving a file). Since Windows and Internet Explorer integrate tightly, you can add web-related functions as well, such as a "home" button to jump to your homepage. It also lets you rearrange the items and add separators:

Customize the buttons in an Explorer toolbar and/or change their order

The design of this dialog, however, is a bit strange - toolbars themselves are arranged horizontally, yet the controls for customizing them are arranged vertically. Since you can't see your changes until you click OK to apply them, this design can be frustrating at times.

Toolbars can be set to show both icons and text labels, icons and "selective" text lables, or icons only. Icon sizes can be set to small or large. You can move and rearrange the toolbars themselves by dragging their "handles" at the left. If you prefer, a "lock toolbar" option hides these handles and prevents you from moving the toolbars until you unlock them.

The behavior of Explorer windows can also be customized - you can choose to use single-window style navigation, or you can set it to open a new window each time you open a folder. Clickable items can be set to look and work like hyperlinks, so that you can open them with one click (rollover to select/highlight). You can choose to show/hide hidden files and folders, as well as extensions on known filetypes. And there are several other options you can enable/disable, such as tooltip information on files, full addresses in the address bar or titlebar, etc.

Configure folder display options

Folders can be customized according to their content, such as music, movies, or pictures. XP comes with preset folders for such content, and you can designate other folders if you like. The tasks in the sidebar of these folders will adjust according to the folder's content:

Tasks for the My Pictures folder

In addition, the background of the folder will be watermarked:

Watermarks for pictures, music, and video folders

Conclusion

Both operating systems seem pretty evenly matched. Both allow you to heavily customize a folder's toolbar, although XP can be even further extended through additional toolbars. OS X's folder sidebar stores shortcuts to common locations, while XP's provides links to common tasks. Both support single- or multiple-window browsing. Both have many options for displaying folder items.

Mac OS X: 8
Windows XP: 8

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