Q: I hate the new tags in Mavericks, need coloured folders!!

Laralyn10 wrote:

the purpose of these meanings is that they're not closely defined. They're quite abstract..

Yes, exactly! That is how I use them as well. Mine have different meaning in different contexts, but are never well defined. The meaning/color relationship is fleeting. The red files may mean the latest revisions, but when the client changes their mind (again) I might mark my revised files as green. But then that gray one means it needs special attention.

The point is I use them like a set of highlighting pens. The colors have little meaning outside of the context (folder) they are in. And the most important thing is that I can tell at a glance, even years later) what they meant at the time thanks to color pattern recognition.

Tracey, what you wrote is so fitting and thoughtful. Yes. It's a completely different (and much more difficult) cognitive experience now.

take heart though. I really do think someone is going to make a patch for this, even if Apple shows its usual disregard for its pro and creative users- because it seems like those who are hurting the most over this are designers, architects, etc? Basically, the people who were Apple customers in pre iMac/iPod/iPhone times. So, what do you do?

Tracy E wrote:

 

It feels like someone has gone into my personal book collection and erased all of the pages I have meticulously hilighted over many years.  

 

It is hard to describe how traumatic it is to loose the colored file labels. And I am not being overdramatic using the word traumatic. I am actually feeling depressed about the possibility of working from now on without a feature I have relied on for so many years. I

 

This change has really thrown me for a loop and slowed me down in the Finder. The tiny dots are not as "glancable" as colored hilghts across the name of a file or folder. In list view, the dots are almost disassociated from the files names being so far from them. What used to be a single glance at colored stripes, is now a shifting of eyes back and forth, switching from reading to color recognition, to reading to verify, to checking the colors again.

 

It sounds whiney to complain about such a seemingly small thing, but I am quite surprised myself to find out how much I relied on hilighted file names, and what a different cognitive exercise simple file management has become now.

 

I used to be able to fly though file management with confidence knowing that I just need to grab particular files. Now I am filled with doubt, and find myself having to read and re-read long files names constantly double checking and verifying. The finder has become stress inducing.

 

Sure, there are lots of alternative ways to find and manage files, but none as easy and glancibly quick as hilighted file names.

 

I have left a simular message as this at http://www.apple.com/feedback/macosx.html

Lol, sorry, I wrote my other post WHILE you were replying to that one

and yes, that's exaclty it! Lables are like highlighter pens. And it's no good to sort a folder by tag or to do a search for all yellow tags. That's not the point. The killer feature is that I can (or I guess, could) sort the list any way I like (name, date, etc) and still instantly see what's important. And each colour can mean different things depending on the project and the context! It's brilliant.

Anybody who has not used labels this way is not going to understand why it's so great. And that's ok, tags is a fine feature too, but it's simply not the same. I am really going to miss labels.. I hope they return.

Tracy E wrote:

 

Laralyn10 wrote:

the purpose of these meanings is that they're not closely defined. They're quite abstract..

Yes, exactly! That is how I use them as well. Mine have different meaning in different contexts, but are never well defined. The meaning/color relationship is fleeting. The red files may mean the latest revisions, but when the client changes their mind (again) I might mark my revised files as green. But then that gray one means it needs special attention.

 

The point is I use them like a set of highlighting pens. The colors have little meaning outside of the context (folder) they are in. And the most important thing is that I can tell at a glance, even years later) what they meant at the time thanks to color pattern recognition.

Laralyn10 wrote:

 

Anybody who has not used labels this way is not going to understand why it's so great.

Right Lar, and that is a frustrating thing about this issue. Those that use it this way can't work as efficiently without it (and shouldn't need to.) And those that don't us them this way think it is no big deal, there are better ways, and why are you whining so much.

there is no question in my mind that labels are in fact a huge and important macro-scale need on the Mac OS. there is also no question in my mind that the COLOR function is a mission critical aspect of the Mac OS but that they were likely thought of as too "retro" and not slick enough for the new OS.

however, surely there is a way to allow for this functionality to continue to be used by those of use that rely on this set of laboriously applied visual clues to manage the data on our desktop and on our hard drives - irrespective of the fact that the new labels will have very significant and very powerful uses independent of this need.

BTW, i use these as a crucial and absolutely necessary tool to organize information on my /desktop/ so that any suggestions to sort by labels or to otherwise use this new functionality within finder are not going to work for me. my need for these is BOTH to call out files and folders within Finder but /also/ to organize data on my desktop (not unlike the highlighting and color coding i do in numbers for various cells and not unlike the way i have hand color-code the numbers spreadsheet i am working on that is currently in front of me).

asking me to lost colored files and folders is exactly like telling me that i can't color cells in numbers of that i cannot hand color and code a printed spreadsheet....

hotwheels 22 wrote:

 

BTW, i use these as a crucial and absolutely necessary tool to organize information on my /desktop/ so that any suggestions to sort by labels or to otherwise use this new functionality within finder are not going to work for me.

Labels are not coming back soon (if ever).  Unless there is a 3rd party solution, you should roll back to Mountaim Lion, unless there is some other features of Mavericks that you need now.  The longer you wait to roll back, the harder it will be (due to new data that you are creating in Mavericks)

Tony, remember that time labels disappeared from OS X completely?

yeah.. they came back. And it they don't come back this time, I'm sure someone will patch it.

Laralyn10 wrote:

 

Tony, remember that time labels disappeared from OS X completely?

When was this? I don't remember.

Lucky you. It was one of the early OS X's I think, maybe you skipped it?

Laralyn10 wrote:

 

Tony, remember that time labels disappeared from OS X completely?

 

yeah.. they came back. And it they don't come back this time, I'm sure someone will patch it.

How long was the wait?  And if they don't and there is no alternatives, what then?

hi laralyn.

thanks. yes, i am absolutely in your corner. in fact i have realized that this loss of functionality is the /single/ reason i am going to put on hold a new purchase to replace my existing Mac Pro which i had intended to upgrade so that i could move from Lion OS (highest i can go due to the age of the machine) in order to match OS's on my laptop. as it stands now i have only lost this functionality on the laptop which while difficult is not a complete tragedy which it would be on my desktop (2 GB of data with projects and colored folders and colored files all over the place...).

i work in CAD so that /every/ line is keyed to a colored layer and shows up in the UI with that color so that one can work. it would be a complete impossibility in CAD to work without colors for lines and layers. obviously i can SORT these layers and lines by the "tags" that the layers give me but the inability to /SEE/ the lines as colors would be totally catastrophic and grind everything to a complete and total halt.

two completely different functions (visual identification and tag sorting) as you indicate...

i am trying to imagine an analogous move and i guess it would be for mac to do away with colored cells or colored text in numbers in my 800 line spreadsheet that i am working on, or perhaps for them to forbid me to use red markers and colored highlighters when editing this spreadsheet in the printed version.

i cannot possibly begin to fathom what the practical reason was for doing away with this particularly when an app like Reminders (or Calendar) is so helpfully sorted by color so nicely in the new iOS7 in such a visual and functionally productive way...

hi tony.

i am obviously hoping you are wrong about this but i think you have been on the Mac ecosystem consistenly for a longer period of time - so i will defer to your expertise on this.

that said, this new OS has given me the freedom to not have to focus on figuring out which of the new Mac Pro's to buy since my machine is "stuck" on Lion. in one fell swoop Mac has given me a /single/ reason to not upgrade to a new machine to match my desktop OS with my laptop OS (Mavericks).

i am just thanking my lucky stars that i figured this out before spending any more time on a new purchase since right now Lion is seeming like an absolutely /golden/ place to stay. i mean, in an ideal world i would update to Mountain Lion on the Mac Pro and wait until things settle out but all things considered i am feeling like i lucked out.

i also do have to say that this first generation Mac Pro has been an absolute /pleasure/ despite not being able to get to Mountain Lion and that you would have to admit that in taking away a single functionality which results in my deciding to absolutely not buy a new machine has to say something about this move they have undertaken in Mavericks with my color organization needs....

@Tony T1

aha, some quick googling suggests it was from OS X 10 to 10.2, and labels came back in 10.3.. which would be 2001 to 2003 (???) though there was a patch out long before that.

Sit back, young whipper snapper; here's part of what arstechnica's John Siracusa had to say about labels back in 2003:

Before we leave the topic of labels, let's look at the history of this feature. The Mac OS X Finder lacked labels from its inception, despite their presence in the Mac operating system since System 6 (circa 1988). Labels had become a central part of many Mac users' workflows, and they were sorely missed. Industrious third party developers went so far as to add labeling back to the Mac OS X Finder through various nefarious means.

you can read the rest here: http://arstechnica.com/apple/2003/11/macosx-10-3/9/
he gripes about the fact that we got to wait years to get the pre OSX labels back, and you can't even change the colours. He also gripes about a few details about the implementation, like how selecting a label in the contextual menu is awkward (I think it's okay but you get the idea)

Let’s get this clear. We’re talking about two different systems.

1. Labels, as in Mountain Lion and prior systems.

2. Tags, as in Mavericks.

Labels is for highlighting by colour.

Tags is for, erm, tagging by colour.

Different.

So let’s not talk about Tags any more here. It may or may not be a useful new facility for each of us.

But we know for sure that Labels was useful to us.

Apple are unlikely to reinstate Labels just because a few users like us moan about it. So let’s take a positive approach. We need a patch. Who could do this for us? Any ideas? Let’s get that moving.

Laralyn10 wrote:

 

John Siracusa had to say about labels back in 2003:

Wow, great find. I am writing up a blog post now on labels and I will certainly refer to  this. Thanks.