Q: How to get label colors back on Maverick?

Hello and welcome brian,

If you wish, if you start a new post stating your Mavericks issues, we all here maybe able to help and assist you better than adding to an already crowded and different topic thread.

When you create your own, individual posting, It would help us to help you if we could have some more technical info about your iMac.

If you so choose, please download, install and run Etrecheck.

Etrecheck was developed as a simple Mac diagnostic tool by a regular Apple Support forum user and technical support contributor named Etresoft.

Etrecheck is a small, unobstrusive app that compiles a static snapshot of your entire Mac hardware system and installed software.

This is a free app that has been honestly created to provided help in diagnosing issues with Macs running the new OS X 10.9 Mavericks.

It is not malware and can be safely downloaded and installed onto your Mac.

http://www.etresoft.com/etrecheck

Copy/paste and post its report here in another reply thread so that we have a complete profile of your Mac's hardware and installed software so we can all help with your Mac performance issues.

Thanks

Thanks Brian. Sad to hear you can't use Mavericks like millions of others. But try mavericks for dummies

I think it may be right up your alley.

Pete

Sorry to hear you're having problems with XtraFinder.  I never have which is why I recommended it without reservation.  Still do.  I expect your problems aren't caused by XtraFinder but a conflict with another (menu bar?) application.

I really want to address the labels/tags question.  Using one doesn't preclude using the other.  All the tags I have created are colorless so they don't conflict with the labels.  No, not labels, just colors to me.  When searching by tag, it's the actual tag that you're searching for, not it's color.  Anyway, I have no problems with using both.

Hi MichelPM,

Many thanks for this suggestion and the link to the tool. I will try this once I get back to my sole mavericks machine.

I had a quick look at your website and see that this tool looks down into the kernel and and memory (real and virtual) management. I suspect the problem I am having with the OS performance with Mavericks is in memory (re)allocation / process management but the activity monitor provided with mac osx  is not rich enough or detailed enough to provide the right level of granular information to allow a solution...!

I'm looking forward to trying the tool you suggest.

Best regards,

Brian

MichelPM - this looks interesting. I'm going to take a look.

abbelougee.smile - I don't know if my issues with labels/tags is the same as Brian.nolan's, but as I see you've written, your point about "using one doesn't preclude usin the other" doesn't resolve my issue. There's searching using tags - and I do like the option to multiply tag items and search with that criteria, but your point about labels being just colors to you is exactly what I, personally, miss. I used those colors to visually determine the status of items on my computer. In fact, it's the only complaint I had about XtraFinder - it does the colors in open windows, which is great - but I used colors on the icons on my desktop to help me visually prioritize. For me, the little dots just don't sufficiently delineate what I want to see. I'm not certain, but I believe this has been the complaint of many people on this forum.

I'm just curious, am I stating the issue with labels as others have intended on this forum? Or is my perception of the problem different from everyone else's.

Hello stassi,

I also used the colored labels on my desktop to prioritize my projects.  I am using ExtraFinder but it does not work on files on the desktop as you say.  I am very spacially oriented and have my many projects/subjects grouped in various areas on my desktop, and within those groups the colored labels allowed me instantly to locate what I wanted. 

Since none of the 'finder' apps seem to be able to put the label colors back on the desktop icons, I assume that is the crux of the issue for many of us.

Thank you for bringing this up again.  If anyone knows of an app that can restore label colors to the desktop icons, it would be appreciated.  I do not understand the technology, I just enjoy using it and up until now have loved my IMAC.  I certainly have lost confidence in Apple, and of course am reminded that nothing is certain in life except death and taxes...

Cheers to my fellow label lovers.

Call me crazy, but I still don't understand the problem(s).

Labels:  in Finder preferences, under TAGS, you can rename any tag and change any tag's color.  Can you not label the red, yellow, blue, green, orange, purple (and grey??) to your original labels and set any and all other tags to no color?  Seems this would solve both problems -- replace the legacy labels and still have the convenience of tags.

Desktop:  Since you can specify to have windows reopen upon restart, I really am confused why a Desktop window is any less useful than the actual desktop.  In the Desktop window, your files/folders themselves won't be colored, but their titles will be.

Explain, please.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5474093?start=0&tstart=0

My Explanation:

We were happy with the old Labels. In the good ole' days, Apple would always leave a feature in, but tout a new replacement. Eventually, folks would either switch, or not.

With Tags, we instantly lost something we were very comfortable with.

Your confusion over the difference between a desktop window, and the actual desktop, suggests more of a workplace mentality rather than an average user. I have been a home user since my first Mac in 1984. The desktop is everything to me. I'm very resistant to any change on the desktop. Don't get me started on the demise of MacWrite Pro and (ugh) Pages (g).

Anyway, you're not crazy, it's just that there are a lot of us that got unpleasantly surprised by this one.

John

Try XtraFinder.

Pete

No confusion between the desktop and a desktop window, John, just a belief that (in almost all cases), the latter is a more than adequate substitute for the former.  Sounds like you're one of the exceptions.

If you haven't already tried it, XtraFinder has added legacy label coloring to their most recent version.  Along with a slew of other finder enhancements.  If you have, and it doesn't give you what you need (perhaps not in exactly the same way it was previously implemented in the finder), keep looking and asking and hopefully someone will find a better solution.  (Personally, I don't believe there is one.)  

Well, there isn't one now - but the one I'd be looking for is Apple listening and re-implementing the label behavior while keeping tags (like XtraFinder does, except for the fact that it doesn't work on the desktop.

JohnGoodman6 - I'm with you. I use this thing for business AND person, and have since the MacPlus. Labels were a boon - the elimination of the colors is NOT a boon.

Abbelougee - if you haven't been using something a certain way for a long time, perhaps you're more comfortable changing your methodology. We who have been working a particular way for a long time are going to be more resistant to altering our entire workflow to accommodate Apple's unilateral decision that we don't need i

I have to stick with Mavericks, I've determined. In my business the upgrade would have to be inevitable, anyway, so there's no going back for me (I've been strongly considering it for some time). It would also be a PITA, as in the past few weeks, I've upgraded apps to work with Mavericks (which still - I could use my backup to restore to the old versions), but a pain. AND, the multitude of emails sent and received on the upgraded Mail program would be lost without a ton of labor. I'm stuck with it. Now - if Apple would hear our plea to re-implement Label-like behavior (not just labels - I do like tags, just not exclusively), and if someone would come up with a danged Perian replacement, I'd shut up and just live with it....

I have a nutty little idea that may work as a band-aid for our loss of the Desktop Label colors. Reading your post of how you like to organize your projects visually and me always thinking of some MacGyver fix that could be easy to implement (I'm not a programmer, thank you). I thought of a Desktop wallpaper that had zones of color to place the appropriate folder/file on top. You'd still have to rearrange the positions of the files as their status changed, but it could be a highly visual way to organize the desktop. I tend to hide my Desktop icons and click the Finder to open a default Desktop window, but I don't think that's what you asked for. I'm using XtraFinder, of course, to get back my labels.

I agree. It is a nutty little idea.

Pete

Thanks Pete (sincere),

I work with a lot of people who wouldn't give a gnat's hair to learn about binary, databases, qwerty, troubleshooting, etc. They're not slow, just wired differently. After a TRS-80, VIC-20, Osbourne, Amiga and Windows, I am so glad to have dropped the hobby of computers and switched to the serious tools of Apple. I'm no stranger to looking for a work around when it comes to tech and how frustrating it can be when my computer demands my time to learn a new thing. Sometimes nutty saves the day.