Column width in open/save dialog

I wish. This is an incredible oversight. I am required to manually re-size the file name column every time I open a file. There is almost no use in having long file names without being able to read them.

Arrrgghhh... this drives me crazy!!! When I saw this post I was thinking, yea, finally I'll know how to do this. Maybe next release.
jor

Me too!
I've tried everything and I can't get it to stick (other than the side bar) what's really annoying is that the window defaults to a stupidly small size which, unless your file names are are one character long, requires manual resizing every time.

You know every couple of years we get a new cat with lots of improvements and yet basic flaws in the Finder get overlooked every time, like the fact that it never remembers (and never has since version 1) window column sizes when you first log-in.
I'm bored with having to open - close then re-open windows every time I start-up my Mac.

Regards

..." There is almost no use in having long file names without being able to read them."...

I agree - it is annoying that column widths in "List View" are not retained.

However, if you are primarily concerned with the file names (as opposed to the other sort criteria), column widths when the dialogue is set to "Column View" are retained, as is the overall size of the dialogue, at least for the standard Apple apps I have tested on my system (10.5.1 PPC)...

Either you are mistaken, or you know something I don't. I suspect you overlooked the fact this thread is about the file list in open and save dialogs, not in the Finder. Yes, in the Finder you can get it to remember column widths. But not in save and open dialogs. On the other hand, I admit I am not using only Universal programs. I use many different programs constantly, but Word, Excel, and Acrobat are the three most frequent ones, and they do not remember column widths.

And even the Finder's ability to remember column widths is lame. What I want is a preference to have every column default to show the longest file name. In the Finder, if you set column 2 wide enough for the widest file name, then change the directory you are viewing, it's all screwed up. The column width remains at the width you needed for the last view, not the current one.

I can't believe that the company which introduced the masses to long file name has rendered them useless by not defaulting to letting you read them. If I name files like "Jones,Bill 2007-10 counter-offer letter.doc", then all I see in my open and save dialogs is a list of files which are all named "Jones,Bill 20 ... letter.doc", repeated dozens of times. Idiocy. I thought Apple had smart people designing software. It seems they are more interested in eye candy than utility. They could so easily have both. But they stupidly insist on a default which removes what used to be their advantage over Windows. Now they can't even reach parity.

Your complaint is different from the OP's. You want automatically adjusting columns. The OP asked about being able to define a column width in "Open" and "Save" dialogues.

I suppose I could have responded directly to the original post, but if you re-read your response, I hope you would agree that in the context of the original post, your comment appears to echo the OP's question about not being able define a default column width.

Anyway, I just tested Adobe Reader 8 (I don't have the full Acrobat, or Office) and column widths are retained, being stored in the ' NSNavBrowserPreferedColumnContentWidth' property of its .plist file.

I did however leave out one detail - to set a default column width, resize while holding down the "option" key. It's an old feature and I have been doing it without thinking about it so it slipped my mind. Another useful behaviour is double-clicking (or Option-double-clicking) the column resize handles. Also, try ctrl-clicking the resize handles...

However, if you want automatically resizing columns, I don't think that is available - try submitting feedback.
http://www.apple.com/macosx/feedback/

Option! Who knew? Thanks!

I had long shifted to list view, as it seemed to me that the file name column was a bit wider. This trick doesn't work in list view, though. So I'll have to change back to column view. And I'll have to see if the remembered column width will be remembered for the actual data being displayed, or the position of the column. A given directory might be in any column. But I guess eventually I can set ALL columns to be wide enough to read at least most file names. The default is so lame it doesn't display any significant percentage of my work files.

I did originally talk about adjusting the column widths, not automatically adjusting columns. But the truth is, I have a computer to help me do things, and think it should do as much for me as it can. And a computer certainly is capable of determining whether it can display the entire file names it is showing me. It seems to me that it should save my changes when I make changes, but why should it make me do it in the first place? The standard file dialogs are not the only place where Apple's defaults make file names useless. Try reading file names in Mail attachments, or in the Finder sidebar.

Mind you, all these gripes about file names are on the edges. I've been pretty happy with Leopard overall since I did the Erase and Install. I was really hating it before that, not knowing that old software was messing up the system.

I'm not too sure about that "Right size" thing in the control menu for the handle, though. That doesn't seem very smart, and doesn't seem to be remembered. But if I can change all columns to very wide, at least I won't have to always re-size all columns before doing anything. This is great, even it not the way I would have designed it.

Thanks for your help.