10.6.4: refresh Finder window?????

I am liking this little gem:

http://www.soderhavet.com/refresh/

Just place it in the top bar.

This is an excellent solution, exactly what I was looking for!

Poppycock, this turns out to be easy. Found it at http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=2009091413423819

1. Run Automator, create a new Service (follow instructions).

2. Open Prefs, go to Keyboard / Shortcuts.

3. Disable current F5 key (under Keyboard and Text, moves focus to the window toolbar)

4. Go to Services, scroll to the bottom, and click on the service you created. Click in the add shortcut, and press F5 (keeps it compatible with Windows).

Voila. You are done. Now press F5 in a Finder window.

I agree with Thor HoG in that it would be a great practice that people learn why somebody needs that feature inspite of suggesting that he/she should not be needing it.

Anyway I find it awful that the machine I spent 1200 bucks is behind my 250 buck windows in several ways...one of them is NOT having REFRESH option in finder.

As an example, can you explain the necessity to refresh the Finder window listing Applications?

Unless I install a new application, nothing changes, so there is no need to refresh. Or give us an example of what type of info in a Finder window needs refreshing on Mac OS X.

For me Finder frequently fails to update it's listing of a folder - just now I used wget to download a bunch of files but in Finder you'd never know they are there!

You mean the Downloads folder in Finder column or list view does not show your downloads when you highlight/open it?

In my case this can happen with any finder folder

Sometimes I'll have a terminal shell open and use wget to retrieve files over HTTP, in others I use an OS X application to create a folder e.g. Word, Pages etc. and the folder isn't visible from Finder.

Only was to overcome the problem is to relaunch Finder.

It appears something somewhere is corrupted but I've not found where, a refresh button would make life much easier in this situation

OK. Today I was editing some RAW photo files which I've downloaded from the camera to a directory on my local hard disc. I worked my way through to the directory with Finder to list the files, and opened them one by one for editing with GIMP.

Once I'd done some cropping and editing of the files, I saved them as drafts in GIMP's XCF format, and also exported JPG versions for transfer to a website.

Going back to the Finder window I'd started the process from, I found no sign of the files I'd just saved, only the original RAW image files.

In a Windows environment, it's a simple matter of pressing F5 to refresh the directory listing, and in Linux the listing is refreshed automatically with no user intervention.

Closing down and re-opening Finder works, but it's tedious to have to traverse the directory tree to get back to get back to the directory my images are stored in.

I'm using OS X version 10.8.4.

The utility mentioned above ( http://www.soderhavet.com/refresh/ ) works fine for me, but I think there should be a built-in facility to refresh directory listings, or an automatic refresh feature.

Changing the definition of the F5 key for compatibility with Windows strikes me as "robbing Peter to pay Paul".

Once I'd done some cropping and editing of the files, I saved them as drafts in GIMP's XCF format, and also exported JPG versions for transfer to a website.

Going back to the Finder window I'd started the process from, I found no sign of the files I'd just saved, only the original RAW image files.

Whenever I work on anything - a text document, a .jpeg, or a video or anything else - I check where the 'save' dialog window wants to save it (by default) and change that, if necessary. If I'm in a new movie project, I will create a "new movie" folder in my Documents folder and save all the files to it. It will show up nicely in any Finder window and the saved files will be there.

In this screenshot example, the destination is the desktop:

So, if you save your files as you say you do, what is the 'save' destination? Your saved files will be wherever you've chosen them to be; if they're not, then you have a different problem.

Short answer - I put the edited files in the same directory as the originals, and they end up there, as instructed.

Longer answer - images I took today are imported into a directory like ./Pictures/.../.../2013/06/20. I open this directory with Finder, and select the images I want to work on one by one, saving the edited versions in whatever form I'm going to need as I go.

Once I've finished one image, I go back to Finder for the next one. I would like to see the edited versions listed there to keep track of the work I've already done, and I'd also like to see them there after I've completed the editing, so that (for example) I can drag-and-drop them into an email or a website etc.

Having to shut down Finder and find my way through the directory tree again works, but is very tedious.

I was having a similar problem with Lion, but I'm on 10.8.4 now and it works perfectly for me. Even if I'm in photoshop eding a tiff or jpg, if I have finder open in coverflow or icon view, even the icon previews update immediately in the finder window while I'm still in Photoshop. I would look somewhere other than the OS itself.

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Once I've finished one image, I go back to Finder for the next one. I would like to see the edited versions listed there to keep track of the work I've already done, and I'd also like to see them there after I've completed the editing, so that (for example) I can drag-and-drop them into an email or a website etc.

Well, you may be having a different problem since you said you do put them in a folder - that is the workflow I use (I don't use icon view (ever), but that should not matter). I also do not ever use iPhoto as I do not care for its filing system, but have my own folders/subfolders, but that should not matter either. If I save a photo or file, it will be immediately available in the folder I directed it to as soon as I make that folder active (I may have it open in the background behind my Aperture window for instance and will minimize/move over the Aperture window to expose the folder. If I move over my active Aperture window, I can see the saved copy appear in the (inactive) folder just as it should.

I've just tried an experiment to exclude applications other than those supplied with the OS.

I opened a Terminal session, and changed the current directory to the directory I had opened in Finder for my image-editing session.

I had already opened this directory in Finder, and it displayed the current contents of the directory (i.e. with my original image files, and the edited versions.

I now typed the following command...

ls > temp

...and confirmed with a subsequent...

ls

...that the new file ("temp") had been created.

I'm still waiting for this file to appear in the Finder directory.

It occurs to me (especially considering Thor HoG's comment about the problem going away when he moved from and earlier version to 10.8.4), that there may be some configuration option for Finder which would make it refresh its display periodically, and that it happens to be switched off on my computer.

PS Having failed to find a relevant option in Finder's preferences, I tried the same experiment as before, but this time using the system's /tmp directory. First I opened this directory with Finder, and noted the contents.

When I entered the command line...

ls > /tmp/temp

...the new file ("temp") appeared immediately in the Finder directory.

Working my way back with Finder to the image directory I was using before, I still don't see the "temp" file I created in that directory earlier.

Weird!

I'll have to investigate file and directory permissions, and look at the influence of the length of the path +- the presence of spaces in directory names etc.

Meanwhile, I can use the "refresh" utility to work around the issue.