Merge folders in Lion (as it was announced)??

Alfred Abraham wrote:

Just wanted to add my frustration with this as well !

You can'ts simply add only the files not found in the target folder... the only option is to stop the whole process or replace everything !

so stupid.

I think this was changed with 10.7.3 When you get the dialog box, try holding the option key and [Keep Both Files] changes to [Skip]

Thanks for the reply... I guess I have to wait for 10.7.3 to become avail ......

good to know

Opps, sorry, meant 10.7.2

Interesting addition, but I always disliked the hidden "option key functionality". While it's great to have it, its not quite clear it exists.

I just did a quick test, and it works as advertised. But another thing is still missing and that is nested comparison of contents in folders. If you simply drop a folder somewhere where a like-named folder already exists it will just ask you to replace the folder or stop. No merge option at all.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3532206

Any word on this issue? This shortcomings seems really bad as Ubuntu (Gnome) and Windows 7 both have this feature in there file management appliations.

I'm expecting that this merge issue will be solved with Mac OS X Mountain Lion.

I had to use a trick to proceed to file merging.

1/ Download PureFtpD (free to try)

2/ Set up an anonymous account locally

3/ Use Filezilla to merge contents

4/ When done, stop PureFtpD

I know that it isn't a real world solution but I need this to apply patches on my Joomla 1.5 local website (for development purposes).

I need this to be fixed too.

It is my single MOST HATED thing on OSX, and has been for years.

I hate hate hate the stupid lack of basic functionality in the copy dialog box.

I am not the only one.

Many forums such as this one have tons of pages about how much they hate this issue.

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=274241

There are people in that forum who switched back to windows because of just this issue, and as much as I love osx, anytime I have to do file management, I consider switching to a windows pc as well,

because finder makes file management a nightmare on the mac.

Windows has it exactly right in this regard.

It gives you many options in merging / skipping / replacing / aborting;

in merging, the many options are things like :

To select the action to take on a per-file basis for every file within a folder and all it's subfolders,

or

to perform the same action that you choose [replace? keep both files, renaming one of them? Skip?]

for one file at a time, or to apply that same action to the whole folder, or even to all the files in all it's subfolders.

In this regard, Finder is just the worst. I hate it.

File management tasks that take me an hour on windows can take literally DAYS on a mac.

Just ridiculous.

Please fix this DINOSAUR of an application. It is stuck in the 80's.

Purchase Pathfinder or TotalFinder

Tony thanks for your ideas ; I have tried both of those. I especially love total finder,

BUT neither of them solves my main issues in the slightest : The file transfer / copy dialog box.

It is exactly the same in pathfinder, and total finder does nothing to modify it.

Windows still saves me literally DAYS of work in file management in this regard,

and I can see why many administrative business people would love windows and far prefer it in this regard.

To any Mac OSX / finder authors out there; have you heard this acronym?

FTFF

Google it.

If you hold the Alt/Option button, you copy the files with an option to 'Merge' (in English, at least) the directories. I'm doing it now after a sloppy automatic iTunes update to my media library directory, and it works great. It's an additional step to have to copy the files rather than just changing the OS pointer, but, glass half full, the 'Copy' action provides a default backup in the source directory in case anything goes ugly.

I found the solution here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brRmkkbSbKs

A very Mac-savvy friend pointed me to a solution to this ridiculous problem:

http://www.ilike.co.nz/SoftwareDev/dittoGUI.html

You're welcome! ;-)

~ Russ

The other thing to note [which I just noticed, because I'm a bit slow] is if you are copying specific files from one folder to another, [and not a whole folder], if there are duplicates of those files in the destination folder, by holding "alt", you get the option to "skip" at each individual file that would otherwise duplicate.

[Hip hip hooray!! FIIIIIINALLY!]

This is of course also hugely useful, and I thank the people who finally got around to implementing this for doing so, but I still think the whole copy/merge/replace dialog is in need of a lot of improvement. And why do we have to hold "alt/option" to get the very basic "merge" and "skip" options?

Why are they not built into the dialog / interface? Does apple think people are too dumb to be able to deal with those two extra simple options, and therefore they must be hidden? [I don't think they think that, but why leave it as a "hidden option"?].

If you want to know more of what I mean, just do some file management in windows for a while. It's so much better.

I still think Apple could afford to totally copy windows in this regard, with the windows copy dialog.

And I say that as a windows HATER, not a lover. And it's not because I'm "used" to windows. It's because Windoze just does this better.

Sorry, late night angry-man rant......