Customizing the Finder sidebar in Lion?

got it!! Hold down the command key while dragging. that works.

thanks

I'm not bothered so much with the re-ordering of categories in the sidebar—certainly dragging various items to the Favorites area fulfills the same relative functions as having the devices on top—but those gray icons actually make it harder to pick out what's what in the list. I understand it's all about content, and that the key design mandate now is for the interface to get our of the way, but having to slouch down and squint at that list, trying to figure out where a particular list item went, is counterproductive.

I feel for Apple, in a way. I know a zillion designers who have been complaining about the "candyland interface" for years, wishing it would just "get out of the way." Now Apple has done that very thing and it's a pain in the neck. They can never win!

Here's another thing: the Graphite skin was fine. Why not just throw those gray icons there and give the color icons to those of us who want them in the Aqua/Blue skin?

Hi guys. The given solution works for drives, but I prefer my computer to be on the very top, here's how...

Convert the following plist to XML using terminal:

plutil -convert xml1 ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.sidebarlists.plist

Edit the plist:

open ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.sidebarlists.plist

Find in the hierarchy Favorites >> VolumeList and then look for:

<key>Name</key>

<string>Computer</string>

Look immediately below that for the visibility key and change the string from NeverVisible to AlwaysVisible:

<key>Visibility</key>

<string>AlwaysVisible</string>

Close and save

Convert the plist back to binary:

plutil -convert binary1 ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.sidebarlists.plist

Relaunch the Finder:

killall Finder

Tada! Hold Command and drag the items in the Sidebar to get your computer on top, where it should be.

Easy. Hold Command and drag them where you want them

Hey Ed,

I've followed the instruction, but doesn't seems to work.

Could you help?

I've changed all NeverVisible to AlwaysVisible

And still cannot drag My Computer to the Top

Ed,

I was a little confused about the result of making your suggested change. After doing it a couple of times and not getting the result I expected, I did see the change it makes. This does not allow you to rearrange the order of the categories on the Sidebar, but instead, adds My Computer to the list of favorites. (Pretty obvious when I thought about the setting I was changing.) Thus, My Computer ends up being displayed both in Favorites and in Devices.

Unless it's been changed in a recent update, I don't need to hold down Command while ordering items within the lists on the Sidebar, though annoyingly, it is required to remove items I have added to Favorites, which is a little baffling. I wonder who at Apple thought a user should be able to add something to a list without using Command, but then requires it to remove them. It's only a simlink. Who cares if we remove it accidentally?

As a general matter, Apple should stop moving to be like Windows (hate to get nasty, but it's true) and make customizability out front and easy, e.g. stop hiding my freaking Library folder. These hacks are a huge waste of time. Just put them in System Preferences and your average user (who may not be as stupid as you think) will never see them and the rest of us can do what we want, which is why I use a Mac in the first place.

End rant and thanks Ed.

I agree with all these comments. Devices and Shared should remain at the top where they were and the monochrome icons make it really difficult to see things. They were so easy before. Add my vote to restoring Finder to how it was before

This might help: http://osxdaily.com/2011/08/25/get-color-sidebar-icons-back-in-mac-os-x-10-7-lio n-finder-windows/

Very nice tweak Baltwo. Thank you for that. I will probably start forgetting to relaunch the finder soon, as I am quickly getting used to Lion's interface. Great system, but these little workarounds are quite nostalgic during the transition.

Big Thank You again

Keats

Certainly worthwhile sending feedback. Doubt they'll change it - too often it's 'use Apple's way or take the highway'.

All people really want is a selectable option for colour or greyscale icons and to be able to re-arrange the sidebar categories - hardly difficult to implement in System Preferences.

With about 14 devices attached, and 5 shares the current default layout is quite unintuitive and cumbersome for me.

Some people will use the Favorites categories (and I'd like it bo be Favourites as I'm in UK ;-) ), but I've hardly ever kept my photos in Photos or Music in Music etc as most of my media is on separate external/internal drives.

Maybe I just like organising things myself, maybe I've just never taken to Apple's way of organising things.

hi guys

check this link out, doesn't solve the devices/favorites thing but it's a good workaround to this sidebar icons problem. i have MINIMAL experience doing this kind of thing but dared doing it & you know what ? it bleeding WORKS !!!

now as soon as i switch on my computer, all my sidebar icons are my custom, colored ones i had originally set - hurray !

this is the link :

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1197960&page=5 check post nº 107 on page 5

have fun ;-)

Dear Thread Members

Now here's a good one ! Trivial but driving me mad. Favorites in the Sidebar is just that.....spelt in the American way ! I'm sure in Leopard it was Favourites as I'm British and use British English.

I can't for the life of me work out how to change the spelling. And yes I have British English chosen in the System Prefs.

Any help would be most welcome

Indra

I keep seeing Ed Palma's "solution" linked to and repeated around the internet, as if it was the answer to rearranging sidebar items.

Maybe I'm being obtuse here, but what does this actually achieve that you can't do by just ticking the box next to your computer in Finder's "Show these items in the sidebar" preferences and then dragging the computer icon up to the top of the "FAVO[U]RITES" area in the sidebar?

Seems to be it's just a long-winded way of doing something that's already built-in to the Finder. Not an answer to my [and a lot of other folks'] quest of trying to actually rearrange the sidebar categories. In my case, to put "Devices" back at the top, where it belongs.

[But cheers Ed, for the tip about using 'plutil' to quickly convert .plist files to and from XML/binary, for editing with a text editor. A lot quicker than waiting for xCode to lumber into action!]

All that needs to be done is launch Finder, hold down the Command key when a device is connected, click the device (mounted hard-drive, etc.) and drag it to the top of your favouries list. Sure this drive won't be in it's own list called "Devices"; but the device will continue to mount at the top of the list.

So I guess you would have to drag a device into the top of the favourites list the first time you mount it, but going forward it will always appear at the top. And again, to reorder, hold down the 'command' key, click and hold the device icon and drag it from bottom under Device's list and move it to the top of the finder sidebar, the top of the Favourites list.

That's all you have to do. I'm running OSX 10.7.2 (Lion) - no terminal coding nothing. Just do this to reorder and bring your devices to the top of the list. 🙂

Works for things listed under "Devices". Unfortunately, it doesn't work for things listed under "Shared" which is what I want to move up. :-(