Q: I hate the new tags in Mavericks, need coloured folders!!

Thanks Pete, I did go to apple support and send a message.

templeofdoom wrote:

 

Thanks Pete, I did go to apple support and send a message.

Yes, unfortunately, other than reinstalling Mountain Lion or using third party programs such as PathFinder, this is your best course of action. It seems that Apple may well be getting a large amount of feedback on the issue, so just hope that they respond in the positive.

Cheers

Pete

I see you editied the "rude" portion.

Tags may be fine for those people who depend on sorting. But few people I know using labels actually sort. The lables are used for quick visual identification. I've been using lables for years and have NEVER sorted using them. So the tags ( and they aren't simple colored folders) are even less value for those who don't use sorting.

I have found the upgrade to 10.9 less than satisfactory. I may have used my own filing system methods for my numerous work files in a manner not intended (I colour them according to their progress through my work and filing system) but I agree with the previous posters who have said that the instant file recognition is what they liked best about labels.

I have left several appropriate feedback messages for Apple and I sincerely hope that Apple will address the issue surrounding the reinstatement of label colours and the OS X 10.9 update which has has made my computer virtually unusable and a a slow system to use, where it had been fast and efficient previous to the update from

OS  X 10.8. 

Yes,Jeff,let's hope Apple,or a third-party software developer, can do something about the missing colour labels. I had to go back to Mountain Lion,for many reasons,so I have the coloured labels again. Working without them,when I had Mavericks installed,was a pain.

Hi Jeff, your situation sounds like many others in terms of not being able to readily identify files by colour.

I did a trial run of Pathfinder, which although colours the files on the desktop level, the open/save as dialogue boxes do not recognize, it is Mavericks as usual.

One thing about performance though - you mention Mavericks is slow. I find it incredibly fast, and my benchmark is using Adobe CC apps - I just did a complete wipe of the drive from 10.6.8 to Mavericks, and the speed boost is nice. Also very happy to see Adobe CC apps cooperating nicely.

However, InDesign did suffer from a severe case of font shock and was running extremely slowly. Any access of font selections, or stylesheet application, I was getting 3-4 steps ahead of InDesign.

I tracked this down to system and library fonts, most notably Microsoft Office fonts. I went through and streamlined all fonts, removing any that I would rather open with Suitcase, and voila... within a few seconds, InDesign was lightning fast again.

So something to keep in mind, check your font installs, especially since Office creates its own install in the main Library folder.

And thanks for your notes on the lament of Labels... Apple *will* get it sometime. Or, since Pathfinder isn't doing it... I'm putting my money on a great young developer in Norway who gives away free system tweaks as he has done with ML. Hopefully sometime soon!

Good luck!

Thank you Wizard_Magic_spell. My issue with going back to Mpountain Lion is that after I had updated to OS X 10.9, several crucial pieces of software were no longer functional. I accept that software has a finite life and I found myself waiting until some developers caught up with 10.9 and then I was able to re-install vital software and was happy to have it working again. Understandably, I am more than a little reluctant to 'upgrade' to Mountain Lion again because it may leave me with substantial down time while I figure out what software needs to be rolled back to work again. No-one asks what you need a computer for any more, when you mention that you have one. I would wish for Apple to recognise that many people commit a large slice of their work life to one.

I run a small business from my computer and although my accountant has all of my numbers on his own system (back up off site) he does not run a Mac and I don't really want to have any more computer downtime. I moved to a Mac in 1999 and the amazing ease of use was one of its distinguishing features when compared with a professional system running Win2k. I hope that Apple will fix this 'improvement' quickly. I believe that simplicity and people focus was one of Steve Jobs's major strengths and I don't understand how this omission (of the very useful labels feature) has made it past the QA team.

Thank you AndrewC1264. I guess that labels made file handling much easier for a lot of people. I did try using Pathfinder when I first used OS X around 'Puma' or 'Jaguar'. It appeared to me to be doing far too much that was not an OS X approved method. The hacking of the OS to make it workable left me feeling uncomfortable and after a few months playing with Pathfinder, I ditched it. While it may be slicker today, I really want a simpler solution that does not overlay the OS nor do I need it to intercept system calls to be operative. Perhaps a single application from a sensible programmer would fill the bill.

The slowdown issue is making itself felt elsewhere...

http://osxdaily.com/2013/11/13/fix-finder-slow-high-cpu-use-mac-os-x/

I have tried the method suggested at the above link by OS X Daily but to no avail. I really need my machine to work well, which it did before the updated Mavericks software was applied. This is the first time an OS update has created more problems for me than it has solved. My current machine is an iMac 8,1 with 4GB of RAM and the fast 512MB NVidia graphics card. My internal storage is 500GB and my external storage is 1.5TB for time machine and a very fast 2GB RAID 0 for work files. both external drives run over FW800. 'Uptime' in terminal produces some figures for load averages that I have never seen before. They average 1.45 when it was difficult to find numbers even approaching anything like 1 previously with 0.32 being common.

The rainbow wheel appears in many applications. A few lines of type in Pages is enough to generate the wheel and a 30 second wait. Image processing in any of Adobe's products can be tiresome. I have only used fonts that came with my ssystem so rogue font-handling is an unlikely cause, especially given that the system worked very well before installing Mavericks. I don't use any of Micrososft's Office suite of applications.

Reading PDF files in Acrobat is problematic to the point of now making me avoid the task. Moving things around the screen does the same as does web browsing. I am sure that a complete vanilla reinstall is likely to be my next step but this is my work system and taking it down for an indeterminate period, while I try to solve problems that others have experienced, while not really knowing enough about the mechanics of what I am doing; is not a prospect that I am looking forward to facing.

I will keep the thread informed when I get around to tackling my re-install of Mavericks.

For what it is worth, I have just carried out a complete vanilla reinstall of OS X 10.9. I will try it for a week and see if there is any improvement over the previous install's slow performance.

I think the main problem is that the Dots/tages are not easy to spot instantly.

I've found tagging very useful but sometimes in list view the dots are off the screen and even when you have the tags as a seperate column you can not put them on the far left side... which would make them instantly more useful

Also the older labels could still be used by simply havingthem in more faded / subtle colours. They wouldn't interfere with the brighter tags then

Going to recommend to Apple.

oh and the folder image replacement app doesn't cut it for instant recognition.

I was hoping for a third party tweak by now. Hopefully it still can be done.

grdh20 wrote:

 

I was hoping for a third party tweak by now. Hopefully it still can be done.

Pathfinder.

Pathfinder is a band-aid solution, only works on the Finder, does not allow apps to see coloured folders/files... it rides above the OS and is not a viable solution. There will be a crack for this soon if Apple doesn't wake up first.

What do you think a "third party tweak" is?

It will, hopefully, restore Labels to what they need to be, not just at the Finder level, in dialogue boxes too... pretty obvious I would think, it *IS* what pretty much everyone posting in here has been asking for... not sure why it requires any further explanation, it doesn't.