Finder Sidebar Broken in Leopard (updated)

[Gregg Dinse]

This bounced a few minutes ago, so let me try again...

On 5 Nov 2007, at 6:25 AM, David Herren wrote:

> On Nov 4, 2007, at 3:26 PM, LuKreme wrote:
>
>> But that's not how it works.  It's not how it's ever worked.  If  
>> you have a finder window open that was opened by the system when  
>> the external whatever was mounted, regardless of where that window  
>> may end up pointing, it will close when the drive mount is ejected.
>>
>> It worked like this in Tiger (Mount an image, copy the file to ~/ 
>> Applications, switch to your home folder, switch to ~/ 
>> Applications.  Select the new app, eject the mount.  Window goes  
>> away.
>
> I'm apparently not explaining myself very well.
>
> I NEVER open multiple finder windows. Never. I come to this from  
> Nextstep and my work style is one in which there is ONE finder  
> window only.
>
> Mounting an external drive does not now and has never opened a  
> second finder window. The icon just shows up in the sidebar. In  
> this particular case, we're talking about my TimeMachine drive. I  
> never drill down into my timemachine drive. Never. I never look at  
> it. I mount it, and then later I unmount it. I used this drive with  
> a different backup system before time machine and did exactly this  
> with that system.
>
> Never, ever, under any version of OSX until Leopard has clicking  
> the little arrow to unmount an external drive caused the ONLY  
> finder window I've ever had open to close.  It did NOT work that  
> way under Tiger nor Panther.
>
> I can't even begin to image why anyone would open multiple finder  
> windows--it certainly makes no sense to me, but if your style has  
> you opening multiple windows, then fine. However, I'm telling you,  
> the behavior of closing the ONLY finder window open when I've NEVER  
> traversed a path on an external drive is broken.
>
> /david

Perhaps part of the confusion is that most people may not work with a  
Finder window always open.  Like David, I come from a NextStep  
background and I always have one (and only one) Finder window open.   
I use the column view and this is how I navigate my system.  I always  
leave a Finder window open, though it may be partially obscured by  
other open windows.

My guess it that most people do not leave a Finder window open.  I do  
not have Leopard installed, so I can not test this, but perhaps the  
following is happening.  If you have no Finder window open, then you  
attach an external drive, maybe a Finder window automatically opens.   
If so, then perhaps it also automatically closes when the drive is  
unmounted.

I agree with David, though, that I have a Finder window always open  
and a new Finder window does not open when I mount an external drive,  
and the main (always open) Finder window does not close when I  
unmount the drive.  This has been true for all pre-Leopard versions  
of OSX, at least for me.

Gregg