That will probably be what I end up going with, Gud.

Hey, you guys look different from a mac!

I basically hate the "Arrange By" option in Finder. It is kind of like sorting by date and grouping by conversations in Outlook, except more confusing. What I really want to do is to be able to *sort*, not arrange. In List View we're cool--I got my column headers and my chevrons, and I'm good to go. But I have a lot of folders where the filenames are pretty much meaningless. I'd rather use icon or three column view, but still have it sorted.

I get that Command J brings up a View Options panel, and this is very helpful indeed. Lifesaver, to apply adequate hyperbole. But I don't understand how to get the same effect when I'm in the file open dialog--I find this is already irritatingly neutered (compared to the Windows default--I'd love to be able to type or paste a path, for instance). I can't right mouse click, and the dialog doesn't even have all the buttons above the file/folder display that Finder does.

Am I out of luck? Condemned to always click on "show all" three times every time?

Unrelatedly, does anyone use Applescript for anything? Ad hoc or routine? Did you write it yourself, or get it from someone else?

Do you use Folder Actions? I'm realising that I could definitely use one or two, but unfortunately not any of the defaults they have (mostly copying a file from folder A to folder B, whenever some other process on another machine creates it).

Unrelatedly, does anyone use Applescript for anything? Ad hoc or routine? Did you write it yourself, or get it from someone else?

I use one for combining PDFs, which is a routine thing. I think I "wrote" it myself (it's fairly simple; it's just add one [or more] PDF to the other, in descending order of date created), but I've been using it for so long that I genuinely can't remember.

Type a forward slash while the open file dialog is active and it will ask you for a path.

I used to use AppleScript a lot, but these days I find I tend to write scripts in ruby and use osascript to drive apps, if needed. When I was using it I'd often try to find something someone else had written as a head start, if nothing else.

Folder actions I've never used.

I've used Applescripts for similarly small things. And Automator, too, which is essentially Applescript for Dummies. Nothing big.

I have replaced Finder with PathFinder on numerous versions of OS X in the past due to generally hating Finder. The latest Finder fixed enough things I hated (and I'm using the Mac rarely enough now) that I haven't done it on the most recent version, but if you have something you hate about Finder there's a decent chance Path Finder fixes it. If you do a lot of mucking about in and amongst your files, I think Path Finder is an unbelievably powerful and useful upgrade and worth every penny. Certainly it's worth the free 30 day trial to see.

I've used Applescripts for similarly small things. And Automator, too, which is essentially Applescript for Dummies. Nothing big.

D'oh, my PDF-combining thing is in Automator, not Applescript.

Rob, that's really cool, but I can't paste into it? Am I doing something weird? It's exactly the same clipboard content I'm pasting to go to folder in Finder. Being able to navigate like that means the slow loading of the NAS folders is less of an issue--most often I was trying to navigate down a file structure and the last two folders were taking forever.

But not pasting is an oddity.

Gris, I'll take a look at Pathfinder. Thanks for the recommendation.

And I see that I can use Automator to make a folder action, so let's see if what trouble I can cause.

Pasting works for me. What are you copying from?

One terminal trick that might help is the "open" command. It does the same thing that opening a file in the Finder does. So if you know the full path to the file in question you can avoid the Finder altogether.

I open finder, choose Go/Go To Folder and copy the text from there since it's the most recent valid path I had to hand. I can post it here: /Volumes/Oracle/Pictures/Reference and copy it again and try to paste it back (with or without the leading slash) and I get the no-no boop noise.

And for me it's not usually opening files that's the task. It's saving them.

Here's what I'm doing:

choose "Go To Folder"

choose "copy" to copy contents of edit box to clipboard

Activate Safari

Choose "Save"

Hit "/"

Choose "Select All"

Choose "Paste"

Hit the return key

I end up in the parent directory of the path I pasted with the final component of the path in the file name box.

Mac OS X 10.8.2, although I think this has been around a long time.