FOLDERS DISAPPEAR IN THE FINDER-MAJOR BUG-WATCH OUT!!

[Robin_the_Great]

Version: 2008
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger)
Processor: Power PC
Email Client: pop

The project manager is BUGGY. I have always used hyphens at the beginning of folder names so my active projects stay at the top of the list in the finder, and also in the project manager in Entourage. Entourage 2008 didn't like the hyphens--when trying to assign an email to a project, the pull-down showed only a long line with no type. So I changed the hyphens to a period. Entourage would now display them, but the finder was not able to see the corresponding folders any longer!!!! They also were invisible to Quark Xpress. I was panicking until I realized what the prob was. Once i restored the names, they reappeared in the finder (in fact, I watched them reappear one by one as I made the changes).
I thought the project manager in Entourage used ALIASES???
This sounds like a BAD BUG to me.

 

[Jesse David Hollington]

Well, other than the hyphen issue, this is not really an Entourage
problem... Naming *ANY* file or folder in Mac OS X with a leading dot makes
it a "hidden" file, and in fact if you turn on the display of hidden files
(requires either a terminal command or a third-party tool to do this),
you'll see there are a whole bunch of files already on your computer with
leading dots -- these are used by the operating system itself for various
reasons.

 

[Corentin Cras-Méneur]

So I changed the hyphens to a period. Entourage would now display them,
but the finder was not able to see the corresponding folders any
longer!!!!

Well if the hyphens were at the begining of the names, it unfortunately
makes sense. Files and folders with a name begining by a period are
invisible in the FInder by design.
You can view them and rename them through the Terminal though,

Corentin

 

[William Smith]

Version: 2008
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger)
Processor: Power PC
Email Client: pop

The project manager is BUGGY. I have always used hyphens at the
beginning of folder names so my active projects stay at the top of
the list in the finder, and also in the project manager in Entourage.
Entourage 2008 didn't like the hyphens--when trying to assign an
email to a project, the pull-down showed only a long line with no
type. So I changed the hyphens to a period. Entourage would now
display them, but the finder was not able to see the corresponding
folders any longer!!!! They also were invisible to Quark Xpress. I
was panicking until I realized what the prob was. Once i restored the
names, they reappeared in the finder (in fact, I watched them
reappear one by one as I made the changes). I thought the project
manager in Entourage used ALIASES??? This sounds like a BAD BUG to
me.

You've already been told about the periods preceding file names in the
Finder.

The hyphens issue is actually new to Entourage 2008 and is a feature. To
illustrate how it can be used select a message and go to Edit -->
Categories --> Edit Categories. Create a new category with just a hypen
for a name. After you close the window and go to select a category
you'll notice the "hyphen" category is now a divider line.

Not a bug but understandably unexpected.

Hope this helps!

--

bill

William M. Smith, Microsoft Interop MVP - Mac/Windows
Entourage Help Page <http://entourage.mvps.org/>
Entourage Help Blog <http://blog.entourage.mvps.org/>

 

[Jesse David Hollington]

Well, I'm not sure I see the point of this as a "feature" however, since I
can't seem to find a way to sort the category list by anything other than
the actual name. Therefore, the "-" category always appears at either the
top or the bottom of this list depending upon the sort order...

Seems like a half-baked feature at best...

 

[Diane Ross]

Well, I'm not sure I see the point of this as a "feature" however, since I
can't seem to find a way to sort the category list by anything other than
the actual name. Therefore, the "-" category always appears at either the
top or the bottom of this list depending upon the sort order...

Coming in late to this discussion, but if you want to force sort folders,
then use characters like @, ! and space.

 

[Jesse David Hollington]

Sure, and for that purpose it makes sense. However, the earlier comment was
that it could be used to create an actual horizontal-rule style divider line
as a separator, since entering the "-" in a categories list causes it to
appear as a line separator.

While that's a neat concept, the fact that the "-" always sorts in the same
place (ie, at the top or the bottom), makes this aspect of it rather
useless, since you can't actually separate anything with it, other than the
"None" category

I think it's appearance as a separator line is either an unintended
side-effect of automatic formatting somewhere, or a feature that has not
quite been finished.

 

[William Smith]

Sure, and for that purpose it makes sense. However, the earlier comment was
that it could be used to create an actual horizontal-rule style divider line
as a separator, since entering the "-" in a categories list causes it to
appear as a line separator.

While that's a neat concept, the fact that the "-" always sorts in the same
place (ie, at the top or the bottom), makes this aspect of it rather
useless, since you can't actually separate anything with it, other than the
"None" category

I think it's appearance as a separator line is either an unintended
side-effect of automatic formatting somewhere, or a feature that has not
quite been finished.

Hi Jesse!

You're correct that the hyphen sorts like any other character but when
combined with Diane's suggestion of using spaces then it acts like a
divider.

This idea works for me since I use spaces instead of hyphens but I can
understand your frustration. Numbers would probably be a better fit if
you're prioritizing.

Hope this helps!

--

bill

William M. Smith, Microsoft Interop MVP - Mac/Windows
Entourage Help Page <http://entourage.mvps.org/>
Entourage Help Blog <http://blog.entourage.mvps.org/>