Guy in the Hat

Making Icon View Work

Daniel Jalkut, developer of MarsEdit, has issued a call for everyone to start blogging. So:

If you’re a mere mortal like me, you browse the Finder in icon view. Big icons are easy to recognize, and they let me use Fitts’ Law to click on things faster. Yes, the intuitive simplicity of icon view is truly a wondrous thing.

However, getting a file up one folder level is not. You need to create a seperate Finder window, navigate to one folder short of where your file is, and drag it over. Clearly, OS X has failed you. Or has it? Consider the following Applescript:

on run
	tell application "Finder"
		try
			set the target of window 1 to the container of target of window 1
		on error
			display dialog "No parent folder exists." buttons {"OK"} default button 1 with icon caution
		end try
	end tell
end run

on open the_files
	tell application "Finder"
		try
			move the_files to the container of target of window 1
		on error
			display dialog "No parent folder exists." buttons {"OK"} default button 1 with icon caution
		end try
	end tell
end open

Short but sweet. Paste that into Script Editor and save it as an application bundle. You can put it in your Finder sidebar or toolbar if you like. Whenever you want to move files one folder up, simply drag them onto your little script. As a bonus, clicking will change the current Finder window to the parent folder. This way, it behaves as if it were the actual parent folder in the sidebar (but not in open/save dialogs).