folder refreshing

[hazmat]

How does folder refreshing work? Is it automatic, right away? It seems to often be, but not always. I have found that I download some file, like a .sit.bin, and it automatically gets decoded, but the folder that it would create is not there. I will execute the file again and then I will see folder and folder.1. Can I manually refresh, like F5 in Windows?

Thanks.

[ElDiabloConCaca]

Try clicking on the desktop to bring the Finder up, and wait a second or two. Or, hide Explorer (or NS or Omni or whatever) and click on the desktop and wait a second or two. This is assuming you're downloading your files to the desktop.

If you're downloading to a folder, click on another app, like the Finder or Explorer or whatever then bring your focus back to the folder that's supposed to contain the uncompressed file. This works for me.

I think the desktop and folders only refresh at certain times, and only because of user activity. I don't think they refresh if another application unstuffs or copies files into that location -- you have to manually navigate to that folder for it to be refreshed under these circumstances. Since Stuffit Expander is working "behind the scenes" and unstuffing into that folder, you won't see the files it uncompresses unless you bring the focus away from that folder and then back to it.

[hazmat]

I download into ~/download. I have tried even closing the Finder window and opening it again and going back to the folder, and still nothing is there until I execute the file again and then have folder and folder.1. Very odd.

[simX]

Stuffit Expander runs in the background for me, but folders refresh almost immediately for me after the unstuffing is finished and I switch to the Finder. However, I have to invoke it manually, because OW does not automatically invoke it anymore, so that could be why it works for me.

[Snyper M]

Yeah the finder refresh in OSX sucks for me too. I mean I understand that stuffit thing sort of..although I would really like the icons to pop up right away even If it was placed on the desktop by a background app.

What I find equally annoying if not more so, dragging pictures from the internet to a folder doesn't always make a thumbnail icon viewable in the finder immediately. Most often you need ot log out for the effect to take place. It seems if you aren't actively watching the computer trying to work it makes the thumbnail fine, but the insatnt you try to watch it do anytihng it refuses to redarw icons and gives me the generic jpg or whatever. It's rather annoying. Also anime divx thigns I get off hotline will usually have to be dragged somewhaere before they have a real quicktime icon and not the partially downloaded crap icon.

Yah I'd liek them to fix this fairly soon as the windoze kids get this feature, and hell i seem to recall we did at one point in time too.

[Klink]

I've noticed this as well. In trying to understand what is actually going on in these situations I've found the answer to be quite complex. Apple's information on this subject is somewhat nebulous as well. Here's a snippet from Apple's System Overview doc's related to the subject.

========
The way the Finder in Mac OS X builds its databases is also different from the Finder in Mac OS 9.

¥ The Finder first adds applications at boot time by scanning the standard locations for applications in the user, local (plus system), and network domains.
¥ When users navigate through the file system, the Finder adds applications in each visited directory to its databases.
¥ When users try to open a document or attempt any other action that requires an application, and the Finder cannot find an appropriate application, it displays a dialog, allowing the user to select an application. This application is added to the user's application database.

Because there may be locations in the file system a user has never visited, or documents of a type she has never attempted to open, the Finder might have an incomplete view of the applications available on a system. Yet it has a built-in capability for "lazily" updating its view of the file system."
========

The last sentence is what I was referring to as being nebulous. "Lazily" doesn't seem to be defined in subsequent pages. There is also mention in the "Inside Mac OS: Performance" pdf that discusses tracking file system changes. In particular the Carbon event manager (since our focus is on the Finder, a carbon app). Apple seems to be pushing developers to not use a constant event polling model till a window becomes active (via the kWindowActivateEvent event handler) to reduce CPU cycles an app uses. So it might be safe to say that this is stirred into the soup as well if Apple follows it's own advice. As you can see it get's kind of hairy involving more than just a simple refresh interval in an event loop. There are other forces at play here which require an in depth understanding of how the file system manager, finder, event manager, and who knows what else, work together.

Pretty interesting I think. Perhaps one of the more experienced boards members can shed more light on this.

[edX]

so hazmet, what happens if you change your download to the desktop and try the clicking on desktop trick? If this works, any reason you wouldn't want to just stick with this for now? I have also experienced this multiple copies phenomenon but not when i download to desktop and then click to find them. it gets really confusing though when some apps insist on downloading to my user documents folder. still don't understand why this happens.

[Jasoco]

Finder Refreshing really does suck much of the time. I hope they fix it soon. I find that many times I have to Quit the Finder (Thank God I put the Quit option in the menu) and relaunch it to fix the folder.

Also, once in a small while I get a weird bug where the icons on the Desktop (ALL OF THEM) appear in the same place and dragging them doesn't work. So I find that quitting it and restarting fixes that too. Odd, but not as annoying as the unautomatic update. I mean it's sometinmes like going back to Windows 95 which didn't automatically update at all.