Libraries

Windows 7 introduces a new feature to the mix: Libraries. Essentially, a library is a way to view the contents of several folders in one place. For example, the Pictures library pulls together the contents of the My Pictures and the Public Pictures folders by default. You can add or change the folders tied to any particular library, of course.

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Smart Folders

Nothing in Snow Leopard directly compares with Windows’ libraries. The closest OS X feature is saved searches (known as Smart Folders), but a saved search pulls together files based on search criteria, not location. You can’t, for example, create a smart folder that contains all of the photos from two particular folders. On the other hand, you can’t combine Windows 7 libraries with saved search results.

Windows 7, of course, has a smart folder feature as well.

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Ridicuously Big Icons

Both Snow Leopard and Windows 7 permit a large icon view. Windows 7 supports icons in sizes up to 256 by 256 pixels. Snow Leopard one-ups Windows 7, though: The Finder can display icons in sizes up to a seemingly absurd 512 by 512 pixels (512-pixel icons were around in 10.5, but the Finder couldn’t take advantage of them outside the Quick Look and Cover Flow views).

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Quick Access via the Dock or Taskbar

Some OS X apps can use the Dock’s pop-up menus to display application-specific information and to provide easy access to frequently used commands. For example, if you right-click iTunes’ Dock icon in Snow Leopard, you’ll get a menu that you can use to see what’s playing, to play or pause your music, to assign a rating to the current song, and to control other simple iTunes commands.

With Windows 7’s retooled taskbar, Microsoft introduces a similar feature called jump lists. Jump lists not only provide access to common commands (Windows Media Player‘s jump list has a Play command, for example), they also let you “pin” items to a specific list. For example, you can pin commonly used folders to the Windows Explorer jump list and important documents to the WordPad jump list.

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The Dock and Stacks: A Rough Equivalent to Pinning

Snow Leopard has no features directly comparable to the jump list’s pinning feature. Instead, Mac users can use stacks in the Dock to provide quick access to folders and files (drag any folder to the Dock to create a stack). In Snow Leopard, Apple refreshes stacks: You can view unlimited items in a stack by using Grid view (thanks to the addition of scrollbars), and you can drill down into folders without having to open any Finder windows. In addition, you can drag and drop any file into the Dock for quick access.

It will be continue at the next post

Resource: www.pcworld.com

Snow Leopard Versus Windows 7

Neither Windows 7 or Snow Leopard try to reinvent the wheel, but both pack notable new features, large and small.

Nick Mediati, PC World

The Dock and Stacks: A Rough Equivalent to Pinning

Snow Leopard has no features directly comparable to the jump list’s pinning feature. Instead, Mac users can use stacks in the Dock to provide quick access to folders and files (drag any folder to the Dock to create a stack). In Snow Leopard, Apple refreshes stacks: You can view unlimited items in a stack by using Grid view (thanks to the addition of scrollbars), and you can drill down into folders without having to open any Finder windows. In addition, you can drag and drop any file into the Dock for quick access.