Making a default window size and preview size for folders on a Mac

Question

I work for a photography company and we have just switched to Mac for showing our photos directly to our clients when they come to our booth. The change to Mac has changed how we show our photos. We are like a roller coaster ride where it takes your photo and you walk up to a booth to view them.

Our problem is that I want to show them in a folder with a size just below fullscreen and in cover flow (with a BIG preview size). The trouble is that customers are the ones who are using them and so they will close to the window. I have 4 Macs open to customers at a time with hundreds of viewers in a weekend.

When I reopen the folder it has been saved in cover flow but the folder window is smaller (nowhere near fullscreen) and the size of the preview to folder ratio is very small for the preview size I want (again this is in cover flow).

I want to be able to change this default sizing like I can for cover flow always defaulting. I know it would just take 10 seconds each time to resize, but a year from now that will add up to hours.

Also, what would be even better is if they close the window that it will automatically reopen it or reopen a specific window?

This is not in the program "preview". This is when I am viewing folders (read only) and they need to be viewed well in cover flow.

Answer 1

One way of doing that is to use the "Use as Default" in the View Options after you have adjusted the size.

Go to View in Menu bar then select show View Options.

Now adjust the size to your liking then click Use as Defaults.

Answer 2

You can use an AppleScript to automate reopening the Finder window when it is closed. To implement this:

Open Script Editor (in the Applications > Utilities folder). Copy and paste the below script into it.

on closing folder window for this_folder
    delay 1
    tell application "Finder"
        open this_folder
    end tell
end closing folder window for

Go to File > Save and then press Cmd+Shift+G. Copy and paste the following path into the small box that appears:

~/Library/Scripts/Folder Action Scripts

Name the file Reopen Finder Window.scpt and click Save.

Copy this file onto all of the computers where you want this to work, in the same folder. (The ~ character means the current user's home folder, so this path will work on each computer correctly without changing it.)

The following steps need to be done on each computer where you want this to function.

In Finder, find the folder you want to always open, and go up to its parent folder. Right-click on the folder you want to always open, highlight Services at the bottom, click Folder Actions Setup... and a new window will appear.

In the new window, find Reopen Finder Window in the list, click on it, and choose Attach. Close this window by clicking the red X in the upper-left corner.

Now, anytime the Finder window showing the contents of that folder is closed, it will automatically reopen.

We can also modify the script to ensure the window is sized correctly every time, but I would need to know what resolution you are using to do this. (Go to the website What is my screen resolution for a quick check of this, if you do not know what it is.)

Answer 3

To get a smaller New Document window in Fireworks, do the following:

1. Open a new document window.

2. Go to Fireworks/Preferences/General: and under Document, deselect "Open new document in tabs". Under Window, also deselect "Use Applicatioan Frame".

3. Resize the window to what you want, then under Window, select "Use Application Frame". Now when you open a new window, it opens to whatever size you set when you resized the window.