The macosxhints Rating:
[Score: 9 out of 10]
- Developer: Cocoatech/ Product page
- Price: $34.95 ($17.95 from any prior version)
Way back in March of 2002, I found SNAX, an advanced file manager that worked well as a replacement for the Finder. I liked it well enough then to select it as one of the very first Pick of the Week winners. However, SNAX wasn't perfect, and there were a number of things the Finder did better and/or faster. So over time, I migrated away from SNAX and back to the good old (with the emphasis on old) Finder. At some point, the SNAX name vanished and was replaced by Path Finder. While I didn't use it regularly, I kept an eye on its continuing development, as I felt it had great potential. In August, CocoaTech released Path Finder 4.5, and after some testing, I started using that version on a daily basis. Sometime after I got back from the Geek Cruise in November, I decided to go "cold turkey" and replaced the Finder with Path Finder (which is easy to do via a setting in Path Finder's preferences).
So why have I made the switch? I think I use Path Finder for the same reasons I use Butler: it's a powerful tool that packs a ton of useful features into one application. As with Butler, there's a bit of a learning curve due to the sheer breadth of features available. But I've found the curve isn't all that steep, and the benefits of the switch have outweighed the efforts required. Here are just a few of the Path Finder features I find most useful:
- Tabs and tab sets. Open new windows as tabs, and save a collection of tabs as a tab set. I have a work tab set, a gaming tab set, etc. Tabs can be rearranged by dragging, and you can choose between vertical and horizontal tabs.
- A powerful Spotlight-independent search tool (you can also use Spotlight directly from Path Finder).
- Get Info windows with tons of data, all of which can be set directly from the window
- A Preview panel for viewing text files, images, Word documents, PDFs, HTML, Shockwave, Flash movies, and more. The panel is resizable, letting you easily see into many documents without opening them.
- A folder history drawer makes it simple to return to a recently-visited folder.
- A drop stack. Think of this as a temporary storage spot for items in transit. Instead of having to drag-navigate-drop, just drop the items on the drop stack, then navigate to where you want them to go, then drag them off the drop stack. While this sounds like more work (and you can still do things the other way), I find it much easier to navigate without worrying about holding the mouse button down.
- Pop-open folders in the toolbar. The OS X Finder used to do this (drag an item over a folder in the toolbar, and it springs open to show a navigable menu of the folder's contents), but they took that feature away when they gave us the sidebar.
- A bookmarks bar for super-fast access to often-used files and folders.
- A built-in Terminal drawer for quick trips to the Unix side of OS X.
- Fully customizable contextual menus, pre-built with some very useful options. I particularly like the "compress and email" and "copy path" options.
- Easy navigation into application bundles; you can even opt to view bundles as normal folders, if you wish.

