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Path Finder - A feature-laden Finder replacement
Authored by: rong on Dec 06, '06 09:51:04AM

I agree that PathFinder is very impressive. And CocoaTech definitely deserves praise for their trail period and license policy. (Twenty one days of usage rather than twenty one calendar days for the trail and one user on three computers for the license. I have purchased a license and posted a comment on their "Suggestions" forum about the issue below.)

However, there is one substantive capability lacking which prevents me from integrating it into my workflow - it does not support Access Control List (ACL) permissions.

Every day I routinely sit in front of three OS X computers:
- Mac mini core duo on the living room coffee table
- G5 dual 2.7ghz home office workstation
- MacBookPro 15.4" 2.33ghz which travels to/fro the corporate offices

Being able to seamlessly use three systems relies heavily on using a (fourth) central file server. This file server (an OS X 10.4.8 client on an old Digital Audio 1.4ghz with 1.6 tera-bytes of disk storage) supports multiple Windows and OS X users and uses ACLs to handle permissions configurations for users/groups on a myriad of file systems and directories. (There is also another old DA running Tiger Server to handle email, accounts/passwords, Retrospect backups, and other responsibilities for which OS X Server is so well suited.) PathFinder does not support this file server.

The MBP runs ChronoSync to keep things synchronized on it with various directories on the corporate office's file server and workstations. And then when it is connected at the home office ChronoSync likewise keeps in sync with the home office's file server. Like magic, I do my work from whatever machine I use, wherever I sit, in two discrete buildings, and the files automatically propagate to wherever they need to be updated.

Bottom line: PathFinder works great for file operations on a local computer but is 100% unable to deal with the majority of files which are kept on a file server for common access from whatever machine I happen to be using at the moment.



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