Pathfinder successor to Windows Explorer


One of the things I miss about Windows XP is its adaptive file manager.

Windows Explorer gets a lot of bad reviews, but it is a long way better than Apple's anachronistic Finder utility.

For one, Explorer makes it far easier to find network shares, organise volumes, and preview documents. It groups items logically, although it still often needs a refresh to find recently updated items.

Pathfinder for OS X seems to go a long way towards fixing Finder's inherent limitations while introducing some fresh features of its own such as a terminal and hex viewer. Hopefully Apple won't pull a Dashboard on the makers of Pathfinder, but offer to buy them out if Finder is upgraded for Lynx.

The emphasis on the pro-user market makes this manager a lot more like Directory Opus in philosophy than Finder or Explorer.

Hard core users may like to look at the XTree Gold clone Extreme for Windows or UnixTree for OS X.

Update: After watching the Apple Tiger webinar, it appears that rather than update Finder, Apple chose to boost its capabilities with Spotlight.

One of the cool features for switxers is the ability to search on a Windows term, such as "Wallpaper", and have this translate to the Mac's "Desktop and Screensaver" analogy. That should make getting down to brass tacks with Tiger's Preferences especially much easier.

This reminds me of the ploys that Microsoft used to lure people to Word when WordPerfect was the dominant word processor. Word would display either its own native interface, or a menu system ripped straight from WordPerfect so users could use all the old key presses with which they were familiar and not have to spend a lot of time retraining. Some cross-grade offers in the early to mid 90s came with shortcut and equivalent keypress cards. This was especially important in the day because most of the users were para-professionals -- legal secretaries, doctors' receptionists, PA's and so on and they were loathe to change platforms once they were trained. IBM's little known WordPro uses this feature today.

Spotlight used this way neatly sidesteps any legal argument that Microsoft could possibly fling at Apple over copyright infringement, while making the transition less painful for users. The USPTO has argued that in general menus are not subject to copyright but may be if the "form of expression on these screens is sufficiently extensive and original that it is subject to copyright, just as a chapter in a book, or even a page of text".

Apple knows a thing or three about "look-and-feel" law suits so certainly understands how to avoid them.

Another useful function is the ability to create smart folders, which organise and update the items they show based on criteria set in Spotlight's search terms. For instance, you may wish to find every Excel spreadsheet that holds information related to a new product, or every generic graphic of telecommunications satellite, or perhaps every item related to The Great Barrier reef whether they be PDFs, Word documents or whatever. Spotlight can even dip into PDFs and pull out the search terms -- very useful for map hounds.

Posted: Sun - May 1, 2005 at 11:26 AM          

©