One of my favorite applications for the traditional Mac operating system was Action Files from Power On Software. The main reason I loved it was that I could rename files or move them to the trash from the Open/Save dialog. That was a great time saver to someone like me who has hundreds of files (mostly word processing documents) on his hard drive.
I’ve lamented the fact that I didn’t have this ability with Mac OS X, which I’m using full time. Why Apple doesn’t make this an OS X feature I don’t understand. But since that hasn’t happened, I’ve found a solution that works well in Default Folder X from St. Clair Software.
Default Folder X offers a system enhancement that speeds access to files and folders in Open and Save dialogs. With Default Folder, when you type the names of files and folders, they’re correctly selected in the file listing, something OS X doesn’t do correctly yet. The utility also shows you where you are. The top menu in a file dialog lists the active folder and its enclosing folders, just as it did in Mac OS 9. Apple dropped this feature in OS X, but now you can put it back.
Default Folder X lets you rename, delete and get information on files and folders without leaving the file dialog. It “rebounds” back to the last item that you selected in a folder.
The utility opens folders for you in the Finder. When you need to do more with a file or folder, Default Folder X can tell the Finder to open the folder shown in an Open or Save dialog.
Default Folder X gives you access to windows you have open in the Finder. A popup menu gives you a list of all of the windows open in the Finder. Choosing one from the menu switches the file dialog to that folder. You can also use the utility to jump quickly to recently used and favorite folders. Heck, you can even assign command keys to your favorites to save time.
Default Folder X attaches a toolbar to the right side of the Open and Save dialogs in any Carbon application. The toolbar gives you quick access to various folders and commands. You just click on the buttons to go to your favorite and recently used folders, manage the folders and files shown in the list, and make changes to your settings. You can manage multiple groups of favorites and default folders through the OS X System Preferences.
Default Folder X supports such Carbon applications such as AppleWorks, Office X, Acrobat, Illustrator 10, Internet Explorer, Metrowerks CodeWarrior, Eudora, GraphicConverter, BBEdit and FileMaker Pro. Support for Cocoa applications will be added in an upcoming free update, according to the folks at St. Claire.
The US$34.95 shareware product will operate on any Mac running Mac OS X version 10.1.2 or higher. Registered Default Folder 3.x users can upgrade to Default Folder X for $19.95. A demo is available from the product Web site.
If you’re not using Default Folder X, you should be. It’s one of the “must-have” utilities for Mac OS X.