Fun with File Management

Cocoatech’s Path Finder is a replacement for the Mac OS X Finder that provides a multitude of geeky file management tools. It has a counterpart in the Windows world in the form PowerDesk, itself a geeky replacement for the Windows Explorer. Both of these programs subvert the ‘keep it simple stupid’ conventional wisdom of file management by adding lots of bells and whistles aimed at power users, but they’re also a lot of fun, at least for nerds.

I’ve been using the recently released version 3.0 of Path Finder for a few days, and it’s almost a home run. Its combination of management innovations, shortcuts and user-centric rearrangement of standard Finder interface elements is really excellent, a superb example of how third party developers can improve on basic operating system functionality. The only caveat is that it’s occasionally slow to refresh directory listings — not a huge shortcoming except for the fact that it completely disqualifies the program from truly replacing the Finder. Which is a shame, because I like it a lot.