[Krypton]

I had always liked PathFinder, but found it slow on my iMac and not fundamentally more feature complete than the Finder.

However, with the new 2.5 beta release I think they've struck gold! It's fast, but above all it improves upon all the features in Panther's finder with more too: such as the application switcher draw, and a drag and drop shelf.

Give it a go

[workerbee]

Originally posted by Krypton:
I had always liked PathFinder, but found it slow on my iMac and not fundamentally more feature complete than the Finder.

Very nice! Thanks for pointing out the new version.
I always liked PF a lot, too, and have used it for certain tasks the Finder was not made for (putting invisible files into a Toast window for example).
Not so sure about the new chrome interface, however... the Finder and PathFinder are toys now? iFinder?

(At least PF lets you go back to default... knowing Apple's total aversion to any user choices, I doubt this will be possible with Panthers Finder without some hack or other.)

[phillryu]

It is indeed possible. Pressing the toolbar minimize button in the panther finder now turns it into the old jaguar finder (but without a toolbar). I never used those buttons anyway Command shift h for home, command shift a for apps.

[Horsepoo!!!]

Yeah...uhh...WOW...it's an even *bigger* piece of **** now. More bloated than ever. Trying to be like Panther's Finder and failing miserably.

Slow window resizes when all the bloat is enabled. With all the bloat disabled, it's just...well...the Finder.

I appreciate that the author is trying to solve the Finder problem that we've been facing since 10.0. It might be solved for some people thanks the the author...but IMO, Path Finder is making things much much worse by overcomplicating what is supposed to be a simple storage media browsing tool.

Panther's Finder isn't perfect...but it sure as hell is lightyears ahead of Jaguar's Finder and previous Finders.

Path Finder may have been a half-decent solution when we were stuck with the 10.2 Finder, but in the next couple months, you won't really have an excuse to use Path Finder.

[Krypton]

Originally posted by Horsepoo!!!:

Path Finder may have been a half-decent solution when we were stuck with the 10.2 Finder, but in the next couple months, you won't really have an excuse to use Path Finder.

I was thinking of the exact opposite actually - when Panther comes out I may buy a copy as it should have a further speed boost.

[JellyBeen]

Originally posted by Horsepoo!!!:
Yeah...uhh...WOW...it's an even *bigger* piece of **** now. More bloated than ever. Trying to be like Panther's Finder and failing miserably.

Slow window resizes when all the bloat is enabled. With all the bloat disabled, it's just...well...the Finder.

I appreciate that the author is trying to solve the Finder problem that we've been facing since 10.0. It might be solved for some people thanks the the author...but IMO, Path Finder is making things much much worse by overcomplicating what is supposed to be a simple storage media browsing tool.

Panther's Finder isn't perfect...but it sure as hell is lightyears ahead of Jaguar's Finder and previous Finders.

Path Finder may have been a half-decent solution when we were stuck with the 10.2 Finder, but in the next couple months, you won't really have an excuse to use Path Finder.

agree!

[ambush]

They've done an incredibly good job - I might consider it when Panther ships.

[delete]

It might have a lot of uneeded stuff, but it has a lot of options that I appreciate. All the choices of color, row separators, backgrounds, labels, various sorting criteria,etc. make it so I can customize so much more than what the Finder offers.

Also, you can turn the metal look off in the prefs so it looks like Aqua.

I commend their efforts.

[milhouse]

I've been a registered user of PF for some time now. i've found it mostly unusable though since it is too bloated with few options to tailor options to my needs. If there were a paid upgrade required for the current feature set I'd skip it.

The contextual menus alone are nearly enough to make it unusable (they are huge).

Also the lack of a simple cut and paste from the contextual menu is a real PIA.

The developers do work hard and are responsive to user needs however. Hopefully future versions will provide more customizability so that those of us who dislike the Finder but find PF too cluttered can use the app full time.

cheers.

[sandsl]

I'm not keen... I'll be sticking with the Panther Finder.

[foamy]

As a registered user of PF, I originally scoffed at all the "features" it offered, but have grown to appreciate them more and more as I use the application. With 2.5 I now use it as a complete replacement of the Crapple Finder.

Whenever I use a different machine, what immediately strikes me is the lack of grouping the column view. I can't remember if Panther has this feature (grouping folders togther at the top), but I really miss it when using the regular "Finder"...I also am shocked back into Apple's harsh reality everytime I have to use the abomination that is known as an "Open and Save Diaglogue".

Some other features I use that Apple will never provide are the shelf (awesome) and the ability to copy the path to a file in Unix, HFS+, Terminal, etc format...very good for gettng the correct path when scripting. Also the preview and running apps drawers are great. The one thing I really want is a compression format that saves resource forks. I think he uses .tgz which doesn' t do you much good.

I also really like the extensive contextual menus--something Apple is shying away from. E.g. in Safari, invoking a contextual menu on a page only gives you "save as" and "view source". I am constantly trying to use it to go back, instead of going all the way up to the back button with my mouse....but I digress.

Espumoso

[Horsepoo!!!]

Originally posted by foamy:

I also really like the extensive contextual menus--something Apple is shying away from. E.g. in Safari, invoking a contextual menu on a page only gives you "save as" and "view source". I am constantly trying to use it to go back, instead of going all the way up to the back button with my mouse....but I digress.

Espumoso

Apple is shying away from making a complex and bloated interface and you hate them for it. Why don't you use Windows then?

I don't mean to be the asshole that I obviously am but you're never gonna get Apple to create an interface like Path Finder...because there's way too much crap in that PF interface that nobody needs.

If it's more of an effort to move your mouse up to the titlebar that right-click (or ctrl-click) and find the 'back' option...then, mister, you're one lazy bum.

Apple and OS X is about the power of simplicity...if you're trying to go against what it's all about, you should probably start re-evaluating why you're using a Mac.

[Krypton]

Originally posted by Horsepoo!!!:
Apple is shying away from making a complex and bloated interface and you hate them for it. Why don't you use Windows then?

I don't mean to be the asshole that I obviously am but you're never gonna get Apple to create an interface like Path Finder...because there's way too much crap in that PF interface that nobody needs.

If it's more of an effort to move your mouse up to the titlebar that right-click (or ctrl-click) and find the 'back' option...then, mister, you're one lazy bum.

Apple and OS X is about the power of simplicity...if you're trying to go against what it's all about, you should probably start re-evaluating why you're using a Mac.

The beauty of Path Finder is that it is so feature rich and customisable that you can use whichever parts you like, and turn off those that you don't (cough, brushed metal).

Apple's Finder is ok for general tasks, but I have always felt it was lacking...


More interesting to note, is that I think Apple probably intended to make their Finder slightly lacklustre - to give other products chance to fill the gap. Apple has always made it quite clear that you could swap out the Finder in OS X

[kennedy]

Originally posted by Krypton:
The beauty of Path Finder is that it is so feature rich and customisable that you can use whichever parts you like, and turn off those that you don't (cough, brushed metal).

For the bulk of the world that means confusion and chaos. Its great for the hackers and power users that love optimizing their world to themselves... but they largely just create nightmares for everybody else.

Imagine when some random user calls a help desk for help... the intelligent help person says "hit this"... the response comes back "It says it is reformatting my disk". "Oh my, have you reprogrammed the standard keystrokes?" Response from frazzled caller "Have I done what?" After a lengthy exchange of "No, I don't think so"s, we get "Well, I did let Joe install something... he had this cool thing where he whenever he presses ... it does ...; I asked how he did that, and he said he'd install his 'bindings' and PathFinder for me... whatever that means."

Ever wonder why when you call a Windoze help desk and they start to tell you what to do... they always start with "Go to the start menu and select 'Run...', then type..." Because they have no idea what you might have done to the normal interfaces for anything.

I remember in the early days of the Mac and Windoze... I was always amazed at how well all the Mac programs followed conventions for all the keystrokes and how amazingly inconsistent the Windoze programs could be. Made it so effortless to navigate a Mac vs. Windoze. And I could walk over to a friends Mac and without hesitation, show them what to do or help them or whatever. Walking over to someone's Windoze machines always started with a long orientation period.

Oh well, enough rambling...

I'm all for keyboard shortcuts... I'm an Emacs fan... but I am even bigger into consistency and clarity.

[foamy]

Apple is shying away from making a complex and bloated interface and you hate them for it. Why don't you use Windows then?

I am continually perplexed by the invocation of the "Love America or Leave it" argument.....oh, I meant the "Love the Mac or Leave it" argument.

I made an assesment of some of the features I learned to like about PathFinder. I contrasted one feature (grouping in column view) to the Finder and the Apple Open and Save boxes. That's it. Go outside. Get some fresh air. Lighten up. We're talking about a computer and one application that I like (despite it's problems) and you apparently hate (because of its flaws). It's not ****ing people dying in foreign lands....

I don't mean to be the asshole that I obviously am

You said it not me. However, if I got to know you better I'm sure I would agree with your self-assesment.

If it's more of an effort to move your mouse up to the titlebar that right-click (or ctrl-click) and find the 'back' option...then, mister, you're one lazy bum

I agree even more now with your previous self-assesment...

What I said (paraphrasing). I use the back feature of Camino's CM an I like it. I know Apple is shying away from CMs and I think that's too bad.

What you said (paraphrasing). If you don't worship the America I espouse, go back to your country you stinking wetback . Damn. There I go again. I meant, "If you don't worship Steve Jobs' MacOSX, the use Windows you retard!" "Oh and a lazy retard at that!"

Again. I simply stated something that I like about an application (a back function in the contextual menu) and now I'm a lazy bum?

The beauty of PathFinder is that I can use and I can enjoy its power features and I can turn them on and off and I can copy Unix paths and I can use the shelf and compress things with a contextual menu and I can make symbolic links and open things as root and and and...and you don't have to! Yes. Being individuals with individual brains and habits and needs and desires, we do not have to use a tool called a Macintosh computer in exactly the same way.

Wow!

Choice.

What a concept!

[monkeybrain]

Some of you are saying it's bloated (i.e. has many features) but I find on my old 400 mhz g4 that it is significantly faster than the finder.

Also the shelf is an excellent addition, also the ability to have multiple shelfs is good for different projects etc.

[GENERAL_SMILEY]

It is a great replacement for the Finder, on my 17 Al it runs as fast as the Apple original (give or take) - what it loses in listing large folders (4000+ items), it makes up for with multi-threaded copying.

Would be great if it gave you the option to decide on what goes inside the contextual menus, as they can appear a little daunting, but the options there are mostly useful, and it also has the 'move to' command - so dear to some peoples hearts (yes there is also the copy command).

Previewing files is in a drawer, which is the best place for it (you eventually realize). It also integrates with the terminal better than the finder.

On top of all this it offers much of Panther's finder functionality right now.

[Horsepoo!!!]

Originally posted by GENERAL_SMILEY:

On top of all this it offers much of Panther's finder functionality right now.

Except that the features are coded sloppily into PF and look quite ridiculous compared to the real Panther Finder's new features.

[Ghoser777]

Would people stop saying Panther Finder and Path Finder! I have to read each sentence twice just to figure out what everyone means. Path Finder and the Finder (or 10.3 Finder) would have been distinctive enough.

Matt Fahrenbacher

[Horsepoo!!!]

Originally posted by Ghoser777:
Would people stop saying Panther Finder and Path Finder! I have to read each sentence twice just to figure out what everyone means. Path Finder and the Finder (or 10.3 Finder) would have been distinctive enough.

Matt Fahrenbacher

Good point.