“The Finder for grown ups”

You know, the Mac’s Finder is a great piece of work. Simple to use and pleasant to look at, it’s fine for general purpose use. If like most people, ninety percent of your computing life is lived between your browser, email, music, photos and Microsoft Office then it is more than enough for your needs.

However, some of us crave something rather more powerful, less candy-coated. Graphical flourishes may be new to users of Windows Vista, but the novelty of scaling, shadows and transparency wore off for us five years ago. We have needs that Apple are not hurrying to address.

We want a discreet, flexible alternative to the dock. We build websites and applications so we want to access files in several places without having to constantly press F9 for Exposé. We’re heartily tired of having to open image files from list view just to find out their pixel dimensions.

Enter DragThing and Path Finder, you heroes of the shareware world!

Have a look at this screengrab (300k) to see my desktop.

I’ve used DragThing ($29) since the Mac OS 9 days, and it’s a fantastic way to get to the items that you use most. You can make docks and put anything you like in them, configuring them to pretty much any arrangement and style you like. I’ve got a ‘process dock’ for running apps and two little tabs at the bottom-right that I keep apps in.

On the other hand, my relationship with Path Finder ($34.95) has been a bit on-and-off. I used it on my iBook, but found it slow in comparison to the Finder on that humble little computer. I’ve recently tried it again and it offers a compelling replacement.

Dubbed “The Finder for grown ups” by MacUser, it does away with brushed metal and replaces it with a clean, consistent style. Among its features (which you can see on the screengrab) are tabbed windows, a directory crumbtrail, a ‘Drop Stack’ for putting items on as you move them around and *sweet relief* an ‘info’ column where you can see image dimensions.

These applications play nicely with each other (an option in DragThing turns on Path Finder support), and I have merely scratched the surface of their capabilities. At a little over £30 for them both, it’s a deal.