Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Software
7 things Merlin Mann likes about Path Finder
When
I posted about Path Finder 4 the other day lots
of folks wondered if we needed yet another Finder replacement. Being the lazy blogger that I am I waited from someone
else to write a post about that so I could point to it, and Merlin Mann (who I almost met at Macworld) of 43 Folders
fame, was kind enough to do it.He lists seven things that he likes about Path Finder and that the plain old Finder just can't do.
I hope it answers some of your questions.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Holger Blaschka said 8:41AM on 1-18-2006
Pathfinder suxx - wait for the release of FileRun 1.0 (http://www.filerun.info/) - this is what I at least call a good start for a Finder-Replacement.
The best finder Replacement IMHO would be a Mac-Version of KDEs Konquerror, which is the best integrated Filemanager/Browser available.
Why? Because of its Input/Output-Handlers, which enable you to transparently mount and view (nearly) any local or remote Filesystem / Filetypes or IP-based-Protocols. So for example you can mount a remote-filesysstem via SSH (fish://server/path) on one site of the the Filemanager while on the other side you have open a local filesystem (you can choose between a Norton Commander or a flat style), which enables you to transparently copy files from one system to another. (Both may even be remote!)
Konqueror also works with Protocols like FTP, SFTP, HTTP, HTTPS, IMAP, POP3, LDAP, NNTP, WEBDAV, WEBDAVS, NFS, SSH, etc. - and the browser (based on the Code as Safaris Webkit) is allready included.
--> http://www.pro-linux.de/t_programme/kio-protokolle.html gives an insight on I/O Slaves (The article is in german though).
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Alex Kadis said 9:15AM on 1-18-2006
Re: FileRun
How can you tell? All I see is one screenshot, which speaks nothing of stability, developer support, software quality, etc. I know it looks nice, but PathFinder looks nice too. Sure, I'll wait a month to see what it's about, but honestly I doubt I'd buy it until I see some user experience responses.
Out of curiosity, what do you dislike about PF? I mean I haven't bought it yet, so I can't really say I'm committed to it, but what's not to like? It's heck of a lot better than the Finder, and i find it easy to use and stable - two main purchasing points for me.
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Holger Blaschka said 9:49AM on 1-18-2006
I disklike its not Konqueror ;-)
To be serious: Id support und buy ANY solution that trys to emulate the great (integrated) work the KDE-Dev-Team has done with Konqueror.
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Entica said 4:03PM on 1-18-2006
I really want to like PathFinder but it's performance kills me. My G5 with 768mb's of ram is already starved and constantly grinds and has issues already. Throw the memory hungry PathFinder on top and it just kills my box whenever I try doing anything else at the same time (like Photoshop, etc .). I dig it but I need something lean for my crappy G5. Maybe I'll try it on my dual g4 450 (which is faster than my G5 in many regards). I'm starting to think there's something seriously wrong with my G5 - it's so damn slow and 10.4.4 didn't help much - more bloat more slowdown.
E.
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Michael said 5:39PM on 1-18-2006
Well, Merlin's welcome to his opinion, but I'm getting less sure of this application as I get more familiar with it. Yes, there are some nice features, as I said in the earlier posting you had on Path Finder. However, it definitely suffers from creeping featuritis and watching it in Activity Monitor is a chastening experience. I've found the same as Entica: it is memory-hungry.
Two things I really don't like.
1. It installs third-party software from Unsanity without asking - see Daring Fireball:
http://daringfireball.net/
2. I checked what files it modifies when run:
~/Library/Application Support/AddressBook
~/Library/Application Support/AddressBook/.database.lockN
~/Library/Caches/com.apple.AddressBook/MetaData
~/Library/Caches/com.apple.AddressBook/MetaData/.info
~/Library/Preferences
~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.recentitems.plist
~/Library/Preferences/com.cocoatech.PathFinder.plist
No comment.
Yeah, it's kinda cute to have all these little touches like the ability to tar and gzip files with a click ... but after all you can do that at the CLI in OS X:
http://www.bsdguides.org/guides/openbsd/beginners/compressed_archives.php
It's the same story for just about everything PF offers: there are other ways to do it; it just makes it a little more convenient. I'm just not sure it's worth the price in software bloat and inelegance and memory.
So I think I probably will uninstall and not buy it. But I'm sure it will suit some. The developer deserves some applause for trying to code a complete Finder replacement in Cocoa at any rate. There is still too much Carbon hanging around OS X.
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