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TotalFinder beefs up Finder

by Brett Terpstra Jan 14th 2010 at 2:00PM


A new "hack" for Finder is in the works, and it's pretty darn cool. TotalFinder adds tabs, Visor-like functionality and a few other goodies (with more on the way) to your plain, vanilla Finder setup. If you're skittish, though, don't jump just yet. TotalFinder is alpha, and not in that way that developers label software just to be safe. It's really, really alpha. TotalFinder runs as a SIMBL plugin, too, which can (in some cases) cause some system instability in and of itself. However, if you've got the apples for it, it's a very cool new way to soup up your Finder.

In its current state, it does a few simple -- yet amazingly useful -- things, starting with adding tabs to Finder. Honestly, we got tabs in Terminal before Finder? This catches us up a little bit. The Visor feature (which is optional), assigns a hotkey that makes your tabbed Finder window slide onto the screen and disappear when you're not using it. It's take-or-leave for me at this point; it's cool, but it takes a lot of getting used to, especially for window-to-window file dragging within Finder. You can't currently drop files onto other tabs, so some problems arise in that situation. The other features include preventing .DS_Store file creation and sorting file listings with folders grouped on top.

For now, I'm sticking with Path Finder for my souped-up Finder needs, but TotalFinder has the potential to bring Finder into its own after years of relatively few improvements. You can grab a copy to try out (for free) at BinaryAge, and note that it comes with an uninstall script that will wipe it clean off your system if you don't like it.

[via Smoking Apples]



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A new "hack" for Finder is in the works, and it's pretty darn cool. TotalFinder adds tabs, Visor-like functionality and a few other...
 

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zwaldowski

Jesus, why all the hate for SIMBL? It's great!

I think TotalFinder is awesome (and 64-bit, too; that assauges my anal-retentive-Mac-app-whatever-ness). My only problem is that you can't drag files between tabs. However, since it rips (and, by that, I mean duplicates exactly) Chrome's tabs, at least "ripping" is easy to do.

January 15 2010 at 6:29 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Kyle

Finder already groups folders together when sorted by kind, as of 10.6

January 15 2010 at 8:02 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Max Howell

Tabs make no sense in Finder. I have more than one Finder window open for maybe 10 minutes a day, and generally for the purpose of dragging a file from one to the other. Tabs make sense when you have dormancy in your usage. Terminal and my browser I have tabs open for weeks. Apple know what they're doing.

Of course everyone uses it differently, and that. But Apple know that 95% of the people using Safari and Terminal need tabs and only 5% of people who use Finder need them.

January 15 2010 at 3:38 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Brandon Corbin

I couldn't help myself and installed this Alpha software on my 10.6.2 Macbook Pro - boom, the Finder fell and I spent 40 minutes cleaning up after the install. But I still love the idea, and will stupidly try it again and again until it works.

January 14 2010 at 11:19 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Zactu

Finder needs improving big time. It at least needs tabs.

January 14 2010 at 8:33 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
delphinus87

I've seen that look in an App before, now where was that...

http://www.google.com/chrome

January 14 2010 at 5:37 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
2 replies to delphinus87's comment
Martin

You are so far beyond cool for making the link between the two apparent to the rest of us.

January 14 2010 at 8:28 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
delphinus87

don't hate...

January 14 2010 at 10:32 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
JD

Let me introduce you to...FIWI...http://wordpower-software.com/WordPower/fiwi.html. You can use it 100 times, then it costs .99 - WELL WORTH IT!

January 14 2010 at 5:26 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
kevinbarre

SUPER cool idea. I sent this to Apple as a suggestion a year or so back. Here's hoping they go ahead and actually add it to the finder.

January 14 2010 at 4:38 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
dave

I use Leap by Ironic software as my finder alternative. Its a great tool that allows you to metatag all your files. It has allowed me to organize the thousands of files that I have on my computer so i can find them with just a few clicks.

January 14 2010 at 4:09 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Tony

You lost me at SIMBL. Never again...EVER.

I'll stick with PathFinder.

January 14 2010 at 4:04 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
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