Leap is a new Finder replacement from Ironic Software that eschews traditional directory structures in favor of search and tagging. The software is pretty smart, and groups together common file types so you can find what you're looking for in a hurry. It also allows you to add your own tags to files, and creates a 'tag cloud' that outlines what kind of files you're looking at, what folders those files are in, and what user created tags they possess. The larger the label, the more files are tagged with that (as you can see in the screenshot above I have lots of image files on my Desktop).

The iPhoto-like UI is easy to use, and really shines when the Loupe is used. The Loupe is a tool that lets you peek at the contents of supported file types without launching any additional apps. Leap is in Beta, and the Loupe's performance makes that clear. It was a little slow, and sometimes lagged when I pointed my mouse from file to file.

In addition to all its Finder abilities, you can use Leap as a replacement for Apple's built in Spotlight interface, and yes the tag cloud is right there with your Spotlight results.

Take a look at this demo movie to get a better idea of what Leap can do for you.

Leap is currently in beta, and pricing has not been announced. You will get a free license, though, if you buy Yep, a PDF organizer that Ironic sells for $34, now.

[via factoryjoe]

DocumentWallet seems to be the latest in a new category of Mac applications, the PDF manager. Much like Yep (which we covered when it was called kip), DocumentWallet is an iPhoto-like application for keeping track of PDFs. In addition to its library functions, DocumentWallet allows you to scan document into its library with any TWAIN compliant scanner. One nice thing about DocumentWallet is that the PDFs are not stored in some sort of proprietary database, but in the file system (though the same is true of Yep). The maker of DocumentWallet also offers a very similar program called ReceiptWallet that does much the same thing, but focuses on saving receipts rather longer documents, and even includes some rudimentary math functions for keeping track of expenses. Like Yep, Yojimbo, and others, DocumentWallet also adds a convenient Save PDF to DocumentWallet option to the PDF pane of the OS X Print Dialog.

DocumentWallet and Yep are very similar, but there are some differences, perhaps most importantly Yep's focus on tags and DocumentWallet's focus on categories. Which one works better for you will probably depend on how you work, though both are worth a look.

DocumentWallet and ReceiptWallet are $29.95 each (or $44.93 for both) and a 21-day demo of each is available.

[Via MacNN]