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Best Finder alternative

gilby101 said:
... Could also do it with Better Touch Tool, AppleScript, or some other automation tool.
Click to expand...

Alfred, RayCast, etc..

Here is a simple AppleScript - opens up two finder windows side by side taking up 1/2 the overall screen space horizontally and 3/4 vertically from the top left of you display. Opens one finder into your "Home" Directory and the other finder into your "Documents" directory.

AppleScript: 
tell application "Finder"
    activate
   
    set w to (get bounds of window of desktop)
    set windowWidth to (item 3 of w) / 4
    set windowHeight to (item 4 of w) * 0.75
   
    set leftPosition to {0, 0}
    set rightPosition to {(item 3 of w) / 2, 0}
   
    set leftWindow to make new Finder window to home
    set rightWindow to make new Finder window to folder "Documents" of home
   
    set position of leftWindow to leftPosition
    set position of rightWindow to rightPosition
   
    set bounds of leftWindow to {0, 22, windowWidth, windowHeight}
    set bounds of rightWindow to {windowWidth, 22, item 4 of w, windowHeight}
end tell
 
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MacGizmo said:
I've been playing around with Forklift, Path Finder, and Marta for the last few days and have pretty much settled on Path Finder.
  • I LOVE how Path Finder makes it easy (via checkboxes in the preferences) to completely quit and REPLACE the macOS Finder. I know you can do this with ForkLift, but it takes some hacking around in the Terminal and can mess with the system should something go wrong.
  • I LOVE the ability to choose the Fonts and Font sizes in the file browser (as well as the Desktop) in Path Finder, and to some extent, in ForkLift (a few more options in Path Finder, such as the ability to turn on/off shadows on icon text).
  • Path Finder's Sidebars... OMG!!!
Click to expand...

There was a lot to love about Path Finder when I used to use it. There really was only one thing that was too hard for me to deal with. It cannot maintain a fixed proportion of pane sizes when in dual-pane mode. Perhaps it's changed, but I did check about 3 months ago and it was still the same.

It seems they only record the width of the left pane. So if you expand the window only the right pane grows. They added the ability to do 50/50 proportions later in the game. You can trigger that by adjusting the divider to the midpoint and it kind of snaps into place. However if you close the last window and reopen a new one, it will not be restored to 50/50 if the newly opened window is a different size than the one last closed. And since it won't be 50/50, it will no longer size proportionally; the left pane will stay at a fixed size. I seem to remember there was also unpleasant resizing behavior, like those of dual-panes, for the expandable sidebar modules.

In fact, if the window is significantly smaller when it reopens, the leftmost pane or module can disappear. The only way to recover it is by maximizing the window. Many people have complained over the years on their forums about the module expander buttons not doing anything. They were unaware that the window was too small too cater for the size of the module, so even though the module did expand, it was invisible.

I reported this bug to them years and years ago. I uploaded a video demonstrating the behavior. They acknowledged the problem. They never fixed it.

If there was a way for me to maintain a 50/50 split for all windows and fixed sizes of modules, even when they are closed, opened, and resized repeatedly, I'd consider using it. Path Finder used to behave this way before they introduced the current module system. The module system is pretty powerful and flexible, but they had to design an approach to handle resizing windows and they chose one which really has problems. They really haven't mastered internal geometry management when resizing windows.

On the other hand, Forklift only retains the proportions for its panes, which is the behavior I want and the norm for all multi-pane apps I use. It also maintains a fixed size of its sidebar (unless you manually change it).
 
rajs said:
Alfred, RayCast, etc..

Here is a simple AppleScript - opens up two finder windows side by side taking up 1/2 the overall screen space horizontally and 3/4 vertically from the top left of you display. Opens one finder into your "Home" Directory and the other finder into your "Documents" directory.

AppleScript: 
tell application "Finder"
    activate
  
    set w to (get bounds of window of desktop)
    set windowWidth to (item 3 of w) / 4
    set windowHeight to (item 4 of w) * 0.75
  
    set leftPosition to {0, 0}
    set rightPosition to {(item 3 of w) / 2, 0}
  
    set leftWindow to make new Finder window to home
    set rightWindow to make new Finder window to folder "Documents" of home
  
    set position of leftWindow to leftPosition
    set position of rightWindow to rightPosition
  
    set bounds of leftWindow to {0, 22, windowWidth, windowHeight}
    set bounds of rightWindow to {windowWidth, 22, item 4 of w, windowHeight}
end tell
Click to expand...
Oooh I like that I'll have a 'play' with it. Could it be modified to add additional tabs into each finder window?
 
Since my last post on Tuesday, I've had some heavy workload days. In that time, Path Finder has shown signs of being a complete mess under the hood. No errors per se, but it seemed to choke on itself after a few hours of heavy use. I still love the feature set, but the constant hanging under heavy use has made it almost unusable.

I've also played with Forklift, but not through a work week of all-day use. I'm going to give it a try to see how it compares. As far as features go, it can't hold a candle to Path Finder – but if I don't have to force-quit Forklift numerous times per day, it might be worth the loss of features.
 
Forklift IIRC has a lot of features that Pathfinder has the differences are that some are not obvious to find, the other issue (not) is that they all work :)
 
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MacGizmo said:
Since my last post on Tuesday, I've had some heavy workload days. In that time, Path Finder has shown signs of being a complete mess under the hood. No errors per se, but it seemed to choke on itself after a few hours of heavy use. I still love the feature set, but the constant hanging under heavy use has made it almost unusable.

I've also played with Forklift, but not through a work week of all-day use. I'm going to give it a try to see how it compares. As far as features go, it can't hold a candle to Path Finder – but if I don't have to force-quit Forklift numerous times per day, it might be worth the loss of features.
Click to expand...

Forklift has hang on me once under testing and I wouldn't say I am a file hoarder.

For "file managers" the last thing they should hang on is file numbers. Makes me wonder how does Finder is so lightening fast in comparison.
 
Forklift has most of the features Pathfinder has, most obviously missing is the drop-zone and the individual panes, but also offers some (less obvious) functionality PF is lacking. And then finder has become really good at doing some tasks. As always there is no perfect tool for everything.
 
H_D said:
Forklift has most of the features Pathfinder has, most obviously missing is the drop-zone and the individual panes, but also offers some (less obvious) functionality PF is lacking. And then finder has become really good at doing some tasks. As always there is no perfect tool for everything.
Click to expand...
Forklift is an OFM. Of course it has panes. With tabs, too. Are you using a different Forklift than the rest of us?
 
Pathfinder looks like it has really powerful capabilities but probably bloated and members here speak negatively of it. Looks like I am going with forklift

H_D said:
Forklift has most of the features Pathfinder has, most obviously missing is the drop-zone and the individual panes, but also offers some (less obvious) functionality PF is lacking. And then finder has become really good at doing some tasks. As always there is no perfect tool for everything.
Click to expand...

whats individual panes?
 
posguy99 said:
Forklift is an OFM. Of course it has panes. With tabs, too. Are you using a different Forklift than the rest of us?
Click to expand...

Can someone clear me up on the OFM, spatial file manager, and commander file manager? I really have no idea what is meant by this.
 
MacBH928 said:
Pathfinder looks like it has really powerful capabilities but probably bloated and members here speak negatively of it. Looks like I am going with forklift



whats individual panes?
Click to expand...
Sorry, wasn't quite clear on this. I meant the «modules» which allow you to individualize the interface opening additional «panes», you can e.g. have an area with file information, last opened files, trashcan etc. Never missed that on FL, frankly, but the modules (like the drop zone for files) is the one thing that comes to mind that really feels different between the Apps. The rest is more or less look&feel. I have used FL for years now and am used to how it handles, especially with keyboard shortcuts, but the recent update for Ventura has improved PF a bit. While most of our team uses finder, which has become much better in recent years and when using workflows/shortcuts, I could not do without Forklift ;-).

Bildschirm­foto 2023-02-26 um 18.03.18.jpg
 
H_D said:
... I could not do without Forklift ;-).
Click to expand...
Ditto. I ALWAYS have ForkLift running. I couldn't begin to tell you the list of tips or tricks people use to manage files in Finder... there is just no point.
 
H_D said:
...but the modules (like the drop zone for files) is the one thing that comes to mind that really feels different between the Apps.
Click to expand...
I did like that I could have a pane for file/image preview, one for file info, another for something else, and the DropZone.

Since I've used Yoink for the Dropzone feature for years, I never really used Path Finder's implementation. The other features I got used to not having very quickly.
 
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I would stay with FL if I could get a better preview pane like in Pathfinder. Using a whole pane ist just not worth it.

This is what Pathfinder developers are saying

A bit of unrelated news, I mentioned being busy with development stuff… As you can see in our recent release cycles, there aren't many visible news, only some maintenance and fixing of some (mostly minor) issues. But some 2.5 months ago we started compete Path Finder redevelopment using Swift and related APIs and technologies. At the time, there's nothing really visible from the outside and testable, since we started from the core basic (file system abstraction layer), hence news here posted and nothing really new for you to test. But it will come as well.

Regarding some of the issues you reported here, which are still pending… Some of them are very hard, or even impossible to fix, without some serious rewrite of the code. And since we're already doing that in Swift, when the time comes, they will be fixed as a part of that rewrite. We really want to avoid doing two (or more) parallel rewrites, in which one will negate the other pretty soon. We know it's not ideal solution regarding those bugs, but we consider them non-deal-breakes and hence decided to handle them the way we do.

Some other bugs here should be fixable without much intervention in the code, and that will be done in the coming period. We're trying to balance between them and Swift rewrite we're busy with.
 
H_D said:
Sorry, wasn't quite clear on this. I meant the «modules» which allow you to individualize the interface opening additional «panes», you can e.g. have an area with file information, last opened files, trashcan etc. Never missed that on FL, frankly, but the modules (like the drop zone for files) is the one thing that comes to mind that really feels different between the Apps. The rest is more or less look&feel. I have used FL for years now and am used to how it handles, especially with keyboard shortcuts, but the recent update for Ventura has improved PF a bit. While most of our team uses finder, which has become much better in recent years and when using workflows/shortcuts, I could not do without Forklift ;-).

View attachment 2164890
Click to expand...

thats a pretty powerful feature

it wasnt me said:
OFM = Orthodox File Manager ~= Commander = "F5 for Copy, F6 for Move" etc, and dual panes.
Spatial File Manager = each folder is a window, each window is a folder.

An outdated detail website on Orthodox File Managers is here:

Orthodox File Managers

softpanorama.org
Click to expand...

I do not get spatial manager, if I open 2 folders in finder I get two windows too. So does this makes it spatial or orthodx?


tosbsas said:
I would stay with FL if I could get a better preview pane like in Pathfinder. Using a whole pane ist just not worth it.

This is what Pathfinder developers are saying

A bit of unrelated news, I mentioned being busy with development stuff… As you can see in our recent release cycles, there aren't many visible news, only some maintenance and fixing of some (mostly minor) issues. But some 2.5 months ago we started compete Path Finder redevelopment using Swift and related APIs and technologies. At the time, there's nothing really visible from the outside and testable, since we started from the core basic (file system abstraction layer), hence news here posted and nothing really new for you to test. But it will come as well.

Regarding some of the issues you reported here, which are still pending… Some of them are very hard, or even impossible to fix, without some serious rewrite of the code. And since we're already doing that in Swift, when the time comes, they will be fixed as a part of that rewrite. We really want to avoid doing two (or more) parallel rewrites, in which one will negate the other pretty soon. We know it's not ideal solution regarding those bugs, but we consider them non-deal-breakes and hence decided to handle them the way we do.

Some other bugs here should be fixable without much intervention in the code, and that will be done in the coming period. We're trying to balance between them and Swift rewrite we're busy with.
Click to expand...

I kind of feel sorry for software developers. It takes time to rewrite their software in that time they lose customers to the already established competitor. And we all know that once a customers leaves he is not coming back. Its a migration decision.
 
MacBH928 said:
I do not get spatial manager, if I open 2 folders in finder I get two windows too. So does this makes it spatial or orthodx?
Click to expand...

When spatial managers were first mentioned in this thread, I followed the link to read about them. But it was such a long read I didn't follow through. If it really is that each window is a folder and each folder is a window, then I would find that very limiting. It would preclude having two windows on the same folder. It would also preclude the tree view where many folders are presented in a single window.

MacBH928 said:
I kind of feel sorry for software developers. It takes time to rewrite their software in that time they lose customers to the already established competitor. And we all know that once a customers leaves he is not coming back. Its a migration decision.
Click to expand...

Yeah. I've always felt sorry for the Path Finder team. They seemed to be struggling under the load of development and support. But I don't think I'll have much trouble trying them again if they release a new version.
 
svenmany said:
When spatial managers were first mentioned in this thread, I followed the link to read about them. But it was such a long read I didn't follow through.
Click to expand...

OOT but heads up, new AI summerizers are coming out. A free one so far is andisearch.com . Paste url and you can get a summerize button on the article. Does not work on all sites but there are other options I am sure.
 
MacBH928 said:
OOT but heads up, new AI summerizers are coming out. A free one so far is andisearch.com . Paste url and you can get a summerize button on the article. Does not work on all sites but there are other options I am sure.
Click to expand...
:) thanks!

I ended up reading about it on Wikipedia. Given what I read, I'm very happy the approach has not been adopted. But, that's a discussion for another thread.
 
MacBH928 said:
I do not get spatial manager, if I open 2 folders in finder I get two windows too. So does this makes it spatial or orthodx?
Click to expand...
Finder isn't either one. It'd be a spatial manager if it obeyed "one window, one folder", but you can have the same folder open in many windows.
 
New contender to the Best Finder Alternative list of apps:
Folders File Manager (foldersapp.dev)

Price is $5,99

Description of Folder File Manager from Mac App Store:
Folders File Manager is designed for users who recently transitioned from a PC as well as for those who have always missed a tree-style file manager on their Mac. Everything in Folders feels as familiar as possible while satisfying your
passion for beautiful-looking apps.

Everything, uncluttered:
Get everything you'd expect from a file manager, with the most used functions brought to the top.
Easy navigation:
Familiar from other operating systems, the folder tree feels right where it belongs
Comprehensive undo:
Undo any file operation including replacements and folder mergers.
Universal app:
Runs natively on Apple Silicon.
• Three consistently behaving views (Icons, List, Table)
• Multiple windows and multiple tabs
• Convenient access to your Home and iCloud Drive folders
• Folder symlink traversal in the tree
• Multiple color tags
• Touchbar support
• Cut via Bin with 26X
• Creation and extraction of ZIP archives
• Built-in preview in Info panel
• File details with EXIF metadata
• Quick Look
• "Folders first" grouping
• No in-app purchases, ads or subscriptions.
Click to expand...
 
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