Default Folder X Documentation
Back to Table of Contents 
 

Cooperation with Other Software

Default Folder X has been designed to work closely with several other software packages so that you can choose the tools that make you most productive.

Favorite and Recent Folder Lists in the Finder:

When you have the "Create aliases of Recent Folders and Favorites in your Library folder" option turned on, Default Folder X automatically keeps some of its settings synchronized with two folders on your hard disk so that you can use them with other programs. These folders are:

HOME/Library/Favorites
HOME/Library/Recent Folders

where "HOME" corresponds to your home directory.

When you add or remove Favorites in your Default Folder X preferences, aliases will automatically be created or deleted in the Favorites folder. Likewise, whenever Default Folder X updates its list of recently used folders, it will add and remove aliases in the Recent Folders folder. And if you manually add or remove aliases in these folders yourself, your Default Folder X settings will update to reflect that.

Why is this useful? As an example, you can drag the Recent Folders folder to the OS X Dock and have that constantly-updated list of folders always available in the Dock. Or if you use Drag Thing, FruitMenu, or another utility that displays the contents of folders in some quick and useful way, you can set up those programs to give you fast access to your Default Folder X folder lists.

Note that if you do not want Default Folder X to keep these folders synchronized (it does consume processor time to do this) you can turn it off in the "Advanced" tab of your Default Folder X settings.

OpenMeta Tagging:

OpenMeta is an open standard that allows you to add 'tags' or keywords to your files and then search for them using Spotlight. If you add tags to files, for example "photos, vacation, 2004," you can later type "tag: vacation" into any Spotlight search field and instantly find the files you've tagged with the word "vacation." While you can do this with Spotlight Comments as well, OpenMeta tags have the advantage of being used ONLY for tagging, so your searches do not get watered down by other information in a file's content or Spotlight Comments, and you can create multi-word tags that are considered a single keyword.

Because OpenMeta is an Open Source project, many applications support this same tagging standard, allowing you to mix and match a number of tools to make tagging an easy part of your everyday workflow. You can tag files with Default Folder X when you save them, then use Tags or TagIt to manage those files and tags, search for them in HoudaSpot, etc.

Some of the other applications that support OpenMeta that you'll want to investigate are:

More Powerful Get Info:

Default Folder X can use one of four enhanced "Get Info" utilities that provide you with more information and capabilities than Default Folder X's built-in Get Info command. To use one of these enhanced utilities, install one of the programs below, then change Default Folder X's "Options" settings to use that program. You can get more information and free demo copies of the utilities from the following web sites:

An Alternative to the Finder:

Default Folder X supports Path Finder as an alternative to the Finder. Like the Finder, Path Finder is an application for managing files and folders, but it goes beyond the Finder's capabilities in many areas. If Path Finder is running, anything that Default Folder X would normally do with the Finder, such as opening a folder or allowing you to click on a Finder window to jump to that folder in a file dialog, will work with Path Finder. For more information about Path Finder, visit the CocoaTech web site:
 << Prev
Back to Table of Contents
Next >>