Path Finder 4 Preview
It has been a long wait, but Path Finder 4, the Finder replacement from CocoaTech has finally reached beta status. Path Finder 4 beta was redesigned from the ground up. It looks “Tiger-ish”, has tabs, is programmed in Cocoa entirely using the newest OS X tools, and is blazingly fast even with all the debug code present in this phase of its rebirth.

The Finder is --even in Tiger-- not the best interface that you can dream of to use a Mac OS X system. In some respects, the Finder will work against you, instead of helping you accomplish daily file system tasks. There is much room for improvement in the area of Mac OS X’s most obvious and visible user experience. Where there’s room for improvement, there often is business to be conducted. Path Finder is a Finder replacement. It probably is the best “Finder” you can buy. Admittedly, Path Finder isn’t free, but it saves so much aggravation, that I for one am more than willing to pay the small extra it costs.




Path Finder 4 has a large number of panels that allow you to see different views of your data and file actions. The main window can be set to show icons, lists and columns, just as the Finder itself. However, Path Finder’s icon view is capable of showing you 256 pixel icons. By default, Path Finder opens in List view, with a Preview panel at the bottom.

Path Finder’s order of things has a distinct advantage: when you select a file, you will immediately see basic information, and a preview if one is supported. As Path Finder 4 uses all the technologies and capabilities available in Mac OS X, you can be sure the preview panel will show you what the Finder would show you after you hit Command-I.




If you need further information on a file, Path Finder gives you that too. Click the Info button or hit Command-I and you immediately get a concise Information window with panels that reveal further file information, permissions in all known notation formats, attributes which allow you to set bundle bits, make the file (in)visible, change the Creator and Type and enter Spotlight comments, and finally an “Other” panel where you can change creation and modification dates and swap or delete file forks.

The expanded or concise Info window also has three extra pastilles along the bottom left. They’re all green, and at first they’re a bit confusing. The center one reveals the file, but clicking the left one will open a Path Finder 4 text document containing all information in the Info window --a file report. The right one when clicked, will “play” the file in its native application. For example, QuickTime movies will open in QuickTime, Photoshop files in Photoshop, etc.




Searching for Files

Path Finder 4 is fully Spotlight-enabled. Its Spotlight implementation, even in this beta, is faster than it is in the Finder itself! I was very surprised by the speed with which Path Finder 4 will return results. Path Finder is also better in avoiding confusion. With the Finder Spotlight, you will get a short list of the best “hits”, but the number will tell you there are 138 hits in all.

In Path Finder, you have a choice. By clicking the magnifying glass in the Spotlight area (in the File browser), you can restrict queries to specific folders and set the feature so it will only return the top hits (default) or immediately open the Spotlight window with all the hits listed. There is one difference with the Finder altogether: Path Finder will not enable you to create Smart Folders and it will not allow you to open them as you would in the Finder.

Instead, clicking on a Smart Folder will open the text window and show you the XML-code that makes up the folder. Many basic users will regard this as a flaw, but to some people this will actually come as a nice feature: they can directly start editing the saved query itself by rewriting some of the code. When you’re using Path Finder next to the Finder instead as a pure Finder replacement, this will come in very handy indeed.

Spotlight search is not the only search function in Path Finder. There also still is Path Finder’s own search engine. That one sits hidden under the large magnifying glass. Clicking that button will open an expanded Find window. Here, you can either select to search with Spotlight by clicking a Spotlight button, or select Path Finder’s own search module.

I found this window to be one of the least well thought out. For example, the Spotlight capability makes you think you’re in an advanced mode --sort of like the Raw Query mode of the Finder’s Spotlight implementation-- but you’re not. There is no way you can enter a Raw Query or even a query using Spotlight’s advanced search types (which usually come as a result of installed plug-ins that in turn get installed by Spotlight-aware applications).

That being said, the Find window does allow you to immediately see where the file is located in the file system, and it even offers you to open a new Path Finder window with the file highlighted. The Find window also has a preview window at the right and a selection path drawer at left. All very nicely done, with lots of information on the file, its location and its value for you as a searcher, except for its Spotlight support.


Interface Niceties

Path Finder’s most wanted interface feature seems to be the ability to show many folders as tabs. Well, Path Finder 4 has tabs all right. To navigate through your file system’s folder structure, nothing else comes close to Path Finder. There are the Finder-(more or less)identical window views, there’s the Information/Preview panel, the Path Navigator which is unique to Path Finder, and now there are the tabs as well.

Except for those main navigation aids, there’s also a folder history drawer that you can slide out at the right of the main window, and a selection path at the top of that drawer which shows information as soon as you select an item. The Shelf is identical to the Finder’s Sidebar.

What if you don’t want to see all those aids, in order to reduce screen clutter to a minimum? There are different ways to turn it off. You can simply click the icons that will make all the drawers and panels disappear.
You can also turn on transparency, so that Path Finder itself will become less visible. You can select to have Path Finder hide itself as soon as you leave it. There are many different ways to make the application as unobtrusive as possible. My guess is, however, that you will use it so intensively it will ultimately replace the Finder. There’s an option in Path Finder to quit the Finder for that purpose.


Non-Finder Features

Path Finder 4 is stuffed with features you won’t readily find in the Finder, and when they are there, Path Finder’s implementation usually is superior. For example, if you have ever tried to send someone a mail message with the file path of a bunch of files, you will know that you can’t drag those files into a TextEdit document or a mail message and see the actual path appear in that message. In the Finder, there’s simply no easy way to do this, except for the manual method.

In Path Finder, you can run a report on selected items, which not only gives you the path but almost all of the information that is available about the selected files.




The drop stack is another feature not found in the Finder. It is a sort of a clipboard with a memory. You drag files to the drop stack, keep adding to them until you’re satisfied and then, with the context menu, run an action on them --like burn them to a CD, for example.

One of the most important features that I always have found Path Finder a must-have for --and which is not new to version 4, but much improved-- is its copying speed and stability. Copying a large number of large files will still make the Finder unstable. Not so with Path Finder. Its copy engine is fast and stable.

Another major feature that I particularly like about Path Finder, but which may be dynamite in the hands of ignorant users, is the ability to show invisible files. It’s much easier to remove an invisible file with Path Finder than it is with the Terminal or the Finder’s restricted method (you will have to select Go Folder and type in a directory known to be invisible).

Conclusion

Even in its current beta stage, Path Finder 4 is a killer-Finder replacement. It is the Finder as it should be. Granted, there are a few things that could be better implemented, like the file and folder labels. In the Finder, these show a subtle gradient-type colour. In Path Finder, they’re just plain colour. But such comments are details.

With Stuffit Expander included in Path Finder 4, its many improvements and novelties, and its many ways to get around the file system, it is hard to see what there is not to like about the new Path Finder.