Archive for June, 2023

App Tamer 2.7.7: Getting back to square one

Monday, June 19th, 2023

Version 2.7.7 of App Tamer is available. It now includes a button to reset all of its process taming settings back to their defaults, so if you’ve made lots of adjustments and things just aren’t working as you wanted, it’s easy to go back to square one and start over.

App Tamer 2.7.7 also addresses problems when running Windows applications via Parallels Desktop in Parallels’ “Coherence Mode”, updates some of its default settings, and corrects bugs that have been reported since the last release.

For details and download links, go to the What’s New in App Tamer page. Or if you’re already running App Tamer, just select “Check for Update” from its menu to get the new version.

Default Folder X 6.0a6 : macOS 14 Sonoma support and better folder set management

Sunday, June 11th, 2023

The latest preview release of Default Folder X 6 offers preliminary support for macOS 14 Sonoma, which Apple made available as a developer preview at WWDC.

Default Folder X 6.0a6 also gives you better management of folder sets. Folder sets are a frequently-missed feature that some users find invaluable when switching between multiple workflows, clients, or projects. Since it’s frequently-missed, these changes won’t excite all Default Folder X users, but I know some of you have been asking for this repeatedly. You can now keep folder sets in whatever order you want, not just sorted alphabetically, and managing them is easy with multi-select and drag-and-drop:

Version 6.0a6 also adds multi-select to Default Folder X’s menu customization dialog, making it quicker to reorganize DFX’s menu in your menu bar, as well as addressing several bugs.

As usual, if you’re already running an earlier preview build of Default Folder X 6, just select “Check for Update” from its menu. If you’re new to Default Folder X 6, you can get more info and grab a copy from the Default Folder X Testing page.

Default Folder X 6.0a4 preview release

Friday, June 2nd, 2023

Default Folder X 6.0a4 is available for download. This is another “preview” release, intended for testing and to get your feedback. Like earlier pre-release builds, this one adds a bunch of new features. It’s very stable, so you should be able to just install it and run it as part of your regular workflow. For a quick overview of all of the new features in version 6, see the Default Folder X 6.0 Tour page.

Debuting in 6.0a4 is the ability to customize the menu that Default Folder X puts in your menu bar. You can add, remove and reorder items, as well as putting the contents of any of the submenus (Favorites, Recent Folders, Finder Windows, etc) directly in the top-level menu for quicker access. Click on the “Customize” button in the General tab of the settings to get the editor.

There’s also an experimental option for Finder-click which recognizes items within Finder windows. Turn on this checkbox:

and Finder-click will change the location in file dialogs to the folder you click on, rather than just changing to the folder represented by the Finder window as a whole. In the example below, Finder-click will take you to the “Screenshots” folder that’s currently under the cursor, rather than the Downloads folder.

Of course, this also works when the Finder is in List View or Column View mode.

The reason this feature is still experimental is that I’m concerned that some people will find it confusing, and that even folks who like it may find it unintuitive when the Finder window is hidden behind the window of another app. As you move the mouse around, the folder name displayed by Default Folder X changes as it passes over different folders in the window (which you can’t see). Please try it and let me know your thoughts, positive or negative.

The new Quick Search window shows additional context when you hit the right arrow to search within a folder. The folder’s path is shown below the search field, and there’s a “back” arrow to take you back to your previous search results.

Also, searching for “..” will give you the parent of the folder you’re searching in. We’re getting pretty good at navigating through the filesystem with the keyboard 😉

There are a number of other additions and numerous bug fixes that are all detailed on the Default Folder X Testing page. There are also download links there, or if you’re already running an earlier 6.0 preview, just choose “Check for Update” from its menu in your menu bar to get the latest build.