DFX 4.1.2d3: Better rebound and menus with files in them

Thanks to Rick Meikle’s careful detailing of exactly what has been wrong with Default Folder X’s “rebound” feature, I’ve now rewritten the rebound code to work much better.  It’s in the latest development build of DFX, which is available here:

http://www.stclairsoft.com/download/DefaultFolderX-4.1.2d3.dmg

In addition, I’ve added a hidden option to display files as well as folders in Default Folder X’s hierarchical menus.  When you select a file, the file dialog is taken to its parent folder and the file is selected if the current application can open it.  To get to the switch to turn this on, go to Default Folder X in System Preferences and click on the “Settings…” button while holding down the Option key.  Turn on the bottom checkbox in the window that comes up – it’s labeled “AlwaysShowFilesInMenus”.

As always, your comments, feedback, and bug reports are crucial to making better software, so speak up!

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6 Responses to “DFX 4.1.2d3: Better rebound and menus with files in them”

  1. Patte says:

    Great little feature, but what about integrating the following standart
    into Default Folder X (don’t know the name, but got it from the FinderPop ReadMe File,
    that it is actually a standart).

    See Screenshot for details:
    http://i.uaarg.de/pictures/FinderPop-AliasFolders.jpg

  2. Jon says:

    Patte – do you mean Contextual Menu Manager plug-ins that add things to the Finder’s contextual menus? I’ve considered it, but because of the UI limitations of contextual menus and the overhead involved (mostly just due to the way DFX functions) I’ve not created one.

  3. Could you pass along (or summarize?) some of Rick Meikle’s findings about the rebound feature? (I don’t current use that feature much, so I’m curious whether it might make more sense to me now that it’s been revised.)

  4. Jon says:

    Sure Alex. I’ll try to summarize:

    In an Open dialog, DFX’s ‘rebound’ feature re-selects the item you selected the last time you opened a file. It has always worked when the Open dialog is initially displayed – the selection will hop back to where it was last time. However, in Leopard if you changed folders after the dialog opened, rebound didn’t work in the new folders, even though you’d been there and selected a file before. Rick took me to task for that – Apple made some major changes to the file dialog internals for Leopard and I hadn’t been able to make rebound work the way it used to (this all worked correctly in Tiger and earlier).

    Last week, I rewrote portions of the rebound code to make it work correctly when you navigate to other folders using the Favorites or Recent Folders menus in Default Folder X. Also, in list and icon views, it will automatically rebound when you just double-click to enter a folder you’ve been to before (DFX can’t do this in column view because it seriously messes up navigating with the keyboard).

    So there you have it – rebound was partially broken in Leopard and I’d tried to fix it before, but hadn’t hit on the right logic until last week. Rick’s questions and detailed reporting of what he was encountering helped me reason through it – thanks again Rick!

  5. hamada says:

    how about setting up a product page on getsatisfaction.com to give users an easier way to make suggestions and highlight any problems with ‘default folder x’?

  6. Jon says:

    Actually, setting up phpBB forums has been on my list for far too long. I’ll try and get that moving – I’d prefer doing that to using getsatisfaction.com (though I suppose that could be an interim solution – I haven’t looked at getsatisfaction in a while).

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