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September 10th, 2010
 So I’ve been working on this little application that fixes an annoying problem in OS X.
You may have noticed that the remaining battery life on your MacBook Pro (or whatever laptop you have) often plummets if you leave Safari displaying an ad in the background. That’s because most web browsers, as well as a number of other apps, continue running tasks or animations even when they’re sitting idle in the background. This can be pretty frustrating if you’re actually trying to conserve battery or use that CPU power for something useful.
I wrote App Tamer to fix this. It pauses apps in the background to prevent them from chewing up CPU time (and battery life). I know, I know – you’ve probably seen some utilities that do this already. BUT – here’s the cool part – App Tamer stops and starts applications automatically. You don’t have to distract yourself by manually stopping and starting applications – it just magically works.
Have a look at the App Tamer page for details. It’s in the final stages of beta testing, and you’re welcome to download a copy of the latest beta and try it for yourself. Let us know what you think at AppTamer@stclairsoft.com.
Posted in App Tamer, Development | No Comments »
September 10th, 2010
 Version 4.3.10 of Default Folder X 4.3.10 is now ready for download.
It fixes a few problems in the setting of Finder labels that could be very annoying: In some configurations, the Finder label on newly saved files would default to Yellow. This version also gives you a couple of new AppleScript verbs, AddFavoriteFolder and RemoveFavoriteFolder. If you use AppleScript to manage your workflow by creating or renaming folders, this allows you automate your Default Folder X favorites to keep in step. A few other bugs have been squashed and features added – check the Release Page for details.
Posted in Default Folder X | No Comments »
June 25th, 2010
Sigh… There was a bug in Default Folder X 4.3.8, released 2 days ago, that could cause it to crash. Version 4.3.9 fixes that bug.
If you’ve already updated to version 4.3.8, please make sure you grab the new version. If you didn’t download the ill-fated release on Wednesday, just skip straight to this one. It delivers all of the same changes, but without the embarrassing hiccup that would happen when it tried to read the image dimension metadata on certain files.
Either way, check the Default Folder X Release page for details and download links.
Posted in Default Folder X | No Comments »
June 23rd, 2010
Version 4.3.8 of Default Folder is available now.
It adds an often-requested feature: It shows you the dimensions (in pixels) of images in its preview and info panes. It’s also got an important fix if you’ve got a shiny new MacBook Pro: The automatic GPU switching would think that Default Folder X needed the high-powered NVIDIA graphics card, resulting in poor battery life (yeah, I thought that too – what the heck?) This release corrects that.
It’s also got a fix for the “Make save dialogs automatically default to the current document’s folder” feature not working correctly, new capabilities for users of AppleScript and Path Finder, expanded hotkey support, and a bunch of other goodies.
Posted in Default Folder X | 2 Comments »
June 3rd, 2010
MacUpdate is featuring Default Folder X for their MacUpdate Promo of the day. For 24 hours, you can get Default Folder X for only $19.95 – that’s 43% off the regular price.
If you don’t already own a copy, take advantage of this great deal. If you already know how great Default Folder X is, tell your friends while they can get it for nearly 1/2 off – they’ll be forever indebted to you, not only for introducing them to DFX but also for saving them money!
Go to http://www.mupromo.com/ to buy your copy now!
Posted in Default Folder X | No Comments »
April 22nd, 2010
Version 4.3.7 of Default Folder X is now available. It brings Drag and Drop support to the preference pane for adding favorite and default folders, adds nice little shortcuts to make working with your preferences easier, includes two new AppleScript commands and fixes a number of bugs and compatibility problems.
Things run more smoothly in general, so I recommend this update for everyone. In particular, make sure to download this version if you use Microsoft Word, FileMaker Pro, PyMOL (yeah, I’d never heard of it either), or if you’ve had instances in which Default Folder X’s toolbar buttons stop responding.
More information and download links are available on the Default Folder X What’s New page.
Posted in Default Folder X | No Comments »
April 12th, 2010
Default Folder X lets you mark folders as favorites so you can get to them quickly. Unfortunately, it displays those folders in its menus using their names – if you’ve got two identically named folders named “Images,” for instance, they both show up in Default Folder X’s menus as “Images” and it’s hard to tell them apart.
Because of this, I’ve gotten a few requests for the ability to change the names of Favorites without changing the name of the actual folders that they point to. This feature is on my To-Do list, but in the meantime here’s a workaround to do it with the current version of Default Folder X:
- Open Default Folder X in System Preferences.
- Click on the Settings button.
- Click on the Advanced tab and turn on “Create aliases for Recent Folders and Favorites in your Library folder”.
- In the Finder, navigate to this folder: HOME/Library/Favorites. Locate the aliases of the folders you want to rename.
- Rename the alias files using the Finder. Default Folder X will then read those names and substitute them for the original folder names in its menus.
Posted in Default Folder X, Tips | No Comments »
March 29th, 2010
Many people are familiar with the Option-down-arrow keyboard shortcut in Default Folder X. When you’re using an Open or Save dialog, it takes you straight to the last folder you used. (If you haven’t been using this, try it – it saves a TON of time).
What most people don’t know is that there’s a hidden setting in your Default Folder X preferences that will let you use the same keyboard combination in the Finder. Press Option-down-arrow and the most recent folder in your DFX Recent Folders menu will open up in a new window.
To enable this, open System Preferences and select Default Folder X. Hold down the Option key while you press the “Settings…” button and you’ll get this sheet of options:
Turn on the checkbox marked “HotkeysForRecentFolders” and click OK. That’s all there is to it.
If you’re curious about all of the other “secret settings”, have a look at this blog post.
Posted in Default Folder X, Tips | No Comments »
March 26th, 2010
LaunchBar is a great ‘mouse-free’ utility for instantly getting to files, folders, URLs, music, addresses, and just about anything else on your Mac. Hit command-spacebar and start typing the first few letters of whatever you want – LaunchBar lists the choices that match and you just hit the return key to open or go to that item. I use it all the time and recommend it to everyone I know.
There’s a really handy way of including your recent and favorite folders from Default Folder X in LaunchBar’s index. After doing this, you can instantly access those folders from the keyboard using LaunchBar.
To make Default Folder X favorites and recent folders available in LaunchBar do the following:
- In your Default Folder X preferences, click on the Advanced tab and turn on “Create aliases of Recent Folders and Favorites in your Library folder”.
- In LaunchBar, choose Show Index from the Index menu. Click on the “Folder+” button in the toolbar to add a folder.
- Select the HOME/Library/Favorites/ folder.
- Once the folder is added, click on the Options tab for that folder and set Search Scope to “Search 1 Subfolder Level” and Search for “Folders”.
- Click on the Schedule tab and turn on the “Update automatically” checkbox.
- Repeat steps 2-5 for the folder HOME/Library/Recent Folders/
- Once you tell LaunchBar to reindex, you’ll have access to all of your Default Folder X favorite and recent folders.
Thanks to Gary Schelling for asking about this and jogging my brain 🙂
Posted in Default Folder X, Leopard, Snow Leopard, Tips | 1 Comment »
March 5th, 2010
Default Folder X 4.3.6 is finally available, delivering a whole bunch of improvements and fixes. And yes, it finally uses Sparkle to check for updates 🙂
If you use Default Folder X, make sure you update to 4.3.6 – not only does it address bugs in some of its own features, but it also compensates for a lot of the quirks and not-quite-right things in Snow Leopard.
For a full listing of changes and links to download it (in various languages), check the What’s New page. If you just want to grab the update right away, use this link:
http://www.stclairsoft.com/cgi-bin/dl.cgi?DX
As always, if you encounter problems or have questions, post a comment here or send an email to us!
Posted in Default Folder X, openmeta | 1 Comment »
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