I just posted Default Folder X version 4.0.1. Thanks to everyone that provided feedback on the functionality and the UI, tested various fixes for me, and helped sort out a few of the truly funky circumstances surrounding a couple of issues.

I’m very happy with the user interface at this point – the “old style” sidebar turned out very well (thanks for the push Warren)!  The preview generator is nice and fast, even under Tiger, and performance and reliability are solid on all machines, not just on the hopped up hardware here in the office and in the original beta group 🙂

You can read the change log and download the new version on this page:

http://www.stclairsoft.com/DefaultFolderX/release.html

OK, so there’s a (very) vocal minority that really don’t like (some have even used the word “hate”) the black HUD windows in Default Folder X 4. For you folks, here’s the solution in a pre-release build:

http://www.stclairsoft.com/download/DefaultFolderX-4.0.1d16.dmg

http://www.stclairsoft.com/download/DefaultFolderX-4.0.1b1.dmg

And a picture of what it looks like:

To get this appearance, select “Gray sidebar” in the Options tab of the preferences:

The previews are also created much faster, and with much less overhead. This is especially pronounced on Tiger, where DFX doesn’t have QuickLook at its disposal and has to generate previews with QuickTime, WebKit, and regular text rendering. If you have any performance or stability complaints about version 4.0, please grab this build, give it a try, and fire off an email if you still have issues.