This app was brought to my attention in 2006 I guess, by Floris Drupsteen. Default Folder X does so many things so exceptionally well that the creators themselves seem to be a little lost in explaining the application’s unique selling points, over at their website. Don’t have their site fool you, the app itself is awesome.

DFX runs in your system’s background and whenever any other application triggers an open or save dialog, it gets “hijacked” by DFX, and the result is FTW. The new open and save dialog gets a visual makeover, and if you resize it or change the view from column to details or list, it will actually remember this for the next time. The program’s name hints to the feature that you can set a “default folder” for every application on your machine, and it adds some handy shortcuts to the side of your dialog to quickly navigate to previous locations, favorite locations, etc.

Yet the one feature that had me pulling out my credit card (single user license 34.96 USD) is the “Finder-click” feature.

Your whole screen turns dark when you get an open or save dialog, but when you move your mouse over Finder windows in the background, their outline gets highlighted and you can read the Finder window’s name. If you then click the folder, DFX navigates the open/save dialog to the location of that Finder window. It’s the fastest way to navigate to a certain location on your computer, especially if you’re a nested-directory-fan like me.

Before I start on a project, I now open a single finder window and browse to the root folder belonging to that project. It doesn’t need to be big, it should just be present. Then, whenever I need to save a file, be it an image, a text file or -God forbid- a spread sheet, DFX will help me get to the root of my project with one click, and my though process of saving the file and getting my work done never gets interrupted by having to think about where the file should go.

Awesome app. Check it out over at St. Clair Software.

Over time, I’ll be collecting my wonderful app reviews in this post.

If I were to believe the story my parents tell me, I knew how to operate a TV and a video recorder before I could walk, which was still in the seventies. I just love the buttons. Nobody stopped me from becoming the kid that was “good with computers” and from doing everything the digital era had to offer, I eventually stranded in the “software developer” segment, even though I consider ActionScript programming to be one of the lesser art forms out there.

Programming is often seen as something technical, nerdy and unimaginative. Yet what I see around me on a daily basis is a great amount of creativity, and an ever expanding community of people that want to create and improve on the experience of the “digital era” we are currently in.

I’ve embarked on a little detour from web development myself, exploring the art of desktop apps, and it has sparked a deep appreciation for the tools that actually make my day better. Taking away frustration, adding speed to my work flow, or just making stuff pretty.

I intend to share the wonderful apps I come across here, if not to share with my non-existent readers, at least to document the reason why these apps are so cool for my own future purposes:

1. Default Folder X, by St. Clair Software