More Path Finder 4 news
April 28, 2005Updates from us on the next version of Path Finder (codenamed, er, “Path Finder 4”) have been sparse. We apologize for the lack of information, but we’ve been working furiously to get Path Finder 4 completed and into your hands as quickly as possible. No time for posting! - until now.
Much of the reason why this release is taking so long to complete is that almost all of Path Finder’s internal code has been rewritten and optimized. This is to lay a solid foundation for future updates and improvements, and allows us to scale with new operating system updates easier and faster. There are also scads of new features and improvements in Path Finder 4 that we’re sure are worth waiting for.
(There was another more pressing reason why development slowed to a crawl (literally) - everything is explained in this post. The short version: we had an addition to the Cocoatech team…)
We do want to share more information on what’s going on with Path Finder, however!
- Path Finder will be Mac OS X 10.4-only. Please see this announcement for more details.
- As promised in the previous news item on Path Finder 4, anyone who has purchased Path Finder after September 29th, 2004 will get a free update to Path Finder 4. So if you’ve been holding off on buying Path Finder for the new version, feel free to buy now!
- We don’t have upgrade pricing for Path Finder 4 yet, but it will be reasonable and fair, given the extensive changes and work that we’ve put into the new version. More on this later as we get closer to release.
- We are not ready to release a public beta, but if you’d like to sign up for more information, see the notification form below.
Path Finder 4 Screenshots
As the saying goes, images speak louder than words. Although a lot of the changes in Path Finder 4 are internal, we’ve still spent quality time to improve and beautify Path Finder’s already swank interface.
(Note: These screenshots are from a pre-release version of Path Finder 4. The interface may change in the final release.)
Here are some screenshots of the new Path Finder 4:
The New File Browser Window
Lots of changes here! We’ve integrated Shelf, Drop Stack, and Volumes, “bookmark” folders bar, and much more. Path Finder also now defaults to French for all of the application text. JUST KIDDING.
Bookmark Toolbar
The new bookmark toolbar gives you incredibly deep access to your favourite folders and files, including sub-folders and item counts. We have also added the preference to automatically generate image icon previews for all images on the fly throughout Path Finder.
Configurable Sidebar
A much-requested feature is now in Path Finder 4. You can now change the location of the Shelf, Volumes, Processes, and other sidebar items, and also configure the sidebar to hide an item.
Inline file information
Just like the Finder, you can now toggle file and folder information to be displayed in the file browser. This is also a better view of the on-the-fly icon preview of images.
Tabs and last-column preview
Massively requested by just about everyone and needing no introduction are tabs, making their debut in Path Finder 4. We have also added a last-column preview to the file browser that makes viewing information on your files and previewing media much, much easier.
When, Where, How
This is just a sampling of some of the new features coming in Path Finder 4. We don’t yet have a firm release date, but barring any unexpected catastrophes we anticipate having something available within the next month or two.
If you’re interested in receiving a notification when we are, enter your email address below:
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Keep your eyes peeled on our web site and forum for more Path Finder 4 news. You can also comment on and discuss Path Finder 4 in the Cocoatech forums.
We’d like to give a massive thank-you to all of our customers and supporters. We appreciate every feature request, every bug report, and every email and forum post that you send our way. Path Finder 4 is the direct result of your input, suggestions, and criticism - we literally couldn’t do it without you. Thanks for supporting independent Mac OS X software developers!
— Steve, Miho, Kai, and Neil.
Posted by neilio |