Path Finder 4.8.2 released
November 10, 2007Path Finder 4.8.2 is now available for your downloading pleasure! The minor version number change belies a number of important improvements this release has for Mac OS X 10.5 users. We’ve also managed to add two brand new Leopard-only features to this release that we’re really excited about.
Even though there are new 10.5-only features in this update, it is still free for all registered Path Finder 4 customers. Enjoy!
QuickLook
Yes, it’s true - Path Finder 4.8.2 now supports Mac OS X 10,5’s QuickLook. You can now select files in Path Finder and view them in QuickLook via a number of methods, including the space bar keyboard shortcut, the QuickLook contextual and Commands menu items, and a QuickLook toolbar icon.
What’s more, we’ve made the QuickLook toolbar icon switch to the Slideshow feature when the option key is held down, just like Apple’s Finder.
Normally we tend to hold off on adding OS-specific features until we release major new Path Finder versions, but QuickLook was too cool for us to wait.
Reveal in Path Finder
One of the biggest feature requests we get is for Path Finder to completely replace Apple’s Finder. To accomplish this, one of the key requirements would be to reroute any “reveal in the Finder” operations (i.e. show this file’s location in a new Finder window) to Path Finder.
In the past this has been impossible as Apple has not provided us with any way of “capturing” these reveal requests. Back before the release of Mac OS X 10.4 (“Tiger”) Apple promised us that they would add a preference to change the default file browser to specifically address this issue. Well, Mac OS X 10.4 came and went with no changes, and we were sad.
Happily, things have changed in Mac OS X 10.5 and we are now able to reroute most (if not all) of the “reveal in the Finder” requests to Path Finder! Hooray! This even includes that elusive beast, the Dock.
To turn on this new feature, open up the Path Finder preferences and select the “Reveal” preferences. You’ll see a preference there labelled “Set Path Finder as the default file viewer”.
All you have to do is check that preference, wait a few seconds for the update to apply and from this point on all “Reveal in the Finder” operations should open in Path Finder!
We’re not 100% sure if this is just for Cocoa applications or system-wide, so please let us know if you run into any applications that do not honor this preference.
This is exciting progress as it gets us much closer to being able to truly say that Path Finder can act as a complete replacement for the Finder.
Other improvements
On top of these two new features, Path Finder 4.8.2 also has a number of bug fixes and compatibility improvements. For the complete list of changes, check out the Path Finder changelog.
We hope you enjoy this free upgrade and as always we’d love to hear from you. Please contact us if you have any comments, questions, or feature requests.
Thank you for your support!
— Neil, Steve, Sasha, and Miho.
Posted by neilio |