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by saagarjha 3000 days ago
What does this app provide that Finder doesn't? I see something about a background operation queue, which Finder does, archive support, which I have a QuickLook plugin for, and gadgets, which I can accomplish with services.
2 comments

If you've ever used Total Commander or even Windows 7+ native file explorer it's very hard to go back to or use Finder. Keyboard shortcuts, tokenizing/detokenizing file paths, opening in terminal, searching within files, search for duplicate files, bulk rename, plugins, and more.

Whenever I have a new Mac I spend a couple minutes customizing Finder: adding things like the Path button, showing the Path bar, showing the Status bar, etc. I get that it's supposed to be simple but it's surprising to me that such basic things aren't in the starting configuration.

I do love the spacebar preview though :)

> I do love the spacebar preview though :)

This. It's the biggest pain point I have with using Windows Explorer. As a Mac user, it's pure muscle memory to select a file and hit the space to look at it. Once I'm on Windows, I feel the whole computer is broken because of this one missing feature.

wow - I'm sitting here with my dual screen iMac setup, never knew about the spacebar! Thanks! lol :)
What does "tokenizing/detokenizing file paths" mean?

"Open in terminal" is actually a built-in Service. It's not enabled by default, but you can go to System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts > Services and enable it, and even give it a hotkey.

Finder also has done bulk rename for a few years now.

> Finder also has done bulk rename for a few years now.

It was worth logging in to HN today just for this, which I had alway relied on third party utilities to do. For anyone else who wasn’t aware, just select multiple files, right click, and select rename.

Fully keyboard accessible, which at best Finder.app does badly. IDE-esque "any command" search for operations instead of going through a menu bar.
> IDE-esque "any command" search for operations instead of going through a menu bar.

Command+Shift+/, then type your command?

Those would have been my top two picks also. I'd add: embedded terminal, and plugins. Services are no alternative - try using one, for example, to show/hide hidden files. You'll have time to make a coffee while it's operating.