Tagamac

St. Clair Software released Default Folder X 4 today, the next incarnation of the venerable Mac utility. Default Folder X has enhanced the default Mac open and save windows for years, and version 4 is another solid step forward, poviding a new HUD-style interface, support for Quicklook in Open dialogs, Leopard improvements, support for TagBot, improvements to Spotlight comment auto-completion, and much more. Default Folder X is a great utility for anyone who wants a better workflow when saving and opening files, and is an indispensable tool for people rolling their own tagging solution because it allows you to edit a file’s Spotlight comments while you are saving it.

Given the number of excellent enhancements in version 4, Default Folder X is definitely worth checking out. For those who purchased Default Folder X after June 1, 2007, version 4 is a free upgrade. For everyone else it costs $34.95 new or $14.95 upgrade (and for those true old-skoolers who used the Classic version of Default Folder, you can snag it for $19.95). If you’d like to see the full list of changes and improvements, see the Default Folder X Change History.

Bookdog, a bookmarks manager for Mac, has been updated to version 5, an update that includes not only a simplified interface but also del.icio.us support and support for tags. The software has been released as beta software due to the extensive changes that have gone into it, but because it fixes several Leopard problems and is just generally more powerful, Sheep Systems recommends that all users upgrade. For more information, see the Bookdog release notes.

Bookdog is probably the most feature-rich bookmarks manager available, but its interface (while simplified and definitely better than version 4) is still very complex and not at all visually appealing. You have to make an effort to learn to use Bookdog, although you will be rewarded by being able to sync a lot more information across your browsers than other solutions provide. It’s pretty unfortunate, but despite its power Bookdog still feels somewhat like an OS 9 application.

TaskPaper, a very slimmed-down text-based “getting things done” style task manager, was released yesterday for the introductory price of $18.95 (with a 15 day trial). TaskPaper cuts task management down to the bare essentials: projects, tasks, and tags, and may be the perfect solution if you are not interested in the feature-rich offerings of applications such as iGTD or the forthcoming OmniFocus or Things. I highly recommend you check this program out; it’s an ingeniously simple take on task management.

Off-topic, apologies for the lack of updates recently; I moved into a new apartment Monday, and was only able to get the internet hooked up Tuesday (making me wish that I, too, had a hammer and knew how to use it).

The developers of the tag-based PDF file library Yep have just released a public beta of an exciting piece of new file system tagging software called Leap. Leap bills itself as a tag-based Finder replacement, and features an interface that is strongly reminiscent of Yep, but also uses a kind of bastardized child of Spotlight and the Leopard Source list. In a way Leap is a specialized front-end to Spotlight combined with the tag-based file library features of Yep. It also includes some very cool previewing features (the loupe in particular is a nice touch). I’ll be writing a more in-depth look at Leap in the near future, but why wait? Go download it for yourself and see what it’s all about.

Although final pricing has not yet been announced, the developers are offering a free copy of Leap (when released) to anyone who purchases a Yep license during the public beta. I’m pretty jazzed to try Leap, since it’s about time a decent file system tagging system hit the market. Whether Leap can truly replace the Finder, of course, remains to be seen, but hopefully Leap will at the very least encourage other developers to try a few new things when it comes to file system tagging.

FileSpot, the Spotlight searching utility that is the updated version of MoRU, has officially come out of beta today. FileSpot allows users to do far more complex Spotlight searches than is possible with the default OS interface, and features a number of improvements over MoRU including TagBot compatible tagging and tag searches, deeply nested search logic (allowing you to create very specific searches very easily), a tabbed interface, and the ability to export searches as Finder Smart Folders. As of the third beta, FileSpot spots a new metallic icon as well. (Honestly, I liked the old one better; this one’s a bit chunky.)

If you do much of anything that involves Spotlight, you owe it to yourself to at least try FileSpot. It is a very advanced search utility, and may be a key ingredient in any file system tagging you do. Additionally, there are some cool new features planned for upcoming versions that are definitely worth getting excited about. FileSpot is $20 shareware with a 30 day trial period and a 50% discount for owners of MoRU.

The first beta of FileSpot 2.0, a Spotlight enhancer, was released today. Frankly, I’m a little curious about version 1.0; I’ve never heard of FileSpot before, although it looks like a nice and slick Spotlight replacement.

FileSpot has built-in support for tagging via Spotlight comments, which is nice to see. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like you can customize the tagging format, but this is still a program well worth checking out if you want something an interface a little more robust than Spotlight’s. It automatically gave me an “Open in Path Finder” contextual menu option instead of the standard Finder, too. Bonus points to Synthesis Studios for that.

iGTD, the free tagging-friendly “getting things done” program, now has a Dashboard widget for those times when you need to just toss something into your to do list and don’t have Quicksilver handy (although who would get caught without Quicksilver handy?). You can find the widget via the iGTD downloads page.

The developer promises more widgets in the future, as well. Should be interesting to see how iGTD gets expanded into the Dashboard.