Monday, December 13, 2010

Saving Documents by Proxy

Lukas Mathis:

In many cases, simply dragging an icon to save a document is much more convenient than using the «save document» file browser and searching for a directory whose window you’ve probably already opened in the Finder.

And, actually, when I do use the standard save panel I often choose the location by dragging my destination folder into the panel, rather than using the panel’s built-in file browser.

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"And, actually, when I do use the standard save panel I often choose the location by dragging my destination folder into the panel, rather than using the panel’s built-in file browser."

I used to do this. Then I bought Default Folder X, which quickly paid for itself in higher productivity and reduced mousing for me.

@Chucky Do you like the hierarchical menus from Default Folder X? For deep browsing, I tend to use LaunchBar to find the folder to drag. This also has the advantage of letting me type-select, which I can’t do in applications that present the open/save panel as a sheet.

"Do you like the hierarchical menus from Default Folder X?"

I don't use 'em.

I use only three features in Default Folder X.

- Click on an open Finder window you can see.
- Use the one level "Recent Folders" menu in the DFX sidebar.
- Use the one level "Open Finder Windows" menu in the DFX sidebar. (This picks up open Finder windows in other Spaces, which is often useful for me.)

I can get where I'm going 90% of the time using one of those three features.

"Do you like the hierarchical menus ... I tend to use LaunchBar to find the folder to drag"

I essentially don't use deep hierarchical menus for anything on my machine. If I need to find a folder for the Open/Save panel that I can't find via one of the above methods using DFX, then I type-select in LaunchBar (or Quicksilver), and drag it to the panel as you do.

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