For most people, ditching an application that they have grown so used to as Windows Explorer, is a tough step. But why switch to a completely new tool if the familiar one can simply be enhanced? This is where FilerFrog comes in, a free application that adds several incredibly useful features to the Windows Explorer that will make working with files a breeze.

How Does FilerFrog Change Windows Explorer?

To be exact, FilerFrog is a shell extension that integrates with Windows Explorer. It adds additional features to the Windows file manager, without dramatically changing or even replacing it. In fact, FilerFrog is very unobtrusive.

After installing the application and rebooting your computer, you will notice the FilerFrog item in the right-click menu, i.e. in the Windows Explorer menu.

What Does FilerFrog Do?

Hiding behind the FilerFrog item in the Windows Explorer menu are powerful tools that you will never want to live without again! Once you get a first look at the menu, it becomes obvious just how many operations this little tool puts at your fingertips.

> Organize > Extract Files To Folder

With this feature you can easily create a new folder and move selected files and/or folders to it in one step. The new folder will be created on the same level as the selected files and/or folders that will go into it. The operation > Extract Files to Folder completes the opposite maneuver.

> Organize > Copy / Move

Instead of clumsily copying and pasting files or dragging them from one open folder to another folder next to it, you can now simply copy or move them by using FilerFrog and browsing to the desired location.

I think that all features grouped under the > Organize submenu are ingenious! How about the other submenus?

> Sort Desktop

The name of this item is a little misleading. It actually doesn’t allow you to sort the desktop. Instead, it allows you to manage the color scheme of your desktop.

> List Of Files

Following this path you can not just simply create a list of files in any folder, you can create either a detailed or a simple list of selected files, including or excluding the full path.

> Security

With FilerFrog you can encrypt files and protect them with a password.

> Split and Join

Ever needed to split files to burn them onto multiple CDs or send them via email? FilerFrog lets you split and join files, either using predefined file sizes or a custom split file size.

> Rename

The Rename category opens the doors to various ways of batch-renaming your files. For example > Find and Replace allows you to identify a common item in the name of several files and then replace that item with whatever you choose. Using > Append you can add a word to the beginning and/or end of a file name.

> Image Manipulation

Going through this submenu you can resize images, convert them to Jpeg at the same time, or add a logo.

> Image Album

Very simple but fantastic feature to quickly pack selected photos into a PDF document, ready to share with friends and family.

Can I Customize FilerFrog?

You bet! You have two options for customization. First of all, you can put your most used and hence favorite items into the Favorites submenu. If you find the path to this submenu too far, you can click the > Settings submenu and select > Show favorites in main menu (hide all other menus).

In both cases you need to actually define your favorites. Simply click the > Manage Favorites item and a window that allows you to drag items over into the Favorites menu will open.

The resulting menu could look like this:

So this was a quick FilerFrog review in a nutshell. If you need more detailed explanations, I recommend reading the excellent Help file, which also holds various examples for how you could use selected operations.

MakeUseOf has previously covered alternatives for Windows Explorer:

• SE-Explorer: A Portable Full-Featured Windows Explorer Alternative
• Forget Windows Explorer, Explorer++ Is The Perfect, Powerful Alternative
• The 5 Good Free Windows File Managers

Have you experimented with alternatives to Windows Explorer or shell extensions? What are the features you think are missing from this extension or other file managers?

The default file manager under Windows is of course Windows Explorer. While most users can get along just fine with this application, there are quite a few areas where it could be improved for the better. That’s why there are Windows Explorer alternatives out there. One of them is SE-Explorer, which gives users much more than just the ability to manage files and folders.

SE-Explorer is a free application which is also available as a portable app. Let’s take a peek at what this application can do, and whether you could use as a Windows Explorer alternative.

It Comes With Tabs

If you’d like to try this application, you can download either the installer or the compressed portable version (or both). I personally prefer the portable version, as it’s more mobile and gives users similar features. Moreover, I can place it in my Dropbox folder so it will always be ready at every computer that I use. The file size is very small, less than 2.5 MB, so the download should be done quickly.

The first thing that you will notice about the app is the tabs. SE-Explorer will begin the sessions with three basic tabs: file manager, file search, and size scanner. The file manager will show you the content of your drive with all the basic managerial functions (like copy and move) and quick access to all of the mounted drives on your computer.

File search is exactly what the name says. It allows you to do basic and advanced searching of everything inside your hard drive. I don’t have the tools and expertise to do a comparison, but I personally feel that SE-Explorer’s search function is much speedier than the default Windows search feature.

Size Scanner comes with several scan options, but the most useful one for me is the “Top largest files” as it allows me to find which files consume the largest portion of my storage.

After you have the results of the file search or size scan, you can save the list as text files for future reference. This is another useful feature that you won’t find on Windows Explorer.

More Useful Features

Aside from the features mentioned above, SE-Explorer also comes with several other more useful features. One of them is the ability to compare files and folders.

Even though most normal users might never need to compare files, it would be very handy for programmers, web designers, or those who have lines of codes for breakfast.

On the other hand, every computer user could use the folder comparing feature once in a while, especially if they keep several copies of a folder in different places as backups and do a lot of folder synchronizing.

SE-Explorer gives you quick access to the command line via the address field on the location bar under the file manager tab. Just write down the command, hit enter, and the action will be performed inside the open command line window.

More customizations are available via the “Options” window.

As a nice bonus, SE-Explorer comes with a media player. The player will open in a new tab and will play pretty much everything that you throw at it. The player managed my collection of common multimedia files with no problem.

To know more about other things that SE-Explorer can do, there’s a features list on the app’s homepage.

To sum things up, I think SE-Explorer is a solid files And folder manager with many useful features. If you are looking for a viable Windows Explorer alternative, this app could serve you well.

If you have your own personal alternative(s) to Windows Explorer, please feel free to share them using the comments section below.

Image credit: jma.work

Phone Disk is free for the time being, so don’t waste the chance to download and register the application, and start using your iPhone as a way of backing up and transferring files, the easy way.

How can you use Phone Disk?

If you want to turn your iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad into a portable USB drive, this will do it for you. Simply hook up your device to your computer and copy files to and from the drive.

Why should you use Phone Disk?

If you don’t want to jailbreak or alter your iPhone or iPad in any way, this is the ideal app that makes it a cinch to turn your iPhone into a USB drive.

Phone Disk gives you access to read/write mode, meaning you can open and save files directly on the device.

You can hook up more than one device at a time, making it possible to copy files from any Apple device to another.

It works with all generations of iPod Touches, iPhones and with the iPad.

It’s compatible with both Macs and Windows.

Phone Disk integrates directly into the Windows Explorer or Mac OS X Finder, which means that there’s no learning curve. You’ll feel right at home using your Apple mobile device just as you would any other USB drive.

You have until December 1st to get it for free, so snag it while you still can.

Here are two more file browsers that carry handy features that Windows Explorer lacks. The first one may even be hidden within your installed programs, while the second one is a new application with a twist.

7-Zip File Manager (Cross-Platform)

You probably already have downloaded one of the best file compression/decompression tools out there, 7-zip, which shines with its high compression rate (and fares well compared to other free file archivers), but did you know it also bundles a lightweight file manager? Me neither, up until it was mentioned on How-To Geek.

The 7-zip two-pane file manager just works and doesn’t get stuck like Windows Explorer might if you try to copy or move an enormous file around.

If you already have 7-zip installed, you can start using the file manager by simply typing ” 7″ in the Start Menu search box. If you want faster access, you can right-click on it > Send To > Desktop.

Best Features

• No delays whatsoever: If you’re looking for a fast file manager, you’ve found it.
• You can browse ISO files as if they were folders. In this screenshot, I’m browsing the ISO file that contains the setup file for Microsoft Expression Studio Ultimate, which I got free for being a student.



• Quickly perform common tasks with keyboard shortcuts, including some that you usually need dedicated programs for.



• Quickly navigate to frequently-accessed folders with keyboard shortcuts (by adding that folder to your Favorites).



• Change folder and file views with hotkeys (default view is Details).

There’s also a way for you to omit the cascaded menu when you right-click on say a zip file and instead, have the 7-zip options when you right-click.

To fix that, you just need to head to Tools in the File Manager menu bar and adjust your Options.

Nemo Documents (Windows)

Nemo Documents is also a lightweight, unobtrusive file manager that displays your file structure à la Google Calendar (which is supported!) or Outlook, that is, in a calendar view and provides more intuitive ways to find files, period. I can see the calendar view being useful to anyone that is GTD-conscious and may want to review files that s/he is working on.

Nemo Documents can also double up as a search tool as it integrates with the built-in Desktop Search function in Vista and Windows 7 to help you search for keywords or phrases inside documents.

Thus, as the author’s website indicates, if you can’t remember the name of some file, you can combine these keywords along with “other clues that you can remember about the document, such as a specific month or the file type” to help you find a file.

Windows 7 can bundle search results by month (as you can see in Jim’s screenshot), but now WinXP and Vista users can get this and additional views with the file manager in question.

Another cool thing is that you can tag or label files, regardless of the file type.

Usually, you can only add tags to Microsoft documents, JPEG images and nothing else in Windows Explorer, unless you are using third-party applications, such as TaggedFrog or Tag2Find. Thus, if you’re into tagging or could use more efficient file searches with tags, Nemo Documents might be for you.

Nemo Documents is as small as downloads come (the download file size is about 672 KB) and occupies 1.77 MB once installed. It seems like this product is pretty young so it might implement additional features later on as more feedback becomes available to the authors.

Have you got any alternative file browsers you’re extremely fond of? Share it with us in the comments!

Image credit: Andrew Currie

While Windows Explorer lets you view the thumbnails of photos in a directory, it isn’t always a simple matter to preview selected multiple files from a long list, or preview other media like video files or audio.

This is why I was pretty excited to discover FreshView, which is sort of like a Multimedia Explorer app – essentially Windows Explorer on steroids – it allows you to organize files and folders like images, audio and video. This application comes fully loaded to support up to 86 file formats including image, audio and video file formats.

This means that not only can you view and preview media files, you can also convert image files from one format to any other.

Here at MUO, we like new ways to sort and make use of media files, such as Oosah for sharing media, EncodeHD for converting media, and of course Israel’s useful list of 5 media file converters. FreshView is a great addition to the list.

Playing With Images In FreshView

FreshView’s strength is in dealing with image files. FreshView can display not only standard image files like jpg and gif, but you’ll be surprised to see that FreshView can also provide preview thumbnails for dib, rle, pcx, scr and cut – just to name a few.

After installing and launching the app, you’ll see a familiar screen that is very familiar if you’re accustomed to how Windows Explorer typically displays common image file thumbnails.

This is the extent to which FreshView can be compared to Windows Explorer. The additional features that you’ll discover as you start playing around with this app simply blows Explorer out of the water.

The first feature I’d like to cover is the “Slideshow” feature. Setting up a slideshow is as easy as holding down the control key and selecting all of the files that you want to include in the slideshow, then click on the Slideshow icon.

Immediately, your entire computer screen is transformed into a slideshow display screen, with each image you selected displayed in the center of the screen. You can wait and let the slideshow work through the images in a timed interval and in a loop (configurable in the Settings menu), or you can simply click the mouse to move to the next image whenever you like.

If you right click on an image and select Properties, you’ll see that the displayed properties go far beyond what you may be used to. General image information provides dimensions, color scheme, compression type and even bits per pixel. You’ll also see exactly when the file was created.

Even better than the general image data is what you’ll learn when you click on the “Histogram” tab. Here, you’ll discover the tonal distribution of colors in the image – a useful piece of information for advanced photography experts.

Instantly Create HTML Image Slideshows

Beyond the advanced image view features of FreshView, there’s also a very cool feature called the “HTML Album” tool, which lets you instantly convert all of your selected images into an HTML coded slideshow, stored in a directory of your choice.

When you choose to create the HTML Album, you just need to configure the title and the directory. Once you’re done, the slideshow is coded for you in a matter of seconds.

Below is what the standard HTML slideshow template looks like. When the web user clicks on any of the images, the view changes to slideshow mode.

In slideshow mode, the user can keep clicking “Next” to browse through all of the images you added to the slideshow, or click “Index” to go back to the main thumbnail display of all of the images.

Browsing Audio & Video Files

FreshView also makes it a lot easier to take a quick look at your other media files, like your music and videos. At the upper right corner of the application, there’s a “preview” window which not only displays selected images, but it will automatically recognize and offer the ability to play all recognized audio and video files as well.

Here, I simply selected the Mpeg home movie I had created. Immediately, Freshview displayed the first frame of the video in the preview window, with the ability to play the rest.

Supported video formats include Avi and most Mpeg video formats. In addition to the preview pane, you can right-click on any file and select “Shell Open.” This launches the application using the editor you’ve defined in Settings.

So if you have a certain editor you want to use for your audio files, define it here – otherwise the app opens files with your default editor.

As you can see, Fresh View takes the concept of media file exploring and kicks it up a notch with a variety of extra features and impressive tools that make media file browsing a lot easier and more enjoyable.

Have you ever tried the Fresh View media browser? Take it for a test drive, compare it to your current setup for previewing media files, and share your opinions on it in the comments section below.

Image Credit: miguel ugalde

You change Nautilus using plugins, of course; Varun highlighted various ways to add custom functionality to Nautilus and Damien told you all about 6 useful extensions to improve Nautilus’ functionality.

But if you want to simplify the interface, extensions are not enough. This is why a group of coders have taken Nautilus’ lack of an overhaul into their own hands. The project, called Nautilus Elementary, greatly simplifies the Linux file browser without sacrificing stability.

What’s Improved?

The interface, mostly. Here is the old Nautilus:

And here is Nautilus Elementary:

Okay, I’ll admit the font change is mine (it’s the Droid font, if you’re wondering) but all other changes belong to the Elementary project. Gone is the cluttered left panel, which seemed to serve as a series of random folder shortcuts. In its place is a logically organized panel which seperates shortcuts into three folders: Personal, Devices and Network.

If this sounds familar you’ve probably owned a Mac at some point. The organizational structure is similar to that of the Finder in OSX.

Not that this is not a bad thing; Finder is a very easy to use file browser. Making the Nautilus Linux file browser more like Finder in this way is logical. Behind the interface changes, however, it’s still the same Nautilus, which I also love: Nautilus is a very powerful file browser; it just needed an interface cleanup.

What else is new? Well, the top panel’s been cleaned up. The stop and refresh button are merged, and various redundant buttons have been removed. Additionally, the “view” dialogue has been replaced with three icons that represent how you view your files.

Add all these changes up and Nautilus is much more fun to use than before, in my opinion.

Okay, Let’s Install It!

Convinced by the screenshots? Then let’s get started!

Installing Nautilus elementary in Ubuntu requires some command-line usage, but don’t worry: it’s painless. Open up the Terminal (Click “Applications,” then “Acccessories,” then “Terminal“) and type the following commands in order:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:am-monkeyd/nautilus-elementary-ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade

The first command adds the Nautilus Elementary repository to your system; the second updates your package information; the third updates your system with the new information. The net result is that you have Elementary installed, but you’re not quite done: you still have the old Nautilus running. To kill it simply type

killall nautilus

into your still-open command prompt. This will restart your file browser, leaving you with the shiny new Nautilus Elementary. If it doesn’t show up immediately simply open a folder from your “Places” menu and it will come up right as rain.

If you’re using a non-Ubuntu Linux distribution, such as Fedora, I’m afraid I can’t find a package for you at the moment. This makes some sense; the project is Ubuntu oriented, but that’s no comfort to Fedora users looking to use this version of Nautilus. Can anyone point to a package or Fedora and other Linux distros? Please share in the comments below!

Conclusion

I’ve got three key words for the Nautilus team: merge this upstream. These fantastic changes make your solid file browser even better, and there’s no reason why they shouldn’t be the default. A cleaner interface is a better interface, and leaves us much closer to finally patching Bug #1.

For now, though, I’m going to continue using Elementary despite it not being the default. What about you guys? Do you think you’ll install Elementary, or stick with the default? Do you think the changes look good, or am I just delusional? Let me know in the comments below!