Be not mislead by the seemingly minor advance in version numbers – this 1.6 release is a major jump from the previous 1.5.x releases. So be prepared for a series of stunning changes in ForkLift’s user interface, created by our dedicated crew at the workflow tuning workshop. This is a free upgrade and recommended for all Leopard users.
The most obvious difference in the new UI is of course the possibility to switch between Single Pane and Dual Pane views – for all the times when you need to save screen estate, or just aren’t using ForkLift for a large transfer job. With the addition of a hide/show option to all UI elements, including the Sidebar, you can now customize ForkLift’s layout according to the moment’s whim, from a minimalistic, single pane file browser to a full dualpane-sidebar-infoview transfer monster. This doesn’t mean that we’re breaking away from dual pane file management – most of our existing (and future) modules will be working in a dual pane environment. This is more like an option, though a nice one.
Now, I know that the ability to switch UI elements on and off is not exactly rocket science in and of itself. Still, below the surface changes, or in other words, the extreme versatility of the new ForkLift UI, runs a deeper and more encompassing process, namely our objective to break the limitations that the fixed dual-pane structure meant. We promise to exploit to the full extent this new independence of the main panes in future releases, delegating more capabilities to the main panes, and thus improving workflow. But most of these are things yet to come.
Let’s rather look at the things that have already changed, like Tabs management.
The new approach to the UI naturally impacted tab behavior, which previously was adapted to a linked dual pane structure. From ForkLift 1.6, each pane has its own separate sets of tabs, each toggling the list view only for the pane it is located.
From a programming point of view, the interesting thing here is that the main pane has basically become a tab, and is handled like one. We have made sure in our implementation of the new list view to make it more accessible to other parts of the program.
This extends Tabs management functions too, including easier sorting of tabs from one pane to the other, or across FL windows, and a couple of useful Tab commands. ForkLift will also save and remember tabs on exit.
I must note that we some of our beta testers were at first put off by the new Tab behavior, preferring the previous way of a tab keeping track of both panes, arguing that they allowed to switch across pairs of directories where work was being carried out.
This ability has not been lost: the Local Path option available for Favorites serves this exact purpose of linking together two frequently used locations. Try it.
Path Navigator
Continuing on UI enhancements, the Path Navigator got a new and more functional look with drag and drop now supported on Path Navigator elements.
Move Bug from ForkLift 1.5.x
There has been a major annoyance ever since the switch to Leopard, namely that move operations across volumes failed in ForkLift, resulting in a simple copy operation. We now have fixed the problem and restored the move command to its full health.
Keyboard control
We have been planning for a retooling of keyboard control functions for some time now, and we are proud to announce, that this has come with the 1.6 release.
The major new feature is of course Keyboard Selection, which when turned on will allow selecting files with the space bar, and the Volume Quick List, which is a panel that allows keyboard based selection of devices connections and favorites.
We have also reviewed the whole question of keyboard shortcuts.
From now on, you will be able to choose between two keybinding sets: Finder and Commander. Switchers will be happy to learn that 1.6 now has the (almost) complete shortcuts map from Total Commander, with the only difference that TC’s CTRL modifier is replaced by CMD.
ForkLift Wiki
Documentation has always been our weak point and we mean to make good for it with this new wiki of ours.
The wiki is as close to a complete and thoroughly written User Guide/Help as we’re ever likely to get, and it contains detailed descriptions of all the nice new features described above.
Maintaining the documentation will be much easier and faster, and you can even participate in making it better.
Other Features
- Auto Calculate Folder Sizes
- Folder sizes are remembered
- Open in New Tab
- Open in Opposite Tab
- The View Options Panel and Context menus were reorganized
- Color Labels like in Finder
Other Fixes
- fixed a number of small FTP issues, failed connections to slow servers and certain server types.
- fixed a number of SFTP bugs, including anonymous public key handling
- fixed some WebDAV issues
Here’s a direct link to the download: ForkLift 1.6
Enjoy
ps: Don’t forget to review us at MacUpdate, Iusethis, Versiontracker or any of the other suspects. We just love publicity, and some of these little notes are often enough to make it a good day for us, even if sometimes critical.
Take a thousand ‘atta-boys’ out of petty cash. This version looks great.
Thank you for being so diligent for listening to your users and for making your product ‘the best Mac file manager available’.
Bob
Awesome update. I’m still waiting for the ability to select a directory or mix of files and directorys and apply permissions and ownerships like Yummy FTP does. This is the only thing holding me back from purchasing.
Thanks for making version 1.6 a free upgrade for 1.5 owners. I’ve been beta testing it for the last few months, primarily for uploading sites to my hosting company’s server, and version 1.6 is a big improvement over 1.5.
I’ll be writing a review of ForkLift 1.6 for my website in a few weeks. Keep up the good work!
Claire Rottenberg
CJRTOOLS ebooks
http://www.cjrtools.com/ebooks
No doubt, this is the BEST file manager on OS X now.
Well done guys!
Congrats on the release guys!!!
Thanks for the new GUI
feedback: please add a single/dual pane switch on Toolbar or statusbar
please use .dmg file as the distribution package instead of .zip file
Congrats! A great release..
Have to say, this doesn’t serve the same purpose at all, and I still miss the old functionality. Just today I was doing some remote file editing/management (one pane for two areas on a remote site) and wanted to switch to some local file management without losing my place. In 1.5, I’d cmd-t select left pane source, tab, select right pane source, and have the setup I wanted. I could switch back to my other remote-file-editing task (which involves two panes) with one click or command.
I still desire this behavior much more often than I want to switch between two tabs on one pane to do work with the opposite pane.
That said, I still very much enjoy 1.6 — I just feel like a facet of the functionality has been lost and I’m working around that.
Congratulations.
Is there any way to change the indication of a choosen file/folder ? This unobstrusivly dashed border is really not enough eye-catching !
Wonder how that survived the beta and the usability tests
Thanks for the new version. But there is still an annoying error that prevents me from using Fork Lift as my primary FTP utility. File sizes are not shown correctly on the remote server. Every single file has astounding 2895.06 TB (!) of size.
Am I the only one experiencing this?
BTW, would be nice to import bookmarks from Transmit
Apart from FTP, Fork Lift is my preferred tool for deleting apps, extracting archives an batch rename.
Found it by accident.
If keyboard selection is enabled then the current file or folder is only highlighted by a dashed border.
‘Unclicking’ keyboard selection in the preference pane leads to the well known blue background highlighting.
I would suggest to make keyboard selection turned off as default and change the hightlighting when activated anyway.
After a couple of hours I can say I really like the possiblity to open tabs individually for each pane !
I agree with nate b above, the new tabs feature (even with thr Local Path option) is not the same as it was in 1.5, and in fact it was the 1.5 tabs implementation that got me to buy ForkLift. Now the tabs are gone.
If the devs can tell me an easy way to set up Client Local A/Client Remote A, Client Local B/Client Remote B as an easy to switch setup, I am all ears. Like to see a screen cast of this in action.
Everything else about 1.6 looks awesome, just do not know why they rem,oved what seemed to be one of the core features of the app. I guess complaining will do no good since 1.6 is in the wild now as a full release.
[...] of the better FTP applications out there. It hit version 1.6 today, and brings with it quite a few updates and upgrades. The droplets and FXP was what really got me into it in the first place, and now the additions of [...]
[...] Forktlift 1.6 für Mac OS X Release Notes szu=’http://Feric-merten.de/allgemeines/forklift-16-dateimanager-mac-os-x/’; szt=’Forklift+1.6+Dateimanager+f%C3%BCr+Mac+OS+X’; Tags: forklift, Leopard, Mac OS X, Update Verwandte Artikel: [...]
Hi there,
you guys did a realy great job! The new version looks pretty nice. Thanks for adding seperate tabs! All other new features especially ‘calculate size’ are very usefull and much appreciated.
These are my feature requests for upcoming releases:
1) thumbnail viewing mode within directory list pane This could be a great help if you’ve got a bunch of pictures in a folder and you want to make a slection. The current Thumbnail size is to small even with the maximum highest value assigned. I suggest a table grid for thumbnail placement. A user defined background color would be nice as well as dynamic size of thumbnails defined by an interactive slider)
2) folder tree view
shows the whole structure of a complete folder tree with all containing sub folders and files at the same time. Lets you select multiple files accross different folder hierarchies.
I suggest different viewing types such as
- only files in (flat view)
- files and folders mixed (flat view + folders)
- folder structure (hierarchical view + files)
a very powerful feature, which speeds up many filemanagement related tasks. I’ve seen this before only in Directory Opus (a very powerful PC filemanager)
3) Copy folder-/filepath
Absolutely a standard feature heavily used in the very coloborative working environment of our postproduction facility. Imagine you worked on a file and want to show it to someone else. You can either inconveniently tell ‘by hand’ where to find the file or just copy the path of it and send it via icq, skype or mail. This feature makes the most sense when there is a shortcut assigned (e.g. command + shift + c) and it is working across multiplatform connected network drives. On windows based platforms this will normaly be the UNC path though you basicaly would have a localy mounted network drive with a unique name (drive letter).
Thats it so far. I’ll post this in the forum as well.
Thanks again folks, let me again stress the point that Forklift makes OSX way more a serious platform to work with then it used to be before.
Cheers
Jeremias
i love the 1.6 version. the ability to use a single pane or dual pane is a big plus for me.
i am also hoping that you add a Thumbnail view and Tree view since both of them can also be very useful.
1.6 is great! Thanks for free upgrade!
The double clicking in the tab bar did not make this release. I was hoping it would as pathfinder has already got that in. But all in all 1.6 is a huge upgrade for free for registered users!
Hope that little feature can make the next release.
I do use the keyboard to make a new tab 90% of the time, but sometimes if the mouse is up there it is easy just to click like in Safari and Pathfinder for a new tab. As someone who uses tabs I hope that is on the list.
Keep up the good work I think you are number one in this field on OSX and the speed you guys work is impressive!
This version looks great. I have bought 1.5 and it’s great that it’s a free upgrade for us.
Is the folder synchronize option cut from this? I remember I have read about it in your blog. One thing I miss much is the file / folder compare function that is available in total commander (windows) but not in forklift.
I used that to compare some files on my ftp and local dev site for easy fixes sometimes. I can live without it, but it’s a nice handy feature.
Otherwise you’re on your way to build the best OSX file manager there is. I – for one – like the new tab behaviour (makes it more easily understandable for newcomers, even if I am not one of them), and the new path nav. Also great is the dingle pane / dual pane switch and the ability to turn off the sidebar (I rarely use that). So all in all, good work guys.
I especially like that you are hungarians, like me
Excellent update…thanks guys.
One thing I noticed…when double-clicking on an application it shows the package contents rather than launching the app….
Cheers,
David
@David
You probably have ‘treat packages as folders’ checked in in View Options.
@kcs
Indeed, synchronization was not yet included, as we are still finishing up the module. Check out our forum thread for updates.
Hi,
thanks for this free update!
Some feature request:
1. The ability to write in Spotlight Comments in the file info, and search for it!
2. The ability to set the space bar to view in Quick Look – I really liked it in the previous version
3. Folder “live” navigation, like in Pathfinder, when I move the mouse over the folder and opens it immediately
In the other hand, great work guys!
I’ve been using Pathfinder for a while now and I’m not happy. Being a recent mac switcher I was used with the functionality of Total Commander witch is without question the best file manager for windows.
Pathfinder is a little too heavy for me and lacks a decent keyboard support. It drives me crazy to do file management with the mouse or use copy paste instead of using a single key. I’m not saying that i miss windows, far from it i’m just saying that Forklift is like a fresh breath of air for me.
Great work guys and thank you for my Total Commander replacement
The gui is too slow…
@ffx
Does not compute…
I mean, I totally don’t understand what you mean by a slow UI.
The only thing I’m missing is a French translation.
Viva Forklift and FTFF !
“Shortcuts map from Total Commander” – Thank you for that! This was my most important feature request!
Nice update – now it’s almost ready to buy. ;o)
Some requests:
1.) Bug: I cannot set any shortcut with “shift”, all others modifiers work.
2.) Escape opens a menu to choose the location – wonderful, but I’d like to use another shortcut. Where to change?
3.) Important: Like in TC/NC I want a query dialog for copy, move and delete. Maybe as an option in prefs?
4.) Important: I like to go with selection first/last with left/right arrow-keys. I need this all the time.
5.) Maybe: these “..” on top of directorys to change upwards.
6.) Maybe: a docked Activity-Viewer?
Nice:
)
- Selecting ist great
- WebDav in Connections
- the “where-I-am-bar”
- working permissions in Info (so I don’t have to go in Finder)
- using Quickview
- much more….
If you implement my suggestions, you are better than Disk Order and muCommander. Then I buy forklift.
Hello!
I’m glad I’ve found a better filemanager than Diskorder & Finder.
Forklift is a good program, believe med, but, compare to Total Commander in Windows, ALL filemanagers in the whole world have much much things to work on…
I have used Total Commander since 1994 in Windows and I think this little piece of gold & diamond is the only program I’ve been missing since I migrate to OSX86.
I will test this filemanager (Forklift) for 15 days, and then decide if it is worth to buy. Until now everything look very nice & usable!
Keep up the good work!
/Errka in Sweden
@Erik Lindblom
How something that looks like this can be so sorely missed is beyond me…
http://www.ghisler.com/picture.htm
No, but seriously. I’m sure it has some nice features that Forklift could adopt, but the Total Commander GUI is *really* nasty. It’s 2009 now and I think we deserve both functionality *and* form, something which I think most Mac applications live up to (although they can be a bit spartan at times, for example the Finder).
i find forklift to be more of a ftp app than a filemanager.
it lacks many functions like custom contextual menus, icon or column view or folder colapse to see its contents like in pathfinder.
forklift’s gui is nicer, tho.
regarding total commander, i’ve been a win user for a long time and i always prefered servant salamander (my fave) or directory opus. just my thoughts.