Product Reviews

If FlyPath looks familiar, that's because it's very similar to the File Viewer application in NextStep, the system that formed the core of Mac OS X. Like File Viewer, FlyPath uses a series of columns to display nested folders and the files within them. It also has two wide horizontal bands across the top showing user-defined shortcuts (the Shelf) and your current path within the file system (the Navigation Bar).

Moving around is pretty swift, and can be made speedier by invoking Flyover mode, in which you don't even need to click on the folders you wish to view - you simply hover your pointer over them instead. It takes some

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getting used to, but ends up being quite fun, as well as useful.

There are some oddities that make initial use confusing. The icons in the browser view are just for browsing. If you want to do something to a file, such as move it to another place, you need to drag its icon in the Navigation Bar and move that. Other actions, however, can be performed by clicking on tiny contextual icons (called Shortcuts) that appear when you click on a file's name in the browser view.

The Shelf is a little like the Finder's Sidebar, but does more. It can be used as a temporary storage space for anything. Drag some files or folders on to it, then drag them off to a new location later. This feature was widely admired back in the Next days and it's lovely to see it replicated here.

There are some things FlyPath cannot do. It can't burn disks, nor display Spotlight searches. Application icons left on the Shelf do not act as aliases, so you cannot open a file by dropping it on to an icon placed there. We also had a problem connecting to local network servers.

These problems aside, FlyPath is an attractive and fast file manager, which might appeal to those users for whom using the Finder is a painful experience.