Direct Folders

If you are looking for a way to speed-up your tasks by enhancing the functionality of the default open and save windows, you might want to get a dedicated program such as Direct Folders.

You can display a list of items by right-clicking a save or open window, with a specific key combination or via the middle mouse button. This ensures you always have your favorites at your finger tips. The hotkeys configuration is a bit limited by only displaying a static list of key modifiers, not allowing you to choose the exact ones.

The context menu is well organized, with your assigned shortcuts displayed underneath the static Recent and Information options. An added bonus is the fact that you can quickly add more items to the customizable list straight from the same menu. As a drawback, you can't enrich the list with other options such as sorting and icon size.

By default, Windows cannot display specific folders or sort the items differently for each application's open and save dialogs. Direct Folders can store these details for individual programs, saving time in the process.

Tree-view style windows are usually difficult to navigate if the folder that you are interested in is nested deep. With just a few clicks, this program points to the desired location.

Moreover, Direct Folders can automatically resize the aforementioned windows to specified width and height that can be set either numerically or by dragging the corners of a dummy window. An oversight of this customizability is the fact that it won't save the position as well.

If the specific option is enabled, right-clicking the maximize or close buttons will keep the window on top or roll it up in its title bar, respectively.

Direct Folders comes to your aid if you want to overcome the limitations of the default open and save windows. It can potentially boost your productivity, if you are willing to tinker a bit with it, something that novice users might not be comfortable with.