14 DAY TRIAL // When it comes to computers, the rate of progress is exponential. Unfortunately, us users don't evolve at the same state as computers, so new and different ways of dealing with all the information need to come and fill that gap between us and TerraBytes of information. Filegazer is one such program, that offers a new way of working with your files.
So what is it? In essence, a file browser, Filegazer, much like the name implies, was designed to make finding and looking at files easier. To achieve this, it uses a combination of hotcorners to give you instant access to any folder you assigned to it previously, and then lets you browse from that starting location using a hierarchical menu to quickly move about. "This is ancient!" you might say. But this is only half of the big picture, the second half is that, whenever Filegazer finds a file it can work with, it will display a generous preview which can be resized on the fly by dragging its corners.
As you might have guessed, this program is for those times when you need to find something without actually knowing what that something is. The fast browsing and generous previews make it ideal for this sort of thing.
When I say "Preview!", it says "How Big?" Now when I say 'preview', you might be thinking thumbnails or pixelated miniatures that are too garbled to comprehend. It couldn't be further from what FileGazer offers us. Whenever you reach a file that the program recognizes it will automatically show a large preview window. If you wish, you can drag the corners of this window to enlarge it. If the preference is set, it scales proportionally and there is next to no loss in quality. After seeing me mention proportional scaling and quality loss, you must be thinking that it deals mostly with images. But Filegazer works with images, movies, music and text documents. A very big range of image formats are supported; movies and songs can be played right in the preview; text and rich text files, Word documents and even PDF files can be read immediately; it even has support for web pages. I cannot tell you what a strange feeling it is to browse through an entire site from within that preview window. It even plays Macromedia Flash files.
Filegazer gives you instant previews of everything it recognizes, and if there is something it does not recognize, it shows us a full sized 128x128 icon of the file so if it has any distinguishing icon it will be very easy to make it out. Furthermore, Filegazer can, if you select a native cocoa application, open up a submenu with all the items in that program's recent list, and if it can, it will open up previews to those items. After a quick pass through the Application folder you can see everything you've been working on lately.
Does it also make coffee? You can set up seven folders that will serve as menu start locations for Filegazer. You can choose whether you want to see invisible files or not, and whether you want to use generic icons to speed up the load times. Aliases and labels are shown in the menus and the application can be themed in order to blend in with any Themes you might have on your computer. If you wish it, you can reveal an item in the Finder by Option-Clicking it.
The Good This program can preview so many file types it's unbelievable, and the way it does it is so slick and smooth. The menus give you fast access to what you want to browse, making this a great way to just move about in a freeform manner when you are looking to find something without knowing what.
The Bad The menus, although placed in good locations, are a bit of a pain to bring up. I also noticed that the menus have a tendency to stay open even after you change to another application and start working in it. This is strange and 'unnatural' behavior for a menu.
The Truth Filegazer provides a new way of looking at your files. Whether you are looking through stock art, searching for a song, or trying to remember that great site you bookmarked a month ago, this program lets you do it fast, easy and in style. Those menus might not be the most responsive things I have ever seen but they are ok once you get used to them.
Here are some screenshots of my preview frenzy, click to enlarge:
