Simple file management with Fresh
The makers of Leap (who I have no commercial affiliation with, review here) have recently released a access level tagging program. Fresh is a useful document utility, which has three main functions:
- Tracking “fresh” or most recently used documents
- Tagging files (searchable by spotlight)
- Document launcher, or shelf for frequently accessed files
File access
Your seven most recently accessed files, and seven files/folders of your choice, are available at a keystroke. As you would expect, they can be dragged and dropped. The interface also works with “open file” dialogues in a lot of other mac software. Importantly, you can nominate any files that you don’t want to see in the interface. This is handy to prevent your itunes library showing up song by song.
The second section in the main HUD is a shelf of files that you choose. They can be any sort of file, and can therefore be quickly accessed to open, email whatever.
Tagging
Files in the fresh or cooler portion of the interface can be tagged with a right click. Other files can be dropped on the side of screen active tab.
According to Ironic Software:
“Fresh write OpenMeta Tags which can be seen by
Spotlight. In Leap you can do Spotlight searches which exposes files
tagged by Fresh.”
The cool stuff
- Plays well with others. Interacts with Dropbox, and Spotlight. You are not stuck if you choose to uninstall.
- Simple. This is definitely a good option for digital filing for those who are not interested in all the bells and whistles of Leap. What you get is what you need.
- Cheap. This program is under $10. This is great value for a program you may end up using every day. All of these functions are available in other programs for free. But if this works how you want, it is a bargain.
- Unobstrusive. Dropbox on the side of the screen and keystroke to pull up the HUD. The interface is similar to dashboard in concept - covers up everything you are doing when you need it, then gets out of the way.
- I get the impression these developers use their programs, so things tend to make sense.
- Rapid updates. There have been two updates for bugfixes since release. This is not the sort of program that is about to stagnate.
My issues
- Working with Leap and Fresh is patchy:
- The drop zones for both programs are on the same side of the screen, and can’t be customized. They overlap, but are not blocked by each other
- Fresh tags don’t show as Leap tags. You can do spotlight searches within leap and still identify those files, but they will not integrate with your Leap tags. This is important for me, as I use Leap as my digital filing solution. So it means files tagged with Fresh will not turn up in the right “filing folder” in Leap.
- You have to manually add stuff to the Cooler (the shelf). I mean, this makes sense, but I have been using this program for a week, and there is still nothing on the shelf.
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