Access Folders like program

[MrColossal]

Hey people who may know more than me.

I'm looking for a free version of this type of program:

http://www.shelltoys.com/access_folders/

Making game art and such means I have to save pictures in one folder, levels in another, reference in another and concept in another, these folders aren't always right near each other and a program like Access Folders is awesome! You define favourites and just click one button and you're presented with them all for easy workability!

Now, Access Folders is cheap [20 bucks] but I'd rather not buy it! So, anyone know of any other programs like this that are free?

And no, I won't steal it, I'm not about to use stolen programs at work.

Any help would be AWESOME!

Eric

[Ghormak]

I don't know of any programs... but you could always place shortcuts to these folders somewhere convenient, like the desktop or the root of your art folder or something? But you may have thought of this already. And I guess it isn't quite as handy as Access Folders.

... hey, you're surrounded by programmers where you are! Have one of them write a program like this for you!

(I'm helpful!)

[RickJ]

I just use the toolbars that come with windows.  My navigation toolbar looks like this:




For anyone who doesn't know how to make their own toolbars to do this here is the procedure.

• Start by left clicking on an empty p[otion of the windows task bar. 
  
• Select "Toolbars" from the menu that pops up.  A menu will popup
  
• Select "New" from the sub-menu to open the standard folder selection dialog
  
• Navigate to the the desired folder and click the "Open" button
  
• Every short-cut in this folder will become a pick/icon on the tool bar
  
• Create file manager shortcuts to all the folders you want to open from the tool bar
  
• Move the shortcuts to the tool bar folder
  
  
  
  Hint:  There are a couple of options you can put on the command line that open the file manager. many times I want to have the tree view with it's root at a specific location.  For example I place the following line in the "Target" field opf the short-cut to my AGS directory.
  
  C:\WINDOWS\EXPLORER.EXE /e,  /root,c:\ags\
  
  I believe that the "/e" option opens file manager with a tree view of the directory structure.  The "/root" option makes the root of the tree be "c:\ags". 
  
  Hope this is helps,

[MrColossal]

You misunderstand me Rick...

Having a custom toolbar at the bottom of the screen won't help me when the file manager pops up asking me to save a file in a specific folder.

[ManicMatt]

Ah, now that would be REALLY useful!

Although's Rick's advise didn't go to waste, I didn't know you could do that.

[Renal Shutdown]

You could just save them in My Documents in folders that start 0001*, 0002*, etc.

[Traveler]

I'm not sure if this is what you're looking for, but you can download TweakUI from Microsoft and use it to set up folder shortcuts for the Open/Save dialogs, like this:



You have 5 slots to use. TweakUI is free and this featue is supported by Windows itself, TweakUI is just necessary to make the setting itself. (One could do it manually even without TweakUI, by editing the registry.) Here is the setting:



Here is the Powertoys link:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/xppowertoys.mspx

HTH

[MrColossal]

You could just save them in My Documents in folders that start 0001*, 0002*, etc.

No I can't, they have to be in certain folders in order for compilers to work and for our source control to work.

Traveler:

I'll give it a shot, beats paying for things!

edit: tried it... It appears I can't use more than 33 characters for a folder location... ungood!

[Kweepa]

edit: tried it... It appears I can't use more than 33 characters for a folder location... ungood!

Did you try using the registry after TweakUI?
Call each Custom Place something unique in TweakUI, then search the registry for that (run... regedit, Ctrl-F) and edit the value.

[Traveler]

Here it is:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\comdlg32\PlacesBar

I don't know if you're used to editing the registry, so here comes the standard disclaimer     :

If you directly edit the registry without knowing what you do, you can irreversibly damage your system installation. Proceed at your own risk.

Edit: I quickly tried editing manually to see if a longer item would show up, it works fine. I don't think there is a limit in the registry setting itself.

[MrColossal]

well... this is kinda getting awkward so I guess 20 bucks it is!

I'd rather not have to go into the registry or edit subst driver paths every time I switch projects...

Maybe I'll just put in a requisition form and have them buy it for me.

Thanks though! If anyone can think of a free version still, feel free to post!

Eric

[Traveler]

Why don't you create a folder in which you place shortcuts to your project folders, then put a single item in you places bar to this one top folder? This way, if you need to open/save something, you click once in the places bar and then double click the shortcut of your choice to open the folder?

You do the same 2 click as you'd do with that program, but for free.

[Kweepa]

You can create a .reg file that changes all the PlacesBar entries at once, then just double click it to change projects.
Cut and paste this into notepad, and change the values as necessary.
Then save as Whatever.reg.

Code: ags

REGEDIT4
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\comdlg32\Placesbar]
"Place0"=dword:00000011 ; My Computer
"Place1"=dword:00000005 ; My Documents
"Place2"="x:\\path\\to\\data"
"Place3"="x:\\other\\path\\to\\data"
"Place4"="x:\\final\\silly\\path"

[edmundito]

I don't know about you guys, but I got a "recent" folder on my save as dialog. I'm on winxp sp2... maybe that's the one that has the option.

[RickJ]

Steve,  Thanks for that neat little trick.