FilePathCM 1.0 — A contextual menu for copying the path of a file or folder to the clipboard
Reviewed by Harry {doc} Babad © 2007
Limit Point Software http://www.limit-point.com/Utilities.html Released: 16 January 2007 Cost: Freeware, buy all the vendors utility products with a small donation. Installation Size: 56 KB Requirements: Mac OS X 10.4 or later; Universal binary |
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Strengths: The easiest way I’ve found to capture the path (relative location) of a file from the file itself. Weaknesses: It works, what more is there to say. Copyright Notice: Product and company names and logos in this review may be registered trademarks of their respective companies. The software was tested on a 1 GHz dual processor PowerPC G4 Macintosh with 2 GB DDR SDRAM running under OS X 10.4.10 |
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Introduction Including Publisher’s Summary
Why should I check out this gem when I have the more functional, but complex, Path Finder, EasyFind, HoudahSpot or Spotlight installed on my hard drive? Although there are other means, including the tools I listed, to do a top-down (Finder) path search, this bottoms-up method is just right for both reviewers, computer related authors and teachers.
Oh you don’t know what a find path is or does. Well Wikipedia tells it all, albeit a bit technically. “A path is the general form of a file or directory name, giving a file's name and its unique location in a file system. Paths point to their location using a string of characters signifying directories (folder to us Mac-heads), separated by a delimiting character, most commonly the slash "/" or backslash character "\", though some operating systems may use a different delimiter. ...” see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_path /. Examples follow, just keep reading, you’re almost there.
From a tech talk perspective Parent-Child direction are depicted in a tradition left to right manner. [This is what you’d see in a nested folder or even nested volume relationship. You know if you’re searching for the path of a partition on your hard drive. |
Examples
For example, I’ve stored this article at — /Users/harry/Desktop/This Months Stored Reviews/SUBMITTED for August/FilePathCM 1.0/FilePathCM_1macC Review.doc
The installed FilePathCM is located at — /Library/Contextual Menu Items/FilePathCM.plugin
The backup copy of the first draft of this review is stored in — /Volumes/Document BkUp 20GB Disk/FilePath CM_1macC Review.doc
Now I could locate the file by command clicking on the document’s menubar and I see the path and could even capture a screen shot of what I found, but doing it the FilePathCM way is easier.
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Option-Click or Right Click => The File Path is on your clipboard! |
Now wait until I either write this down or OCR the image. |
Getting Started
To Install the Contextual Menu — Place the plugin into your "Contextual Menu Items" folder located in your Library folder, creating the CM folder it if necessary:
/Library/Contextual Menu Items/FilePathCM.plugin
Then logout and get back into your account to automatically load the plugin.
To Use the plugin — Control-click on a file or folder in the Finder and select FilePathCM > Copy Path. The CM copies the file path to your clipboard from where you can paste it into reviews like this one.
Conclusion/ Recommendation
Is there any thing else I need to say! If you need to use file paths in your purple prose, this is the tool for you. Instant gratification, no fussing at all.
Whether you’re interested or not in the other utilities Joe developed, send him $5.00. Talent needs encouraging. Five bucks is just a bit more then your favorite espresso and but perhaps less of you leave a tip for the smiling barista.
The author’s WordDump software also looks interesting, perhaps you’ll read about it in a future macC.
