Posted on 03-12-13 03:27 pm
Neat non-phone related, non-made by me tweak today.
The Windows Explorer interface has its ups and downs. In Windows 8, Microsoft tried to address this, and added a ribbon. Some love the new functionality, some don't. Your mileage varies. But what Microsoft didn't add, which several file explorers have rigged for years, is tabs.
Yes, tabs. The thing that we couldn't browse the interwebs without, and something we shouldn't browse our computers without either.
Enter Clover. This is a small little project by Ejie that adds Chrome-style tabs to the Windows Explorer interface. Before you start making any assumptions, the integration is buttery smooth. It feels and runs just as well as Chrome. In fact, as far as I can tell, it's even built on the same library as Chrome. Open source is nifty, no?
There are several neat things this enables. For example, to copy between folders/devices, you can the respective folders or devices in tabs, and drag files from one tab into another, just as you would expect. You can also control+click on things to open them in new tabs, drag tabs into new windows, snap tabs to the left or right of the screen, etc. Everything that works in Chrome now works on Windows Explorer.
It's an early version from what I can tell but it still works really well, and I'm very fond of the idea of using tabs instead of individual windows for the many file operations I have to deal with. Give it a try; it's free (donationware) and very lightweight, and easily removable. Recipe for success.