DataCom Shareware Review

FileFinder v4.4

FileFinder belongs to a category of utilities that is very easy to take for
granted.  These utilities comprise a group collectively known as "whereis"
programs.  Normally these programs are invoked by typing "whereis
filename.ext" on the command line, and they return a list of directories
containing the files with requested filename and extension.  There are many
utilities like this available under the shareware umbrella, probably the
oldest and best known of them being Keith Ledbetter's WHEREIS.  Since the
name WHEREIS has been used and reused (and sometimes probably misused) by a
host of different authors, Keith recently released a revision of WHEREIS
under the name Supersonic Search Tool (SST).

On the whole these utilities are very similar in how they operate.  FileFinder
however, can be made to work in a way that is very different.  Of all the
whereis utilities I've looked at, FileFinder is the only one that uses a
command line switch (/@) to force the program to prompt for parameters, thus
removing FileFinder from the realm of totally command line driven utilities.
Because of this command line switch, FileFinder can be invoked from a menu as
well as from the command line, even from a menu that doesn't include its own
command line prompt.

But FileFinder's uniqueness does not end there.  Like the vast majority of
other whereis utilities FileFinder prints its output to the screen or to an
output file.  Unlike other whereis utilities FileFinder's output screen is
framed, and conveys the impression that something else is supposed to happen.
That impression is very accurate.  FileFinder was clearly designed with the
idea in mind that people only hunt for files because they plan to do something
with them after they find them.  FileFinder supports that intention by
allowing the user to shell to a word processor, a file viewer, a text editor,
or Shez by highlighting the file and path name and pressing the appropriate
Alt-key combination.  The usual selection of file management tasks can also be
performed on the selected files from this screen.  Furthermore, an executable
file can be run from this screen, or a named application can be run against a
single file or a group of tagged files.  In this connection it may be
convenient to think of FileFinder as basically a file manager or a DOS shell
that only operates on a group of files that meet certain search conditions
rather that on all the files on a drive or in a directory.

FileFinder uses an external configuration program to set up its method of
operation and to identify the external programs that it shells to.  The
configuration program modifies the main program directly rather that building
a configuration file.  I found the configuration process to be very
interesting in that the way the program works and the appearance of the
screens are a lot like Shez.  This came as no surprise, since FileFinder is
another product of Shez's author, Jim Derr.

It may be very easy to question whether all this elegance and power is really
necessary in a utility whose main purpose to tell you what directory a file is
in.  My own opinion is that it sure is nice to be able to locate a file whose
name I'm not sure about, edit it, save it, print it, and copy it to a floppy
disk all within the same program!

FileFinder v4.4
Filename:  FFF44.ZIP
Registration Fee: $
California Software Design
James Derr
P. O. Box 15248
Santa Rosa, CA 95402
(707) 575-9868 
