Ever wish that when you were going to open or save a file that you had a few more options to choose from?  Do you find the standard open/save dialogs difficult to read when there are a dozen or more files listed?  Coming to the rescue of frustrated users everywhere, Stardock presents the Enhanced File Dialog utility, a product included with ObjectDesktop.net that brings power and user customization to yet another aspect of the Windows Operating System.

Enhanced File Dialog is an application enhancement utility that replaces the standard Microsoft Windows file open/save dialog screens with a much more feature-rich interface.  It improves the usability of possibly the most used dialog screens in the entire operating system by giving you items such as a Recent Folders drop-down, an easier to read file list, an application quick-launch bar, a search button and a customizable sidebar to add your favorite folders to for quick and easy navigation.

Compare these two screenshots showing the file open dialog at first glance:

Classic Windows Open Dialog	Enhanced Open Dialog

At first glance, the most obvious improvements are in the file list.  In the classic view, files are listed as Name + Extension (i.e. document.rtf) and there are no sort options or visual divisions between items in the list.  The second picture showing the enhanced dialog looks more like the detailed view you would see in Windows Explorer, breaking the file list down into columns such as Name, Size, Type and Date Modified.  This view can help eliminate guess work when trying to figure out which version of a file you want to be working on.  No more guess work on whether it's Q1Financials_a.doc or Q1Financials_b.doc that you need to be working on when you can clearly see that one of the files is from last year.  Also, to make it easier to read all of the additional data provided, the file list is divided by grid lines.

If you take a closer look at the two screenshots, you'll see three additional differences in the enhanced dialog:

• Recent Folders list
• Enhanced Sidebar
• Quick Launch Bar
  • Search
  • Enhanced Dialog Settings
  • Application Quick-launch buttons

The "Recent Folders" list is a drop-down menu that will show you some of the most recently access folders.  This makes it easier for users who are working in multiple applications save related files together.  For example, a web designer may want to save an web page file and some images to the same folder.  Both the graphics editing and web page editing applications likely have their own default save locations that will pop up when opening the save dialog.  Once you've saved within one of your applications, you can then select that folder from the Recent Folders list when saving from the other application.  Saving the user the time and trouble of digging through countless folders to reach a folder they've already recently worked in. 

The enhanced sidebar adds several more options over the standard one.  Instead of having to go to My Documents to reach folders such as My Music and My Pictures, they're included in the list.  Additionally, through the settings menu, or by simply dragging and dropping onto the sidebar, the user can add any folder they like to the list.  A student who stores all their class papers on F:\My Papers\ could add that to the sidebar and make the open/save process much easier. 

Finally, the Quick Launch bar gives you three primary functions:

1. Search.
   If you want to search for a file within a given directory, you can browse to it via the open/save dialog and launch the search utility via the magnifying glass.  It will default to searching that folder.
    
2. Enhanced Dialog Settings.
   There are a number of settings the user can change to suit their needs.  This is where you can add applications to the application launch bar, custom folders to the enhanced sidebar, as well as specify which applications you do not want to use Enhanced Dialogs, or alternately specify applications you want to especially force to use it.  Additionally, it will save dialog window sizes for applications that have a habit of defaulting to a very small dialog window.
   
   Please note: some applications like Microsoft Office do not use standard file dialogs and will not be extended by Enhanced File Dialog.
    
3. Application Launch Bar
   This is just like the Quick Launch bar you can enable on the Windows taskbar.  You can add application shortcuts to this bar through the settings.

	Quick Launch Bar
	Recent Folders List
	Enhanced Sidebar

While a small tool in scope, Enhanced File Dialog brings a great deal of power and flexibility to a key piece of every Windows application.  If you've customized your desktop with WindowBlinds, modified your context menus through Right Click, and built yourself a replacement Taskbar with DesktopX and ObjectDock, then why not dig in and improve your file dialogs too with Enhanced File Dialog!

Some additional screenshots of the utility settings: