Opinions wanted

[mouser]

as i finish up the review i'd really appreciate any opinions people might have on these tools.

http://www.donationcoder.com/Reviews/Archive/DialogExtenders/index.html

come on guys/gals, help me out by installing the trial versions and letting me know you opinion on which is best and why.

[m_s]

I had never heard of such things until I read the first part of your review yesterday, Mouser, and I went straight for the open source option, and it's great!  DM2 is very stable and its 'minimize to floating icon' feature is excellent.  I also like the fact it includes virtual desktops, which I have often found useful, but seldom continued to run for more than a few days, because many of the solutions I've tested have been quite resource-heavy.  DM2 runs so light that it's no problem at all just having it there in the background, and I can use the second (third, fourth ... eighth) desktop when I need it.  I haven't tested any of the others, because I don't think it is likely I would pay for this kind of software.  Thanks for pointing out a whole new category of useful programs.

[mouser]

dm2 has great promise but it is lacking some key features for this review
(though it has tons of extra features as you say that others dont).

[Armando]

Interesting subject. The only software of that kind I've tried (and still using) is OpenWide. Not that I like it that much but when I first found it I thought it was very useful (just to get the &?%#*&!  "save" or "open" windows bigger!) I will try the other one, now that I have a list. (P.S. : compared to the others, OpenWide seems to be kinda thin... But might satisfy users with very very basic needs -- It's very stable (never crashed once) and does what it's supposed to do -- not on 100% windows though).

[Armando]

FileBox uses a bit too much RAM, I find (usually around 10mb -- compared to dm2, for instance, which uses between 1 and 3mb). In my case (pentium IV, 512mb RAM with shared video mem) it's a bit too much for such a tool. The lighter, the better. Off course, it has to be stable and efficient. DM2 works well for now (doesn't work with MS word save or open windows, though... but it's okay because it's the least annoying one), and seems to be stable... Lots of options. Which key features are lacking? I'm curious...

[mouser]

dm2 doesnt seem to expand size of open/save dialogs nor change them into details mode.

[LuckMan212]

well I cant say I've tried all of the ones in the review but I have tried these:

DM2
Dialog Box Assistant
QuickFolders

I really like DM2 a lot and have actually spoken to the developers for awhile... this project has been around forever and used to be written by a guy calling himself "weird173".  Anyway its a great little program still has a ways to go but Its on my "watch list" for when it matures a bit.

Dialog Box Assistant was too difficult to add folders to the menu and I found the GUI confusing.  I actually bought this program too since I had their other app, "Calendarscope" and was very impressed with it.  But Dialog Box Assistant needs more refinement if you ask me.

As for the rest I settled on Quickfolders.. it does what I need it to with a minimum of fuss and has a nice GUI.  It has been stable for me and I dont really need the "enlarge dialogs" or "always set view to details" features although they would be nice to have and I have sent the author a suggestion to add those features to the next version... so maybe v4.0 will stand up better to the others.  But for me anyway, I would rank it a 4/5.