Product Reviews

Windows Explorer lets you view, copy and manage your files, but it's basic and offers only simple options. Lucion's FileCenter Pro 4 provides many more advanced tools. It's a standalone application, and it's a shame that there's no option for it to replace Explorer as the default file viewer.

While you can use it in a standard Explorer view, FileCenter also has a Cabinets view. This lets you create named short cuts, which are arranged as tabs across the top of the screen, to common files and folders. It's useful if there are certain folders you need to access quickly or, like us when we're producing the magazine, you store work for each month in a new folder. If you do this and create each work folder with the same set of sub-folders then you'll love the Folder Templates. These let you decide the directory tree of a folder, down to directory names. At the click of a button, you can create the template's folder structure in a new folder.

The Cabinets can store just a single real folder's contents, however. Directory Opus 8 has a similar function called File Collections, but you can add the contents of multiple folders to build one, so it's far more flexible. As well as Cabinets, you can add short cuts to your favourite

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applications along the bottom of the screen. This isn't a difficult tool to implement, and it's handy having quick access to the applications that you use the most.

FileCenter aims to be the single point of management for the majority of your files, so it has a lot of extra tools. These include nice touches, such as the ability not just to open a file but also to open a read-only copy of it or create a new version. You can also compress files into a Zip folder, convert them to PDFs (with support for encryption) or encrypt them (with support for self-decrypting executable files). There's also a range of options for sending a file via email. You can Zip, encrypt or send a file as a link. These options all invoke your default email application, which can stop some of the features from working. For example, Microsoft's Outlook prevents you sending executable or link files (.lnk), because they are "potentially unsafe attachments".

If you want support for scanning and OCR, then you'll have to upgrade to the Pro version of FileCenter. The Pro version also introduces support for sharing settings over the network. As this costs $200 (around £112), it's worth doing only if you work with a lot of documents or if you are going to be using the software on a workgroup.

FileCenter 4 is a much easier way of organising your files and folders than Windows Explorer and the extra tools, particularly encryption and PDF support, are excellent value. It's a shame that it doesn't integrate more tightly with Windows and replace Explorer. Directory Opus 8 (which is around £35 from www.gpsoft.com.au) is a little easier to use, has better file collections and integrates better with Windows. Provided you don't want file encryption, it's the better choice.