Tips, tricks, tools, and techniques for Microsoft Office

Office's File/Open and File/Save dialog boxes have improved over the years, but they still fall short. Sure, having a Favorites button in the Places Bar of Office 2000 makes using Favorites easy, but I have found that managing the "Favorites" folder is a messy business. On more than one occasion I thought I was removing a file from the Favorites folder, only to realize I'd deleted the file itself.

"Favorites" is also a big melting pot, mixing all my web-browsing favorite URLs with my favorite files and folders. Furthermore, accessing Favorites is not available as a shortcut from all applications, such as WordPad or Notepad. I wanted a utility that put my favorite files and folders at my fingertips quickly, from any application.

FileBox eXtender (FBX) from Hyperionics does just that. The $20 utility adds two buttons to the title bar of all windows, including dialog boxes, and another two buttons when you're using a "Files" dialog box. For example, when you use the File/Open, File/Save, or File/Save As command in Word, you'll see these new buttons in the title bar of the File dialog box. They're added just to the left of the standard help, minimize, restore, maximize, and/or close buttons in the title bar.

When you click the first of the four buttons provided by FBX, sporting a clock face icon, you'll see a list of your recently used folders -- the last folders you've accessed using File/Open or File/Save dialog boxes. You can specify to display up to 32 folders in the list.

Click the second button (a heart) and you'll see a custom list of your favorite files and folders. A shortcut on this list lets you add the current folder to your favorites list; other configuration options let you add individual files, separator bars, and even submenus (so you can have C:\memos and a submenu with your five favorite files from that folder). You can drag files from another file manager (Windows Explorer, for instance) to the FileBox configuration screen to easily build or update your list of favorite files.

In addition, you can create a filtered list (all .DOC files in C:\memos, for example), which I find particularly handy.

The two lists -- recently-used folders and favorite files -- can also be accessed from an icon in your system tray. I find myself clicking on the recently-used folder list from the system tray icon to open file lists -- it's more efficient than opening Windows Explorer.

Though you can quickly add a folder to your favorites list, you can't add a file with the click of your mouse, a feature I'd like to see added. On the plus side, there's no chance I'll accidentally delete a file using FBX, as I can with Windows' Favorites folder, since you can only remove the file NAME from your list of favorites.

The third button FBX adds is a push-pin button to windows' title bars; the button lets you keep the current dialog box on top. The fourth button, an up-pointing arrow, lets you "roll-up" the current dialog box -- it keeps the title bar displayed but hides the rest of the dialog box or window. That's a handy trick when you want to briefly hide the dialog box so you can view the main document window, then return to the dialog box.

The utility also lets you resize the standard Windows file management dialogs; you specify a percentage for the horizontal and vertical dimensions (150% of standard width and 200% of standard height, for example) and FBX will automatically open the file dialogs using these settings.

You can try out FileBox eXtender version 1.61 for yourself. An unlicensed copy lets you put two items on the favorites list. You'll find more information at

   http://www.hyperionics.com/files/index.asp

-- James E. Powell

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