Keyboard-only folder navigation with auto complete
This is one feature of Windows 7 Start menu that I haven't been able to replace in OS X ML. In Windows:
- Press Windows key
- Start typing, for example: H:\folder\phot
- Use arrow keys to highlight the "search-complete": H:\folder\photos
- Press Enter and voila, the folder is opened in Windows Explorer. Similarly for files.
I know that Alfred Powerpack can navigate by keyboard-only, but it is not as intuitive and fast (it doesn't have "search-complete", and it's cumbersome for mounted folders e.g. typing out \Volumes\H\folder\photos).
Solution 1:
Finder offers the Go to Folder function (found in the Go menu, or by pressing ⇧⌘G), which allows you to type in a path, and has tab-completion (i.e. typing /us TAB r TAB doc TAB
gets /Users/rob/Documents/
).
It's not perfect, the main downfall is that it doesn't present multiple options, it just chooses the last alphabetical match (i.e. if you type do
, in a folder with Documents
and Downloads
, it will auto-complete as Downloads
), but it is a decent built-in functionality.
Solution 2:
If you have the Alfred Powerpack, you can also assign shortcuts for opening the file browser in specific folders.