MacTree is a program in search of a problem to solve. It could easily be the greatest Finder alternative, but it isn’t, it could be the best file locator, but it isn’t. In fact, what it does best isn't remarkably useful. MacTree displays your files in the form of a hierarchical tree. You can set the size of the tree from very readable (but you then have to scroll around a lot) to very tiny (where you see the form but can't read any of the text). Th is is one program where it really helps to have a big screen — it is much more impressive and useful on a 17- or 19- inch monitor.
There are a few problems. When you launch the program it puts up its own “fake” desktop (right down to its own nonstandard Trash icon). You might think, from the odd appearance, that it has switch-launched to its own System. It hasn’t and it isn't clear why it has to do this “desktop,” which serves no purpose as far as I can see.
One problem with the basic display is the information provided at the right side of the information bar. This consists of some number of files and some number of hidden files. You might think that these numbers refer to the tree shown. They don't. They refer to the loose files on the top layer of the tree shown (trees don't have to start with root directories). Basically all that these numbers do is warn you to look for these files as they're not shown anywhere near the top of the tree, which is where they actually are in the disk's organization.
The manual and the disk don't agree on many things. It's possible to set the program up to coincide with the manual, but as this isn’t a particularly intuitive program, you shouldn’t have to do this at all.
The default settings are not what the manual indicates and the first time you open the program you get the tiniest, most unreadable image. And the manual doesn't go into changing the size until quite a bit later. By zooming in, you can get readable text, but parts of the display are truncated and there's no lateral scrolling for that material It's just not visible.
If you're in the default Icon File View, it can be very difficult to decide which files are actually in which folders when you get deep into the tree. The default should be the List File View (change to that in Preferences),
Once everything is arranged to your liking, you'll find the program very fast. The search function is particularly good, It's just buried too far into the program. When examining folders (and trees, for that matter) the most important (and most used) command will be preferences. In the perverse design of this program, preferences is placed all the way at the bottom of the File menu, right above quit.
One thing that MacTree shines at is transferring to other applications. Just double-click on any application or document (if the necessary application is present) and you can go directly to it. Unfortunately, quitting an application doesn’t take you back to MacTree so that you can find and launch another program or document.
Andy Peterman
Applications
out of 10 (0 vote)
3 / 
2021-12-07 / 
a8b8bffdf7f54e69971b997ea424f4ae6c7647ae / 
/ 
mactree_v11_jasmine.zip
Emulating this? It could probably run under: 
Mini vMac
