Piles

There are times when we need to find something in a directory, buried deep within the folders system. If you create a shortcut for each folder that is hard to rich, your desktop will be overloaded with icons in no time. Piles offers a simple, but effective solution. It will create shortcuts for any folders and if you place them on your task bar, you will be able to access their contents from a context menu. It implements an idea, based on the Stacks, from Mac OS X.

The application is freeware and you can download it in a matter of seconds. It is supported by Windows 7 and you will need at least the 3.5 version of .NET Framework. As far as other system requirements go, you can run it even with older hardware.

After launching the application, a new icon, called a pile, will appear on the task bar. Clicking it will open a menu with a folder's contents. By default, you will find the contents from the Documents folder, but you can create your own piles with great ease. The option for creating a new pile can be found in a context menu, after right clicking an existing pile on the toolbar. A new window will show up on your screen, where you must specify the pile's name, associate a folder with it and select an icon if you want to.

A pile can be recursive, if you tick an option on the bottom of the New Pile window. If the option is activated, the application will automatically check a folder for new content or modifications. An easier way to create a pile is to simply drag a folder and drop it over the application's shortcut. This will create the pile instantly and you will not even have to access the New Pile window.

The shortcuts for the created piles are placed deep within the system's folders structures, but you can access them immediately with an option from a pile's context menu. Running one of these shortcuts will place a new pile on your task bar.