Have you ever had to work with Windows™ notepad, for whatever reason, and found yourself frustrated that it only has filters for Text Documents (*.txt) and All Files:

And you need to look at *.log files or *.cpp files or some other extentsion, and wished you could filter the file list.

CFDButton is a tiny app that installs a button on the windows common file dialog to provide time saving functionality. It adds three functions:

1. It allows you to filter by any file type ( extension ) you want. A good example of this is opening up notepad and trying to use it to read an HTML file. Your choices are either *.txt files or *.* all files. CFDButton allows you to create a list of your own file types, so you could choose *.html files and only HTML files would show up in the open window.
2. It will allow you to set favorite directories, you can access through a dropdown menu, and will immediately bring you to that directory.
3. It also monitors the directories where you have been and keeps them in a rotating list so you can easily move around between directories when you are working on a project.

The action menu that appears when you click on the CFDButton in the file dialog also allows you to capture information dynamically. You can use the Add: Favorite menu item to add the currently shown directory to the favorites list. You can also save the currently selected file filter, shown in the "Files of type:" combo box, by selecting Add: Filter, this can come in handy for collecting file filters instead of typing them in by hand. Of course you can use the Show: Settings menu item to bring up the settings dialog at any time.

For more information, look at the screencaps below.

CFDButton is very easy to install and use, and all of it settings are stored locally in xml files, so it works well on portable devices like USB thumb drives. The only setting that is stored in the registry is the "start with windows" setting. If you do not set it, the application is completely portable.

Be aware that is application only works with the Windows™ common file dialog. Applications like Microsoft Office that roll their own file dialogs are not supported. Support for third party dialogs might be added in the future on a per case basis.

At this time I have only tested CFDButton with XP SP2, send an email to me if you have any compatibility information you would like to share.. I have heard from a user that it works with XP Pro x64..