User:DiscreteInterference/sandbox

DaisyDisk is a shareware disk space analyzer for OS X. It displays a sunburst diagram of files on a hard drive to help with the location and deletion of large files in order to free up disk space. It allows the user to view previews of the file from within the application, by using Quick Look to decide whether to delete it or not. It also allows the user to look at the file directly in Finder, in order to delete it or move it to somewhere else.

History
DaisyDisk was started in late 2008 by interaction designer Taras Brizitsky and programmer Oleg Krupnov. They built the codebase from scratch to try to achieve higher speeds than similar programs. They decided to use a sunburst diagram as it is perceived better than other ways of visualizing data (such as treemaps).

Unique Interface
DaisyDisk provides a graphical user interface that displays the contents of your hard drive as a  color coded sunburst diagram, resembling the pedals of a daisy. The interface places the root directory of the hard drive at the center of this daisy, and displays a hierarchical structure of that hard drive's file system that radiates from that center. This daisy is color coded to differentiate between directories, while  files themselves are always displayed as gray. In the right sidebar of the interface, DaisyDisk also provides a legend for these color codes. When hovering over a file or directory, the right sidebar of the interface updates with contextual information such as the file or directory name and it's absolute path. When clicking on a directory on the daisy, a new daisy is displayed with the chosen directory as its root, allowing you to go deeper into your filesystem. To keep track of how deep you've gone into your filesystem, the interface also provides a "breadcrumb trail" of your current directory right above the sunburst diagram. .

Quicklook Integration
One of the ways DaisyDisk integrates with the Mac features is through its support of the Quick Look function, which is included in Mac OS X v10.5 "Leopard" and later. Hovering over any file or directory in DaisyDisk's interface and pressing spacebar will utilize Quick Look and display additional information about that file or directory in regards to its location and contents.

In-app File Deletion
DaisyDisk provides a trash like collector icon in the lower left of its interface, allowing you to drag directories and files from the daisy diagram and stage them for deletion, meaning that you can delete all these items together at a later time without having to leave the app.

Real-time Information
Once scanned, all the information displayed by DaisyDisk remains up to date without a need for further scanning disks.

Parallel Disk Scans
DaisyDisk provides the functionality to scan multiple mountings of disks at maximum speeds in parallel.

Support for Retina Display
As of DaisyDisk v3, a retina friendly version of the app exists for Mac users with Retina Displays.

Localizations
As of DaisyDisk v3.0.3, the following localizations are supported:


 * English
 * German
 * French
 * Italian
 * Russian
 * Swedish
 * Spanish
 * Polish