Dual Pane Resurrected

[Gandolf]

...AHK seems to be a great tool. The problem is that I am - as always - too lazy to learn the scripting language...

The AHK forum is excellent and there are some very smart scripts there, I've only scratched the surface but I find it a very useful tool. Have a browse at the forum, there's lots there so it will take some time!

[Gandolf]

...I wrote a script to open more than one instance of XY when this discussion occurred some months ago, but abandoned it as a waste of time....

Decided to dig up the old scripts and try again, AutoHotkey can be found at http://www.autohotkey.com/

Hey, thanks!!

You're welcome. When I find time I'll try to tidy it up a bit and remove the flashing, if I can.

[admin]

You're welcome. When I find time I'll try to tidy it up a bit and remove the flashing, if I can.

Gandolf, since you know a lot about hotkeys: do you have any idea how I can remove this idiotic Shift+Alt+P system-wide hotkey on my XP SP2? It opens an interface to configure WMP 9 which is the last thing I want to do.

[Gandolf]

I was already thinking about that but don't know an easy solution at the moment. AHK will allow nulling of keys:

Code: Select all

+!p::return

will null Shift+Alt+P (+ = Shift, ! = Alt)

However, it will stop Shift+Alt+P from working in ANY application and I don't seem to able to re-enable it in XY.


Stopping the flashing in "dual mode" was easier than I thought.

Horizontal:

Code: Select all

SetTitleMatchMode 2
SysGet, MonitorWorkArea, MonitorWorkArea, 1
Run, C:\Program Files\XYplorer\XYplorer.exe
WinWaitActive, ahk_class ThunderRT6FormDC
WinMove, A,, 0, 0, (MonitorWorkAreaRight), (MonitorWorkAreaBottom/2)
WinGetTitle, LeftTitle
WinSetTitle, Temporary
Run, C:\Program Files\XYplorer\XYplorer.exe
WinWaitActive, XYplorer ahk_class ThunderRT6FormDC
WinMove, A,, 0, (MonitorWorkAreaBottom/2), (MonitorWorkAreaRight), (MonitorWorkAreaBottom/2)
WinActivate, Temporary
WinWaitActive, Temporary
WinSetTitle, %LeftTitle%
return

Vertical:

Code: Select all

SetTitleMatchMode 2
SysGet, MonitorWorkArea, MonitorWorkArea, 1
Run, C:\Program Files\XYplorer\XYplorer.exe
WinWaitActive, ahk_class ThunderRT6FormDC
WinMove, A,, 0, 0, (MonitorWorkAreaRight/2), (MonitorWorkAreaBottom)
WinGetTitle, LeftTitle
WinSetTitle, Temporary
Run, C:\Program Files\XYplorer\XYplorer.exe
WinWaitActive, XYplorer ahk_class ThunderRT6FormDC
WinMove, A,, (MonitorWorkAreaRight/2), 0, (MonitorWorkAreaRight/2), (MonitorWorkAreaBottom)
WinActivate, Temporary
WinWaitActive, Temporary
WinSetTitle, %LeftTitle%
return

[bergfex]

Stopping the flashing in "dual mode" was easier than I thought.

Wow, fantastic. Thank you again, Gandolf.

[graham]

admin Wrote:

Gandolf, since you know a lot about hotkeys: do you have any idea how I can remove this idiotic Shift+Alt+P system-wide hotkey on my XP SP2? It opens an interface to configure WMP 9 which is the last thing I want to do.

This will disable the action - worked for me

Start WMP (alt+shift+P)

Right-click an open area of the Windows taskbar, point to Toolbars, and then click Windows Media Player to remove check mark.

[admin]

admin Wrote:

Gandolf, since you know a lot about hotkeys: do you have any idea how I can remove this idiotic Shift+Alt+P system-wide hotkey on my XP SP2? It opens an interface to configure WMP 9 which is the last thing I want to do.

This will disable the action - worked for me

Start WMP (alt+shift+P)

Right-click an open area of the Windows taskbar, point to Toolbars, and then click Windows Media Player to remove check mark.

YEAH!!! I did not even have to start it. The checkmark was there, I removed it, alt+shift+P is back in my hands! Thanks!!

[Riki]

Id like to jump in and say Im still eagerly waiting for XY to incorporate DP. I have been trying opus for a while now and DP for me is very fast and inuative, I love it!

You are no alone apparently. And there are 200 DP file managers out there eager to please you. What's your problem?

I like opus a lot but its just too darn expensive. Ive already purchased XY and plan on sticking with it. The 3 things I liked the most about opus is the dual pane, clickable breadcrumbs in the address bar, and the ftp support.

Hopefully XY will get these along the way, Ill be eagerly waiting

[j_c_hallgren]

I like opus a lot but its just too darn expensive. Ive already purchased XY and plan on sticking with it. The 3 things I liked the most about opus is the dual pane, clickable breadcrumbs in the address bar, and the ftp support.

Hopefully XY will get these along the way, Ill be eagerly waiting

Good choice in sticking with XY! But I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for FTP support in XY, as I don't recall Don being that completely interested in that option/aspect...I personally use CoreFTP Lite (freeware) for my FTP needs as I required a Secure FTP product...I also realized that this product group (FTP) was SO specialized that having a unique appl for it made more sense (and gave me more features) than trying to use a tacked-on feature to a file manager, but that's my opinion.

For those rare times when I feel I just have to have a dual-pane (for now) to easily do a manual compare, I use xplorer2 lite (freeware)...DP is on the roadmap, but futher down the line...

Ok, so having to use three products instead of one maybe isn't the greatest, but it gives me what I need for no extra cost.

[Riki]

thanks for the insight! I have been using smartftp for a while, it works great but when I just want to do stuff on my site I found the workflow with opus so nice. My trial is up with opus so I guess I need to just readjust, I should have known better not to even get used to it, lol.
Also i was thinking and another really neat thing opus does, is when you hover over a file it calculates the foldersize and displays it, since it has to calculate it anyway..I thought that was very cool.

[j_c_hallgren]

BTW, Did you see this prior thread that discusses FTP a bit?
http://www.xyplorer.com/xyfc/viewtopic.php?t=1606

I tend to think of XY as a file manager and FTP as way to communicate 'stuff', kinda like the old apples/oranges thing...I get all my stuff ready in XY and then just use FTP to do the transfers, so having to use separate app's doesn't really get in my way...I mean, would I expect a media player to have FTP in it? After all, iTunes is somewhat of a limited file manager in a way, but it doesn't do FTP either...

Ok, so having a basic/primitive FTP support in XY maybe wouldn't be bad from a marketing point of view, but since my web host requires secure FTP, which many programs don't support, it wouldn't help me...plus, the new server that my web host is moving to supports OpenAFS (if I can get it working locally!), so I should be able to see my site as a variant of a network drive, thus making FTP likely unneeded.

[TheQwerty]

Horizontal:

Code: Select all

some AHK code, that opens two instances of XY tiled 
horizontally.

Vertical:

Code: Select all

some AHK code, that opens two instances of XY tiled vertically.

Two suggestions:
1) Though your solution is ultimately quicker, I'd like to draw your attention to http://jgpaiva.donationcoders.com/gridmove.html if you have not already seen it. You can create layouts and then move windows to a defined area quickly via hotkey or drag and drop. It's a tool I've grown to love and it makes sure I'm using all of my monitor space. (It's also written in AHK.)

2) I'd suggest a couple slight modifications to your script.

Code: Select all

Duplicate_XY(mode = 0) {
	;Path to XYplorer.
	XY_EXE_PATH := "C:\Program Files\XYplorer\XYplorer.exe"

	;Parameters to pass to XY.  ("/win=normal" ensures the window does not start minimized/in the tray)
	XY_EXE_ARGS := "/win=normal"

	;WinTitle that will identify XY's main window.
	XY_ID := "XYplorer ahk_class ThunderRT6FormDC ahk_pid "

	;Store the current title match mode so it can be restored.
	stmm := A_TitleMatchMode
	SetTitleMatchMode 2

	;Run the first instance (store the process id in pidA)
	Run, %XY_EXE_PATH% %XY_EXE_ARGS%,,,pidA
	idA := XY_ID . pidA
	WinWaitActive, %idA%

	;Run the second instance (store the process id in pidB)
	Run, %XY_EXE_PATH% %XY_EXE_ARGS%,,,pidB
	idB := XY_ID . pidB
	WinWaitActive, %idB%

	;Get the primary monitor's work area.
	SysGet, MonitorWorkArea, MonitorWorkArea, 1
	if (mode) {
		;Arrange the windows vertically.
		WinMove, %idA%,, 0, 0, (MonitorWorkAreaRight/2), (MonitorWorkAreaBottom)
		WinMove, %idB%,, (MonitorWorkAreaRight/2), 0, (MonitorWorkAreaRight/2), (MonitorWorkAreaBottom)
	} else {
		;Arrange the windows horizontally.
		WinMove, %idA%,, 0, 0, (MonitorWorkAreaRight), (MonitorWorkAreaBottom/2)
		WinMove, %idB%,, 0, (MonitorWorkAreaBottom/2), (MonitorWorkAreaRight), (MonitorWorkAreaBottom/2)
	}

	;Activate the top/left one.
	WinActivate, %idA%

	;Restore title match mode.
	SetTitleMatchMode, %stmm%
	return
}

That's as a single function that can do either tiling mode.
For horizontal set your hotkey to call Duplicate_XY() or Duplicate_XY(0)
and for vertical use Duplicate_XY(1).

The only real difference to your code is I use the process IDs returned from the run command to identify the windows (instead of changing the title) and I added the "/win=normal" command line switch when starting XY.

-----
As for the actual topic of DP, I'd love to see some implementation of this in XY, but I don't really miss it.

What I think would be interesting is to set a tab to a folder compare mode, which displays the contents of two paths so it's easier to compare them. (Switching tabs is easy, but comparing them side by side is so much better.)

[Gandolf]

Nice variation, I'd wondered about using the ID's but simply didn't have the time to check it out.

I know gridmove but haven't really looked at it. I run 99% of my windows maximised so it's not something I thought would be useful.

[bergfex]

I'd like to draw your attention to http://jgpaiva.donationcoders.com/gridmove.html if you have not already seen it. You can create layouts and then move windows to a defined area quickly via hotkey or drag and drop. It's a tool I've grown to love and it makes sure I'm using all of my monitor space. (It's also written in AHK.)

Thank you for the tip, TheQwerty. What a great tool!

[panorama]

I'd like to draw your attention to http://jgpaiva.donationcoders.com/gridmove.html if you have not already seen it.

If I'm not mistaken, jgpaiva is a user of XY and also a contributor to this forum