A big hello to all here!

[wc96]

Hi I'm a new member, been reading the posts on and off for the past few weeks since I got a copy XY. Just finally got around to devote some serious time to configuring it (50% of the fun for me).

I have been using an old version of DO for a few years now, and just finally couldn't put up with the cost of upgrading it any longer. On top of that they are packing everything but the sink into that software. FTP, ZIP, dup find etc. I'm a software engineer myself so like the minimalist approach to software creation. The simpler the software, the less bugs it has to deal with.

Anyways, I am hoping everyone here can tolerate a few of my DO -> XY transition questions as they arises as I know many people like myself had made this jump.

Thanks

[serendipity]

Hi and Welcome!!

Its always nice to have more people on board. Hope you enjoy the X(Y)-perience. Its important for us to know what is better in XY compared to DO and maybe you know how NOT to make an app bloated. All this adds to making XY a slick product yet powerful and flexible. So hang on and enjoy the ride.

[j_c_hallgren]

Anyways, I am hoping everyone here can tolerate a few of my DO -> XY transition questions as they arises as I know many people like myself had made this jump.

Hi and welcome to the world of XY! We think we're quite friendly here, so see what you think, ok?


Anyway, one prior thread that comes to mind is the following: http://www.xyplorer.com/xyfc/viewtopic.php?t=1606

[wc96]

thanks to you both, and the referral to other DO post is excellent! But one quick item comes to me right now. Coming from DO I really don't use a Tree pane so not too sure what it's most useful for, right now I played with the catalog feature which I find to be much more useful than the Tree view since it's uncluttered. Am I missing anything here?

Another thing I find hard to transition to is that DO is by default completely replacing explorer.exe yet XY does not (even after apply reg integration code). As I understand that XY is portable and made to be more standalone but I have tried to associate XY to folder, then the Control Panel won't open no more. This has been some frustration to me. But the night is still young I'm still experimenting so might find good soln to many of these problems.

Thanks again for helping.

[jacky]

Another thing I find hard to transition to is that DO is by default completely replacing explorer.exe yet XY does not (even after apply reg integration code). As I understand that XY is portable and made to be more standalone but I have tried to associate XY to folder, then the Control Panel won't open no more.

hmm.. did you use the REG from the XYwiki ? Because as it says there, it shouldn't affect your Control Panel or other special folders, since it uses Directory and not Folder (which would then result of using XY for special folders as well, something not supported)

If you associated XY with Folders, you might wanna change that to Directory, that might do the trick

[j_c_hallgren]

thanks to you both, and the referral to other DO post is excellent! But one quick item comes to me right now. Coming from DO I really don't use a Tree pane so not too sure what it's most useful for, right now I played with the catalog feature which I find to be much more useful than the Tree view since it's uncluttered. Am I missing anything here?

Thought you might find something of value in that other thread...it sort of went astray as I recall but it was one of the more lengthy ones so that's why I recalled it...

About the tree...Yes, the catalog can replace the tree in many cases, but before there was a catalog, we needed the tree, obviously...it's also equivalent to the 'Folders' pane on Win Expl, which many people are used to having...I tend to have the tree showing most all of the time, so that I can go to folders that are not in my catalog and not defined as Favorites either, but that's just me.

[wc96]

Another thing I find hard to transition to is that DO is by default completely replacing explorer.exe yet XY does not (even after apply reg integration code). As I understand that XY is portable and made to be more standalone but I have tried to associate XY to folder, then the Control Panel won't open no more.

hmm.. did you use the REG from the XYwiki ? Because as it says there, it shouldn't affect your Control Panel or other special folders, since it uses Directory and not Folder (which would then result of using XY for special folders as well, something not supported)

If you associated XY with Folders, you might wanna change that to Directory, that might do the trick

yes used that and then I did something extra but doing a file association between the folder and xy which resulted in problems with control panel. I had to turn off the association, now everything seem to work fine.

[admin]

thanks to you both, and the referral to other DO post is excellent! But one quick item comes to me right now. Coming from DO I really don't use a Tree pane so not too sure what it's most useful for, right now I played with the catalog feature which I find to be much more useful than the Tree view since it's uncluttered. Am I missing anything here?

Yep, you missed the future
See also http://www.xyplorer.com/xyfc/viewtopic.php?t=2424

[wc96]

thanks to you both, and the referral to other DO post is excellent! But one quick item comes to me right now. Coming from DO I really don't use a Tree pane so not too sure what it's most useful for, right now I played with the catalog feature which I find to be much more useful than the Tree view since it's uncluttered. Am I missing anything here?

Yep, you missed the future
See also http://www.xyplorer.com/xyfc/viewtopic.php?t=2424

thanks for the link, I actually don't find the tree to be too much of a hindrance now that I discovered F8/ctrl-F8 for toggling tree view and catalog. I also added a Alt-UP/DOWN to shift up/down directory tree hierarchy. seems to be more intuitive than backspace so far, see how that test out.

I like that I hardly need to leave the keyboard to do something, all the shortcuts well thought out. This is definitely the strong point of XY, feels like using emacs, pretty much all the functionality is accessible though shortcuts. Makes doing things very fast.

[wc96]

Hi, I am wondering if there is anyway to make the copying... window into something that could be minimized. I often transfer large files between computers and sometimes they are very slow and this window seems to always stay on top, can't be minimized. Very annoying. In DOpus I think they have a custom version that could be minized and seem to be running on a separate thread. Is there a work around for this in XY? Thanks.

[admin]

Hi, I am wondering if there is anyway to make the copying... window into something that could be minimized. I often transfer large files between computers and sometimes they are very slow and this window seems to always stay on top, can't be minimized. Very annoying. In DOpus I think they have a custom version that could be minized and seem to be running on a separate thread. Is there a work around for this in XY? Thanks.

Yes. Quoting the change log as from v4.40.0081 - 2006-02-07 08:55:

Code: Select all

    + Configuration/Advanced: add option "File operation progress 
      modeless" (which already existed as a hidden feature):
      If checked the file operation progress window is shown modeless. 
      Which effectively means that you can go on working while files are 
      being moved or copied in the literal background: the progress 
      dialog is not "always on top" of the main window. Note however 
      that a modeless progress window can easily get lost behind larger 
      windows.
      Note also that when file operations were triggered by 
      drag'n'drop the source window is usually blocked until the 
      operation is finished.

[wc96]

That's excellent, thanks for the tip! I think it will do nicely for me.

However, there's a larger issue I think maybe addressed in a future version. I find that sometimes I fire off several copying op to the same drive/location and it becomes excruciatingly slow because the process is competing with each other. If there can be an option to automatically queue multiple moving/copy ops to the SAME location, could actually speed up the op. Right now I have to conscientiously do it manually. This I haven't seen implemented anywhere else but I can definitely see it been something highly useful.

Thanks again for answering my question so quickly!

[admin]

That's excellent, thanks for the tip! I think it will do nicely for me.

However, there's a larger issue I think maybe addressed in a future version. I find that sometimes I fire off several copying op to the same drive/location and it becomes excruciatingly slow because the process is competing with each other. If there can be an option to automatically queue multiple moving/copy ops to the SAME location, could actually speed up the op. Right now I have to conscientiously do it manually. This I haven't seen implemented anywhere else but I can definitely see it been something highly useful.

Thanks again for answering my question so quickly!

Here's a way:
- Collect any number of distributed items in a new Catalog Category (quickly via drag+drop)
- select the Catalog Category
- select menu Edit / Copy To... and select a destination
=>> All items in the catalog will be copied to the destination in one go!

[wc96]

that I must say is quite an interesting idea. Let me give it a try, if it works out I will look into a way to automate it with scripting. :]

[wc96]

I have tried this, it works very well. But I think there can be a more elegant solution with a temp-file-list type of thing. Where we get to select a bunch of files from several places and tabs and be added to this list. Then this collection could be moved/copied into a new loc. This could be very useful, such a temporary list.