Dual Pane - Formal Proposal Thread

[admin]

I am pretty convinced that the solution to pane distinguishability should come from the list itself.

As I said: And for those of you who say "baaah!" I will provide good old background coloring of the inactive pane as an option.

[serendipity]

I am pretty convinced that the solution to pane distinguishability should come from the list itself.

As I said: And for those of you who say "baaah!" I will provide good old background coloring of the inactive pane as an option.

Oh yes, that works for me.

[Mesh]

Nope, consider those who have their tab bar hidden.

Well, if you turn everything off, and go into a non-details view, all you have to work with are two empty panes, and the splitter bar.

Under those circumstances, here are the options I see off the top of my head:


1. While less appealing than under the circumstances I originally proposed it, the two pixel line could still work.

2. Background shading, of course - although it comes with the "epilepsy" baggage.

3. Shading the splitter - so, for example, if you're using Horizontal Panes, the vertical splitter would be shaded to show the active/inactive panes. Possibly disagreeable as well, aesthetically speaking.

4. Watermark on the inactive pane.

5. Bright flashing neon arrows surrounding and pointing to the active pane. (Dear God, don't actually do this one!)

[Mesh]

As I said: And for those of you who say "baaah!" I will provide good old background coloring of the inactive pane as an option.

Instead of the toolbar button (or perhaps in addition to it), how about the two pixel line as well as background coloring (each configurable and disableable by the user)? That gives three different ways to make it work - surely that will address the majority of users' needs?

[ale]

We might use Don solution for users with toolbar
Coloured address bars for people with AB
I attach a sample screen of another solution for people with tabs, we might have a special (here leftmost) tab as an indicator of active pane
Of course all three things for people with complete UI and also the extra dimming

We still have the problem of people without toolbar, address bars and tab bar, basically everything off, but are there actually such users?

[Gandolf]

... we might have a special (here leftmost) tab as an indicator of active pane Of course all three things for people with complete UI and also the extra dimming ...

No, don't like that. There is little enough space in the tab bar as it is.

For those interested look at Ant Commander http://www.antcommander.com/ In commander mode it uses a frame.

I still can't see what (other than taking up pane space) is the problem with having a pane header like 99% of other dual pane file managers have. Without it, how is one going to be able to see the inactive path? Tabs are useless because they are not variable width. The header can contain so much information that is required and easily accessible, but all this has been said before and the decision seems to be - no header.

As for the entire background colour being different for active / inactive. x² used that initially (it's now an option to have it, or the header) and it was not liked at all. I don't think it's used in many (any?) other file managers. I never use toolbar buttons and don't think I'd like the entire pane changing colour, so, what do I do - not use XY???

There is a lot said about "if Windows Explorer can do it then XY should", does the same logic not apply to "if other dual pane managers do it like this, then XY should". If you want to convert users from other DP managers to XY then having a familiar interface must be a good start.

Anybody ever used the image option for the panes in DOpus? You can have your favourite picture as a background!!!

[admin]

As for the entire background colour being different for active / inactive. x² used that initially (it's now an option to have it, or the header) and it was not liked at all. I don't think it's used in many (any?) other file managers.

Oh, is that so? I thought it was a common way. Maybe because it was suggested so early in this thread. Well, in the meantime I have built it in and it's not that bad. As serendipity said: the marking must be in the list. So there is not much apart from background shading.

Conc. the headers aka breadcrumbs. This is planned and will happen as I have shown in my mockup here in the thread. Maybe not for 8.00 but soon after.

[Gandolf]

As for the entire background colour being different for active / inactive. x² used that initially (it's now an option to have it, or the header) and it was not liked at all. I don't think it's used in many (any?) other file managers.

Oh, is that so? I thought it was a common way. Maybe because it was suggested so early in this thread...

Not really....

T.C. - pane header.
x² - pane header (also panes).
DOpus - pane header.
Altap Salamander - pane header.
Free Commander - pane header.
SpeedCommander - pane header.
Turbo Navigator - bold text in header.
Unreal commander - pane header (also supports pictures as backgrounds).
Gyula's navigator - pane header.
2xplorer - pane header.
Commander - arrows on splitter.
File navigator - pane header.
Nexusfile - highlight item in active pane.
Nomad - small coloured flash to left of pane header, very subtle but because it's a strong colour it's reasonably obvious.
Fadmin - pane header.
Ant Commander - frame round active pane.
wxCommander - pane header.
1'st ZipCommander - highlight item in active pane (activated by mouse).
Q-Dir - background colour.
UltraExplorer - greys inactive background.

And, no I don't collect file managers!!! I am interested in the different ideas that they have and there are others that I've looked at and don't have on this system any more.

[Mesh]

Not really....

Great research!

I for one would take a pane header in an instant over the background color or toolbar methods.

[admin]

x² - pane header (also panes).
Q-Dir - background colour.
UltraExplorer - greys inactive background.

Looks like at least those do it, too.

So, currently (my version) it's:
XY - tab header, and/or toolbar, and/or background
In future it will be:
XY - tab header, and/or pane header, and/or toolbar, and/or background

[j_c_hallgren]

So, currently (my version) it's:
XY - tab header, and/or toolbar, and/or background
In future it will be:
XY - tab header, and/or pane header, and/or toolbar, and/or background

And that should satisfy anyone/everyone, I would really hope! That seems to thus provide very little or no obstacles to anyone converting from a competing product which should benefit XY sales...Ok, so other products may still have some features that XY doesn't and which we feel are bloat, but by providing various alternatives in this area as above, users have their choice in how they do it...even a garish color scheme that we might find unusual!

[Mesh]

And that should satisfy anyone/everyone, I would really hope! That seems to thus provide very little or no obstacles to anyone converting from a competing product which should benefit XY sales...Ok, so other products may still have some features that XY doesn't and which we feel are bloat, but by providing various alternatives in this area as above, users have their choice in how they do it...even a garish color scheme that we might find unusual!

Hear, hear!

And now we all act like a woodpecker with the F5 key, refreshing the Beta thread...

[Mesh]

I just tried out Build 403. Fixing the Internal Refresh makes it useable again (I couldn't use Build 400 because of that bug).

It's looking good. Not counting the extra stuff that will come later, my basic list of items to be addressed is now this:



1. There needs to be an easy way to set the properties of one pane equal to the other. By that, I'm referring to columns, column positions and widths, Date/Time and Size formats, etc... You wouldn't want to copy "Default Tab" status or "Home" location, but all the rest of it. Aside from it being tedious to configure two panes instead of one for a first time config, it also might be common to change the parameters of one pane for a temporary job - after which, you would want to set it back to defaults again. Perhaps I should say instead that this would be copying the properties of one *tab* to another, since that's what's really going on. You could also expand this idea so that a user could configure the Search tab to match the setup they normally use as well.

2. The inactive pane still desperately needs live autorefresh. In addition, the Tree needs live autorefresh as well.

3. The Search Tabs are locked now. This is an annoyance, because it makes for extra steps to close it down. In addition, I think I preferred it the old way - where the search results occurred in the same tab, rather than opening up its own. It was quicker to clear the results, and if you wanted to browse without clearing the list, you could always open a new tab. The new way of having the results come up on its own tab causes more work needlessly, in my opinion.

4. Dual Trees.

[serendipity]

Code: Select all

+ Menu Window: Added command "Toggle Active Pane" (Ctrl+Alt+F10). 
      Together with the enhancement described here above, this offers a 
      very nice option even for single paners: You can easily switch back 
      and forth between two completely independent sets of tabs!

This is cool.

[admin]

3. The Search Tabs are locked now. This is an annoyance, because it makes for extra steps to close it down. In addition, I think I preferred it the old way - where the search results occurred in the same tab, rather than opening up its own. It was quicker to clear the results, and if you wanted to browse without clearing the list, you could always open a new tab. The new way of having the results come up on its own tab causes more work needlessly, in my opinion.

Not sure what you mean. Nothing was changed here. You can set this behavior in Info Panel/ Find Files / Options.