XYplorer Beta Club

If it's anything, I know Kilmatead is not the whining type. He/she has a very clear view of everything from a very fair point. He/she just prefers xplorer2 but knows its problems and limitations as well as problems and limitations of other software. I think stuff said by Kilmatead should not be taken lightly.

Oh, I did not think of Kilmatead at all when I wrote this. And I totally agree with what you said about him/her. I rather meant the strategy of certain file manager makers to diss XY because of its bitness... nuff said. And, BTW, X2 has always been the only competing product that gets my full respect. I have said that many times in this forum I think. But at the same time, it must be allowed to say that it cannot compete with XY when we are talking about sophisticated file management.

BTW, if you want to see an example of whining bit-picking read "Fast and nimble" which clearly attempts to brain-wash technically challenged users (as if using C++ would make file management any faster, ridiculous). This was the first time I saw Nikos attacking me (if not mentioning my name -- he is still a gentleman compared to certain guys from the other side of the world). I mean, it's kind of understandable, he has to feed a family and so on, but it is not really cool. The market is big enough for all of us. Get customers by offering superior quality, not by dissing the guy that tries as hard as you to make a living.

PS: That context menu problem is, of course, a valid point. But, no worries, I will handle this soon, you will get your 64-bit context menu items. Just needs to be coded. I will soon switch to Win8/64 as my main work environment so you can be sure I will take care of that issue.

Ah I completely understand now. And yes, that's also one strength of XY since it has many sophisticated and powerful features that really aids in file management. Not only that, I find the way you set them up (ergonomics as Klmatead said) is one of the greatest thing about XYplorer. It's very easy to access and quite intuitive I think.

Oh! I actually read that but did not notice the "ancient" lol. But yes, this however is still light compared to you-know-who on the separate continent. That was just horrible.

And that's great to hear! Those 64-bit menus are very important. Even if XYplorer is a 32bit program, since you taken care of the issue with the system32 directory (quite nicely too), with this addition, no one should really have any issue to complain about the bitness anymore since everything 64bit is working as expected.

admin wrote: PS: That context menu problem is, of course, a valid point. But, no worries, I will handle this soon, you will get your 64-bit context menu items. Just needs to be coded. I will soon switch to Win8/64 as my main work environment so you can be sure I will take care of that issue.

Fully customizable context menu incoming, I'm calling it now.

admin wrote:I will handle this soon, you will get your 64-bit context menu items. Just needs to be coded

I look forward to this. Not so much because I need it - at the moment, I'm not missing any context menu items - but because I'm interested in seeing the solution. The solution that gets pushed by MS and everyone else is that the program needs to be completely rewritten in some language that supports x64 from the ground up.

However, I hope that Don finds a way to get the 64-bit integration without doing a complete rewrite, since that would take a lot of time from adding other features to XY. I'm hoping that Don comes up with his own clever technology to support 64-bit extensions, if that's possible (I'm honestly not sure if it is).

admin wrote:2) XY seems to have an image problem. Why? For example, I saw this in X2's forum today: http://netez.com/bbs/viewtopic.php?p=63834#p63834 Is it still the old VB-is-bad myth? Haven't I done enough yet to prove it wrong? Everybody who ever used XY knows that XY runs circles around X2. It's a totally different league. X2 is only widely known because of its freeware version "X2 lite". There is hardly any development there, apart from pricing, anti-piracy attempts, and an "Ultimate" version that's just there to rip off previous "Lifetime" customers. How can anybody seriously compare it to XY???

If I am allowed to throw in my 2 cents:

I just recently bought XY. It was either XY or x2. x2 seemed more professional to me, but it was a close call. The only (i am serious) reason why I decided for XY was the fact that it can handle overlong file names (>260 chars). Other than that I would have likely bought x2. Before that, I compared them (from a "first new user impression" point of view - of course reading through the help and trying stuff) for about 1-2 months. I even made lists on paper but the fact about the overlong file names did not come to my mind until the end.

My conclusion about XY:
The 64bit issue is for the future, yes, but at the moment other stuff is more important.
The fact that XY is more "colorful" (both the website as well as the application) was making me wonder, only for one moment, whether or not XY was a little less professional. The information on the website as well as the help file, though, showed me immediately that the many colors are not trying to hide anything.
I did realize that XY is getting developed more faster, the possible features seemed to be more innovative and after some testing it did seem to me that XY would be more powerful in general.

However...
I saw that I could only use its full potential if I did a lot of (more or less complicated) customizing (XYscripting, AHK & AutoIt3, ...) myself. Many features (that I would use) are IMHO not perfectly finished in implementation/development. Or they are cumbersome to use and/or not fully intuitive. (This is somehow true of almost all software, but with XY I feel it is especially true.)

One other big issue that made me feel that it's less professional, is that the UI can not be customized as flexibly as with x2. And this is something one immediately notices, something that influences the "look & feel" which is a big part of the overall impression. I.e. the tree cannot be moved to the right side, or the preview (info panel) cannot be portait-mode on right side.

Talking about the "look & feel" (and this one is huge): 70% of the icons on the tool bar buttons do not look professional at all.

Another thing that would help one to realize and use the power of XY better would be context sensitve hints and help (if it is there then I did not find it yet).

I think the first few sentences of this post (http://www.xyplorer.com/xyfc/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=9817) say it pretty well too:

shadi.lahham wrote:This program is strong on the technical side, but very lacking on the human usability and visual sides.

I would suggest to stop the development of technical features for a while and instead focus on the study and implementation of visual and usability features that will add a lot to the easy of use of xyplorer.

Whereas I would concentrate on the usability.

Regards, Stephan

I'm all for usability and "look & feel", but (as you also admitted) the former depends a lot on what you want (needs) and what you know (habits), and the latter is also a matter of taste. I made the program as usable as I can, and the icons as beautiful as I can. I totally agree that all this is important but I see nowhere where I could improve it.

So, do you have an example for bad usability and ugly icons in XY?

I will try to come up with a little bit of a deeper analysis from my point of view. Please give me a little time.
I will also be glad to continue contributing to helping of improving XY. However, I assume improving the overall image to potential customers and heavily improving the usabilty and look & feel will be a lot of work on your part. But I guess you are aware of that...

admin wrote:Yes, but getting that message across is not easy. Do you (all of you) think that the green stuff (the plants) on the homepage somehow give a wrong impression?

The plants don't bother me. In fact I like it, it has something of a brand recognition value. However I have another issue.

For a first step to optimize the first impression on the website I do have the following idea:
IMHO, the problem is that there are too many features. It simply is too much information for some people (at least for me it was a little overwhelming). My idea is:
In the features list ...
1) make a section of features unique to XYplorer or that almost no one else has, features that make XY stand out (like support of overlong filepaths (>260), tree path tracing, mini tree, ...)
2) make a section of general features (the rest of the features, such ones as most WinExReplacement file managers have, like tabs, dual pane, ...)
3) Shorten the list on the index page, maybe to the points in #1)
4) Put the "Tour" in only one place (right now there is one under "Product" and one under "Tour" - merge the two and leave it under "Tour" only)
5) Make the tab-links on the "Tour" page identical with the ones on the "Product" page and on the "Feature List" page.
Hope I did not come across too strong. Those are just some ideas.

admin wrote: ugly icons in XY?

Icons are good. But.
No need to frequently change their, many people are used to the interface and to change their icons are not habitually (Visual Filter, Mini Tree)

So, do you have an example for bad usability

There is a function that is not working: http://www.xyplorer.com/xyfc/viewtopic. ... 403#p97403

autocart wrote:I will try to come up with a little bit of a deeper analysis from my point of view. Please give me a little time.
I will also be glad to continue contributing to helping of improving XY. However, I assume improving the overall image to potential customers and heavily improving the usabilty and look & feel will be a lot of work on your part. But I guess you are aware of that...

admin wrote:Yes, but getting that message across is not easy. Do you (all of you) think that the green stuff (the plants) on the homepage somehow give a wrong impression?

The plants don't bother me. In fact I like it, it has something of a brand recognition value. However I have another issue.

For a first step to optimize the first impression on the website I do have the following idea:
IMHO, the problem is that there are too many features. It simply is too much information for some people (at least for me it was a little overwhelming). My idea is:
In the features list ...
1) make a section of features unique to XYplorer or that almost no one else has, features that make XY stand out (like support of overlong filepaths (>260), tree path tracing, mini tree, ...)
2) make a section of general features (the rest of the features, such ones as most WinExReplacement file managers have, like tabs, dual pane, ...)
3) Shorten the list on the index page, maybe to the points in #1)
4) Put the "Tour" in only one place (right now there is one under "Product" and one under "Tour" - merge the two and leave it under "Tour" only)
5) Make the tab-links on the "Tour" page identical with the ones on the "Product" page and on the "Feature List" page.
Hope I did not come across too strong. Those are just some ideas.

Thanks for the input. Forgive me, but I don't have the time to reply to it in a detailed way. There is LOT to take into account in website design, I'm always thinking about optimizing it, but there are many (partly conflicting) goals to achieve with the website, so it's necessarily a trade-off. And let's always remember the homepage of TC (the market leader by astronomic factors)...

autocart wrote:Talking about the "look & feel" (and this one is huge): 70% of the icons on the tool bar buttons do not look professional at all.

This is definitely one of those personal opinion things, because I feel that XY's icons are superior to those in X2 -- but I'm not a graphic designer, just a user who's seen many an icon in all my years of PC's.

I think autocart meant that the icons make XYplorer look more colorful and more of a plaything than an actual workhorse. I can definitely see that. However, I like the way XYplorer looks and definitely prefer it over xplorer2 choice. In terms of design, that's why I also prefer Directory Opus over xplorer2. xplorer2 looks like a workhorse (only talking about visual here) but at the same time, looks too much like a technical tool. Complicated stuff when it comes to design. Hire a designer?! *joking

Enternal wrote:I think autocart meant that the icons make XYplorer look more colorful and more of a plaything than an actual workhorse.

Yes, and just like you that's what I like. It is 100% intended, and I see no contradiction at all between coloful looks and efficiency, to the contrary. If our eyes can see colors, why not use that dimension?

admin wrote:Forgive me, but I don't have the time to reply to it in a detailed way.

That's ok. I don't fully understand why you posted the initial question to the audience, though, in the first place then. But I hope you did not give up alltogehter on improving the overall image of XY. Maybe you also meant you don't have time at the moment and you have to postpone your concern about the topic at hand for next year or so, which would be totally understandable. In either case, I will wait with further feedback until maybe you will have time for processing it in the future.

Just one more thought about the toolbar button icons:

admin wrote:

Enternal wrote:I think autocart meant that the icons make XYplorer look more colorful and more of a plaything than an actual workhorse.

Yes, and just like you that's what I like. It is 100% intended, and I see no contradiction at all between coloful looks and efficiency, to the contrary. If our eyes can see colors, why not use that dimension?

Thx to you guys for understanding me at little. At least, that's partly what I meant, but I have nothing against a little playfulness or against color as such.

The main part of what I meant is, that I feel, the icons are too different from each other in terms of general design concept. I can not really feel any continuity in design, which makes it easier to feel confused, but for sure it feels less professional. My idea on improvement in this area would be to reuse the same design, as is used already on the website, also for the toolbar button icons, namely the colored circles/discs with the black/grey simplified items in the center. This ensures a continuity in design concept (even with the website), it is colorful and a little playful, and still leaves enough room for individualizing each button icon. But maybe someone else has a better idea...

Regards, Stephan

autocart wrote:

admin wrote:Forgive me, but I don't have the time to reply to it in a detailed way.

That's ok. I don't fully understand why you posted the initial question to the audience, though, in the first place then.

No, it's alright as it is. I had a question and I got answers. Thanks for that! I read everything and digest it. I just don't have the time to get into a discussion or try to explain why I do what I do. I might "reply" later in form of actions...