XYplorer Beta Club

Haven't posted on here in a while. I actually spent some time using xplorer2 (lite) for comparison, but moved back to Xyplorer because it's just superior in many ways. The main thing xplorer has going for it is it's speed in listing files. Other than that, I just love XYPlorer.

Anyways, here's a small list of things I'd like to see in XYPlorer. Mainly, there is no way to navigate "up" from the current folder you are viewing without hitting the "Up" button on the toolbar:

1) In xplorer2, if you double click in an empty area of the file list, it will take you up a folder. This is a nice feature. XYPlorer does nothing here. Would be nice if it gave you some options as to what to do. Just a nice feature to have. If not this, then:

2) I have a Logitech mouse, which has the Back/Forward buttons on it. Using them does nothing in XYPlorer, but xplorer2/ie/firefox do respond to it. Oddly enough, the Back/Forward buttons on my keyboard (Microsoft keyboard) do work in XYPlorer.

Thanks!
D

Ok. I just downloaded the build you put out today. AWESOME.

It would be SO cool if you added a feature so that if you double clicked on an empty area in either the list or the tree, the bread-crumbs menu would show up.

Awesome. Seriously.

D

diarrhio wrote:2) I have a Logitech mouse, which has the Back/Forward buttons on it. Using them does nothing in XYPlorer, but xplorer2/ie/firefox do respond to it. Oddly enough, the Back/Forward buttons on my keyboard (Microsoft keyboard) do work in XYPlorer.

I used to have a Logitech MX700 mouse that had back/forward buttons and Don was nice enough to work with me to get those buttons functioning in XY. I also have a cheapo GE mouse with back/forward buttons and they work great.

A couple months ago the keyboard that went along with the MX700 mouse died on me and I went looking for a new combo. I finally settled on the Logitech Cordless Desktop LX700 (an absolutely wonderful combo if anyone is looking for one). The first thing I noticed was that the back/forward buttons didn't work in XY anymore. I just mapped those buttons in the Logitech SetPoint software to Alt+Left and Alt+Right and it works fine. So that's something you can try.

Now, the bigger question is why the buttons work on one Logitech mouse and not another? Different key codes, I suppose. Don, if you're listening, I wouldn't mind helping you find the answer to this.

diarrhio wrote:Haven't posted on here in a while. I actually spent some time using xplorer2 (lite) for comparison, but moved back to Xyplorer because it's just superior in many ways. The main thing xplorer has going for it is it's speed in listing files. Other than that, I just love XYPlorer.

Hm, speed ... these are the things I don't like to hear I think it's psychological. AFAIK xplorer2 loads the list first and then the tree. XYplorer the other way round. That might make xplorer2 appear more snappy because your eyes a pointed to the list.
Actually I already tried list-first browsing with XYplorer some months ago and it works 95% great. The missing 5% need a lot of work though because this touches deep architectural issues in the code.
It will happen some day...

Your wishes have been heard.

diarrhio wrote:Mainly, there is no way to navigate "up" from the current folder you are viewing without hitting the "Up" button on the toolbar

Actually: right-click on an empty area on the List, "Up" is first on the ctxt menu! Or you can hit Backspace also to go Up...

diarrhio wrote:1) In xplorer2, if you double click in an empty area of the file list, it will take you up a folder. This is a nice feature. XYPlorer does nothing here.

Actually it does do something (dbl-click on empty area) : move the focused item into view! Same goes for the Tree, and thoose are some really cool thing if you ask me

It's already been mentionned though, that having the Breadcrump (and maybe Hotlist) on the List ctxt menu could be nice. My only request here is: keep the "Up" menuitem first on the menu please!

jacky wrote:Actually: right-click on an empty area on the List, "Up" is first on the ctxt menu! Or you can hit Backspace also to go Up...

Right, I guess that's good enough. Though...

jacky wrote: Actually it does do something (dbl-click on empty area) : move the focused item into view! Same goes for the Tree, and thoose are some really cool thing if you ask me

Yes. Those are cool, but an option to navigate up is faster than 1) moving hand to backspace key, or 2) right-click/selet-first-menu-item. Not mandatory by any means. Was just a nice twinkie i discovered in xplorer2.

jacky wrote:It's already been mentionned though, that having the Breadcrump (and maybe Hotlist) on the List ctxt menu could be nice. My only request here is: keep the "Up" menuitem first on the menu please!

Amen

admin wrote:Hm, speed ... these are the things I don't like to hear I think it's psychological. AFAIK xplorer2 loads the list first and then the tree. XYplorer the other way round. That might make xplorer2 appear more snappy because your eyes a pointed to the list.
Actually I already tried list-first browsing with XYplorer some months ago and it works 95% great. The missing 5% need a lot of work though because this touches deep architectural issues in the code.
It will happen some day...

You are right, I think that loading the list first would make it feel snappier, and I can see how changing that would break things all over the place.

However, xplorer2 does do a much better job at doing a listing of large directories. For instance, navigate to your c:\ root folder. Then, open up the Windows folder, then the system32 folder. It takes XYPlorer 4 seconds to sort (based on the "Type" column) and show the contents of that folder. It takes xplorer2 only 1 second.

diarrhio wrote:

admin wrote:Hm, speed ... these are the things I don't like to hear I think it's psychological. AFAIK xplorer2 loads the list first and then the tree. XYplorer the other way round. That might make xplorer2 appear more snappy because your eyes a pointed to the list.
Actually I already tried list-first browsing with XYplorer some months ago and it works 95% great. The missing 5% need a lot of work though because this touches deep architectural issues in the code.
It will happen some day...

You are right, I think that loading the list first would make it feel snappier, and I can see how changing that would break things all over the place.

However, xplorer2 does do a much better job at doing a listing of large directories. For instance, navigate to your c:\ root folder. Then, open up the Windows folder, then the system32 folder. It takes XYPlorer 4 seconds to sort (based on the "Type" column) and show the contents of that folder. It takes xplorer2 only 1 second.

Hm, I cannot reproduce this. On the contrary XY lists system32 notably faster than xplorer2 on my system (both well under 1 second).

Perhaps it's a settings issue. Is there a setting I should turn on/off that would affect this?

diarrhio wrote:Mainly, there is no way to navigate "up" from the current folder you are viewing without hitting the "Up" button on the toolbar

Try StrokeIt - Mouse Gestures for Windows. I have configured up movement of mouse to do this.

diarrhio wrote:Perhaps it's a settings issue. Is there a setting I should turn on/off that would affect this?

The most obvious are to turn off "Show folder sizes in file list" and "Show icon overlays".

I tried it on my system32 folder...had over 1800 files and it loaded in about 1 second...but in doing so, it caused me to revisit this thread:http://www.xyplorer.com/xyfc/viewtopic.php?t=874 which was related to disk management and such...
As I have no easy way to locate any folder with a large number of files in XY that I know of...having that ability would be quite useful/handy I believe..

I am able to do it via JDR (java disk report) for now, but still unable to search for number of files.

admin wrote:XY lists system32 notably faster than xplorer2 on my system (both well under 1 second).

Same here, opening and sorting takes well under 1 sec, almost instantly actually.

Ok. It was the icon overlays that was slowing down the listing. When I turned that off, it went down to < 1 sec.

But it is strange, when icon overlays are turned on, the listing seems to happen really fast, but the sorting is what seems slow. i.e. when I click on the system32 folder, it first displays the files and folders in alphabetical order (with folders not sorted at top), then XY seems to spin it's wheels for 3-4 seconds, then redraws with the file list sorted properly. (Note that I have the options set to Sort Folders Apart and Keep on Top)

When I have icon overlays turned off, there doesn't seem to be an intermediate step of adding the files then sorting them. This would "seem" that the icon extraction is happening quickly, but the sorting is what is taking so long, though I'm sure there is something else going on.

Any ideas on what might be going on?

diarrhio wrote:Ok. It was the icon overlays that was slowing down the listing. When I turned that off, it went down to < 1 sec.

But it is strange, when icon overlays are turned on, the listing seems to happen really fast, but the sorting is what seems slow. i.e. when I click on the system32 folder, it first displays the files and folders in alphabetical order (with folders not sorted at top), then XY seems to spin it's wheels for 3-4 seconds, then redraws with the file list sorted properly. (Note that I have the options set to Sort Folders Apart and Keep on Top)

When I have icon overlays turned off, there doesn't seem to be an intermediate step of adding the files then sorting them. This would "seem" that the icon extraction is happening quickly, but the sorting is what is taking so long, though I'm sure there is something else going on.

Any ideas on what might be going on?

No. You have been fooled by various optimization measurements. For example, I only show the "sorting" message in lists > 3000 items. And I only show anything unsorted before sorting if the listing takes longer than 250 msec. From which follows: XY shows your system32 folder in < 250 msec!

PS: a long "sorting" message can actually be due to "autosize columns" being turned ON -- another factor in slowing down browsing!!