XYplorer Beta Club

I've just started using XYplorer a couple of weeks ago, and I really like it. It took a few days of fiddling around with the settings and file association registry settings to get it working how I wanted (No tabs, only multiple instances, same column layout all of the time, etc). Every time I try out new software I start making lists of bugs and things I wish it handled differently. I have a few ideas from that list, some of these things are right out of Windows Explorer itself!:

1. Slow launch on network folders (or slow to respond local drives). This is a known issue, as shown by the "No network browsing on startup" setting. This is kind of an odd way to handle that problem. It would be much more efficient if the software loaded first with a blank panel and *then* tried to connect and load the folder contents in a separate thread, rather than holding up the UI until the contents are fully loaded. Similarly, when double-clicking or pressing enter on a folder over a network share (or again a slow local drive), the UI does nothing until it has loaded that folders contents. This is often misleading when opening a folder with a lot of files, it just looks like it's not doing anything and you can then select a different folder and press enter/doubleclick (it will then open both folders!). Sometimes it does open with a blank panel immediately and show "Connecting..." on the status bar, other times it doesn't. I haven't been able to narrow down when/why it does/doesn't work that way. The vast majority of folders I'm working with are on my home network file server, so I really need responsive network browsing.

2. In Explorer, Ctrl+Enter on a folder or folder shortcut opens that folder in a new window. I'd like that functionality in XYPlorer. I don't use tabs, so I'd prefer a new instance. My current work-around is to right click it and select the XYplorer context menu item, that always opens a new window.

3. The other day I had a whole folder full of video files highlighted and accidentally hit the Enter key. XYplorer happily launched them all in my media player and they started playing! In Explorer, if you have more than a certain number of files selected it will ask you to confirm that you want to launch all of these files.

4. XYplorer windows that do not have focus should have their selected item background colors faded out so it is easier to tell which window has focus when there are more than one open.

5. Something I *really* missed from Windows XP when I switched to Windows 7 (it was missing in Vista as well, but who ever used that?!) was the icon in the title bar of Explorer windows. When you right clicked on it, it would show you the context menu as if you had right clicked on the parent folder you are browsing. For example, if you were looking in "C:\AFolder\Another\" and you right clicked on the top left title bar icon, you would get the context menu for the "Another" folder. You could also drag and drop that icon as if it were the folder itself. I don't think it was a widely known feature, but it was incredibly useful. I'd like to see that feature in XYplorer, maybe utilizing the icon in the breadcrumb bar?

6. When opening a new XYplorer window, it opens exactly on top of and hides the current window. It should be cascaded off of it.

7. When using the F3 QuickName search, I'd like to be able to use, for example, "-keyword", to show all files that do not contain "keyword" in their name.

8. On the context menu, under New, "New Folder" should have an alt-key shortcut for letter F, and a T for "New Text File".

9. When opening a window from the command line (xyplorer /win=min /new "c:\path\"), it takes a long time to open (see #1), and when it does it has a flashing taskbar button. It shouldn't be flashing when set to open minimized.

10. A quick filter text box next to the address bar. Type in a string and the list panel immediately filters the files within the current folder only. I think this might already be on the roadmap, but I wasn't certain if this is what "Live Filter for List" or "Quick Search Bar" meant.

I think that's it for the wishlist! I'll have another post for the bugs I've found later.

First of all, welcome to the forum!

Long lists of wishes and bugs within one thread are not the best way to start here since they are not really liked much.
It's counterproductive to try to answer only part of them and you have to read all the replies in order to find the ones you're interested in and people might get overwhelmed with the amount of text which doesn't get you the needed replies in order to solve your problems.

That said, I only want to address one aspect of XY you're probably not aware of: It's written in VB6 which unfortunately doesn't allow multithreading (that's the reason why background jobs as copy and backup are handled by a separate process called XYCopy)

And maybe one more thing: Most users of XY rely on it's ability to have multiple tabs pointing to different locations, which I think is one of the key features of XY, whereas your approach with multiple instances poses a potential problem. If all instances use the same ini file it's kind of hard to keep track of the changes to the ini you actually want to have saved.

Hi & Welcome,

The previous —sensible— things being said, I thought I'd add a few answers nonetheless; just the first off the top of my head.

7. The exclusion symbol is "!", so in QuickNameSearch, you'd type "!keyword" (and in the AddressBar: "?!keyword" for an even faster quicksearch).

10. A fast-and-furious way to filter is to use "|" in the AddressBar, e.g. typing "|keyword" will only display items whose name contains "keyword", conversely, typing "|!keyword" will only display all other items.

The Address Bar is an amazingly efficient and powerful tool as you'll soon discover!...

Well, I hope you'll enjoy working with XYplorer,
Flux

RalphM wrote:Long lists of wishes and bugs within one thread are not the best way to start here since they are not really liked much.
It's counterproductive to try to answer only part of them and you have to read all the replies in order to find the ones you're interested in and people might get overwhelmed with the amount of text which doesn't get you the needed replies in order to solve your problems.

I figured one thread for wishes and one for bugs would be better than starting a deluge of new threads. Especially me being a new user, nobody likes newbies coming into their forum and flooding it with new threads! That's why I numbered each item to make them easier to differentiate within one thread.

RalphM wrote:And maybe one more thing: Most users of XY rely on it's ability to have multiple tabs pointing to different locations, which I think is one of the key features of XY, whereas your approach with multiple instances poses a potential problem. If all instances use the same ini file it's kind of hard to keep track of the changes to the ini you actually want to have saved.

I have run into that issue when I have to change a setting I will close all other instances, otherwise the ini could be overwritten and my changes reverted. I'm not a big fan of tabs though so I don't use them in any program other than my web browser. The way I see it: I've got tabs already, they're on the taskbar, I don't need "sub-tabs" unless I plan on having a large number of windows open simultaneously which is the case for my web browser. It's far easier for me to alt+tab immediately to the window I want than it is to alt+tab and then ctrl+tab to find the tab I was looking for. I have a large screen and a high resolution, so the space saving of tabs is not necessary. I also only use a single pane, I just think that two separate instances browsing separate folders are much more flexible. But, that's the reason for all these available options and settings, to let the individual users decide how they want to work.

FluxTorpedoe wrote:7. The exclusion symbol is "!", so in QuickNameSearch, you'd type "!keyword" (and in the AddressBar: "?!keyword" for an even faster quicksearch).

10. A fast-and-furious way to filter is to use "|" in the AddressBar, e.g. typing "|keyword" will only display items whose name contains "keyword", conversely, typing "|!keyword" will only display all other items.

I wasn't aware of either of those, thanks! I read the F1 tips on the F3 search box and didn't see exclusions mentioned, I assumed it was supported there.

Quaraxkad wrote:

RalphM wrote:Long lists of wishes and bugs within one thread are not the best way to start here since they are not really liked much.
It's counterproductive to try to answer only part of them and you have to read all the replies in order to find the ones you're interested in and people might get overwhelmed with the amount of text which doesn't get you the needed replies in order to solve your problems.

I figured one thread for wishes and one for bugs would be better than starting a deluge of new threads. Especially me being a new user, nobody likes newbies coming into their forum and flooding it with new threads! That's why I numbered each item to make them easier to differentiate within one thread.

As RalphM has somewhat stated, the longer the list of items in a first post here, the less likely Don is to respond to them...and putting them in separate threads is often worse!

History has proven that most first time posts with lists like yours have a large nbr of items which are due only to person not being aware of how XY does things and thus makes it often appear that the new user has not spend enough time with XY before creating these lists.

Making a bad first impression on a forum is not what you desired but it's what you did as others have indicated.

Well now, we don't need to continue on what they should have done or not have done. He/she already understood so let's move on from that and see if we can address their wishes. Otherwise, you can make the poor person run away

1. Yeah. Network is still a bit of an issue at times and I for the longest time always ran into various issues especially since one of my computers is only using a 10mb connection.
2. Unfortunately XYplorer is tab-centric so that wish probably won't be very likely. However, it's probably possible through using an XYplorer script together with customized command keys. I'm not at home right now so I can't make up a test script but perhaps others here can do so.
3 & 5 & 6. That actually sounds like a good idea! Perhaps when Don comes back, he can think about that. 6 should probably be a tweak if he adds it though.
8. I don't think that's possible because of how the "New Files/Folders" work. If you take a look in the "Data" folder of XYplorer, you will find a folder called "New Items"(?) and that folder contains all the templates for new files and such. So it follows a template so it won't really have a "hard-coded" in shortcut key.

"If all instances use the same ini file it's kind of hard to keep track of the changes to the ini you actually want to have saved." Yeah this is a "problem" since XYplorer is not truly multi-window, each instance have its own instance of the settings stored in the memory rather than sharing anything.

And I could say more but running out of time here. Anyways, welcome!

j_c_hallgren wrote:History has proven that most first time posts with lists like yours have a large nbr of items which are due only to person not being aware of how XY does things and thus makes it often appear that the new user has not spend enough time with XY before creating these lists.

Regardless of history, did any of the suggestions I made (aside from the !exclusion shortcut that I didn't know about (thanks FluxTorpedoe!)) give you the impression that I didn't "do my homework"? I always spend a long time looking through documentation and experimenting with new software to be sure I understand its features before I'd ever consider posting something like this. The list I had made initially was significantly longer, and most of that I was able to figure out on my own through configuration changes or just found better alternatives/features. If I had I posted up a list of all of *that*, I would fully expect to be berated for not doing my own research beforehand.

Enternal wrote:8. I don't think that's possible because of how the "New Files/Folders" work. If you take a look in the "Data" folder of XYplorer, you will find a folder called "New Items"(?) and that folder contains all the templates for new files and such. So it follows a template so it won't really have a "hard-coded" in shortcut key.

That's the "New Item" menu, but there is also the "New" menu. From what I can tell, items on that menu are hard-coded, and since that menu already duplicates the Explorer alt-code shortcut of W, then applying the same F shortcut for "New Folder" would just be an extension of that.

XY is packed with features. However, the user friendlyness of the UI could be better.
The help file and the website has a lot of information. However its not perfectly structured.
The UI does have context sensitive help, but not on all features.
(Unfortunately documentation and UI ease of use are one of the most difficult/time consuming and therefore most neglected things in SW, so XY is not alone, actually there are many much worse cases.)

What I want to say is you can not blame a new user if he does try to find his/her way around but can not figure it all out.
Even longer users do not know many things.
Quaraxkad, I think you contributed a valuable post (and sure you also put a lot of time into writing it).

2. is (as Enternal already stated) possible through scripting

Create a script in the .\Data\Scripts folder of XY:
Name it e.g.: Open_folder_externally.xys
put this code into that file.

Remove the keyboard shortcut for Ctrl+Enter
Currently assigned to: #162 File | Open Focused Item

Now go to User - Manage Commands
Category: Load Script File
Create a new one
Caption: <Whatever you like>
Script File: Open_folder_externally
(You don't need to specify a path or an extension if it's in the script path)

Assign Ctrl+Enter to it.

Done.

For wish no. 8, I can provide two ugly hacks.
Select "Open Configuration file" from Tools menu.
In opened *.ini file, search for Add \& before \N (\&\N\e\w)
Just below that is the entry for new text file.
Save ini. Restart Xyplorer without saving.
Now you can press N in the new menu to create a new folder, which will have an & before it, but you'll rename it anyways, right?
Or type and enter from addressbar Once there, rename folder New to &New and New.txt to New text &File.txt
Now from the "New Items" menu you can press N and F respectively to create new folder and txt. But in this case, they will be automatically focused so easier to rename.

Don't hate me, I said these are ugly!

autocart wrote:Quaraxkad, I think you contributed a valuable post (and sure you also put a lot of time into writing it).

Thanks! I can understand how a long list of requests from a brand new user can be a bit off-putting. I am a hobbyist developer myself and no matter how many times I ask users to provide any and all feedback I always end up irritated when I get it! But none of these items were giant new feature requests, mainly just little tweaks. And at least one of them wouldn't even require a single line of code, just adding a '&' to a menu item in the IDE! So I figured I wasn't overstepping any boundaries by posting the list. It is paid-for software after all, and while I am currently using the free version, I certainly plan on ordering a lifetime license after having tried so many other alternatives and found this to be the best for my use.

highend wrote:2. is (as Enternal already stated) possible through scripting

I'll give that a try as soon I order my license, thanks!

SammaySarkar wrote:Don't hate me, I said these are ugly!

Ugly through it may be, it worked perfectly! I used \& for F though. Functionality is exactly as I wanted, where I can right click any empty space, press W>F for a new folder, W>T for a text file (as it is in Explorer). I think this way is faster and easier than Ctrl+N when I already have a hand on my mouse, because Ctrl+N is a stretch for even my long fingers and W>F are always right beneath my fingertips since my left hand is on home-row already. Thanks!

Quaraxkad wrote:Ctrl+N is a stretch for even my long fingers and W>F are always right beneath my fingertips since my left hand is on home-row already

I agree, we can't deny anymore that we work on the PC most of the day, having become even too lazy to move our hands - I am the same - but don't tell the guys in the workshop, otherwise it gives their prejudice against us office workers more food

Okay, you're bad. I'm good. Me know why and how now. Me stand workflow on head then.

Yeah - Here's the basic workflow that I'm good with - then I'll tell you where I'M stuck.

1) Use XYplorer as your default so that when you double click it goes there.

2) Use the MINI TREE and keep it pruned back to just what you need

3) Use the CATEGORY pane (best default IMO over the file tree) ONLY FOR SHORT TERM "BOOKMARKING"

4) Don't use the second file pane - disable or minimize it to the right. (Using two panes AND multiple tabs is definitely too many variables to use quickly and not get totally fubar - this workflow cuts the variables to a minimum.)

4.5) IF YOU DO NEED TO PRESERVE A WORK SETUP ARRAY then choose another tab. Tab management then becomes an issue which I don't bother with. Because of limited screen width I just have 3 and a search results tab open and switch to the least used to copy over it.

5) Don't bother with the search on XYplorer unless you have to poke contents (I think it does that). Use VTE VoidTools Everything and learn it and love it.
I keep two VTE open and create more as needed. These open in XY. I can even go backwards from XY or anywhere by using context. SUPER.

6) Have what you need in the context menu to 1) copy full path or folder path to clipboard 2) Open in WEX (windows explorer) or whatever your next most favorite but multi-window replacement is (mine is PowerDesk)

7) If you have a GTD program (OneNote, TheBrain, I use FREEPLANE - it's all I can get to work at all) keep a section on workflow, or in other relevant branches, drag a key folder (usually) over as a shortcut - this is your permanent control environment - but you can also just keep a desktop folder with shortcuts, or use the built-in favorites (I don't).

In spite of all this I find I create so many simultaneous work processes that I still need a second window for XYplorer - which is why I am here.