XYplorer Beta Club

XYplorer 5.50

1. Great Product, superb ideas and overall execution, but needs dual-panes option.

Regardless if the idea is to not stray too far away from Windows Explorer "simplicity", XYplorer cries out to have at least as an option, dual-panes display, so as to intuitively and quickly see two areas simultaneously and be able to as quickly as you think, copy or move files.

Without dual-panes, XYplorer is one of those great products, superb programming, but is absolutely crippled by lack of two-panes option, whether to stack them vertically or side-by-side.

Far too much of what one does most often with a file manager IS to copy or move agenda from one place to the other.

2. Needs ability to view RAR and ZIP file innards. I am much impressed at how fast and accurate that the XYplorer is at viewing all manner of files, especially PDF's...

But when you click on ZIP or RAR compressed files, and all you see is essentially machine language / hex / text in the View area....it just seems "almost perfection, but not quite" in the View area.

Joe

josephrot wrote:Regardless if the idea is to not stray too far away from Windows Explorer "simplicity", XYplorer cries out to have at least as an option, dual-panes display, so as to intuitively and quickly see two areas simultaneously and be able to as quickly as you think, copy or move files.

Oh no it's not to avoid moving away from Explorer, it's a decision Don make long ago already. You can also check out the wiki's FAQ about this. Don't think it'll ever happen!

To Move/Copy files around in XY you can use the usual copy/paste & drag&drop, but also use the Catalog, the Move/Copy To commands, and much more. You can also check out the wiki about this.
And more to come with the planned enhancements, like the Drop Stacks, Move/Copy From features, etc

Welcome josephrot! I never used the dual pane option in other file managers like DOpus or ExplorerPlus. Instead I just switched between the 2 or more drives. DOpus lets you assign keyboard shortcuts to do that, and ExplorerPlus has one built in. I could just hit CTRL+W and toggle back and forth between the C and D drives.

As for #2, would that entail treating archive files as folders in the tree pane, or seeing their contents in the Preview pane? (Not sure, tell me more.)

Let me just add quickly:
- you can switch back& forth between 2 locations using F7
- you can go to the last Move/Copy/Backup To target using Ctrl+Shift+F7 (or through TB buttons)

Regarding ZIP files: I'd be happy with the same level of display that I presently get in Win Expl when I hover on a ZIP file...which is just the total count of, and a list of the files contained....If I need any more, I can fire up WinZip to do so...but in most all cases, I can spot the desired file by the content list.

Jacky, that's just it — F7 takes you to your last two locations, and while CTRL+Backspace is a wonderful option, it'd be nice to have a keyboard shortcut just to switch between two specified drives. Trust me, it's really convenient in Directory Opus to be able to assign keyboard shortcuts to drives, folders, even oft-used files. It'd be similar to being able to assign keyboard shortcuts to your Catalog items. Hey, but customizable keyboard shortcuts will come to XYplorer someday!

Dual-Pane... find an old forum topic and dig it up

ZIP, RAR <INSERT FAVORITE ARCHIVER HERE> support would be wonderful, and the Preview area is just the place to have it IMO. It would be great to be able to just be able to dump a dll (plugin) into a directory in under XY's root and have support for an archive.

If you could drag files out of the preview area and into it as well that would basically mean you wouldn't need things like portable 7-Zip. But I'm sure it would be a whole lot of work. Just extracting files would probably be a lot less and most useful.

While this is close to beating a dead horse (and I doubt that the admin is listening any more to that subject), let me cast another vote in favor of a dual pane option.

And I'm not exactly a fanboy of "commander" style file managers. While I've had a license for Windows/Total Commander since the Win 3.1 days, I never got the hang of it. It's just not a good interface to keep the "big picture" in view. So I kept reverting to Windows Explorer, and only used TC for special tasks. And I began to search explicitly for an Explorer-style alternative (like PowerDesk, back in the day).

Meanwhile, I've bought or used TC, PowerDesk, xplorer^2, XYplorer, DOpus (plus several others), and my conclusion is that a dual pane display absolutely has its benefits (but certainly not all the time) and it does fulfill real needs.
Compare it to real life: How many times is it useful to have two things side by side?
Dual panes are, e.g., a good starting point for picking individual files from different folders you want to compare with e.g. WinMerge or Beyond Compare. I just hat the problem to keep the installations of several apps on half a dozen machines in sync except for the configuration files, those were user-specific, but had to be adjusted as well. You can't really do everything automatically all the time. Sometimes you want or have to have manual control.

Actually, I don't understand how you can compare "switching" (between tabs, by keystrokes between drives, whatever) to dual-pane. To me, those two things seem distinctively different, switching being a painful workaround at best.

And I don't quite understand the tough stance Mr Lessau takes against dual panes. It looks like most Commander-style file managers are moving towards the "Explorer tree" model, and it would be nice if they all could meet somewhere in the middle. But maybe to some this is a religious issue, like the Mac-vs-Win-vs-Linux or the Gnome-vs-KDE thingie.

Alex

alxwz wrote:Actually, I don't understand how you can compare "switching" (between tabs, by keystrokes between drives, whatever) to dual-pane. To me, those two things seem distinctively different, switching being a painful workaround at best.

I'd agree with you here that switching can be quite different/more painful to do; also I've had to compare some folders and switching happened to work very well for me as the 2 folders were supposed to be the exact same, so I'd just hit F7 over & over again & make sure nothing in the List would change

Anyways, I can see how the dual-pane solution might be usefull in sync jobs, but i have to admit that's pretty much the only time I think it would be really usefull.
And a sync feature is planned for XY. Won't be just tomorow of course, but I beleive once it'll be there it will be as easy & simple as a dual-pane to use & work with for such tasks, only even better since it will be a sync feature, not just a dual-pane view

I don't think Don's position is just that he hates dual panes or anything, I beleive he simply thought abut all this a lot, obviously, and didn't think that dual-panel would really add something that usefull to XY, besides making DP-addicts happy...

Cause many people are just so into dual pane they don't even wanna consider something else, and as you said it can be like religion at times indeed, just like in those firefox/ie, mac/pc, win/lunix, etc wars...

jacky wrote:Anyways, I can see how the dual-pane solution might be usefull in sync jobs, but i have to admit that's pretty much the only time I think it would be really usefull.

And that's why I keep free vers of X2 around...just for those occasions...which are only about 2-3 times a month in my case...so I've almost forget how to do it in X2 sometimes!

(jacky: useful = 1 L)

j_c_hallgren wrote:And that's why I keep free vers of X2 around...just for those occasions...which are only about 2-3 times a month in my case...so I've almost forget how to do it in X2 sometimes!

And you'll have to keep up with that only untill XY has its sync feature. Then you'll be able to join the "dual-pane free" club

j_c_hallgren wrote:(jacky: useful = 1 L)

*bangs head against wall*
damn, I put 2 of those again! I'm gonna have to talk to some people so they change the way that word is spelt!

jacky wrote:And you'll have to keep up with that only untill XY has its sync feature. Then you'll be able to join the "dual-pane free" club

*bangs head against wall*
damn, I put 2 of those again!

Reverse order reply: Yup, and two in "untill" also! But, hey, I'll be the first to compliment you on your English! Given that it's your second language, yet it's much better than many of us American's produce! I tried learning some Swedish, which is my heritage language, but never was able to get the hang of it, and gave up...so kudo's to you and Don for your English skills!!

And...for most sync'ing, I tend to use free vers of SyncBack to actually run my backups, so that makes usage of X2 much less than otherwise...but when I'm trying to weed out unneeded files, being able to preview them is critical, so thus the need for X2 which can do so.

Cf. syncing: I always tend to feel better if I have some control over things. And my trust into programs of any kind is limited. That's why, even when the program is able to sync (like x2, which IMO has one of the most confusing sync features around, or DOpus), I like to have a look at the folders side-by-side before and afterwards.

And for larger copy/move operations I also find myself reverting to the dual pane model. It makes me feel better and if I don't have a dual pane file manager, I tend to make mistakes and sometimes put stuff into the wrong folder. It's easy to miss the right one in a tree and did I say that switching back and forth with tabs is a pain?

And there are many other use cases mentioned in the other threads. Sometimes very special ones, but they are real, not only a question of habit or belief.

BTW: Don, if you are listening, please make the program also able to sync empty subfolders (that omission can drive me crazy in some other progs, even XCOPY can do that). Sometimes empty folders do serve a purpose. E.g. I use them as "manual" pointers to other directories. (Why no links/"shortcuts"? Move the whole mess to a different partition or even to another platform and you'll see why.)

Regarding Don's position on dual-pane: I don't think he is dead set against it, just maybe needs a bit more convincing that: 1) the effort would be financially practical, in terms of more sales. 2) it would/could fit in with existing design as much as possible without looking like a tack-on, or affect existing functionality.

I had a discussion with Don off-list last night about it and some other items..and I think he's starting to see that adding D-P could lead to new users, and thus more income, (which is always nice), but CKS (shortcuts) are first in the pipeline, as I understood it.

I don't think Don has ever been dead set against anything, he always has reasons for his choices, even if he doesn't always have time to explain them all here, and he's always open to discussion & ready to be convienced otherwise.
This openminded state of mind is also part of what makes XY such a great product!

I don't know if Dual Pane will ever be added to XY, but either way he already has a long long list of stuff to do. Whatever it is, rest assured many great stuff will come to XY in 2007