XYplorer Beta Club

I keep finding myself in the situation of wanting to search the folders displayed in all the tabs. Since these are usually folders not with the same parent it is not possible to use the "Selected locations" option in the Find Files tab.

I would therefore like an option to enter the paths of all the tabs in the location field. Obviously, if a search results tab is displayed that would not be included. Would you be able to determine if it was a search results tab if Current Tab or New Tab had been set in the Find options?

I wouldn't want an automatic search of all tabs because there are situations where I would want to edit the location field and remove one (or more) of the paths because I didn't want to search them.

Am I asking for something too esoteric?

I've had a similar situation sometimes, and thought about the idea of a negated variant of "Excluded folders", which would be "Included folders" where one could store a set of often used folders and then check as needed which ones you want to search.

It would seem (to me) that a good part of the code for management of "Excl folder" could be adapted to "Incl folder", like tab layout and such.

Would that concept help in Gandolf's case?

That's very easy to do. I just wonder about the interface... a button, a menu command, or maybe just a new Miscellaneous hotkey...?

Personally, I'd envisioned it as a new tab on FF, maybe between 'Excl fld" and 'Opts', and then a new checkbox within "Filters", so it could be easily set on/off, if one didn't right-click on tab itself to do so...yes, that makes a 7th Filter, which screws up the 3x2 layout, but...it's the consistent way to implement it, IMHO.

This would allow me to define a subset of various folders/paths that I most likely would have "misplaced" a file in ( ), and thus could search just those places without having to scan entire "C:" drive, yet still be able to easily disable it to search as specified in Location....which brings up the point: When this is activated, the Location entry in that tab would thus need to be bypassed.

However, the "include subfolders" opts (and Follow Links) should probably still apply.

j_c_hallgren wrote:Personally, I'd envisioned ...

Sorry, I provoked a misunderstanding. With "easy to do" I meant filling the location field with the tab locations.

admin wrote:I just wonder about the interface... a button, a menu command, or maybe just a new Miscellaneous hotkey...?

My first thought was for a button in the Name and Location tab to place the folder names from all tabs in the Location field. Any unwanted folders could then be edited out. However, on second thoughts I would prefer a entry in the right context menu of the Location Field. After all, Paste is already there so Paste Paths from Tabs could be another menu entry. (I can't think of shorter wording instantly).

j_c_hallgren wrote:...Would that concept help in Gandolf's case?

Not really, although I agree with the idea of "Included folders" and would certainly use it. My situation is often a one off where I have been checking a number of folders (open in different tabs) and want to run a find on those folders.

Could the Included & Excluded Folders be combined in one tab and then another button in that tab to select Excluded or Included? Bolding the word excluded or included in the "Define folders to be..." would, I think, be enough of an indication which mode was selected. I'm not a great fan of using colour but Red and Green text might also be a positive indication.

admin wrote:I just wonder about the interface... a button, a menu command, or maybe just a new Miscellaneous hotkey...?

Adding it to the Location's ctxt menu would be nice indeed. Or a button below the Browse button, a button tht could stay small if using an icon, like the Tab list icon (from TB)
But either way, it probably should be added on Misc. for CKS anyways, I'd say.

Regarding the "Included Folders" idea, I'm not a fan of it. Because it would dupe the Location field, and so doesn't sound so logical to me
What could be useful at times though is a new interface (triggered by a button/menu again, with CKS/Misc hotkey possible) to select multiple folders from all over the computer (ie. not limited to a common parent like Selected Locations), that would update the Location field.
For example, it would show a window like the one on Browse (hey forget a new thing, it could maybe even BE that same window, on Browse!) but with checkboxes in front of each drives/folders, so one could actually select more than one

Tip: jc, for your subset of various folders, I know it's not the same but you could already pu them all on your location field, and save a template.
Then, later on, simply load that template first and then fill in the other field(s)

I've only got a few min, and I'm a SLOW typist...anyway:

1) Having both combined in one list with yes/no?: Not really practical for me as I have a set of about a dozen folders that I usually exclude, such as Temp Internet and similar, but on occasion, will adjust those...however, I'd really like to be able to activate (or deactivate) with one action, a similar set of stored folders that I could easily review and set yes/no that would be the only ones searched on that pass, as the Manage for Excl does now.

2) Using templates doesn't really address the ability to have a set of folders (or patterns) that can be reviewed and quickly adjusted per run just by mouse clicks on checkboxes

3) INCL Folders wouldn't really duplicate the Location, just provide a quick way to have a set of "favorites" that could be used instead of a single entry, which admitedly may be more than one folder, but I tend to not do so as it doesn't fit my way of working and thinking.

4) The concept of setting Location to all open non-search-result tabs still makes sense also...just got me to thinking about another way to handle the issue that would be more commonly usable by myself, and presumably others as well!

Another idea to solve this problem is to create a folder somewhere, which contains only links to all the folders you want to search in one go. Then you just have to set FF location to the folder containing the links and check "Follow folder links" et voilà there you are.

For Gandolfs usage, Don could probably add an easy way to copy the locations of all open tabs as folder links.

(Yes I know, I'm still due to describe that baby in the wiki in more detail ... soon, promised)

Gandolf wrote:

admin wrote:I just wonder about the interface... a button, a menu command, or maybe just a new Miscellaneous hotkey...?

My first thought was for a button in the Name and Location tab to place the folder names from all tabs in the Location field. Any unwanted folders could then be edited out. However, on second thoughts I would prefer a entry in the right context menu of the Location Field.

That would be the best but it's impossible to do (read: I'm not in the mood for such a bloody hack right now).

I thinking about something else that could en passant provide a solution for you: trigger a search over all (location) items of a Catalog category. In the location field you would just enter something like "cat:catname". But this is all not really thought out yet, and not on top of of my agenda.

PS: added a "Miscellaneous" command. You just have to give it a shortcut.

admin wrote:I thinking about something else that could en passant provide a solution for you: trigger a search over all (location) items of a Catalog category. In the location field you would just enter something like "cat:catname". But this is all not really thought out yet, and not on top of of my agenda.

This isn't actually a new tought of yours, I remember read about this a while ago. Maybe when you added the command to create a new Catalog category while all (selected) List items.

I wouldn't use this AFAIC, but this will for sure be very useful with DS

admin wrote:...PS: added a "Miscellaneous" command. You just have to give it a shortcut.

Thank you, works well but...
I used "Ctrl+Alt+Numpad Add" which doesn't always work and I haven't found a logical reason for this behaviour.
It appears that it only works if nothing is selected in the Info panel. Open the Info panel (with "F12") and "Ctrl+Alt+Numpad Add" loads the list into the Location field. However, if a location is already selected, then it doesn't work. If focus is on Name, it doesn't work. Hence "Ctrl+F" (the natural thing to do if I intend to find files) will not load the tab list into the Location field.
I tried a different k/b combination (Shft+F9) and that always worked. Puzzled!

admin wrote:That would be the best but it's impossible to do (read: I'm not in the mood for such a bloody hack right now).

However, it will be fine when you are in the mood to add it to the context menu or use a button.

Just one point. Could focus move to the Location field after the list is loaded? If I do want to edit the entry to remove something, that would make it easier.

admin wrote:... trigger a search over all (location) items of a Catalog category.

Catalog wouldn't really work since the sets of folders are different almost every time so I'd be for ever making up Catalog entries. In fact, I hardly ever use the Catalog because I only have a few folders I use on a regular basis.

Gandolf wrote:

admin wrote:...PS: added a "Miscellaneous" command. You just have to give it a shortcut.

Thank you, works well but...
I used "Ctrl+Alt+Numpad Add" which doesn't always work and I haven't found a logical reason for this behaviour...

Okay, done/fixed.

You obviously found the logical reason. I've been a bit busy over the last few days, hence the delay in replying. Thanks again.

Gandolf wrote:You obviously found the logical reason. I've been a bit busy over the last few days, hence the delay in replying. Thanks again.

The reason was: (at least on a German keyboard) there are some printable chars with key combos like Ctrl+Alt+(key), e.g. Ctrl+Alt+Q will print the @-sign. Now I designed the XY key shortcuts so that if you assign any function to Ctrl+Alt+(key) the shortcut will only work outside any area where chars could be actually written, i.e. outside an edit field. If the focus is currently inside an edit field, then Ctrl+Alt+Q will type the expected "@" and not trigger the shortcut function. Since I cannot know which keys have printable chars on Ctrl+Alt+(key), I applied this logic to all Ctrl+Alt+(key). Hence you could not use Ctrl+Alt+Numpad Add inside the Name or Location field. A bit complicated...
The solution was easy: unapply this logic from Ctrl+Alt+Numpad Add (and, by the way, all other numpad calculation keys).