Newbie Q's: Tabs, extra len column, mapped drives

[sTu_Deimus]

Howdy all.

New registered user - very happy with the tool - some nice features. Am running 6.80. Am running it on both Vista and XP-SP2.

Having tinkered with it for an hour or so, I have a few questions:

Tabbed windows:
Perhaps this is an RFE... but, the graphical nature of the tab seems rather basic. I'd like to see a) close tab buttons, per tab; b) more visual feedback when dragging or locking tabs; c) more intuitive way to set tabs as permanent (??); d) ability to give descriptive text to tabs.

Vid length column:
Vistas explorer tool lets you add a column called "length" which indicates time duration of movie files. This is very handy when the wife wants to watch "something short". I couldn't find this in XYP.

Mapped drives:
I've found XYP doesn't handle mapped drives very well. Upon connecting an external HDD to a remote XP box, XYP had great difficulty mapping the drives, but doing same in windows explorer seemed to work without problem (more testing required before I'm sure). Wierd, since it seems to be using the same dialogs/API's. Ditto for that same external (USB2) HDD when fitted directly to the laptop - which XYP had issues deleting files from, unlike windows explorer.

Favorites sorting:
The Up/Down buttons in the Favorites List window seem to always be greye'd out. How to adjust position without doing the text edit option?
Also, some way of grouping the favorites would be useful - eg. to separate favourites for work and home etc...

Finding:
I find it hard to distinguish a regular tabbed list from one that has had a Find operation performed. I think the tab icon does change, but its not exactly obvious.

Stu.

[admin]

Hi!

Tabbed windows:
Close tab buttons is on my list. The rest seems to work for most users as it is.

Vid length column:
Is planned.

Mapped drives:
You are right about same dialogs/API's. Don't know why there's a problem.

Favorites sorting:
Has been added in recent beta. Download here in forum.

Finding:
The backcolor changes, too. Good enough for all users till you came

Don

[serendipity]

Howdy all.
New registered user - very happy with the tool - some nice features. Am running 6.80. Am running it on both Vista and XP-SP2.

Hi and welcome to XY club!

Having tinkered with it for an hour or so, I have a few questions:
Tabbed windows:
Perhaps this is an RFE... but, the graphical nature of the tab seems rather basic. I'd like to see a) close tab buttons, per tab; b) more visual feedback when dragging or locking tabs; c) more intuitive way to set tabs as permanent (??); d) ability to give descriptive text to tabs.

a) Since there are numerous ways to close a tab, close button on tab was not desired by many (especially because it takes up space). You can double click and middle click on a tab to close it (apart from ctrl+w and ctrl+F4).
b) There is a visual feedback. you should an arrow when you drag a tab to new location. and should see a underline on locked tabs. if not something wrong on your setup.
c) Ctrl+L = lock tab
d) Right click on a tab and Rename tab.

Vid length column:
Vistas explorer tool lets you add a column called "length" which indicates time duration of movie files. This is very handy when the wife wants to watch "something short". I couldn't find this in XYP.

I know this is missing, but hovering on a video should give you file info including duration. You can do some tweaking by going to config (F9) > file info tips.
In any case the column thing isnt there.

Mapped drives:
I've found XYP doesn't handle mapped drives very well. Upon connecting an external HDD to a remote XP box, XYP had great difficulty mapping the drives, but doing same in windows explorer seemed to work without problem (more testing required before I'm sure). Wierd, since it seems to be using the same dialogs/API's. Ditto for that same external (USB2) HDD when fitted directly to the laptop - which XYP had issues deleting files from, unlike windows explorer.

Hmmm, on my XP SP2 mapped drives are doing fine. But since i dont use them too much i can answer in more detail.

Favorites sorting:
The Up/Down buttons in the Favorites List window seem to always be greye'd out. How to adjust position without doing the text edit option?
Also, some way of grouping the favorites would be useful - eg. to separate favourites for work and home etc...

hmmm i did not quite get your first point, do you mean in favorite folders in Tools>list management?
BTW, a more powerful way to keep favs is catalog. Have you tried F8? you will love it.

Finding:
I find it hard to distinguish a regular tabbed list from one that has had a Find operation performed. I think the tab icon does change, but its not exactly obvious.
Stu.

You should see a find icon on the search tabs. Currently there is no way to change the look of tab icons.

Also, maybe you should visit the great XYWIKI page. Its a great place to start learning tricks about XY.

Update: Aah, i see admin (aka Don) has answered you already.

[sTu_Deimus]

Hi guys... thanks for your speedy responses...

A few quick replies...

- Re visibility of Tab operations - I can't deny what you're saying about these things being there - I think I'm probably used to the tabs in Vista-Explorer, IE7, and Firefox which I probably find more visible in operation. I'm sure I'll adapt to XY's in time.

- Mapped drives - yes, I need some more time using this functionality to make a better judgement.

- Re Catalogs... yes, I briefly tinkered with them right at the start, but soon closed that window ( F8; dare I say, at the time, it seemed rather complicated ) to get on to other areas... I love cat's in my image cataloging tool, so presume you're right in that I'll love them here.

- One small point about the xywiki - yes, I had been through that before buying, but at that time was looking for answers to some anomolies I was experiencing (esp the USB HDD that it couldn't delete from). That wiki seems to be more about edu'ing users on use of features rather than things to beware of etc.

- Re the use of the recent beta... I thought I might try goign with the latest stable release while getting to know the tool, before diving into betas, so yea, my wish for favs sorting will have to stay with the text edit mode for now.

Thanks again Gents!

Stu.

[serendipity]

I should assure you that betas of XYplorer are usually rock solid and most users (i hope i am right) treat them as new releases. There was only one instance (in >2 years) where a beta caused problems. But otherwise, XY betas are mostly harmless.

[sTu_Deimus]

Well, I'm happy to report that the latest beta is working well for me (to sort th fav folder list), and the tool has survived 3 days of solid file management at work such that I'm looking at reccomending the tool to my boss!

Regarding the problem I had with accessing mounted volumes (windows shares) - the main issue I have with it regularly is that XY doesn't prompt for credentials as Windows Explorer does when attempting to access partially mounted volumes.

eg. if I am working from home via VPN, then I generally boot into Windows, where the server drive mappings will still be set, XY will properly indicate that they're not available. Then I bring up the VPN connection. If I then try to access one of those drives in Windows Explorer, it will ask for my credentials, and then all is good. Problem is that XY doesn't do this - it just keeps saying that the drives are not accessible. The result is that whenever I need to reconnect drives in this manner when roaming around different networks, I have to load Windows Explorer to get the server creds for those volumes working again, before I can access them in XY.

Stu.

[admin]

Thanks for recommending!

Regarding the problem I had with accessing mounted volumes (windows shares) - the main issue I have with it regularly is that XY doesn't prompt for credentials as Windows Explorer does when attempting to access partially mounted volumes.

Hm, too bad. It should work. I guess VPN is making the trouble.

Can any other user here tell a better story about VPN networking with XY?

[sTu_Deimus]

Well, I'm not sure if its specific to the VPN connection. I'll check and see if it happens when roaming around with WiFi too.

[sTu_Deimus]

No, its not specific to th VPN. Same happens if I switch from LAN to wifi or vice-versa.

Eg.

1) Login when connected to LAN. XY sees the drives fine.
2) Disconnect LAN and Wifi connects.
3) XY will say that the mounted drives are not available.
4) Access the drives from WinExplorer and then XY will be able to see them again too.

This is the sort of limitation that stops me promoting this otherwise exceptional tool to other staff at work - I can put up with the need for this workaround, but others (who don't like tinkering so much) wouldn't have the patience.

Stu.

[admin]

No, its not specific to th VPN. Same happens if I switch from LAN to wifi or vice-versa.

Okay, I will go after this bug right after publication of 7.0. I'll fix it, don't worry...

[sTu_Deimus]

Cool!

[admin]

Regarding the problem I had with accessing mounted volumes (windows shares) - the main issue I have with it regularly is that XY doesn't prompt for credentials as Windows Explorer does when attempting to access partially mounted volumes.

Wait a minute, I just read that again -- are we talking about UNC paths here or mapped drives (normal local paths)?

[sTu_Deimus]

Mapped drives... originally based on the UNC path.

eg: Z: drive that has always been mapped to //WinSserver/ShareZ/

[admin]

Mapped drives... originally based on the UNC path.

eg: Z: drive that has always been mapped to //WinSserver/ShareZ/

Okay, I think that explains why you don't see any prompt for credentials. I implemented this only for UNC paths...

Wait for the next beta...

[sTu_Deimus]

Thanks mr admin!

To be clear(er), there is actually two variations of this issue:

1) In the 5th post of this thread, I was talking about the scenario where one logs into windows without a connection, and once the connection (VPN or otherwise) is established, only Explorer probes the user for creds.

2) The other as mentioned in the 8th post of this thread is where one logs in with the connection, and the shares work fine, but then when disconnecting and reconnecting (eg. LAN -> Nothing -> WiFi), Explorer will let you browse the shares again, but XY won't (until that is done in Explorer).

Stu.