XYplorer Beta Club

Following a recommendation in the UK magazine PC Pro, I have been evaluating XYplorer and am generally impressed, particularly with the passion of the user base! However, the absense of folder comparison and folder synchronisation from the feature list are a deal breaker for me. The use of an "ad-hoc" and rather limited scripting language is a minus point, but not a deal-breaker.

It looks like comparison/synchronisation has got mixed up with a controversy over whether XY should go dual pane for side-by-side comparison. However, I do not think this would be the right way for XY to implement these features. My suggested implementation would be much simpler:

You would set up the two directories in adjacent tabs and there would be a new command to link them. This would visually link the two tabs, but you could still click on the individual tab in the group. Having linked, the existing highlighting and grouping features would be extended to categorise the files as: present in this folder but absent in the linked folder; present in both but more recent in the linked folder; present in both and older in the linked folder; present and identical in both folders.

When viewing one of a pair of linked folders, a special version of the information panel would be shown which would show previews and details of the selected file and its version in the other tab side by side, in the same relative position as the two linked tabs.

Synchronisation would work with two linked tabs as above and there would be the usual options for left to right, right to left, or both and for file deletion or not.

EDIT: This would also fit really neatly with the catalog concept - expand that to store a directory AND (optionaly) its synchronisation directory (for example a backup), then open the linked pair with one click. This would be a really intuitive way of storing synchronisation profiles.

On the scripting language, I would prefer it if one of the commonly available open-source languages were used as this would be much more flexible and easier to learn. My current favorite is Lua (http://www.lua.org), which is very easy to embed and extend in a C/C++ application, and has a completely permissive licence and excellent documentation.

I will be keeping an eye on XY and hopefully will become a user in the near future!

JohnHind wrote:Following a recommendation in the UK magazine PC Pro, I have been evaluating XYplorer and am generally impressed, particularly with the passion of the user base! ...

Thanks for your suggestions. The current development road of XY goes more into the direction of automation of common tasks and leaving the more specialized stuff to external apps instead of emulating them.

Enjoy (anyway),
Don

Hi and welcome to the XY forums!

JohnHind wrote:Following a recommendation in the UK magazine PC Pro, I have been evaluating XYplorer and am generally impressed, particularly with the passion of the user base! However, the absence of folder comparison and folder synchronisation from the feature list are a deal breaker for me. The use of an "ad-hoc" and rather limited scripting language is a minus point, but not a deal-breaker.

I was unable to find anything on their site about XY...could you give some more specifics about how/where you saw XY mentioned? Given that my "unofficial" title is co-publicity chairman.

And yes, we ARE very passionate and that's what makes this product so unique and great, at least for me! I've spent hundreds of hours here trying to help make XY the best and well known FM alternative.

Folder sync'ing is on the roadmap! Ok, so it's at the end, but still there! See XY roadmap

JohnHind wrote:It looks like comparison/synchronisation has got mixed up with a controversy over whether XY should go dual pane for side-by-side comparison. However, I do not think this would be the right way for XY to implement these features.

Yes, there was some mixing of these, but I don't think that DP is either a requirement or hindrance for sync. And your proposal seem to have some merit, IMO, and isn't an approach that I'd really thought of before...maybe Don has, but I'd not.

JohnHind wrote:On the scripting language, I would prefer it if one of the commonly available open-source languages were used as this would be much more flexible and easier to learn. My current favorite is Lua (http://www.lua.org), which is very easy to embed and extend in a C/C++ application

Remember that XY is not your typical application so having a customized scripting language/ability was somewhat of a requirement and doesn't bother me. Also, XY is done in VB so it's not a C++ app.

JohnHind wrote:I will be keeping an eye on XY and hopefully will become a user in the near future!

Hey, just because XY isn't quite yet perfect for your situation, it still could (and should!) find a place in your app inventory! Come on in, and get really familiar with it so you can help us develop it futher in the area of sync'ing, ok?

j_c_hallgren wrote:Hi and welcome to the XY forums!
I was unable to find anything on their site about XY...could you give some more specifics about how/where you saw XY mentioned? Given that my "unofficial" title is co-publicity chairman.

Thank you!

I do not think the relevant article is online yet. It is in the August 2008 print edition (yes really, for some reason UK computing magazines seem to travel back in time as part of the production process!), in the "Networks" column written by Steve Cassidy (p162). The mention is brief, but very complimentary! Steve's email is given as cassidys@cix.compulink.co.uk. I think there is a good chance you could get on their cover disk if you approach them right.

JohnHind wrote:I do not think the relevant article is online yet. It is in the August 2008 print edition (yes really, for some reason UK computing magazines seem to travel back in time as part of the production process!), in the "Networks" column written by Steve Cassidy (p162). The mention is brief, but very complimentary!

Oh...Ok...it took PC Magazine here a while to get online to match print..and our print vs online sched's for magazines is just as wacky!

What I did for that mention was to scan the page and put it online (PC Mag thread) so others could see...not sure if that was 100% legal, but given that they have it online now anyway, I see no difference...could you possibly do same? If it's not too much to ask...as I don't have ready access to bookstore with that issue....would appreciate it....you can email the JPG scan to me (PleasantForestShores is my site and has info on my email) and I'll put it here if you don't have a way to link image.

And as I'm the one who mostly maintains the Wikipedia entry, having XY in print there is yet another bonus for that listing...so that's why having physical proof helps me tailor that.

JohnHind wrote:

j_c_hallgren wrote:Hi and welcome to the XY forums!
I was unable to find anything on their site about XY...could you give some more specifics about how/where you saw XY mentioned? Given that my "unofficial" title is co-publicity chairman.

Thank you!

I do not think the relevant article is online yet. It is in the August 2008 print edition (yes really, for some reason UK computing magazines seem to travel back in time as part of the production process!), in the "Networks" column written by Steve Cassidy (p162). The mention is brief, but very complimentary! Steve's email is given as cassidys@cix.compulink.co.uk. I think there is a good chance you could get on their cover disk if you approach them right.

Interesting! And finally it makes sense that you started this thread in the review section.

admin wrote:The current development road of XY goes more into the direction of automation of common tasks and leaving the more specialized stuff to external apps instead of emulating them.

I must say that I would categorise de-duping and synchronisation as absolutely core functionalities for an explorer replacement and one that fits in very well with what you've already done. I've not found any presentation so far that really makes the de-duping or synchronisation operations, which are central to large-scale file management, intuitive.

admin wrote:Interesting! And finally it makes sense that you started this thread in the review section.

Hm.. I started out writing a review of the product, but admittedly it did turn into a bit of a feature request!

JohnHind wrote:

admin wrote:Interesting! And finally it makes sense that you started this thread in the review section.

Hm.. I started out writing a review of the product, but admittedly it did turn into a bit of a feature request!

..."a bit"...? I like your irony...