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Undo
Posted: 14 Jun 2005 10:04
by diarrhio
One more thing. I accidentally dragged/dropped a folder into another, and couldn't tell which one I moved. In Explorer, I can Undo this type of operation, but not in Tracker.
Is Undo planned for Tracker?
Re: Undo
Posted: 14 Jun 2005 18:10
by admin
diarrhio wrote:Is Undo planned for Tracker?
Cool

I've been expecting this wish since the first day of publication (in 1998), but it never came up until today!
So I'm aware it's missing. However, Undo is not a trivial thing because some file operations cannot be undone (like when over-write happens). Also I'm not sure about the best structure/interface of a good Undo-implementation: should it work like a history (roll back step-by-step), or are there other possibilities?
Maybe you've seen a convincing Undo-implementation or have some ideas...
Posted: 14 Jun 2005 20:06
by diarrhio
I'm not familiar with the Win32 API for file operations enough to know if they offer undo support of any kind at all, or if it's just something that explorer keeps track of itself.
That being said, Explorer's undo framework is ok, at best. It's better than nothing, but it doesn't have redo (at least not that I'm aware of) and it doesn't maintain a history of file operations you can look up, a al Word or almost any other program they have. I'd say that redo is a must have. Undo always feels "incomplete" without redo, which is really easy to implement once you have undo down.
The only other undo implementation i've heard of is an undo "tree" instead of a list. I have no idea how that is supposed to work, or if it's ever actually been implemented, but it's been requested of me before.
D
Posted: 15 Jun 2005 16:36
by admin
diarrhio wrote:I'm not familiar with the Win32 API for file operations enough to know if they offer undo support of any kind at all, or if it's just something that explorer keeps track of itself.
For all I know there's no API support for Undo (which I take as another hint that it's not a trivial task).
I agree that Undo should be complemented by Redo, and that it's easier to do than Undo. And it would be another nice advantage over Explorer.
I'll do some meditation about Undo and if can see a way to make it good I'll make it.
EDIT: research on Undo is like riding through Death Valley! Scattered bones and stinking corpses of generations of developers that tried and failed to find the holy grail of Undo. Overhead circling MS-vultures...
Posted: 15 Jun 2005 20:01
by diarrhio
admin wrote:EDIT: research on Undo is like riding through Death Valley! Scattered bones and stinking corpses of generations of developers that tried and failed to find the holy grail of Undo. Overhead circling MS-vultures...
That is what I figured. Undo is kind of hard to add
"after the fact" and I'm sure MS didn't plan on it early on.
Anyways, anything you can come up with would be great. Thanks!
Posted: 15 Jun 2005 22:15
by Leopoldus
Sorry, I don't understand which operations for you mean to use Undo and Redo? Do you mean files moving and copying? Or files renaming?
If you are speaking about files renaming undo, so you coud take a look how it is imlemented in Total Commander 6.50 in multy-renaming module.
Posted: 16 Jun 2005 01:08
by diarrhio
Leopoldus wrote:Sorry, I don't understand which operations for you mean to use Undo and Redo? Do you mean files moving and copying? Or files renaming?
If you are speaking about files renaming undo, so you coud take a look how it is imlemented in Total Commander 6.50 in multy-renaming module.
All of them, really. But mainly copy/move ops. Everything else is gravy, since it's more than what Explorer does.
Posted: 06 May 2006 21:31
by Chris Wood
Isn't it possible to just use Explorer's function? Similar to the way Explorer's context menu is displayed inside XYplorer's?
Posted: 06 May 2006 22:40
by admin
Chris Wood wrote:Isn't it possible to just use Explorer's function? Similar to the way Explorer's context menu is displayed inside XYplorer's?
No. There is (AFAIK) no shell function behind Explorer's command.