XYplorer Beta Club

This is another small GUI suggestion - this time, regarding certain pulldown menus - specifically:


(All of these are within the View pulldown menu)

Columns
Tree Style
List Style
Size Column Format
Date Column Format



The issue with these menus are that they are all checklist menus which are very likely going to have more than one item toggled - but the way they work now, after each item is toggled, you have to make your way to that sub-menu all over again.

I propose that for these particular menus, they stay up after an item is toggled, so that multiple items can be toggled quickly and with ease, and also because it's easier and faster to move to the next related sub-menu.

Mesh wrote:I propose that for these particular menus, they stay up after an item is toggled, so that multiple items can be toggled quickly and with ease, and also because it's easier and faster to move to the next related sub-menu.

Ok, so then how would one close the sub-menu when done? Another keystoke? But what about mouse? Click where? You see the problem now?

I concur that the present way maybe isn't perfect, but I don't see how keeping menu active would work either...plus, these items are things that tend to get "set and forget", at least for my usage.

j_c_hallgren wrote:
Ok, so then how would one close the sub-menu when done? Another keystoke? But what about mouse? Click where? You see the problem now?

Actually, this is not an uncommon method of dealing with menus, and the issue you bring up has an easy solution - click anywhere outside the menu, such as the Title Bar, any of the panes, the TaskBar, etc... Alternately, you can just hit the Esc key, if you're working via the keyboard.

j_c_hallgren wrote:
I concur that the present way maybe isn't perfect, but I don't see how keeping menu active would work either...plus, these items are things that tend to get "set and forget", at least for my usage.

Well, yes, but I reset this everytime I install a new version of XY - and everytime I do that, I have to go through the whole song and dance to set every individual toggle. This occurs with many apps, not just XY.

Mesh wrote:Well, yes, but I reset this everytime I install a new version of XY - and everytime I do that, I have to go through the whole song and dance to set every individual toggle. This occurs with many apps, not just XY.

Huh? You do this intentionally? Because my settings stick even after upgrading vers...yours don't? Confused...

j_c_hallgren wrote:
Huh? You do this intentionally? Because my settings stick even after upgrading vers...yours don't? Confused...

I always do clean installs. I've seen way too many problems show up when apps (or especially O/S's) are installed over older versions of themselves.

People often mock me for this, but my machines experience significant issues at a rate of about once every 2-3 years.

Mesh wrote:People often mock me for this, but my machines experience significant issues at a rate of about once every 2-3 years.

That's about how often I've had a problem with XY caused by INI or prior data files...about twice in 3 yrs..and those were quickly known, plus one was when Don gave us a warning that it was potential so backup first, etc. as I recall...

I'd simply just make a backup of XY folder before install, and if all is well, then it goes much quicker...I wouldn't even consider doing a clean install, unless it was to see how a brand new user would see it.

Mesh wrote:The issue with these menus are that they are all checklist menus which are very likely going to have more than one item toggled - but the way they work now, after each item is toggled, you have to make your way to that sub-menu all over again.

I see the problem, but the solution you suggest ... hmm, I don't really like it.

Are you into scripting? You could build it the way you want...

The add-on NoScript of Firefox works for some weeks as described by Mesh. That is: (de-)select all you want, then click outside. For some days it was very strange - than I got used to it. It's not bad then...

But to the currend usage for XY .ini-files: I *sometimes* make a backup of .ini & such, but *very* often install XY-beta without any problem.
And *if* I had a problem I still had the chance to delete everything, like Mesh does, and make new install.

But on the other side I save .ini *only at will*, that is: if I need a persistent change I Restart XY, make the change, save .ini & restart again. So my .ini is always as I want, and not as it happened to be at last XY-close.

admin wrote:
I see the problem, but the solution you suggest ... hmm, I don't really like it.

Are you into scripting? You could build it the way you want...

Meaning write a script that changes all the settings at once in the INI file? I suppose that's an option, although there's the potential for problems if the way the settings are stored or indicated is changed in a future version...

And I understand why you wouldn't feel great about persistent pulldown menus - ordinarily, they're a pain, although in this case I felt the benefit outweighed the cost.



The only other way I could see doing it was if the settings were controlled by bringing up a dialog box where you could set all the options via checkboxes.

But that's not a half-bad idea, though. In another thread you mentioned that you were interested in simplifying the UI of XY. By combining the tree and list view options into a single tabbed dialog box, you would eliminate five pulldown sub-menus and replace them with a single menu item, while making it easier and faster to configure that part of XY's interface. That doesn't sound half bad.

Mesh wrote:But that's not a half-bad idea, though. In another thread you mentioned that you were interested in simplifying the UI of XY. By combining the tree and list view options into a single tabbed dialog box, you would eliminate five pulldown sub-menus and replace them with a single menu item, while making it easier and faster to configure that part of XY's interface. That doesn't sound half bad.

Yes, but it would take them out of the keyboard shortcut space.

I mean, I could do both, keep the menu and add the checkboxes to configuration. But currently other things are more important. In short: low prio.

admin wrote:
Yes, but it would take them out of the keyboard shortcut space.

I didn't realize that these were items that needed KB shortcuts. Gotcha.

admin wrote:
I mean, I could do both, keep the menu and add the checkboxes to configuration. But currently other things are more important. In short: low prio.

No problem, this was a small item to begin with - I just thought I would toss in the suggestion so that it was known.

Okay... it's ugly and I have no desire to use this and thus you are all on your own to maintain and update it, but it proved an interesting test case for the new HTML function.

It consists of two files.. one is the HTML file that displays a form of all those menu items, except "View -> Columns -> Len" which appears to be missing from the CKS dialog. It uses JavaScript to make it a little cleaner, so just click on whatever categories you want to change and then select the options you wish to toggle.

Because I'm too lazy to parse the INI file it will NOT show the current state of those settings. Once you've selected everything you want to change, click on OK to make the changes and end the script, Apply to make the changes and repeat the script, or Cancel to waste all that time on nothing. Or at least that's how it should work, I haven't thoroughly tested this.

I've done it in two files, so that it's a bit easier to edit the HTML (rather than worrying about crazy amounts of quotes), and you can rename them however you want as long as they are both the same (call it AwfulScript.xys and you must have AwfulScript.html), unless you also edit the script.

You'll need both of these:
http://xyplorer.googlecode.com/svn/trun ... ewMenu.xys
http://xyplorer.googlecode.com/svn/trun ... wMenu.html

It seems a little better than navigating to the submenus, it's great for changing multiple settings in one fell swoop, but it could use a lot of polish.

TheQwerty wrote:It consists of two files.. one is the HTML file that displays a form of all those menu items, except "View -> Columns -> Len" which appears to be missing from the CKS dialog.

Whoops...

TheQwerty wrote:Okay... it's ugly and I have no desire to use this and thus you are all on your own to maintain and update it, but it proved an interesting test case for the new HTML function.

Yep, very cool "test case" Damn, with a little imagination (and some scripting) this new function is a really cool thing!

PS: Yeah, looking at it I'm guessing maintaining the XYS wouldn't be too much trouble, the HTML on the other hand...

jacky wrote:PS: Yeah, looking at it I'm guessing maintaining the XYS wouldn't be too much trouble, the HTML on the other hand...

Honestly, maintaining it really wouldn't be that difficult. There shouldn't be much aside from adding and removing new items. With user functions it might be nice to extend the XYS into a decent reusable piece. My HTML skills have really died off in recent years, so that aspect of it could probably be improved.

It's not quite as nice a solution as I'd like to solve the wish. It might get close with a lot more time and work, but that's more than I'm willing to put in.

I did notice that the "Show Items" options don't actually work. I'm guessing Don has all those IDs blocked since they're changed through the Setting command on a temporary basis. It would be nice if Setting/SettingP had a t for Toggle option, but since these aren't stored in the Tabs2 section, it shouldn't be hard to get their values and add some logic to change their states. Maybe later...