Problem with shortcuts

[mpt23px02]

I have recently discovered TrackerV3 and am trying it out (v4.20.0025).

I am having a couple of problems :

1) Two of my shortcuts (.lnk) will not work correctly when I double click them :
a) Norton Anti-Virus - when I double click on it the cursor changes very briefly to an hourglass but nothing else happens
b) Raxco Perfect Disk (defragger) - this brings up an empty DOS window followed by an error message, headed "16 bit MS-DOS Subsystem" :
C:\WINDOWS\INSTAL~1\{c190c~1\PERFEC~1.EXE
The NTVDM CPU has encountered an illegal instruction.
CS:0fdf IP:01eb OP:ff ff 00 ff 00 Chose 'Close' to terminate the application.

Both of these shortcuts work fine from Windows Explorer and others in the same folder work fine in TrackerV3.

2) The Go menu has 24 previously selected files/folders, but several of them are duplicates which I think is not helpful. Is it possible to display the last 24 distinct items?

Martin

[jacky]

2) The Go menu has 24 previously selected files/folders, but several of them are duplicates which I think is not helpful.

I beleive this is because this is actually your browsing history, not just a list of previously active folders. So there will be dupes if you go twice (or more) in the same folder.

[admin]

Hard to say. Send me the lnk files if you like.

[admin]

2) The Go menu has 24 previously selected files/folders, but several of them are duplicates which I think is not helpful.

I beleive this is because this is actually your browsing history, not just a list of previously active folders. So there will be dupes if you go twice (or more) in the same folder.

Exactly.

[mpt23px02]

Hard to say. Send me the lnk files if you like.

OK, I will. Thank-you.

[mpt23px02]

2) The Go menu has 24 previously selected files/folders, but several of them are duplicates which I think is not helpful.

I beleive this is because this is actually your browsing history, not just a list of previously active folders. So there will be dupes if you go twice (or more) in the same folder.

Exactly.

I understand that.

However, what benefit do I get from having duplicate entries in the list? I can only use the list to return to n distinct places. If this list behaved the same as, for example, Word's MRU then there would be 24 distinct places I could easily return to. I think this would be of greater benefit to the user.

[admin]

However, what benefit do I get from having duplicate entries in the list? I can only use the list to return to n distinct places. If this list behaved the same as, for example, Word's MRU then there would be 24 distinct places I could easily return to. I think this would be of greater benefit to the user.

Every go-history I've seen works this way. And in fact, it can only work that way. Imagine you would manage the history, and have to deal with a user that walks in circles. How would you avoid duplicates resp. which duplicates would you remove? You immediately see that by doing this in whatever way, you would destroy the very history.

MRU is a different concept. It's a collection of recently visited places, which in fact shouldn't contain any dupes. A go-history is something different.

A third concept would be a history of favorite places, which should be sorted by frequency of visits, not by chronological order.

[mpt23px02]

I still think a history is more use to me if I can easily go back to as many places as possible but I guess I'm just not going to convince you.

Maybe you can add an MRU as well!

[admin]

... I guess I'm just not going to convince you.

Not this way To convince me, answer my question: "How would you avoid duplicates resp. which duplicates would you remove?"

Maybe you can add an MRU as well!

Oh dear, I have so many ideas about what I could do as well...

[mpt23px02]

Not this way To convince me, answer my question: "How would you avoid duplicates resp. which duplicates would you remove?"

OK. I had this in mind :
- each time an entry is to be added to the history then first remove any duplicate entry, of which there would only be one, if any, leaving a gap;
- move the most recent entries down to get rid of that gap, or lose the oldest entry if no duplicate was found;
- add the new entry to the most recent slot.

Sounds like an MRU to me!

If I personally want to retrace my steps, including going round in circles, then I would use the Alt+Left Arrow keyboard shortcut. If I want to go straight back to somewhere that I have been to fairly recently then a history with unique entries (like a browser history) is useful. At the moment I think I am right in saying that the Go menu and the Alt+Left/Right Arrow shortcuts do the same thing. If they did different things then users would have greater choice.

[admin]

I would not have the menu and the arrow keys behave differently...

Sounds like an MRU to me!

... but I wouldn't mind converting the history into an MRU.

Any objections anybody?

[Gandolf]

... but I wouldn't mind converting the history into an MRU.

Any objections anybody?

No. Sounds good to me.

[admin]

... but I wouldn't mind converting the history into an MRU.

Any objections anybody?

No. Sounds good to me.

But I should have said "MRU" because it will at best be a bastard between history and MRU, if it works at all. The concepts are quite different when you really look at it.
I don't really have the time right now to go into this, but I now think it would be better to leave the history as it is, and simply add a separate MRU list to the end of the file menu.

[Gandolf]

The way another file manager seems to work is that if you open a folder from the middle of the history list, then that folder is then moved to the top of the list. It is therefore a history of visited folders but without any duplicates - to me it works well.

[mpt23px02]

Thank-you for considering my suggestion.