XYplorer Beta Club

Ok, your ever-curious developer would like you to answer two questions:

(1) What single feature do you miss most in XYplorer?
(2) What single feature do you think others miss most in XYplorer?

Gracias, merci, arigato!

I would like to see a different interface for accessing my Favorites. The latest change you put in where you can access them from the toolbar is nice, but there are a few things that would make it better (IMO):

1) Be able to define friendly names - "Images" instead of "C:\Documents and Settings\Justin\My Documents\My Pictures"
2) Be able to have nested levels, like a web browser's bookmarks/favorites. Or at the very least, one level of grouping. That way I can have all my "Image" favorites grouped, all my "MP3" favorites grouped, etc.
3) Be able to have the favorites always on screen. See the screenshot below...it doesn't have friendly names, but it has a favorites panel that can be toggled on and off at will. Having it sit at the bottom of the treeview seems like a logical place to me.

I think this would be a great addition, not only for me, but for all the masses of XY users.
That's my feature wish!

Favorites Example: http://img161.imageshack.us/img161/6601/favs1zx.jpg

Funny, I was already thinking about it when I was in the SDR camp

JustinF wrote:1) Be able to define friendly names - "Images" instead of "C:\Documents and Settings\Justin\My Documents\My Pictures"

Yep!

JustinF wrote:2) Be able to have nested levels, like a web browser's bookmarks/favorites. Or at the very least, one level of grouping. That way I can have all my "Image" favorites grouped, all my "MP3" favorites grouped, etc.

Hmm. That might be overdone... I mean: we have the nested folder tree. If we now add a nested fav tree, the solution looks very similar to the problem, you know what I mean? Therefore I would prefer a flat fav organization. But see my next point, need of scrolling, which is of course worse with flat favs. So: hmm.

JustinF wrote:3) Be able to have the favorites always on screen. See the screenshot below...it doesn't have friendly names, but it has a favorites panel that can be toggled on and off at will. Having it sit at the bottom of the treeview seems like a logical place to me.

100% yes. However, the place is small: the need to scroll to find a favorite worries me a bit. That's not so good.

And I add the following: single-clicking such a favorite will simply fill/update the file list, but [optionally] without synchronizing the tree (to do this, dbl-click a fav). Advantages: faster browsing, and your previous tree position does not scroll out of view so you can easily switch back to it.

JustinF wrote:Favorites Example: http://img161.imageshack.us/img161/6601/favs1zx.jpg

Where's that from?

Welcome back! But do you have a different calendar over there? You'd said "back on March 1"...or couldn't you wait?

Anyway, one tiny feature I miss from other pgms (and which I'd mentioned before, I think), it the ability to define the limits of history/MRU...I'd like to be able to set it to 15 or 20 (or whatever) instead of 32 as that overtakes too much of screen when it's visible.
I'd suggest an option in config where it could be chg'd from default.

Other suggestions to follow...after I think about it more...however: there are definitely some functions that other pgms do already that I see NO reason to spend time duplicating in XY...

But...this prior mentioned one is something that still causes me to sometimes have to resort to Windows Explorer to get info I need: http://www.xyplorer.com/xyfc/viewtopic.php?t=519

I have not yet looked at new vers...as just found out that "doors were open again"..

Justins screenshot looks like ExplorerXP to me (correct me if I'm wrong Justin).

http://www.explorerxp.com/

admin wrote:Funny, I was already thinking about it when I was in the SDR camp

Great minds think alike (or something like that).

phatmankerr wrote:Justins screenshot looks like ExplorerXP to me (correct me if I'm wrong Justin).

http://www.explorerxp.com/

Yep, that's correct. ExplorerXP was my file manager of choice until I ran across XYplorer.

admin wrote:...If we now add a nested fav tree, the solution looks very similar to the problem, you know what I mean? Therefore I would prefer a flat fav organization...

Yes, you're right, a nested heirarchy is overdone. But I still think one level of grouping (like in the screenshot) would be very beneficial. Otherwise you have to name your favorites in some sort of alphabetic order to get them grouped together. But maybe I'm the only one who would like them grouped.

admin wrote:

JustinF wrote:3) Be able to have the favorites always on screen. See the screenshot below...it doesn't have friendly names, but it has a favorites panel that can be toggled on and off at will. Having it sit at the bottom of the treeview seems like a logical place to me.

100% yes. However, the place is small: the need to scroll to find a favorite worries me a bit. That's not so good.

I think anywhere you put it you'll have to scroll if you have more than a handful of favorites.

admin wrote:single-clicking such a favorite will simply fill/update the file list, but [optionally] without synchronizing the tree (to do this, dbl-click a fav).

I never thought about a favorite not synchronizing the tree, but now that you mention it, it could be useful that way (as long as there is a way to synchronize, like you said).

First off I would agree that there is a tendency to need to go back many times to a few folders ("Favorites") and that the example of the MyPictures folder is probably a typical one.

Another example that I am constantly using is the Download folder - for example, if I want the 4.50.0015 Beta of XYplorer, I click save and then it goes to the default folder, which I always leave as the same folder named Download. I then go there to install the new program.

Back some months ago, I mentioned that I would like to be able to save a Tab Group that already contains some of these "favorite" folders that I am constantly using.

The new tabbed Internet Explorer recognizes this sort of need when it offers to re-open the last closed group of tabs. BTW, you can try out IE7 Beta 2 Preview at:

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/ie7 ... irect.mspx

The other features that I would like to see are:

- "Virtual" Folders. One task that I do regularly is to manually backup files, and I like to manually choose files that all have to do with the same topic. A DVD-R holds 4.3 GB. The DVD burning software has a very poor file explorer, so it is easier to create a grouping of files using XYplorer. The new selection preserving feature will help, but even better would be to drag the files to a "virtual" folder that I could name, say, DVD.

- Support of more audio file types for the mouse over info, besides MP3. Specifically FLAC, SHN, APE, OGG and WAV (although there are others). The same information could be covered, but Duration, Audio Sample Rate, Number of BIts, Number of Channels would be the most important. Also, tags are supported in FLAC, APE and OGG.

Okay so I thought a bit about that... and I think right now I can not think of any "major" feature I really miss in XY. I mean sure I've got my list of things I'd like to see (like reports with HTML templates, or the toggle fav file on the ctxt menu of a file, ....) but no "major" feature I think.

Well, I guess it all depends on time too, and with it what I (need to) do with XY at that time. Like, ask me that in a few days when I'll have to do some "reports" again, I'll really miss that one

But I for one like the favs the way they were (4.40 ), one click and here they are, fav files, special fodlers & my favorites
Maybe yeah add the ability to use a custom name instead of the real item name could be nice (with its real name in the status bar then)

The only way I'd see it being "improved" for me, would be to add a way to create "groups". Like in the list among with other favs I'll add one called "Music" for example, that would actually be a submenu.
In it, a list of favorites folders that I've put there, plus a "Open all favs"; basicly like IE favs like JustinF said.

I know this is not a future but,
I would like the interface layout to be a little diferent:


And about the favourites: maybe u could do a "finderbar" clone or something that replaces tree when user wants to do that:

admin wrote:Ok, your ever-curious developer would like you to answer two questions:

(1) What single feature do you miss most in XYplorer?
(2) What single feature do you think others miss most in XYplorer?

Gracias, merci, arigato!

(1) Decent help text
(2) Decent help text.

I'm not trying to be funny or trying to be a wise guy but I can no longer follow all the new bells & whistles in XYplorer because the help text does not realy help. For example, when I looked the help text gave next to no help that I could find on tabbed browsing.

I haven't been in these forums for a while but when I was here more often then I could keep up with XYplorer's new features and how to use them but as I spend less & less time here then I have les & less idea about how to use them.

It may be that very recently the help text has improved but I tend not to think so.

This is going to be a big drawback on making XYplorer essentially non-freeware - IYSWIM.

I know that the Help file was recently overhauled...not sure exactly how much...but maybe we could have a wiki setup and create some decent docs as a group...just as there are many aftermarket books on how to use software/OS...I think those of use who are more fluent in English would be able to aid in the process...

spinner wrote:It may be that very recently the help text has improved but I tend not to think so.

To my knowledge the help file is up-to-date. Which means: every feature and command is mentioned and explained. Of course, the quality of the articles can always be improved.

j_c_hallgren wrote:...maybe we could have a wiki setup and create some decent docs as a group...just as there are many aftermarket books on how to use software/OS...I think those of use who are more fluent in English would be able to aid in the process...

Cool idea! I won't stop you

There was already the idea of a user-supported did-you-know/tip-of-the-day interface, but a web-based wiki is much cooler!

Here's another wish that I now see might make sense:

Suppose I have a rather lengthy obscure path name as an Exclude...
I'd like a way to be able to toggle it from active to comment/inactive in a easy manner...
because in some cases, I want to look there and other times, I don't..
Right now, I can workaround by changing it from "C:\" to "X:\"..

And related to this...has anyone suggested having named Exclude groups that one could load independently of INI configs? So I could have one set of Excludes for one pattern of files and another (or more) for the alternate pattern(s)...

Update: Realized that this duplicates my prior thread of http://www.xyplorer.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=534

j_c_hallgren wrote:Here's another wish that I now see might make sense...

Please don't post any wish that happens to cross your mind in this poll

Let me repeat the initial questions:

(1) What single feature do you miss most in XYplorer?
(2) What single feature do you think others miss most in XYplorer?