XYplorer Beta Club

I plan to add a small section to the homepage where the coolest usage tips are listed, not features but uses that might not be immediately obvious to the newbie but are very likely to please him. So the top of the pops of the "Did you know?" tip of the day. For example, I know from lots of communication that a frightening number of users never found out that the toolbar buttons have right-click menus, so this would be my CUT number one.

1. The toolbar buttons have right-click menus.
2. Try out the Mini Tree for 10 minutes. Chances are you never go back to the normal folder tree.
3. If you work with locked tabs (which you should) then declare one tab in each pane as "Default Tab". This will save you from ending up with too many tabs.

Do you have more CUTs?

http://www.xyplorer.com/usage.php

Thanks for your contribution.

Pretty much all the special mouse actions:

Create custom toolbar buttons with separate left and right click actions, including drop-down menus.

Choose to have separate left-click actions for a (file or folder) item's text and its icon.
[i.e. Single click on icon opens items in the list]

Left-click a column header in the file list to switch between ascending and descending sort order. Right-click it to show or hide particular columns. Right-click the Size or Date column headers to quickly adjust the size or date display formats.
[It's the latter ones that aren't in WE and aren't obvious.]

Quickly reset the attributes of selected files by clicking on the information displayed in the Properties Tab (of the Info Panel at the bottom of the window). The attribute text on the tab switches to an editable text box with confirmation icons like those in Excel and other spreadsheets.

Double-click the divider between two list panes to equalize them.
[Then follow up with descriptions of sync select and scroll]

And of course the infamous pyrotechnic rodent.

I'll try and think of some more. Maybe a search of the forum would reveal those features users find hard to find.
http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=%22did ... =&safe=off

Additional:
Maybe their should be links to "Feature List" and "Tour" immediately under "Product" on the left menu of the homepage, rather on tab style links -only visible after you've clicked "Product".

Going up one level by double-clicking any empty space, and browsing down folders by just one-clicking their icon (provided the related options in Configuration are enabled). Because time is precious!

Renaming all the episodes of a TV series season: Ctrl+A, Shift+F2, and then type Title - Season # - Episode <#01>.

Tired? Type makecoffee; in the Address Bar

Working on a tiny netbook screen? If you start XYplorer via a link, add /script="::#1061" at the end of the target. The menu bar will disappear.

And save whatever may be used more than once in the Catalog, your best friend!

Thanks for the tips so far! I'm quite picky but don't force me to rationalize my decisions -- I cannot.

1) Right-click in the empty part of the tree and see some cool locations.
2) Right-click tab header icon to see breadcrumbs.
3) Right-click Addressbar's down arrow to see breadcrumb, common locations, Drives and more.
4) Hit Ctrl+Q to Quick preview a file.
5) Preview images with F11 and scroll up/down with mouse or keyboard.
6) Double-click status bar text to copy to clipboard.
7) Hold Ctrl and scroll to change font size.
8 ) Don't like how Ctrl+tab/Ctrl+Shift+tab works, try Ctrl+Pageup/Pagedown.
9) Middle-click tree/catalog/list locations to open them in new tab.
10) Hold shift and scroll inside tree to change indent.

more..
11) Mouse scroll over tabs to switch tabs.
12) Change tab location by drag & dropping them (even across panes).
13) Drag a file from one tab and drop on another tab to copy there.
14) Place files inside NewItems folder (Go>Application data folder) and see them appear in your right-click new items menu.
15) F6 toggles between Addressbar, Tree and list.

serendipity made a good list.
yet i think Aliases should be mentioned here too, as i myself only recently "found them", and this thing can sometimes beat Favorites and Catalog!.

I want to keep it small and noob-compatible.

Not sure if this is what you're looking for but it's a "Cool Usage" for me...

I've set up a category in the Catalog as a mini program launcher for a couple of my most used programs.
This is covered in the User Guide but here's a step by step I use. Or those of us that don't think about checking the user guide. Actually, I was just playing around with XYP one day and figured it out on my own without going to the guide. Which IMO says something for the amount of work Don went to making the menus intuitive.

1. Add a category - I set my caption as Run a Program and changed the colors to suit.
2. There a couple of ways to add programs here. The way I did it was in the list view, navigate to the folder with the program exe file I wanted to add. ie. C:\....\notepad.exe and highlight (click once) the line.
3. In the catalog window, right-click the new category (ie. Run Program)
4. Scroll or mouse down to Insert as New Item(s) Here
5. Scroll or mouse right to Selected List Item(s) and select/click. The highlighted program (ie. notepad.exe) is added to the catalog category. It is shown as the path to the program.
6. Select/right click the added program in the catalog category window and go to Properties
7. Under Caption the program name can be added (ie. Notepad) that will replace the path view that is currently shown in the category.
8. You can also apply colors here if you wish.
9. Select Advanced - Action on Click and select Open Item
10 Click OK

Scroll or mouse to the added category program (ie. Notepad), single click and up comes Notepad.

It would be nice, for me at least, to be able to select between single & double click to start a program. But I'm getting used to it.