First impressions and a question

[panorama]

Hello one and all,

As some other newbies (hi badams) have mentioned, this excellent forum is one of the factors that moved me to choose (and purchase XY) after trying a few other file managers. Of course, the software is the real reason and so far it does everything I wanted and much much more that I haven't tried yet.

I have read through much of the wiki, some of the help and a lot of this forum to get a handle on XY. I have fav files and folders set up and am using them as well as the hotlist and breadcrumbs for navigation.

One feature I really liked on another file manager I tried was the ability to click on a folder name in the tab label (address) and have that folder open. For example, if the the tab label shows:

My documents/ProDocs/2007/accounts

and if you click on "ProDocs" that folder would open up where accounts used to be.

Of course I realize that this can be achieved with a right click on the tab's folder icon or with bread crumbs, but.. is it possible just by clicking. Could it (should it) be made possible?

The other file manager was dual pane so there was room in the tab label for most of the address. This would not be the case if one had many tabs open in XY. Am I answering my own question?

On a different topic, I read the wiki about the distinction between focussed and selected and can now recognize what is focussed and what is selected in the list, but I'm not really sure what focusing is used for .... but then I've only been at this for a few days.

Forgive me for going on and on. I hope my questons don't strike you as too silly.

Thanks for a great piece of software and for a reactive pleasant forum that I'll be visiting a lot in the coming weeks no doubt.

[j_c_hallgren]

Greetings and welcome to world of XY and the forum! First, let me say that your questions were NOT too silly! They were well explained and easily understandable which always helps.

The ability to click on portions of tab name has been discussed more than once here, and it seems that last time was not that long ago, but in a quick visual search, I didn't spot it...
(Update: Found it!)
http://www.xyplorer.com/xyfc/viewtopic.php?t=1241

The main issue with it, as I recall, was what to do when tab header is too short to contain full name...and given the alternatives available, I believe the issue was either deferred or declined.

I'll leave the focus/select to someone else, as my time at this moment is limited, but wanted to give you a welcome in timely fashion!

[serendipity]

Welcome Richard!

Like JC said this has been discussed before and Don has put it in the XY roadmap. Look for "Vista-like clickable breadcrumb" here.

[jacky]

Welcome to XY!

And to answer your other questions, for starter the focused item means the one that has the (keyboard) focus, so if it's not into view it will be when pressing keys such as Up/Down.
It is also the that that is put into view when double-cliking ona blank area on List, or pressing Shift+F6.

As for a specific usage, well some feature might use the focused item, and not the selected ones, such as File/Open Focused Item (Ctrl+Enter). Thus allowing you, for example, when you have a bunch of files selected to only open one item, even one that is not selected, without loosing your selection.

Also, some feature works for an item being both selected and focused, such as Preview. To preview a file, it will need to be both selected and focused. And for audio/video files, you can have the option to "play (the) next" file, which basically means move the focus to the next file in selection.

Hope this can help, and that I'm being clear. If you have questions, as always, feel free!

[lukescammell]

I have to say, I really dislike the vista "path navigation" or whatever it's called. I've been working with it for a few weeks now and it just generally pisses me off. So long as this addition is only an option (ie youcan keep it off) then I'm not worried.

I find myself using focus most often when selecting/deselecting files in the list view using the keyboard (Ctrl and Shift). I didn't know about the Ctrl+Enter functionality though, so thanks for that Jacky

[panorama]

Thanks for the welcome and the info.

I didn't realize that what I was asking for was vista-like (I don't have vista and don't intend to any time soon), but I now see that the subject had already been dealt with before I asked. Should have spent more time reading before I asked! Sorry.

[j_c_hallgren]

but I now see that the subject had already been dealt with before I asked. Should have spent more time reading before I asked! Sorry.

No need to apologize, IMO! It was only because I had actively participated in that topic that I remembered it, and even then, as you see, had a bit of trouble finding it!

You at least took the time to look for it, which some newbies don't, which becomes an irritation only when topic was discussed with last week or so, and is typically on same page of thread topics..