Best way to use tabs for managing projects?

[Robert_Charlton]

I rely on TC so much that it's become a core tool for me when working on projects, but I'm not sure I've mastered how best to use it for project management. On some projects, I find myself running two copies of TC, with appropriate tabs in each pane. I'm at the beginning stages of using the .tab files created with the "save tabs on both sides to a file" feature to manage these.

My files are generally organized within main "category" folders within My Documents, and these are further organized with sub-folders. I've begun, in each "category" folder, to create one sub-folder just for tab management... with a name like 1-categoryname-tabs... and then save my descriptively named .tab folders in these, with an "a" file and a "b" file to cover the two instances of TC running.

It sure beats Windows Explorer, but it's still a little clunky. Eg, I haven't found a really graceful way just to add or delete a tab to a panel, or to quickly switch among configurations.

I'm also assuming there's no way yet to just launch a project and get TC to launch as many windows of TC as necessary with the desired tabs and settings in each pane.

How do others do this? I couldn't find much when searching the forum. Any good tricks or suggestions for a better set-up?... And are there any features that might be added to enhance the program in this area?

[pdavit]

Probably the most productive way should be to use the appendtabs and opentabs
commands in your Directory Hotlist (Ctrl+D).

[Sheepdog]

I do not manage similar projects with such a lot of tabs. And I lack a bit of imagination with those folders and subfolders for Tabs.

But did it occur to you, to use different wincmd.inis?

1. Copy your normal wincmd.ini to Project1.tcd
2. assign the *.tcd to Totalcmd.exe
3. edit the line used for *.tcd files like this
copy the project1.tcd to your project1 folder and openm with doubleclick. Now you may open the desired Tabs and either put 'save on exit' checked or you save after a changing you want to keep.

This way you may also use different IconLobs to indicate the dofferent projects.

Just an idea.

sheedpog

[Robert_Charlton]

Probably the most productive way should be to use the appendtabs and opentabs commands in your Directory Hotlist (Ctrl+D).

Sounds like this is just what I was looking for, but I've got to confess I'm still using v6.03a (just catching up with work after a long, painful process migrating to a new machine with XP), and my version of TC doesn't appear to offer these options. At the bottom of the Hotlist on my setup, it only shows "Add current dir" and "Configure." I assume the commands you're talking about would be at the bottom of the list.

What version of TC did these appear in?

Sheepdog - Offhand, your suggestion sounds very complicated, but I'm not that familiar with the program setup. Thanks.

[Hacker]

Robert_Charlton,

I assume the commands you're talking about would be at the bottom of the list.

No, they're used after you click on Configure. Then you have to change the command to
APPENDTABS <tabfile.tab>
or
OPENTABS <tabfile.tab>

The first command appends tabs from <tabfile.tab> to the currently open tabs, the second replaces the current tabs with the ones from the file.

HTH
Roman

[Robert_Charlton]

...No, they're used after you click on Configure. Then you have to change the command to
APPENDTABS <tabfile.tab>
or
OPENTABS <tabfile.tab> ...

So this would be command-line type functionality. While that would be great for some applications, I can't see that typed-in commands would be most efficient for this particular use.

In any given week, I'm maybe working on a half-dozen projects, with maybe 4 or 5 routinized sub-tasks in each project. And maybe half of these would benefit from two instances (ie, 4-panes) with TC. So, some kind of of a GUI would probably be best, or else I'd be memorizing a huge number of .tab filenames, not to mention pathnames too.

And then there are ongoing "projects," computer maintenance type tasks, etc, that would also benefit from a GUI project interface.

With the setup I've described above, which uses "Load tabs from file, replace tabs," the main hitch is that I've got to navigate within the little file manager of that part of the TC interface to get to the applicable .tab files before I can click on them. The TC "save tabs/ load tabs" interface seems to remember the last-used directory as the default for the .tab file location. I've thought of putting all the .tab files in one directory as a way around this, but that starts getting messy as lots of projects accumulate.

Maybe TC has gotten to the point where it needs a Project Manager feature... or does it have one and I'm not using it right?

[Robert_Charlton]

As a PS to the above... Can anyone point me to a thread or resource about the .tab file syntax. Much of it seems pretty intuitive. As I see it...

- there's an [activetabs] and [inactivetabs] section, one for each pane...

- the first line for a tab is the pathname, which is pretty clear...

- the second line, the options for the tab, is not immediately obvious, at least to me. What's the syntax of this example?
1_options=1|3|1|0|0|1

Also, at the end of each of the [activetabs] and [inactivetabs] sections, I see a line like this...

activetab=3

Not sure what it means.

[Sheepdog]

Maybe my solution is not too complicated for you. I'll try again to make my proposal palatable to you.

Perhaps you know that you can start TC with another ini-file with command-line switch /i=.

So the command ""c:\program files\totalcmd\totalcmd.exe /i=d:\ini\wincmd.ini" would start your TC with the ini file in d:\ini\ even if you usually use the ini file in the program dir (or anywhere else).

And you can define almost all of the settings of TC in this wincmd.ini. E.g. the path for the Tab files is stored in wincdm.ini at

Code: Select all

[Configuration]
TabDir=

So if you would use different ini files you were able to set different Tab-directories.
Likewise are the current Tabs stored in this ini file (Sections [Left][right][lefttabts][Righttabs]).

So if you start a new project you could create a new wincmd.ini file and start TC with this ini.

For TC it is unneccessary what this file is named (although TC searches as default for wncmd.ini). Thus you could use "project.ini" as well as "MyFavoured.icecream". If you start tc with "totalcmd.exe /i=c:\MyFavoured.icecream" TC would store all information in this file.

That makes it easy for you to create a new filetype that isn't assigned to any other Application and assign it to TC.

Then it will be opened in TC if you doubleclick on it.

That for I proposed to copy your wincmd.ini to a file named project1.tcd - tcd is not assigned to another app.
Copying your wincmd.ini would let you keep all your favoured settings like colors, delete to recycler etc. Otherwise you would have to make al these settings again each time you begin a new projekt.

And now you can copy this project1.tcd to your projet1 folder. And then you select your Tabs once and save all your desired Tab files for this projekt in one folder etc. Next time you will only have to navigate to your project1 folder, select your project1.tcd and doubleclick and another instance of TC would open with all your project1-settings and the saved Tabs in your project1-Tabs folder.

As a bonus you could use different Iconlibrarys that show a different Icon for each project like my three different TC instances .


If you are interested I can tell you step by step how to assign *.TCD files to open TC with them as ini file.

sheepdog

[Robert_Charlton]

If you are interested I can tell you step by step how to assign *.TCD files to open TC with them as ini file.

sheepdog - Thanks for your persistence. I follow you so far, and, even if I don't end up using your solution, I'd learn something from it and others might too.

For project management, ideally I'd like something that is very fluid and easily changed. I'm constantly changing directories involved with a project. It's nice that the tabs let me pin the ones that are current.

But, even though I have lots of computer power, it's not always convenient to keep current Windows open when I switch to something else... and a badly timed email or phone-call can cause me to switch.

It sounds like, if I had to move quickly to a different project, your system would let me save my current setup under Configuration > Save Settings, but I'd then have to open a new TC Window for another setup. I'm assuming that what you have in mind can be run from shortcuts, which is the way I'd do it.

So, please continue on... but please identify the various files and parameters as you go, as I'm very not familiar with the behind the scenes working of the program.

Offhand, one disadvantage of your scheme that comes to mind immediately would be that it would be a nuisance to add a global change in my TC settings to all my different project files.

[Sheepdog]

It sounds like, if I had to move quickly to a different project, your system would let me save my current setup under Configuration > Save Settings, but I'd then have to open a new TC Window for another setup. I'm assuming that what you have in mind can be run from shortcuts, which is the way I'd do it.

You can set in Configuration->Options->Operation: Save on exit: Directories; Panels; Old Command lines.
That would prevent you from saving it manually and you would get the same settings as you have leaved opening this project1 TC again.

Offhand, one disadvantage of your scheme that comes to mind immediately would be that it would be a nuisance to add a global change in my TC settings to all my different project files.

That should not be so hard. As described - almost all of the settings you can change are set in wincmd.ini (or for your projects in projectXY.tcd) -which is a plain text file. You can find all theses files by searching for *.tcd. And if you don't know which is the appropriate ini setting you may ask here.

After you found all ini (*.tcd) files you can search and replace the appropriate line e.g.
search for:inplacerename=0
replace with:inplacerename=1

There are tools like InfoRapid Search & Replace to do this automatically for all files at once.

Now how to assign the *.tcd files as ini to open total Commander with:

1. press [Alt]+[F] - open files Menu
2. press [a] -> associate with
3. type in the field "All files with e&xtension (ending with):" TCD and
4. press [alt]+[n] or click "new Type"
5. browse to your Totalcmd.exe and click 'open'
6. OK -> close Dialog and open it again
(this is neccesary because you can't change the default before the association is created)
7. press [Alt]+[F] - open files Menu
8. press [a] -> associate with
9. type in the field "All files with e&xtension (ending with):" TCD and
10. press [alt]+[e] or click 'edit type'
11. change the '"%1"' to '/i="%1"'
(it should then look like this:

Code: Select all

C:\TOTALCMD\TOTALCMD.EXE /i="%1"

12. press 2 x [Enter] and its done.

Now each time you doubleclick to a *.tcd file it will open TC assuming this *.tcd is the valid wincmd.ini.

sheepdog

[Robert_Charlton]

Hi Sheepdog,

Thanks. It's an elegant procedure, and I may well use it for something else, but probably not for this.

I think... in fact I know... that the idea of doing a global text replace in all my .tcd files every time I want to change a global setting on TC would keep me from embarking down this road.

I use global text replacements all the time on websites... and for me, for this application, it's the tail wagging the dog. I want my project management tools to save me time, not create extra work, at least for me as I use TC.

Since no one has jumped in with a solution that exists within the program, I'm seeing that I probably haven't missed a built in feature. I'll play around with the Directory Hotlist and the .tab file management and maybe come back to this thread with observations or questions.

I may send a message to Christian too, with the hope that he build something into the program.

Thanks.

[Gral]

Change Directory Hotlist (CTRL+D)

click on Configure

Press "Add item"
Enter title, ex. Project1 (add & before character you want to use as a hotkey)
OK

type command:

opentabs C:\FOLDER\PROJECT1.TAB
(if you want replace tabs)

or

appendtabs C:\FOLDER\PROJECT1.TAB
(if you want add tabs)

Press OK

Repeat this procedure for each TAB file you want to use.

[pdavit]

Change Directory Hotlist (CTRL+D)

click on Configure

Press "Add item"
Enter title, ex. Project1 (add & before character you want to use as a hotkey)
OK

type command:

opentabs C:\FOLDER\PROJECT1.TAB
(if you want replace tabs)

or

appendtabs C:\FOLDER\PROJECT1.TAB
(if you want add tabs)

Press OK

Repeat this procedure for each TAB file you want to use.

Exactly! That was what I had in mind initially when I suggested this approach.

Giving proper shortcuts and subdividing the entries in the Directory Hotlist
you can eventually have a well-organised and functional approach.

In addition (if I'm not wrong) those commands for loading tabs are also functioning
via buttons on the button bar. You can have a sub-bar one for appending and one
for replacing existing tabs and then list buttons for each project that will
point to the corresponding tab file.

Pure an simple in both cases. The hard work is the initial organisation but then
you enjoy the fruits of your efforts.

[petermad]

those commands for loading tabs are also functioning via buttons on the button bar

May I add that opentabs and appendtabs also works in the "Start Menu" (usermenu)

[gbo]

Hello,

I start using APPENDTABS/OPENTABS 'facilities' after reading this thread http://www.ghisler.ch/board/viewtopic.php?p=43550#43550 and although this is not a perfect solution it saves a lot of time especially when you work on differents projects.

- the second line, the options for the tab, is not immediately obvious, at least to me. What's the syntax of this example?
1_options=1|3|1|0|0|1

It is options for the tab
1|3|1|0|0|1|0
In this example the last but one option will lock the tab if put to 1, unfortunately I don't know what are the meaning for the others but with some testing I am sure it can be guessed (See Totalcmd Help 3.m. Folder Tabs).

Also, at the end of each of the [activetabs] and [inactivetabs] sections, I see a line like this...
activetab=3
Not sure what it means.

It allows to choose which tab you want to be activated (you have to take into account the already existing tabs if you use appendtabs).

Usually I prefer using appendtabs this way I can combine different projects in one TC. When I have too many tabs I use a macro (clean_tabs.tcs [tcscript macros add on -> http://aezay.dk]) to sweep all tabs excepted the locked ones in both panels.

HTH