Is it possible to have a persistent Directory Menu for both panels?

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qda
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Is it possible to have a persistent Directory Menu for both panels?

Post by *qda »

Tried searching, but couldn't find an answer..

I'm wondering if it's possible to have a persistent Directory Menu for both panels.

Currently, my only options are Ctrl+D, double click the panel title, or click on the tiny asterisk button. I have about 10-20 dirs that I am always navigating between, and I'd like to avoid the above mentioned clicks and keypresses. A persistently visible directory menu would solve that.

Some ways I could see this happening:

- Similar to "Seperate Tree > 2" but instead of showing directory trees, show the Directory Menu.
- Right click with modifier to show Directory Menu under mouse.
- An always visible menu in the middle between the panels
- A new button bar, with a horizonal layout instead of vertical

Happy to use a plugin if that's what it takes.
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Stefan2
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Re: Persistent Directory Menu?

Post by *Stefan2 »

Ideas

1)
- you can use TC command "CD" to switch to a directory/path
- you can use that CD command with an button
- you can create a own buttonbar for a few buttons to CD to some wanted dirs
- you can set that buttonbar to been shown "as menu", so you would get one button, which expand as sub-menu with all you CD buttons.

Button commands are just saved as text in wincmd.ini, so you can easily change it, but need an TC restart.


2)
Me think I would use a tool like PopSel from Horst Schaeffer as a button,
and create entries with TC command line like "TOTALCMD.EXE open wanteddir"
(popsel is free, portable, and works with an INI, so its easy to modify on the fly)
Or two buttons, calling each popsel but with own ini...



3)
use one folder with an collection of shortcuts to your wanted dirs



 
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jinsight
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Re: Persistent Directory Menu?

Post by *jinsight »

Suggestion

Create a vertical button bar between the two file panels with buttons using the "CD" command to navigate to desired folders.
License #1945
Windows 10 Pro x64
Version 22H2 (OS Build 19045.3930)
TC 11.00 x64 and x86, Everything 1.5.0.1366a x64, QAP 11.6.3.1 x64
qda
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Re: Persistent Directory Menu?

Post by *qda »

Thank you both very much for your suggestions.

Due to how easy TC makes it to add dirs to the Directory Menu, it would be great if that specific menu was more easily accessible as per my post, rather than having to edit txt files or button bars.

Is there a command I could put under a vertical menu button that would display the already existing Directory Menu next to that button?

EDIT: I see the cm_DirectoryHotlist command, but that makes the menu appear in the top left of the panel.

To be clear, I'm aware of these various workarounds, and I appreciate them, but I'm looking for an elegant solution if possible.
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Re: Persistent Directory Menu?

Post by *qda »

I love TC, but this is looking really nice right now: [mod]Ad removed[/mod]
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Re: Is it possible to have a persistent Directory Menu for both panels?

Post by *qda »

It's pretty thin skinned to remove a link to a XYplorer web page explaining the solution to what I was asking for originally here, which TC does not offer. For anyone wondering, it was a link to XYplorer's Catalog feature.

For what it's worth, I did decide not to go with XYplorer, but I am now strongly considering Directory Opus due to it's highly customizable nature, incredible text and video documentation, and at a glance, more of an embrace toward progress than what I'm seeing with TC. Is it okay to state that on this forum?

I've been a longtime user of TC, you can see I joined the forum 17 years ago (!), and was a user before even that. I even have an emotional attachment to TC, due to how much time I've spent using it, as has my whole family; so you can be sure I'm not just a shill for a competitor. Really I'm saying this because I care about TC, and I feel that it's steadily becoming inadequate in contrast to its competition. It would be sad for it to get left behind.
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Re: Is it possible to have a persistent Directory Menu for both panels?

Post by *Hacker »

qda,
No idea who removed that link and why. What do you like about Directory Opus that you couldn't find in TC?

Roman
Mal angenommen, du drückst Strg+F, wählst die FTP-Verbindung (mit gespeichertem Passwort), klickst aber nicht auf Verbinden, sondern fällst tot um.
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Re: Is it possible to have a persistent Directory Menu for both panels?

Post by *qda »

Hacker wrote: 2020-04-02, 00:00 UTC qda,
What do you like about Directory Opus that you couldn't find in TC?
* Fully customizable, dual folder tree, which can include Quick Access, D.O. Favorites, as well as the other usual suspects of a sidebar
* Relative size/date as a background layer on filesize/modified columns
* A very user friendly interface for editing file/folder display settings, including per-folder and applying to child folders
* Much more robust toolbar system
* Overall much better UX, both out of the box, and in terms of customization
* More built-in customization options (and this isn't nice because I need to change many things, but because the few things I do want to change are available right in settings)
* Really nice internal picture (pre)viewer
* A modern forum
* Ability to search settings in most settings windows
* A duration column for video/audio files (I tried adding this in TC, was unable to)

It does a lot of what TC does but with a better user experience. As they say, devil's in the details, and even if you listed all the things that both programs do, D.O. does many of them more pleasantly.
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Re: Is it possible to have a persistent Directory Menu for both panels?

Post by *nsp »

If you want to contribute and not troll, please make suggestion about missing feature in dedicated forum.
qda
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Re: Is it possible to have a persistent Directory Menu for both panels?

Post by *qda »

nsp wrote: 2020-04-03, 06:10 UTC please make suggestion about missing feature in dedicated forum.
It is not as simple as a feature suggestion in another section of the forum. My list above is the result of a broader deficiency of TC, where, as time passes, using it feels relatively clunkier and less pleasant overall.
nsp wrote: 2020-04-03, 06:10 UTC If you want to contribute and not troll,
Why are you so protective of TC's status quo in the face of objectivity? Am I saying anything that's not true? Am I undermining anyone's efforts? Is this forum supposed to be a safe space for TC fanatics, or a place where progress and objectivity guide the future of a tool which has survived longer than most softwares, and which I hope stays around for just as long? My post is a contribution, even if you personally don't like it.

I have no dog in this race. It would be less work for me to just switch to a superior solution and never look back, but as a long time user of TC, I am taking the time to explain where I am coming from. Sure, I'm now off topic on my own topic, but that's because this thread, for me, is a last ditch effort to stay with TC. I've been using it for 20 year. The keyboard shortcuts are muscle memory for me. Switching to another program is not taken lightly.
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Re: Is it possible to have a persistent Directory Menu for both panels?

Post by *MVV »

The problem of your post is that it can't change anything. Currently your post only contains a bunch of statements that express just your opinion and don't contain any exact details that make the difference. If you really want to get something changed, you should post every separate feature as a separate topic to allow users vote or comment them and to allow author to easilly see them and process.
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Re: Is it possible to have a persistent Directory Menu for both panels?

Post by *NotNull »

nsp wrote: 2020-04-03, 06:10 UTC If you want to contribute and not troll, please make suggestion about missing feature in dedicated forum.
MVV wrote: 2020-04-05, 07:40 UTC The problem of your post is that it can't change anything. Currently your post only contains a bunch of statements that express just your opinion and don't contain any exact details that make the difference. If you really want to get something changed, you should post every separate feature as a separate topic to allow users vote or comment them and to allow author to easilly see them and process.

Some weird reactions. @qda simply answered this question by @Hacker:
Hacker wrote: 2020-04-02, 00:00 UTC What do you like about Directory Opus that you couldn't find in TC?
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Re: Is it possible to have a persistent Directory Menu for both panels?

Post by *qda »

@nsp & @MVV:

Ghisler Software is a for-profit company as far as I know. If their business model doesn't include a system of taking various types/sources of feedback, including informal, (but heartfelt, like mine), that's on the company.
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Re: Is it possible to have a persistent Directory Menu for both panels?

Post by *NotNull »

Somehow half of the message I wrote went AWOL.
Here is the other part (what I remember, at least..)


Thanks for that "double click the panel title" suggestion! Way easier than clicking that tiny button.

Using that doesn't sound too bad to me. It's one extra double-click before you can select your folder. And it saves some screen estate too. But I probably have a different way of using a file manager.

BTW: When you name the title of your folders with a unique preceding number or letter - lets say "C:\Windows" has title "1. Windows" (without the "") - you can do a CTRL-D, followed by pressing 1 and you are in the C:\Windows folder.
At least: when you are in "keyboard-mode" (less useful in mouse-mode)


That Catalog is something that a few other file managers have too and it is quite powerful. It is a virtual tempfolder and TC's directry hotlist and listbox combined (roughly speaking). It *is* worth a suggestion.
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Re: Is it possible to have a persistent Directory Menu for both panels?

Post by *damjang »

I don't know if you know, but you can use tabs for both TC panels and if you want you can also "lock" the single tab to folder.

my 2c
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