Panels update suggestion

[Sektor]

As far as I see, panels are ALWAYS updated whene TC gets focus. This is a real problem on slow network.

Here's my suggestion:
1) create boolean variable which would hold info about whether directory was updated;
2) when TC gets focus, it watch for this boolean, whether it is TRUE;
3) if it's TRUE, then panel gets updated.

This boolean will eliminate the need of constant updating panels, when TC often gets activated.

[karlchen]

Hello, Sektor.

You will be delighted to learn that Christian Ghisler has implemented such a feature a long time before you posted your request.

Please, check out the wincmd.ini parameters NoReread, NoReread2, WatchDirs and WatchDirsExclude: helpfile section 4.b wincmd.ini. They are configurable through the Configuration => Options => Refresh dialogue.

Kind regards,
Karl

[Sektor]

[b]WatchDirs[/b] switch works with ACTIVE panel.
[b]Noreread[/b]s are about closing and opening TC.

I am telling about DEACTIVATING! I decided to switch to Excel, then switch back to TC. When I switch to TC, it refreshes content, even there were NO changes.

[karlchen]

Hello, Sektor.

Try out NoReread=/ e.g. while T.C. remains running. Or NoReread=/GHIJKLM, assuming GHIJKLM are mapped network drives.

If a drive is in the NoReread list, T.C. will only refresh a filelist which displays a folder on one of the NoReread drives whenever you press <F2>=Refresh.

What you request has already been implemented. Believe it or not. But please try before replying it does not work. It does.

Kind regards,
Karl

[Sektor]

You say to press F2 to refresh.
I don't want to press F2. I want that TC would detect a change in background , and if it detects this change, then it refreshes content when TC GETS FOCUS. If there were no changes while in background, then TC doesn't refresh folder content when it gets focus.

I'm telling about useless refreshing when getting focus. Moreover, I can forget that current drive (whether local or network) is in "Noreread" mode. This automatic detection would eliminate need to manually refresh.

[karlchen]

Hello, Sektor.

Your initial post to me read as if your emphasis had been on "do not reread particular folders, in particular not those located on network drives".
NoReread would have solved that, because it requires the user to tell T.C. to refresh the filelist.
OK, I understand that manually refreshing file panels is not an option for you.

I am still not quite certain whether you can or cannot achieve your goal with the help of WatchDirs. It has got a list of 8 actions which can be used in different combinations by adding the appropriate numbers.

And, please, be aware that when T.C. gets back the focus it may have to redraw a portion of its file panels, no matter whether it really rereads the underlying folder or not, because the previous foreground window may have partially covered the T.C. window. So whenever you switch away from T.C. and back to T.C. later on some redrawing activity may be noticeable anyway.

Kind regards,
Karl

[DelphyM]

Hello Karl,

I think I have very similar issue and request as Sektor had/s.
Although I've tried to follow your advices and do the configuration either via GUI from config dialog or directly to [face=courier]wincmd.ini[/face] browsing network filesystems is painful.

I haven't manage to make reading faster or stop rereading of a single UNC path, E.G.: [face=courier]\\devsql2005\dbfiles\[/face]

In [face=courier]wincmd.ini[/face] file I have this line: [face=courier]noreread=\\DEVSQL2005\DBFILES[/face]

The only case when it prevents to re-read (or re-load) is when I return to TC (v7.56a) from other application like a web-browser. If I even open Configuration dialog and close it (by OK) or change the TAB in TC it refresh its content of the network directory.

In this occasion I'd like to ask for sytax example. Say I need to browse 3 network servers and on each of them, there is a bunch of shared folders, E.G.:
\\devsql2000\dbfiles\
\\devsql2000\backups\
\\devsql2000\Public\

with the same structure for other two servers:
\\devsql2005
\\devsql2008

My question is: How I should chain those UNCs, respectively how the value for the variable for the variable [face=courier]noreread[/face] should look like?

Can I do possibly something like this?
[face=courier]\\devsql2008\*[/face] or even [face=courier]\\*[/face]

Problem is when everything is moving to the clouds and various data centers and the speed of the WAN/LAN is not those convenient 100mbs, but a way less, it is almost impossible to use effectively TC in such environment. I have to use default file manager provided by MS. Their Explorer, I don't know how, browses the network neighborhoods (I mean listing the directories in the given UNC paths) significantly faster comparing to TC.

I think that this is the biggest pain to all TC users on networks and until the algorithm for reading remote UNC is not optimized the same (or very similar way to MS Explorer on W7) no additional configuration in the form of stopping refresh on some selected folders won't help too much. And I don't talk about that manual configuration with dozens of servers and dozens of shares (it's impossible to map them as a drive letters) on each of them is quite hard to maintain.


Just the though what possible could be improved on already excellent and rocking TC. But with growing network environments I'm using it less and less:-(

Thank you,

[ghisler(Author)]

noreread=\\DEVSQL2005\DBFILES

Sorry but it doesn't work that way. noreread only accepts drive letters and a single backslash, which stands for ALL UNC paths. With the above, you disable auto-reading also on drive D, E, V etc.

[DelphyM]

noreread=\\DEVSQL2005\DBFILES

Sorry but it doesn't work that way. noreread only accepts drive letters and a single backslash, which stands for ALL UNC paths. With the above, you disable auto-reading also on drive D, E, V etc.

Oh, I see. Thank you so much for the explanation. It wasn't previously too clear too me.


And well, any plans to improve the speed of reading the content of remote dirs? As I've mentioned, comparing build in MS Explorer in W7, TC is significantly slower in it. Or maybe it could be that re-read option. I'll try it once I'm back at work.

Thank you again for your reply.
-d

[ghisler(Author)]

Unfortunately I could never reproduce any speed difference between TC and Explorer in our network. I also don't know why it should be slower - I'm using a simple loop of FindFirstFile..FindNextFile..FindClose. There is nothing to optimize...

[umbra]

In my old job, we had similar problems. The company's network was rather slow but using Explorer it was bearable. However TC 7.56 was unusable - copy operations were a bit slower but getting a list of files in some directory took several times longer than in Explorer. Computers were running Win7 x64 and servers Win2008 x64. Sorry but I cannot give you more details than that.
Just a guess, has anyone observed this issue on non-Microsoft networks?

[DelphyM]

Unfortunately I could never reproduce any speed difference between TC and Explorer in our network. I also don't know why it should be slower - I'm using a simple loop of FindFirstFile..FindNextFile..FindClose. There is nothing to optimize...

Thank you so much for trying to reproduce the issue. I'll do my best to provide you the most accurate info, but you might need to ask me for more details.

I've never experience that before, but I've started in a company, which has their headquarters in Auckland, and they opened up a branch in Christchurch where I'm located. There is no issue if I'm browsing from Christchurch, LAN segment dedicated to ChCh. If I'm in Auckland, there is no issue to browse the main infrastructure network located in Auckland. However, as I'm situated in ChCh and most of the network resources are based in Auckland, and those two branches are not definitely connected the same speed as the internal LANs. For instance copying 4GB from A to ChCh took me more then 1, I would say rather 2 hours. If you do the same job locally, it's 10min job. Then, I do experience the slow speed of reading network directories in TC, while using Explorer, it's bearable. I didn't compare the speed of actual copying of TC vc. Explorer, but frankly speaking, I don't care. I just need quickly navigate through the folders, edit config files, and for that TC would be perfect, if the listing won't be so slow.

I'm not sure, (my home PC is out of the condition) but if I would connect to work via VPN (using my home ADSL connection) I pretty sure, the listing would be slow as well, for both locations (Auckland servers as well for ChCh PCs)

Perhaps I could create a video where I capture the TC and Explorer behavior on the same network resource.

[ghisler(Author)]

You may want to turn off EXE/LNK icons on network drives in Configuration - Options - Icons, especially when some of the associated programs are located on network drives.

[DelphyM]

You may want to turn off EXE/LNK icons on network drives in Configuration - Options - Icons, especially when some of the associated programs are located on network drives.

That has definitely worked!
Now the speed of loading the content directories on the network is smooth as Ferrari:) Well, definitely is comparable with the speed of Explorer and that is all I need.

Thanks so much for this hint. Sorry I haven't thought of it before there is such settings to do this job. (And all googling brought me to the tweaking the refresh configuration)

[ghisler(Author)]

That's odd, TC extracts the icons and overlays in a background thread which should not affect the foreground thread displaying the file lists. But I guess that it causes so much traffic that it slows down the entire connection...