Lessons to be learned from development of Windows Explorer 8

[9kvD38n6]

See this highly interesting article:
URL Improvements in Windows Explorer - Building Windows 8
Oder auf Deutsch:
URL Verbesserungen in Windows Explorer - Die Entwicklung von Windows 8

I assume this hasn't been discussed here (too lazy to search just now, sorry).

My take is that TC currently has a glaring weakness in that it makes no use whatsoever of widescreen displays. The way I use it, TC's window is only just over 1000 pixels wide - with 1920 available. IMO, making the window any wider would only result in more eye and mouse travel without any substantial benefits in terms of usability. Okay, I could see more of very long filenames, but 95% of the names are already fully visible with the condensed monospaced font I use.

Therefore, I feel that TC urgently needs an Explorer-like details pane. The article explains that this has now been moved to display vertically on the side in Explorer 8, making use of the extra screen space almost everyone now has there anyway. I feel the current options just aren't satisfactory anymore given the competition:
- Tooltips are just plain annoying as they always cover other stuff so I feel the need to toggle them off again immediately when I use them (which obviously I try to avoid).
- An all-or-nothing thumbnails view with little extra info and without flexible sizing doesn't cut it either.
- The quick info pane, while showing a good-sized preview / thumbnail only allows minimal extra info squeezed into the tiny statusbar while there is usually a lot of unused white space above that.
- The same problem regarding extra info is true for lister windows, but at least they have the advantage that they don't replace one of the file panes and can be docked next to TC's window (usually needing some kind of scripting, however). With a plugin for a tabbed interface, this seems the best solution at the moment while certainly not perfect and hard to set up for less experienced users.

As a first step I suggest that a kind of quick view pane should soon be made available as a permanent third pane, rather than a replacement of either file list that needs to be swapped.

Anyway, thanks for reading.

PS: On a positive note, I was amused by most Explorer users relying on the context menu so much, which is a second-rate option at best. Thankfully, TC offers many much more efficient options.

[petermad]

IMO, making the window any wider would only result in more eye and mouse travel without any substantial benefits in terms of usability. Okay, I could see more of very long filenames, but 95% of the names are already fully visible with the condensed monospaced font I use.

Apparantly you don't use TC's custom columns, where you can use the extra screen space for extra coumns with additional file details

[sidefx88]

I think TC has much much more things to teach Windows Explorer than Windows Explorer to TC...

[9kvD38n6]

@Petermad: No, I don't use custom columns per se, I use content plugins mostly in connection with tooltips for when I need extra info. The thing is, I don't want to have my screen cluttered with unwanted information for around 100 files at all times, when really I only need the details for a single file that I want to get when I click on it. Currently I've scripted TC so that when I left-click in the icon column in either pane it opens or updates a lister window next to TC's window showing a preview of the file whose icon I just clicked. If I click anywhere to the left of the icon, behaviour is normal / the lister window isn't opened or changed.

Also, like I said in the OP, adding all those columns and maximizing the window will greatly increase the distance between, for example the file name column in both panes causing additional eye and mouse travel (thinking ergonomics here), which IMO outweighs the benefits of permanent (mostly irrelevant) extra info.

[seb-]

THanks for the link to this interesting article. I'm impressed how they really put some features i use TC for in the new WinExplorer.

Still they miss customizability with Plugins (The explorer addons i know are usually bloated and rather not portable) and a real buttonbar competitor

And: still on panels or tabs

Wrt to usability improvement for TC:
The general usage of the panels and the paradigm of TC to facilitate intensive use of keyboard rather than mouse is very effective. There is probably some areas where to improve stuff, but for me... i'd rather love some usability improvement in the area of customization. Like an more easy to use way to assign keyboard shortcuts and to see which keyboard shortcuts are already defined.

The redefine Shortcut section in "misc" section of the configuration dialog isn't state of the art imho. Still i can live with it

[KC_]

The redefine Shortcut section in "misc" section of the configuration dialog isn't state of the art imho. Still i can live with it

I agree. When i first tried TC three or four years ago, this was one of the things that put me off. I do realize now, that I should have given TC more time to grow on me, and that I should have tested its other features further.

I have redirected the keyboard shortcuts settings to one ini file, and assigned a user command to open it up either from the main menu or by hotkey. I then edit the file by hand.

I do this for other sections as well such as file associations, saved searches, etc. I have found this to be faster than going through the gui. Others though, may not be comfortable with this procedure, but that's TC for you.

As for the screen width, I seldom use custom columns, but I was one of the happy users when cm_100percent was introduced in TC8, as I have folders where I browse through them in List View.

Cheers
KC

[solid]

The redefine Shortcut section in "misc" section of the configuration dialog isn't state of the art imho. Still i can live with it

I agree. When i first tried TC three or four years ago, this was one of the things that put me off.

You can always use Ultra TC editors

[Phred]

- - -

Apparently [sic] you don't use TC's custom columns, where you can use the extra screen space for extra columns with additional file details

I find the trouble with Custom Columns, petermad, is that they're not as persistent as native Details or Brief views. You can do something to a panel, and revert, and you find that the CustCols choice has disappeared.

[Stance]

Therefore, I feel that TC urgently needs an Explorer-like details pane. The article explains that this has now been moved to display vertically on the side in Explorer 8, making use of the extra screen space almost everyone now has there anyway. I feel the current options just aren't satisfactory anymore given the competition:
- Tooltips are just plain annoying as they always cover other stuff so I feel the need to toggle them off again immediately when I use them (which obviously I try to avoid).
- An all-or-nothing thumbnails view with little extra info and without flexible sizing doesn't cut it either.
- The quick info pane, while showing a good-sized preview / thumbnail only allows minimal extra info squeezed into the tiny statusbar while there is usually a lot of unused white space above that.

When you drag the divider up in the Win7 explorer status bar, you get a nice preview/symbol for the files/drives and can change (for example) the properties (Alternate Data Streams) for a mp3-file in a very convenient way.

- The same problem regarding extra info is true for lister windows, but at least they have the advantage that they don't replace one of the file panes and can be docked next to TC's window (usually needing some kind of scripting, however). With a plugin for a tabbed interface, this seems the best solution at the moment while certainly not perfect and hard to set up for less experienced users.

Plugin for a tabbed interface? Is that a quickview fixed to a tab?

Currently I've scripted TC so that when I left-click in the icon column in either pane it opens or updates a lister window next to TC's window showing a preview of the file whose icon I just clicked. If I click anywhere to the left of the icon, behaviour is normal / the lister window isn't opened or changed.

That's a nice idea. I was thinking about it in that way: Above mentioned, quickview in a tab, drag and drop it to any place inside of the TC-window. Or drag and drop it to the outside border and dock it to the outside.

Anyway, thanks for this good reading, please keep in mind that the explorer is not used to be copied by the TC.
But I have to agree, there are some lessons to be learned...

[petermad]

2Phred

You can do something to a panel, and revert, and you find that the CustCols choice has disappeared.

I don't understand what you mean - can you explain it further?

[9kvD38n6]

Plugin for a tabbed interface? Is that a quickview fixed to a tab?

No, what I meant was multiple tabs inside the Lister window using the tLister plugin.

[Stance]

32-Bit Plugins? - Not very useful nowadays for me, sorry.

As before mentioned, the TC is not used to copy the explorer. But it isn't meant always to do the opposite.
In my believe a file manager is used to accomplish the standard-OS functions.(*)

When the user finds it more comfortable to use two explorer-windows side by side, that was never so easy since Vista, when we could drop a explorer-window to the side and it is automatically sized to 50%. That gives you a good (and freeware) opportunity to manage your files. And you can download some freeware Shell-extensions/Addons/Plugins for the win-explorer like 7Zip or QTTabBar that gives you Folder-Tabs, Buttonbar for applications and additional functions like fly-over Image previews. One don't need a additional (expensive) filemanager for this, that's the plain truth.

A filemanager uses to bring some additional features or extensions to this for to be better. When it uses plugins, it uses to be ready before 64-bit is released. (*) I am not talking about a TC as a tool on a USB-Stick - we are talking about the Explorer versus Total Commander.

The native OS (Vista, Win7, probably Win8) comes with the feature that the user can create folders out of searches - the Total Commander stops at half the way as it is only storing the searches.

Explorer saves its views per folder. This was requested many times here in the forum, I wonder what priority this have, if there is a ToDo-List for the Total Commander. And I am dissapointed how many unwanted features have been realised since then.

I strongly believe that a file manager must look at a list with missing features from windows7/8-users. (I can provide such a list). And certainly, not to follow system standards, when the next generation of windows even don't cares about the old standards. Even the explorer uses the titlebar for additional informations and menues.

[Sir_SiLvA]

Explorer saves its views per folder. This was requested many times here in the forum, I wonder what priority this have, if there is a ToDo-List for the Total Commander.And I am dissapointed how many unwanted features have been realised since then.

If a feature was unwanted then it wouldnt have been implemented.
Just because YOU dont like something it doesnt mean its bad and have to be disliked by everyone else.

32-Bit Plugins? - Not very useful nowadays for me, sorry.

Yeah, right as if 64bit-plugins would bring ANY advantage over their 32bit pendant...

[Stance]

>3rd party apps for the purpose to configure the main programm
>configurating colors as hex code in a ini.file
>no basic functions like burning CDs,
>using explorer functions for calculating the space of directories...
>installing a 64-bit program not in C:\Program files\
>using a 64-bit system and installing tons of non-certified 32-bit Plugins/Addons from poland or russia

lol u mad?

[fenix_productions]

Explorer saves its views per folder.

For me it was always pretty inconsistent because when I work with folders I want them to be shown in already established way.

I.e. I am looking for PDF file with specific author so I choose to see author's name in one of the columns. So now I can keep my eyes mostly on one place while browsing. If going through one folder mean switching view to thumbnails because I did so in the past… I don't like it. It interrupts my work flow pushing me for changing the point of view. Slows me down. Better way is to have such behaviour easily switched off/on when I want it. For me, Explorer never worked that way.

And I am disappointed how many unwanted features have been realised since then.

Could you list few of them? It's hard to find any.

>3rd party apps for the purpose to configure the main programm

And it differs from having QTTabBar or various shell extensions - how?

>configurating colors as hex code in a ini.file

For most (all?) of them it is not needed since there is proper group in Configuration window.

>using a 64-bit system and installing tons of non-certified 32-bit Plugins/Addons from poland or russia

Would it be better to have only few certified plugins then?*

*) Pricing and ad hominem nationality issues.