Resume To Active List Panel File - Solved

[Phred]

The issue is - how to return to a TC panel with a mouse and resume working without disturbing the currently selected file - when that currently selected file has been scrolled off out of view.

There was a discussion on the topic in the Suggestions section of this forum 'What's new in this version? (8Beta8)' topic. Apart from delving into the totcmd.ini file and changing the colours of the program's (sub-)title bars with hex codes, or detecting faint colour differences between panels, little came of it.

I've since devised a means of bringing TC into focus and easily detecting the current panel, and of finding of the currently selected file, without de-selecting it.

The method is to place two buttons on the button bar. I use two adjacent arrows - left-pointing and right-pointing - with the internal commands from the Misc category: cm_FocusLeft and cm_FocusRight attached to the buttons.
This gives you two buttons in the Button Bar:- <-- and -->. One of them will always appear pressed, depending upon which list panel you last left active.

When your attention returns to TC (click on a non-functional part of TC -- its title bar, a blank area on the menu bar, some non-object area under the button bar, or use Alt-Tab on the keyboard) -- a glance at the arrow buttons will immediately indicate whether the left or right panel is active (or top or bottom, if you have that layout..).
To reveal the file that is currently selected, but out of sight, you can scroll down by using KatMouse and the wheel, by dragging the scroll-bar block, or by clicking on the top or bottom scroll-bar arrowheads, in the panel you now know you left active.

How to set up:
1. Right-click on a neutral area of the button bar.
2. Choose Change...
The small line of icons is a narrow view of the whole button bar. The popup window isn't resizable horizontally, unfortunately.
3. Click on somewhere in the line of icons to the left of where you want to add an arrow; choose Add.
A blank square will appear. Click on that.
4. A little lower down there is a line preceded by Command:, and a small magnifying glass symbol button on the right; click on that symbol.
5. A window will appear containing many strange cm_ items, and a column of categories down the left side; click on the Misc category. Click on cm_FocusLeft and click OK.
6. Again, click on the Add button near the top; click on the new blank square.
7. Again, click on the small magnifying glass symbol button on the right, a little lower down on the Command: line.
8. Again, choose Misc from the window that appears; click on cm_FocusRight; click on OK.
9. Lower down again you will see a row of icons; scroll a quarter on the way along that and you will see the <-- and --> icons.
10. Choose those, appropriately, for your new buttons.
11. Click on OK, and your Button Bar will be set up with two new functional and semiotic buttons.

I hope you like them.

[MVV]

Why not to simply click path bar or status bar of desired panel?

[Stance]

Why not to simply click path bar or status bar of desired panel?

Because there is still a missing indicator of what file windows is active.
The description is absolutely clear: He creates two icons in the buttonbar, one for each panel.
The status of the active Panel is shown as symbol for RIGHT or LEFT.

[petermad]

Hmm, If you have the Show current directory bar (Title bar) enabled you can see from the color of this bar which panel is active by the color of the font and background.

The colors of the Show current directory bar is by default determined by the color setup of Windows, and it therefore might not be easy to distinguish between the active and inactive panel. That is why Ghisler provided the feature of setting these colors manually: Configuration -> Options... -> Color -> Others: where you can set these options:

"Title bar for file panels"

• "Active side: Text"
• "Active side: Background"
• "Inactive Side: Text"
• "Inactive Side: Background"

So if you are using the title bar you can spare the space for those two Button bar buttons.

Apart from delving into the totcmd.ini file and changing the colours of the program's (sub-)title bars with hex codes, or detecting faint colour differences between panels, little came of it.

Well, the possibility of setting these colors from the configuration dialog came out of it - that's someting...

[Phred]

Yes, that's another way, petermad, though somewhat more 'subjective' an operation - more 'analogue', in getting the hue and saturation just right.
And being able to duplicate it easily across your instances.

I noticed just now (8.01a) that
1. Others doesn't have an accelerator key
2. when I added a colour/hue/saturation to custom colours, the first one I saved was overwritten by the second save..

I find my method nicer in that the two <-- and --> buttons depict immediately upon inspection which is what.
And they're functional - without having to aim for a neutral surface in the current list-panel.
Don't forget Fitts Law.

[MVV]

And they're functional - without having to aim for a neutral surface in the current list-panel.
Don't forget Fitts Law.

Actually path bar and status bar are much larger than two buttons so it is easier to aiming them. And, if user has them both enabled, they are much closer to file panels.

[petermad]

1. Others doesn't have an accelerator key

That depends on the language - it has accelerator key in Danish for example - but I have more than 100 additional accelerator keys in the Danish translation compared to the English version

[Phred]

And they're functional - without having to aim for a neutral surface in the current list-panel.
Don't forget Fitts Law.

Actually path bar and status bar are much larger than two buttons so it is easier aiming at them. And, if user has them both enabled, they are much closer to file panels.

I have to refer you again, MVV, to Stance's reply above - in that there is no prominent indication of which list-panel IS the active panel, and that realisation comes before any action.
It really requires a fine manipulation of the colours of the program's elements to make discovery effective - and it's not a satisfactory process, as I have mentioned, above.

But note that the path bars are not always neutral - a click in the active panel path has an effect/function.
I must admit that I hadn't know about the neutrality of the status bars before; thanks for that.
I respectfully offer you two unambiguous arrow-buttons.

petermad - remember that English is the world's lingua franca..
Btw, I had a look at your menus once and I found that they interfered with what I already knew about TC; they were a complete re-write of TC's menus, meaning that I would have had to start from scratch in learning your menus. Learning has to be evolutionary, not revolutionary, IMHO.

[petermad]

[OT]

Btw, I had a look at your menus once and I found that they interfered with what I already knew about TC; they were a complete re-write of TC's menus, meaning that I would have had to start from scratch in learning your menus. Learning has to be evolutionary, not revolutionary, IMHO.

My menus actually pretty much coheres with TC's standard menu, in the way that almost the same items are found under the same head menu entries. Also the hierarchy of my menus to a large degree follow the hierarchy of TC's configuration dialog.

At least I think my menus are the extended menus that differs the least from TC's standard menu among the different extended menus available.
[/OT]

[MVV]

Phred,
In classic Windows theme difference is very clear even by default.
You're right, if you disable path bar, you lost indication. But I just mentioned that it has larger size than button so provides more clarity (if you look onto file panel, you perfectly see its path bar; especially with proper colors) and easier to aim.
Regarding two extra buttons - they took too much valuable buttonbar space for me. And I don't need to focus panels in such careful way.

[Stance]

In classic Windows theme difference is very clear even by default.

Even when this wouldn't be a joke, the Total Commander shows the default classic-theme for the active and the inactive Window.
After installation, it is nearly impossible to say what file windows is active, when the user have never seen theses colors before, because of the use of the normal themes (AeroPeek) in Windows7+8. The Total Commander truly messes 2 themes up.

The default-colours after installation are probably unluckily choosen.

More irritating is: When the user moves the mouse over the inactive panel, the pointer starts to highlight the items under the mousecursor, even when it is not the active filewindow. I wonder how a Orthodox file managers could do this.

The Topicstarter mentioned Katmouse. This 3rd-party app can complete a missing function of Total Commander: To bring the filewindow under the mousepointer into the foreground. My support for this feature-request for the Total Commander.

The Topicstarter mentioned a configurable saturation for the inactive filewindow. Just a slider in teh configuration for a overlay. My support for this.

Not yet mentioned here: The new cursor for inactive panel of Total Commander could help to differentiate between active/inactive filewindow. Barely documentations about it. And also uncomfortable to configurate.

[MVV]

Since I'm always use classic themes, I can't say how it looks with Aero. But I still can't understand why can't you simply tweak active/inactive path bar color.

Inactive cursor won't help when TC window is inactive: both panels are inactive at that time. But it looks nice with proper values (I use inversed active cursor and solid rectangle of same color for inactive one).

[petermad]

Well, here is how it looks by me http://madsenworld.dk/tcmd/tccolors1a.png and http://madsenworld.dk/tcmd/tccolors1b.png - I think it is easy to distinguish the color difference in the two Directory bars - and I don't see any difference whether TC is in foreground or in background.

Here are my values if anybody is interested:

[colors]
ActiveTitleText=0
ActiveTitle=12632256
InactiveTitleText=12632256
InactiveTitle=15724527

[MVV]

That's how it looks for me, and I haven't changed path bar colors at all.

[petermad]

2MVV

That's how it looks for me, and I haven't changed path bar colors at all.

Also very easy to distinguish active from inactive panel in your case.