File Selection Ambiguity

[fwcetus]

Unless I am missing something (and I am hoping that I am), Total Commander (V.8.01) does not seem to allow using a Windows standard cursor and selection color scheme, and the default TC scheme is misleading or at least ambiguous (at least in one regard).

If I select a single file in Win Explorer (or in PowerDesk, or in XYplorer, etc.) (with Windows using something close to the default Windows colors), the filename will have the cursor box darkened and the filename text will appear lightened (basically the opposite of what an UNselected file shows). If I then select a second file (holding down the Ctrl key for multiple selections), it will also appear the same way (and the third file, etc.). If I then (while still holding the Ctrl key down) click on any of the selected files, to UNselect it (i.e., to DEselect it), the cursor box will appear as a "hollow rectangle", with a dark outline, a dark filename font, and a lightened background inside the outline and around the filename. In other words, a selected file will ALWAYS have a darkened selection rectangle around it with lightened text, whether it is the current selection (i.e., has the cursor on it) or whether it is another file in a group multiply selected; AND an UNselected file will ALWAYS have darkened text with lightened space around it, whether it was still UNselected, or whether it had just been UNselected/DEselected (where it would still have a dark hollow rectangle around it).

However, in TC, it seems as if there is a bit of nonstandard confusion. That is to say that a singly selected file, OR the first selected file in a multiple selection (before the Ctrl key is held down) will appear with the cursor on it, but it will not indicate that it has been selected. Only when the Ctrl key is held down first, or after the Ctrl key is held down in order to select the second file, will that first file indicate that it had been selected. In fact, that first file will look exactly like a file (in a group of selected files) that had just been UNselected/DEselected. This would seem to be nonstandard Windows behavior (not that that is always an "ideal" to pursue), which does not distinctly indicate at all times when a file has been selected or has not been selected, and I can't seem to be able to change this behavior by playing around with the color options, either in the Configuration Options Color dialog or by editing the wincmd.ini config file directly.

So, is there a way to make a selected file ALWAYS appear to be selected (which is not the same thing as appearing to have the cursor on it, and which is also what a UNselected/DEselected file looks like)? Or, in other words, is there a way to configure TC to show a file that has just been clicked on appear to be selected, and not look ~exactly~ like a file (in a group of multiply selected files) that has just been UNselected/DEselected? (Yes, I know that, if I simply click on a file, it obviously must be selected, but TC does not actually seem to indicate that status ~unless~ I hold the Ctrl key down first.)

[Horst.Epp]

Just having the cursor on a file is no selection at all
and you are the only one which expects this.
Whenever you select a file it is marked according to your settings.

[MVV]

fwcetus,
Is there any sense to have focused but not selected file?
If there is no selection, focused file is treated as selected in TC, there is no any ambiguity. When you press e.g. Del in TC, focused file will be deleted if there is no selection. But if you have some files selected, those files will be deleted instead of focused one.

[fwcetus]

Just having the cursor on a file is no selection at all
and you are the only one which expects this.
Whenever you select a file it is marked according to your settings.

Thank you for your reply, Horst.

However, if I simply click on a file, TC will show only that the cursor is on it. But, if I ask TC to delete it, TC will gladly do so, so it was indeed selected after all, but it was not shown as "marked" by TC, only that the cursor was on it.

So, when you say "Just having the cursor on a file is no selection at all", then why will TC delete the file? TC in fact knows that it was selected by me, but it does not ~show~ that it was selected (i.e., it does not show it as "marked"); TC only shows that the cursor was on it.

[fwcetus]

fwcetus,
Is there any sense to have focused but not selected file?
If there is no selection, focused file is treated as selected in TC, there is no any ambiguity. When you press e.g. Del in TC, focused file will be deleted if there is no selection. But if you have some files selected, those files will be deleted instead of focused one.

Hi, MVV - thanks for replying.

If I click on a file, it is indeed selected, but TC does not show it as "marked", yet TC will delete it, so it was indeed selected. That is where the ambiguity is:

A selected file should appear as "marked" (i.e., the filename should be in red letters, using the default TC color scheme), right? Yet, if I select a file in TC, it only shows that the cursor is on it (i.e., it will have a dark rectangle around the filename, which is not how selection is otherwise indicated in Windows.

Every other Windows file manager I (myself) have ever seen will show that, when you click on a file, it has been selected - TC does not do that - TC only shows that the cursor is on it.

In fact, in TC, if I click on a file (which selects it, even though it is not shown as selected, and then (while holding down the Ctrl key) I select another file, and then (while still holding down the Ctrl key) I click once again on the first file to DEselect it, it will look (in TC) exactly the same as when I first clicked on it (when it was selected).

So, why is it OK to show a file that has been selected at one instance of time to then show it the exact same way when it has just been DEselected a few seconds later? Isn't that ambiguous?

You asked, "Is there any sense to have focused but not selected file?" Yes: If the first file, in a group of two or more selected files, is DEselected by clicking on it a second time, it is logical to show that it has the focus, but that it is also no longer selected. But TC will show the DEselected file exactly the same way TC showed it after I first originally ~selected~ it. And, ~that~ is an ambiguity.

[MVV]

If you have more than one file selected, all of them are displayed as selected, and if you deselect any, it will be displayed as deselected.

But if you have no selected files, operations that work with selection are performed with focused one (if you press Del you wanna do something, don't you?).

Selection allows to mark file or files for some operation, but you're free to move cursor then. When you select some files and then move cursor, many operations in TC will still operate with selected files. BTW right-click selection mode (default TC mode) is much more powerful and stable (dumb Windows selection is quite unstable so you can't freely select/deselect files w/o Ctrl/Shift manipulations).

[Sob]

Think about it as two selection types. One basic for single file only (when the cursor is on it and no other files are selected) and extended one for multiple files (if used, then the basic cursor-only section is ignored). It can perhaps be a little confusing in the beginning in left-click selection mode, exactly as you describe it.

But it makes perfect sense in right-click selection mode, because there the selection is independent on cursor position. You can freely move the cursor anywhere else (e.g. to look into file using F3, to decide if you want to select it or not), without it affecting current selection. I do exactly this quite often and with left-click selection mode it would be nightmare, because sooner or later I'd forget to press Ctrl and good bye current selection...

Try to use right-click selection mode, you won't go back. :)

[fwcetus]

BTW right-click selection mode (default TC mode) is much more powerful and stable (dumb Windows selection is quite unstable so you can't freely select/deselect files w/o Ctrl/Shift manipulations).

Perhaps, but I don't wish to use a different selection/marking method, different from every other Windows file manager I've used since Windows 3.1, including ol' Norton File Manager (r.i.p.), PowerDesk, XYplorer, and all the Windows built-in file managers/explorers (having liked the original Win 3.1 File Manager, but having disliked all of the Windows Explorer versions ever since). I have absolutely zero problems with the standard Windows methods of selecting and deselecting files (and directories), and "Ctrl/Shift manipulations" are entirely second nature to me, having used them successfully for so long.

Furthermore, in regard to avoiding extra "Ctrl/Shift manipulations", in TC pressing the Ctrl key first before I click on a single file is the only way I can seem to make clicking on a file appear as "marked" as selected - I don't have to do that in any other Windows file manager.

I did say in my first post, "Unless I am missing something (and I am hoping that I am), Total Commander (V.8.01) does not seem to allow using a Windows standard cursor and selection color scheme, and the default TC scheme is misleading or at least ambiguous (at least in one regard)." All of the discussion so far in this thread has been about the second part, i.e., about whether TC is unorthodox in its file selection method or not, and I think we'll just have to "agree to disagree" about that.

I was really hoping to hear from someone/anyone who knew how to configure TC to select files the way other Windows file managers do. I have spent some time trying to coax TC into doing so, but can't seem to do it, and was indeed hoping that "I am missing something".

So, MVV, thanks for sticking with me in this discussion, but I'm still hoping to hear of a solution to my original request.

[fwcetus]

Think about it as two selection types. One basic for single file only (when the cursor is on it and no other files are selected) and extended one for multiple files (if used, then the basic cursor-only section is ignored). It can perhaps be a little confusing in the beginning in left-click selection mode, exactly as you describe it. But it makes perfect sense in right-click selection mode, because there the selection is independent on cursor position. [...] Try to use right-click selection mode, you won't go back.

You make a good case, Sob, for the "new" right-click selection method that TC offers (and I'm glad that you - and probably a lot of other TC users - like it). However, I'm an "old dog", I guess, and "it's hard to teach an old dog new tricks" - .

You are probably correct, in that the TC selection method may make "perfect sense" for the right-click selection method, even if not for left-clicking.

Perhaps if I were to never use a different file manager, it might be OK to learn a new method, but I use too many boxes (and laptops) to be switching methods back and forth frequently.

So, thanks for your reply.

[MVV]

BTW right-click selection method exists for decades since old DOS file managers so it is a question who is an older dog.

[Sob]

@fwcetus: I'm affraid there's currently no way to set it up as you want. What you need is an option (applicable only to left-click selection mode) to always select file on click and to move selection when only one file is selected and you use Up/Down key. Then it would be more like in Explorer. Now how to persuade the author that it is a good idea to add it...

<OT>
@MVV: This is what I hate (I mean not exactly in dead-serious way :). I use something for years and then comes some novelty and it catches on. And few years later, people think that I am strange and I want something new and non-standard. But no, it's them! :) It's the same with clipboard shortcuts. I've always used Ctrl+Ins, Shift+Ins and Shift+Del (I'm not exactly sure where I originally learned those) and then someone decided that Ctrl+C/V/X is supposed to be standard. Fortunately "my" shortcuts still work in 99.9% of programs. But I don't remember when I last met a person who knew what they're for. :)
</OT>

[MVV]

Sob,
And this is what we love in TC, it keeps old good traditions. While every new Windows version brings a lot of stupid changes and removed useful things...

AFAIK shortcuts Ctrl+Ins, Shift+Ins and Shift+Del are from DOS text editors (Microsoft's Edit, Borland Pascal IDE etc). But in Windows they (Microsoft of course) decided to use Ctrl+C/V/X (someone tells that it came from Macs).