bago wrote:If I need to go to the "Windows" dir and there are also dirs named "Wonders" and "Wallace" with your purposed way you should stroke "W" and look at the screen to see if you are on "Windows", you are not on "Windows" so you press W again and you look at the screen to see if you are on "Windows": well you are on it... 2 "W" strokes and 2 lookup of the panel to check.
That's right, but you missed an important point: Because you just can hammer the very same key, you can fully concentrate on the screen ("lookup on the panel") at the same time. Furthermore you can also
look ahead! When the focus is close to your desired file then you can see immediately for instance that you have to press the key 3 times more.
bago wrote:The way currently TC works you probably write W-I-N (or simply W-I) and then you look if you are on the correct folder. You are on it so 2-3 strokes and 1 lookup on the panel.
You forgot 3 additional strokes: the prolog (Ctrl+Alt) to enter the quick search mode and the epilog (Esc) to leave it. Furthermore N strokes of the same key are easier than N strokes of different keys.
NOTE:
The preceding discussion assumed option "Ctrl+Alt+Letters".
Option "Letters - with search dialog" is excluded if you want optimal access of the
TC command line.
Option "Alt+Letters" is excluded if you want access to the
menu by keyboard.
I admit that a comparison under such circumstances is not quite fair, but it's the course of the discussion (I did not want to sacrifice "Letters only" for optimal access to the command line).
bago wrote:Another example: think at a folder where you have a lot of files with the same prefix. This is a common case, I think. With the standard windows behavior you CAN'T find the folder you're looking for: with TC you simply need to write the prefix first!
I agree that's a good point. In your example the Windows standard behavior is less useful. But I think in most cases directories containing more than 200 files come quite close to my assumption of "equally distributed initial letters". And in these cases I still find that the Windows standard behavior is superior.
.
. So it's a matter of habit. One just has to spend some time (several attempts to quick search smth) to adopt and then he'll be happy 
: when you search a file you sure know the name of the dir/file you're looking for, but you probably don't know the names of all other file/folders in the same dir. 
and I think many of the TC users do the same! BTW my lookup is slower that my keyboard typing anyway!