Total Commander

I have already suggested this to Christian some time ago, and he liked the idea, but I'm hoping that lots of you will support it so that it will end up high on his agenda :)

Rapid folder browsing mode: In this mode, when you move the cursor to the name of a folder, the other (passive) pane will actually switch to that folder so that you can quickly see what files are in there. It would allow you to quickly 'flip' through tens or even hundreds of folders. As such, it would be an easy and efficient way of finding files or reminding you of what type of files are stored there.

I often have situations where I know that I have a particular file somewhere, but I don't recall its name (but I'll recognize it when I see it, and its context). By quickly moving through a bunch of folders where I think it should be, I may well find it. Or, I have a folder with a lot of subfolders and I want to quickly acquaint myself with their contents. Or I want to browse hundreds of clipart folders in thumbnail mode to find a useful image. RFB-mode would let me do just that.

This rapid folder browsing mode might be implemented as part of the Ctrl-Q quick view mode (TC doesn't currently show much useful information there when the cursor is on a folder). Maybe it could also, additionally, be enabled in separate trees.

When I discussed the idea with Christian, he rightly noted that there might be problems with slow network folders. But then, I guess TC could simply display a line "Fetching directory - please wait" in the other pane and allow you to abort the action, or skip to the next folder if it takes too long.

Anyway, I'm curious to see what other TC users think.. I'm hoping for many 'Support!'s

Regards,
-Daan-

Why not use CTRL+(Cursor Right) [when you are in the left pane]
or CTRL+(Cursor Left) ?

Mh maybe it could be achieched by creating a Lister plugin...

2CopyCats
Nice idea. Support.

Why not just to simply open tree (Ctrl+F8) and move cursor there?

In a tree you may just move cursor to next item and TC will show contents of that folder in target panel (you need to uncheck option "Tree: Press ENTER to open dir in other window" in Configuration - Display).



Also you may create user-command like (get TCMC here): And assign a hotkey for it, e.g. F11, so you need to choose a folder and press F11 to see its contents in target panel. Not so bad as it may be. E.g. to see next folder you need to press Down, F11, and then Down, F11 for next folder. It is not hard to do actually if you choose shortcut that is close to cursor keys so you may use one hand for both.

Thanks for the responses, and I'm sorry for the delay in replying.

SirSilva: Ctrl+Arrow is what I'm using now, but the extra keypress doesn't work very smoothly. That's partly my own fault though, I always use the left CTRL key and this combination works nicer when you use the right CTRL key.

MVV: Excellent suggestion about the tree - I didn't know this was possible, and I've been using TC for 18 years! It's almost everything that I asked for, except that I'd prefer to have it in a regular window. Still, this does take away much of the need for another implementation of the same idea. Thanks again.