Find files - Select some drives (not all) with keyboard

[Usher]

It's not a bug, it's a missing feature, I think.

1. DO NOT USE your mouse, touchpad or any other pointing devices.
2. Make sure you have 3 or more drives present in your system. Use pendrives if needed.
3. Press Alt+F7 tu open "Find files", then move to "Drives" button (press Tab, Tab, Tab, Enter or Alt+D in English).
4. It's easy to select some consecutive drives (for example D, E, F) using Shift+Down, but I don't know how to select non consecutive drives, for example only two drives - the first one (usually C) and the last one. It's impossible to do it with standard keyboard.

At least I don't know how to do it (with mouse keys turned off).
I can select non-consecutive icons on desktop navigating with Ctrl+Arrows and pressing Space on selected items. It doesn't work for the drive list in TC.

[white]

I agree that is it basically not workable by using the keyboard.

[petermad]

I can't find any way to do it with the keyboard only.

Workaround, if a mouse it not available: Select Local Harddisks (Alt+L) and then remove the unwanted drives from the "Search in" field.

Support++ for the ability to select individual non-consecutive drives, for example with Space or Insert

[petermad]

In the "Find Files" dialog, the sub dialog "Select drives", that pops op when clicking the [Drives] button, it is NOT possible to select the drives with the keyboard. I a´have tried with the Space key and Insert and Enter, but to no avail.

I think it ought to be possible to chose the drives with the keyboard...

[white]

Moderator message from: white » 2023-10-12, 16:35 UTC

Merged the same suggestion.

[ghisler(Author)]

Use Shift+Cursor keys to select them.
You can only select drives adjacent to each other, e.g. C to E, but not only C and E but not D.

[AntonyD]

You can only select drives adjacent to each other

So the whole point of this post is that it is precisely the selection that the user needs that cannot be done AS HE wishes.
You set absolutely ultimate strange conditions for it, that this can ONLY be done for adjacent rows.
And this IS the main problem - described in this topic.
Please FIX this selection dialog so that using the keyboard we can select ANY combination of drives.

[ghisler(Author)]

Well, the list uses the standard Windows keyboard interface here. Using a different interface like in the main TC file lists means rewriting the entire selection functions from scratch. I'm 100% sure that other people will then complain about other things not working...

[white]

Well, the list uses the standard Windows keyboard interface here.

When using Explorer of Windows 11, I can use Ctrl+arrow and Ctrl+Space.

[AntonyD]

the list uses the standard Windows keyboard interface here

well, as usually I can imagine that indeed you are using the Delphi/Lazarus wrapper class against of direct using the Win32API control class.
OR maybe in fact you ARE using this win32API control - but with your own implementation of the support. Because as white correctly mentioned
on Win10 AND win11 in such similar list-controls I always can do exactly the same selection with mouse AS AND with the keyboard only....
ONLY in yours drive-box list I can't...

TC64 uses LCLListBox
TC32 uses TMyListBox
do they both have LBS_EXTENDEDSEL style enabled?

With using of the "extended selection" mode I can now combine my thoughts regarding proper Drive items selection
with the following keyboard shortcuts:

Ctrl Key: Hold down the Ctrl key (Control key) on keyboard while using the arrow keys and the space bar to make selections.
Arrow Keys: Use the arrow keys (Up and Down) to navigate through the list.
Space Bar: While holding the Ctrl key, use the Space bar to toggle the selection of individual items.
Pressing Space while holding Ctrl will add or remove the item from the selection.

This way, we can use the keyboard to make multiple item selections in different parts of the list and
deselect individual items as needed by holding Ctrl and using the Space bar.

[petermad]

When using Explorer of Windows 11, I can use Ctrl+arrow and Ctrl+Space.

That does not work in Windows 7 and 10

[AntonyD]

2petermad
what does not work? CTRL+arrow keys and CTRL+space clicks?
Are you sure that you opened Explorer at TABLE view representation
for some folder on a disk?
I've test this right now and it DOES work!
https://pixeldrain.com/u/pRBmG6KL
very small and short video but with all actions here.

[Usher]

2
Well, the list uses the standard Windows keyboard interface here.

In Windows Explorer, when you can select adjacent objects with Shift+Arrow (Cursor), you can also use Ctrl+Arrow and Shift for selecting non-adjacent objects. The same is possible with mouse for Shift+click and Ctrl+click.

So this behaviour should fully work also in TC.

[petermad]

2petermad
what does not work? CTRL+arrow keys and CTRL+space clicks?

I am so sorry, I didn't read it right - I thought that white said it worked in TC under Windows 11, I overlooked that he wrote Exlplorer