blog: per folder view settings

[nikos]

here's the comment area for today's blog post found at
http://www.zabkat.com/blog/23Mar08.htm

[GullyF]

Great program, thanks.

In the case of using multi paste to have the same settings in all subfolders, I have a question. I want to set up my wallpaper folder into category-determined (nature, people, motorcycles, etc) sub-folders. I want each of those subfolders to be in thumbnail view, but I want the parent folder - Wallpapers - to be in detailed view, so I can see number of files in each category, date modified, etc.

So, can I set up the parent folder - Wallpapers - in thumbnail mode, use the multi-paste technique you showed to set up all the subfolders under that folder in the same view, and then go back & set the Wallpapers folder back to Details and use the Actions > Folder settings > Save menu command to save just the Wallpaper master folder in Detailed view - and still expect the sub-folders to retain the thumbnail view from the desktop.ini file?

Thanks so much.

[sethr]

The ability to retain the folder view settings is the second most important feature of x2 for me (dual pane is the first).  Thanks again for your programming skill, and recognizing that your users want to do file handling their own way.

[nikos]

gullyF, yes what you describe should work

[Cornan]

This blog posting covers two topics about Windows Explorer views.  I disagree with the second conclusion thought I agree with the first.  

I agree that Windows Explorer "initial" views are a total nuisance, especially the choice of columns for graphics files, which in my case are 99% business graphics, not photographs that have "date taken" or where I want to either see or set "Ratings" .  I would certainly prefer my own default settings for the first time I visit a folder.

On the other hand, once I have selected my own settings for a folder we are no longer talking about what Microsoft thinks, we're talking about what I think, and I definitely want my settings to be retained automatically.

This is a matter of simple ergonomics; it takes both mental effort to remember to save my settings for every folder and mouse and keyboard motion to perform the save.

While the "numeric" part of this ergonomic argument applies to everybody, the settings each person would want to retain can certainly vary.  In my current situation I'm most likely to want to retain the sort order for each folder.  That sort order can change over time, but I visit folders much more often than I change settings.  I usually want to see "height" and "width" for my (business) graphics files.

I wouldn't mind at all if "save folder views automatically?" was a setting in explorer2, but in this case it is xplorer2 that is forcing its ideas on me, not Windows Explorer.

For a number of years the most annoying thing about Windows Explorer was that it stored exactly 23 folder settings, apparently because it was using something like single letter key in a "most recently used" list somewhere.

In that scenario, once I visited a 24th folder Windows would begin to forget the folder settings it had saved previously .

I hope xplorer2 will acquire this very useful Windows Explorer feature, even as an option that some users can choose to disable  Given that the software to save settings is already present in xplorer2, this should be a trivial option to implement.

[Cornan]

When I tried xplorer2 two years ago folder settings were not persisted, so that every time I returned to a folder I had to re-do the settings.  This omission meant that I could not consider xplorer2 for purchase.

1) Does xplorer2 remember each folder's setting now?  If "Yes" then I might give it another try and maybe purchase.

For details, please see my previous message in this thread.

In Windows 7, Microsoft actually got worse in this regard, by "guessing" that every folder with graphics contains photographs, and by setting up useless columns (such as "date taken") and removing columns I use every day (e.g. "last modified").

2) Is there now a "large icon" option for the toolbars?

I'm 58 years old now and it's getting a little hard to read tiny icons and tiny menu fonts; many developers these days ignore the Windows Control Panel font size in favor of hard-coded menu fonts (UGH!).  On the positive side, Corel Draw is the "best" program I've used to date - it offers me three toolbar / icon sizes.

3) Is there a "two folder window" option so that I can have two folders on screen and drag-and-drop between them?  (I've always found it terribly inconvenient that Microsoft eliminated this feature).

I could not find a demo slide that showed this feature (#3), though I think you may have it.
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Thanks very much for your time.

[nikos]

1. xplorer2 didn't change in that respect, it can save individual folder settings but you do it manually using Actions > Folder settings > Save command whenever necessary

2. yes there are larger toolbar icons now, see here for the possibilities:
www.zabkat.com/x2skin.htm

3. xplorer2 always supported folders side by side, use View > Dual pane menu command (and perhaps View > Tile horizontally). For ideas what's possible see the screenshots here:
www.zabkat.com/sshots.htm