Whish List: To improve the visual experience with X2

[nikos]

so you are telling me that you'd like x2 more if the tabs have gradient colors and the icons are true color? How shallow are you people?

[admsupport]

Likewise, if you, admsupport, offered a set of knock-your-socks-off icons and assistance in color design, I doubt anyone here would complain (as long as usability doesn't suffer).

I wish I could, and if I could I would already have offered Nikos to do so.

Back to focus: it's not about a radical change request. There is no mention about layout, function or anything else than a better GUI. Yes that's about details, but details make the difference. If can sens most of you as purist (i.e. sensitive for the functionality) why can't you feel alike about the presentation?

The following might seem a bit kiddy stuff and we are not at a beauty contest, but since fgagnon showed me a cool trick with imageshak, I am glad to use it. There it is:



That's a print screen of an old laptop of mine. Nothing fancy eh! It's just the XP Royal black theme with a script to remove the Start button and a tweak to remove the Start photo and user's name. Compare to the ugly original default blue or the classic prehistoric theme. Here is my point: a little lift up can go a long way. It is a question of balance

As for the 2 print screen of the apps in a post above, it is day and night I am not designer but just sensitive to details.

I would really enjoy to read some positive comments about the welcoming of a better X2 interface. It does even not need to be new, just better

[admsupport]

so you are telling me that you'd like x2 more if the tabs have gradient colors and the icons are true color

Yes! that's exactly that! If I could have explained like that I could have spare the print screen. Gradient colors and icons true colors

[teknowledgist]

It does even not need to be new, just better

"Better" is either subjective or objective.

If it refers to a measurable quality then it is objective.  Is it better at...
speed?
capability?
usability?
sales? (enough to offset the cost of making changes?)

Usability is the closest measurable quality to what's being discussed here.  While there are certainly design qualities of a GUI that affect usability, they tend to be in the areas of layout and visual structure.  I can't imagine any scientific study would ever find usability is enhanced with gradient colors.

Better sales is certainly an argument for graphical changes, but the kind of people who will be drawn to X2 because of it's features are not likely the type to then refuse to buy it because it's look isn't "Vistacular".

If what is "better" is not measurable, then "better" becomes subjective and entirely up to the designer.

Sorry, but that's how I see it.

[Mr.Pleasant]

I admit that sometimes the look of software do matter. Whenever I'm looking for a new application I can get attracted by its looks. For that matter, I wouldn't get attracted to filemanagers like Servant Salamander, or Total Commander. But I would switch to them immediately if I feel their functionality was better than x2's.

But once you start really working with the software, you realize that it is a tool. And the only beauty of a tool lies in its capability to do what you want it to do, in an easy way. In that way, I actually like the looks of x2. Granted, the icons would be a little better in higher resolution. But I wouldn't like more colours or gradients (you get some gradients for free in Vista, anyway: look at the scrollbars and columnheaders). This only adds to useless crowdednes on my screen, which I try to avoid (I guess just like you, admsupport, when I see the screencap of your desktop ).

I agree with teknowledgist about his 'sales' motive.

[pschroeter]

xplorer² looks OK now, it's kind of neutral and utilitarian. I do at times think the toolbar buttons are a bit small, but then wonder if I would want to sacrifice having less of them just to make them bigger.

I use Windows XP. I don't know how xplorer² looks on Vista.

[fgagnon]

@ how xplorer² looks on vista -
Exactly the same as on my XP
... but that's because I elect to use a "Classic" windows theme (actually pre-XP style).  :D  

As I mentioned before, the Vista "Aero" default theme is very glassy and too difficult to distinguish which window is on top for multiple-window usage (think: "file management").

[wasker]

I for one pretty much happy with what x2 is today -- it follows UI theme, which is huge, however here's where I see room for visual improvement:

1. Refresh icon set, introduce two sets of icons -- 16x16 and 24x24, let users change icon sizes for toolbar.
2. Get "disabled icons" double for each and every icon (pet peeve!) except those for external tools -- default Windows mechanism renders disabled icons in menus and toolbars horrible.
3. Let users get away from this horrible small font on the tool bar; let an option to have text with normal font size on the side of the icon.
4. Make Go button act like in IE8.
5. Hide the menu.
6. Under Vista replace current breadcrumbs with whatever Explorer uses, let the header be higher. This, BTW, will allow scenario when I may click breadcrumbs and grab the panel's path w/o actually switching panels -- think of me typing some command in the address bar.
7. Follow UI theme for panel tabs.
8. Use proper casing on buttons in dialogs (pet peeve!).

[desslok]

Hide the menu.

You can do this now.

[wasker]

Hide the menu.

You can do this now.

I mean in a way how it's done in IE and Windows Explorer.

[nikos]

Let users get away from this horrible small font on the tool bar

you can increase the size with the settings editor you made!
see nToolFont100

btw there is a disabled imagelist too, sorry if you find it horrible

ps i just saw this in an online advertisement by IKEA: "our website won't impress with its graphics; we're swedish, we focus on substance"
I must be swedish then, from all this gloog wine we're drinking  :P

[Cosmo]

ps i just saw this in an online advertisement by IKEA: "our website won't impress with its graphics; we're swedish, we focus on substance"
I must be swedish then, from all this gloog wine we're drinking  :P

I don't like IKEA, but in this case I follow you.

In one of the lost post admsupport asked, if the problem is clear now, and I answered (also lost post): No, as he was not able to tell me, where the problem is. I cannot see it, if I take one or two or ten looks at the comparison picture on page 1 of the thread.

As quoted above, I am interested in substance, not in graphics. Transmitted to x2 this means, I don't bother, how icons look (as long as I can see, what they shall express), but it is an important point, if they appear as expected. The case, that for x2solo the icon bars (and other settings) have to be recreated instead of copying the setting from the default window layout: that is a substantial loss for me.

[wasker]

Let users get away from this horrible small font on the tool bar

you can increase the size with the settings editor you made!
see nToolFont100

Will it make labels go to the right of the icon?

btw there is a disabled imagelist too, sorry if you find it horrible

Is it there? Take a look how Office 2003/2007 renders disabled icons: they're the same images, but in grayscale. You can see the same image. Yours definitely don't look like that.

ps i just saw this in an online advertisement by IKEA: "our website won't impress with its graphics; we're swedish, we focus on substance"
I must be swedish then, from all this gloog wine we're drinking  :P

But you really do need to do some facelift on x2 eventually.

[fgagnon]

• (also from another of the lost posts of Dec. 17)

cosmo,
You can easily copy your normal layout configuration
to the x2solo layout by using
Window | Save layout... and name it x2solo

That way x2solo will have all your toolbars, etc. even though
it will still come up with a single folder pane and no tabs.  
To have it come up dual pane, and with current tabs preserved,
use regedit to remove the /1 switch and the /T switch, respectively,
from the x2solo (open_x2) command verbs under
HKCR\Directory\shell...   and also under  HKCR\Drive\shell...
(except the target folder for opening x2solo will replace the 'top' tab in the left pane).

[Cosmo]

cosmo,
You can easily copy your normal layout configuration
to the x2solo layout by using
Window | Save layout... and name it x2solo

Thank you for the reminder. I forgot about this.
Nevertheless I would prefer to see, that all the settings (toolbars, option, ...) get automatically copied from the default layout to the x2solo layout, when this gets used for the first time. Just as cloning a layout does it. This would be more logical to use.

... even though
it will still come up with a single folder pane ...

Perhaps I should point one thing out:
I do not say and I did not say, that there is something wrong with x2solo in general, and solo means single pane, doesn't it?
When I discussed the x2solo layout in the beta thread I said word by word 5 weeks ago:

So I am still on the task to find out, where the usefulness for me can be found. (Not to be misunderstood, other people might think about the feature with a different result, but you asked, what I am trying to do.)

I argued here against the compulsion of this layout in conjunction with the open_x2-shell-command by making the appropriate setting during install. Also against the impossibility to change this without a senseless (and for non-English user otherwise circumstantial) re-installation.

Having some more experience since the time of the beta test I say now: x2solo has it's place (and I mean: a valuable place) in certain situations (but is the wrong layout in other situations)

But back to your reminder: If a new instance of any program opens (here x2 with solo layout)) users will find it in 99% a bad surprise, if the settings in this new instance are different from the ones, the user has made - as long as the the user has not altered the settings from the second instance.

From general to special: If x2solo has not yet been used (and so the respective reg branch not yet created), the solo layout has to respect the settings from the default layout. E. G. it is absolute disastrous, if the user has set or unset (in default) show hidden files and folders or single click activation and the solo instance behaves different after the first launch.