New user has issues with xplorer² Lite

schwit · Post by **schwit** » 2004 Dec 03, 16:18

Is there a way to reconfigure the xplorer² keyboard commands? xplorer² is powerful, no doubt, but I find it to be one step up and one step back. For ease use and quick acceptance xplorer² needs to comply with Windows' keyboard standards. Here's Microsoft's keyboard shortcuts standards
http://support.microsoft.com/default.as ... us;Q301583

I use the keyboard more than the mouse and consistency across applications is essential.

Post by **nikos** » 2004 Dec 03, 16:40

at present the only way you can reconfigure keys is with something like resource hacker

JDN · Post by **JDN** » 2004 Dec 04, 15:40

May I suggest you consider an independent hotkey manager?

I believe you could use one to change most any current hotkey assignment and that you could establish new hotkey definitions that would be able to use XPlorer2 in new and innovative ways.

For example (a VERY simple example), the first thing I did when learning about XPlorer2 was to create a hotkey for the Left Square Bracket that would send the equivalent of (ALT L) then O. This enabled me to hit a single convenient key and bring up the options menu. Lovely! Using a resource hacker might let you replace hotkeys on a one for one basis, but people familiar with hotkey managers will want to do more than that.

If you look at the thread that talks about additions to Chapter 8, I made a post there that explains a little about Hotkey Managers and why I think XPlorer2 can be used with an independent hotkey manager.

Please don't think I am criticising Nikos.

XPlorer2 has been designed with one of the nicest set of hotkeys of most any app. Nikos has put great care and attention into making most every function able to be done by either a mouse function or a keyboard function.

But using an independent hotkey manager will allow you to do much more and if you are not familiar with the functions of some of the more modern ones, you will be pleasantly surprised.

Although I did write an independent hotkey manager, it does not in any way compete with Xplorer2.

As a matter of fact, if Nikos looks at some hotkey managers and decides he would like to make access to my freeware hotkey manager available as part of XPlorer2, I would be happy to accomodate him for free.

XPlorer2 has a great hotkey implementation. But, in my opinion, making a full blooded hotkey manage available as a part of XPlorer would greatly improve its function.

Post by **nikos** » 2004 Dec 04, 18:04

i didn't really recommend using resource hacker; this isn't a sustainable solution since it has to be repeated every time a new version comes out

one day i'll write some code to allow all the commands within x2 to be remapped to user-defined keys

JDN · Post by **JDN** » 2004 Dec 05, 00:51

nikos wrote: one day i'll write some code to allow all the commands within x2 to be remapped to user-defined keys

I hope you will not mind if I express an opinion about your expending the effort to do that.

If you consider the very simple example I raised earlier that I want to be able to disply the Options dialog quickly (since I'm learning XPlorer2 and investigating about options) so I defined a hotkey that generated <ALT L> O. Those two keystrokes normally will display the Options menu by invoking Tools followed by Options.

I used a convenient key like the slash or semicolon or left square bracket so that I can display the Options dialog instantly just by hitting a single key.

If you were to add the code you are proposing, it would not handle a simple function like that because there is presently no single hotkey for that feature.

So I would think Xplorer2 would benefit from your time much more in other areas since a hotkey manager can accomplish this remapping and much more and many hotkey managers are readily available for free.

In addition, if you would like to discuss this in more detail (perhaps privately), I'm sure I can show you several other ways that functions typically available in hotkey managers could greatly enhance anyone's use of XPlorer2.

In particular, modern hotkey managers allow for the following advanced techniques that would be a real boon to anyone using X2:

. executable hotkeys
. snap backs
. nested hotkeys
. assignable hotkeys
. looping hotkeys
. data hotkeys

Post by **nikos** » 2004 Dec 05, 08:14

can you have hotkeys that only work in xplorer2?
otherwise you design a hotkey for a particular program only to discover it messes up another one!

JDN · Post by **JDN** » 2004 Dec 05, 10:06

Most hotkey managers are organized by using "hotkey definition files" and only one such definition file may be active at a time.

If it is possible to determine the app currently running, it should not be difficult to arrange for the hotkey manager to ensure the appropriate hotkey definition file is loaded for that individual app.

I haven't done that before, but I'd be willing to make it work for you.

To make my offer more formal,

If you would be interested in making my hotkey manager available as part of XPlorer2, I would be happy to turn over all the source code to you for free so that you may either distribute the app with X2 or depending on size and bandwidth constraints, you could simply add a link to the app so that people could download it separately - much like you do for your full documentation.

However, the real interesting issue would be to design a special hotkey definition file (or set of files) that would do some beautiful things for X2 and I would be happy to collaborate with you on that.

Given that you might someday be willing to expend some effort to modify X2 such that people could remap all of its hotkeys, I would venture a guess that with a similar expenditure of effort, you could make some changes to X2 that would make it receptive to a hotkey manager and I might make some changes to my hotkey manager to make it receptive to X2 so the two apps could run well together.

I would have to give it some thought to show you some examples of some interesting applications, but if you are willing to discuss it further, I would be happy to help.

To be clear, JDN Hotkeys is a freeware open source project so you have every right to take it and modify it to work well with X2. But it would be much better if we could collaborate a little so that any changes to the HK Manager were made in conjunction with changes to X2 so the two apps could work together.

Now back to your original question. I suspect there may be several solutions. One that comes to mind - if you were to download the basic version of JDN Hotkeys and take a quick run through the demo, you would see how I change apps with a single hotkey. At the time people switch from one app to another, the hotkey that makes the switch could also load the proper hotkey def file.

http://www.geocities.com/jdnhotkeys

But I think there are probably other ways to handle this.

The key thing is whether you might be willing to explore the area a little and see if you can agree that using a HK manager together with X2 would offer some benefits to users of X2.

My example of a hotkey that instantly displays the Options dialog by sending <ALT-L> O, is perhaps a simple starting point. Let me know if you would like to explore this area in more detail and I'd be happy to co-operate with you.

Post by **nikos** » 2004 Dec 05, 13:22

your hotkey manager is different to what i had in mind
i was thinking of simple remapping so e.g. people that prefered Refresh to be on F5 they could do it

your tool (which i haven't tried yet) seems to be one of those macro generators that can send a whole sequence of key and mouse events to any program (?)

thanks for your proposal for collaboration; i have to admit that at present i am concentrating on other priorities but i will surely come back to you on this one!

JDN · Post by **JDN** » 2004 Dec 05, 15:16

nikos wrote:your hotkey manager is different to what i had in mind
i was thinking of simple remapping so e.g. people that prefered Refresh to be on F5 they could do it

your tool (which i haven't tried yet) seems to be one of those macro generators that can send a whole sequence of key and mouse events to any program (?)

thanks for your proposal for collaboration; i have to admit that at present i am concentrating on other priorities but i will surely come back to you on this one!

It can do that - yes. But that is only one of many of its capabilities.

I took a few minutes to think of some ways that macro processors could enhance the working of XPlorer2 and in those few minutes, I've thought of several very nice examples.

IMO, there is a good synergy potential from using a hotkey manager and a file explorer together - no doubt about it.

luke · Post by **luke** » 2004 Dec 07, 10:56

For me, remapping of the shortkeys is good enough.

If every menu function can be mapped to any key combination, what more would one want?

At the moment I am using Macro Express to do this. But it would be a nice work if it can be done in Xplorer2 itself.

And also customizing the titlebar info and the statusbar is high on my wishlist.

JDN · Post by **JDN** » 2004 Dec 07, 12:25

luke wrote:For me, remapping of the shortkeys is good enough.

If every menu function can be mapped to any key combination, what more would one want?

That may be true if remapping functions is all you want to do.

But there are great opportunities for increased productivity by the ability to add some "programmable" elements to hotkeys.

For instance, suppose you would like to bring up the X2 options dialog as quickly as possible (this is just a simple example), it would be great to define a new key that is the sum of two or more existing keys.

This is something more than simple remapping (though not much more).

Advanced hotkey managers can do a large number of very advanced functions that can hugely impact your productivity and ease of use. Some of these things include:

"chained hotkeys", "executable hotkeys", "snap backs", “nested hotkeys", “assignable hotkeys”, "looping hotkeys", "data hotkeys" and "one touch" access to windows.

Let me know if any of these interest you and I'll send you a link where you can find more info.

luke · Post by **luke** » 2004 Dec 08, 21:26

Well the more functionallity the better I think, but I don't understand what functions you mean.

Your example to show the options window. If you could map that to F12 (i.e.) it can be done with simple remapping. Maybe you can give another example?

JDN · Post by **JDN** » 2004 Dec 08, 23:37

Hello Luke,

I've been thinking of creating a small sample definition file for my hotkeys manager showing some of the ways in which X2 and a hotkey manager can work well together.

In the meantime, I have to disagree that my example could be done with a simple remapping to F12.

First, in X2, in order to bring up the Options dialog, you have to issue two keystrokes. The first is Alt-L which brings up the "Tools" menu. The second is either "O" or Alt-O which brings up the Options dialog.

Assuming that a simple key-remapping will allow you to use any single key combination to remap to any existing accelerator key, the point of my simple example is that a simple key remapping won't do the trick since you need to generate two keystrokes to bring up the options dialog.

JDN · Post by **JDN** » 2004 Dec 09, 04:34

One big hurdle I face in preparing some kind of demo or sample hotkey definitions is that I can't figure out how to get X2 into a "known state".

That is, when someone starts X2, it's impossible to know whether it contains one pane or two and if it contains two panes, which one is active?

To further explain, it is easy for a person to know these things by simply looking at the screen.

But if I want to write a macro or hotkey to copy files from the left pane to the right, how can I know that I am in the left pane?

I hesitate to ask Nikos to provide a function that would ensure that if there are two panes, the left one is active.

But would anyone have any ideas on how I can arrange to put X2 into a "known state" so that any complex macro or hotkey will always have the same starting point to work with?

I suppose I can always limit the things to someone having to be present and look at the state of the screen and depending on that - choosing which macro to run.

But one of the things I like best about X2 is the synchronize ability. When I'm working on a large project, I may be making changes to a dozen different files spread out over several folders. I would love to be able to have a process start automatically every 15 minutes or so that would synchronize the folders involved to a floppy drive or handy drive backup and then make a backup of those files that have changed.

How sweet would that be?

Unfortunately, the only thing I can see at this time is to use a special startup of X2 using the register switch that lets you specify a registry key to ensure the state of X2 is known - so that I can tell left from right.

To explain, when I start X2 from the command line, Nikos has created the ability to specify a parameter using the /S switch that lets you access a special version of all the installation dependent info. Like this:

c:\program files\xplorer2_lite\xplorer2.exe "c:\ d:\ /S:LEFT"

So if I start XP using a specific switch (like /S:LEFT) and then set it to have two panes and set the left pane active and then exit, I can be sure that anytime my automated process starts X2 using that same /S:LEFT parm, it will contain two panes and the left one will be active.

This seems important to me - to know the starting poing - so that a script, macro or hotkey chain would be able to automatically synchronize the files I'm working on and save an updated copy. Even if no one is sitting at the machine at the time and no one is available to look at the screen and determine which pane is active.

I hope I explained that OK.

Anyone have any ideas?

fgagnon · Post by **fgagnon** » 2004 Dec 09, 05:04

Instead of hard-coding left or right pane, use Active & Inactive pane designations -- That way it matches x2's normal references & the way robust copy & move are rooted.

(But it does presume dual pane config.)