arrange icons in groups

machina · Post by **machina** » 2005 Mar 16, 14:50

hi, i have tried out xplorer² recently and really find the tabs useful as i use a litestep theme without a taskbar.

well, the only thing preventing me to turn completely from explorer is its "arrange icons in groups"-feature. did i by chance overlook such a feature?
if not, this would be a request, whether for the professional or lite version :)

Post by **nikos** » 2005 Mar 16, 16:18

i guess the main reason is that the group feature would be available only in XP

i have some great ideas about groups, a feature underused in explorer IMHO (only for "my computer", no?) but we'll have to wait a while

machina · Post by **machina** » 2005 Mar 17, 10:55

thank you for the answer

i actually use it to view everything, but the main thing is that i have a launcher folder in which i sort my programs according to their type (e.g. audio players etc) and view it in groups which i use instead of the startmenu.

Post by **nikos** » 2005 Mar 17, 16:21

you mean that your explorer can arrange programs by type?

machina · Post by **machina** » 2005 Mar 19, 11:23

sorry i was slow in replying.
let me clarify:
i add shortcuts into a folder and give comments to them about their type (as stated, e.g. "Audio Players". Then i "choose details" (view -> chose details) and sort by comments. took me a while to figure this out, but it is a very nice startmenu replacement

.

Post by **nikos** » 2005 Mar 19, 12:47

xplorer2 can do that too!
i thought you were talking about XP proper groups, the way explorer shows "my computer"

TiKu · Post by **TiKu** » 2005 Mar 19, 14:25

XP's grouping feature is not restricted to "My Computer". You can group any folder.

machina · Post by **machina** » 2005 Mar 20, 02:14

hm?... i do use the "show in groups" function for this, b/c otherwise i couldn't see the categories

Post by **nikos** » 2005 Mar 20, 11:15

You can group any folder

for real, but you don't get much of extra functionality
it's a cosmetic uplift of traditional sort by any column

fgagnon · Post by **fgagnon** » 2005 Mar 20, 14:47

IMHO there IS extra functionality --
The groupings showcase the utility of secondary sorts.
For example when grouping by modified dates, the date ranges are broken into human-familair chunks. viz:
Today,
Yesterday,
Last week,
Two weeks ago,
Earlier this month,
Last month,
Two months ago,
Earlier this year,
Last year,
Two years ago,
A long time ago.

and then sorted by name within the groups.
Very human user-friendly for average folks.

Post by **nikos** » 2005 Mar 20, 18:28

but x2 also secondary sorts by name!
and in the near future it will do multi-way sorts too, by many columns at one time

TiKu · Post by **TiKu** » 2005 Mar 20, 18:32

With groups, you aren't bound to the 'Details' view mode anymore, because grouping works with other view modes, too.

fgagnon · Post by **fgagnon** » 2005 Mar 20, 18:45

Also, as I tried to highlight, groups are moderate-size block of files having similar (but not necessarily identical) primary sort parameter values.

With x2 the date modified sort only does secondary sort with items having identical date/time values.

I see the x2 current approach as less user-friendly for many folks, when compared to the XP exploder capability of grouping the dates in user-recognizable time blocks and presenting the larger content groups sorted by the secondary parameter (which I think is only by name).

Post by **nikos** » 2005 Mar 20, 18:58

in my line of business, it won't help me to know that 2 files were changed "a long time ago", i need to know their relative order

but i grant you that non-programmer types may be not as rigid
still i believe this group thingy is just a gimmick
plenty room for improvement, watch this space!

machina · Post by **machina** » 2005 Mar 21, 10:04

here's what i mean:

if you group by filetype it's also faster to move certain filetypes.

uh... hope you don't mind posting an img this "large".