Hold auto-refresh (once again)

flexigon · Post by **flexigon** » 2003 Nov 22, 13:54

Well, this can't be right: When doing a manual refresh of a folder while Hold Auto-refresh is activated, the folder is refreshed (which is good) but Hold auto refresh is also deactivated. I think it should be possible to do manual refreshes of folders while Hold auto refresh is enabled.

Post by **nikos** » 2003 Nov 22, 17:27

forced refresh "cheats" by re-reading the folder, whereupon the suspension is lifted just like as if you moved to another folder. Refresh is faster this way. As for the holdAutorefresh, it can be good or bad depending on your standpoint!

flexigon · Post by **flexigon** » 2003 Nov 22, 21:14

Hold auto refresh is good... (actually necessary when working on often updated folders) but IMO it still should be possible to do manual refreshes while it is enabled (and keep it enabled). The way it currently behaves just doesn't make much sense from a user's standpoint I think (regardless of how it is implemented internally). Why on earth would one want to re-enable auto-refreshes automatically after a manual refresh while you *specifically* have disabled AUTO-refeshing earlier?

I also think that hold auto refresh should be left enabled even when browsing to a different folder. Making it a global toggle for the active panel would make much more sense (of course the there has to be one auto-refresh to display the content of the new folder, but after that I see no reason why not to re-apply hold auto-refresh if the user has enabled this).

I just don't like applications automatically changing a setting I specifically have enabled/disabled earlier, it reminds me too much of the way many so-called "intelligent" MS programs behave.

fgagnon · Post by **fgagnon** » 2003 Nov 22, 23:21

As I recall, the hold auto-refresh feature was added to address the need for renaming files in oft-updated folders & was set up as if this would be a special case -- hence the current behaviour to cancel the hold when moving elsewhere.
But, now that x2 has this very good (& necessary) feature, I do agree with flexigon that it makes more sense to associate it with the pane from which it was invoked & leave it that way for all folders browsed in that pane until explicitly changed back by the user.
Yes, it's a user preference, nikos; but I think it will be easier for most users to follow this way (& not think of the behaviour as wierd).

JRz · Post by **JRz** » 2003 Nov 23, 10:16

I don't entirely agree with keeping the disable auto-refresh on permanently (per pane separately). You'd forget you've disabled the auto-refresh very easily and get weird behaviour that way, especially when you keep X2 open all the time like I do.

I do agree to make it user configurable, so you can choose to switch this re-enabling of auto-refresh on or off when changing folders or doing a manual refresh. That way the user can create his own disasters

By the way: the disabling of auto-refresh has not only been implemented for the rename to function properly, but it also was a nuisance when you want to scroll in the pane using mouse (scrollbar), because with every refresh action, X2 wants to get the selected item back into the viewable part of the pane, thus (partially or worse) undoing your mouse-scroll action.

Post by **nikos** » 2003 Nov 23, 11:46

the last point is no longer an issue, fixed

suspending autorefresh for long periods makes the program look "broken"
if you want to keep a folder in suspended mode it's much easier to spawn a new instance with ctrl+N and leave the original

but i'll make the refresh turn the hold bit on as long as one stays in the same folder