pick your favorite feature

[desslok]

the reason xplorer2 is hard to sell is that it does too many things.

Let me rephrase this a little bit. I think that many casual users don't know what file managers are all about. You are right that it's hard for the uninitiated to see the benefit of them because they offer a multitude of functions which by themselves don't particularly stand out. If people are in need of some specific function, there are usually free programs available that do just that. Search engine is one of them. Also, many casual users use some type of file managers that are catered to some specific need. There are good photo viewers/organizers available. Many music players nowadays come with a so-called library function. So the crux of the problem is the old "Jack of all trades" problem, as you say.

That's why i want to produce on the side plainer more focused tools

In light of that, this appraoch seems to be on the right track, and I'd say some type of copying/moving program (robust transfer) is the least crowded area to pursue. It's just that I am not sure if this function is enough to lure average users into your site. I think that a "copying untility" sounds, well, geeky to them. Also, it's likely that poeple who are interested in such things are already using some type of file managers.

Just my 2 cents.

[wasker]

As you may know, I've no longer have a day job  :shock: and consider whether xplorer2 will be my main job from now on.

Whoa, man, that's BIG! Congrats!

[nikos]

this decision wasn't mine -- the day job abandoned me
but there's no turning back now!

[sethr]

I consider robust transfer the feature that is most unique to x2, and also use it every day, so that is my vote in the poll.  

Also, I personally find that the way x2 retains folder locations and bookmarks to be the most intuitive for my use of the file managers I have tried.  

Nikos, I empathize with your situation.  The company I was working for folded in 2000, and I needed to strike out on my own.  (I am not in an IT business)  I hope it goes well for you, whatever you decide.

SethR

[wasker]

this decision wasn't mine -- the day job abandoned me
but there's no turning back now!

All in all, given the UK cost of living, this is huge to start living off your product alone. I wish you good luck!

[nikos]

i'm leaving UK in august, but i haven't decided where to yet, probably greece for the short term

[wasker]

It's good to be a part of EU...

[dunno]

I voted for Robust transfer, but....as you well know I think that it should have a option to overwrite folders completely without merging their contents, I won't belabour the point as its well covered in the other thread.

Perhaps rename Robust transfer to Smart Transfer or Smart Copy  I think this feature is worth its weight in gold.

[johngalt]

My vote made Search and Robust transfer even again - I rely way tooo much on the robust transfer....

[Ray]

the reason xplorer2 is hard to sell is that it does too many things. That's why i want to produce on the side plainer more focused tools

OK, that explains the question, I wasn't clear why you asked after reading the original post.

You haven't listed any of the features I love. I use 3rd party utilities for a lot of these.


robust transfers (F5)
Great freeware alternative, Teracopy, already available.
http://www.codesector.com/teracopy.asp
X2 beats it hands down, however, when you consider the advanced filters. (Slight digression: I hit Ctrl+F6 for some files on a CDROM & it copied them silently without warning me about not being able to move (delete) them off a CD)


Search engine (ctrl+F)
I use a 3rd party tool (Avafind) that monitors files in realtime, these have a HUGE advantage over regular search apps.
Eg: A lookup for *.txt finds 3946 files in 1.23 seconds, there's no way a conventional search app can compete with that. BTW the resource utilization is negligible.


duplicates finder
Again, lots of good apps already available but the advanced ones are shareware, something really good here (advanced image + audio file scanning with previews) could do well.
I use Easy Duplicate Finder which for some reason is way faster than the competition (although it does CRC checks.)

folder comparison & synchronization
Saturated once again, lots of excellent stuff (including freeware) already out there already.

mass renaming (joke!)
I have an excellent third party utility for this but funnily enough do most of my mass renaming within x2 because it's so much more convenient.
Super-saturated market once again.

OK, enough about other people's software - here's a solution that I've been looking that has limited players in the market and it's something at which you would have a running start. A robust file tagging solution! ADS just isn't reliable enough & a lot of files won't even let you write comments to them. An app that lets me tag my files in an easy way and offers a high degree of reliability would be a total winner, for me anyway. The tagging should be portable but there could be a monitoring app running in the background updating overall stats etc - a global interface could be presented, sort of a control-central. Since it is a file locating solution you could integrate it with a file search app (files monitored in realtime + usual advanced x2 filters +  appropriate previews for different kinds of media) - put all this together and you have a killer app.  :D

Better hurry up Nikos coz if you don't make it I will!  :P

[Robert2]

here's a solution that I've been looking that has limited players in the market and it's something at which you would have a running start. A robust file tagging solution! ADS just isn't reliable enough & a lot of files won't even let you write comments to them. An app that lets me tag my files in an easy way and offers a high degree of reliability would be a total winner, for me anyway. The tagging should be portable but there could be a monitoring app running in the background updating overall stats etc - a global interface could be presented, sort of a control-central. Since it is a file locating solution you could integrate it with a file search app (files monitored in realtime + usual advanced x2 filters +  appropriate previews for different kinds of media) - put all this together and you have a killer app.

My vote for this one! Plus the ability to flag specific files with colour coding or some symbol (for example, the ones that still need revising against the ones that don't).

[nikos]

yup, tag management is something else i have in mind

[dunno]

My vote for this one! Plus the ability to flag specific files with colour coding or some symbol (for example, the ones that still need revising against the ones that don't).

I use mp3tag  http://www.mp3tag.de/en/ for all my tagging, its easy and quick to use with a great UI. The reason I mention this is that I'd hate to see X2 become a "Jack of all trades and Master of none". X2 is extremely feature rich as it is more features might lead to user feature paralysis, where it takes more time trying to figure out how to do something than opening a stand alone application to do the same.

[Robert2]

As I understand things, Mp3tag is dealing with audio files only. My concern is with text files (HTML, RTF, DOC, programming, etc).

[Apollo]

I cast my vote for search engine. Between Xplorer2 and X1, I can find anything on my computer in a snap. X1 does index searching, but is limited in that it can't do substring searches. Xplorer2 is way more powerful but takes longer. Together, these two are indispensable for me since much of what I need a file manager for is finding things.