Nikos, would you alter the Lite license, please?

[peter.s]

This is not a joke: I kindly ask you to change the license of your freeware a little bit so that commercial use become lawful.

At this time, it is

"The free version is for private (home) or academic (school & university) and general non-profit use only. You cannot use it in any commercial context, including but not limited to: corporate, office, military, government etc. All commercial users must obtain a license for the full version."

And I would like it to include any commercial, etc. use, at the condition that on the same computer there is a legit Pro (or "Ultimate") version installed.

I own Pro Lifetime, and I discovered that in my heavily macro-driven system, it's possible to install Pro and Lite at the same time, and then to address them with different commands (since they are named differently and are within different folders, too, and similar with registry entries, etc. - btw this is not only an extremely good, but also very rare a concept, most paid software overwrites the "trial"/free version and vice versa).

This way, I could use my paid copy in the traditional way, two-pane, NC/TC "replacement", and for general use with all the goodies of the paid version.

But at the same time, I could have an additional pane, without too much clutter (of course I have to live with the menu cut up into several rows, since it cannot be hidden - to be able to hide the menu when not needed, and when it really is a nuisance, i.e. whenever you just want a single list of some files, in a narrow single X2 pane, would also be a good idea for the paid versions, too, imo), and which only shows me, as an add-on to my main program, relevant files, i.e. a specific sub-folder relevant to the file I'm working in my main program, this being automated by a macro.

I suppose I could get a similar functionality by using one of those "scrap panes" within my pro version, but that would be a lot of fiddling around then in order to make it as independent as possible from the traditional two-pane main X2 window, so I'd prefer to simply, and legitimately, install both versions.

I know that the last sentence of the above license could be interpreted as an authorization to employ the Lite version in the above scenario, but then, the first and second sentence contradict this interpretation. My problem with the current license is not so much my possible own concurrent use of both versions, but I would like to give this advice to other people, "buy one the paid versions, and then use them both, the free one, too, on the same machines", and it goes without saying that such advice cannot be given within the context of the current license.

Btw, I also created this thread in order to share my idea.

[nikos]

if you want to have different "modes" in the pro version just save extra layouts, see WINDOW menu

[peter.s]

Now of course this thread is within the "wrong" folder, since we're discussing Pro. But if I understand the help file well (pdf is 450 pages, so I might have overlooked something), I can have different layouts alternatively, i.e. one OR the other, and then switch between them. This is NOT what I want, I would like to have the classic two-pane layout available for manual file operations and such, AND I want a minimalist window for "extra files" = on several screens, at the same time.

I see I could run several instances of Pro concurrently, but this is not the same thing, since the identification of the different instances then would be a problem: This unnecessarily complicates the macros that address one or the other, or even makes them unreliable.

In fact, you allow TWO instances of Pro running at the same time, for people who have just bought ONE license of Pro. So where would be the problem to allow concurrent run of the paid version, and of the free version (which is "less", in some way)?

Are my above assumptions right, or is there a way to display two "layouts" concurrently? I suppose that in the end, it would be simpler to have the classic layout, PLUS some additional "scrap box", and address that. But I would have been free to just display the "extra list", without having to bother with the (often unnecessary) "main window" - all this unnecessarily complicates my idea.

In fact, I'm just asking for paying users being allowed to use the free version even for commercial purposes, at the condition that on that very computer there is a legit pro or "ultimate" version installed, and then that they be free to open that, too, or to leave it dormant.

Thank you, too, for answering my question about pic displays; being on XP, I wasn't aware that from Vista on, this problem has been resolved by the os.

[peter.s]

It also does not seem to be possible to have a scrap container open for some specific folder, i.e. when I dragdrop a folder into it, then click on it, it opens in Windows Explorer, instead of listing the files in the container, and in the right click menu, I don't see a way for it either - and the container menu cannot be hidden either if I didn't overlook how to do it.

Of course I could dragdrop all the files of the specific folder into the container, instead, but then, any update of the original folder (additions at least) would not be replicated within the container.

[FrizzleFry]

In pro you can have several different layouts open at the same time... just set an x2 window however you want it then from Window menu save layout... then you can launch that layout from the Window menu whenever you want... you can also add layouts as toolbar buttons or launch different layouts from their own shortcut using the /s:<layout name> parameter...

[peter.s]

Thank you for answering, FrizzleFry. I don't that much understand the possibility to have those different layouts shown at the same time, though.

I have to say that I stop now to consider X2 as a component in a broader file management system, there is just not enough interest in such a thing from the part of Nikos, as with my ADS question some months ago (both with X2 and with DO, ADS can be used beyond XP, and with X2, it's realized in a very good manner, but then, this ADS use in Win7/8/etc. appears to be more or less proprietary even if originally it was not; similar, XY has got a proprietary metadata system from start on, and the developer has promised to switch to the then-standard ADS to his users, without doing it, and now, given the original inability of Win7/8/etc to process those properly on their own, it seems he will both never do it, and even that would be devoid of sense - I asked here for possible alternatives and/or for possible means to ACCESS those ADS written/read by X2 by other means, to make it less proprietary, and I finally did not get ANY hint to a possible solution, neither here nor with extensive search in the web on my own, so I have to consider X2 ADS as "proprietary" for current Win os, which makes it unusable within a broader scale (and yes, I know that corporate network servers don't necessarily use NTFS to begin with), or with my question, again some months ago, re manual sorting and/or "formatting" of entries in additional panes = "virtual collections" / "virtual folders", = bolding/coloring entries and such - X2 has some good elements with big potential... AND THEN NOTHING, so I better accept Nikos' unavailability for external ideas to broaden X2's usefulness in "professional" environments, "profession" NOT meaning individual programmers/nerds, but laymen's use in a network, i.e. availability to "professional consumers": The "philosophy" of X2 simply is not aimed at such use, and I accept this, finally.

For the time being, I just continue to use X2 for that "simple list" pane (= unique layout that way, content by scripting), and to use SpeedCommander in its traditional 2-pane layout for "manual" file operations... and XY for pic browsing. Btw, Nikos told me re pic browsing that X2 deliberately inserts that pause I have noticed before display, and I perfectly understand the idea behind, but then, there should be an option / toggle: "normal mode" vs. "pic browse mode" in which this pause would be avoided - problem solved, but again, I better use XY instead of waiting for such a toggle in X2 for 5 years, right?

I originally bought X2 for all those additional containers, i.e. its USP compared with its competitors, but the step to make them work in a real practical way has never been made: to bring another example, coupling them, docking them, etc.: there is much too much mouse fiddling with all this, or then, there would be too much external scripting needed in order to bring all this into a real pleasant framework. So in the end, there was lots of wishful thinking, triggered from "good starts", and where I erroneously supposed the respective "next steps" would also be done, but of course it's up to the developer to decide upon his roadmap, and not on a customer having bought a single license... and as it stands, there can't be any sales triggered by me, for this file commander.

Fortunately, for anybody who does scripting, most functionality of file commanders is available for your scripts, from accessing the internal Win functions, without there any file commander being present (just one example, creation of links, and in exactly the form you need it, not in the form your respective file commander does it for you, with then unnecessary macroing for renaming the new link file, and there are dozens of examples of this kind) - btw, that's why there are so many (paid and free) file commanders out there, most of the work is just doing a gui for commands that are already there. And this means that of course it's possible to have your own file lists (or just one, in this case), just from scripting, no X2 Lite version needed for this. In the meanwhile, I use X2 Pro for that file list I need, before having scripted my own list pane together. That might be called "blatant underuse", but such is life: Sometimes, you buy a pair of shoes, thinking you'll walk many km within them, and then you just wear them for the midnight mass once a year, and they are as good as new when you die.

Let's speak plain English: In XP time, there have only been two file commanders around that properly processed ADS, i.e. X2 and DO, and DO not only is three times the price of X2, but X2 did (and does) it much, much better than DO, so at that time, X2 was the thing to get, for ADS. But now most people have left XP, X2's ADS fine processing does not seem to be of big use anymore, so it would have been in Nikos' interest to enter a discussion about how to process file metadata today and tomorrow, instead of his (presumed) stance, current X2 ADS is good enough (since by MS' decision, it's become an obsolete/legacy format you cannot sell anymore as a viable current and durable solution). And in the same line of thought, it's not really constructive to reject ideas (backed-up with explanations what it is good for) for pane enhancement (see above) by a "You have a lot to learn yet about X2" (when in fact your problem was not not seeing the respective functionality, but the missing functionality).

So in the end, Nikos is very straight on his X2, it's "Take it or leave it". Accepted. No additional sales for X2 via my efforts. If you need a file commander just in the traditional layout for additional manual work here and here, any free one will do (even those that allow commercial use because they don't even have any paid version to begin with).

I would have preferred another stance from the developer, but then, you can't pretend I didn't try to make him adopt a more constructive position. X2 is for nerds, and that is it. As said, accepted.

[nikos]

just use Window menu to open other layouts as necessary, in parallel