I love your Xplorer2. You've done an excellent job of human engineering.
I change the inactive pane background color and find that visually it gets my attention whereas the active pane, with it's plain vanilla white color looks secondary.
Can you please provide a method to configure the color of the active pane? Given a choice, I would rather set the color for the active pane instead of the inactive pane.
Not good enough. The pane with the most intense or most noticeable color should be the active pane. Regardless of how dull the color that I make the inactive pane, it is still more noticeable than the white active pane.
Ken Curtis wrote:Not good enough. The pane with the most intense or most noticeable color should be the active pane. Regardless of how dull the color that I make the inactive pane, it is still more noticeable than the white active pane.
Greetings--
How about #f7ffff for the "rgbInactiveBgcol" registry key?
This is a valid user preference & useability issue.
See also this threadfor more discussion, including an acknowledgement by nikos that it might be addressed in a future edition.
I certainly would like to have something more distinct & eye-catching for the x2 active pane background -- something that is not shared as every-app's default.
A common background, by definition does not stand out.
And having an x2-unique background would also to identify its window more easily amid the clutter on my desktop.
however this way we throw guidelines for consistent GUI out of the window. Once we open such a windbag, you'd need tweaks for the tree, dialog backgrounds and all sorts of nasties!
I have to suggest also that active pane colours should be just as configurable as inactive pane .... especially since I am a user who does not use the dual pane mode. I would also suggest while on colour customisations, consideration of setting of different colours for different file types which I have seen on a number of explorer replacements
windinthew wrote:I have to suggest also that active pane colours should be just as configurable as inactive pane .... especially since I am a user who does not use the dual pane mode. I would also suggest while on colour customisations, consideration of setting of different colours for different file types which I have seen on a number of explorer replacements
although there should be a new thread for this probably, i definitely think that would be a kickass addition to the program. and EXTREMELY useful, which is why we use xplorer2 in the first place
it could be something as simple as a menu item to "set current filetype color"
Please expand on why colorizing by filetype would be functionally useful for you. (other than "it looks cool", describe the objective benefit)
There has been mention of colorizing encrypted files in green text; but nikos has yet to be convinced that doing so is other than unnecessary garish glitz.
fgagnon wrote:Please expand on why colorizing by filetype would be functionally useful for you. (other than "it looks cool", describe the objective benefit)
There has been mention of colorizing encrypted files in green text; but nikos has yet to be convinced that doing so is other than unnecessary garish glitz.
i was actually expecting to have to explain the reasoning. Primarily for me, as a game programmer, i have to deal with a wide variety of filetypes that have the same filenames or similiar, but different types (models/ animations/ and textures for example, as well as source files, depending on the directory structure). Now i know there is a filter command to easily see only files of one type, but in cases i deal with like these (there are many more), i want to be able to see all the files, but must also be aware of their type, which of course can be seen in the extensions column. However, especially with files with similiar names, its not uncommon when im in crunch mode and in a rush (too often) to get which file you were looking at mixed up with a different one when moving your eyes to the right to the extensions column, even with gridlines. I know there is also sorting by extensions, but in cases like these sorting by name is much more efficient. Its not like its some huge problem by any means, it almost never causes any mixups, but having the option for coloring certain types would make work just THAT much more efficient, and save me the 0.5 seconds it takes me to ensure im opening the correct file. Im strongly against bloated programs with a passion, but i feel that the feature has genuine usefullness to it, not just eyecandy. After all, its a built in feature in most *nix shells, even though they have extensions viewable and sorting options. If a user doesnt feel a need for it, then the can simply not use it. thats my rant
I can't tell for sure, but you state having to look in a different column for the file extension. Are you aware that the column contents are configurable? Go to menu View/Select Columns and pick and choose.
I have my X2 configured to only show
Name [S], Size [S], Modified [S] and Attributes [S] in that order
and have no problems viewing the difference between files having the same base name but different extensions.
If you already know about the above, just ignore this post.
I can't tell for sure, but you state having to look in a different column for the file extension. Are you aware that the column contents are configurable? Go to menu View/Select Columns and pick and choose.
I have my X2 configured to only show
Name [S], Size [S], Modified [S] and Attributes [S] in that order
and have no problems viewing the difference between files having the same base name but different extensions.
If you already know about the above, just ignore this post.
yes im aware, i have the extensions attached to the filename as well as in their own column. My post was worded a bit awkwardly. Even without the extension based coloring feature, its easy to see what the extension of a file is, the main benefit recieved from filetype coloring is that its much quicker to distinguish files by their type with a quick glance by the color as oppossed to reading each extension. i dont want to make a big deal out of it, its mostly a personal preference thing, as different people work and think most efficiently in different ways.
if you normally sort by other than type, in my view it's simply quicker to view the different colours for each extension than resort the columns and back again. I felt generally there should have been more options for working with colours, and yes for an end in itself as well as functionally. The whole point is more features than M$ explorer. There is useful colour differentiation all over this forum which guides the eye. Milliseconds saved add up in long sessions
