New Features / Changes At The Top Of My List

Suggestions and feature requests.
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Bearded Kirklander
Posts: 250
Joined: 25.07.2008, 12:54

New Features / Changes At The Top Of My List

#1 Post by Bearded Kirklander » 08.10.2008, 01:14

I'm finding a list of items that I would like to have addressed in Free Commander, and it just keeps growing. Stupid brain just won't stop kicking out stuff - guess I'm way too enthusiastic about the program and get way excited about just how good it could get.

But, there are some features that seem to float to the top of my "hey, this is kind of important" list, and I thought it would be helpful (at least to me, maybe to others) what some of those are.

I don't mean to be annoying - I'm just an enthusiastic fan. :)

Anyway, here is my first shot:

TOP ITEMS OF CONCERN:

1 - Preserve Folder Dates and Times in Copy and Move operations

This would be invaluable for backing up data.

As it is now, if you copy folders from your local drive to an external backup drive, those newly created folders on the backup drive are actually "Newer" than the originals on your local drive.

That makes selection, comparing and synchronizing folders by date and time very difficult to do accurately and undermines the effectiveness of that feature.

Individual files retain their original date and time by default, but folders do not get the same treatment by default. I feel that adding a check box to enable / disable the "Preserve Folder Date and Time" would be an excellent addition.

Backing up data is one of the most important things that users can do, after all, and Date / Time comparisons can be very helpful to that process.

2 - Ability to GO UP One Additional Level In File Panes

In PowerDesk Pro 5, if you are in the root folder of a drive and press the Backspace key or click the GO UP bar in the file list, it allows you to access the MY COMPUTER area from within the file pane.

This makes it very easy to use the keyboard to navigate to any drives, devices and folders that you wish to.

As FC is now, once you hit the root folder, you cannot go any higher. But if we could go up one level to MY COMPUTER, users could press the Backspace key, navigate with up and down arrows (or left and right, home, end, page up and page down) to find the drive or device they wish to access and then press the ENTER key to go down one level to the root folder of that drive.

Say you are in the root folder of Drive D and want to access a shared folder. You just press BACKSPACE, use the down arrow a few times to get to the NETWORK container, navigate to the resource you want and just press ENTER andyou are there.

Doing it with the keyboard is MUCH faster than doing it with the mouse, and allowing users to GO UP that one extra level could really help improve productivity.

3 - Maintain Position Of Selected Folder In The File Pane When Going Up

You have a long list of folders with sub folders. You navigate with the keyboard until you find the folder you want and press the ENTER key to go to the sub-folder. When you have completed the task in that sub-folder and press the BACKSPACE key to navigate back up to the original folder, suddenly that selected folder is at the bottom of the File List inside of the left or right pane.

Instead of defaulting to the bottom, could you simply restore it to the same position on the screen that it was when you first entered its sub-folder?

This is important because it helps preserve the "Context" in which you were functioning.

Say you have 50 folders, and 10 consecutive entries need to have some files within them updated and have those folders renamed for each identification later.

The user may choose to position the first of those 10 entries in or near the middle of the file list, for example, so that they can see all 10 at a time.

If you wish to repeat the "Press Enter On Folder To Enter, Edit Text File Within That Folder, Press Backspace To Return" sequence for each of those 10 folders, it is somewhat "jarring" to suddenly have that folder appear at the bottom of the file list pane instead of where it was when you drilled down to it initially.

It would be especially important to return to the original location if you are using other folders as examples when you wish to RENAME the folder you just returned to.

If you are able to return to the exact same position in the file pane, you could not only see the 10 folders with which you are working, you could easily spot the folder name format you wish to duplicate if it was still shown in the list like it was when you entered the folder.

As it is now, if the folder demonstrating that format example was shown in the file list as being below the folder you just returned to, you have to manually navigate back down until you find that example again.

That takes extra time and can lead to more mistakes.

But if you preserve the Context / Location, the user will not need to do that. They just hit the backspace key and they are right where they started and can move on to the next folder in the sequence of 10 without losing sight of all 10 of the folders and the folder name example shown below it.

I hope that makes sense.

COMMENTS:

So that is my first list of requests and their descriptions. I would appreciate it if these could be looked over and taken into consideration. If you have any questions, please post.

I do hope this turns out to be a useful / helpful exercise.

Thank you.

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Fad
Posts: 137
Joined: 21.10.2007, 16:22
Location: England

#2 Post by Fad » 08.10.2008, 13:18

I don`t think you can be TOO enthusiastic ! :D

I agree with points 2 & 3.....#1 doesn`t affect me personally, but I can see where you are coming from.

and I think #3 is a very good idea.....I do find it quite annoying sometimes to find that when I come back out of a folder, that it`s at the bottom......

if you are doing several things between folders in both panes and trying to keep track of where they are, it`s easy to get lost when they appear at the bottom.

As for #2...I only exclusively ever use the Go Up strips, but being able to get to the system root could be useful, by whichever method you choose.

Bearded Kirklander
Posts: 250
Joined: 25.07.2008, 12:54

#3 Post by Bearded Kirklander » 08.10.2008, 13:28

Fad wrote:As for #2...I only exclusively ever use the Go Up strips, but being able to get to the system root could be useful, by whichever method you choose.
I'm an old keyboard fan from way back. I used Norton Commander for DOS extensively and really got used to the flexibility.

PowerDesk Pro 5 has that "backup one more level" feature, and I use it all the time.

But if that feature was in Free Commander, there would be one less reason for me to use PowerDesk.

Anyway, I hope Marek considers these. I don't have the programming skills to do it myself, so all I can do is make these feature requests and hope that they become part of the program.

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clanman
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Location: Australia

#4 Post by clanman » 09.10.2008, 00:06

I can really support point 2. The lack of access to My Computer functionality is a major shortcoming of FC.

I acknowledge most of the functions of My Computer can be accessed by the Special Folders icon but not all (eg: devices that are accessed via a driver and not an actual drive letter - some cameras and PDA's for example).
Regards

Clanman
Using FreeCommander XE 2022 Build 860 32-bit public on Windows 11

wkrekik
Posts: 58
Joined: 24.10.2007, 11:14

#5 Post by wkrekik » 09.10.2008, 11:27

I support your 3 points

Bearded Kirklander
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#6 Post by Bearded Kirklander » 09.10.2008, 12:00

wkrekik wrote:I support your 3 points
Thanks. It kind of makes me "validated". :)

It also makes me wish that Marek actually had 30 hours a day available to him so he'd have an extra 6 hours each day to work on Free Commander! <GRIN>

Bearded Kirklander
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#7 Post by Bearded Kirklander » 28.10.2008, 12:32

Any progress on any of these? Comments? Thoughts?

I'm not sure what the development schedule is, so I thought I'd better ask again.

Thanks very much.

chantoine
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#8 Post by chantoine » 28.10.2008, 13:21

hello,

+1 especially for point 3

Christophe

Bearded Kirklander
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#9 Post by Bearded Kirklander » 30.10.2008, 02:48

It looks as if Marek is working hard on squashing some bugs and I'm hoping he can find the time for these in the near future.

Bearded Kirklander
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Joined: 25.07.2008, 12:54

#10 Post by Bearded Kirklander » 29.01.2009, 19:02

I'd still very much like to see these implemented. Anyone care to fill us in on when the next beta is coming? I'm looking forward to it.

Thank you much.

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Dreamer
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#11 Post by Dreamer » 30.01.2009, 01:41

Marek is working on the new version, but I think even he doesn't know when exactly the new version will be ready. He is busy and he's working also on the "NEXT" version. So please be patient. :)

Bearded Kirklander
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#12 Post by Bearded Kirklander » 30.01.2009, 01:44

Hanging in there. I would have thought that 2009.1 would be out in January. I'm sort of guessing that it'll pretty much be the same as Beta396, only with a few extra fixes?

Would be nice to share the goodness of a final version with everybody. It's a great app.

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