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File Managers! Windows Explorer replacement! Come one, come all...
Darwin:
Thanks for posting with the links, JohnFredC - I was in a rush and didn't include them. You've included some I'd forgotten about, too like ABCommander. Another is Frigate 3.
I was seriously tempted to buy licences for both V - The File Viewer (I like the built in text editing, for a start) and Total Commander. However, I have licences for DirOpus 9, Frigate 3 (from Giveawayoftheday), DJFV Deluxe, AccelMan (also courtesy of Giveawayoftheday), XYPlorer, ZTreeWin, PowerDesk Pro 6, not to mention I still have FMStepUp installed (using NT 4's winfile.exe)... I've forgotten one or more of them, but such is life... xplorer2 looks attractive as well... Ultimately, my problem is that I love this genre of application. However, I can't use the managers I've got (I have four installed with DOpus as my default and as the Windows Explorer replacement).
Great comments so far. I agree with JohnFredC that this will be an interesting thread if we can discuss the merits of different solutions with objectivity and moderation, which is how I envisioned it when I started it.
Darwin:
Is UltraExplorer worthy of consideration (http://www.mustangpeak.net/subdomains/ultraexplorer/index.html)?
-mwb1100 (August 30, 2007, 04:08 PM)
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Certainly! And another that I was aware of and had forgotten about (I'll stop making these claims now because we could probably populate several pages with post/responses in this vein!). I think ANY file manager is grist for the mill in here. I know that there are some Servant Salamander fans active here in these forums - this is another app I've been tempted by in the past and I'd love to hear from some active users as to theri likes and dislikes about it.
Armando:
Is UltraExplorer worthy of consideration (http://www.mustangpeak.net/subdomains/ultraexplorer/index.html)?
-mwb1100 (August 30, 2007, 04:08 PM)
--- End quote ---
There's a thread on UltraExplorer.
PS. Another thing which could be useful would be to link this thread to all threads discussing various Explorer replacements.
Edit : ahahah Darwin, once more posted at the same time
Dirhael:
NOTE: The following post is in response to the posts by JohnFredC in the Xplorer^2 thread.
Not to get in a pissing match, but since my post has been impugned, I'll respond with a couple of challenges to any other file manager (not just xplorer2).
The challenge:
Rename a set (ie. more than one) of image files (*.jpg, for instance) to include the dimensions of the image file in the filename.
To wit:
Original filename: MyFile.jpg
Output: MyFile.640x480.jpg
Stipulation: No spaces may be included in the resulting file name.
This is a prima facia example of the integration of metadata into TC. The rename template for the filename portion in TC would be: [N].[=imgsize.x]x[=imgsize.y]
Where:
[N] ...denotes the original filename
[=imgsize. ...denotes a specific (free) TC content plugin implemented by a user
.x] ...denotes one of the plugins calculated metadata values (the x dimension of the image)
.y] ...denotes the other dimension.
Extra credit:
Sort the file display ascending by the Y dimension.
-JohnFredC (August 29, 2007, 12:38 PM)
--- End quote ---
Ok, after reading your posts in the Xplorer^2 thread it's hard not to see it as anything but a pissing contest but ok, I'll take your challenge. After all, who am I to judge? ;) I give you the Directory Opus way:
Renaming the files to include the X & Y resolution:
File Managers! Windows Explorer replacement! Come one, come all...
(You don't need to use th regex method, but it's my prefered method so...)
Sorting ascending by Y dimension (height):
File Managers! Windows Explorer replacement! Come one, come all...
(I can also save this format for this folder, this and all subfolders, all folders in general and more. Notice how there is a ton+1 different fields available...and that's just in this category. Extra point to Dopus for not forcing me to install a single plugin to do this, something that TC does)
Second challenge:
For folders only (ie the column should be blank for files), show a column in the file display named "Folders/Files" that shows the number of subfolders and "subfiles" in each folder, separated by a slash.
To wit:
12/77
Extra credit:
In the file list, automatically highlight each folder that has > 300 subfiles in red.
-JohnFredC (August 29, 2007, 01:00 PM)
--- End quote ---
Display subfolder and file count for folders, leaving the column empty for filenames:
File Managers! Windows Explorer replacement! Come one, come all...
No, it doesn't separate it with a slash, and doesn't colourize them but other than that I can do it. The slash thing is just nitpicking, while the colourize thing being the only thing I can see any use for. Anyway, to make a point in that I have many other options in Dopus, I added two different ways of displaying the subfolder count; one of them displays the subfolders 1 level deep, and the other displays the total number of subfolders, no matter how deep down they are.
Here's an example that matters if you work in thumbnails mode:
In xplorer2, display thumbnails. Now sort them by date. To do that, you must either select View>Arrange By>Date or press a 3-key short cut. Either way, that's three clicks. Further, there is no obvious way in xplorer2 to make a tool button to perform the sort.
In TC you click once on the column header for date.
I'm not singling xplorer2 out, here. No other file manager I know of displays the column headers in thumbnail mode. And this is a really big deal if you need to sort your thumbs by a custom column not accounted for by the menu.
For instance, in xplorer2, how would one sort image thumbs by image dimensions? Or by age in days? Or by an EXIF value? One can do these things, of course (switch to detail mode, sort, switch back to thumbs), but extra steps are involved.
When one file manager takes three steps for another file manager's one step, and the activity represented by those steps is performed repetitively day after day, month after month, year after year, that "two step" ;) difference really begins to add up.
-JohnFredC (August 30, 2007, 12:33 PM)
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In Dopus you can just create a toolbar button for the sort methods you want available, no matter what display mode you're in or if it is something not displayed in the usual "sort by" menus. More importantly, with Directory Opus you can save display modes, including sort method, for individual folders and this will automatically get applied as soon as you enter said folder. This for me is a much more intuitive method. That, and the fact that I can use folder content auto detection so that I don't even have to bother clicking anything to get the display modes I want.
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All that said, I still really like TC (and own a license for it and use it regularly) but it is not the "alpha & omega" of file management. It all depends on what you need and like.
Darwin:
Nice Dirhael! I love DOpus and have been using it through versions 6,8 and now 9 (over four years and counting) and it blows me away how much there is to learn about it (rephrased: how much I don't bloody well know!).
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