Feature Request - Small Enhancements for Directories Browsing.

[jau1982]

Hi everyone,

First traditionally I want to say that this program rocks !. However I would like to see some improvements for the Directory Browsing functionality. Maybe I'm using it wrong - in that case some directions would be very nice .

Use case:
What I want to achieve is to create some aliases to my most used directories. Currently when I do it - using a keyword, regexp and a directory - if I type it in FARR - I get the the directory path in result list as a first entry. It is great. If I press Enter my Total Commander goes to that directory.

Problems:
1) If as the dir I enter root drive i.e. C:\ or C: then browsing the subdirectories is not possible. When entering the alias in far, I get a result which will show this directory, however it is not possible to enter the subdirectories, only launch it.
2) I also tried to make an alias which would expand c to c:\ and allow also to explore it, but I don't know how to do / whether it is possible. The reason why I want to do it is because access to the \ key is not so fast on my laptop.

Suggested solution:
FARR could check if the entered path or alias resolution is a directory (standard or UNC if it is supported). If yes and the first search result is a directory then pressing right or alt+right would expand the path to this subdir path.

What do you think of this? Maybe there is another solution that I don't see?


Regards,
Mateusz F.

[d4ni]

Simply create a shortcut to the folder you wish to add in the \scripts\ directory (or basically any directory that farr searches). That way farr will autocomplete and you can browse the directory.

The shortcut to C:\ could be named simply 'C' or maybe something like 'System' and it works just fine

~edit

About the C: -> C:\ issue; you can enter it once and farr will then autocomplete it from C: if you enable history. It's not a permanent solution, though, as farr will over time 'forget' that history item if you do not regularly open C:\ (so not any of its subdirs). Other history items will overwrite it eventually. However, creating a shortcut to C:\ named just 'C' will still do the trick.

[jau1982]

Hi,

The thing with the shortcut works however there are some problems with it. I'll play with the way it works later. My next question is: there is a folder called scripts as you pointed me to it. Unfortunately not all shortcuts are expanded. For example there is no problem with My Documents becase it is a single "standard" folder. However Control Panel and My Documents are not possible to be browsed (cpl files and windows special folders). Would it be hard to enhance farr to expand them too? Alternatively could a plugin do it *seamingly*? If yes then I could code something in javascript or .net or c/c++. Some pointers would be nice though.

Thanks,
Mateusz F.

[d4ni]

I also have a folder in my scripts folder which contains my entire control panel (all shortcuts), so I use that as a workaround. I do not need to browse the control panel as I know what I need from it. As far as I know it is currently not possible to browse the control panel using FARR.

I do not know anything about the development of plugins for farr nor the farr api so you would have to ask mouser (he created farr and responds very frequently here on the forum, so just wait )

[mouser]

Leaving aside control panel expansion, which is not currently possible, you could do what you want by setting up a regular expression alias and using the "dosearch" alias command.

so let's say you wanted to use FARR's built in directory browsing functionality for some folders but you dont want to have to type out their whole names just to browse/find/search them.

create an alias like this:


After that you could just type:
mycode

To show the contents of the E:\MyDocs\Programming\ directory, as if you had typed that whole string.
This also allows you to type: mycode\cpp to browse E:\MyDocs\Programming\cpp
And so on.

The dosearch alias command lets you type one thing and have FARR behave as if you typed something else.