Author Topic: Configuring Directory Opus for Fun and Profit (Read 42502 times)

Innuendo · « **on:** January 02, 2012, 02:32 PM »

Well, I haven't figured out the 'for profit' part yet, but in the grand scheme of things I don't feel too bad about that because I haven't really figured out the 'for fun' part yet, either.

I finally jumped on the Directory Opus bandwagon via the deal I posted in the Deals & Discounts sub-forum (plenty of views, but no replies. Maybe everyone here who has ever been remotely tempted to buy it already owns it? Maybe people are afraid to play the exchange rate game?) partly because the DOpus authors have finally caved on their long-time insistence that they'd never write archive plugins for either RAR and ZIP (and let's face it, their support for RAR in the past has been very weak and very much and after-thought) & because of a rising trend in the Total Commander community that tells me its users are very much stuck in the past and very much want to remain there.

So, with an open mind (and wallet) I'm hitching my wagon to DOpus's star for a bit to see how the other half lives. I do know there are a lot of DOpus users on the forums here & I thought it might be a nice for there to be a place where everyone can share their tips & tricks. While people can post their complete configurations if they'd like, I was thinking more along the lines of little gems of knowledge where when you configured that button or menu there was an, "Omigawd, why didn't I think of doing something like this ages ago! Things just got a lot easier!"

I'm slowly working my way through the ginormous resource that is the DOPus Resource Centre and will eventually get through it all. I'd just like to hear everyone's must-have tweaks that might inspire the rest of us.

hpearce · « **Reply #1 on:** January 02, 2012, 03:46 PM »

well, you can get many good ideas on the dopus forum itself ... it is a busy forum with about 2 people (admin) answering questions regularly .. I highly recommend taking a peek at it from time to time particularly for new users.

It offers excellent support.

cyberdiva · « **Reply #2 on:** January 02, 2012, 04:52 PM »

Innuendo, I assume that when you say the DOpus Resource Centre, you mean the forum. If so, you've found a great source of information. I don't think they have a Tips & Tricks section, but any time I've wanted to know how to do something, either I've found the answer by searching the forum or I've asked a question and had it answered knowledgeably.

Innuendo · « **Reply #3 on:** January 02, 2012, 04:58 PM »

To both of you, yes, I meant the forum and it's an excellent resource with a wealth of information. However, it's purpose is more suited when you know what you want to ask. However, if one is just looking for ideas & don't have any specific questions to ask...well, that's why I created this topic.

If people shared the clever ways they have configured DOpus, others may find something they need, but never knew they needed it.

4wd · « **Reply #4 on:** January 02, 2012, 06:14 PM »

I don't use anywhere near DOpus' full power on Windows machines.

The reason (SFW)

The Amiga version is still far and away the most powerful version, (AFAIAC), purely because of ARexx and the fact that a very good percentage of programs had an interface allowing you bring, (for example), 5 different programs into one cohesive conglomeration. Most of my customisation was done using ARexx and AFAICT Windows has nothing like its simplicity as an IPL^w that allowed even idiots like me to do wondrous things

But here's just a couple or so buttons I've found useful.

Mount & Dismount a Directory as a drive, (useful for installers that think they need to be in the root of a drive):

Spoiler

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<button backcol="none" display="label" textcol="none">
   <label>Mount Dir as T:</label>
   <tip>Mount Dir as T:</tip>
   <icon1>#newcommand</icon1>
   <function type="normal">
      <instruction>@dirsonly</instruction>
      <instruction>subst T: {file}</instruction>
   </function>
</button>
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<button backcol="none" display="label" textcol="none">
   <label>Dismount Dir</label>
   <tip>Dismount Dir</tip>
   <icon1>#newcommand</icon1>
   <function type="normal">
      <instruction>subst T: /D</instruction>
   </function>
</button>

Display network groups available, (eg. WORKGROUP, MSHOME):
Ooppss!, I got that wrong - this will actually display the computers available in a the group you're in. Add another 'Go Up' instruction to it to see the network groups.

Spoiler

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<button display="both">
   <label>Network</label>
   <tip>Network</tip>
   <icon1>57</icon1>
   <function type="normal">
      <instruction>Go "\\127.0.0.1"</instruction>
      <instruction>Go Up</instruction>
   </function>
</button>

Drive buttons, (yes pretty boring), left-click for left side, right-click for right side - it will put the lister into Dual pane if it isn't:

Spoiler

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<button display="icon" separate="yes">
   <label>Drive Buttons</label>
   <tip>Automatically adds a button for each of the drives in your system to the toolbar/menu</tip>
   <icon1>116</icon1>
   <function type="normal">
      <instruction>Go DRIVEBUTTONS=fixed,multifunc</instruction>
   </function>
</button>

cyberdiva · « **Reply #5 on:** January 02, 2012, 07:22 PM »

Frankly, it's usually all I can do just to learn how to use DOpus as it is, without any tweaks. But I did make one small tweak to the Toolbar: I added several icons for programs such as Photoshop and InPaint and set them up so that if I selected a photo file (or several) and clicked on, say, the InPaint icon on the toolbar, InPaint would open with that photo file loaded.

To add a program to the DOpus toolbar, you first right-click on the toolbar and select "Customise." While in Customise mode, you can simply drag a program's shortcut to the toolbar. Then, to get the program to open a selected file, while still in Customise mode edit the program icon (Alt+left click) and add {allfilepath} to the end of whatever is already in the Function box. Thus, my Function box for InPaint now contains the following: @async:"C:\Program Files (x86)\Inpaint4\Inpaint.exe"{allfilepath}

Innuendo · « **Reply #6 on:** January 03, 2012, 01:12 AM »

Thanks for all the tips so far...this is what I'm talking about. I've got some ideas myself about customizing DOpus...just have to figure them out in my head, implement them, and then I'll be sharing here.

4wd, I'm going to be dating myself here, but I used DOpus extensively on the Amiga and...I even started using it with v1.0. *gasp*

oblivion · « **Reply #7 on:** January 03, 2012, 06:03 AM »

I've been using DOpus since v8 (which I bought into after picking up a freebie copy of v6, as I recall) and I've never really done much customisation beyond putting the stuff I use most on the toolbar.

My biggest bit of proper customisation involved beefing up the Multiview plugin so that it could do absolutely everything I threw at it -- which in my case involved .DBF files, which nothing I'd had since Quickview had been able to do.

A bit of general advice: if you want to put program shortcuts on a toolbar, you'll probably be better off having buttons that open menus and putting the shortcuts in the menus. That way you can organise in the way your mind works (or in categories based on your personal various operating modes, or whatever suits) rather than a toolbar that gradually becomes increasingly cluttered.

A thought-about and organised list of favourites is also A Good Thing if, like me, you have a zillion folders serving different purposes and want to be able to zip between them.

Some other tiny things:

If you don't have a button that toggles checkbox mode on and off, add it. Appallingly useful any time you're picking up files from a folder that can only be grouped by your brain and if you're -- like me -- occasionally inclined to click instead of ctrl-click and zap the list of 87 disparate files you've carefully selected over the last ten minutes.

Your default downloads folder: add the "relative age" to the shown columns, sort it (in reverse) so the newest files are always at the top and save the view for it (and optionally, all subfolders). That way, if you're picking stuff up off the net, intending to get to them later, you'll know that the top handful of files are the ones you'll be playing with when you get to them. The relative age bit is a brilliant visual indicator for things that are getting old enough to delete on the odd occasions you go through your downloads to tidy up all the stuff you don't need anymore -- old GiveAwayOfTheDay downloads you forgot to delete after the relevant day passed, all that sort of cruft.

If you use zipfiles to keep/archive stuff in, you can create a new/empty zipfile, open it on one side of a dual-pane lister, navigate the other side to the place the source files are coming from, select the source, hit the "move from source to destination" button and you're done. I don't like the way pretty much every other archiver manages its interface in comparison -- although I grant they have their strengths for people who like drag'n'drop.

Um. Set it to load at startup, not to display the splash screen, get used to the bit of advanced wonderfulness of having a lister there when you need it just by double-clicking the desktop.

Opus just gradually takes over. I'm quite sure I haven't used (or even mentioned) any of its more advanced features, the bits of scripted cleverness above are beyond anything I've ever tried to do...

cyberdiva · « **Reply #8 on:** January 03, 2012, 08:15 AM »

A bit of general advice: if you want to put program shortcuts on a toolbar, you'll probably be better off having buttons that open menus and putting the shortcuts in the menus. That way you can organise in the way your mind works (or in categories based on your personal various operating modes, or whatever suits) rather than a toolbar that gradually becomes increasingly cluttered.
-oblivion (January 03, 2012, 06:03 AM)

In general, I don't mind having to right-click on a file and scroll down to choose the non-default program I want to use to open it. There are just a few programs where I prefer to skip the scroll step and have the file open immediately in the non-default program. Thus, I'm in no danger of having too many program icons on the toolbar. If I put menus on the toolbar and had to select a program from the menu, I might as well use the right-click context menu and skip the toolbar.

Nudel · « **Reply #9 on:** January 03, 2012, 06:46 PM »

Check out the various Downloads / Tutorials areas on the Opus forums for people's shared configs, advice, etc. Lots of good stuff there. There's also a very long & detailed customization tutorial soon to be posted by one of the forum members, who let me see a draft copy recently, so keep an eye out for that.

partly because the DOpus authors have finally caved on their long-time insistence that they'd never write archive plugins for either RAR and ZIP (and let's face it, their support for RAR in the past has been very weak and very much and after-thought)
-Innuendo (January 02, 2012, 02:32 PM)

I think there's some misunderstanding there.

Opus has never needed a Zip archive plugin because Zip support has always been built-in. (If my memory serves me, that's been the case since the first Windows version more than a decade ago.

(Maybe you meant 7z rather than Zip? But nobody ever refused to write a 7z plugin either. It took until Opus 10 to happen but that wasn't for lack of desire.)

As for RAR, Opus has had a RAR archive plugin since seven or eight years ago.

It's possible I've forgotten a very old statement but I don't think anyone ever insisted that archive plugins would not be written, for any filetype. Adding the archive/VFS plugin API back in 2004 (or whenever it was) would've been pretty pointless if the aim was to never write any plugins for it.

There were issues with making the RAR plugin anything other than read-only, because while the RAR decompression code is available for anyone to use/licence, the RAR compression code is not made available to anyone in the world, for love nor money, except to RARLabs themselves. We've always wished the code was available and always wanted a fully read-write RAR plugin but it's also always been impossible to write it how we wanted to.

In Opus 10 we addressed that by making Opus able to automate WinRAR.exe, if it is available, to modify RAR archives. (Extraction is still done without WinRAR, as it always was.) Automating WinRAR is a kludge and something we were reluctant to do, but I have to admit it works pretty well in the end. It's not perfect but it's better than I thought it would be. (It was me who wrote the code to do it and I was not sure, until it was finished, if it would work well enough to release, or if it would provide any real value over simply using the WinRAR context menus which already worked with Opus. In the end it did both and was worth spending the time on. I'd still re-write the code to use a RAR compression library if one actually existed, though.)

Like probably every tool except RAR/WinRAR itself, support for updating RAR files isn't as good as for updating Zip, 7z, TAR, etc. For example, some complex operations have to be done, behind the scenes, in multiple stages instead of in a single update. (While Opus handles the details and sets up each stage of the operation automatically, it means some RAR updates take longer than similar updates for other archive formats. There are also some things you can do in Opus with other archive formats that you cannot do with RAR, due to limitations of what WinRAR can be asked to do. For example, you cannot rename files on the fly while adding them to RAR archives. But, on the whole, modifying RAR archives via Opus works well. (Unless there are loads of complaints that nobody has sent in. :-))

I think Total Commander does something similar, with RAR.exe instead of WinRAR.exe. I went with WinRAR.exe at the time because it had better Unicode support (not sure if that's still the case with RAR 4) and so that any errors from the RAR program could appear in the program's UI. (The WinRAR UI is kept hidden normally, though; you see standard Opus progress dialogs instead.)

Automating (Win)RAR.exe is as good as anyone can realistically do unless the makers of RAR become willing to licence their proprietary compression algorithms as is done for other archive formats. I've long wished for them to do that, but also long given up hope that it will happen, and for that reason I still personally choose and advocate using other archive formats over RAR, but I can't change what other people want.

Innuendo · « **Reply #10 on:** January 03, 2012, 09:50 PM »

Check out the various Downloads / Tutorials areas on the Opus forums for people's shared configs, advice, etc. Lots of good stuff there. There's also a very long & detailed customization tutorial soon to be posted by one of the forum members, who let me see a draft copy recently, so keep an eye out for that.
-Nudel (January 03, 2012, 06:46 PM)

That member has also let me see a draft copy & I've already sent over my feedback. (He even implemented some of it.)

I think there's some misunderstanding there.

Not a misunderstanding...a typo. I meant to say implement support for archive formats *other* than ZIP and RAR. Oops.

As for RAR, Opus has had a RAR archive plugin since seven or eight years ago.

The version of DOpus I tested would open RAR archives, but open them outside of the lister. It was very awkward. However...now Mr. Potter has implemented proper support for RAR and nearly every other archive format known to man....and very happy I am. Happy enough I bought a license immediately upon finding out how well this feature was implemented.

It's possible I've forgotten a very old statement but I don't think anyone ever insisted that archive plugins would not be written, for any filetype. Adding the archive/VFS plugin API back in 2004 (or whenever it was) would've been pretty pointless if the aim was to never write any plugins for it.

I didn't mean to say the aim was never to have plugins ever wrote for it. I was referring to an email exchange I had with Dr. Perry when DOpus 8 had been released. I had stated that it would be advantageous for plugins for other archive formats be written & it'd be a great boon to the program. His reply was that GPSoft was not going to write any such plugins and that they prefer to leave such things to the community to write. I am glad they saw the error of their ways.

As to all that you say about WinRAR/RAR, with the way RAR Labs has implemented their licensing, it was a very smart way for the file manager authors to add support to their programs...and the way Mr. Potter has implementing support for creating RAR archives when WinRAR is installed is nothing short of brilliant.

Nudel · « **Reply #11 on:** January 04, 2012, 07:06 AM »

That member has also let me see a draft copy & I've already sent over my feedback. (He even implemented some of it.)
-Innuendo (January 03, 2012, 09:50 PM)

Ah, cool. You are one step ahead of me.

Not a misunderstanding...a typo. I meant to say implement support for archive formats *other* than ZIP and RAR. Oops.

Ah, fair enough. It makes sense now.

Yeah, the plan back when Opus 8 came out was to provide a plugin API and a sample RAR plugin and leave it to the community to create plugins for other formats. (Keeping in mind that 7z wasn't that popular back then, and there wasn't a lot of demand for it or any other archive format. Zip and RAR were the main ones. A few people wanted other formats but, at the time, not so many that it seemed like the right priority for GPSoft themselves to work on it, especially when -- as the theory went -- other people could write them and leave GPSoft to work on the stuff that only they could work on.)

Problem was, only one person tried to write such a plugin and they didn't get very far. Archive plugins are pretty complicated to write (especially with formats like 7z where solid archives do not allow you to access the files in any order, or .tar.gz where you've got an archive in an archive) so it's not surprising, in hindsight, but it took a while to realise that nobody else was going to do it and we had to do it ourselves, during which time the demand for 7z also increased as the format became more popular.

I say "us"... What happened is I quit my job (which was unrelated to Opus) and took a holiday to write the Archives plugin that eventually shipped with Opus 10. Somehow that holiday never stopped and I'm still working on Opus stuff today (and quite broke compared to before, but also getting to spend a lot more time with my cat). So, in a way, the Archives plugin was written by a member of the community... who became a member of the team while writing it. (Writing it took ages, too. It's one of the most complex things I've written, even though it's 'only' a wrapper around 7z.dll and a few other things. Making archives look like random-access filesystems, and doing it well, is quite complex.

)

While the main aim was 7z support, 7z.dll also provides loads of other archive formats, so with a bit of extra work we got a bunch of others as part of the deal. (A lot of extra work in some cases, e.g. so that you can modify a .tar.gz and Opus re-compresses the outer archive on-the-fly. And for the WinRAR stuff, too, of course, although in the end that only took a few days to write on top of the existing framework that the plugin had made for itself.)

We've thought about rolling a lot of the Archives plugin code into Opus itself and providing a simplified API for other archive plugins, which could take advantage of the framework that the plugin uses internally so that other developers could write their own archive plugins without re-doing that difficult work. There's probably no point, though. There aren't many archive formats left that we don't support now and if there is demand for one in the future then it'd be easier for us to add it to the Archives plugin instead than to provide and support another API. The existing VFS API is easy to use for plugins that talk to proper filesystems (i.e. not archives) so it doesn't really need simplifying for other VFS plugin types, and it'll probably stay as it is now (although we're happy to improve the API for plugin authors who write to us with issues).

The version of DOpus I tested would open RAR archives, but open them outside of the lister.

FWIW, there's a FAQ about how to change that in earlier versions of Opus: http://resource.dopu...viewtopic.php?t=1366

oblivion · « **Reply #12 on:** January 04, 2012, 08:22 AM »

Check out the various Downloads / Tutorials areas on the Opus forums for people's shared configs, advice, etc. Lots of good stuff there.
-Nudel (January 03, 2012, 06:46 PM)

Part of the problem is, I think, knowing what you want to do/knowing what can be done.

It's difficult -- this isn't restricted to Opus, by the way, in case that's not obvious -- to work through the "I have this wonderful tool I can use for lots of things" jungle to "here's a specific thing I'd love to be able to do if I only knew how."

How many times have you watched people writing things down off their computer screen because they don't have the understanding that data, once it exists, can be copied elsewhere, printed, stored, emailed, whatever if you just have a certain bit of basic understanding? And a basic toolset, of course.

That's what I think the problem is with a lot of s/w like Opus. "It's a file manager." "Yeah, so? So's Explorer, and I got that already." "But it does this, and this, and this." "Huh? What use is THAT?" And so it goes on. You don't know what someone will find useful and they believe there's lots of useful stuff, if they but knew how to get at it.

I like Mouser's video tutorials for this stuff. Seeing somebody else do stuff with a bit of software is often what it takes to start your own thought processes off -- I can't use that, but there's this similar thing I'd like to be able to do, I bet it will if I just work with those features" and THEN you've got your answers -- but they're often all but unique to you.

An example in this thread; on the very rare occasions that I might want to pretend a folder with a CD's contents copied into it was a drive, for the sake of an install, I'd run up a command prompt and do a SUBST. (Yes, yes, I used to use CP/M too.

) But the script would be useful for someone who (a) needed to do that sort of thing more often than once in a blue moon, and (b) didn't know about SUBST, let alone how to compose a command using it without Windows going "What on EARTH do you think you're going on about?" or whatever the relevant error message is. But backtracking from that; I'd have to know that it was possible to install CD-based software from something other than a CD and to think that might be a useful thing to do long before I started wondering if that might be something I could expedite with Opus.

I'm wittering, I think. It's harder to explain than I thought it'd be when I started writing.

Innuendo · « **Reply #13 on:** January 04, 2012, 09:46 AM »

Problem was, only one person tried to write such a plugin and they didn't get very far. Archive plugins are pretty complicated to write (especially with formats like 7z where solid archives do not allow you to access the files in any order, or .tar.gz where you've got an archive in an archive) so it's not surprising, in hindsight, but it took a while to realise that nobody else was going to do it and we had to do it ourselves, during which time the demand for 7z also increased as the format became more popular.
-Nudel (January 04, 2012, 07:06 AM)

And that was the point I was trying to make way back when v8 was released. I had a spirited discussion with Dr. Perry regarding archive formats & how the limited support for ZIP & RAR were not going to be enough & that no one was going to take on the daunting task to write them. Dr. Perry just took awhile to come around to my way of thinking.

As an aside, though, my one minor victory back then was to get the GPSoft team to give up their custom file description format & go with the universal descript.ion way of doing things. I'm quite proud of that & feel DOpus is much better for it. It also gave me more respect for GPSoft as they took the suggestion of some schlub who wasn't even a paying customer.

I say "us"... What happened is I quit my job (which was unrelated to Opus) and took a holiday to write the Archives plugin that eventually shipped with Opus 10. Somehow that holiday never stopped and I'm still working on Opus stuff today (and quite broke compared to before, but also getting to spend a lot more time with my cat).

And your tireless efforts to promote DOpus are appreciated. I'm not sure DOpus would be nearly successful as it is today if some driven fellow hadn't taken the time to make that DOpus discussion group on Yahoo! Groups all those years ago. Thanks, Leo!

Innuendo · « **Reply #14 on:** January 04, 2012, 09:50 AM »

Part of the problem is, I think, knowing what you want to do/knowing what can be done.
-oblivion (January 04, 2012, 08:22 AM)

The way I see it is that the DOpus forums are an excellent source of reference and research. However, the trick when it comes to reference and research is that you have to know what you are looking for in order to find it.

I think a good analogy would be if one were looking for ideas and inspiration one could sit down with an encyclopedia or a reference textbook on a given subject, but the prospect of inspiration striking isn't likely to happen.

Think of this thread as "Stupid DOpus Tricks" on Letterman.

Nudel · « **Reply #15 on:** January 05, 2012, 05:47 AM »

That's what I think the problem is with a lot of s/w like Opus. "It's a file manager." "Yeah, so? So's Explorer, and I got that already." "But it does this, and this, and this." "Huh? What use is THAT?" And so it goes on. You don't know what someone will find useful and they believe there's lots of useful stuff, if they but knew how to get at it.
-oblivion (January 04, 2012, 08:22 AM)

Totally. I still don't know what to say when people ask me about Opus in real life. I still haven't been able to explain it to my dad. "It, um... It lets you do stuff... to files..."

Knowing which specific examples to give is hard because you don't know what people do all day with their computers. And what's amazingly useful to one person often looks utterly pointless and stupid to another person.

That was why I wrote my "Getting to Know..." guide back in the day. (Hopefully I'll get around to updating that one of these years. Always end up writing code instead.)

And that was the point I was trying to make way back when v8 was released. I had a spirited discussion with Dr. Perry regarding archive formats & how the limited support for ZIP & RAR were not going to be enough & that no one was going to take on the daunting task to write them. Dr. Perry just took awhile to come around to my way of thinking.
-Innuendo (January 04, 2012, 09:46 AM)

I can't argue with that. The community's willingness/ability to write plugins was overestimated. Some people have written viewer/thumbnail plugins for Opus but most of the time people look to us to do it (but there's only so much we can do at a time). Total Commander is the only file manager that seems to get a lot of love from plugin developers, for whatever reason, but I think we've got the important stuff covered now; it just took us a while to write all that code ourselves.

I'm not sure DOpus would be nearly successful as it is today if some driven fellow hadn't taken the time to make that DOpus discussion group on Yahoo! Groups all those years ago. Thanks, Leo!

I think Wayne Howard gets the credit for making the Yahoo! group; I just posted on it sometimes.

I should also mention Steve Banham for starting the Opus Resource Centre web forums (which I admin these days, but Steve got the ball rolling and ran it for years first), which replaced the old user-to-user mailing list that GPSoftware used to run.

hpearce · « **Reply #16 on:** January 05, 2012, 08:16 AM »

Two more things I recommend if u have the time.

1) go thru the OPTIONS/various SETTINGS thoroughly and you will get a better idea of what you can do. I had to go thru a minimum of 3 times to start grasping it all.

2) read thru the HELP including the commands section. This too can be intensive. Again I had to go thru 3 or 4 times to start comprehending it all.

cyberdiva · « **Reply #17 on:** January 05, 2012, 08:17 AM »

I should also mention Steve Banham for starting the Opus Resource Centre web forums (which I admin these days,...)
-Nudel (January 05, 2012, 05:47 AM)

Leo, "admin" doesn't begin to get at the amazing work you do on those forums. You provide an immense amount of help on everything from newbie questions to complex problems, and always graciously. I thought I'd take this opportunity to express my thanks.

tomos · « **Reply #18 on:** January 05, 2012, 08:20 AM »

I should also mention Steve Banham for starting the Opus Resource Centre web forums (which I admin these days,...)
-Nudel (January 05, 2012, 05:47 AM)
Leo, "admin" doesn't begin to get at the amazing work you do on those forums. You provide an immense amount of help on everything from newbie questions to complex problems, and always graciously. I thought I'd take this opportunity to express my thanks.
-cyberdiva (January 05, 2012, 08:17 AM)

+1

Innuendo · « **Reply #19 on:** January 05, 2012, 10:04 AM »

Knowing which specific examples to give is hard because you don't know what people do all day with their computers. And what's amazingly useful to one person often looks utterly pointless and stupid to another person.
-Nudel (January 05, 2012, 05:47 AM)

And I concede that point. However, and maybe I am just different than everyone else, but I like to see what people have done and so what if it looks pointless to my uses? More often than not I can look at what they have accomplished and think to myself, "Well, I have no use for that. However....I can take what they have done, change this or that, and adapt it to my workflow easily enough." all without having to totally reinvent the wheel.

That was why I wrote my "Getting to Know..." guide back in the day. (Hopefully I'll get around to updating that one of these years. Always end up writing code instead.)

Which I have read, but understand that I was pleased when playful (a user on the DOpus forums) approached me and let me read his new article on configuring DOpus. It takes you from a blank slate step-by-step to building a full-featured DOpus configuration. It's a great companion piece to the existing tutorials out there & it's let me take what I want from it and leave what I don't behind.

I can't argue with that. The community's willingness/ability to write plugins was overestimated. Some people have written viewer/thumbnail plugins for Opus but most of the time people look to us to do it (but there's only so much we can do at a time). Total Commander is the only file manager that seems to get a lot of love from plugin developers, for whatever reason, but I think we've got the important stuff covered now; it just took us a while to write all that code ourselves.

Total Commander and the now-defunct FAR file manager have/had extremely dedicated users from east European countries and it seems like east European countries must begin teaching coding in kindergarten because there's just a ferocious amount of talent coming from those people. What other file manager in the world offers a plugin to read Xbox game discs? It's crazy.

And you *do* have "the important stuff covered now." I'm a file manager addict & I used every version of DOpus for the Amiga. I've also closely scrutinized every version released for Windows. I've always wanted to buy, but a lot of that 'important stuff' wasn't covered until v10 was finally released.

I don't know why DOpus never caught on with that market segment. Maybe DOpus's pricing is too high for their economies or if the eastern Europeans just prefer the old Norton-style file managers.

I should also mention Steve Banham for starting the Opus Resource Centre web forums (which I admin these days, but Steve got the ball rolling and ran it for years first), which replaced the old user-to-user mailing list that GPSoftware used to run.

I stand corrected. However, I do stand by my statement that you, and those who came before you, have played a large part in DOpus's success. Without you tirelessly answering questions from users everyday I'm sure DOpus would not be enjoying the success it is.

Innuendo · « **Reply #20 on:** January 05, 2012, 10:07 AM »

Two more things I recommend if u have the time.
-hpearce (January 05, 2012, 08:16 AM)

Forum users here *always* have the time for a good recommendation.

1) go thru the OPTIONS/various SETTINGS thoroughly and you will get a better idea of what you can do. I had to go thru a minimum of 3 times to start grasping it all.

This is so true! There's already been a couple times I wished DOpus would do certain things a different way only to discover that there was a setting I overlooked on previous runs through the options. The ability to search the options panel is a huge help, but sometimes it takes a couple tries to put in the right keyword for the search to bring up what you want.

Dirhael · « **Reply #21 on:** January 05, 2012, 12:15 PM »

While this isn't a customization tip, this functionality is perhaps the one I use the most...

While in a lister, type the following:

: (this selects all files and folders with the name you type in after the :).
* (displays only those files and folders with the name you type in after the *.). I find this especially useful while in flat-view!
? (runs any command (cmd) in the current folder. You can hit CTRL+ENTER to insert the name of the focused file). I use this with certain command-line tools, or with simple batch-renaming tasks as I do it faster this way than I would with the GUI.
= (this searches for whatever you type in, starting in the current folder).

I used to be a Total Commander user for years, until I purchased Dopus 8. Since then, I find it hard to be productive at all without it

EDIT: Also, whatever you do, make sure you add a keyboard shortcut to toggle flat-view (Command: Set FLATVIEW=MixedNoFolders,Toggle)! So useful!

tomos · « **Reply #22 on:** January 05, 2012, 04:04 PM »

^ another view one I use a lot:

Toggle Thumbnails and Details views with one shortcut:
Set VIEW=Details,Thumbnails

Screenshot - 2012-01-05 , 14_30_26.png

EDIT// note the Shift+[letter] no longer works in Dopus 11
so you will want to use a different shortcut
EDIT2// ^Listary uses the Shift+T shortcut here for searching current folder - I use Shift+F for flatview - that still works without Listary popping up, so not sure what's going on. Not a Dopus problem anyway, I dont think.

tomos · « **Reply #23 on:** January 05, 2012, 04:13 PM »

Sorting files:

these arent buttons - they're just shortcuts so AFAIK they cannot be exported:
They're especially helpful when you want to change the sort in Thumbnail or List modes, but are also nice and zippy in details.
Each one will toggle ascending and descending i.e. just press shortcut again.

Sort by Filename Alt+1
Set Sortby=Name SortReverse Toggle

Screenshot - 2012-01-05 , 17_02_58.png

Sort by Last-Modified Date
Set Sortby=MODIFIED SortReverse Toggle

Screenshot - 2012-01-05 , 17_03_45.png

Alt+1 (by name) sorts A-Z initially (a on top of the list - ascending I guess)
Alt+5 sorts with most recent date to top initially

I got these on the dopus forums years ago, cant remember from who - the actual shortcuts were based on an earlier filemanager

Innuendo · « **Reply #24 on:** January 06, 2012, 03:47 PM »

Thanks, Dirhael & tomos. Your posts are prime examples of why I started this thread. They each contain functionality that I can see myself using every day & while I'm sure I will run across that functionality in the docs or on the forums, who knows how long I'd have to delve before finding it?

Thanks for the tips!