AccelMan - windows explorer replacement for free by GAOTD

[sri]

AccelMan is a modern multi-window file manager incorporating a file viewer, media player, bookmarks manager and console. In AccelMan you are not restricted to an obsolete dual-pane file manager interface – you can have as many managers, viewers and players as you wish and freely organize your environment on the AccelMan desktop.

AccelMan is a unique multipurpose application. You can use it as a improved file manager, one-click image viewer (30+ formats), images converter, bookmark keeper, play-list editor, audio player, convenient GUI console, fonts viewer, files processor, archiver with support of 15+ formats, PDF, MS Office, Photoshop and others documents viewer and manager, hexadecimal editor and a lot more besides in one seamless, ergonomic environment.

http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/accelman/

Homepage: http://www.flexigensoft.com/accelman

Grab it while it lasts. May be you'll find it useful.

[Darwin]

BTW I downloaded and activated this and uninstalled it a few hours later. I'm still trying to regain my sense of balance after trying to use it! What a dizzying number of functions and what a counter-intuitive way of implementing them. To paraphrase Curt: I don't want my file manager to boil my eggs, too. Love that analogy, Curt, thanks!

[sri]

It not only boils your eggs, but eats for you too. I am not using it either. Too much to learn.

[Darwin]

Ha, ha... what got me was how complex it was to do something as simple as preview a file. In every other file manager that I've tried, if you have the preview window open, all you have to do is select a file to preview it. Done. Not with AccelMan - you have to go through several steps (context menu, select view, select add to playlist, etc.) to get the file to appear in the viewer. Life is too short.

Anyway, sri, please keep these kinds of alerts coming! There are always gems out there waiting to be discovered and even with its shortcomings, AccelMan is useful to me because it highlights things that I unconciously look for in GUI and thus makes me conscious of them. This is useful when people ask me to recommend apps to them because I can put into words what I like or don't like about the way in which app x works over app y. If I hadn't used AccelMan for a couple of hours, for example, I wouldn't have really been aware of how important selecting a file and having it immediately open in a viewer is to me (of course, it's so blinking intuitive, why would anyone code something to do it anyother way?!).

[Darwin]

Well... I was bored this evening and re-installing AccelMan seemed preferable to doodling absently on my stomach with a Sharpie, so that's what I did. On balance, while it's no DOpus or XYplorer, it's an interesting file manager. I've spent some time not reacting to it but rather trying to figure out how to configure it and I've now got a workable setup. There are some idiosyncrasies to work around/become accustomed to, but I am starting to see how everything fits together. Also, there are a lot of powerful features that are hidden until you go looking for them. This is how I found the folder view - there is an icon beneath each pane that you click to reveal a number of options that allow you to configure the current pane's view in a number of ways. I imagine the rationale is to keep the GUI clean. I'll play around some more before making a decision about whether or not I like it. I'm going to take a running leap at the player next to see if I can make sense of it (see earlier posting). I doubt that I'm going to fall in love with this, but it's good fun tinkering and maybe I'll get a mini-review out of it!

Ah, Friday night... It's 8:20 PM and still quite light out. It's been a glorious, sunny day and I've been outside with the boys. Doesn't get much better than that!

[Darwin]

Still playing around with AccelMan. It's growing on me. I've just discovered three points from perusing the help file: GOTD licensees get a 50% discount on upgrades to the next release (I presume this also applies to other FlexigenSoft products that were given away - AccelClip and AccelDoc) which reduces the price to $14.95, a purchased licence entitles you to upgrades and support for an unlimited time (sounds to me like this means lifetime of the product) and finally you can run it from a thumbdrive. I might just spring for an AccelMan licence to support development.

Incidentally, I've had a couple of e-mail exchanges with the author providing him with suggestions (make it a true dual pane manager for a start - he's interested in trying to make this a feature in an upcoming release) and bug reports and his responses have been quick and courteous (and helpful!).

Ultimately, this isn't going to unseat my favourite File Managers (DOpus 9 and XYplorer) but it does take a very different, and interesting, approach.

PS Although a 50% discount is offered, I can't find any way to take advantage of it (I still haven't decided if I want to - but wanted to follow the process through to see how/if it works... I'll e-mail the author.

[Darwin]

OK update and closure to this: the discount is available via a link that the author e-mailed to me along with a note from him that he's hard at work updating AccelMan and improving/fixing the Help file and other documentation. He noted that he hasn't released 3.6 yet so there's no point paying for the upgrade until then! I thought that kind of decent of him.

Closure comes from the fact that I've uninstalled AccelMan (and 48 other apps) from my machine. I'm in purge mode at the moment. I'm down to 277 apps (vs. my wife's notebook with around 150) and would like to reduce that further still. At any rate, I quite like where I *think* the developer is going with AccelMan and will keep my eyes on it, but with DOpus 9 installed, I simply don't need it!