I also should say that Dopus 5 on Amiga used a similar concept as 'the Gimp', a small window containing the buttons for the (programmable) file actions and small explorer-like windows.
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As I see the amount of "hate" that type of interface creates among users, I can imagine that GPSoftware is not likely to implement it soon. Personally, I wouldn't mind having to work with this type of interface at all. But I think the sales of this DOpus version would never cover for the amount of work GPSoftware would have to do.

You can do something very similar to that Opus 5 UI example (and I guess the GIMP UI, although I haven't used GIMP much so I may have misunderstood) in the Windows versions of Opus using floating toolbars. I think that's what they were originally added for in Opus 6 (the first Windows version). There may be some caveats that I'm not thinking of right now, but I think setting a floating toolbar to "Keep On Top: Opus Only" would be quite similar to what Opus 5 had. There's also a "same size buttons when not docked" setting for each toolbar under Customize -> Toolbars, which exists to let you make grids of buttons like Opus 5 had.

I wouldn't use floating toolbars for this myself, as I think it becomes fiddly when you have to manage the toolbar(s) as a separate window, but it might suit some workflows. Personally, I tend to open, move, resize, close windows quite dynamically so it would be a pain to manage the toolbars on top of that, but I know other people do things very differently and e.g. always keep particular apps in particular spaces on the screen, or use virtual desktops, etc. So what doesn't work for me might be great for someone else. The option's certainly there.

I do have one floating toolbar, but it's docked to the bottom of my second monitor, a bit like a second taskbar, and is used for launching various apps and documents that I used often enough to want quick access to but not often enough that I want them pinned to the taskbar itself.

The real prob with DO is elsewhere: It's considered superior, and whenever you ask for a function that isn't there, you get the answer, "it's possible", without anybody telling you which way it could be possible.

We sometimes answer dozens of questions a day on the Opus support forum, going into great detail if it's needed, at least if the person asking has linked their account. (Sometimes when they haven't linked their accounts as well, but we don't always have time to help everyone in detail and it's only right to focus on the paying customers.)

If something can't be done then we'll typically just say so, too. (And if we thought something could be done but then, looking into the details, it can't or it doesn't work very well, then we'll correct our mistake and say sorry pretty quickly.) Opus does enough that we don't have to be shy about what it doesn't do. And while we're always working to make it do more, there are some things we don't want it to do, because everything is a trade-off in design and complexity, both for us when writing the software and for everyone else when using the software. (Even with those, we change our minds sometimes.)

From this and the Two Classes of Membership Here? thread, you seem to have a chip on your shoulder about Opus for some reason. I don't know the history, so maybe it's justified (apologies, if appropriate), but I'll just say that people would be more inclined to help you & consider your ideas if you didn't escalate every difference of opinion into insults and personal attacks.

cthorpe, you were certainly not trying to help, not the first time, and not the second time. prick, me "insulting" you or your product? I tell you something: There's a current thread here about MS Office 2013/365, and people here say, it's too expensive, blah blah, switch to the free spin-off of OpenOffice sacked in by Sun. In fact, it's perfectly possible to buy a decent MS Office (= 2010, = not the latest, very problematic version) for LESS than this D "Opus" costs.

Now I certainly don't call you crazy, prick, you're smart people knowing how to play human nature of idiotic customers. But yes, I call totally crazy those people here that think a simple file manager that does NOTHING else than what the competition does (and sometimes does not even that, e.g. columns / comments / metadata, and your virtual folder system isn't that brilliant either, to name just a few points of many), is worth MORE than an office suite: totally crazy people, just incredibly dumb. Cynic people (= first you buy, then we'll tell you no it's not available, har, har) rule. Chapeau. Do what you want.

@clean: The fact remains that GPSoftware can charge whatever they feel the market will bear.  I'm sure there are plenty of Directory Opus users that will say that it's worth several times over what they paid for it.  Personally, I'm not a fan of per-machine licenses and I feel it's a bit over-priced but it's not my place to complain about such things.  They wrote it, they can charge whatever they like for it.  :shrug:

I've been an Altap Salamander user for years and years now.  I know it has its quirks but, since I've used it for so long, it's the file manager that I'm most efficient in.  For the record, I know of an older file manager that has three panes.  It's not the prettiest, and you may have already tried it out, but it's called Control3 and you can find it here: http://www.theabsolute.net/sware/control3.html

I bought Office 2013 Pro Plus for 13€.

Check this out: http://www.microsofthup.com/

Josh -
you know there's a 25% DoCo discount? -
verified as of Jan 2013

[Fanboy alert]
Since my Amiga days DOpus has been part of my computing routines. Working on a computer without DOpus I honestly feel like having to tie shoelaces with one hand tied on my back.

You can even make your own routines (for example: renaming of files into a format you like) and associate that routine with a button or menu item in the DOpus screen. I have a few of these routines made and a lot of work is now done by clicking on one button.

That is the feature I appreciate the most in DOpus.
[/fanboy alert]

Josh,

I worried a bit about the high price of DOpus when I purchased it, but it seemed tro have all I wanted and more.

That was in early 2007, for V.9. Five years later was the first time I was charged for an upgrade, though the program was actually updated quite a bit - including making it Windows 7 compatible - with no associated costs.

It's a deal IMO.

Jim

Could anybody confirm if this commander is able to let you sort your entries manually
a) in normal listers (physical folders)
b) in file collections?
By manual sorting, I mean manual arrangement of entries, by mouse and/or by alt-up/down-arrow or such.

Is this possible?
If not, there would always be sorting by some metadata, I suppose? Is that possible, at least? But of course, it would be one step too much, which I would like to avoid. (xplorer2 does this, but neither a nor b.)

Thank you for this hint, but I don't see how I could do it in XYplorer. I do "View" - "Views" - "List", then "View" - "Auto Refresh" (deselect), then I try with the mouse, to rearrange files within the same folder / list, but I cannot move them this way, within the list.

Thank you very much, I hadn't been aware of this. Unfortunately you are right, it is not persistent (in the help file index its under "Manual Sorting"), and of course the real interest of such a (persistent!) feature would lie in manually rearranging the files within a file collection / virtual folder, since these files would come from different physical folders and would be named according to their respective "source folders", thus being mixed up when displayed alphabetically.

As said, in xplorer2, such files could at least be sorted by any metadata ("tags" - and it's also possible to manually rearrange them in "scrap containers", but that is not persistent, same problem as in XYplorer), but this implies the need to "tag" files (by using the "comment" column for this, for example), and tagging is another concept than building up virtual folders, so this mixes up two very different concepts.

That's why I had hoped that Directory Opus was able to do better here than its competitors, but it seems nobody has solved this problem so far.

BTW, "Distribute" (aka Multi-Target-Copy) is on my list as well. It will be pretty awesome and integrate perfectly and seamlessly with the XYplorer architecture.

Also it's ugly.