why would you want to buy PowerDesk?

[Curt]

Update: PowerDesk Pro 9 is out!

And ???

go get it!

Seriously why would you want to buy this?

PowerDesk Pro 9 is on a fixed offer at Bits du Jour; normal price minus 30% => $28. Normally offers are good, but being on a fixed offer at BdJ is maybe not so good, because very often it signals that maintenance has stopped.

[attachimg=#]

I have not tried this version "9", or the previous "8.5",
so I ask the same question as Carol did (but maybe in a different tone):
"why would you want to buy this?"    

Maybe "you" can answer the question?

http://www.bitsdujour.com/software/powerdesk-pro-9

info: I commented like this at BdJ: "PowerDesk 9 at minus 30% is not an offer, but normal price. I am disappointed to see Bits du Jour taking part in such bewildering!". My reason was of course that in my memory PowerDesk has been on offer ever since it was born.

[Renegade]

Nico started offering fixed deals a while back. I don't see much of a problem with it. If someone doesn't like it, they can pay full price at the vcom web site. I just checked, and it's normal full price there.

[wraith808]

Nico started offering fixed deals a while back. I don't see much of a problem with it. If someone doesn't like it, they can pay full price at the vcom web site. I just checked, and it's normal full price there.

This.

[Midnight Rambler]

I've been a fan of Powerdesk Pro since v.5 but only at a $10 update price.  Their support, as I recall, also leaves something to be desired.  Still, can't imagine computing without that Powerdesk explorer GUI.

[oblivion]

Still, can't imagine computing without that Powerdesk explorer GUI.

PowerDesk was my first proper Explorer replacement; can't remember what version, but it was before VCom. Ontrack, wasn't it? Anyway, I too really liked it.

Then they (Vcom, that is) broke something and professed absolutely no willingness to mend it again. (It was something important to me but clearly not to them -- might have been .dbf viewing, might have been the synch tool, I can't remember now.) To say their support leaves something to be desired is about the most generous a statement I can imagine.

I played with a variety of desperately inadequate alternatives for a while. Then (cue sound of heavenly choir) I found Directory Opus.

Then, more recently, I found XYPlorer. (I like it quite a bit more than Opus for portable use, although the learning curve is perhaps a bit steeper, and I’d had it for quite a while before I started discovering its true power.)

Both of those two are so much better than Windows Explorer it'd make your head spin. And I don't even remember why I was so impressed with PowerDesk anymore, back in the day.

I’m completely aware that YMMV applies here in spades but I’d be interested to know if your preference for PowerDesk is just about familiarity, or if it genuinely has acquired functionality or something ergonomic that gives it an edge over the other (increasingly extensive!) non-Microsoft competition.

(And it’s okay if it seems stupid but marvellously great -- like, I think the ability to double-click on the desktop to open an Opus lister is a tiny bit brilliant, for instance!)

[mouser]

Powerdesk was *THE* explorer replacement at one time.. It was a great tool.  They just stopped developing it and others eventually surpassed them.

[Midnight Rambler]

I’d be interested to know if your preference for PowerDesk is just about familiarity, or if it genuinely has acquired functionality or something ergonomic that gives it an edge over the other (increasingly extensive!) non-Microsoft competition.

Familiarity has a lot to do with it and have also tried XYplorer but found it still can't match Powerdesk's View>File Panes function and Drivebar toolbar.
[attach]

[oblivion]

I’d be interested to know if your preference for PowerDesk is just about familiarity, or if it genuinely has acquired functionality or something ergonomic that gives it an edge over the other (increasingly extensive!) non-Microsoft competition.

Familiarity has a lot to do with it and have also tried XYplorer but found it still can't match Powerdesk's View>File Panes function and Drivebar toolbar.

XYPlorer is much better at being pushed around into configurations that suit what you're doing at any given time but it's a lot less user-friendly out of the box. And, rather like Opus, it has a LOT of power and configurability that's available but not easy to get to grips with -- particularly early on -- and I'm still far from comfortable with the scripting language of either. However, it has tabs that are extremely configurable (and can have different settings from each other) and although I'm not sure everyone gets it straight away, there's a tree mode that effectively displays just the places you go. The drivebar was one of the things I missed when I ditched PD but Opus has one just like it and both Opus and XYPlorer have a drives dropdown that's just as functional in lots less precious realestate.

There was a time, with Opus, when the paradigm shift just happened, and I knew I'd got something I could work with. XYPlorer is taking longer to reach that point but I think I'm within sight of the time when the clouds will just suddenly part.

I think, remembering back, when I first used Opus I tried hard to make it look and feel like PowerDesk, because that's what I was used to. My favourites list still has echoes of what it was when I used PD. XYplorer can't easily be made to look and feel like PD -- it has an economy to it that means a lot of things you think you need aren't instantly available (and sometimes turn out to be just eye-candy), but I can easily see that the transition from PD to XY would be difficult and even frustrating.

Reading this back, I suspect you're going to think that I'm trying to convince you to change. I'm not, really -- just reminiscing about the transitions I went through, as much as anything. I DO think that if you decide to jump ship you'll do better with Opus than XY -- because it's less of a culture change -- but I'd also suggest you go here and reconfigure it along the lines suggested before going too far, just because (a) it worked for me, and (b) a lot of ex-PowerDesk users seem to love the approach taken.

[mwb1100]

tried XYplorer but found it still can't match Powerdesk's View>File Panes function and Drivebar toolbar.

I'm not sure what View>File Panes does, but XYplorer has has drivebar functionality for a while now (though you had to configure the toolbar to get it):  http://www.xyplorer.com/release_10.10.htm

[Midnight Rambler]

I'm not sure what View>File Panes does, but XYplorer has has drivebar functionality for a while now (though you had to configure the toolbar to get it):  http://www.xyplorer.com/release_10.10.htm

File Panes simply shows separate drive details horizontally (as pictured above and/or below) or vertically.  It's especially handy when moving files between drives.

Thanks for the Drive Bar link.  As seen below, I've installed it but didn't read far enough to know if it can be installed as a separate bar as is so easily done in PD.  That's the thing about PD; it's extremely user-friendly as oblivion wrote.  One major gripe about it though is that it sometimes loads slow or incompletely (at least compared with XYplorer) implying that it's a resource hog.

[xtabber]

I remember using the first version of PowerDesk under Windows 95!  It was developed by Mijenix, an innovative company also responsible for ZipFolders and the FixIt Utilities. Mijenix were acquired around 1999 by Ontrack.  PowerDesk had included an excellent file viewer which it lost when VCOM acquired it and came out with Version 6, in 2004, IIRC.  Some of the original developers started a new company called Novatix that came out with a replacement called ExplorerPlus (which started at Version 6 and never went any further).

Although there were periodic patches, there was no development of PowerDesk Pro after Version 6 and I stopped using it altogether many years ago.

FWIW, my file explorer of choice for the past 3+ years has been XYplorer, which is constantly adding new features that make my life easier.

[Curt]

... ExplorerPlus (which started at Version 6 and never went any further).

-oh, I assumed it was the beginning of Explorer++ from http://explorerplusplus.com/changelog
(which I by the way would recommend to Midnight Rambler).

But Thank You all for answering my initial question!