Total Commander

Split left/right panes vertically (4 panes)

With screen resolutions getting higher and higher I think it would be extremely useful if one could split the left and right panes vertically. Especially when working in folders with few files it would greatly increase the usability to see 3 or 4 folders at once instead of just two.

i think this has been asked a lot of times before.

For two panels it is very simple to use the keyboard for everything. I use the keyboard 99% of the time that i actually spend having TC in foreground. So using the Mouse is not something i would like to do

i never missed a third or even fourth panel anyway... what is your use case of having it?

I use Tabs (few) and mostly the Ctrl+D hotlist to quickly navigate between multiple folders.

The biggest impediment i personally would see is: how do you conveniently jump between the panels and how do you define the target?

Jumping is the easier one, you could say Tab jumps between the panes horizontally, while Shift+TAB jumps vertically.

But still when you are in one panel, how would you easily specify the target panel? A dialog where you could press 1,2,3?
Maybe i'm just not open minded/creatively enough to think of something easy...


But still, this would have a huge impact on the current User Experience and might not be accepted by most of the users.

And there might be other feature requests waiting, which would be adding more benefit

Why would an OPTIONAL feature not be accepted by users? Nobody would HAVE TO use it. By default you'd have two panes, if you want more, you split them.

ThiefMaster wrote:Why would an OPTIONAL feature not be accepted by users? Nobody would HAVE TO use it. By default you'd have two panes, if you want more, you split them.

i see you point, but why would you want to implement a feature that only a few users would want to use?

Still i'm interested in your personal use case for this - beside just having 4 pane(l)s.

brs

Mostly for having a quick overview over more than two folders.

ThiefMaster,
Well, unless you present a more complete concept, thinking about how it should be implemented, it will never be considered. First question - where would F5 copy to?

Roman

ThiefMaster wrote: to see 3 or 4 folders at once instead of just two.

So you can just put Q-Dir into your TC Tools folder.


It's freeware, small in size and portable and can be called from a TC button.

Q-Dir i a good file manager with an amazing Quadro-View technique.

Q-Dir does not have to be installed and can be executed easily from the desktop, and can be carried on a small usb-stick or other memory device.

Start the program. The first time that you use it the program it will present you with a license screen.
The program is free and the license info is only displayed the first time (per PC).

http://www.softwareok.de/?seite=Freeware/Q-Dir
Image: http://www.softwareok.com/img/ss/t_en/Q-Dir1.jpg


 

TC is programmed with the concepts of
Left/Right panel and Source (active)/Target.
Thus all commands are coded to expect only 2 panels.

Without a complete overhaul of those concepts you'll never see more than 2 panels in TC, nor Tab Groups, nor any of the other advancements other File Managers have made in the last 10 years.

I am searching for a replacement to PowerDesk, as the new versions are bloated and buggy allowing only one copy open at a time. Currently version 7x allows multiple instances, so I can use it across 2 monitors 4 times, but it has bugs and needs replacing. I use, and need split panes across network drives with a mouse centric drag and drop constantly. I need to be able to click/open a directory and have the contents displayed in the next pane, and often have 12 panes open in a row in a sequence of 6 actual locations on the network.

Although I started as a Tech in the 80's, and yes well remember earlier versions of Total Commander, and DOSShell, but I also remember Winfile.exe fondly, and DBD Desktop for DOS just as fondly. I was quite pleased to use a mouse, making file operations ever so much easier. I grew weary of endless keyboard commands, including Alt/Ctrl/Shift/Function keys etcetera. I use a wireless thumb operated trackball allowing me to rapidly access directories and files, and frankly tabs just don't cut it for me at all as they involve too many extra steps. I use TeraCopy as a replacement to Windoze copy handler for moving/copying files, (highly recommended), so most of the actual nitty gritty of file movement is handled by that. The shear convenience of multiple panes has spoiled me from returning to the agony of endless keystrokes.

That is why people want multiple file panes.

P.S. Try a test copy of PowerDesk to see what we are babbling about first hand...

I think having drop targets of more than two folders and their subfolders sounds interesting. So I guess it makes sense to take a closer look.

Of course the core concept of having a well-defined source and target panel has to remain untouched.

In the following suggestion I will use the term 'inactive file panel' as a file panel that is not the source panel but also not the target panel which is automatically selected as target when pressing F5. It's also not something that is selected when pressing Tab. Switching between those panels can be done with a special command but this depends on how exactly it's implemented (especially the tab handling).

So the idea is to have exact one active source panel, multiple inactive source panels, exact one active target panel and multiple inactive target panels.

But what about the tabs? Some ideas:
1) Even inactive file panels have their own tabs
2) Tabs on both sides, inactive (source or target) file panels would belong to inactive tabs on the same side.
3) Tabs on both sides. Each tab has an active file panel and may also have inactive file panels (secondary paths).

It's also discussable if the active panel of a side is shown as a panel that is displayed larger above the other panels. I guess there are nice layout ideas everywhere.

Guess it needs some illustrations...

I'm not so sure that more than 2 panels would really be an advancement, as you call it. Total Commander is optimized to do a lot via keyboard. If you have more than 2 panels, there wouldn't be a fixed target panel any more. Therefore it would no longer be possible to copy with F5 to _the_ target panel. The user would always have to choose which is the actual target. Currently, with multiple tabs you already have multiple source and target panels, but it's always clear which is the current source and which is the current target.

All these multipanel strategies have been discussed years ago here. It is really a question if they cost effort but sometimes it may be useful to see multiple panels and drag files to them.

<"More than 2 panes in TC ?" - thread merged here by mod>


I was wondering, was there ever a discussion about TC introducing multiple panes ?

Two panes have been standard from the beginning and the tabs are an awesome feature, but sometimes I say to myself how cool it would be to have 3 panes on the screen, now that ultra-wide monitors and multi-monitor setups are becoming popular.

Any thoughts ?

I guess none has that ever asked this.




Without maybe here

http://ghisler.ch/board/viewtopic.php?t=41245

or here

http://ghisler.ch/board/viewtopic.php?t=29681

http://ghisler.ch/board/viewtopic.php?t=21131

http://ghisler.ch/board/viewtopic.php?t=17211

http://ghisler.ch/board/viewtopic.php?t=25925

or...

http://ghisler.ch/board/viewtopic.php?t=25697

http://ghisler.ch/board/viewtopic.php?t=22720

...

Thanks.

I like one suggestion that says something like "open a second TC instance side-by-side and get 2 extra panes"