file panel autorefreshing?

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Valery_Kondakoff
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file panel autorefreshing?

Post by *Valery_Kondakoff »

Hi!

Let's imagine, I have opened a folder c:\temp\ in TC. When a there is a new file in this folder created by an external application it will be never displayed in TC file panel until TC gain focus again.

This is not very convenient when you need to visually monitor creation of some files (like the file-flags).

So, there is my question: if there are some (hidden) options which allows TC to autorefresh the file panel without gaining the input focus?

Thank you!
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van Dusen
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Post by *van Dusen »

Unfortunately not! :cry:

I found an old thread (opened 24. Apr. '03) in the german forum concerning this topic... Hacker had answered (same date), that Mr. Ghisler will try to find a solution. I had dig up this thread on 14. Dec. '04 and had asked, what has happened with this feature request in the meantime (I didn't get a response)... So we have to wait indulgent...
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SanskritFritz
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Post by *SanskritFritz »

As a workaround you can use AutoHotkey with this script:

Code: Select all

#Persistent
SetTimer sf_subRefreshTC, 250 ; This is in msec, change if necessary
Return
sf_subRefreshTC:
	PostMessage	1075, 540, 0, , ahk_class TTOTAL_CMD
	Return
Install AutoHotkey, save the above script as TCAutoRefresh.ahk and start it. Now the actual TC panel will be refreshed every 250ms even if in the background. I highly recommend AutoHotkey for everyday use. :)
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Valery_Kondakoff
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Post by *Valery_Kondakoff »

Yes, thanks. The same action (send windows message) can be performed by nnCron. But (IMHO) it is a really strange, there is no 'internal' autorefreshing in TC...
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Sir_SiLvA
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Post by *Sir_SiLvA »

Valery_Kondakoff wrote:Yes, thanks. The same action (send windows message) can be performed by nnCron. But (IMHO) it is a really strange, there is no 'internal' autorefreshing in TC...
Imho its not strange, why should it refresh if its not active ? :?
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Valery_Kondakoff
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Post by *Valery_Kondakoff »

Sir_SiLvA wrote:Imho its not strange, why should it refresh if its not active ? :?
Do you really believe TC refreshes file panels when they are active? Let me disappoint you - this is not true. The new files created by an external application will be not shown in active pane until you do one of these actions:
- hit F2 or Ctrl+R
- move the focus from TC window and bring it back
- go to another Tab and come back

It is interesting, that the file panel does not refreshes even when you are moving focus to the opposite pane and bring it back (using Tab key)...
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ado
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Post by *ado »

Valery_Kondakoff wrote:Do you really believe TC refreshes file panels when they are active? Let me disappoint you - this is not true.
Of course not. Don't matter if TC is active or not. As you wrote. There are 3 triggers to refresh panel and the timer is not among them. I think, it can cause problems on slower drives / folders with huge amount of files. btw: this problem you'll have even with SanskritFritz's script
Valery_Kondakoff
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Post by *Valery_Kondakoff »

ado wrote:I think, it can cause problems on slower drives / folders with huge amount of files.
Not sure about this. At least the Windows built-in Explorer refreshes itself constantly and shows the newly created files even when Explorer window is not active. And (as far as I understand) this feature does not affects the overall system performance...
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ado
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Post by *ado »

Valery_Kondakoff wrote: Not sure about this. At least the Windows built-in Explorer refreshes itself constantly and shows the newly created files even when Explorer window is not active. And (as far as I understand) this feature does not affects the overall system performance...
hm...I think there are 2 problems - just to keep consistent behaviour in TC:
  • 1. If I remembre good, a few years ago whey I was C/C++ programmer in Win32 API is method that allows you to hookup to directory and receive callback upon each change. This method can be used easily to refresh panel.
  • 2. What is problem with this method (or in that time it was problem because I planed to use that method) it inform you just about change in one directory but not about changes in subdirectories. This means, if you'll have tree view, it will not get refreshed (as Explorer do not refresh automatically Tree view on left side). ...and to make hook on each direcotory? oooh god - it's not a way.
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Valery_Kondakoff
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Post by *Valery_Kondakoff »

Personally, I don't care about auto-updating the tree view. But I'm really interested in auto-refreshing of the both visible file-panels... Just curious: how this feature is implemented in other file managers: FAR, Xplorer2, A43, TrackerV2 - all of them are supporting auto-refresh of file panel even when their window is not active...
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ado
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Post by *ado »

How? Ask in their discussion forums :-). There are at least 2 possibilities. Timer and system callback. ....now I recall, it is probably possible to watch also for changes in whole directory tree - simply you will write device driever that will hookup to core system create/delete directory. But it must be driver - cannot be part of TC.EXE and it is not implemented even in Explorer :-). And sure...it will be pretty different for Win95 and WinXP...I expect
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Post by *ghisler(Author) »

I decided against auto-refreshing for two reasons:
1. Performance - constant refreshing e.g. while a file is downloaded can eat quite a lot of performance
2. Sorting: New entries would either (as in explorer) appear at the end of the list, so the sort order would become wrong, or in the middle, making file selection problematic.
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Post by *pdavit »

ghisler(Author) wrote:I decided against auto-refreshing...
Why not make it optional and configurable with default behaviour the current one?
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WatchUer
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Post by *WatchUer »

pdavit wrote:Why not make it optional and configurable with default behaviour the current one?
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Post by *poiuytr »

Support!
Me too!
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