Vista: Localized directory names

Lefteous · Post by *Lefteous » 2007-01-08, 15:40 UTC

On a German Windows Vista Explorer shows localized directory names. For example C:\Users is displayed as C:\Benutzer.

It quite confusing to have different names in system dialogs and TC.

I found this: SHGetLocalizedName

Please add support for localized directory names.

Post by *ghisler(Author) » 2007-01-08, 17:41 UTC

Sorry, I will never do that. Total Commander has ALWAYS shown what is on disk, not any fancy virtual folder simulations.

Lefteous · Post by *Lefteous » 2007-01-08, 18:37 UTC

Many users will be quite unhappy with that

wanderer · Post by *wanderer » 2007-01-08, 22:43 UTC

Lefteous wrote:Many users will be quite unhappy with that

Personally i'm not planning on using Vista, at least not very soon. I'd like to say two things though.

1. MS has really made quite a mess with Vista, trying at the same time to keep compatibility and change to something completely different than what existed. I don't know if there was a better way to do things but they have certainly made quite a mess.

2. Most TC users may not be plain dummy users but i agree with Lefteous. Most of us would like to see things as they look in explorer. I don't think many users are interested at all in the way MS is destroying their OS and make our lives miserable. It might be better if some of the tricks MS is doing to be hidden. I know, this is making the programmer's life miserable. I'm a programmer and i can understand that but as far as TC is concerned, i'm a user so i would have to agree with Lefteous on that.

shammat · Post by *shammat » 2007-01-09, 13:26 UTC

wanderer wrote:Most of us would like to see things as they look in explorer.

One of the most important I use TC is, that is does not display things as Explorer

wanderer · Post by *wanderer » 2007-01-09, 13:44 UTC

shammat wrote:
wanderer wrote:Most of us would like to see things as they look in explorer.
One of the most important I use TC is, that is does not display things as Explorer

I know, that's what i like about it but its one thing to display them in a better way and another thing to display them in a different way! Imagine if explorer had a folder C:\Windows which appeared as C:\WinNT in TC! Wouldn't that make matters confusing? All applications would know that a folder C:\Windows exists in the HDD but for some reason (that the user should not care about), TC would show it as C:\WinNT!

m^2 · Post by *m^2 » 2007-01-09, 13:50 UTC

What's wrong? I don't care what Microsoft tries to tell me about directory structure. I want to know what's on my drive. If you'll be browsing your drive under Linux or XP, you'll see WinNT. Wouldn't you feel somehow cheated if you discovered that your drive looks totally different from what you've seen?

wanderer · Post by *wanderer » 2007-01-09, 14:12 UTC

m^2 wrote:What's wrong? I don't care what Microsoft tries to tell me about directory structure. I want to know what's on my drive. If you'll be browsing your drive under Linux or XP, you'll see WinNT. Wouldn't you feel somehow cheated if you discovered that your drive looks totally different from what you've seen?

I would probably be a little confused at the beginning but maybe i'd get used to it in the process. Perhaps i wouldn't care very much as i prefer to use only English versions of Windows. Other less technical users would simply not use TC. There is a difference between using TC because you want to be a power user and having to be a systems expert in order to use TC.

The majority of the users do not care about the tricks done in an OS in order for it to have all the features they use every day so such a thing in TC would drive some users away.

This thing has probably been done my MS in order to support the "language packs", which is indeed a neat feature. It has created a mess though but IMHO, it might be a good idea if TC was adjusted (on this specific matter only) to work like Explorer, at least in an optional way.

SanskritFritz · Post by *SanskritFritz » 2007-01-09, 14:23 UTC

I can only repeat myself:
http://ghisler.ch/board/viewtopic.php?p=109818#109818

wanderer · Post by *wanderer » 2007-01-09, 14:47 UTC

SanskritFritz wrote:I can only repeat myself:
http://ghisler.ch/board/viewtopic.php?p=109818#109818

This is a complicated matter and so there can be many ways to view it. You have a point saying what you say. I might have a point when i say that since a user decides to have his system menus and items localized, it would not be proper to see them localized in all applications but TC.

Anyway, i don't think that this matter can be put in the "virtual folder" category. It's a "folder renaming" category. In both cases you see exactly the same contents but with a different folder name. It's like having two junctions to the same folder with different names.

Lefteous · Post by *Lefteous » 2007-01-19, 11:16 UTC

2ghisler(Author)

Total Commander has ALWAYS shown what is on disk, not any fancy virtual folder simulations.

If TC would _always_ show what's on the disk why is there a "show hidden/system files" option which is even disabled by default? And why is there an ignore list option? Both can even lead to serious data loss if you don't verify it's enabled/disabled before copy/move operation. Why TC supports various navigation commands which allow the user to change to _virtual_directories? Why is there a tree which has a _virtual_ desktop as root?

My idea would be to show a special icon by default (option) which indicates that the directory is translated. Another option would be used to completely disable the displaying of localized directory names.

wanderer · Post by *wanderer » 2007-01-19, 17:23 UTC

Lefteous wrote:My idea would be to show a special icon by default (option) which indicates that the directory is translated. Another option would be used to completely disable the displaying of localized directory names.

IMHO, it's a matter of what type of users Christian is targeting with TC. If TC is to show what's actually on disk, then the less technical users might find TC too complex and stop using it. If TC is to show whatever MS is feeding us then it's simplifying things too much for technical users, making it difficult for them. It would be nice to make all users feel comfortable with it and your idea helps in that direction. If this is the default (translation indicator) but there is also a flag to disable translation and the user decides what to do, it would be the best. Of course this will probably complicate TC even more (code-wise).

Perhaps a "user mode" indicator should be introduced ("plain user", "advanced user") with different default settings.

Post by *petermad » 2007-01-19, 18:10 UTC

If TC is going to show translated folder names, my suggestion is that they are simply just shown in parenthesis after the real name - as a kind of additional information - preferably something that could be turned off by ini file setting.

Lefteous · Post by *Lefteous » 2007-01-19, 19:21 UTC

2petermad

If TC is going to show translated folder names, my suggestion is that they are simply just shown in parenthesis after the real name - as a kind of additional information - preferably something that could be turned off by ini file setting.

Well if I would be happy with the localized name behind the "real name" I would probably just build a content plug-in.

roentgen · Post by *roentgen » 2007-01-19, 19:31 UTC

A cm_SwitchLocalizedName seems the only right thing to do IMO (and least difficult to implement, but who knows).

Ideas like the localized name in paratesis... hmm... it's not TC style at all.

I would probably just build a content plug-in.

That would be great indeed