Is there any "command navigation" info to help fin

[Lefteous]

2spikey
OK last try.
Where did you expect to find this command or other commands you were looking for?

[spikey]

2spikey
OK last try.
Where did you expect to find this command or other commands you were looking for?

Hi Lefteous, under normal circumstances, I would expect to find Compare Directories under:

TC > Edit > Search ... > Compare
or
TC > Edit > Compare.

But there is no Edit on the menu bar so I am not sure. The next place to try is probably under:

TC > Tools > Compare ... > Compare Directories.

But there is no Tools entry in the menu bar. So to answer your question I have to say, "I don't know".

If I try the Help text, I can read about Compare Directories but it doesn't tell me where to look which is the whole point of all my postings in this thread.

So I would close TC and run something else. for example my Comparator Pro. No messing around there. Straight in. Intuitive interface which is all in one screen. So no navigation to worry about as it is all laid out to see. Bingo! I will get a result from caomparing Directories faster than poking around TC's menus, hot keys, shortcuts and under damp stones searching for commands the help text doesn't want to direct me to!

------

BTW have you read my last large posting? I have answered your question but it doesn't seem very much connected to my question in this thread or to the explanation I just gave to XPEHOPE3KA.

best
Spikey

[Lefteous]

2spikey

TC > Edit > Search ... > Compare
or
TC > Edit > Compare.

But there is no Edit on the menu bar so I am not sure. The next place to try is probably under:

TC > Tools > Compare ... > Compare Directories.

But there is no Tools entry in the menu bar. So to answer your question I have to say, "I don't know".

Okay that's quite interesting. I think the menu should be improved according to the categorization in the commands file.
Maybe Ghisler should even make a card sorting with many users belonging to several user groups.

BTW have you read my last large posting?

Yes

I have answered your question

More or less - now you really did.

it doesn't seem very much connected to my question in this thread

I think it's absolutely connected as your task is to effectively locate commands. Improved help texts is one aspect, finding the command in the main menu is another. Both should be improved.

The problem always seems to be compatibilty. Not just technically but from the user point of view. Longtime users get used to command which cannot be found in an easy way or in hidden in a wird sub menu.
I guess this is the main point why the developer didn't improve this yet. This doesn't apply to the help of course.

Well let's hope TC 7 will make some things a bit easier.

[Sheepdog]

2spikey
At last I got the point.

I must say it never ever occured to me to use a help that way.

I usually find a command or function that does not exactly what I expect. Then I look in the help what I'm doing wrong or what limitations are documented or even what the command is good for.

But most of the commands and their hotkeys or hidings in the menu I know by heart.

But I agree: It would be a great improvement for a newbie to have the explanation where to find a particular command directly on the help page.

And it would be much more helpful if there were a link that would open the specific dialog box - just like the Windows XP help does sometimes.

On the other hand, just have a look at the Old version 3.01 where the menu is small and clearly and functions are limited. Those days you probably didn't need the sophisticated help you are requesting.

sheepdog

[XPEHOPE3KA]

I go through the steps touse help (as I detailed to Leftitious).

You haven't detailed anything. You've just gave me an "algorithm" of your TC usage. Now give me an algorithm of your help usage. What tab have you used: Index or Search? Answer this simple question if you can.

BTW, you seem to have lied to us answering this question. It's obvious that you can't even use url tag in phpbb! I can give you at least three examples where you've used it as a newcomer. Your posts are full of text referring for some posts, but you can easily use url tag to refer to those posts without any date mentioning (hehe - it's the fourth example!).

You actually told this:

I search help, I find what I want and I want to go to the command.

And what I've told you here is a perfect and not complicated (by any means) way for you to achieve your path to searched commands.

[mod]Watch your tone, please.

Hacker (Moderator)[/mod]

[spikey]

I go through the steps touse help (as I detailed to Leftitious).

You haven't detailed anything. You've just gave me an "algorithm" of your TC usage. Now give me an algorithm of your help usage. What tab have you used: Index or Search? Answer this simple question if you can.

BTW, you seem to have lied to us answering this question. It's obvious that you can't even use url tag in phpbb! I can give you at least three examples where you've used it as a newcomer. Your posts are full of text referring for some posts, but you can easily use url tag to refer to those posts without any date mentioning (hehe - it's the fourth example!).

You actually told this:

I search help, I find what I want and I want to go to the command.

And what I've told you here is a perfect and not complicated (by any means) way for you to achieve your path to searched commands.

XPEHOPE3KA,

I am sorry to say but revisitng this old thread tells me you are in fact referring to something which has no rea bearing on my original post. If you actually start with the help text page then you will see the problem.

Start there. Start with the help page. Start with it. Pretend you have gone to it because you are looking for how to do something with TC which you haven't actually seen in TC. Then ask, "How do I get to the useful command it describes"?

That should tell you the problem I am asking about!

Spikey


(BTW surely I don't need to be able to make "use of the "url tag in phpbb" to ask questions or to need help?)

[PeterTBCarp2]

spikey!

I bow down at your feet. I worship at your alter. I kiss your hand and I fondle the skull that holds your most magnificent brain.
I truly, truly do.

I have never seen this post of yours before even though it's almost two years old now - but it really does ask a most fundamental, simple question. I've tried, in other ways, to address the same issue but, unfortunately, the form of words I used got me banned from the forum. (So I added 2 to my username. ) [Still under negotiation, mind you.]

Unfortunately it was taken as an insult to the author when I asked if Christian Ghisler (the author) needed a project manager (planning committee, whatever..) because things like Help sooo need a makeover. I cannot conceive of why a Help system doesn't provide bilateral references - the meaning of an item plus its location within the interface. And why it took three pages in this forum to elucidate the matter speaks more of inertia in old users than of true didactic willingness. There’s money in new users, surely?
(I know a chap who has been working on the beta of Vista SP1 and I pleaded with him to get MSft to put *everything* in the interface in Help. Both ways. Fingers crossed…)

BTW, in answer to your question: there's no easy answer. You hunt and you sweat and you learn the idiosyncrasies - and then you love it. Like a spouse, perhaps.

'Ctrl-F' ISN'T 'Find'?? ‘Wincmd’??

Version 7's Help has improved somewhat in this Location regard but it's still a long way from being finished. I expect I'm stuck with TC until I die so I'm going to help these blokes whether they appreciate it or not. Somehow I'm going to call for a Redo Help Committee and get Help totally redone. Maybe, as the Brits had Pence and New Pence for some years, we should at the same time devise Old Menu and Menu to bring the interface up to date. (In one reply in this thread an excuse was given that the menu system is completely re-configurable.) Maybe that's worth doing, too.

Curiously, I arrived here because I was looking for an ini switch I know exists (how to make the panels change before releasing keys) - but now I can't find reference to it. Someone kindly put ALL the Help in one long wiki page – but now I can’t find IT. It's searchable, word by word. Arrr..

PS Persist: it’s a powerful tool.
PPS There’s a nice addon using ‘ignore in quick-search’ (blanks those eliminated) but the install/usage descriptions are almost impenetrable.

[spikey]

I have never seen this post of yours before even though it's almost two years old now - but it really does ask a most fundamental, simple question.

[snip]

I cannot conceive of why a Help system doesn't provide bilateral references - the meaning of an item plus its location within the interface. And why it took three pages in this forum to elucidate the matter speaks more of inertia in old users than of true didactic willingness.

[snip]

Version 7's Help has improved somewhat in this Location regard but it's still a long way from being finished. I expect I'm stuck with TC until I die so I'm going to help these blokes whether they appreciate it or not. Somehow I'm going to call for a Redo Help Committee and get Help totally redone.

[snip]

There’s a nice addon using ‘ignore in quick-search’ (blanks those eliminated) but the install/usage descriptions are almost impenetrable.

Hello Peter

Thank you for your posting. Sorry I have been so slow to reply.

Yes, I too found it a surpise that there was such massive difficulty in explaining what the problem is with going from the help text to locating the function being described.

In some of the posts I made I went through the problem simple step by simple step but it seems that those who read those steps jumped over them because they presumably *thought* they knew what I was writing. In reality they did not seem to know. And so we have had a very strange discussion!

Much as I love Total Commander, I have to say that the help text is very poor. This makes the learning curve steeper than it needs to be and, of course, the result is that fewer new users adopt it.

The actual interface is actually a seprate matter and I think that is being sorted out.

I'm told there is a good copycat alternative to Total Commander and although I have a full licence for TC I would be very inetersted in something which isn't as complicated to use and if the going gets tough then which has DECENT HELP TEXT! Heh!

regards,
Spikey

BTW I think I will have to give a miss to the ‘ignore in quick-search’ which you mention because of it's poor instructions. Life is too short to ponder endlessly over what should be more straightforward!


.

[jb]

Is there a web page or perhaps even something in the TC help text to show where particular commands are located.

For example, the help text might say something like "Use RENAME to do ... blah blah blah". However for a newcomer or even a long-time user it can be a real problem finding where that RENAME command is to be found!!!

For example, I still can't work out how to do a FIND to scan all the files in the current folder and all the subfolders. (NO - I don't particularly want ananswer to that right now.) The point is that the TC help text does not assist me to find where to go to do something like that FIND.

This could be easily overcome by putting at the top of the help page for a command (such as RENAME) the navigation which can be used to get to it.

Many, many posts later:

Hello Peter

...

Yes, I too found it a surpise that there was such massive difficulty in explaining what the problem is with going from the help text to locating the function being described.

...

I support your original suggestion and I can hardly believe the resistance against it (although I have already encountered such stubbornness then and again). Maybe two reasons in this case are that the starting post was expressed "unluckily" and that the problem is not really severe for most users.

[Lefteous]

2spikey
Although there is still no command navigation in the help file. There is the command browser in the program itself. I think it makes finding a command much easier. What do you think?

[spikey]

2spikey
Although there is still no command navigation in the help file. There is the command browser in the program itself. I think it makes finding a command much easier. What do you think?

"Command browser"? What is that?

The phrase does not not come up in this forum's search nor Google not in TC's help text.

[StickyNomad]

This dialog is used to browse through TC's commands. It is displayed when you press the 'magnifier'-button in the 'change toolbar button dialog' or when editing hotkeys in configuration > misc.

You can start it 'standalone' by typing cm_commandbrowser into the commandline.

[spikey]

2spikey
Although there is still no command navigation in the help file. There is the command browser in the program itself. I think it makes finding a command much easier. What do you think?

The command browser is neat. Unfortunately it provides nothing at all to address my need.

What I would need is simply a line of text path on each help page. (Or, more correctly, on each help page that describes a command.)

I've given up!

I've decided to just use what I know of TC and use another utility for new functions that I'm seeking.

rgds
Spikey

[d]

support++

"...
Configuration > Options > Font > File List Font
..."
support++

"everytime you see a hyphen, replace it with a > and the help may begin to make more sense to you" - i do not understand this. which hyphens?

for example: there is only "Find files: General" in a ".hlp" help page but should be also "commands->search->general".