CD Tree colors customization

[Clo]

Hello !

• Just an advice quite off topic :

- Please, uncheck the first box just under the edit-box when you type a message. This'll display the bbCode properly, and shall be much easier to read…

- The [ img ]… marker is disabled here, you cannot display pictures directly on the board. Instead, just place a link to the URL, using the [ url ]… marker.
Thanks !

 Kind regards,
Claude
Clo

[makspyat]

Thanks for the hint, fixed from the previous text with BBCode markup follows:

2StickyNomad
2makspyat
I don't really see why editors, dos windows and such should be placed on separate panels.

Because this is not very convenient when you have running several applications sharing Windows task bar.

2StickyNomad
2makspyat
I don't really see why editors, dos windows and such should be placed on separate panels. It really limits you when you can't quickly switch to them with Alt+Tab - you lose the entire advantage of real Windows multitasking!

DOS window, viwer, editor, everything on the tab can be accessible using mouse of from keyboard (Ctrl+Tab):

http://www.frigate3.com/screenshots/CompareFiles.png

[Lefteous]

2ghisler(Author)

I'm currently working on an UI overhaul. I have already added alternate colors for odd/even lines, and support for XP-style toolbar buttons. Other enhancements are planned, andI'm open for suggestions now.

That sounds great.
Are you working on a general UI overhaul or just on visual aspects?
On the purely visual side throughout XP-style support would be sufficient.
http://www.ghisler.ch/wiki/index.php/Full_Windows_XP_style_support

For ergonomisc aspects I agree with Balderstorm that paths should never be cut. Beside that the dialog sizes (for dialogs containing paths) could be improved a bit.
Another ergonomic aspect is the way controls are distributed and aligned in the configuration dialog. In my opinion the configuration dialog requires a redesign so improving so this point only would be redundant work.

A (configuration) dialog redesign wouldn't be just an ergonomic improvement would reflect a conceptual design improvement. This requires a remade categorization, priorization and changed default options. In addition some complex configurations could be improved.
The most important dialogs to redesign are in my opinion:
- association dialog
- packer association dialog
(all other dialogs following the same approach)

- configuration dialog
(grown in time, doesn't look "in one pour")

This is my answer to the question WHAT should be improved. I'm not sure if you like discussions on the HOW question here.
http://www.ghisler.ch/board/viewtopic.php?p=53414#53414

[ghisler(Author)]

2Lefteous
Currently I don't plan to redesign the main configuration dialog. It would make mail support a nightmare if I had to explain each configuration multiple times.

However, redesigning the association dialog is a good idea. It's design was taken from the old Windows 3.1 file manager. However, I dislike the Explorer association dialog, it works in an unlogical way (not starting from the associations, but from the file types)...

The linked thread doesn't contain any suggestions about the association dialog, so what exactly did you mean?

[Lefteous]

2ghisler(Author)

Currently I don't plan to redesign the main configuration dialog. It would make mail support a nightmare if I had to explain each configuration multiple times.

The main configuration dialog is a huge lump of work. I guess too much time to change it in 7.0.
About the support I guess the wiki could really help here. If every option is explained in an article in an old and new way support would be just sending a single link.

However, redesigning the association dialog is a good idea.

Sounds good as a starting point

It's design was taken from the old Windows 3.1 file manager.

Interesting. I must have forgotten everything about Windows 3.11.

The linked thread doesn't contain any suggestions about the association dialog, so what exactly did you mean?

The linked thread was just about you don't like discussions about suggestions here in detail so I hesitated to post my thoughts here.

File associations
Anyway, here are my basic thoughts.
Actually a TC user starts from a file extension. It's the extension of the file he selected. The operation in TC is called "Associate With" and that is exactly what should happen.
Calling "Associate With" should open a dialog which deals with two situations:

1) The extension is NOT associated at all.
TC should show a dialog which invites the user two enter the most important association data (application to open with, icon, file type name).
In Windows extensions and file types are not the same. A "doc" extension is a "Word document" file type. Such a filetype name should autogenerated but it has to be changable. The same for the icon. The icon should be taken from the application by default.
The current "Edit file type" doesn't need to be changed a lot for this. Such details could be dicussed later. A possible idea could be to split between basic association settings and advanced features. I have some advanced operations in mind but these are really details.
A nice feature here would be a list of programs which are provided to the user to choose from for assignment to an extension.
The list contains the programs which have been assigned to an extension within TC. It grows constantly but only the most often used programs are displayed. Internally each entry has a number assigned which indicates the number of uses.


2) The extension is associated but the user wants to change something (another application to open the program, another icon...).
The same dialog should be shown but with another title (edit association instead of create association).

The dialogs would be identical basically.

Conclusion: The problem of the following approach is that users get a list of all system associations when calling "Associate With". I want to call this thing an association manager. But what they actually want to do is create/change an association. This is what TC should provide.

An association manager could be provided as a bonus but it's not necessary for the basic operations.

Here is another thread with a more sophisticated approach. It deals with an internal association system which is more powerful than the Windows approach and using the TC filter system:
http://www.ghisler.ch/board/viewtopic.php?p=69694#69694

I will maybe add my thoughts about the packer associations later.

[Clo]

2Lefteous

Hello Christian !

Conclusion: The problem of the following approach is that users get a list of all system associations when calling "Associate With". I want to call this thing an association manager. But what they actually want to do is create/change an association. This is what TC should provide.

• I agree and support this point of view and the related proposals.
- Besides, I guess that some random bugs might be fixed in that function.
- For example :
¤ Under Win 98 SE, the quotes of "%1" were not saved sometimes for some associations; this resulted in a cascade of error messages when the path / file name contained spaces. I heard that the reason was an issue with Win 9x.
¤ I've been unpleasantely surprised to have the same annoyance now under XP-Pro. I had to rewrite the quotes several times for the same extensions, mainly pictures file-types, but not only. I have a new SATA HD, a fresh WinXP-Pro installation and a fresh TC installation too…
- Another trivial annoyance is that the preview of icons when you aks for change shows always 32*32, even if the icons you choose have very different sizes. And so on, and so on…
 V G
Claude
Clo

[ghisler(Author)]

2Lefteous
Do you mean some sort of wizard interface, which asks for the extension on the first page, file type name on the second, program on the third? Or how else would you change the dialog? What you describe is more or less what is available now, just with a changed title?!

[Lefteous]

2ghisler(Author)

Do you mean some sort of wizard interface

No just a single dialog maybe with an extended sub dialog if necessary.

What you describe is more or less what is available now, just with a changed title?!

I didn't focus on detailed design of the association dialog. It doesn't make sense to talk about improvements in this dialog before we haven't reached a consensus that the "association manager" (the dialog which appears first currently) should be placed somewhere else but not behind the "Associate With" command as I wrote above.

[Balderstrom]

I notice that Xnews is written in Delphi and Menu shortcuts update if you redefine a command.
(I forget what Lefteous coined it as)

Old Style Menu:
menuitem "&Copy To\tF5", cm_CopyOtherpanel
New Style Menu:
menuitem "&Copy To\t", defined_key, cm_CopyOtherpanel

defined_key: displays the default_key if the user hasn't redefined it.

Xnews' keyboard shortcut dialog is good - perhaps enhanced with a feature like "duplicate command".
So the same command, ie cm_CopyOtherpanel, would be duplicated in the list (for creation of multiple keyboard shortcuts for a given command)
Image: http://img112.imageshack.us/img112/3076/xnewskeyboardmapping4ow.png

[Sir_SiLvA]

New Style Menu:
menuitem "&Copy To\t", defined_key, cm_CopyOtherpanel

Sorry this is bad as it would loose downwards compability

better would be
menuitem "&Copy To\t", cm_CopyOtherpanel, defined_key

[Balderstrom]

I wouldn't lose backwords compatibility, when the line is parsed a check needs to be done if there are three args instead of two. So it doesn't matter if defined_key is first or second...

[Lefteous]

2Balderstrom

I forget what Lefteous coined it as

Do you mean this?
http://www.ghisler.ch/wiki/index.php/Unified_Command_system#Structure_files

2Sir_SiLvA
Sometimes it's necessary to get rid of old habits. You are gladly invited to write a conversion utility.