Total Commander

(very dear wish) suggestion easier way to jump/search directories/maps in alt-F10

First of all I love Win... I mean Total Commander.
I thank you and anyone else, You do a great job.
Please stay focussed on a good working program, in stead of a fancy, good looking, skinable, bugrich, unlogic piece of ... of bytes.

I saw you started on a new version, maybe I can ask for a feature.
This is my wish for as long as I use TC AND Norton Commander (dos).

For me TC is the centre of using the computer.
My data is structured in dir/maps. With TC I can easily move them around a start the appropriate programs.

With todays Gigantic hard disks it is essential to be able to jump to a directory/map/folder as easy as possible.

The way alt-F10 (and ctrl-F8 ) works in TC is still the same as the old NC, is it not really usable.
For example: when I type Outlook, I can't see if it has found the Outlook in Program Files, or the one with data in the user account or the one in a backup-directory somewhere.

It would be easier if the path was shown and that all found paths were shown at once.

I would suggest that is works more like the way WinAmp searches in the playlist.
I dont know how this method is called, but is used more often, and there must be a perfect name for it.

It is very powerful:
When you type F3, it shows all files. Then just start typing and only the matching names stay in the list.
Very important: it does not matter where in the name or tag the typed text is positioned.

I think most of us know pretty well, where a certain dir/file is and just want to get there quickly.
I have a hole bunch of directories in my Change Directory Menu, but I am running out of hotkeys!
This would be a perfect addition.

I think this should be pretty easy to program, because TC already has a list of all scanned dir/map names !!

* Please don't bother too much on how recent this list is, in real working conditions the list is 90% up-to-date and if not found, a rescan is already pretty fast.

* It would be nice if it has a option for more drives, but I think it is not essential.

* With this idea the graphic card of subdirs is not shown, but very often there are so many subdirs in a dir, that I cant see the parent anyway.

* Don't bother too much on advance searching, there are already so many very powerful desktop search programs we can use. And alt-F7 is there too.
Aldo the disadvantage of external programs is, that they cant change the path in TC.

Extra info:
In the earlier dos days there was a simple program GO.exe
It did this already. I used it in NC. Because it ran inside NC, it changed the current path of NC.
(GO: Change Directory (c) 1990-1991 by Keith Ledbetter v3.1a 6-May-91)

Example:
Suppose I have a dir "photos" with my photos in subdirs
If I press "nat" I get a list with
c:\Program Files\Corel\....\Pictures\Nature\
c:\Program Files\QuickTime Alternative\
c:\WINDOWS\......\NativeImages1_v.....\
g:\....photos\Nathalie Holiday
g:\....photos\Christmas Nathalie 0512
etc
Then I type space+"pho" and then remains:
g:\....photos\Nathalie Holiday
g:\....photos\Christmas Nathalie 0512
One click or arrow down and I have the right dir.


Woh,
So much text .. I hope it will be read.

Best regards
Ender

The path in Alt-F10 is shown at the bottom, in Ctrl-F8 you can see it in status bar. Also TC has quicksearch, have you tried it?

For the rest: Please structure your text, it's really way too long and confusing too read, sorry. It's nice that you tell your stories about why you like TC and such, but separate it from the core please and come to the point.

Also do a search in TC 7 forum first, several points of your postings are discussed right now in other threads. For example I have proposed already to extend Alt-F10 with all paths.

It's way easier to track if you make ONE thread per proposal, just like the author expects ONE bug report per thread.

Icfu

And there is xcd: http://mitglied.lycos.de/matbal/

Good post and I support you Ender!

Ender?
Thanks, but no thanks?

I just tried xcd and it is what I was looking for!

Thanks for the tip!

It would be even beter if it was intergrated.

Is there a easy way to connect it to the alt-F10 key in TotalCommander?

Is there a easy way to connect it to the alt-F10 key in TotalCommander?

I'm not sure what you mean by connecting to a key. It is a command line utility, it cannot be bound to a shortcut I guess. But you can use AutoHotkey to achieve the effect.

It is a command line utility, it cannot be bound to a shortcut I guess.

Ahem, user commands...?

Roman

2Hacker
Hmm, where do you write the command then? I might have overlooked something.

2SanskritFritz
Open the command browser, select 'usercmd.ini', press 'new' and enter your name, command and params as usual, then you can use this 'em_xcd' in the main menu or assingn an alias/shortcut to it...

2StickyNomad
Ok, but the question still remains:

Hmm, where do you write the command then? I might have overlooked something.

I mean the xcd command.

2SanskritFritz
Hm, when you define a user command named 'em_xcd', you can enter the path to xcd.exe in the 'command' field in the 'define user command'-dialog, just if it was a button on the buttonbar. Or did I get your question wrong? I have to admit I've not used xcd yet...

2StickyNomad
Yeah, that is a different story... xcd takes parameters on the command line, which i want to enter everytime i use it, just like the "?" parameter in the start menu.

wait... its working with the start menu, no user command creation is needed:
Command: xcd
Parameters: ?
Shortcut: Ctrl-Alt-F10

Almost Alt-F10

2SanskritFritz

wait... its working with the start menu, no user command creation is needed:

Indeed, you're right. But you would unfortunately have to redefine the shortcut if you add or remove entries from the starter menu (the old, old plague ).

This is where user commands pop in: The defined hotkey is no longer bound to a specific entry in the starter menu, so you don't have to bother if the hotkeys are still working after you made changes to your startermenu.

In addition, you don't have to define a starter meu entry at all for custom commands anymore, if you like to e.g. invoke a command exclusively through it's hotkey.

Currently, my starter menu is constantly fading, I think I finally will convert all entries to user commands to break the reglementation of the starter menu as the only location where external programs can be defined.

P.S. Sorry if I tell you things you already know, but I'm not aware if you already have read the whole history.txt