Total Commander

I suggest to introduce a new toggle command named something like cm_VisRemovableDrivesWithoutMedia (as a companion to cm_VisTwoDriveButtons, cm_VisDriveCombo, ...). The new command would show/hide all removable drives without media throughout Total Commander in the drive button bar, drive combobox and so on.

Currently I find it annoying to see for example 4 drive buttons when I attach an USB card reader/writer. Every now and then I forget which card drive is dedicated to the type of card I'm currently using. So I have to check manually which card drive is not empty. Furthermore often the 4 extra drives makes the drive button bar wrap which I don't like. Of course I can use the Device Manager (devmgmt.msc) and disable the devices for the card types I don't need or I can use the Disk Management (diskmgmt.msc) and remove the drive letter, but that are only workarounds at best.

I don't know whether Windows provides media insertion/ejection events. If not then user could force a refresh by invoking cm_VisRemovableDrivesWithoutMedia twice.

Related to this feature would be the introduction of a new drive icon for removable drive with ejectable media. See also Drive icons.
But it seems to me that even Windows does not distinguish correctly between the following:

• non-removable drives
• removable drives with fixed media
• removable drives with ejectable media

On my system for example USB memory sticks are treated wrongly like removable drives with ejectable media, that is, their context menu have the "Eject" command. And vice versa USB hard disks are treated like non-removable drives (instead like removable drives with fixed media).

Maybe we could keep the icons, as the drive is physically available, but change the appearance of the icons, that do not have a media inserted?

TLis wrote:Maybe we could keep the icons, as the drive is physically available, but change the appearance of the icons, that do not have a media inserted?

It seems like my thread "icons for drives" http://www.ghisler.ch/board/viewtopic.php?t=13492

TLis wrote:Maybe we could keep the icons, as the drive is physically available, but change the appearance of the icons, that do not have a media inserted?

Support if it is meant as addition to my suggestion, not instead of it.

Unfortunately there is no way to find out whether the drives have media, except for trying to read from them directly. This can take a LOT of time (minutes!) if no medium is inserted and the driver is badly written.

Displaying the media icons in the drive buttons bar like in the tree optionally would really help.

Unfortunately the drive buttonbar buttons only support bitmaps, not icons.

2ghisler(Author)
Would be great - it seems many people are missing real icon support here:
http://ghisler.ch/board/viewtopic.php?p=109684#109684

I guess it would be a good idea to use the same technique for the new buttonbar also in the drive buttonbar.

ghisler(Author) wrote:Unfortunately there is no way to find out whether the drives have media, except for trying to read from them directly.

I feared that. Therefore I already mentioned that the user could force a refresh manually by invoking cm_VisRemovableDrivesWithoutMedia twice.

ghisler(Author) wrote:This can take a LOT of time (minutes!) if no medium is inserted and the driver is badly written.

If a refresh can take minutes then I suggest that Total Commander shows a little progress dialog with a Cancel button saying:

[face=tahoma]Checking existence of medium in drive <Letter>: (<Name>) ...
Cancel to use last known state (initial state: all drives have media).
[/face]
when cm_VisRemovableDrivesWithoutMedia is invoked to HIDE drives without media.

Alternatively the message may be displayed in the status bar and the refresh can be canceled only by the ESC key.

So it's up to the user whether he is willing to wait some time for another refresh.

PS: Maybe the progress dialog could be enhanced by a Background button as in the Copy dialog.

ghisler(Author) wrote:Unfortunately there is no way to find out whether the drives have media, except for trying to read from them directly. This can take a LOT of time (minutes!) if no medium is inserted and the driver is badly written.

I've found it's possible!

Using the shell to receive notification of removable media being inserted or removed.

SHChangeNotifyRegister Function

Any opinions? I think it would be very useful.

Good news!

bviksoe already suggested the same and Wolf Bartels suggested a very cheap alternative in topic "Drive button improvement suggestion".

There is such a function Show removable drive only with disk in FreeCommander. I support the suggestion for this feature to be impemented in TC.