More than 2 file panels useful for file sorting
Posted: 2009-12-10, 17:22 UTC
I know this has been discussed over and over in the forum and in the past I have come down firmly on the side of 2 panels only. There are very good reasons for having only two panels... rational keyboarding being foremost, but also the intrinsic behaviors of copy, paste, and move are best understood in a 2-panel, source/destination layout. That is the genius of the Norton Commander (aka "uniform file manager") approach.
However...
It is hard to avoid recognizing the usefulness of a tool such as Q-Dir. Q-Dir has a great interface into layouts with multiple panels (each with a tree, if desired). Other tools have this capability, but Q-Dir exposes it most directly (via simple buttons on a toolbar).
The Q-Dir layout that got me thinking the most has one panel (with tree, if you like) on the left and two (2!) panels (again, with optional trees) on the right. That layout fits several situations I encounter from time to time...
Since Q-Dir apparently employs the Explorer control for its file panels, it is currently limited to the columns that Explorer offers, the menus that Explorer offers, etc. For this and other reasons, Q-Dir should never be considered a competitor for TC or other commanders, IMO.
But as a means for manually sorting files into folders it is definitely worth a look.
However...
It is hard to avoid recognizing the usefulness of a tool such as Q-Dir. Q-Dir has a great interface into layouts with multiple panels (each with a tree, if desired). Other tools have this capability, but Q-Dir exposes it most directly (via simple buttons on a toolbar).
The Q-Dir layout that got me thinking the most has one panel (with tree, if you like) on the left and two (2!) panels (again, with optional trees) on the right. That layout fits several situations I encounter from time to time...
Since Q-Dir apparently employs the Explorer control for its file panels, it is currently limited to the columns that Explorer offers, the menus that Explorer offers, etc. For this and other reasons, Q-Dir should never be considered a competitor for TC or other commanders, IMO.
But as a means for manually sorting files into folders it is definitely worth a look.