Lurker-alert and long-post-alert
I'm going to post some stuff about one of the longer-standing gripes I've had with Total Commander - namely the Configuration dialog, its layout and in particular configuration of plugins.
The Configuration Dialog to me has always been very cramped with as much as possible in as little space as possible. I guess one of the reasons for this was the fact the the dialog used to use an old-fashioned tab-style
interface.
Now however, TC is using the newer-styled tree-view/listbox interface there is loads of room for more 'tabs' or pages and things should move out so that various areas can get a bit more breathing space.
Configuring Plugins
MaxWish suggested a couple of months ago that all plugins buttons should be accessible from the first page on configurations dialog. I disagree with this. That would be a very illogical place to put them, and in my view they don't need to be buttons at all - it adds an extra layer of user interaction to use them.
Plugins should be accessible as a page on the main preferences dialog list, and they should be grouped in one of two ways:
- All plugins is listed in subpages underneath a main "Plugins" page (by 'main' I mean like the "Layout" page that has "Display" etc.) The actual Plugins page itself could have any settings that are common for all types of plugins - for example you could enable or disable all file system plugins in one go, and/or all lister plugins in one go.
- Alternatively plugins belonging to a category (for example Packer plugins) should be listed as a "Plugins" (e.g. Packer Plugins) subpage under the Packer main page.
I am not sure which of these I prefer myself to be honest. In essence it does not *really* batter, they're both logical and makes sense.
At the moment the Packer plugins are hidden under a button on the Packer page, the File System plugins is hidden on the "Operation" page and the Lister plugins is not only hidden under the "Configure Internal Viewer" button but even further underneath a rather cryptic "LS-Plugins" button on the "Configure Lister" dialog.
This is not only very spread out in a rather disorganised way, making them hard to find and harder still to realise they're there. Also the packer pluging button says "Configure packer extension WCXs", while the file system plugin button says "FS-Plugins" and the lister pluging button similarly says "LS-Plugins." What does WCX mean? FS, and LS? No, you don't have to answer But its something the user shouldn't need to "worry" about.
Packer Plugin Dialog
But this is not the only problem. The actual installation of plugins are a bit unintuitive, and the worst in this regard is the Packer Plugin dialog (titled "Associate".) How do you operate this dialog? In my eyes you can't unless you actually read the help file because it is not straight forward what you are exactly editing.
You have to do things in a certain order in this dialog, otherwise seemingly random confirmation dialogs come up asking you to save something. If I select an existing plugin from the list, nothing happens except it is being highlighted. The extension dropdown does not change to indicate what file extension(s) it is mapped to. How do I find out what kind of extension a plugin is operating on? Oh, I have to select form the combo list. It will then select the associated plugin for me.
It took me a bit to realise that the master control is the 'file extension' combo listbox - one of the smallest control on the dialog. The dialog layout and interface does not make this clear. In fact, to me, the interface indicates that I am editing what file extension the plugin is associated with, not what plugin the file extension is associated with.
As a slight sidenote, there is what I consider to be a bug in this dialog: If I create a new file extension and choose a plugin handler, then this file extension is not added to the file extension combo list until I click OK and then re-open the dialog. When I add a plugin that is not already in the main listbox of plugins (be it for a new or existing extension) the plugin is not added to the list until I press OK and re-open the dialog.
The logical design of this dialog/panel would be a main listbox listing all the extensions currently mapped. Selecting a file extension from this list would display what plugin is currently associated with it. This would be just a dropdown listbox (no combobox) with currently "installed" plugins (mapped to same or other extensions for quick lookup) with the last list item being something along the lines of "<Browse...>" which opens up the normal Windows "Browse for File" dialog.
Underneath the list of extensions (the main control for this page) there would be an "Add" (+) and "Remove" (-) button that would directly affect the list immediately. I don't see a problem with this if the plugin editing is done on a subpage in the main configuration dialog.
Perhaps the user could still choose "<None>" to indicate no plugin to handle that extension. But choosing None would not remove the file extension from the list (because that does not make much sense as a user.)
I think this would make it much clearer what object is actually being edited (file extensions) while each object displays only the very relevant data of its current state (only the plugin handler for the extension visible, not all plugins currently installed/mapped.)
File System Plugin Dialog
One argument for perhaps having a "Plugins" main page on the Configuration dialog which has all plugin types in subpages is that the File System Plugins does not really belong anywhere (it is currently a button on the "Operation" page but it does not belong there, in my opinion.)
The current dialog in itself is nice and straight forward. I would like to come with a suggestion though. I think that it would be nice if you were able to configure a plugin (if it had configuration enabled) from this dialog. When you select a plugin, a "Configure" button can be enabled or disabled depending on if you can configure said plugin. Clicking this button would simply open the plugin configuration dialog.
Having this alternative route of configuring plugins would be nice - because normally you would go to the configuration dialog to do these things.
Lister/Viewer Plugin Dialog
Lister is a plugin in its own right, really, but an integral part of Total Commander anyway. I think the "Configure Internal Viewer" button currently opening a new dialog should be a subpage on the main configuration dialog - perhaps under "Operation," while the Lister Plugin configuration underneath the suggest "Plugin" page?
I realise the Lister Configuration is also available from within Lister itself, but it can be done.
Cheers,
Boah.
PS. This is not a whinge, merely a suggestion to improve Total Commander
Personally, that'ld bring me big extra-jobs too, since I would have to update deeply my TC-Tutorials (six versions…).
Kind regards,
Hi again !
Waiting for improvements from our Author, what about a tool which could «simulate » these better settings ?
