Multi Commander > Support and Feedback
Unwanted clutter in tree view
pmennen:
Attached is one of my tree views. When I insert a USB stick I usually use the tree view to determine its drive letter and to view its content. However the tree view is so cluttered I sometimes find myself going back to explorer just so I can find the new drive letter. All the items it the MC tree view are legitimate drives or devices masquerading as drives except for "Favorites" and "Windows Registry". I really wonder why these items are in the tree view. (Obviously I would prefer not). Even more problematic are the H,I,J,L,M drives. These drives are not really there (and do not appear in the file explorer). I mentioned these before, thinking this was just a choice you made in MC to display potential drives, but since I don't see other users complaining of this I'm wondering if this is just a setup problem on my windows 10 system. Is there a way to delete these drives from my system entirely? I realize that this means I would never be able to use these drive letters - which is a problem, but it would not be as bad as coping with all this clutter in the tree view (as well as the 5 extra drive buttons that shouldn't be there). The optical drive (R) is also problematic. As in this screen capture, it is often shown both in the alphabetical listing and again in the later section. In this example it is even shown twice in the lower list and in fact I've occasionally seen the R drive listed as many as a dozen times! All the while, file explorer doesn't even show the R drive once (as it shouldn't since there is no disk inserted into the optical drive). The K drive is a flash drive that actually is inserted into the computer, but sometimes it appears in the alphabetical listing and sometimes (as in this capture) appears below, and sometimes it even in both places. Also adding to the confusion the K or N drives may appear in the upper (alphabetical) section in the left pane tree but in the lower spot in the right pane tree.
Sorry if I sound overly critical ... I realize you can't make choices that appeal to all users. But just the same I thought you might want to know about the problems I have run into.
~Paul
Mathias (Author):
If you have a drive letter you have a device there. It might be a device with removable media like sdcard/dvd or similar. But it is a device that windows assigned a letter to. else something is really weird with your system if you got ghost devices.
In Explorer panel under the Folder Tree section you have a "Device filter" field where you can enter a comma separated list with what items to show.
pmennen:
--- Quote from: Mathias (Author) on September 03, 2015, 08:55:51 ---If you have a drive letter you have a device there.
--- End quote ---
I don't think that is true. But yes, there could be something weird with my system, although I have worked on a lot of systems and I don't see what is weird. Attached is a picture of what my disks look like according to the Device Management app.
Notice that only the 5 letters C-G have actually drives listed. Yes, H,I,J,L,M,R have drive letters shown but under all of those letters it says "No Media". The windows file explorer and the other explorer replacements I have used choose not to display the "No Media" drives where as MC chooses to display them. I'm sure you have your reasons for going against tradition there, but it is hard to see what it is.
--- Quote from: Mathias (Author) on September 03, 2015, 08:55:51 ---In Explorer panel under the Folder Tree section you have a "Device filter" field where you can enter a comma separated list with what items to show.
--- End quote ---
Thanks for letting me know about the device filter. I used that to remove the Favorites and Registry items in the tree which I wouldn't have known how to do otherwise. I also found that I can use it to remove the unwanted (No Media) drive letters from the tree, although unfortunately it doesn't also remove the unwanted drive buttons. This does make the file tree more useable ... but at a pretty stiff price. If I plug a flash drive in and windows assigns one of the drive letters that I have excluded from the Device filter to the flash drive, then I can't see it in MC. I would have to open it with the file explorer or some other alternative.
Mathias (Author):
--- Quote from: pmennen on September 03, 2015, 12:24:32 ---
--- Quote from: Mathias (Author) on September 03, 2015, 08:55:51 ---If you have a drive letter you have a device there.
--- End quote ---
I don't think that is true. But yes, there could be something weird with my system, although I have worked on a lot of systems and I don't see what is weird. Attached is a picture of what my disks look like according to the Device Management app.
Notice that only the 5 letters C-G have actually drives listed. Yes, H,I,J,L,M,R have drive letters shown but under all of those letters it says "No Media". The windows file explorer and the other explorer replacements I have used choose not to display the "No Media" drives where as MC chooses to display them. I'm sure you have your reasons for going against tradition there, but it is hard to see what it is.
--- End quote ---
As the screen shot shows you have devices H,I,j and so on, They are valid devices. BUT there is no media in the device, But it is still a connected device.
Since MC is not built in top of Win Explorer (As many other FM are) MC can not relay on explorer to tell MC the state.
--- Quote from: pmennen on September 03, 2015, 12:24:32 ---
--- Quote from: Mathias (Author) on September 03, 2015, 08:55:51 ---In Explorer panel under the Folder Tree section you have a "Device filter" field where you can enter a comma separated list with what items to show.
--- End quote ---
Thanks for letting me know about the device filter. I used that to remove the Favorites and Registry items in the tree which I wouldn't have known how to do otherwise. I also found that I can use it to remove the unwanted (No Media) drive letters from the tree, although unfortunately it doesn't also remove the unwanted drive buttons. This does make the file tree more useable ... but at a pretty stiff price. If I plug a flash drive in and windows assigns one of the drive letters that I have excluded from the Device filter to the flash drive, then I can't see it in MC. I would have to open it with the file explorer or some other alternative.
--- End quote ---
The settings are for the FolderTree, So it would be weird if it also change the toolbar and such.
You can disable "groups" in the toolbar. like remove Special, Virtual, Could.
You do not need to exclude USB Flash drives. When the flash drive is not there, there is not a device there.
Only devices that have removable media are always there like dvd,cd,card reader
And even if a device is not shown in the folder tree you can still access it from the dropdown or by path
pmennen:
--- Quote from: Mathias (Author) on September 03, 2015, 22:21:50 ---As the screen shot shows you have devices H,I,j and so on, They are valid devices. BUT there is no media in the device, But it is still a connected device.
Since MC is not built in top of Win Explorer (As many other FM are) MC can not relay on explorer to tell MC the state.
--- End quote ---
You don't need to rely on explorer to tell you which drives to display. In fact I can see that you already know which drives are worth selecting. For example if I use the popup menu to select one of the devices that have no media, MC simply ignores the selection. (The popup remains at the old setting). So yes, these are valid devices, but MC is a file manager not a device manager. (We already have a perfectly good device manager for the rare occasions we need it).
My only confusion is why your other users have not complained about this. Perhaps they feel uneasy making complaints about a program offered to them for free. I share this unease, but still, I have a tendency to speak my mind. There is a reason other file managers hide these devices. All the buttons in the drive bar, all the entries in the popup menu, and all the entries in the tree view that correspond to devices containing no media are worse than useless. They are clumbsy and counter-productive since they obscure the devices that we are using to manage our files. It also makes it much more difficult to tell when the computer has recognized that some media was inserted into one of the devices.
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