Show Posts

This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.


Messages - GrantSP

Pages: 1 2 [3] 4
51
Support and Feedback / Toolbar view messed up after upgrade
« on: October 13, 2013, 03:39:42 »
I have just now updated to the 1530 build of 3.5.1 and my toolbar was all messed up.
There was a gap between the Standard toolbar and the File Commands toolbar, about 60% of the screen width, which meant all the other icons were pushed off the edge of the screen and were unavailable.

At first I tried to grab the handle attached to each toolbar and move it but it is fixed. Has this always been the case? Have these toolbars never been moveable? I have never before had the need to move them so I don't know. Seems a shame if they aren't.
The only way to fix the problem was to "Uncheck/Check" each toolbar in the "View -- Toolbars -->" menu option.

Now it is all as it was before.

52
Feature Requests and Suggestions / Re: NEXT Version v4.x (?)
« on: October 10, 2013, 01:58:39 »
Ok let's look at this again.

I actually think the way you have the Explorer Panel and the Core settings in tabbed panels is the best way to do it. I was in no way saying you should put all the settings onto one page, rather one location. There should be no reason why changing the layout or colouring of the explorer panel can be done by two or more different commands. Just one.

For instance, there is the Configuration -- File Coloring Rules Editor and then on the Colors tab of the Explorer Panel Settings there is the options to use that Editor. It should be easily seen that these two need to go together. To open one editor dialog and be told to use it you need to open another settings panel is needlessly obtuse and confusing.

Also I understand the need to have separate settings panels for core and explorer, because of the modular nature of your program but what is the need to change the style of interface with different menu options?

Your tabbed panel UI for the Core and Explorer Panel settings is excellent. It looks good, is functional, clean and informative. Why can't the other dialogs and menu options also be placed in similar tabbed panels? It would present a more unified and clean look.

So File Coloring Rules Editor -- into a tabbed panel
Quick Look'n'Feel -- scrap it. It can be accomplished just as well with the saved/exported configurations from the other methods

The other menu options under the Configuration menu can probably stay exactly as they are, unless they too can be moved to one of your tabbed panels.
I really like the look of that UI with the settings inside a panel in the main program, it has a touch of class or something about it. Nice job.

One minor point that needs fixing. In the Explorer Panel Settings -- Display and in the Fonts section. The first item is "Freepace" I assume that should be "Free space"?

53
Feature Requests and Suggestions / Re: NEXT Version v4.x (?)
« on: October 09, 2013, 04:02:03 »
One of the areas of this program that I really like is the button bar at the bottom. A great idea where you can easily assign your own commands to buttons. Brilliant! However the look of it is a bit "blah". No offense. Even providing the ability to resize the buttons or assign icons would make it more attractive.
If you are given an icon library that handles all the icons within the program itself as well as any extra commands that the user designs, then choosing one of those to be the button face would be good.

I imagine however that it might be a bit more of a rewrite for most of the interface to read the icons from a user defined icon library so maybe just the buttons on the bottom.

Just now as I am writing this post I was also looking at the configuration options in MC and noticed something odd.
You have too many ways to change the same sort of things and they don't always match up and produce the desired effect.

1) Configuration -- Quick Look'n'Feel Setup -- Customize -- Colors -- (choose from the list)
Too many clicks and changes of interface even within this one setting. File menu to new dialog to another new dialog and then a dropdown list.

2) Configuration -- Explorer Panel Settings -- Display or Layout of Colors (choose Display and then...) Fonts... As well as these options there is a button on the bottom of this new panel to "Import" a new scheme which loads a new dialog with another dropdown list to select a scheme.
As with 1) too many different changes in interface to edit settings: menu options to dialogs to tabbed panels to more dropdown lists and buttons.

Selecting one of those schemes changed the font colors but nothing else which meant my previous layout of the Quick Look'n'Feel setup of alternating colors now had some text with same background color. Other elements also changed to undesirable styles and there is no option to restore the layout, color or style to "factory" settings. I now have to figure out which style element was changed by which option menu.

So if I could summarize what I feel the most important UI changes you should make are:

1) Reorganize the different ways to edit all the elements onto one place from which ALL the settings are easily identified and changed. Don't have multiple ways to do the same thing for this sort of thing, it is something the user may do once in a while and doesn't need to be in a quick one click setup but it should also be presented in a unambiguous manner so as not to confuse simple users. Like me. :)
If these settings could be saved into some sort of config file then you may find users could share their settings and you might be able to include them in a list of easily defined settings, in the same way most code editors have different layout styles.

2) Pretty up the button bar with the ability to change the size and maybe adding icon support.

3) If ALL the icons, even those in the main program, were loaded from an icon library (some *.dll maybe) then users may also be able to load different libraries if so desired.
This last one is a really low issue one though. 1 and 2 really need attention in my opinion.




54
Support and Feedback / Re: Customize Default UI Colors
« on: October 09, 2013, 03:19:57 »
Thank you for that. Yes you're right it is not the prettiest UI is it?
I'll have a bit of a play around and see what I get. It is not one of the most important things to do but, why not, I got time.

I just now noticed the version 4 suggestion question before, looks like you too want to pretty things up a bit. I'll make my suggestions there.

55
Support and Feedback / Customize Default UI Colors
« on: October 08, 2013, 03:29:31 »
Sorry to use this page to ask this question, I just happen to be reading it and the point about colour schemes grabbed my attention.
Is it correct that the colouring only applies to the actual file panes not the rest of the UI? I can use the quick look'n'feel colour option to change colours but it looks like it only affects that area.
I would like to make the whole UI a darker style but I am not sure if those details are handled by Windows itself.

56
Support and Feedback / Re: A couple of questions with the new version
« on: September 20, 2013, 03:19:10 »
Point 1) Great, it wasn't really an important issue for me, just something I noticed. Good to see you are all over it though.

Point 2) Hmm.. That is strange. If I select 1 or more files and then 'Tools - Change Properties (Attributes/Time)...' the selection of those files is changed. Why is it different to other file operations?

Point 3) I can't see what you are describing here. If I 'grab' a folder and drag it over to the CheckSum screen nothing happens. The mouse cursor shows I have selected the folder and it reverts to a normal mouse cursor once I release the mouse button. However no folders/files show in the CheckSum screen, no other dialogs or prompts appear, just a blank screen.

What I am after is something this.

The files to operate on here:

File1.ext
File2.ext
File3.ext
FolderA\File1.ext
FolderA\File2.ext
FolderB\File1.ext
FolderB\File2.ext

At the moment it produces this result after three separate actions

somechecksumfigureshere *File1.ext
somechecksumfigureshere *File2.ext
somechecksumfigureshere *File3.ext

in one report and then:

somechecksumfigureshere *File1.ext
somechecksumfigureshere *File2.ext

in another for the FolderA, and lastly:

somechecksumfigureshere *File1.ext
somechecksumfigureshere *File2.ext

for FolderB

What I desire is a report like this

somechecksumfigureshere *File1.ext
somechecksumfigureshere *File2.ext
somechecksumfigureshere *File3.ext
somechecksumfigureshere *FolderA\File1.ext
somechecksumfigureshere *FolderA\File2.ext
somechecksumfigureshere *FolderB\File1.ext
somechecksumfigureshere *FolderB\File2.ext

I understand that this might be a bit beyond the scope of the file tool, and I am quite prepared to just produce the report manually. Since I sometimes work with 100s of files and need a way to update the checksums for these files and have it in a config file (for another program). The ability to do this easily would be nice. But not essential.

Point 4) I remembered an open source shell extension I used to use, before I found MultiCommander. It gave a 'Save as..' dialog box for naming the file report if many files were selected. The source is found here. http://code.kliu.org/hashcheck/

Thank you Mathias

57
Support and Feedback / A couple of questions with the new version
« on: September 19, 2013, 10:30:03 »
I have just updated to the latest version and I thought I would ask a couple of questions that have puzzled me.

1) I have a number of 'cloud drives' and previously only SkyDrive was showing in the toolbar, now not even that shows up. I have checked the options to have them displayed. Is there something else that has to be done? They all show in explorer without problem.

2) Is there a setting to unselect a group of files after an operation has been performed on them? ie. If I select some files and do a Checksum on them, there is no need to keep them selected.

3) I would like to select all the files within a directory tree and perform a Checksum on them and include the folder structure in the resulting file report. Could this be possible? Maybe I will have to create some scripts?

4) The way the name of the Checksum report is named is strange. Although multiple files may be selected, the resulting file is always called after the top file in the selection. Why not just name it "report" or name it with time/date?

Thank you.

I always enjoy using this software, simply the best file manager around. No question about it, it just is the best.

58
Support and Feedback / Re: Multi-Rename error
« on: September 04, 2013, 02:43:49 »
Thank you.

I didn't realize the tags could have extra values to extend the format.

[m2] = 05 instead of the [m] = 5 that I was getting.

I couldn't find it when I wanted to, but now after reading your post I thought I would check again, sure enough, your documentation had it listed there all the time.

Sorry for the inconvenience. I appreciate the amount of work you put into this and to have to respond to stupid posts like this, well again, sorry.

59
Support and Feedback / Multi-Rename error
« on: September 03, 2013, 03:00:30 »
Hello.

Since my last efforts with Multi-Rename I have decided to be a bit more adventurous but I have come across a bug.

I have created a couple of buttons to copy some log files into my current beta-test folder for examination and then clear the folders for a clean slate ready for the next test.
To be able to make comparisons between different sets of logged data I then use Multi-rename to prepend the current date and time to those files.

First problem I came across was the default time options didn't have leading zeros in the MIN & SEC values thus providing sequence problems.
So after reading the forum I found you suggested using more advanced date-time formats. I did using this setup:

[?ExtendedProp.datemodify-{yyyy-MM-dd|-HH-mm} ]-[N]

This was serving me well until this morning when the following error resulted.

The two files I copy over are:
Lua.log
Civ5DebugDatabase.db

Upon running Multi-Rename I got the, almost, correct files

2013-09-03-10-00-Lua.log
2013-09-03-09-59-Civ5DebugDatabase.db

Notice the timing error.

Then after doing another modification and running the system producing more log files I get the following error:

2013-09-03-10-13-Lua.log
2013-09-03-09-59-Civ5DebugDatabase.db > Failed to rename. A file with this name already exists.

Now there are 2 errors here.
1) the current time should actually be 10-50 thus the Lua.log is wrong
2) the Civ5DebugDatabase.db is trying to be renamed to the first instance of that file with a completely wrong time

I am really impressed with MultiCommander, and I am trying to leverage all of the great functions that are incorporated into this wonderful programme, but this is a real bummer :(

Hope you can track down the problem.

Thanks in advance

Edit:
I thought I would do another test while I continued to read through the forum.
This time the two files were to renamed with timestamps 28 minutes different! :o

Edit2:
Ahh. I now see the problem. The ?ExtendedProp.datemodify is reading the modified date/time of the file that is copied over.
Is there a way to get a full date/time value with leading zeroes using the current system time, not the file created/modified?

60
Support and Feedback / Re: Multi-Rename
« on: July 28, 2013, 05:28:21 »
Ok. Apologies to Jungle & Mathias.

Error is in the user not the program. :-[

I was trying to rename using the 'Search and Replace' inputs on the right hand side, not the 'Filename' input on the left hand side.
Once I realized that I could just type in the new name and add rename rules it worked brilliantly.
Oops!

In my defence, the layout  is a 'little obtuse'. Or maybe I am trying to justify my error. :)
Not sure how I would change it. Perhaps Mathias you went through the same questioning when you designed it? The end result may in fact be just what is needed.

So the end result is: the function is perfect and like everything else about MultiCommander is to be applauded.

Thank you. Well done.

61
Support and Feedback / Re: Multi-Rename
« on: July 19, 2013, 01:32:56 »
All other methods of renaming files work as expected.
All files are standard text files with NO 'hidden' 'read only' or 'system' attributes.
Using Multi-Rename also works without error, but only for existing characters.

Tried it also in a number of other folders and drives on my system. All with the same result.

The 'log' shows no errors with either extension initialization or in the process of renaming.

The only error messages are inside the Multi-Rename tool's "New Filename" window.

62
Support and Feedback / Re: Multi-Rename
« on: July 18, 2013, 08:27:04 »
No.

That was the first thing I tried.
It results in the errors: "Failed to Rename"

I can change any character that is already there but not add any.

63
Support and Feedback / Multi-Rename
« on: July 18, 2013, 03:02:56 »
apologies in advance to all if this is obvious!

I can use the Multi-rename to change existing characters in my files but I just cant figure out how to ADD characters to the start or end of existing names.

eg.

file1.txt, file2.txt, file3.txt

to become

NEW_file1.txt, NEW_file2.txt, NEW_file3.txt

I figure it is right in front of me but I can't see it.

Is it the fact that I'm not actually 'renaming' any existing characters? Simply 'adding' on new ones.


64
Support and Feedback / Re: How to not filter sub-directories?
« on: February 21, 2013, 23:49:23 »
Thank you.

65
Support and Feedback / How to not filter sub-directories?
« on: February 21, 2013, 04:25:30 »
If I have a folder with many directories and sub-directories that contain different types of files. If I use the filter to show only, eg *.sql, the sub-directories are hidden as well.

I would like to be able to navigate up and down the 'tree' using the file pane while it shows only the specified filetype.

As it is now I must disable the filter - go to a new folder - re-enable the filter - do whatever actions I want - disable - move - (repeat).
Or use the tree view (Alt + Num*).

Similar to this request is the ability to reverse the selection. ie set the filter to eg. - *.sql and have the display show everything but *.sql files. Or have a button to reverse the selection.

66
This is discussed another way http://forum.multicommander.com/forum/index.php/topic,431.0.html.

I like to use CTRL +mouseclick to select files but at the moment this is not functioning as expected.
There was some confusion over "selecting" and "checking". The underlying code for file operations was acting on "checked" files
but the CTRL+mouseclick was only "selecting" them.

Apparently this behaviour is being fazed out and replaced with a system that works as we all expect it to.

67
Support and Feedback / Re: Unpack error
« on: May 20, 2012, 02:26:28 »
That difference in unpacking times is curious!

I have just now d/l the Drupal archive and tried three different ways to unpack it.
I used 7Zip's context menu command and it took about 10secs.
Then MC unpack command which took about 25secs.
And lastly Win7 internal extract command which took the longest at about 35secs.

All these times are long because of the nature of the archive. ie it is full of many small files in a large directory structure.

I regularly handle large archives of many formats in MC and the some are 100s of MBs in size.

Although I default to using 7Zip most of the time, and not MC's unpack command, I don't believe this unpacking behaviour is a "fault" as such,
rather an example of the different ways archive software handles the unpacking routine.

68
Support and Feedback / Re: Select files with the 'Insert' key
« on: May 20, 2012, 01:49:57 »
This sounds very similar to the situation I found as noted here:
http://forum.multicommander.com/forum/index.php/topic,431.0.html

69
Support and Feedback / Re: Right-click "New" menu options
« on: May 16, 2012, 02:10:27 »
The version that I am running is 2.1.2 64 Bit Build 1045 and there is no problem with creating folder when the context-menu is called from an existing folder.

Try running the Update utility first and see if it 'corrects' your situation.

70
That is looking really good.

If I can add to Jungle's suggestion?
How about passing the selected files from both panels so that 'Comparison' programs like "WinMerge" can be called with both files as parameters.

71
Hi Mathias.
Just read your post about your desire to rework the toolbar. Absolutely agree. It desperately needs a work-over.

Now about the ugly icons, have you considered using some open-source icons that already exist. There literally are thousands to choose from.
On a slightly more detailed point if you code it to use icons from an external set then you might be able to incorporate themes to suit each user's taste. These theme set icons could be easily modified and shared by everyone and you could end up with some really high class icons as standard.

72
Hello Mathias.

A nice idea to improve MC.

If I can put forward my thoughts?
The 'Heading Bar' at the top of the list display with the options for "Name","Ext","Size" and "Date" is counter-intuitive to the format of display we are expecting in a list display.
That is to say if I select 'List' and my files are then arranged in columns displaying my files by "Name"(like your screenshot) then the 'Heading Bar' should not look like it is Heading columns for undisplayed information such as "Size" or "Date". Rather the 'Heading Bar' should be removed and the options to change the style of sorting the files should come from a small dropdown box, like the Drive box or maybe an option in the right-click menu, personally I prefer the right-click option.

Also I totally agree with Jungle about the options with the extensions being configurable. Show them, don't show them, right-aligned, natural, the more ways there are to display files then MultCommander is living up to its name.

I can't wait to see what results you bring.

73
Support and Feedback / Re: Right-click "New" menu options
« on: April 14, 2012, 03:18:17 »
Really! Wow how long ago did you code that? ;D

Please do have a look at it. Quite a number of other file managers have the default windows "New" menu so it shouldn't be that hard.

I guess it is moving into your summer up there in the northern hemisphere and rain might be some time far off? What about some heavy cloud, will that do?

Seriously though Mathias, this is some great work you have done and its all provided at the great price of nothing!

Thank you.

Grant

74
Support and Feedback / Re: Selected files are not handled properly
« on: April 14, 2012, 02:26:09 »
Oh! Curious. :o

Good to see you are aware of it though.

Probably the next major version (3.0) then before you look at it.
Not an issue. I'll live with it.

I know I've said it before but I'll say it again: "This is the best freeware file manager I've used. Maybe even the best file manager bar none."

75
Support and Feedback / [FIXED] Right-click "New" menu options
« on: April 13, 2012, 08:37:32 »
Hello Mathias.

I'm assuming you have coded the 'right-click "New" menu' that is inside MC and are not using the Windows code.
Just curious about your rationale for doing so.

I am given the options to create "Contacts" and "Library Folder" items but doing so creates useless items. ie The "Contacts" file is not opened as a new contact and the "Library Folder" also has no functionality that I can see and the command to create a new "Library" is provided elsewhere on the 'right-click menu'. However I am not able to create the Windows items "Briefcase" or "Compressed (zipped) folder. I have never wanted to create those things but I find it strange to have some Windows items available and not others.
Also unlike explorer, the "New" command is also available when the focus is on a file not just blank space. Perhaps that should be changed?

Further I have found that the new "Rich Text Format" files that are created via MC have an "{" character added to the beginning of the file when viewed via UniversalViewer. If you then 'right-click' and select the command "New" that is immediately under the "Open" command, it is loaded into the default editor and the following extra characters are displayed:
Wordpad: { \ r t f 1 }
OpenOffice/LibreOffice: {#\#r#t#f#1#}###
(minor error I know but still thought you'd like to know)
Additionally the file creation for "OpenOffice/LibreOffice" is not available if the user has that software installed. This is also not a big issue but if the user is to be more conversant with MC it would be good to have all the functionality that explorer provides. No matter how trivial.

Just a thought.

Pages: 1 2 [3] 4