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My
suggestions to authors of the programs: |
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1) A
complete help and full functional demo |
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This
is my experience gain through "blood and sweat". Only with the
above shall someone who is interested enough |
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to try the program will find out
all its powers. Evaluator/user who tries won't have big tolerance over the
difficulty |
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in finding out what the program can
do and how it is suppose to be operated |
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2) Fav list
and Recent list should be separated into 2 different menu. |
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In this case "Direct
folder" is doing exactly what I am suggesting, unfortunately its method
of bringing up Fav or History |
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list is not so easy when compare to
"QuickFolder" or "Folder Express" |
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My suggestion: |
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e.g. Right-click file list area for
FAV list |
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Right-click win title line for Recent list |
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The point is do not force user to
aim for a button or small icon in order to bring up Fav list. |
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3) Add
extension / panel to OPEN/SAVE AS dialog. |
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"SpeedFolder" is the top
scorer in this area. However, what it provides is still far from a smart use
of the panel |
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Basically I find it excellent idea
to fill the panel with FAV, but what about a mean to switch that between FAV
and |
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Recent list? If this panel is used
in this way, than accelerate key is critically important. The look, size and position |
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of this panel should be user
customizable. |
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"Direct folder" tries to
add panel on top of dialog in order to display full path spec of current
folder (and file info) |
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But the panel is not prompt to go
with the dialog when drag. Also, the panel is too space consuming, it is a
very bad |
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idea to have all drives shown in
the panel for their free space and do not allow user to mod the panel. |
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While having a panel is a winning
point of DF, but it is also the critical factor that make me uneasy to use
the program |
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If one toggle off the info panel,
many function that rely on it will be absent. |
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4) About
Right-Click |
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For non-keyboard expert user,
chances is mouse is always being held. Right-click file list area seems to be
the best |
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access
mehod for the FAV list, IMHO. Why not a double right-click to bring up pure
FAV list without all the |
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ordinary right-click menu options
like "New", "Properties" and so on. |
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5)
Auto-focusing |
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Few of the programs offer auto
switch focus to "File name" or "File list" field when a
dialog is up. |
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However, none of them does that
correctly. |
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If "OPEN" dialog is up,
focus is best set at "File list" field |
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If "SAVE AS" dialog is up,
focus is best at "File name" field. |
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Yes we might want to overwrite an
existing file when "Save as" but that should be rare compare to
Save as |
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a new file name. No program offer
diff focusing choices for diff kind of dialog being used. |
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6)
Application driven |
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Fav list per appl which is
triggered by diff method, otherwise the ordinary (common) FAV list will be up
(which is for ALL) |
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(In this case, I don't like the idea
of strictly FAV per appl + common section for ALL, very messy) |
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Def folder per appl |
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Def view mode per appl |
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Def sorting per appl (including
order of sorting, ascending or descending) |
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Even diff Places bar per appl (am I
too much) |
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7)
3rd party storage browser (like total commander and opus) should be
supported. There is only 1 program does this. |
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The point is, if one cares to buy a
program to have very prompt access to folders, I doubt he/she will still
stick |
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to windows explorer without looking
for better alternative. However, majority of the authors cares only to
support |
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windows explorer. I am not saying
it is stupid to do so, but rarely appreciated, because, I dare to bet most of |
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their users are equiped with a
better alternative - a 3rd party browser. |
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8) Few of
the program are keen to show off by telling the free space on drive(s), but
none try to tell anything about the folder |
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being opened. E.g. what are the total size
of files under current folder. How many files/sub-folders are there |
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under current folder. |
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