I've been looking into File Managers recently both for personal use and to potentially implement at my workplace for the development team. I'm mostly very happy with Directory Opus, but I feel like there's a common use case that could be missing?
Most File Managers I've come across so far have a "Favorites" or "Bookmarks" feature that lets you quickly add and remove files (instead of just folders), and allow quick access those files from a sidebar or toolbar.
This screenshot is an example in FreeCommander;
For our development work this would be extremely useful since we often have a large amount of files and executables to keep track of that we need rapid access to, with some of those being very temporary. And for general use it's just a nice way to organize shortcuts without needing a dedicated file view.
I haven't found a way to effectively replicate something like this in Directory Opus? But I could be missing something.
The closest solution I've found so far would be to use a File Collection like a temporary workspace. But this still means dedicating a file/folder view to that collection, and any sub-collections used would require yet another file view, rather than having everything nicely organised and accessible within a tree view. There's also some nuance with how the collections work, which I worry would cause some confusion and mistakes in the workplace (eg deleting files when you intended to just remove them).
Favorites in Opus can point to files; the UI is just geared around adding folders since that's what favorites are designed for.
Make a button or hotkey which runs this command:
Favorites ADD=nameonly PATH {filepath$}
You can then select a file and click that button to add the file to your favorites list.
Selecting the favorite will take you to the folder it is in and highlight the file.
You can also add files and folders to toolbars, menus and sub-menus by simply dragging them to the toolbar while in Customize mode. Clicking those will launch the file, but you can also edit the buttons and add the Go command before the file path to make it do the same thing as a favorite would.
Unfortunately I'm not sure these fully enable the kind of workflow I was after, although I think the toolbar solution would be great for a more permanent/long term set of shortcuts.
Generally I was after something that can be a bit more intuitive and fast paced; I have a lot of situations where the files I want quick access are very temporary, and swapping between folders/tabs to open them isn't always ideal.
I'll keep an eye out anyway, for home use i'd certainly be happy with the solutions you suggested.
On revisiting this I think my issue was more of a usability one; I think my question should have been "is there a nicer way to do this?"
So you technically can use toolbars and the favorites menu to add files, but it seems a bit easier and more intuitive in other software.
With what we're currently using at work you can bookmark a file just by dragging it to your favorites, and open/launch the file directly with left click (without navigating to the folder). And a lot of other functions you need the "Edit Favorites" dialog for can be easily performed just by dragging files or using the right click menu.
It's not a make or break thing, but we find that ease of use really useful given the temporary/fast paced nature of a lot of our tasks/projects
You can also have a toolbar which lists everything in a certain folder, then add and remove files or shortcuts to files (and folders) to that, as a quick way to get things on or off the toolbar. That wil launch the files themselves, not navigate to their parent folders.
"With what we're currently using at work you can bookmark a file just by dragging it to your favorites, and open/launch the file directly with left click (without navigating to the folder). And a lot of other functions you need the "Edit Favorites" dialog for can be easily performed just by dragging files or using the right click menu."
I understand the solutions you have offered.
I would like to see a future additional feature where Favorites be a favorites for both folders and files, all in once place.
You could try following code, which i'm also using to assign aliases to files or folders. This code assigns the selected single item to the alias V01. To call this alias, just use Go /V01 or whatever alias name you have chosen.
var aliasName = "V01";
function OnClick(data){
var cmd = data.func.command, tab=data.func.sourcetab;
var path = tab.path; if (tab.selected.count) path=tab.selected(0).realpath;
cmd.AddLine('Confirm MSG="Alias '+aliasName+' overwrite?\\n\\nOld Path:\\n'+
DOpus.FSUtil.Resolve("/"+aliasName)+'\\n\\nNew Path:\\n'+path);
cmd.AddLine('Favorites ADD=alias NAME="'+aliasName+'" PATH="'+path+'"');
cmd.Run();
}
