I just installed 8.1 and am confused about the folder tabs. It's purpose seems to complicate using DO rather than simplify it. Since that is not the way things usually go with DO, I figure I just don't understand how to use it.
Let's say I have 3 folders I use all of the time so I want the tabs to be visible. I drag and drop the folders to the tab bar and they work. Now I open another lister - the tabs are not there. I have the Always on option checked. Is this the way it is supposed to work?
I tried creating a Tab Group but I have to manually open the group in order to use it. Is this correct? And if so, then I have to do so for every new lister I open?
If I have a dual lister open, create the tabs on the right lister and click on one of the tabs, that folder is displayed. Now if I click on the Back arrow, it doesn't function. I know this is because each tab is being treated as its own lister but that seems to make it very hard to follow. Let's say I am viewing c: and that I have a tab named SUB, representing a sub-folder in c:. I want to look in SUB to check something and then go back to c:. So I click on the SUB tab but now there is no single click way to get back to c: since the Back arrow does not work.
I have a lot of other questions (problems) with this feature so I have to assume I am just missing the whole point. Can anyone provide an overview of an efficient way to use folder tabs?
Hi Jack,
Well, I guess we disagree a bit , but with some time perhaps we can reach a mutual understanding.
[quote]Let's say I have 3 folders I use all of the time so I want the tabs to be visible.
I drag and drop the folders to the tab bar and they work.
Now I open another lister - the tabs are not there. [/quote]
Yes, isn't it Great that you can drag and drop folders to open a new Tab ?
That's the beauty, you don't need to open a new Lister ! Or do you? Why?
And if you do need the New Lister, why do you need the previous Tabs in that Lister ?
The design is beautiful !
One can drag and drop to any Tab without fully activating it.
Just hover the drag over the Tab a fraction of a second.
To activate the Tab wait a second.
The real beauty IS Tab Groups !
An Aussie from Brisbane suggested this.
The idea was so good it was implemented almost immediately in DO.
Use Tabs with discretion to avoid the history problem.
It's an abstraction, not a succession.
For my part in the request for 'Folder Tabs' what I can say is that over the course of a workday where I can have as many as a dozen different listers open normally, the Tab feature has helped to clear up my task bar which is crowded with up to a dozen other applications... While some might feel that clutter is simply 'moved' to another level, this is something I don't mind as I know without having to rationalize too hard that it is simply a better way to organize my app interfaces - for me.
On to your questions...
The 'Always On' option in preferences is simply to enable or disable the lister bar/area where the Tabs are displayed.
As for configuring Dopus so that a selection of tabs you often work in open with each new lister... there are a few ways you could do it I guess. One way would be to open the folder tabs you want to appear when you open a new lister, save that as the 'Default' lister and custom Layout... then configure Dopus to open that layout on startup, dblclk desktop, etc etc.
As for the navigation of tabs, I believe by default the functions that do this are bound to CTRL+Left Arrow and CTRL+Right Arrow. You could naturally create 2 different 'Back and Forward' arrow buttons on your toolbar to run these commands, or change the existing arrows to navigate tabs... the actual commands are documented, but I'm sure someone will write them up right here if you describe what way you'd like to go.
The way tabs work in Opus is the way they work in most applications, e.g. web browsers. Each tab is like a separate lister, as you say.
It sounds like what you want is favorites, not tabs, and those are already in Opus for you to use, although you'll get a normal toolbar button for each directory, rather than a tab.
Cosmetics aside, I think a favourites list (or just some manually created buttons which run the "go" command) will do exactly what you want.
The "go" buttons can easily be made by enterting customize mode and then dragging the directories you want to the toolbar.
If you want to do it via favorites instead then have a look at the Favorites command which can add lists of favorites to toolbars. They don't have to go into a submenu and can be listed directly onto the top level of a toolbar, and it's also possible to tell the command to only display a given subfolder of the favourites tree, which can be useful for toolbar shortcuts like this.
Also note that you can make "go" buttons which always affect only one side of the lister, so you could have two sets of identical buttons and be able to set either side's directory without first having to make it the source.
Thanks for the replies. I was assuming the use of the tabs would make things easier (which is the way of DO) but the work required to set them up takes that away. Thanks for clearing this up.
[quote]Jack wrote:
Thanks for the replies. I was assuming the use of the tabs would make things easier (which is the way of DO) but the work required to set them up takes that away. Thanks for clearing this up.
Jack[/quote]
LOL... I originally checked out Dopus around v6 and discarded it as being 'nice and powerful' but too complicated to set up . I would imagine that as with most things in this program manipulating tabs will take time to 'get used to'. I'm also sure there will be minor changes to the way they work as the product continues to develop... but I can see how you might feel this way depending on HOW you envision using them... For me it's real simple - 10 folders used to cost me at least 5 footprints on the taskbar... now I only have one. Hoorah for me!
No, I wasn't looking for a way to do it. I already have my buttons set up. I was just trying to understand the usage of the tabs. They are a nice feature but not very helpful, from my limited understanding of them. It is not uncommon for me to have three dual listers open. The tabs would be nice if they would load up when I open the lister. But even then, I don't see much difference between scrolling tabs and switching to a different lister. So I'm not seeing the upside. Believe me, I am always looking for easier ways to do things so I'm not arguing against tabs. I'm all for new features. This one just doesn't make my life easier that I can see.
[quote]The tabs would be nice if they would load up when I open the lister.[/quote]For some reason, when I add a TABGROUPLOAD= statement onto the end of the Go NEW LAYOUT="My Layout" command I have bound as a System-wide hotkey (Win+W), it no longer does anything unless there is a lister already open, in which case it loads the tab group. Otherwise, no lister get's opened?
The other way you could do this that I know for sure works with ANY way you would want to load a lister is to save the lister as a Layout while the desired tabs are opened. For ways which do NOT explicitly load a layout, the Set As Default Lister menu option takes care of that.
Either way, I know you don't seem to have a use for tabs Jack, but since you raised the subject I figured I'd comment on that part of it.
I'm a brand-new user in my 2d day with DO. It feels like a big powerful machine with lots of buttons and controls that I wish I knew how to use.
But this thread, triggered by Jack's question, helped me see how tabs seem pretty useful, to me anyway. I didn't even know about tab groups, but figured out how to set them up, and so far have two groups. One, which I creatively call Tab 1, contains about 8 folders that I use all the time. I find that if the tabs were listed in that nice clickable row when I closed the lister, they seem to come back next time I open it. And it makes it very quick and easy to move from one folder to another, particularly when going to folders that are well down in the file hierarchy.
I quickly figured out that Tabs in DO work about the same way they do in Firefox. They're volatile, in the sense that a tab is redefined if I switch to a new folder from within that tab. So, if I want to go elsewhere w/o losing the tab I'm, in, I drag elsewhere down and make it a new tab. That seems clear enough and cool enough to me.
My other new tab group, LAN folders, is something I probably could have done with Windows favorites, but never thought to do. Anyway, it lists the folders on my local network that I frequently access. I sometimes did a lot of clicking to get to them, and having them all in a Tab group speeds it up.
I expect I'll find more uses as I go along. A lot to learn.
So, thanks, Jack. Even if you didn't get any help, you helped me.
[quote]I find that if the tabs were listed in that nice clickable row when I closed the lister, they seem to come back next time I open it.[/quote]Depending on how you open listers, this might be due to having the Update Default Lister settings when Listers are closed option enabled in Settings->Preferences->Layout->Opening Listers. It seems you like it, but just so you know if you ever were to disable it, you could manually save your current listers settings as default on demand by clicking Settings->Set as Default Lister.
Also, just curious... what did you mean by "a tab is redefined if I switch to a new folder from within that tab"? Are you saying that when you then open that tab group again the last folder you switched to within that tab is opened instead of the one you 'saved'? I'm wondering if this could be related to the setting above as well? Again it depends on how you load listers - whether by loading a layout or not... I certainly don't believe the tab folder should be 'changing' in the tab group you've saved.
Also, just curious... what did you mean by "a tab is redefined if I switch to a new folder from within that tab"? Are you saying that when you then open that tab group again the last folder you switched to within that tab is opened instead of the one you 'saved'? [/quote]
No. Maybe I could have said that more clearly. What I meant is that if I click on a tab for Folder A, and, once there, navigate to Folder B, the tab nows say Folder B. As I said in my prior post, it's like tabs in Firefox, and that works for me.
But navigating to a new location doesn't change the definition of that tab in the saved Group. So I can always bring back the group.
So yes, the 'name' of the tab changes to the current folder being browsed. There have been some other requests here on the forums asking for the functionality to specify names for the tabs... I could see how some people could use such functionality... to tie a tab to a 'purpose' and name it to provide a quick at a glance reference point.
porcupine
. I would imagine that as with most things in this program manipulating tabs will take time to 'get used to'. I'm also sure there will be minor changes to the way they work as the product continues to develop... but I can see how you might feel this way depending on HOW you envision using them... For me it's real simple - 10 folders used to cost me at least 5 footprints on the taskbar... now I only have one. Hoorah for me!