I just upgraded from DOpus 9 to v. 10. I hope someone can help me not to regret having done so.
I use the Favorites list a lot. But in DOpus 10, when I click on the star icon (or the arrow next to it) for the Favorites list, the list flashes briefly on my screen, and then I am taken immediately to one of the items on the list. It is not the first item on the list, but it is somewhat high on the list. At any rate, I do not get to choose the item. This happens whether I use the icon on the Locations toolbar or the Toolbar toolbar. (See the screenshot for the lister configuration I have.)
I have found that sometimes, if I click multiple times in succession at just the right speed, the Favorites list will appear and I can choose a folder that I actually want. But this is unpredictable and not really useful. And there seems to be no way of accessing the Favorites list other than by clicking with the mouse: it does not appear on any of the menus.
I naturally turned to the Help file ... which, I was astonished to learn, is incomplete and contains no help for the Favorites list or a number of other items!
So, I am asking my question here: is there any way to make the Favorites list actually work in DOpus 10? Or will I have to wait for an upgrade for the program I paid for to actually be functional? I'm really very annoyed at this. Frankly, it looks like I've paid my money in order to be a beta tester.
This is the first report we've had about such an issue and I'm not able to reproduce it myself so far.
From your screenshot it looks like you're running in high DPI mode; is that correct? If so, what's your DPI setting? I'll change mine to be the same and see if I can reproduce the problem.
Also, can you see the favorites menu appear before it auto-selects something? If so, is it appearing so that one of the items is under the mouse pointer and/or visible highlighted?
Does it make a difference if you click the mouse button or hold it down?
What happens if you push Alt-A to open the favorites menu? Does that work, or does it auto-select an item then as well?
Thanks for your response, Leo. I can report several developments.
[ul][li]I'm not quite sure what you mean by "high DPI mode." My Windows 7 screen resolution is 1280x1024, if that's what you mean, and that is on the high end.[/li]
[li]The Favorites menu does appear very briefly, and I believe the mouse pointer is indeed over the item for the folder to which DOpus immediately goes.[/li]
[li]And in fact if I hold the mouse button down, the list appears and is stable, and I can select the item I want (and the mouse is on the folder that DOpus goes to if I just click the Favorites button). I normally use a touchpad, which doesn't really allow for holding, but when I try it with a mouse, holding does work.[/li]
[li]Using Alt-A to access the Favorites menu also works correctly. How would I have known to use this? Is there a list of keyboard shortcuts in Help somewhere?[/li][/ul]
Hopefully this will suggest at least the contours of a solution. In the meantime, I have also discovered the following. If I right-click a toolbar and select Customize, then click the Commands tab, under the Go heading I find "Favorites Menu." I can drag this onto any toolbar, and it works perfectly. See the new screenshot, in which the new Favorites Menu icon is circled, next to the one that DOpus originally placed on the toolbar.
So it appears that there is some difference between the functioning of this customized Favorites menu and the ones that DOpus places on the toolbars on its own. At any rate I now have several ways of accessing the Favorites menu, but I do hope you'll be able to find the problem.
Thanks again for your help. I'm sorry if the tone of my first post was a bit huffy. I've had such good experience with DOpus 9 that I expected v. 10 to be flawless, and was very disappointed when the first thing I tried didn't work. I do think that releasing the program with the Help system in such an incomplete state is a disservice to users. I'm just glad that this forum worked well.
Is the original favorites menu (which has more in it than the one you've added) so long that it cannot fit on-screen above or below the button and ends up opening on top of it? That could explain what's happening. (I haven't checked if it happens but if it does, maybe we could change it to open to the left or right of the button in this case, if it doesn't do that already.)
Re the manual, it was either that or make everyone wait longer before they could use Opus 10. If you'd rather we waited, just pretend Opus 10 isn't released yet.
The screenshots I posted in my previous messages showed only the DOpus window (Alt+PrtScrn), so the Favorites menus were cut off. I'm attaching 3 new ones showing the whole screen, which hopefully will clarify the matter. The first shot shows the result of holding the mouse button on the original Favorites button on DOpus' "Location" toolbar. (Alt-A has the same effect.) The second shot shows the result of holding the mouse button on the original Favorites button on the "Toolbar" toolbar. The third shot shows the result of just clicking on the Favorites button that I added to the "Location" toolbar through the customization process. The menus on #2 and #3 are identical; the menu on #1 (and Alt-A) has more choices at the top and bottom, but lacks the "Open in Tabs" choice.
I hope this is helpful in figuring out what's going on.
What's happening makes sense: The menu is so tall it cannot appear above or below where you clicked, so it appears on top of where you clicked. As soon as it opens it puts a menu item under your mouse pointer. When you release the mouse button, that menu item gets activated.
I'll look into making the menu open to the right or left of where you clicked in this situation, so releasing the mouse doesn't accidentally activate anything.
Thanks, Leo. It would be good if that change could be made, since I simply cannot click on the button/icon and have it work. It surprises me that I'm the only one having this problem; it must be that my Favorites list is simply much longer than those of other users. (As I said, I use Favorites a lot!)
BTW, I find that I can produce the same behavior with the Go Back button at the left end of the Location toolbar, if I go into Preferences - Favorites and Recent - Recent List, and increase the number of folders to be remembered per lister to a very large number, and then go to a large number of folders one after the other. The resultant list on the Go Back button's drop-down arrow becomes too long to display, and the lister goes immediately to the item that (apparently) appears briefly under the mouse pointer. So that confirms your diagnosis.
In the meantime I will work happily with the customized Favorites menu button, which apparently succeeds because it does not include what I presume are the Smart Favorites at the bottom of the list, and therefore is short enough to be accommodated. BTW, I find that if I maximize the lister window, the Favorites button on the Toolbar toolbar now also has room to display the entire list, even though it is lower down in the window. But even maximized, the original Favorites button on the Location toolbar generates too long a menu to display (with my lengthy list of favorites plus the Smart Favorites).
I too have stacks of "Favorites" and had to adjust how to use them in Opus 10. But I have not had the same problems.
Perhaps it is because I have a structured list of nested Favorites. Maybe it takes a bit more time, two clicks rather than one, but I find that it eases locating the ones I want.
I prefer using the menu and I ended up moving favorites to the "Go" slot as well as the Toolbars.
Then there is the Folder Tree.
You can never have these things in too many places.
I guess my point is that the arrival of this new version of Opus has prompted me to look at how I do things and to try to get out of some bad habits, and to try to understand the many bits that have always confused me.
It is very tempting to say "Why doesn't it work like it used to?" But that rather misses the whole point of new versions of anything. One day I will get to grips with Word 2007.
[quote="michaelkenward"]I too have stacks of "Favorites" and had to adjust how to use them in Opus 10. But I have not had the same problems.
Perhaps it is because I have a structured list of nested Favorites. Maybe it takes a bit more time, two clicks rather than one, but I find that it eases locating the ones I want.
I prefer using the menu and I ended up moving favorites to the "Go" slot as well as the Toolbars....[/quote]
I tried to respond to this earlier, but I must have forgotten to hit Submit.
Thanks very much for the mention of nested Favorites. I never knew I could do that! After making several submenus, the Favorites menu is now shortened enough to appear properly when I use any of the Favorites buttons/icons. And since the submenus slide out when I hover the mouse over their names, I find it just as easy to use. So many great features of this program!
I'm not quite sure what you mean by the "Go" slot. Is that on one of the toolbars?
I suspect that this was somethinvg that I added to my "Menu" toolbar. Or maybe it was in Opus 9.
It is just a Menu with a set of places that you'd want to "Go" to:[/quote]
That does look like an Opus 9 lister. I found something similar in Opus 10, right-clicking on a toolbar, selecting Customize..., and then on the Toolbars tab selecting ListerMenu (see screenshot, marked with an arrow). It seems to duplicate some other menus. Nice to have choices!
[quote="DavidR"]
That does look like an Opus 9 lister. I found something similar in Opus 10, right-clicking on a toolbar, selecting Customize..., and then on the Toolbars tab selecting ListerMenu (see screenshot, marked with an arrow). It seems to duplicate some other menus. Nice to have choices![/quote]
ListerMenu is simply the Opus 9 Toolbar/Menu which was kept available when you either installed Opus 10 over Opus 9 or restored an Opus 9 configuration into Opyus 10.
Thanks. Very nice! BTW, I also like the new transition animations, and the easy access to a command prompt (not that I use that very often, but it's nice to have it handy).
Seems like it's a non-issue to you now that you've organised your favorites into categories, but I've fixed that anyway so it won't happen to anyone else, or in similar situations.
I don't know if this question is better in this 'Favorites' thread or some general 'History list' thread:
Q: Can you explain what list is being shown at the bottom of the "Favorites"? It doesn't seem to change much, and so seems distinct from the other two 'history lists'. Are these "smart favorites"? its not identified in any way there (but by inference it may be).
BTW: it took quite a while of trolling the help file(s) to get clear that there are three'history' lists, and that they show up in different ways in various places. Since you're working on the DOpus10 help file, perhaps the following might help others:
a) be consistent in use of terms: "lister history list" & "Folder history list" are apparently equivalent. But for someone needing enlightenment, this varying terminology leads to confusion as to whether there is some further detail/difference I haven't yet understood, or the terms are simply being used interchangeably - as synonyms. I think this issue is a reflection of the incredible diversity/complexity of DOpus, so there's a lot to learn once you start making customizations. The diversity is great, but makes the help file (and this Resource Centre more important).
b) put some more explicit cross references into the places where the two phrases are used in the help file (to help clarify that there is another distinct 'history' list).
at >>Preferences > Preferences Categories > Favorites and Recent, RECENT LIST
you say: "The Recent List is a list of your most recently used folders, displayed in the Go menu."
But, this implies that this list is mainly related to the Go menu. Yes, it is, but it is MUCH more:
mention that this list is distinct from the "Lister history list" maintained on a per-folder/lister basis. (hyperlink?)
c) mention in the two main places where these history lists are discussed, in which button-popup menu they will show.
ex: at >>Preferences > Preferences Categories > Favorites and Recent, FAVORITES
mention that there is a "smart favorites' list [optionally presented] at the bottom (I think this is what it is?)
at >>Preferences > Preferences Categories > Favorites and Recent, RECENT LIST
you say: "The Recent List is a list of your most recently used folders, displayed in the Go menu."
the Go menu is not displayed in the DOpus10 default toolbars. So why start by mentioning something that's invisible?
mention "...global list of recently visited folders...visible in many places,
... in the 'Go Up' drop-down: recent locations list...
...in the "Path Field (Recent List)" on the Location toolbar...
and also in the 'Go menu' (customizable)
"Lister history list" maintained on a per-lister basis.
This shows up in the "Go back" pop-up list and in other raw commands: [GO BACK/S ]
i suggest mentioning this under the "Lister" topic in the help, not just in preferences.
Leo: Feel free to edit and re-assign these help suggestions.
-JP
