I have upgraded to v13 beta and used this opportunity to re-think and re-configure some of my workflows to make it all more streamline.
I use the FAYT feature quite often, mostly for finding files withing a folder but also for navigating to Folder Aliases (by pressing / and typing the folder alias).
Up until now, the default Quick Key was set to Find and whenever I wanted to filter for certain file/folder names, I started by pressing * to open the Filter Bar.
However, since my primary use case is filtering for file names, I thought of reversing this behavior so whenever I start typing DO will filter for the file/folder names.
And when I need to navigate for an alias, I'd call for the Go command by typing its Quick Key.
I have proceeded to set the Filter Bar as the default, and this is when I ran into a problem. When I type /, instead of opening the Go command bar it opens the Filter Bar instead of the Go command bar. Furthermore, it seems there is no option in the Quick Keys menu for defining a different Quick Key for the Go command as can be seen in the following screenshot:
You can simulate this directly by adding a new keybind for, say, G and using cli QUICKGO command. I use the same for QuickFind, which you also unfortunately can't bind in a GUI
The reason for this is that "Go" mode is really just "Find" mode in disguise; it has its own colors but no separate activation key because Find mode auto-detects paths and switches the color when it thinks you're typing a path in.
You could set up a Lister hotkey to run the command CLI QUICKGO, which brings up the FAYT already in Go mode.
And if aliases are what you normally type, you could make the command CLI QUICKGO=noselect:/ which would pre-fill the forward slash automatically, so assigning it to the / key would pretty much work how you want.
Thank you @eugenesv and @Jon
Suggesting assigning the command CLI QUICKGO to a key was what I was after (though I'll admit I already started to get used to using CTRL+L and typing the alias in the Path bar), and this last tip from Jon wrapped it all up very neatly and achieved exactly what I was looking for.
To recap quickly: I've configured a shortcut key that utilizes the / key and the command CLI QUICKGO=noselect:/ to activate the FAYT (Find-As-You-Type) bar and simulate Go mode, allowing me to swiftly navigate to folder aliases.
I've been using this daily ever since and noticed that most of the time I'm navigating to a specific folder. What I'm curious about is whether it's feasible to have only the alias part selected when I activate Go mode, without including the / character.
For instance, if my frequently used alias is dir , I could initiate Go mode with /dir already filled in, so that I only need to press Enter to navigate to this folder, however, I'd like only the dir part to be selected, enabling me to simply start typing another alias to replace dir when needed
If I change the existing command to CLI QUICKGO=noselect:/dir, then I have to backspace a couple of time to delete dir, whereas if I use CLI QUICKGO=/dir, the / character is also selected automatically and gets overwritten if I start typing a different folder alias.
I understand there are alternative workflows, such as keeping common folders open as tabs or configuring new tabs to open to specific folders. However, I'm mainly curious if the functionality I described above is achievable. I've tried searching for solutions but haven't come across anything obvious.
I don't think there's a way to select everything except the first character when it opens.
If it's a directory you use a lot, you could make a hotkey to go straight to it without opening any UI at all. (Or make a favorite for it and assign a hotkey to that, which is a bit easier.)
You could have a FAYT script add-in which adds an explicit / mode for aliases, which lists the aliases the same way as the built-in Go mode does when / is the first character. Then the / key would activate that rather than the filter bar, even if the filter bar is the default mode.
There are indeed other ways to go about this, including the ones you've mentioned. I was mostly curious as I had this idea and wondered if there might be a way to achieve this.
Where could I find more details on this? Mostly for learning something new (as I had no idea this is a thing, nor do I know where to begin) that could come in handy.
Following your advice, one of the topics I found very useful is FAYT Quick Nav Emulator Platforms. That script (example 1 in the linked topic) is more clever and neat than my original idea because it allows one to jump directly to a cached subfolder. I like to think of it a dynamic alias of sorts.
Assuming I have the following folder structure, I have two questions if I may.
Can the variable g_strAutoChildPath accept an array? I had the idea of pointing the variable g_path to the Home folder and than use g_strAutoChildPath to point only to the subfolders of interest withing the Home folder.
However, it doesn't seem to work. Neither by using the full path nor by using only the subfolder names (I could be doing something wrong of course).
Further, can the script cache, or potentially be adjusted to cache, the folder list more than one level deep?
If what I described in the previous point is at all possible and the variable g_strAutoChildPath (or any other method) could be used to cache only specific subfolders, e.g., Subfolder 3 and the Admin folder, would it be possible to look also one level deeper and also include the list of subfolders inside the Projects and Admin folders in the cache?
Those things are definitely possible, but would require changing the script quite a lot. I can help with questions, but don't currently have time to write the whole thing.
Thank you, Leo.
Understood. I didn't expect you to write this new adapted script. I was just wondering if it might be possible because I'm not very familiar with JS.
Thank you for offering to help if I'll have questions.
