This might be a silly question to people who have been using a dual pane manager for some time, but im slightly confused as to how best to use it. (Im not talking about preview pane, I understand that perfectly.)
Do you have dual pane active by default or do you use a single pane view by default and activate dual pane when neccesary?
When do you make us of dual pane? i.e. is there any other purpose other than just to have the source & destination folder visable when copying/moving files?
I personally prefer to use tabs rather than seperate panes.
It is however used somewhat obviously during compare and sync functions or with other SOURCE and OBJECT functions where you might want to visually conpare or otherwise intereact with two folders.
Different people use it in different ways. I only turn on the dual pane when I want it; some people have it on all the time. Some people only open one Opus window ever; others open lots of separate windows (some of them dual, some single).
Navigation Lock (where changing directories in one side will also change to the same-named directory in the other side) is the only thing I can think of that requires a dual-display window. Other than that it's just the convenience of having two related displays joined together in the same top-level window. (Which is, IMO, very convenient and essential in a file manager, but you don't have to use it if you're not used to it.)
Thanks for the info. I would love to know for what reason/s do you typically open dual pane? On the same note, as a single pane user what causes you to open a new tab? Im trying to understand how best to use this powerful beast that I love!
Other than Nav-Lock, dual pane and folder tabs don't let you do anything you can't do in multiple separate windows. The advantage is that you only have to manage one top-level window.
If you use another program and then come back to Opus you don't have to find several windows to get back to the folders you were working on. If you want to resize, maximize or hide Opus you only have to do it to one window, and so on.
One of my most common situations for using a dual pane lister is when I'm FTP uploading/downloading to a web site. With a saved layout for each of my web site clients, all I have to do is switch to the layout for the client I want. Opus then opens a dual pane lister, no tree, with my offline files in the left pane, and in the right pane it automatically logs into the FTP site I want. Navlock is turned on too so it makes keeping my offline and online files in sync easy.
Hi Leo, thanks for that, I understand what you are saying however I think I am not phrasing my question clearly. I would like to know what triggers your brain to open a new tab. Do you open a new tab when you need to;
One of my most common situations for using a dual pane lister is when I'm FTP uploading/downloading to a web site. With a saved layout for each of my web site clients, all I have to do is switch to the layout for the client I want. Opus then opens a dual pane lister, no tree, with my offline files in the left pane, and in the right pane it automatically logs into the FTP site I want. Navlock is turned on too so it makes keeping my offline and online files in sync easy.[/quote]
Hey JohnZeman, thats exactly the kind of info Im looking for! I also manage web sites and can use it exactly like that. Cheers
I am constantly accessing 1 folder many times during the day so I lock that tab so that it can't be modifed. Now when I click to explore another folder, another tab is automatically opened for me preserving the tab for the folder I always like to have available.
I also tend to use the context menu alot like for CUT and PASTE .. in this case, I cut or copy from one tab then swictch to the other to perform the paste .
I dislike dragging and dropping as it can be easy to screw up ... at least for me
My most common reason for opening a dual pane (I have a toolbar button to do it as required) is when I need to extract an archived file to a location (usually my desktop) for temporary use - eg - a zipped file of of images that I want to slideshow with Irfanview. I extract - view, then delete using nothing more than a D&D and a double click.
I am one of the people using dual pane always. Why?
I am to lazy to switch between dual pane and single pane!
I have a big wide screen monitor with enough space for dual pane.
There are two main ways how I use dual pane view:
I have one directory (e.g. C:\work) opened in the left pane and one frequently used subdirectory of it (e.g. C:\work\documents) in the second. So I can switch to deeper subdirectories of documents leaving the main work directory opened.
I find myself often copying/moving files between two directories. (e.g. from C:\work to H:\backups) and I think dual pane is the most comfortable way to do such things. Furthermore, I use Norton-Commander style shortcuts and for copy/move files from active lister to the other.
Additionally to normal favorites, I use lister layouts to save often used configurations (e.g C:\work left and H:\backups right). There is a nice button for this on the toolbar. I'm not sure if it's in the default, when not it's: Prefs LAYOUTEDIT
By the way, double clicking on a folder on the desktop opens this folder in single pane for me. Besides this, I use tabs as well (in both panes).
