How To Configure Listers Open To Specific Folders Each Startup

Here's mine that does not work:

There you will also see the various commands that also do not work. I tried many but all commands were ignored (with slashes, without, etc).

Again, I am not referring to lister positions. I am specifically referring to the directories that open when I start Directory Opus. Nothing other than my command-line parameter works for me.

Are you restarting Opus (e.g. File > Exit Directory Opus, or rebooting)? Or are you just closing the window(s) and opening new ones later?

If it's the latter, Opus continues to run in the background by default, and there are separate configuration options for what happens when you launch the program (usually used to control what happens after a reboot) and when you open a new window with the program already running.

I close Opus when I am done using it and do not leave it running constantly. My request is to have it go to the same two directories each time it opens as my shortcut achieves.

It looks like the startup command option should allow me to do this, but I cannot figure out how to get it to work.

How are you closing Opus?

2019-11-02_8-01-36

Okay.

Clicking File | Exit Directory Opus results in a warning telling me not to do this lol

You can edit the command to remove the warning if you want.

I found that I can remove the path from the application title bar, so I did this instead and replaced it with constant text: Directory Opus 12.17 x64

I don't need to worry about the startup folder now. The title will never change. This is a better soultion than constantly exiting.

If the aim is just to get the window(s) into a fixed position(s) -- rather than open two windows showing particular folders -- you can do that as well, without using third party tools.

I'm not sure exactly what you want though.

Hello,

I handle this issue this way.

First:
Add Dopus in your W10 startup list (windows + R and type shell:startup
, see https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4026268/windows-10-change-startup-apps)

Then: I too use Zmover (20 usd license, by Basta computing), which fixes (among others) my Dopus session on my third "portrait layout screen". Zmover is also enabled in the W10 task scheduler.

When setting the window handler in Zmover you have to leave window title blank, and only use Window Class "dopus.lister". Then it does not matter what folder Dopus is in.

When starting in up in the morning I only have to start my PC, go get a cup of coffee and when I'm back all my apps are started and all windows are in the right place and stay there for the rest of the day.

Works like a swiss knife to me.

With Windows 10, Microsoft made a decision to not restore windows how a user positioned them after closing them. Regardless of what changes you make to disable auto windows positioning, windows will never be restored how you position them. This was one of my many frustrating features introduced with Windows 10.

ZMover basically brings back what was available in versions of Windows before Windows 8.

If you go into preferences here, you can force DOpus to open the window in the position that you saved the Lister Layout:

Preferences / Launching Opus / Default Lister / In a fixed position relative to the monitor the mouse is on

Actually, I'm trying to think of a Microsoft application that doesn't save their position when I exit. I can't. For one work-related website, I have to use Internet Explorer and it opens where I positioned it last. Same with Outlook (in non-maximized view), Excel, Word, Power BI.

Now I'm confused about this statement:

It's nothing to do with Windows 10. It's up to each individual application where it opens its windows, and how/if it saves previous positions.

Opus defaults to opening new windows where the mouse cursor is, but you can change that.

For the default lister, there are three options under Preferences / Launching Opus / Default Lister:

Choose Always in the same position if you want it to be where you saved it, and use Settings > Set as Default Lister in the lister itself to save that as your preferred position.

If you're opening a Layout rather than the default lister, then there's a setting in each layout which controls where it opens (you can set this when saving a new layout, as well as when editing existing layouts in Preferences):

If Open layout relative to the monitor the mouse is currently on is turned off, then the layout will open the windows exactly where they were when you saved them.

(In both cases, this assumes the monitors and screen positions still exist. If you save a layout with a window on a second monitor which is then unplugged, the window will be moved to another monitor when you open it, since it would be invisible otherwise.)

(This is also assuming that ZMover or a similar tool is not moving other application's windows after they open. If you're seeing everything not remember positions where things used to, I'd suspect something like that was involved, rather than an OS change.)

This simply means that you did not even know of this issue. I will show you now on your own computer so you can see it for yourself under Windows 10:

Launch Internet Explorer.

Position the Window so that it is not maximized but at the far right edge of your screen touching the edges just like so:

Now close the window:

Finnally, re-open it:

You think it is in the same position now? Are you claiming it is in the same position on your computers? This is a Microsoft screw-up.

That’s a bug in IE. Opus is not IE.

I’m not sure why you are bothering to ask for help in here since you don’t seem to want to believe anything we tell you.

What you're seeing is because in Windows 10 the resizing border around windows is transparent. If you remember back to Windows 7, there was a thick border around windows that you could grab to resize them. That border is still there, but it's not visible.

It's still technically part of the window, and most software has no idea it's there and doesn't compensate for it. (It's also a pain to work out accurately how big it is, especially before a window has been displayed, and if you support multiple DPIs. Microsoft could have done better here.)

Technically, what IE's doing isn't wrong, but it is not ideal in terms of aesthetics, since it leaves what appears to be a gap at the edges of the screen. (The top edge of the window isn't affected because it doesn't have a transparent border, as the resizing border is inside the visible titlebar not outside it. The whole design is a kludge by Microsoft on top of the way Windows used to look/work to get what looks like very thin borders while still allowing you to grab the sides of windows to resize them.)

It's something we do compensate for in Opus, however. So if you want Opus to remember window positions right at the edge of the screen, it will. (12.17.1 beta added a slight fix for the left edge of the screen, for what it's worth.)

Windows that go off-screen will be moved so they are on-screen, but anything up to the visible edge of the window will be preserved correctly, without the need for third party software to move things around.

1 Like

I was already aware of the transparent "border" that's often used around many windows. If I push the window to the right or left edge and then close it, it does move toward the center when I reopen it. However, after that first drift occurs, it no longer moves no matter how many times I open and close the window.

So, it is remembering the window position, but it's also obeying a rule of opening the window completely inside the screen area. Since the transparent border is part of the window, Windows the application has to move the window over enough to fit inside as well.

It's not Windows that moves it. Windows will let you open a window completely off-screen if that's what you ask for. It's the applications that (sometimes) move their windows to ensure they're completely on-screen.

Which is usually a good thing. The transparent border complicates things a bit, and not much software has been updated to account for it, but Opus has and does.