This is my first week with a new Surface Pro 2. I think it's a great device, but unfortunately Windows 8.1 scales and displays a few apps pretty bad on the high resolution screen. Some parts of Directory Opus 11 for example are super tiny and it's very difficult to use them with your finger. Directory Opus 11 is definitely not touch friendly at the moment and I would kindly ask for some ideas how this could be changed.
I already checked the settings, but I could not really find something that would help me. Or maybe I was looking at the wrong place. So any idea or advice what to do to make Directory Opus 11 more touch friendly would be highly appreciated! Thanks..
If you go to Settings - Customize - Toolbars, then select each of the toolbars you're using (including the File Display Toolbar, which is easily missed as it's not selected in the list due to being a special case), you can switch them to using large icons on the right.
Text height (e.g. for tree items) can be changed via Settings - Preferences - Display - Fonts and Colors.
For people using Windows 10 as both laptop and tablet, how would you recommend launching DOpus so that two separate looks could be applied? My regular DOpus layout is perfect for laptop mode, but for touch mode I also need things larger and with more spacing as @ftwo points out.
Ideally I would like to have the same colors and favorites, but not required.
Please advise us on a few thoughts for how to best accommodate switching between a look for tablet and a look for laptop mode.
Yes, DOpus is so flexible from your perspective there must be many different ways to get this done, but I'm still at a loss of where to begin.
w
I've got DOpus configured wonderfully for my day to day "laptop mode", but I would like to setup a "touch mode" that would have:
use a different shortcut to open DOpus (don't usually do such complicated tasks in touch mode, yet must accommodate for lack of keyboard shortcuts)
I'm using DO on a tablet 3 years now and IMO it's too complicated switching between these 2 type of styles without different DO-configs. But then every change has to be done separately in each config, which is no fun.
So I configured something between these "two worlds" as a compromise (Win 10 or Office in Touchmode is also a compromise). So gui is large enough for the basis operations, but for "real" usage I always use a bluetooth-mouse (my tablet is a real tablet, no hybrid)., because mouse is simply faster and more ergonomic (I don't understand how people can prefer touch - too slow and no fun when working over hours).
The need for larger icons is a relativley new "problem", because people of course buy high res displays these days. But creating a new iconset (creating, not simply upscaling!) is hard work. There's a larger set from Cris, but I don't know if he also can easily upgrade the default set. I'm working on an own larger set, but this a lot of work. And because people aren't able to simply say "thanks" and only can press "download", I wouldn't release it for free again.
You can configure multiple shortcuts and ways to open Opus. You don't have to pick just one. But if there's a keyboard shortcut that works well in touch mode, why not use that all the time, in both modes?
Layouts have the option of storing which toolbars they have open, so creating separate Mouse and Touch layouts is probably the way to go.
Alternatively, you could have a script which runs whenever a new window opens and changes the toolbar set based on which mode you're in. (Maybe with a button to toggle modes if there isn't a good way for a script to detect the mode from the OS. I'm not sure if there is off the top of my head.)
But, as Sasa says, maintaining two parallel toolbar sets is likely to be a pain. It might be better to aim for one toolbar set which works well in both modes.
If you are still going with separate toolbars for each mode, then that can simply be done by editing the toolbars. Each toolbar has its own font setting and overall large/small icon setting. Each button can use any icon or icon set you have installed. So you could have the touch toolbars use larger icons and fonts.
You could have something which exits Opus, modifies the config file with the font sizes, then restarts it. That's doable but involves either modifying config files or maintaining two separate configs.
Another way might be to have a script which runs, say, Set FONTSCALE=200 when a window opens if it's in touch mode. (One drawback there is you get a little pop-up saying the font size has changed at first.)
I've noticed that the Set Fontscale=200 setting isn't sticky between windows/tabs... For example, if I open a new tab in an existing lister, the fontscale returns back to normal....
If you're going with the suggestion just above of using a script to run that command when in touch mode (and not run it when not in touch mode), when the window opens, then the same script could do the same when opening a new tab.
If you aren't using a script and just want to change the font size that is used all the time, you can do that via Preferences / Display / Colors and Fonts.
There is a registry setting HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\ImmersiveShell\TabletMode toggled when you move in and out of Tablet Mode.
Is there a callback that I can tie into for every new lister that's opened? For many of the buttons, I realize it wouldn't be too difficult to come up with logic that is called to set fontscale=200, but what about the little "Open a new folder tab +" at the bottom of each window?
Is there an Opus command to update the configuration/preferences?
Is there an Opus command to save the current state of the copy of Opus that is running (so that I could close it and open my other preferences without loosing everything I'm working on)?
What other tips do you have for making DO12 more touch friendly?
Yes, there are callbacks for both new Listers and new tabs. See the page I linked above.
For some Preferences only, but I don't think you'd need to change Prefs here if the only problem is applying the font change command in more places, as the events take care of that.
You could make a config backup but I don't think that is a good approach if you just want to change font size.
