Improving behavior of ESC in 'filter fayt mode' / 'filter mode'

Hi,

1st to say : since i'm using fayt filter mode in dopus for one year now i find it amazing feature. It is really really useful for people who only use keyboard like me and when you manage a lot of different ressources documents.

I have some remarks / notes about behavior of filter fayt mode and ESC key :

  1. ESC always add filtered items to selection rather than replace selection. At some point it is anoying in details view mode because it is not really the way details mode is working.

For example, i'm in 'Details view mode', i have always a selected item by default because this is how details mode is working for me (i use up/down keys and move around files and folders, so i have always one item selected by default).
Most of the time when i type a pattern in my 'fayt filter mode' or in 'filter mode', i just want to restrict my view to some files so i can select more easily some bunch of files and act on them (delete them, zip them, launch them).
When i have finished my task in my filtered fayt mode (or filter mode), i press escape to go back to full files/folders, and dopus clears filter, and i have now a selection of what i had filtered and selected (which seems natural) BUT it has also selected the last file i had on my selection before filtering.
Why not having an option to only keep filtered selected item (and not add them to the one which were selected before filtering) ?
Here is a typical annoying example that happend times to times : i have bunch of many documents in the same directory. i filter in 'fayt filter mode' some files and i notice i have some jerk i want to delete. As in filter fayt mode i cannot use SUPPR key to delete (because focus is still in fayt input box), so i just select them then press ESC so i can go back to the regular full view where i can act on, and then I use SUPPR for deleting. But here i will also delete the file selected before filtering (that i don't want to delete). And it is hard to notice when it happens...

  1. in FAYT filter mode, when 'select first matching item' is selected, and when there are many files / folder it seems there is a strange behavior in FAYT filter mode too when escaping as ESC will reselect one more file or folder which comes from nowhere.
    Something i can reproduce here :
  • have 'select first matching item' selected in options for FAYT filter mode
  • create a folder and go into it
  • create 4 folders "A", "B", "C", "D"
  • create 4 text files "text1.txt", "text2.txt", "text3.txt", "text4.txt"
  • create 4 text files "doc1.txt", "doc2.txt", "doc3.txt", "doc4.txt"
  • in 'detail view mode', select item 'text1.txt'
  • in 'fayt filter' mode, type 'doc'
  • then select 'doc3.txt' files in this filtered view (or any files you want)
  • press ESC key
  • it will select 'doc3.txt' file + 'text1.txt' + a folder 'D' which has never been selected
  • note : it doesn't occur if 'select first matching item' is unselected in options for FAYT filter mode, and it doesn't occur too in the other 'filter mode' activated with *

  1. as a general thinking, in FAYT filter mode : that mode is fantastic. you cannot imagine how it is changing the way i'm managing my files and navigating through folder easily.
    It could be a great improvement if we could tell the filter input what keys are allowed and not, so we could use some keys for other purpose in the lister (like the' down'/'up' and 'enter' which are allowed to interact with lister during the filtering) - it could be really great to be able to use 'SUPPR' to delete a file, to use 'space' to select directly in power mode during the filtering, etc.
    Today, to be able to do that i need to use some tricks like redefining a special key (like F10 F11 F12 CAPSLOCK, ... ) and adds some functionnality to them (like toggle selecting item, or deleting selected items, ...) or i need to click with mouse in my lister to get refocus and it's really annoying.

I know it's not so easy because 'fayt input' is depending on windows behavior on inputs, but i'm sure it could be done. Think about it :slight_smile: that could be a really efficient way to improve how 'fayt filter mode' could be use as a way to manipulate files even easily in few keystrokes.

  1. in 'fayt filter mode' why is TAB key not working like in 'filter mode' ? TAB key seemes to do nothing in fayt filter mode. eg. while filtering in fayt filter mode, pressing TAB could refocus on the lister view ?

Cheers,
Antoine

If an item is selected, then filtered out, then the filter is cleared, Opus remembers that the item was selected. (UPDATE: After this thread, this was changed in 12.20.1 to deselect those items instead.)

You could override the * hotkey so it clears the selection before you start filtering, but that might not always be what you want either.


Push return instead of Esc. Focus will return to the file display, so you can use the Del key, without clearing the filter.


2 sounds like the same thing as the main/first question in 1.


3 - I think that might be too complicated, although I guess a checkbox on each button or hotkey might work. But not everything has a hotkey you can edit (e.g. Up and Down and Enter are not hotkeys; they're just built-in behavior.)


4 - You mean why does Tab do different things in the actual FAYT field vs the Filter Bar? They're two totally different UIs. FAYT only has an edit field (and a close button, but there's no reason to tab to that) and supports tab completion of partially typed paths in some modes. The Filter Bar lets you use the tab key to move between the different controls on the bar.

Hello,

For my 2nd question, maybe my example was not clear but it's much more like a bug for me.
I try to re-explain it :

  • i have 'select first matching item' selected in option for fayt filter mode.
  • when i begin to filter, dopus will auto select 1st item found that is matching my filter : which is ok in regards to the option
  • when i press ESC to filter things out, then dopus will also apply a 2nd time the option and will tend to select a 2nd time the 'first matching item' - so it will add a new item to selection. It is not always the case and i can't say why - depending on the focus probably.
  • another way to say it :
    1. I select two files A and B
    2. i'm filtering 'hello' and it will autoselect my 1st file hello_C
    3. i press ESC and dopus will put off filter and will show all my files - and will select another file under cursor (let say file D)
    4. at the end i have 4 files selected : A, B, hello_C, and D
      I think selecting D at the end is not really what is supposed to do the option 'select first matching item'. But maybe i got the option behavior wrong.

For your other answers, thanks for this. I'm not really convinced as pressing ESC or ENTER is to much key to press in my opinion - because the power of fayt filter mode is definitely for me to be able to use up / down key and 'enter' to execute file or navigating in filtered subfolder. It is like the main reason i use fayt mode instead of filter mode : it is faster. But maybe i'm too minimalist :wink:
I'll try to take time to improve and test my usage, and different ways to use filters and enter/esc, and will add some ideas later on.

Cheers,
Antoine

Are you sure that isn't just the item that was selected before you started filtering, being put back into the list when you stop filtering?

You could always turn off select first matching item if it isn't doing what you want.

Why does pushing return instead of esc stop you from doing that?

I'm confused about what you mean by "FAYT mode" and "filter mode". Your screenshot at the top of this thread shows the Filter Bar, not the FAYT bar. FAYT doesn't seem to be involved here at all.

i'm just reproducing the example i have given in my first message (2nd question, 2nd screen capture)

i put back 3 steps here :

  1. i've got all my files, "text1.txt" is selected

image

  1. I filter one file (preselected here as "doc1.doc") :

image

  1. I press ESC and dopus reselect "text1.txt" (ok) and adds "doc1.doc" (ok) but also adds "D" folder (why ?)

image

Sorry to annoy you about this - I don't know if you can reproduce this on your configuration.

Here is my config :

The folder "D" gets selected because it matches the filter at the time - when you type "doc" the first letter "d" matches the folder name. I don't think this is unexpected behaviour.

We probably need to add an option to either clear selections when the filter is cleared, or to clear selections of files that get filtered out. Both would solve your problem I think but I'm not sure which would make the most sense.

If you turn off the "Select first matching item" option then it would also solve it from your point of view I think?

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We're about to release a new beta which changes this, so that items which are filtered out also get deselected, so they aren't selected anymore if you filter them back in.

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I've tested for few days now, in the current beta release (12.20.1) and it's working very well.
For my usage, It's really better now.

Thanks to the dev team for adding this behavior !

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