I have some issues with the file grouping feature. I'm trying to avoid "fancy" wishes and focus on useful things, but sometimes it's hard to figure.
I use grouping a lot, and there's a few things that I find distracting. One of these is that the list of grouped entries in the lister does not have the same compactness as the naked file overview. I use a compact view (extra line padding and line spacing is disabled) and both "File display" and "File display groups" in fonts are set to the same 8-point font, still, a collapsed list of groups takes significant more space than a list of files. Is there a way to have group lines treated more in line with how files are displayed?
To illustrate the point - just a random example:
The vertical space is significantly more elevated for grouping lines.
Ps. For those interested: my evaluator group scheme for this grouping is quite simple - it picks file names up to the first encountered bracket (round or square), and I make the number of files of each group stand out by giving it some bright color. (The html markup codes cannot be closed properly, as we have no programmatic access to the 'count' entry that follows the group name, but it works anyway).
n = is_dir ? value : Stem(value);
n=RegEx(n, "^(.*?)(\(|\[).*", "\1");
group=RegEx(n, "[\s-]*$","");
return [name = group;markup="<b>"+group+"<#32ffff>";collapse=true];
A lesser nuisance is those horizontal lines that are drawn at the same level of the group name. This feels normal when groups are open, but in a long list of collapsed groups they are a bit strange - and certainly different from how a standard file list looks.
I do use grouping as file lists in many cases. As I often work with "sidecar" files (text files having the same name as its "parent" file - usually a video or audio file - having some extra name at the end, e.g. sidecarTranscript, -Summary*, -*Notes, as in the screenshot). So when the list is collapsed, it really is my file overview - the rest are kind of my hidden descript.ion alternative, and far more efficient at that.
(Ideally, the grouping entry should already be the "parent file", immediately clickable, just as in a normal file list - but of course this is impossible within the grouping concept).
So there are at least two ways to look at my request:
- Either I am "abusing" groups for personal purposes in ways no one else does, in which case this request must be ignored.
- Or it makes some sense to use it in this way, in which case it also makes some sense to make group lists look and feel more like a file list with additional glyphs on the left of each entry (and certainly make them just as compact as a file list).
Maybe others have better ideas how to work with "commentary files". I have tried storing them in NTFS ADS and opening them via separate buttons, but that complicates things more than my grouping solution does - and then there's indexing issues etc. Grouping is my most satisfying and easiest solution so far.