Compared to Total Commander the quick search in DO 9 lacks several comfort features:
no wildcard support
In TC I can type "*.txt" to jump to a file with .txt extension, I can also type "?" to replace a char.
Optional semiautomatic modes are included too, in which the * is preset to match the beginning of a filename and an entered dot is expanded to *. to match the chars before the dot.
The shortcut F3 to jump to the next match is extremely awkward.
In TC I press Ctrl-Enter to jump to the next match, enter to execute, there is no need to leave the lower keyboard area.
In TC I can optionally start quicksearching by typing a hotkey plus letter combination (Alt+letter, Ctrl-Alt+letter), in this case a letter press doesn't start quicksearching but instead directly activates the command line which can be very important for command like geeks. Also the quick search functionality can be disabled completely.
I have searched the preferences for a possibility to configure the quick search but had no luck, not even a match for "quick". The only match I found was the one to disable the find field.
If there are any hidden options which have to be entered in a config file manually, please drop me a line. I am used to that in TC, but to my knowledge Directory Opus has every option accessible in the preferences, hasn't it?
[quote="Icfu"]
3. In TC I can optionally start quicksearching by typing a hotkey plus letter combination (Alt+letter, Ctrl-Alt+letter), in this case a letter press doesn't start quicksearching but instead directly activates the command line which can be very important for command like geeks. [/quote]
Correct me if I'm wrong, but as there is no command line bar in DO, this is a moot point.
[quote="Icfu"]In TC I can type "*.txt" to jump to a file with .txt extension, I can also type "?" to replace a char.
Optional semiautomatic modes are included too, in which the * is preset to match the beginning of a filename and an entered dot is expanded to *. to match the chars before the dot.[/quote]
Seems like a logical thing to add to the Search Field. For now, have you tried using the filter field? You can type *.txt into it to hide all non-matching files.
Maybe that should be configurable. (F3 is standard, like Xyzzy says.)
I usually use the down cursor to move to the next file but that, of course, isn't the same as what F3 does. (I didn't even realise F3 worked until now. )
You can create hotkeys to go to drive letters (or any other path) via Customize->Keys. You can also assign a hotkey to a filter field. (After adding the filter field to your toolbar, edit it and you'll see a place to define its hotkey.) Those two things combined should give the desired result.
There's a command field in Opus that you can add to your toolbars. Also, > into Opus 9 then the pop-up Search Field turns into a command field.
It's an alternative way to navigate, yep, also existing in TC. But it's no replacement for quick searching.
This is what I always mean of course, just as an option. I don't want to annoy users which are used to Bill's way of thinking, be it intelligent or not. I agree that F3 is a well known shortcut for finding the next match in several Windows applications, but it's not a good one for preventing tendosynovitis in a file manager.
You're welcome.
Misunderstanding: I wasn't talking about drive letters but the possibility in TC to start quick searching by typing Ctrl+Alt+X (for Example Ctrl+Alt+X when the word starts with X). If this was possible in DO, the command line could popup when entering a char and entering > first would not be necessary.
The problem is that neither the command field nor the popup give me a possibility to not close the prompt after executing, am I missing something? For example I enter "ipconfig", the console opens and closes. In TC I press Shift+Enter and the console stays open.
Also this functionality should be directly integrated into the pathbar control, the separate command field is awkward. Too much controls not only waste space but are also counterproductive for the workflow.
And another downside which is well known from the past: Activating quick search with ">" is bad on (not only) German keyboard layouts because you have to press Shift, the same problem as here with the aliases:
[Alternative for alias trigger /)
Jon had told me to make this special hotkey for English kb layouts configurable (by email a year ago or so) but it looks like it hasn't happened. Are there no international testers working for DO? Such basic flaws simply shouldn't make it to a final version.
You can assign a hotkey to a filter field. For example, I've assigned ctrl-q (something easy to type ) to mine, so I can type
ctrl-q *.txt
to see just the .txt files in the current directory, without touching the mouse.
To find things that start with X you just type X on its own and use the pop-up search field. (You know this of course. I'm just mentioning it for other people who might be reading.)
It's not ideal but if you want to run a DOS command like ipconfig or dir and keep the results then this works:
cmd /k ipconifg
If it's something you want to do a lot then you could make a button or hotkey that prompts you for a command, via {dlgstring}, and then runs that with cmd /k.
cmd /k {dlgstring}
Or an MS-DOS type button which runs what you enter into the {dlgstring} box and then runs it followed by the DOS Pause command.
{dlgstring}
pause
I wouldn't be against the idea of being able to type "ipconfig" into the path field but I think typing ">ipconfig" to do the same thing by the seach field is fine.
It's a matter of taste, of course, but I quite like things the way they are now. The search field isn't visible until you type the > (or some other character) and the path field already does something else if you type a full file path into it (it navigates to the folder and selects the file). Of course, typing just a filename (rather than a full path) or command on its own into the path field has no meaning right now, so it would be possible to turn that into a command but using > in the search field seems to work fine to me.
[quote]And another downside which is well known from the past: Activating quick search with ">" is bad on (not only) German keyboard layouts because you have to press Shift, the same problem as here with the aliases:
[Alternative for alias trigger /)[/quote]
Good point. I've filed a feature request to make both the > and the F3 keys for the search field configurable. (Aside: Typing HTML or XML must be a real pain on German keyboards!)
There are several but I don't think any of them mentioned that the > key was inconvenient. Maybe they didn't use this feature much. Hopefully it can be made configurable so that everyone is happy.
I've also filed a feature request to add wildcard support to the search field as that seems a logical thing to do. While the existing filter fields provide similar functionality, I think being able to jump to files matching a wildcard -- without filtering all the other files out -- can also be useful.
[quote]And another downside which is well known from the past: Activating quick search with ">" is bad on (not only) German keyboard layouts because you have to press Shift, the same problem as here with the aliases:
[Alternative for alias trigger /)[/quote]
Good point. I've filed a feature request to make both the > and the F3 keys for the search field configurable. (Aside: Typing HTML or XML must be a real pain on German keyboards!)
Thanks for all the ideas![/quote]
German keyboards? Entering the greater than sign requires the shift key on my US keyboard also.
Is the picture below the right one for a German keyboard? I can understand the / being a pain to type (shift-7) but > looks like no trouble at all, same as typing | on a UK keyboard.
You can recognize on that image that on German keyboards the left Shift key is very small and close to the < key. This means that with my left little and ring wurstfingers it is indeed a pain to press those keys simultaneously, especially because I would regularly need that combination in one-hand-typing-mode.
Strange to see that not even English kb layout users can hit > without pressing Shift, so to me it looks as if this combination has not been chosen because of comfort (which is my priority for shortcuts I often need) but probably because it looks like prompt $G.
As long as you make all shortcuts configurable, I can live with any default shortcut you choose, no problem.
In the TC forum I had many endless and fruitless discussions about the annoyances of hardcoded shortcuts, the lack of a Windows key modifier (DO has it at least), missing key alternatives, etc..., that's why I won't start it all over again. I am too tired after all those years of frustration.
If you get rid of hardcoded shortcuts one day – I hope so – that would be fine, otherwise I fix it myself with AHK like I am used to meanwhile.
Not at the moment. If Opus doesn't recognise what you've typed as an internal command then it will ask Windows to execute it, presumably using ShellExecute. So you can run PowerShell commands but you'd have to always prefix them with the PowerShell exe's name.
By the way, I worked out a way to create a button in Opus which opens a PowerShell prompt at the lister's directory. Let me know if that would be useful and I'll post it to the Buttons & Toolbars forum. It's a bit rubbish though as it requires that you make a shortcut to PowerShell.
The shortcut isn't strictly required, but if you run PowerShell directly then you don't get the right icon in the window that opens. Sigh.
I've long wanted a better command-prompt in Windows and eagerly tried PowerShell but I found it quite disappointing. The output of everything is far too verbose (and I don't want to spend weeks editing all of the commands to change it), it's too slow (especially to start up), and it still runs inside the same old command-prompt Window that has barely changed since 1985. I miss the decent command prompts we had on the Amiga and people have on Unix-like OS.
Well, as this thread has turned into a workaround thread for DO CL limitation now, this is the AutoHotkey code I am using. One single keypress "<" in a file panel is enough, no need for one or even more Shift presses. %comspec% /k is autofilled.
I already have a "ps here" item on my right-click menu
Yeah I thought they'd make something a bit more flash as well. However unlike the default cmd.exe it's apparently relatively straight forward to make a PowerShell prompt (although, MS claim it's silly notion and question why anyone would do it). As far as I understand it, the powershell application itself is just a cmdlet to which the text is output, and commands are input from. You can in-fact build powershell into any .net application you feel fit. (From what I understand Dopus isn't .net however)
The verbose output is due to it all being object based, you can cut it back somewhat by specifying what part of an object you actually want to see.
I toyed with the idea of building something like Dopus on top of PS which would give it a really powerful scripting engine, but just don't have time. It would give users a way to add actual functions to Dopus.
Because of it's object-based nature - I saw the shell actually working on a lister window, so, for instance, the command "dir *.txt" would make the lister window just display text files, or perhaps a command could be made show-selected which would return a list of which objects were selected in the lister window.
You can find out more about how to actually tap into PS on the SDK site - I'd be happy to spew forth ideas reguarding what could actually be done with it
)
I miss the decent command prompts we had on the Amiga and people have on Unix-like OS.