I'm currently "evaluating" Directoy Opus and it is by far the best at what it does. I've got a few questions though...
I'm a frequent user of the Win + E hotkeys. So, after working/fiddling on my PC for 8 hours, I sometimes got about 10 instances open of DO. Is there any way to force only one instance and catch the Win + E hotkeys by opening a new tab in the already open DO or ( maybe better ) just focus/restore DO?
Is there a way to open specified directories on DO launch? For example: "When I open DO for the first time, I want "C:\temp" and "C:\windows" and "j:" to open in tabs?
BTW, the programmers really should check outand use the IAutoComplete API, your Location toolbar desperatly needs it. I got this working in .NET in just 30 minutes, and it would add so much more value to DO. I mean, such a great program, but it really lacks a descent autocompletion implementation. But perhaps there is a good reason not to use that API, I don't know.
Great work on the excellent UI too. Nice, fresh and clean with still loads of options.
Win-E is fixed (by Windows) to open My Computer via the default folder handler. You can't change that it opens My Computer. You could change how My Computer is opened via hacking about in the registry but I wouldn't advise it unless it's a major issue for you since doing this could break things.
That said, you could make another system-wide hotkey in Opus's Customize / Keys which runs a command that will re-use an existing lister if there is one (which is set to Source -- and that's usually the case if there is a lister at all) and will open a lister if there isn't one. The most basic command would simply be [b]Go C:[/b] or Go /mycomputer. You can modify this so that it opens a new tab as well as a load of other things. (Check out the Raw Commands section of the manual for all the arguments you can give the Go command.)
2)
Probably the easiest way to do this is to set everything how you want it at startup and then save a new Layout. You can then set your Startup and possibly Double-Click settings in Preferences to use this layout when Opus starts and/or when you double-click the desktop or the tray icon.
IAutoComplete
What would be the difference between Opus's current auto-completion and using the IAutoComplete API? The way Opus works now seems fine to me but I'm not very familiary with IAutoComplete. (If you're not getting auto-completion at all it may be because it's turned off completely or turned off for certain types of drives.)
Wow... just wow...I hadn't discoverd those commands yet and it's soooo great!! It works great now! All I have to do now is getting used to Win + X instead of Win + E
for point 2. I saved a layout with the tabs I wanted, configured it to luanch at startup, but it didn't work. Double-Click on the DO tray icon worked, so no biggie.
About the IAutoComplete:
My issue about Opus' current autocompletion is that it doesn't suggest in a dropdown list possible entries as you type, like the IAutoComplete API does. At least, it doesn't for me. Perhaps I have a setting wrong?
Actually, I've written a very rudimentary file manager in .NET myself and the API seemed easier to use then to code it yourself. So it's a bit weird they went this way. Seeing how everything is so extremely well done, I start to wonder if they had a very good reason not to use the API.
Anyway...if you tell me this is normal behavior for DO, then I'm just going to post this in requests...
Expect an order for DO when my trial is over.... DO is great and extremely well designed!
Opening a Layout at startup works fine for me. Here's what I did: [ol][li] Go to Preferences / Startup and select Open a saved Lister Layout and one of my layouts.[/li]
[li] Exit Opus via the tray-icon menu. (Closing all visible Opus windows will not exit the program.)[/li]
[li] Use Start / Run on C:\program files\GPSoftware\Directory Opus\dopus.exe[/li][/ol]After doing that my layout appears.
Auto-Completion
You're right that Opus doesn't show a drop-down list of comlpetion options. You can, however, use the up/down cursor keys to cycle through additional matches. A drop-down would be nice every so often, when there are a large number of partial matches, but I can't say I really miss having one.
The Opus auto-completion does one or two special things, like allowing you to type a \ (backslash) to move to the end of the current match (much like pressing the End key but more convenient/natural when typing a path). That said, you could presumably add this to IAutoComplete.
Actually, for all I know Opus already uses IAutoComplete but doesn't enable the drop-downs for whatever reason, but it may use its own routines as well.
It looks like IAutoComplete doesn't work with Win95/Win98/NT4 which may be why it wasn't used originally. Then again, people still using those dinosaurs don't deserve path completion.
