Two requests

I have tried Directory Opus for a while now, and I am really impressed with its capabilities, so I ould really like to fully replace Windows Explorer with DOpus. However, there's two items that I really miss in Opus:

  • The details pane in Windows Explorer: You know, that little pane that contains a thumbview of a selected file, plus additional file information (including size, EXIF data for pictures, artist info for MP3s, etc). Up until Windows 2000, that pane would also list the names of selected files when multiple files were selected, so that I would have a list of things I was about to delete. How about adding such a pane to Opus? With what you have in Opus already, this should not be hard for you guys. :smiley:

  • Delete confirmation dialog: For Explorer, this dialog gives an indication of whether the file(s) I am deleting go to the Recycle Bin, or are irretrievably deleted. VERY helpful sometimes... Opus seems to have just one dialog, so if I'm not sure anymore if held doen that shift key or not, I may be up for a surprise. I think this is a real omission; having a clear indication of the kind of delete operation one is about to perform is important. Hey, even Microsoft agrees with that... :wink:

???



Interesting. I am attaching screenshots of the dialogs I see. So, I was wrong, the dialogs are different, but very slightly so, and both show a recycle bin. Why am I not getting that nice red cross?



It's because you've installed an icon pack which replaced the delete icon with one that features the recycle bin.

Darn it, you're right, it's because of the Vista iconset. I really like the iconset otherwise, but that Recycle Bin on the Shift-Delete dialog is just wrong. Any pointers as to how I could fix that? I know that I should place an icon file with, say, just the original shift-delete icon before the Vista set (or, delete that particular icon from the Vista set), but how do I create such an icon file? Thanks for any help with this!

So, how about the details pane? It would be a great addition, and mean that Opus would actually be better than Windows Explorer :smiling_imp:

Delete Icon fixed, just download the Icon Set again: [Directory Opus Vista Icons v2.0) :wink:

Really? I always despised the details panel, well, in fact I've only used Explorer a grand total of 2 months since 1998. By your quoted statement, should it be inferred that DOpus is NOT already vastly superior than Explorer, that poor excuse for a file manager? I think it is orders of magnitude better.

I agree; you forgot to quote the smiley, which was important. :wink:

However, as far as the Detail Pane is concerned, yes, I do think it is useful, at least a combination of the Win2k version (with its list of selected files) plus the new capabilities in Vista/Win7. If you don't like it, you can turn it off, even in Windows Explorer. It does provide information summarized in one place that is not available in Opus in this compact form, at least not that I know. Anybody know how to accomplish the same with Opus as it is now, feel free to educate me.

Something like this will probably be coming in Opus 10. But I'm confused by exactly what you mean - I don't remember Win2k having any sort of details/metadata pane (nor XP either, come to that).

Hah, that sounds great.

As to the confusion, yes, Win2K did not have the metadata in there, all it had, as I recall, was a panel listing some basic file information (name, size, I think). The really useful part of that panel was that when multiple files were selected (up to some number of files; if the number of selected files was too large, it only gave some summary information, I think), it would list the names of all the selected files. I think this would be useful for Opus' Powermode in particular: With the more complex way files can be selected (where some of the selected files may not be visible in the current window), it would be quite useful sometimes to have a complete list of the selected files available. Now, Vista/Win2K, on the other hand, have the new detail Pane, and that is useful, too, I think. Thus the idea of combining this one feature from Win2K (listing of selected files) with the Detail Pane as it is now.

Now that I think of it, another way to offer information on selected files would be to add an "Info Button" directly to the confirmation dialogs, so the Delete dialog, say, would have a button that would open a new window with detailed information on the files that will be operated on (deleted in this example).

P.S.: Notice, how, in the screen shot below, the Detail Pane also allows you to perform some quite useful functions, such as adding tags or comments to single or multiple files. All that is really missing in this example is a listing of all the files selected, rather than just a note saying "5 items selected.".


Actually, having explored the proposition of replacing Explorer with Opus, it seems I constantly find new issues, see my other posts. By now I would give you a more differentiated answer, saying that, yes, Opus is vastly superior in some areas, and the opposite in others.