I emailed Microsoft just to do my part like you guys said. I can't believe they don't care about this problem. I can't imagine them only using maximized windows themselves... how could the devs stand working on their own project with such basic functionality driving them up the wall!
Anyway, thanks so much for working on this an app. The world needs it.
Why would MS care about this?
They have made a design choice. It's not an unreasonable design choice. I can think of a lot of reasons to go down this track.
There is no imperative for MS (or for us - the users) to get stuck in some time warp of how things "used to be" 10 years ago. There is no "law" which says an OS should be endlessly backward compatible, nor that every function will satisfy every intricate need.
The reality is that MS have finally given us a well wrought, sophisticated file manager, simple and complex at the same time. It WILL do what you need to do - but you may have to adapt a bit.
If not, using third party software is not a crime. God help us if MS made everything in their own image.
They didn't make a choice, they simply forget to add it or broke it same way as this the Vista Folder Views/Layouts.
Well I would like to think that's the case as only an idiot would leave it out intentionally.
Many peeps don't get what we are moaning about that's because this function is so basic and so old you use it every damn day and take it for granted.
I think I'll just put the file up on some filesharing site(s), or possibly as an attachement here for the first public test version (depending on the size of package).
As for being skilled or not I'll let others judge that :) I do however make my living on coding so I guess I'm in the professional category, even if this particular project is a "hobby" project.
Those extra features would likely end up making extremly little difference in file/mem sizes
(as in maybe a couple of, or couple tens of kb) so I wouldn't worry. Should there for some reason be anything larger, I'll try to stick it in a dll which won't get loaded unless actually used.
1. How can I be on a bad acid trip yet find something "good" ?
2. The changes in Explorer from XP to 7 are dramatic - aren't you seeing the changes
off the top of my (acid-ridden) head here are a few
- Arrange by in Documents
- Libraries
- New Folder button
- Preview pane button and slider
- Favorites sidebar
- Hidden File etc Menu
- Breadcrumb/Drop Down Address bar
- Properties Pane
- Search
Don't you regard those as changes?
3. I'm glad I gave you some laughter. Seems you need it.
documents list view in main folder and sub-folders, list by name.
libraries are worthless.
new folder button nice but that bar for most folders is useless.
favorites just a best guess at what folders you browse most often.
breadcrumb used maybe one out of a hundred times i use explorer.
properties pane just something else to take away from the main folder view again.
search i will give you.
I hope this isn't an argument but it does show how easy it is to criticise based on
- inaccurate assumptions
- personal taste or usage habits
Whilst I understand you think "Libraries are worthless" that doesn't mean that they are worthless.
I use them a bit - I like the flat folders in some circumstances - for some work related purposes I have images stored in various folders across different drives. Sometimes I like to be able to access all the images at once (either I've sorted badly, or my sorting can't consider all the possibilities - the flat view is very useful. If I was on a shared network (I work at home alone) that functionality would be even more important.
The new folder button is context aware (ie changes what it offers) - its not a big thing but I use it a lot so having the button there IS usful.
Favorites is NOT a "best guess". It is a user determined set of links to whatever you like. So I have my 10 or so most accessed folders in the favorites bar. This is a boon. It is the first thing I set up in 3rd party File Managers (I'm also using Total Commander at the mo) and for me it was a major shortcoming of Windows Explorer. Love it. Most of the time I'm one click from the folder I want to be in.
I use the breadcrumbs a bit too. Especially the drop downs - I've not seen that before and in some of my big image folders I might have 10-15 subfolders so this makes finding the relevant folder really easy, really quick.
Properties pane - good for me - it's really quite powerful, from it I can Tag (which I'm doing more and more), I can give an on the fly Star rating assign an author and more. It's a bit inconsistent - doesn't always give me my image dimensions - even with jpegs - but its a big improvement and takes very little real estate.
I wrote this up coz I thought it might help open up some of the possibilities of explorer. Maybe someone will find it useful rather than thinking that Explorer hasn't changed much since Win 95 or that the changes are worthless.
Libraries are actually aimed at sharing.
You need the crappy indexing service running all the time to get them to work with all views (cannot show Album Option in RTM, could in RC's) without it running.
You also will end up with a folder full of Albums marked unspecified unless you actually index the Albums (I do it manually).
They even removed the nice Download icon in last few builds inc RTM and the icon on this site is not 100% the same and its a bit of work to get it to add it.
I do not even have this PC on any kind of netowrk and sharing is disabled through in registry.
the thing is that most of the added features to explorer were done by microsoft to be eye candy and not real improvements. microsoft fell victim to what a lot a companies fell victim to. which was create a great product dumb it down release it then sometime down the road release the undumbed down product as a new product(stretching there research dollars). just add a few pieces of eye candy and pray that most users won't catch on. why do you really think they pulled and reworked what was to be released as vista in the first place. now to be fair the added features may work well some users, however the features that were pulled should have been left. let people slowly get use to a different way of doing things instead of shoving it down their throats. the libraries i find useless, if they work for others great. the breadcrumbs i do use now and again, this was a a decent idea. having no choice about the navigation pane(either it is on or off across all folders) should not have happened. then we have the new ability of not being able to change icon spacing any longer. what brainiac came up with this should be shot. i open desktop shortcuts folder between the navigation pane that would not have been in this folder in xp and vista and larger spacing between the icons this folder is at least a third larger on my screen in 7 than it would have been in xp or vista. now that i have addressed the person who hijacked this thread views on added features to explorer i am steering this thread back to the issue it is really about. which was and is "make windows remember positions and sizes".
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