ShellFolderFix - Manage folder window positions/size

[pauljayd]

Thanks

Just loaded up the shellfolderfix program, and what a relief.
The various problems introduced with WIn7 Explorer are enough to make upgrading painful.
Your program is a great start in smoothing out the transition.
Thanks so much.
Keep up the great work!
pauljayd

P.S. (Of course...)
Might it be possible to get the navigation panel to move the in-focus right-panel object close to the top?

 

[tweaker]

Might it be possible to get the navigation panel to move the in-focus right-panel object close to the top?

sorry, my brain seems to be a bit slow today Could you explain a bit further what you mean?

 

[pauljayd]

Sorry, it's just my frustration with the new Win7 Explorer - Every time I play with it (I toggle back and forth with my 'production' WinXP) all the little quirks just jump right back in my face.
So, I start Windows Explorer, and have the Organize/Layout/Navigation pane activated. I then begin to drill down to a sub-folder. In the Navigation pane I click 'Computer' then 'ToshWin7C (C', which is my c-drive.
It's highlighted in the left pane, but stays near the bottom of it. Of course it also opens in the right pane. Continuing, I wish to click "Windows", but must first scroll the left pane down. In WinXP, when you click an item in the left pane, it would cause the left pane to scroll automatically, bringing the highlighted item towards the top of the pane, exposing much of its contents. So, I scroll the left pane, and click "Windows".
The "Windows" item highlights, opens in the the right pane, but stays near the bottom of the left pane -- not showing much of it's contents (in the left). I must repeatedly scroll the left pane to keep the highlighted item near the top.
It's just tiresome.
It seems to me that if the user has just clicked an item in the left pane to expand it, it should move towards the top of the screen, as normal viewing is top-to-bottom, left-to-right. It just doesn't feel/look right to me, whereas XP did.
Thanks.

 

[gss]

I've been trying to get the bug here too for couple of days, so far with no luck. But I just came to think of something that maybe could cause it. In folder settings do you have "Display the full path in the title bar" disabled? If yes, could you try enabling it and see if the problem goes away.

Yes, it was disabled. I enabled it but problem is still here
I've reseted a folder's settings and tried to check some checkboxes (like "open folders in separate memory") one by one...

FYI, I see the same problem with Window Manager.

 

[spitemonkey]

Thanks!

Tweaker,

I came across ShellFolderFix today and it works great. I wasn't needing anything more than to have windows remember folder sizes and positions on the screen. I don't understand why this was taken away. I have the 64-bit windows 7 and it work with no problem. When I exit the program windows immediately screws up any customization I just accomplished, and it is nice to see that when I start the program up again everything falls right back into place. I am just testing it right now but most likely I will have it start at boot and always running. Great work and thanks!

 

[tweaker]

In the Navigation pane I click 'Computer' then 'ToshWin7C (C', which is my c-drive.
It's highlighted in the left pane, but stays near the bottom of it. Of course it also opens in the right pane. Continuing, I wish to click "Windows", but must first scroll the left pane down. In WinXP, when you click an item in the left pane, it would cause the left pane to scroll automatically, bringing the highlighted item towards the top of the pane

Ah I see. That's lower level functionality of how that list/tree control works, that's currently a little outside of what the app does. That might change at a later point depending on other things added.

You could ask Ivo that does Classic Shell and see if that is something he thinks is possible in that project. I think the type of program that is (explorer extension) would be in a better position for such a fix.

Yes, it was disabled. I enabled it but problem is still here
I've reseted a folder's settings and tried to check some checkboxes (like "open folders in separate memory") one by one...

FYI, I see the same problem with Window Manager.

Too bad it wasn't that, but at least it helps in that I can eliminate that part of the code as the problem.

It sounds like some kind of timing problem, meaning that for a very brief moment the window name is something else until the internal data is created and the correct path is available. What could affect that if it's a slower computer and/or if the shortcut points to a network folder or removable media. You mentioned that it usually happens the first time, then it works again directly after, this also fits the description as after the first time the data is cached in memory (at least for a while).

Do your shortcuts point to folders on your local harddisk or something else?

 

[gss]

It happens not only first time but after long time of inactivity or another work too.
I do not have a network maps or another slow drives on this machine. And machine is powerfull enought (quadcore CPU, 4GB RAM, Windows7 64bit).
May be a problem is connected to "green power" HDDs which have internal aggressive power management (I can't disable this)? But I don't hear an HDD's startup when I see a problem with folder's size...

 

[EXreaction]

Noticed a bit of a bug (or odd behavior).

When using the option of "Temporarily use window as is", when you have a bunch of windows you opened from the same starting path and you try to save the workspace, it doesn't save all of the windows (couldn't figure out exactly why it was choosing certain ones though).

 

[tweaker]

Noticed a bit of a bug (or odd behavior).

When using the option of "Temporarily use window as is", when you have a bunch of windows you opened from the same starting path and you try to save the workspace, it doesn't save all of the windows (couldn't figure out exactly why it was choosing certain ones though).

You mean if you have any windows open where you navigated to a new location inside that window (basically when the explorer back button is enabled). Yes those are not saved in workspaces, as those windows are... well... temporary

This was intentional, or rather necessary by design because of what workspace data consists of. What would be possible without "hacks", would be that those temporary folders are saved in a workspace, but when the workspace is restored those folders will be opened with the folders' "real" window size/position and not the temporary one. Would that work for you?

 

[EXreaction]

Basically what I have is this:
shortcut on desktop to a/

I open a/ and move to a/b/c/
I open a/ and move to a/b/c/d/
I open a/ and move to a/b/c/e/
etc

I do that 9 times to open up all of the windows I need and move them to the proper place (with a nice tool called gridmove) and then save the workstation. I spent a few minutes trying to figure out why they were not being saved until I changed that setting. I would think that most who try doing the same thing (with any setting really) would expect it to save and open all the directories as they were and probably would be confused as I was to why it wasn't saving them.

 

[tweaker]

I think I can fix that in the next version.

 

[Protium]

Thank you Tweaker.

I couldn't believe M$ removed this function and I spent ages after install wondering what box I'd missed checking.

One thing I miss is the ability for Explorer to remember View and Sort as well as position and size. Is this a possibility in future releases?

 

[tweaker]

I'd like to add view settings, but I don't know yet if it's going to be possible.

 

[k2007gupta]

Life Saving Utility

Hi Tweaker,

Thanks a billion for this life-saving utility. After many days of frustration with the new Win 7, I finally learned that Win 7 really does not remember sizes of WM windows. I just downloaded your app. It works beautifully. I got my desktop life back! Thanks again.

K2007G

 

[RodD]

Need Folder Layout Preserved

I have been trying out ShellFolderFix, but can't get it to remember the folder layout. I'm trying to get folders to look like they did in Windows 98, which was possible in Windows XP, without the navigation pane on the left. If I turn it off for a folder, it is turned off for all folders - which is not what I want since I need the navigation pane in Windows Explorer to navigate the C-drive or D-drive from the root.

Am I doing something wrong, or is this feature not present?

I am also very confused about when a folder's settings get saved. It would be nice to save a particular folders settings when you want without messing with other folders saved settings. How and when are settings saved?

 

[tweaker]

Am I doing something wrong, or is this feature not present?

Unfortunately it presently doesn't save and restore view settings / layout, only window positions and sizes. Not by choice, because there is no (straight forward) way to access view settings. I'm going to try to find some unconventional way to add the feature, but don't know if it will be possible (or when).

I am also very confused about when a folder's settings get saved. It would be nice to save a particular folders settings when you want without messing with other folders saved settings. How and when are settings saved?

Not sure I understand. The size and position of all folder windows get tracked all the time. (Except if you have the "Temporarily use window as is" mode, in which case only the first folder that opened the window gets saved.) Each folder has its own window size/position saved. For example C:\ has one window setting, C:\Windows another etc.

If you're refering to layout and view mode then that's all up to Windows, since as mentioned above this app doesn't affect those. That can be a little confusing. As I understand it there are a couple of different folder template types in win7. Like normal files, pictures, music, and each type has view settings which affect all folders of same type. Then it also tries to auto-detect which template to use, or somesuch.

 

[zitalena]

Thank you for a lifesaving app. Just one thing:

I have several shortcuts on my desktop, to folders in our network. Lets call them

q:\aaa\bbb\ccc\ddd
and
q:\aaa\bbb\ccc\eee

If I open them and positon them as I want them and close them, everything works fine.

But if I for some reason open first q:\, position that window (as I haven't opened it before) and then click my way to either ddd or eee, the window jumps to that position when I get there. Is there a way to keep a window static when I navigate down through folders? It's not possible to set the exact same size and position for each folder (I want all those under q:\aaa\bbb to be the same size and postition) and it gets jumpy for the eye when it changes all the time. Sometimes I go from ddd to eee instead of closing it and opening the other shortcut, and the same thing happens there.

Do you understand what I mean? I may use the wrong words as I am not American or English...

Lena

 

[CAUGHTUP77]

Somethings Wrong

If I select my D hard drive or any other drive and turn off the "Navigation Pane" (which is how I want it) then when I open Windows Explorer the "Navigation Pane" is turned off when I want it on. Or vice-versa, it transfers the setting, that did not happen before.

What am I doing wrong? How do I get the settings to apply to individual folders and not globally ?

 

[tweaker]

Is there a way to keep a window static when I navigate down through folders?

Not sure exactly which behavior you prefer, but it sounds like you want either the "Use window as is" or "Temporarily use window as is" option. Both of those will make the window not jump around.

The difference between them is that window size/position will be saved or not. For example with the Use as is option, if you open Q:\ first and then navigate to q:\aaa\bbb\ccc\ddd, then ddd will have the window size/position of Q:\, so next time you click your ddd desktop shortcut it will open like that.

With the Temporarily option, if you navigate from Q:\ to ddd, the window will be the same as Q:\, but next time you open the shortcut it will use the window from last time you opened the shortcut (or opened ddd with "Open in new window").

I hope I wasn't too confusing, if I was try experimenting with both those options and see which one you like.

What am I doing wrong? How do I get the settings to apply to individual folders and not globally ?

Unfortunately you're not doing anything wrong, that's how win7 works. ShellFolderFix does not keep track of window layout or view settings, only window size and position. I'll try to add layout/view settings in the future (I want it too), but I don't really know if it's going to be possible.

 

[zitalena]

The difference between them is that window size/position will be saved or not. For example with the Use as is option, if you open Q:\ first and then navigate to q:\aaa\bbb\ccc\ddd, then ddd will have the window size/position of Q:\, so next time you click your ddd desktop shortcut it will open like that.

I think that this is exactly what I want. As English is not my first language I don't understand computer terminology that good... I had set it to Update window, no wonder it was jumpy....

Thanks for your help and kudos to you writing a program like this!!

Lena