Some ideas

Any wishes
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deseven
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Some ideas

Post by deseven » Thu Sep 08, 2016 2:56 pm

To continue my conversation with Michael about some new features, here are some of my ideas.

1. Notifications for background tasks (copying, moving, updating) when file manager window is not in foreground (via growl and/or notification center). Those are easily done (here is an example with a delayed notification, but you also can use deliverNotification method instead of scheduleNotification) and can be really useful in many cases.
(to Michael: no, your app doesn't need to be in MAS, the only thing you should do is to sign your app with your developer ID and use a correct bundle ID, i've tested it myself yesterday)

2. Connection manager with persistent connections to be able to switch between locations without the need to wait for reconnection. That probably speaks for itself, but in terms of how it should look i have a nice example how it's done in ForkLift:
Image
As you can see there is a bar on the left where you can click to connect to any pre-defined server. Then it becomes available in the "connections" section where you can disconnect it when needed.
Actually there is no need to do it that way, since it will take a lot of time. Easier way is to have another menu section on the top, called "connections" or something like that. When we press it we get a list of created servers in the dropdown menu, and "edit..." option to be able to control this list.
Connected servers can be marked with green dot, ctrl-click will disconnect from a server.
Like that (very quick and dirty mock-up):
Image
That way we will get easy and convenient way to manage server list and connections.

3. Improved "rename in place" function. That's difficult to describe, so i decided to show it in details.
Pressing ctrl-f6 for the first time (default hotkey for this action):
Image
Pressing ctrl-f6 again:
Image
Pressing ctrl-f6 for the third time:
Image
More presses will do the same process from the beginning.

4. Ability to disable cursor following when scrolling with mouse wheel. This is really annoying sometimes, and doesn't make any sense, since you can't reliably select anything with mouse wheel anyway.

Suggestions/criticism are welcome :)

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mike
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Re: Some ideas

Post by mike » Tue Sep 13, 2016 2:40 am

Hi, deseven!

Thanks for your suggestions, here're some thoughts regarding:
deseven wrote:1. Notifications for background tasks
Agree, this will be implemented alongside with a logging facility some day.
deseven wrote: 2. Connection manager with persistent connections to be able to switch between locations without the need to wait for reconnection. [...] Actually there is no need to do it that way, since it will take a lot of time. Easier way is to have another menu section on the top, called "connections" or something like that. When we press it we get a list of created servers in the dropdown menu, and "edit..." option to be able to control this list.
Connected servers can be marked with green dot, ctrl-click will disconnect from a server.
That way we will get easy and convenient way to manage server list and connections.
This one is hard.
Some UI additions to keep connections alive can be made relatively easy, but the opposite action is not.
Current architectural decisions in NC assumes that any VFS is alive as long as it's used.
(at the moment you can simply keep an opened tab for a network connection to ensure it's alive)
So in this scenario there's basically no way to force some connection to be shut down if it is used anywhere.
deseven wrote:3. Improved "rename in place" function.
Agree, this can be done quickly.
deseven wrote:4. Ability to disable cursor following when scrolling with mouse wheel. This is really annoying sometimes, and doesn't make any sense, since you can't reliably select anything with mouse wheel anyway.
Implementation of this requires a lot of internal changes. I want to do them, but not sure if it will be soon.
BTW, cursor following makes a lot of sense, if you've used a TUI-based file managers (Norton, FAR, etc) before.

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deseven
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Re: Some ideas

Post by deseven » Tue Sep 13, 2016 10:41 am

Thanks for your reply!
migun wrote:Some UI additions to keep connections alive can be made relatively easy, but the opposite action is not.
... So in this scenario there's basically no way to force some connection to be shut down if it is used anywhere.
That can be enough for a start. You can simply inform user that connection can't be closed because he uses it somewhere.
migun wrote:BTW, cursor following makes a lot of sense, if you've used a TUI-based file managers (Norton, FAR, etc) before.
I used them a lot in the past and i still sometimes use MidnightCommander, which has exactly the same thing.
Actually, if you put it like that - yeah, it makes sense. Sorry for me being kinda rude.
Even so, time has passed and it would be nice to have an option to switch to a more modern, gui/mouse-friendly behaviour.

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Re: Some ideas

Post by sasha » Tue Sep 13, 2016 2:49 pm

deseven wrote:migun wrote:
BTW, cursor following makes a lot of sense, if you've used a TUI-based file managers (Norton, FAR, etc) before.

I used them a lot in the past and i still sometimes use MidnightCommander, which has exactly the same thing.
Actually, if you put it like that - yeah, it makes sense. Sorry for me being kinda rude.
Even so, time has passed and it would be nice to have an option to switch to a more modern, gui/mouse-friendly behaviour.
I agree, (optional) cursor-independent scrolling and scroll bars seem to me a huge UI improvement, there's already a thread for that (http://magnumbytes.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=88). Also, there are some good examples in the wild: In OSX, Transmit and ForkLift have this functionality. In Windows, it's of course TC and a bunch of clones - even Norton Commander 2.01 for Windows :) FAR doesn't have cursor-independent scrolling, but at least offers scroll bars. Would be nice to see it in an upcoming version!

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darek
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Re: Some ideas

Post by darek » Tue Sep 13, 2016 3:22 pm

...or you can just disable mouse support in Nimble Commander entirely! ;) Clicking in a commander is a blasphemy anyway. BLASPHEMY, I SAY! :evil:

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deseven
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Re: Some ideas

Post by deseven » Tue Sep 13, 2016 5:34 pm

darek wrote:...or you can just disable mouse support in Nimble Commander entirely! ;) Clicking in a commander is a blasphemy anyway. BLASPHEMY, I SAY! :evil:
Why half measures? NC should permanently remove random file if user tries to use a mouse!

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Re: Some ideas

Post by d0ublezer0 » Fri Sep 16, 2016 5:04 pm

Let's dig a little deeper: When copying or moving through F5/F6 - same buttons can also be used to select the file name for faster renaming
I expected: When dialog box appears, i pressed F5 (when copying) or F6 (when moving) again:
Image
As i know - Total Commander have this ability for all copying/moving operations for single file

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darek
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Re: Some ideas

Post by darek » Fri Sep 16, 2016 5:15 pm

Hey... that... what? Almost 20 years of using Windows/Total Commander and I had no idea about this feature :) Nice detail!

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mike
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Re: Some ideas

Post by mike » Wed Sep 21, 2016 2:28 am

deseven wrote:3. Improved "rename in place" function.
Done, will be available in next preview.

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deseven
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Re: Some ideas

Post by deseven » Wed Sep 21, 2016 1:22 pm

Thanks!

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