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Windows Explorer Through the Years

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Re: Windows Explorer Through the Years

#121

Post by ubercow13 »

mkl wrote: post #119
ubercow13 wrote: post #61

My favourite advanced secret feature of Explorer is that you can sort files by multiple columns. First sort by the primary column such as file type, and then shift-click a secondary column such as date to add it as a second sort criteria.

Can't you do that by sorting by the secondary column first, then the primary? I think the sort is stable, so that works.

No, when you non-shift-click a column it seems to reset the secondary sort field to the filename regardless. And this method will make it remember the multpile sort criteria when navigating across folders and restarting Explorer, which goes further than just stable sorting.

Re: Windows Explorer Through the Years

#122

Post by shadowfox »

nobleach wrote: post #101
TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Da fck. I recently learned you can add this feature to the right click context menu via adding a registry entry. If I’d’a known shift-right click I wouldn’t make bothered.

Oh yeah! Microsoft released PowerToys back in the day that had clever things like this.

The new PowerToys [1] are interesting too, though somewhat different in scope from the old ones.

[1] https://github.com/microsoft/PowerToys

Re: Windows Explorer Through the Years

#123

Post by snarfy »

I remember my friend modified the win 3.1 startup shell and replaced progman.exe with winfile.exe. Program manager wasn't needed. You could run any program from file manager, and it also had File->Run... menu option.

Re: Windows Explorer Through the Years

#125

Post by dingaling »

AnonC wrote: post #96
siggen wrote: post #93

Replacing the menu interface with the ribbon interface in Win10 and Office... I am not sure what the thought process was for Microsoft to have done that. Sometimes you already have something solid and it doesn’t need change. I liked being able to navigate the explorer UI with the keyboard with hints provided directly in the UI. For example, Alt+T O opened the tools menu, then the Options dialog box. But now, there’s…

The ribbon came in MS Office 2007 as a result of user studies that showed that menus weren’t effective in showing the users what was possible or what features were available in an application. That’s why this new UI (“Fluent UI”) was designed for better discoverability. [1] Once you do something new and different, I suppose it’s natural to copy it over everywhere else (like Windows Explorer). [1]: http://channel9.msd…

It was very much an attempted solution to a self-made problem. Default toolbar config in Office programs had become so overwhelming that on a 1024x800 standard-issue corporate monitor you could literally see only a paragraph of text in the content area.

The true solution to that was probably deeper than clustering toolbar items by context. The very concept of a toolbar probably needed to be challenged.

Re: Windows Explorer Through the Years

#126

Post by thrownaway954 »

cstuder wrote: post #18
vbezhenar wrote: post #4

Sorry for offtopic, but I'd like to share a tip I can't imagine living without. You can type cmd in explorer address bar and it'll open cmd in that directory (probably works with any other program in your %PATH%). Also you can type `explorer .` in cmd to open explorer in the current directory.

Another tip: Shift-Right-Click a file in Explorer and "Copy as path" will appear in the context menu. Puts the full file path in your clipboard.

OMG!!! where have you been my whole life. you just saved me tons of stress when getting a file path in explorer

Re: Windows Explorer Through the Years

#127

Post by basch »

toyg wrote: post #45
signal11 wrote: post #27

This article would be even better if it showed the evolution of Mac OS's Finder through the years. The two undoubtedly influenced each other (possibly with one side being influenced more than the other). For instance, I believe the 'duality' of Explorer views (one without tree views, one with) was a response to the success of the Mac Finder -- it was intended to present a simple UI for managing files. The "Explore" m…

>> Beginning users and many intermediates were confused by the two-pane view of File Cabinet Definitely my experience as a pre-teen. The 9x UI was much more intuitive. > there seems to be a trend of bundling more functionality into the Title Bar these days. Yes and I find it annoying, because 1) they are so small, and 2) now you cannot intuitively know whether something on the titlebar is a button or decoration. Flat…

For anyone looking for a Norton Commander / File Cabinet two pane interface, check out Saladin. https://saladin.mimec.org/

Re: Windows Explorer Through the Years

#129

Post by mkl »

ubercow13 wrote: post #121
mkl wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't you do that by sorting by the secondary column first, then the primary? I think the sort is stable, so that works.

No, when you non-shift-click a column it seems to reset the secondary sort field to the filename regardless. And this method will make it remember the multpile sort criteria when navigating across folders and restarting Explorer, which goes further than just stable sorting.

Hm, you are right!

Re: Windows Explorer Through the Years

#130

Post by MayeulC »

oblio wrote: post #109

To the author: stop railing about toolbars. Misguided as Microsoft is in many cases, they do have metrics for those things and people do press them. I can also add a ton of anecdotal evidence pointing that even super smart casual users don't know or use keyboard shortcuts. Even for copy paste, in many cases. Sad from our point of view, but a lot of people have better things to do with their lives and we should stop j…

I like toolbars for quick, frequent-but-not-that-much actions, like exporting to a pdf in LibreOffice.

But I also like menu bars, as those give you some shortcuts if you often use a functionality. As an example, and since I type this into Firefox right now, after glancing at the menus, Alt+V,Y,N disables the page stylesheets, Alt+T,S synchronizes the account, etc.

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