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Files UWP: An enthusiast’s take on what Windows File Explorer explorer should be

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Re: Files UWP: An enthusiast’s take on what Windows File Explorer explorer should be

#71

Post by Sharlin »

userbinator wrote: post #27
potentialverand wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you open the properties of a folder, you can see how long it can take to calculate the size of a folder. This is a feature I've never really needed - what is your scenario for needing this at a glance? When I'm chasing large files that need deleting due to free space pressure I typically use something like the following https://windirstat.net/

you can see how long it can take to calculate the size of a folder On older Windows (95, 98, XP) I've never had it take an unacceptably long time, and that was with a regular HDD. With an SSD and the large file caches which are possible with today's machines with lots of RAM, it should be even faster. Besides, it's not as if the operation needs to be synchronous; the sizes can be calculated and displayed when they're…

It is absolutely hideously slow on NTFS to compute the size of a directory that (recursively or not) contains thousands of files. Indeed, it is absolutely hideously slow on NTFS to do just about anything that needs to touch thousands of files at a time.

Re: Files UWP: An enthusiast’s take on what Windows File Explorer explorer should be

#72

Post by jcelerier »

eps wrote: post #54
kumarharsh wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're just talking about 'explorer.exe' being 5 mb? You're discounting the numerous DLLs which the explorer uses, or even other shared resources which are used system-wide. And 55 MB for a native app is paltry. Even the 'Google' app on Android is 285 MB, the Gallery app of OnePlus is 70 MB.

55 MB is an absolute fuckton. For a native app of Windows Explorer kind that doesn't pack massive resources, 5-10 Megs is a reasonable size. Heck, you are forgetting than something like 3D Studio MAX originially fit on a set of floppies and I can assure you it could do FAR more than "the Gallery app" whatever the heck that poor thing is.

on the other hand, just the splash screen image for whatever $modern app can be more than the space available a floppy since you need it normal size, @2x, @3x, it's in 32-bit RGBA instead of 256 color...

Re: Files UWP: An enthusiast’s take on what Windows File Explorer explorer should be

#73

Post by aasasd »

kristiandupont wrote: post #49

Explorer/Finder/File Manager is one type of app I wish someone would make a nice Electron version of. It's more or less the last piece of platform-specific software I use. I currently switch back and forth from MacOS and Windows and I dislike what both have to offer. I used to be ok with Explorer but somewhere around Windows 8 they "improved" it in several ways that made it alien to me. I hate Finder, the fact that t…

In a file manager, integration with the system is important, which means that a dozen or two integration features should be implemented for each platform, aside from the internal differences in working with files. And that Electron is likely out.

In addition, a file manager is pretty much a productivity app, so it has to be muscle-memory-level fast.

For desktop software recommendations in established genres, AlternativeTo is a good source: https://alternativeto.net/software/windows-explorer/

But alas, there doesn't seem to be anything cross-platform of this sort there.

Double Commander enjoys popularity and is cross-platform, but dunno how it feels on Windows. On Mac, it's decent though hasn't got much in the aforementioned integration department.

Re: Files UWP: An enthusiast’s take on what Windows File Explorer explorer should be

#74

Post by saagarjha »

Sharlin wrote: post #69
saagarjha wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In all fairness, that code should be trivially optimized: your computer is almost certainly not running that check.

Huh? The function is a no-op. The compiler should optimize it into nothingness, but optimization is not the point here. Or was that an attempt at humor?

I don't know how much the C# compiler optimizes code, if it does at all, but I do know that the JIT compiler is smart enough to delete this. So I came up with an awkwardly-worded response that provided information that I knew to be true.

Re: Files UWP: An enthusiast’s take on what Windows File Explorer explorer should be

#75

Post by Sharlin »

saagarjha wrote: post #74
Sharlin wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh? The function is a no-op. The compiler should optimize it into nothingness, but optimization is not the point here. Or was that an attempt at humor?

I don't know how much the C# compiler optimizes code, if it does at all, but I do know that the JIT compiler is smart enough to delete this. So I came up with an awkwardly-worded response that provided information that I knew to be true.

Yes, of course it is trivially optimized out, that's still not the issue. The question is why that function (and several others) exist in the first place! Is there a bug (which is then copypasted several times) and the code is actually supposed to flip between enabled and disabled (in which case it should really be written foo = !foo)? Or something else?

Re: Files UWP: An enthusiast’s take on what Windows File Explorer explorer should be

#76

Post by Kirth »

The ability to explore isn't just Explorer's namesake but what makes is a good tool. Orienting yourself in Explorer is largely done through the tree on the side... which is missing in this rewrite?

What an affront to computing modern UI design is.

Re: Files UWP: An enthusiast’s take on what Windows File Explorer explorer should be

#77

Post by aasasd »

mehrdadn wrote: post #39
vocatus_gate wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why I wrote the Tron project ( https://old.reddit.com/r/TronScript ) in batch. It's a huge pain, but batch ALWAYS works and doesn't change, unlike PowerShell v1/2/3/etc. More work, but works on everything from XP to 10 v.whatever.

In batch ! The thing that always asks you if you want to terminate the batch job :-) are you familiar with/did you consider WScript? You can write JScript which is a lot nicer and still works on older machines...

Hey, don't kinkshame.

Re: Files UWP: An enthusiast’s take on what Windows File Explorer explorer should be

#78

Post by saagarjha »

Sharlin wrote: post #75
saagarjha wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know how much the C# compiler optimizes code, if it does at all, but I do know that the JIT compiler is smart enough to delete this. So I came up with an awkwardly-worded response that provided information that I knew to be true.

Yes, of course it is trivially optimized out, that's still not the issue. The question is why that function (and several others) exist in the first place! Is there a bug (which is then copypasted several times) and the code is actually supposed to flip between enabled and disabled (in which case it should really be written foo = !foo)? Or something else?

Probably a copy/paste bug that the author overlooked.

Re: Files UWP: An enthusiast’s take on what Windows File Explorer explorer should be

#79

Post by dan-robertson »

saagarjha wrote: post #64
userbinator wrote: post #8

It's funny to see the gradient in the title bar, contrasting with the bland borderless-sea-of-whiteness of the rest of the UI. > FilesUwp.Package_0.5.0.0_x64.zip 54.4 MB Nearly 55MB, compressed , for something that attempts to mimic some of the functionality of the regular explorer.exe, is quite frankly ridiculous. I don't have a system to check right now, but I believe even latest Windows 10 has an explorer.exe http…

In all fairness, that code should be trivially optimized: your computer is almost certainly not running that check.

If I read some code like that, I would expect a comment like:

  // silly hack to get the tab control into a good state.
  // it gets confused when ...
  // and this seems to fix it.
Because setting a property can be a function call, it isn’t necessarily a no-op to set a property to itself.

Having said that, the code is still quite bad but maybe it was auto generated by a ui builder or refactoring tool.

Re: Files UWP: An enthusiast’s take on what Windows File Explorer explorer should be

#80

Post by pawjs »

jchw wrote: post #28
userbinator wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought so too, given that MS has already released the source of the original File Manager: https://github.com/microsoft/winfile ...and it compiles to a nice small and fast ~300KB executable, in contrast to their open-sourced and significantly less efficient UWP calculator: https://github.com/microsoft/calculator I believe the old leaked Win2k source has much of the explorer.exe source, if you're really curious.

As awesome as the Win2k source leak probably is from an educational standpoint, I don’t want to taint myself with illegal source code. I hope they eventually decide to open source more things, even if it was just older things.

Taint yourself with illegal source code? What does that even mean?
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