Faster! *whip*



  • Can anyone into the subject enlighten as to why the treeview column in both Total Commander and Bridge is so much fucking slower than Explorer's? Seriously. Loading it in either program takes in between 5-15 seconds. What's keeping it from being absolutely instantaneous?

    I'm peeved and would like some intel to alleviate the pain in my soul.



  •  instantanious would require that the computer operate at infinite speed (including the disc), which is impossible.



  • No cake for you!


  • ♿ (Parody)

    Does it enumerate the entire directory structure when it loads?  I believe that explorer only checks the levels at which it's displaying.



  • @boomzilla said:

    Does it enumerate the entire directory structure when it loads?  I believe that explorer only checks the levels at which it's displaying.

     

    While it would be infinitely noob to load the entire tree on load, I have seen many applications which do this, even when this means calls to remote services. 

     

    Edit:  I just downloaded total commander to check this out.  It most certainly only gets the current level, and also it loads pretty much instantly.  Looks like load time for the tree is about 100 ms. 



  • @tster said:

    Edit:  I just downloaded total commander to check this out.  It most certainly only gets the current level, and also it loads pretty much instantly.  Looks like load time for the tree is about 100 ms. 

    Hypotheses:

    - your version is higher than mine and the issue has been addressed.
    - your folder structure is "less heavy"*. I use it at work because I found Explorer no way to really manage files in a coherent manner, and I have 7 drives mapped, three of which have 100+ project/website folders in them.

    *) if any folder structure can be considered to have any relevant weight at all. 



  • Suggestion 1: caching. Since folder structure typically rarely changes, explorer (which is always running in the background) can reasonably cache a lot of this stuff. Perhaps TC doesn't?

    Suggestion 2: You now mention 'heavy' network drive content, and tster has no problems with TC. Perhaps it just has rubbish networking code (eg. explorer = GetAllSubfolderNames(), TC = For each subfolder in folders GetSubfolderName) making multiple remote calls.

    Or both 1 and 2. Try it again with your network drives unmapped. 



  • These are the things that keep bringing me back to Explorerer every time. The pathethic attempts of third party file managers/shells to emulate what Explorer does so well tend to fail in small and subtle ways, like slowness loading trees/icons or showing the wrong icons due to a lack of knowledge of the OS and where it gets it's data, failing to understand special folders, Windows' desktop folder hierarchy, or Windows' multi-user capability.



  • I was hooked on Norton Commander back in the DOS days, and when I found out there was a windows version, I was hooked on that as well.

    I've been using Total Commander since the late 90s when it was still known as Windows Commander.

    I feel that it is Explorer that is lacking in ease of use. I seriously doubt that Sunstorm has tried TC.


    I'd better cut this fanboy rant short before I sound like SpectateSwamp.



  • Try using FileMon from SysInternals and see if there are any obvious things (like accessing network paths that can't be found, etc).

    I used it to find an "intersting" issue with Explorer hanging for 10-20 seconds at a time, trying to load Shell32.dll from a network drive that isn't mapped (AD Domain sets "H:" to our HOMEDRIVE, so Explorer is trying to use that path to search for DLLs).  But since I have a laptop, these drives aren't mapped half of the time.  I've reverted back to the cmd-line for most things now.    

     



  • @Erick said:

    I was hooked on Norton Commander back in the DOS days, and when I found out there was a windows version, I was hooked on that as well.
    I've been using Total Commander since the late 90s when it was still known as Windows Commander.
    I feel that it is Explorer that is lacking in ease of use. I seriously doubt that Sunstorm has tried TC.

    I have, actually. During the time when I was trying to find a suitable Explorer replacement. I don't remember the exact experience, but I believe I was put off by the clutter and generally unpleasant looking interface (compared to Explorer). It came from DOS and it still looks like it's DOS.



  • @dhromed said:

    - your folder structure is "less heavy"*. I use it at work because I found Explorer no way to really manage files in a coherent manner, and I have 7 drives mapped, three of which have 100+ project/website folders in them.
     

    Wait... you are using more than one text file for all of your data?

    There's your problem then... Get SSDS, help out some homeless people. Jam it!



  • @Sunstorm said:

    I don't remember the exact experience, but I believe I was put off by the clutter and generally unpleasant looking interface (compared to Explorer).

    It has a generally under-tweaked layout, but it's not exactly ugly. I've ste its fonts to Calibri, which I also use for Windows.

    In addition, I have the tree enabled for both panes. It has tabs per pane. It has flat view so that you can see all descendant files in a given folder, instead of just the immediate children (I SO desire that for Explorer). It has file filters. It can compare files and has a better Attribute setter. It remembers state after you exit it.

    Its treeview is seriously lacking, though:

    • Single click does not open that folder -- have to double-click, but that also close the tree branch, which sucks so I have to employ this click-Enter policy, and that slows me down.
    • Can't drag folders or do any sort of useful thing to folders in the tree.
    • It doesn't display volume names on drives, mapped or not, even though the option is checked. Fat The Whuck.
    • Flat view does not display the full path for a file, nor provide an option to sort by path. That really reduces its usefulness, though not to 0.
    Still, the total picture makes it a far superior tool for file management than Explorer, especially at work. Like any program, it requires some quality time with the Preferences panel.


  • Single click does not open that folder -- have to double-click, but that also close the tree branch, which sucks so I have to employ this click-Enter policy, and that slows me down.
  • Can't drag folders or do any sort of useful thing to folders in the tree.
  • These things are already a deal breaker for me. If I'm going to replace Explorer, it needs to do everything that Explorer does, just as well as Explorer does it, and look at least as good.



  • Why is EveryBody so ClueLess on the importance of Total Commander to the Masses?

    I think the problem is that you're trying to force TC to behave like Explorer, with a directory tree on the left panel and a file system on the right.

    Instead, try two file system panels. You can be in two directories at once, one per panel, and use F5 (copy) or F6 (move) to shuffle files from one panel to the other.

    One of my pet peeves in Explorer is navigating up and down a long directory tree, especially when it's across different drives, just so I can copy a single file.

    In TC you can bookmark specific directories (even across the network) and jump there in an instant when you want to grab a file or a location to copy to.

    It has a built-in FTP client that behaves like a network drive, kinda like WS_FTP but more robust.

    Plus it can Search for Text and Pictures and Video. Find a File and press F3 and BAM it displays the Content. Your data is all Yours. The ClueLess Masses will see the Light eventually.



  • @Erick said:

    I think the problem is that you're trying to force TC to behave like Explorer, with a directory tree on the left panel and a file system on the right.
    Instead, try two file system panels. You can be in two directories at once, one per panel, and use F5 (copy) or F6 (move) to shuffle files from one panel to the other.

    So isn't this like opening two windows in Explorer, and drag and dropping things from one window to the other? (Or, if you hate the mouse, ctrl-c, alt-tab, ctrl-v?)

    In TC you can bookmark specific directories (even across the network) and jump there in an instant when you want to grab a file or a location to copy to.

    You can do that in Explorer as well. In Vista, anyway, this is incredibly easy, just drag the folder you want into the favorite links sidebar.

    It has a built-in FTP client that behaves like a network drive, kinda like WS_FTP but more robust.

    So does Explorer. Can't say much for it's robustness, but it works fine most of the time.

    As far as I can tell, the main point for TC is it's flat view, which is quite handy and I really wish Explorer would have.



  • As far as Explorer replacements go, I've been using PowerDesk 6 for years and love it. The fact that its file search function actually works on all file types and all devices without tedious registry tweaking is worth it alone.



  • @Erick said:

    I think the problem is that you're trying to force TC to behave like Explorer, with a directory tree on the left panel and a file system on the right.

    I have the tree enabled for both panels.

    [tree][list] | [tree][list] 

    @Sunstorm said:

    So isn't this like opening two windows in Explorer, and drag and dropping things from one window to the other? (Or, if you hate the mouse, ctrl-c, alt-tab, ctrl-v?)
     

    No. Two windows is not the same as two fixed, controlled panes in a single window.


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