FreeCommander Forum

Hello, thanks for FC!

For a long time I have been desiring to have more than two panels in the window.

This because I mostly end up running at least 2 instances of FC at a time. Both windows end up hidden under other windows or minimized, and choosing the right FC instance from the task bar is just not that convenient since the window titles may be same for both instances although different folders are selected (e.g. both called "Debug" but pointing to various debug folders). Even if the title captions are different, I'm somehow very often doubting which window to choose. Havin one window with everything would be just great.

Often I also would like to drag items from one instance to the other, which involves arranging both the windows on screen somehow before the drag&drop. Again, having everything in one window would be much better.

I don't know what possibilities to suggest, seems to me that the option to have either 2, 3 or 4 panels would be very great.

Was here any discussion on that topic yet

Why you don't use tabs?

You can set as many tabs as you which and copy from one tab to another.
You can lock your favourite-tabs, rename them for better detection and give them different colours.

e.g.

Hello, thanks for the tip, unfortunately that's not it. Switching between the tabs introduces the same issues as switching between windows in the task bar. It eventually simplifies copying between various folders a little...

I just need to visually distinguish from up to 4 folders at a glance and have an immediate access to them.

I thought that if the current dual-panel functionality would be encapsulated into a component, you could easily add another dual-panel to the form and that would make the desired effect. Yet best if the dual-panel could be tweaked to become a single-panel if necessary (so you could have 2+1 panels in the window for example).

Any chance to get it working like that?

Thanks

Why not just tile two instances of FreeCommander side-by-side on the screen?

Unfortunately you just can't make both windows visible with a single click then, also the title + menu + tool bars in the lower window take up some additional screen space (I'm imagining arranging the windows vertically rather that side by side...)

You also can't always arrange them conveniently, except they would already be grouped in the task bar.

Btw. auto arranging FC windows doesn't seem to work in WinXP at all, for whatever reason. Just discovered that trying out the suggestion, possibly a bug? Some other windows like folders or the Notepad arrange fine....

I just came in here searching to see if more than 1 pane is possible. This would be something I'd like to see implemented also. Thanks.

I keep, for occasional use, a couple of other file managers that can have from for to six panels. They haven't got one tenth of the good features of Free Commander, but sometimes I need to sort files from one folder into several other places all at once, and that seems to be the easiest way.

matera wrote:but sometimes I need to sort files from one folder into several other places all at once, and that seems to be the easiest way.

I use tabs for that.

I could do without more than 2 panes if when you dragged a file to a tab it would switch to that tabs view.

It would be nice if this would happen on folders also, like on a Mac when you move a file onto a folder and hover for a set amount of time or hit the space bar it opens that folder to view it.

I've always hated dropping a file on a folder icon to move or copy it there. this is going to sound weird, but I like to know exactly where I am dropping a file when I copy or move it.