Directory Opus 10.5.0.0 – 31st January, 2013

Windows 8

Windows 8 is now officially supported, following the new operating system's retail release.

A number of problems relating to Windows 8 have been fixed:

 

 

Native support for MTP devices

This version introduces native support for MTP (Media Transfer Protocol) devices (e.g. mobile phones, cameras, tablets, etc.). MTP devices are accessed in Opus with the new mtp:// URL-like syntax. You can also access them through My Computer simply by double-clicking on the device icon.

mtp.png 

 

 

Tab groups can now open tabs in both file displays

The new Specific Sides tab group option lets you create folder tab groups that open tabs in both the left and right file displays automatically.

When in this mode the tab group editor lists left and right tabs separately. The Change Side button () is used to move a tab from left to right or vice versa.

The tab bar context menu has a Save Both Sides command which lets you save a specific-sides tab group from the currently open tabs in the Lister.

The command Go TABGROUPSAVE=!both can also be used to save a specific-sides group. In conjunction with Go TABGROUPLOAD, the OPENINDUAL argument can be used to control the orientation when loading a specific-sides tab group. (e.g. Go TABGROUPLOAD=moo OPENINDUAL=vert).

 

 

Tab groups can now be organized into folders

The Tab Groups page in Preferences now lets you organize your tab groups into folders. The New Folder button () lets you create folders and you can move existing tab groups into a folder using drag and drop.

There is also a new Mark as hidden button (). When a tab group is marked as hidden it will only appear in the list of groups in Preferences – it won’t be displayed in the group list in the tab bar context menu or in the function editor.

 

 

Folder Tabs can be linked (in two different ways)

In a dual-display Lister you can now link a tab on the left hand side to one on the right. Clicking a linked tab to make it active automatically activates the tab it is linked to.

Each set of linked tabs is displayed in a different color and you can configure the colors that are used from the Colors and Fonts page in Preferences. In the above image, the My Documents tab is linked to the Backups tab. You can have up to eight sets of linked tabs per Lister.

A linked tab can also be designated as a “slave” tab. In this mode, the slave tab will follow its “master” tab whenever the folder is changed in the master, in a similar manner to Navigation Lock. The difference between slave tabs and Navigation Lock is what happens when the folder you navigate to in the master does not exist in the slave. Whereas Navigation Lock would go “out of sync” at this point, the slave tab will simply change to show the same folder that is shown in the master. Slave tabs are indicated visually with an italicised label.

 

From the tab bar, you can link tabs and turn the Slave Tab option on or off using the context menu.

You can also define linked tabs in tab groups in conjunction with the new Specific Sides option.

The new Go TABLINK command will link the two currently active tabs in the active Lister.

When clicking on a folder tab, holding various control keys down modifies the linking state of the tab:      

 

 

Lister Styles now use tab groups instead of defining their own tabs

Lister Styles previously allowed you to define one or more tabs that would be opened in the left and/or right file display when the style was chosen. This system has been changed and Styles now offer this behavior through the tab group system. Any existing Lister Styles that define tabs will be converted automatically.

 

 

Improved Folder Tab appearance

The cosmetic appearance of folder tabs has been improved, particularly when not using visual styles to render the tabs.

       
                Now                                                        Then

 

Additional options and changes for Folder Tabs

Added the new Preferences page Folder Tabs / Appearance. This contains the width options which used to be on the Folder Tabs / Options page, the visual style option (which used to be on the Display / Options) page, as well as new options to set a minimum size for tabs and to automatically reduce tab sizes as the number of tabs increases.

New options on the Folder Tabs / Options page:

You can now drag a folder tab to the desktop to move it into its own Lister.

When clicking on a folder tab the Lister window is now not brought to the front until the button is released, in case you want to drag a tab from an obscured Lister to another one.

Middle-click (or double-click, with the Double-click tabs to close them option turned on) on a single tab in a dual display will now close the file display (this is the same behavior as tab close buttons).

The background color for “hot” Folder Tabs can now be overridden if desired (Display / Colors and Fonts / Folder tabs).

Added the new Folder Tree / Selection Events / Switch to existing tab if already open option. With this enabled, clicking a folder in the folder tree that is already open in a tab will switch to that tab rather than reading the folder into the current tab. The new TABFINDEXISTING argument for the Go  command produces the same behavior.

 

 

The FAYT field can now be used to search and switch to open Folder Tabs

The Find-As-You-Type field has a new mode that lets you search all currently open folder tabs. By default the activation key for the Tabs mode is @ but this can be changed from the File Displays / Find-As-You-Type Preferences page.

A pop-up list of tabs that match the entered text is displayed, and selecting an item from the list will switch to that tab. The search is performed on both the path open in the tab and, if a title has been set, the title of the tab. The new CLI QUICKTABS command can be used to trigger the FAYT in Tabs mode programmatically.

 

 

The Folder Tree can now highlight the path to the active folder

The new Highlight path to selected folder option on the Folder Tree / Appearance Preferences page causes the folder tree to draw a path that marks out the route to the currently selected folder.

 

You can configure the color used for this highlight from the Display / Colors and Fonts page. The Set TREESHOWPATHTOSEL command lets you toggle the path highlight on or off programmatically.

The Highlight path to all currently open tabs option will show the path to all tabs rather than just the selected one – the path for non-active tabs is shown fainter than the path to the selected folder. If you have tabs that are linked, the Use color from tab option will display the path using the color from the tab itself. Finally, the Only highlight paths when tree is active option causes the path to be visible only when the mouse pointer is over the tree, or the tree has input focus.

 

 

The new Group column provides an alternative to file group headings

When the file display is grouped, the new Group column provides an alternative to the traditional group headings. When this column is present in a grouped file display, the column itself displays the headings, making for a much more compact display.

 

You can add the Group column manually (or via a command like Set COLUMNSTOGGLE) as desired, or if you want to use the new display style permanently, turn on the Folders / Folder Display / Add 'Group' column automatically when file display is grouped Preferences option. When this option is enabled, the Group column will be added automatically when grouping is turned on and removed again when grouping is disabled.

The colors used for the Group column can be configured on the Display / Colors and Fonts page. You can define different colors for source and destination file display if desired. You can also control the maximum width of the Group column with the group_column_maxwidth option on the Miscellaneous / Advanced page in Preferences.

 

 

Control + mouse wheel can now be used to change font and thumbnail size

In Thumbnails mode, turning the mouse wheel while holding the Control key down lets you adjust the size of the thumbnails.

Similarly, in Details or Power mode, Control plus mouse wheel can be used to increase or decrease the size of the text in the file display. You can also use the new Set FONTSCALE command to do the same thing programmatically.

 

 

Enhancements to the ContextMenu internal command

The ContextMenu command has been extended to enable it to work with more command types, and to provide workarounds for issues with certain context menu handlers. Context menu items can now also be invoked by their label (as opposed to verb or command ID). Labels can also be matched using wildcards and regular expressions. See the updated documentation for the new ITEMMODE, LOOKUP, WANTSYNC, SHIFT and CTRL, LABEL, WILD and REGEXP arguments.

 

 

Embedded functions for new Listers

It is now possible, when opening a new Lister or layout, to "embed" a function that will be executed in the context of the new Lister. Previously it was difficult to reliably open a new Lister and then run commands that affected that new Lister from the one function, and solutions usually resorted to kludges involving dopusrt.exe.

The embedded function must be surrounded with square brackets - for example, the following command would open a new Lister and put it into thumbnails mode automatically:

 

        Go /mypictures NEW
        [Set VIEW=thumbnails]

More complicated multiple line functions can also be embedded, for example:

 

        Go NEW
        [
        Go /mypictures
        Set VIEW=thumbnails
        ]

 

 

Custom titles for Listers

It is now possible to assign your own custom titles to Listers. A new Preferences option ( Preferences / Display / Options ) allows you to configure a custom title for all Listers. Custom titles can also be assigned on a per-Lister basis using a command, and will be remembered when saved and re-loaded as a Layout.

To modify the title of the current Lister, use the new Set LISTERTITLE command. The title can be set to any text string you like, and certain control tokens can be used to insert various information from the original title string:

 

        %P - full path of the current folder

        %N - name of the current folder

        %R - drive root of the current folder

        %D - full path of the current destination folder

        %M - name of the current destination folder

        %L - name of the Layout the Lister came from (if any)

        %T - complete original title (useful for simply adding a prefix or suffix to the title)

 

You can also assign a title when creating a new Lister with the new TITLE argument. For example, Go NEW TITLE "My New Lister".

The new Go FINDTITLE command can be used to bring to the front all Listers matching the specified title (and this string supports standard wildcards). For example, if you had loaded a Layout named Projects and the Layout name was displayed in the Lister titles, you could bring all Listers from this Layout to the front with the command Go FINDTITLE *Projects*.

 

 

Information tokens for custom Folder Tab names

You can the %P, %N and %R control tokens shown above when assigning custom names for Folder Tabs as well. For example, you might set the name of a tab to Thumb: %N if you wanted to indicate a tab that you always used for thumbnails mode.

 

 

Miscellaneous changes and enhancements

 

 

Bug fixes