Restore Selection (Ctrl+W) improvements

We welcome any suggestions for new features or improvements in Altap Salamander. Please post one suggestion per report.
User avatar
Georgd
Posts: 101
Joined: 24 Jul 2006, 17:13

Restore Selection (Ctrl+W) improvements

Post by Georgd »

The command "Restore Selection" (Ctrl+W) does remember the last selection only for certain (very limited) circumstances. Due to this limitation, the feature is not as helpful as it could. (Topic originates in http://forum.altap.cz/viewtopic.php?p=6234#6234 but is a different RFE thus got it's own topic)

CLTR+W does not work, but shall work, for the following circumstances:
  • Select a file, press backspace, press ctrl+left, ctrl+w is broken.
  • Select a file, go in a subdir (enter), go up again (enter), ctrl+w is broken.
  • same with hotpaths, working dirs,...
==> "Just having a look" forces to manually save the selection. Not nice; main concern for me.

What might be trickier to implement as plugins are concerned (btw: renaming in PictView works fine and does not break selection) and is not that important for me (maybe excepted the batch renamer):
  • Select files, CTRL+SHIFT+R, rename them, ctrl+w is broken. In case I rename the files before copying, I have to collect them again.
  • Select files, calculate & save checksums, ctrl+w is broken.
I'm sure there were more workflows that broke CTRL+W but I'm not able to recall them at the moment.
/Georg
User avatar
SvA
Posts: 483
Joined: 29 Mar 2006, 02:41
Location: DE

Post by SvA »

There are actually two issues mentioned here:
1) loosing selections because of file name changes
2) inability to restore selections because Salamander did not remember or purged it's memory.

1) would be nice to have, but might be hard to implement, depending in the programs architecture. Salamander should strive to catch changes made through Salamander however.

To solve 2) I suggest to proceede as following for each panel
- save the selection whenever it changes because of any reason (initiated from within Servant Salamander), possibly collecting manual selections/deselections into one 'change'.
- never clear this memory, only overwrite if needed.
- allow to restore selection whenever restoring the selection would select at least one file or directory (alternatively you might just save and later check for the same directory)


Item 2) needs to get much higher priority to get implemented.

If you implement a flat folder tree view or extend the selection to the find result window, the concept needs to get somewhat extenden to handle files from multiple sources.
User avatar
Georgd
Posts: 101
Joined: 24 Jul 2006, 17:13

Re: Restore Selection (Ctrl+W) improvements

Post by Georgd »

in 2.52 still like reported :?
Using Salamander since v 1.52
User avatar
Georgd
Posts: 101
Joined: 24 Jul 2006, 17:13

Re: Restore Selection (Ctrl+W) improvements

Post by Georgd »

After nearly 6 years, in v2.54 still as reported.

Fixing issue 2 seems to be much lower effort and would address the majority of cases I'd need ctrl+w. If possible, the selection memory shall not only save the last state over all directories, but it shall be a map, so ctrl+w shall remember the last selection for the last x directories -- only then, ctrl+w can still work after peeing into parent or sub directory, which is quite often happening here.
Using Salamander since v 1.52
User avatar
Georgd
Posts: 101
Joined: 24 Jul 2006, 17:13

Re: Restore Selection (Ctrl+W) improvements

Post by Georgd »

*bump* for 2) inability to restore selections because Salamander did not remember or purged it's memory. Salamander shall memorize a selection over a directory change - that seems quite simple to fix, as the functionality exists with explicit saving & loading of selections (CTRL+SHIFT+F5/F6) and CTRL+W would just be kind of shortcut for that.
Using Salamander since v 1.52
Post Reply