Altap Salamander Support Forums

Dear SUPER ( Servant ) Salamander team.

I have a small request on disk names that are shown in the drop down menu if you select the change disk icon (check the pic).

Ok the request is like this:
for my work I need a lot of substitute disks and keeping the "what they contain" in my head is getting harder and harder to do.

Now you can't rename substitute disk -> only the owner's name can be changed and with that the names of all the substitute disks.

So could there be a way if you could add a flag to enable substitute disk renaming. That the substitute disk names would be saved/read into/from the registry.

Hope that isn't too hard to do.

Yours faithfully
Waldemar

Labels for subst disk can't be changed, it's MS windows limit. (Try command line utility "label" or look into help for subst.)

That's why Waldemar suggests the option to set an "alias name" for a disk that is displayed instead of the drive label (in the Change drive menu and as a tooltip in the drive bar).

I think this is a good idea.

Ah, sorry, didn't understand clear.

So you mean to make salamander his own alias names for drive letters? Without conjunction to MSW system? (MSW has no aliases.) Doesn't look like good idea for me, because I choose Salamander (rather than other NC-like FMs) just for his deep link to win system, not like N(T)C wich preffers his controls (and old NC style and habits).

And also I see many problems:
- Subst are not fixed, can be chanded in run-time, so AS must have table for "subst path + letter" -> "alias nick" and (every time menu opens) must search and test if drive is subst drive, then found his real path (hope it's possible and cachced to e.g. not wake HDD) to find matching alias. Also table path + letter ... alias is not user friendly (duplicated, first somewhere in system for subst command, secondary inside AS for alias names).
- Or use alias only to drive letter? Dangerous. What about removable / changeable content, like labesl for USB, CD, external HDD, temporary mapped LAN disks. If alias assigned only to letter, there would appear user mistakes. Or, better example, when subst deleted and system assign letter to just plugged USB - same drive letter, so alias displayed, not USB label.

I dont see small / good understandable and safe (mean not misguided when used) method how to implement it.

1. Is there a way for a plugin to acceess this functionality?

2. Anyway that's why I said that there would be a check box in properties that you could enable that. So that those that don't want to use this, they don't have to. That's one of things why I felt in love with Salamander a long time ago. There is a lot of stuff that user can adjust for his needs.


One way of implementing this would be to add 'Alias' field into the 'Drive Information' dialog. And the usage would be very simple.
If the drive letter exist and that user defined the 'Alias' field then Salamander would show 'Alias' instead of 'Volume Name'.

That's dead simple and it doesn't get any simplier.
So no subst type, path or whatever checking. Just if Alias exist for current drive leter and if it should show it.


Hope that this could be implemented.


Peace
Waldemar