Missing features
Posted: 11 Apr 2013, 11:37
Hi fellow members and Altap staff,
I have been using many NC clones over the years and here are a few things I miss in Altap Salamander:
1. In NC and other clones one can access the last command line history by pressing "Ctrl+E" or by holding "Ctrl" and pressing arrow up and down to access the history. In AS, one has to indicate the command line with the mouse before one can press the "Ctrl" and arrow up and down, it is annoying as one of the main reasons for using a tool as Atap Salamander is to do many operations from the keyboard without having to use the mouse as one has to do today.
2. If I run a command line and it executes then it would be nice if one could press "Ctrl+O" to access the underlying DOS shell, as it is possible in many other NC clones, I do realize that I can switch off the auto close of the dos box, but it is just a highlight, and I am fully aware of the potential issues with making this possible, as from what I can see you have not designed Atap Salamander to be able to do this, anyway just a notice that I came across, I can live without it...
3. When doing a search, then one will get the results presented in a list which is great as in any other NC clone. When I scroll through the list I want to be able to press enter as I would do in any other NC clone to get to the file that I just searched for, now I have to press "Focus" which is another annoying mouse button press, it would make sense if it was optional how the behaviour should be when scrolling through the search list, then one can set enter to be the focus, and not the file opener.
4. It is possible to customize the colours on Atap Salamander, old guys like me (yes it is hard to admit, ha ha) likes the NC colour scheme, and therefore I have chosen that. When viewing a file then the colours change from the "mild" blue colour scheme to the hard white colour scheme, it is very hard on the eyes changing contrasts like that. Just an observation, but believe me, it is hard on the eyes. I do realize that this also depends on the viewer which is being used, but the default txt viewer should be able to handle this I would say.
5. In the viewer configuration I have set "Hex" mode for "*.exe" files, this is not being respected, I do a lot of viewing and find this to be a bug from what I can see?!?
6. The icons next to the folders and file names, it would be nice for old guys like me to not have them presented there, as they do nothing good for me, it just makes it a mess looking at all those different symbols (icons) all I want to see is the file names and folders. I do realize that younger people might want to have this and therefore it should be optional to switch the icons off, and leave them on by default to cater for all people.
As you can read from above the point 1-3 are ergonomic points and they really would make sense to implement, I hope other people will agree with me on that as I think it would really be great improvements and not just nice to have features, they really do make a difference when you work with a NC clone all day long.
As you can understand from the above then I have been using some other NC clones over the years, I had to switch away from my previous NC clone as it does not support 64bit, and it is not supported any longer as the company went out of business.
I have evaluated many other NC clones and found Atap Salamander to be the best of the ones which are out there, so thumbs up to the Atap Salamander developers, great job, now I only hope that you will hear my suggestions as constructive suggestions as I and not trying to talk bad about the product trust me on that, I love it but just need those few little extra features who helps a dinosaur like me getting stuff done.
Regards,
Kris
I have been using many NC clones over the years and here are a few things I miss in Altap Salamander:
1. In NC and other clones one can access the last command line history by pressing "Ctrl+E" or by holding "Ctrl" and pressing arrow up and down to access the history. In AS, one has to indicate the command line with the mouse before one can press the "Ctrl" and arrow up and down, it is annoying as one of the main reasons for using a tool as Atap Salamander is to do many operations from the keyboard without having to use the mouse as one has to do today.
2. If I run a command line and it executes then it would be nice if one could press "Ctrl+O" to access the underlying DOS shell, as it is possible in many other NC clones, I do realize that I can switch off the auto close of the dos box, but it is just a highlight, and I am fully aware of the potential issues with making this possible, as from what I can see you have not designed Atap Salamander to be able to do this, anyway just a notice that I came across, I can live without it...
3. When doing a search, then one will get the results presented in a list which is great as in any other NC clone. When I scroll through the list I want to be able to press enter as I would do in any other NC clone to get to the file that I just searched for, now I have to press "Focus" which is another annoying mouse button press, it would make sense if it was optional how the behaviour should be when scrolling through the search list, then one can set enter to be the focus, and not the file opener.
4. It is possible to customize the colours on Atap Salamander, old guys like me (yes it is hard to admit, ha ha) likes the NC colour scheme, and therefore I have chosen that. When viewing a file then the colours change from the "mild" blue colour scheme to the hard white colour scheme, it is very hard on the eyes changing contrasts like that. Just an observation, but believe me, it is hard on the eyes. I do realize that this also depends on the viewer which is being used, but the default txt viewer should be able to handle this I would say.
5. In the viewer configuration I have set "Hex" mode for "*.exe" files, this is not being respected, I do a lot of viewing and find this to be a bug from what I can see?!?
6. The icons next to the folders and file names, it would be nice for old guys like me to not have them presented there, as they do nothing good for me, it just makes it a mess looking at all those different symbols (icons) all I want to see is the file names and folders. I do realize that younger people might want to have this and therefore it should be optional to switch the icons off, and leave them on by default to cater for all people.
As you can read from above the point 1-3 are ergonomic points and they really would make sense to implement, I hope other people will agree with me on that as I think it would really be great improvements and not just nice to have features, they really do make a difference when you work with a NC clone all day long.
As you can understand from the above then I have been using some other NC clones over the years, I had to switch away from my previous NC clone as it does not support 64bit, and it is not supported any longer as the company went out of business.
I have evaluated many other NC clones and found Atap Salamander to be the best of the ones which are out there, so thumbs up to the Atap Salamander developers, great job, now I only hope that you will hear my suggestions as constructive suggestions as I and not trying to talk bad about the product trust me on that, I love it but just need those few little extra features who helps a dinosaur like me getting stuff done.
Regards,
Kris