WinDirStat

Hi, and thanks so much for your suggestion. The multi-select issue is partially implemented and will definitely become available with an upcoming pre-release version.

I think ever since I started maintaining WinDirStat no one has written such a thoughtful and comprehensive ticket.

I have a few concerns about some items, so let's perhaps enter into an exchange of arguments and questions on those.

A.1: separate dialog/window, right?

A.3: the commands per file (e.g. with the ability to select a subset, then check/uncheck a radio button for the respective action?)

A.3 (cont.): the real problem I see here are actions like cut, copy, open (not to mention "happy" accidents where you accidentally try to "open" 3000 files). These actions don't really map well, because it's a many-to-one thing. Even a radio button would not change this, since the target location (or similar) would have to be provided by the user for each and every item. Not to mention things like how should wildly different paths like D:\x\y\z\foo.txt and C:\a\b\c\d\e\f\g.txt get mapped to the same target location? Starting at which root? The drive root? For destructive "cleanup" actions or something like "place all of those into a single archive" I don't see why this could not be done, though.

A.3 (cont.): I don't understand the last two items. I understand what wildcards and regular expressions are (😉), but I don't understand what "entries" you want to add or remove and how this relates to the "actions" on these "entries" (I suppose?!) ... also, if that's offered from the main window, why have this duplicated in this window? Seems counterintuitive.

There's just one more concern which is that such a list of selections would not be able to provide a decent view into what's underneath a selected directory. However, I think this isn't as much of an issue, since this option could be disabled by default and require _some_ user interaction to make it visible (think "advanced user" settings).

B.4.2: I don't quite see this or how to implement this in a usable fashion

B.4.3: Tricky, but certainly worth a try. By even allowing to pause instead of merely start/stop you open a window of opportunity for inconsistencies.

B.4.4: How? Now we already have _three_ lists (not counting the tree view and the extension list), showing essentially the same data.

B.4.5: You sort of lost me there. This sounds like a very specialized workflow. What's the use case?

Given your use cases it sounds more like you're asking for a query language of sorts, rather than for a gazillion of new windows and buttons, though 😁

// Oliver

Thank you for your remarks/questions! I agree that some of my ideas need further clarification - and I obviously missed to adress some important issues to make all this work conclusively.

So before you check out my response (in 3 pictures attached!), I want to propose a major change in the logic of selections I described before. For this, it would help if you know the software "Total Commander" by Christian Ghisler for 2 reasons:

• The general file selection logic of Total Commander could be introduced in WinDirStat too
  • Left clicks (and using the arrow keys + Enter) are used to navigate through the file structure. By that you can "SELECT" single items - highlighting them blue
  • Right clicks (or Space) are used to MARK items red (and it is possible to mark several items within ONE directory)
  • All commands are executed for all marked files. If nothing is marked at the time a command is executed, any selected single file (blue selection) is automatically marked red by the program before and the command is actually executed. After the operation is done, the red mark is also automatically removed and turns back to blue.
• The search options of Total Commander offers almost everything I tried to explain in my initial posting regarding search - and more!

For better understanding, it would be great if you could take a quick look at Total commander to check how search and navigating / selecting / marking works accordingly.
After you did that, imagine the following differences within WinDirStat:

• Instead of only being able to mark within one directory, WinDirStat could allow to mark within the whole tree (files + directories), the visualized section and the file type list (marking them red!)
• In the visualization, a normal selection (blue) represents the status quo of WinDirStat. The areas are colored white when you select items in the app today.
• With right clicks or Space, you can mark all entries of your liking - and they would additionally be represented in a different color in the visualization (i.e. red!)
• By that, the user can always distinguish between the normal selection (white while navigating and clicking on an item) and the areas that were actually marked (=red).

I hope I didn't lose you by this explanation again... But even if I did, I'm 100% sure that you get everything I wanted to propose by taking a look at Total Commander AND the following visualizations I made in response to your posting:

My new proposal now has only 2 new windows:

1. A search window (accessable from the main GUI) - which would improve WinDirStat even without multiselect!
2. A "selection inspector" window with the rest of the proposed functionality

"overview.jpg" illustrates, how everything is connected.
(btw: I spent more time looking for a good tool to create the illustrations than it took me to create them! Whoever reads this and is looking for a tool like that, check out mockflow.com)

Please let me know if any of your concerns/questions still remain after taking a look at it :)

THANK YOU!!

Update: I also added an Overview picture that shows how all pieces fit together!
I thought: Even if I spent more hours finetuning my suggestion in detail - the result would't be as expressive as through a simple mockup! I hope this really is the case!

One more note to throw out some ideas I got while looking at the last version of the overview graphic:
Maybe you could colaborate with Christian Ghisler, the Dev of "Total Commander" (https://www.ghisler.com/) and the Devs of "Dupeguru" (https://dupeguru.voltaicideas.net/about/) and - as the crime of the crop - TGRMN Software (https://www.bulkrenameutility.co.uk/) to create the "Uber-Tool" of Space-Usage insight + Cleaning up directories.
Maybe it's easier to include your Viz as plugin within Total commander? Although Total Commander already has some own dedupe-functionality, it would be even more awesome to have all the options of Dupeguru! It could "send" the result of a dupe-search (=in the end a file list of the dupes you selected to delete) as a selection to your app! For problems with filenames, it would be awesome to also have the toolset of the Bulk Rename Utility integrated (which's purpose is also a needed as part of file handling and cleaning up - but in another aspect).

The combination of the features I described as suggestion for your app + duplicate handling features of Dupeguru + your great visualization of the used space of marked directories + the powerful features of Total commander + File renaming features would be a real game changer for people who need to cleanup directories!

I can't think of many use-cases you couldn't solve with this solution. Although my needs are far less complicated than it might appear by looking at my ticket, I'd still buy such a tool for good money. There seems to be no app out there, that has the feature-set of only 2 of the stated programs!

I'm 100% aware that I'm kind of dreaming right now! - and probably asking for way too much :)

On the other hand, we're living in times of Kickstarter, Indiegogo & other crowdfunding platforms - where funding ideas like that are not impossible any more!

Except for Total Commander, all stated tools are free for personal use so far - and every user appreciates that very much! But I'm rather sure many users (of all these apps!) would be willing to pay for a tool combining and multiplying the value of each app in one software solution. Since all 4 projects have many users - and a rather easy way to reach them (i.e. when users come back to your corresponding website for downloading the most recent version) I see a significant potential.

If this is something you all would be willing to work on, you could start a kickstarter campaign, explaining the scope of the "yet-to-be-developed-uber-app".

If all 4 projects inform their users (website, newsletters, etc...) you would get a fast response how many users of the separated app would be willing to pledge for such a solution - before you even invest in developing the app.

If enough money is raised, you start the project.
If not, it was just a nice idea which is waiting for future roadmaps...

Looking forward to reading your response!


Reply To chqp

Thank you for your remarks/questions! I agree that some of my ideas need further clarification - and I obviously missed to adress some important issues to make all this work conclusively.
So before you check out my response (in 2 pictures attached!), I want to propose a major change in the logic of selections I described before. For this, it would help if you know the software "Total Commander" by Christian Ghisler for 2 reasons: * The general file selection logic of Total Commander could be introduced in WinDirStat too * Left clicks (and using the arrow keys + Enter) are used to navigate through the file structure. By that you can "SELECT" single items - highlighting them blue * Right clicks (or Space) are used to MARK items red (and it is possible to mark several items within ONE directory) * All commands are executed for all marked files. If nothing is marked at the time a command is executed, any selected single file (blue selection) is automatically marked red by the program before and the command is actually executed. After the operation is done, the red mark is also automatically removed and turns back to blue. * The search options of Total Commander offers almost everything I tried to explain in my initial posting regarding search - and more!
For better understanding, it would be great if you could take a quick look at Total commander to check how search and navigating / selecting / marking works accordingly.
After you did that, imagine the following differences within WinDirStat:
* Instead of only being able to mark within one directory, WinDirStat could allow to mark within the whole tree (files + directories), the visualized section and the file type list (marking them red!) * In the visualization, a normal selection (blue) represents the status quo of WinDirStat. The areas are colored white when you select items in the app today. * With right clicks or Space, you can mark all entries of your liking - and they would additionally be represented in a different color in the visualization (i.e. red!) * By that, the user can always distinguish between the normal selection (white while navigating and clicking on an item) and the areas that were actually marked (=red).
I hope I didn't lose you by this explanation again... But even if I did, I'm 100% sure that you get everything I wanted to propose by taking a look at Total Commander AND the following visualizations I made in response to your posting: My new proposal now has only 2 new windows: 1. A search window (accessable from the main GUI) - which would improve WinDirStat even without multiselect! 2. A "selection inspector" window with the rest of the proposed functionality
Please let me know if any of your concerns/questions still remain after taking a look at it :)

THANK YOU!!