From 2009 to XE: transition problems

[jj2007]

Hello everybody,

Until today, I used a 2009.02b version of FreeCommander, and was very happy with it. Now I installed XE, and I have been fighting for two hours now to get back functionality that I got fond of. I hope somebody can give me a helping hand. I am on Win7-64, in case that's important.

Has anybody written a tool to convert old 2009 to new XE settings? Or at least a "transition manual"? I saw that XE launched itself with a handful of my old settings, so apparently it does attempt to save something...

Most important for me:
a) the favourites: in the 2009 version, I have a long list of favourites that pops up as a context menu when I press the arrow left button. Pressing a second button, such as "F", selects e.g. the C:\Fotos folder. So with two short key presses, I am where I want to be. In XE, I see the favorite items in the upper left corner. Selecting requires a mouse click, which is a major nuisance because I have repetitive stress injury. Questions:
- can I have my popup menu back, and how?
- how can I import my old list of favourites? I checked C:\Users\Myself\AppData\Local\FreeCommanderXE plus subfolders but couldn't find the favourites

b) colours: as the image below shows, some background colours are absolutely unreadable. Where can they be changed?

Thanks in advance.

[jj2007]

Dear Marek,

I would like to write a simple converter for the favourites. What about this GUID in C:\Users\Myself\AppData\Local\FreeCommanderXE\Settings\FreeCommander.fav.xml? Is it really needed, could it be any new GUID? I made a quick test leaving the id= field empty, i.e. as "", and it seems to work - but I guess there is a reason why you insert a GUID there. Can you explain, please?

I also wonder why, when I change a favourite setting in FreeCommander, the xml suddenly was saved as Utf-16

Old format:

[DirFavorit]
#name#=#active folder#

New format:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<FreeCommanderXE_favorite_items>
<folder_item text="#name#" folder_active="#act#" active_sort="0" active_sort_asc="1" active_view="0" folder_inactive="#inact#" inactive_sort="0" inactive_sort_asc="1" inactive_view="0" hotkey_nr="-1" id="0BAA90F6-5E53-4B51-83CC-AE5075B11018" font_color="536870911" bkg_color="536870911" use_leftright="1"/>

u

[Marek]

- can I have my popup menu back, and how?

The shortcut for Favorites in both versions is the same Alt+Up and works properly.

how can I import my old list of favourites?

Frome the ReadMe_XE.txt file:

Code: Select all

If you have worked with the FreeCommander 2009.02b:
- the settings of the FreeCommander 2009.02b are not compatible with the settings of the FreeCommander XE
- do not copy the old settings to the new settings folder

b) colours: as the image below shows, some background colours are absolutely unreadable. Where can they be changed?

Almost all colors are changeable. Check the settings, e.g. https://freecommander.com/fchelpxe/en/C ... tIcon.html

What about this GUID in C:\Users\Myself\AppData\Local\FreeCommanderXE\Settings\FreeCommander.fav.xml? Is it really needed,

The Guids are used internally. They should be not empty. You can use new guids.

I also wonder why, when I change a favourite setting in FreeCommander, the xml suddenly was saved as Utf-16

If it was really changed by FreeCommander then it is a bug. Let me know how to reproduce it.

[jj2007]

b) colours: as the image below shows, some background colours are absolutely unreadable. Where can they be changed?

Almost all colors are changeable. Check the settings, e.g. https://freecommander.com/fchelpxe/en/C ... tIcon.html

Found it - thanks!

I also wonder why, when I change a favourite setting in FreeCommander, the xml suddenly was saved as Utf-16

If it was really changed by FreeCommander then it is a bug. Let me know how to reproduce it.

I put my tool online here (with source). When I copy the new xml file to the AppData folder, XE accepts it but saves it as Utf16. When exiting from XE, though, it gets saved again as Utf8. Weird.

In the 2009 version, FreeCommander did not add ampersand (&) behaviour. So if you had two entries FotosNew and FotosOld, hitting F <Return> brought you to FotosNew, while hitting FF <Return> brought you to FotosOld. I am a keyboard person and used that feature a lot... and it's gone

Don't take this as a criticism - you have created a great tool, my sincere compliments

[jj2007]

One more problem: There is an entry OpenDlgOnLastPos=1 in FreeCommander.find.ini

The good news: it works, when you relaunch FreeCommander and hit Ctrl F, the dialog appears at the same position as last time.
The bad news: with my 1366x766 resolution, I can't see any results, so I always have to resize the dialog. Any ideas how to change this?

[jj2007]

so I always have to resize the dialog

Sorry, I just found out that the positions get saved with "Save settings". Still, the middle of the dialog (see above) could be shortened to leave more room to the results. In the old 2009 version, you can see 20 files in the results window, in XE only 12...

[Dreamer]

Search window is resizable.

Take a look at the option "Auto hide search parameters on search end", in menu - Options.

[Marek]

Additional, above the toolbar in result area you can see dotted splitter.
Try to click on the splitter.

[jj2007]

Take a look at the option "Auto hide search parameters on search end", in menu - Options.

That did the trick, thanks a lot!