With these sleepless hot summer nights on us again, ForkLift 2.0 has recently started to take shape. By no measure does this mean that we’re anywhere near a functional build, but we now have some framework components and the main elements of the UI ready. A skeleton basically.
As the coming months are going to be spent with progressively dressing this skeleton with ForkLift’s feature set, we though it would be a perfect occasion to discuss the features over with you. So, you’re looking at a series of future posts, where we will regularly give you a peek at the module we’re currently working on, and see if there’s a way to improve something. These posts are going to be your best chance to make your ideas heard, so no need to show restraint, just keep to the function at hand.
I must say, there’s absolutely no guarantee that any of your suggestions will actually get into the release, but we will try to keep an open mind. (and that’s the best you can expect)
So, let’s begin our little series with the new Activity Viewer.
Most of the feedback we received over time regarding the Activity Viewer was about keyboard control. To the best of our knowledge 1.7 took care of this, so control is off the list.
The second most frequent comment was that the window could be more in sight, i.e. with a lesser tendency to disappear in the background. Some people suggested a docked viewer, like in Mail, and we tended to agree. Here it is:
- When an is started, the normal activity window will pop up (unless turned off in Preferences).
- If you close the activity window, the docked progress indicator appears at the bottom of the Sidebar.
- The docked progress bar displays the file name and destination, if the transfer is a single file, and give you a button to cancel the operation
- If you start more than one operations at the same time, the docked progress bar will show the overall progress of all active jobs.
- Double clicking on the docked progress bar opens up the Activity Viewer again.
As you can see, we mean to keep the docked indicator as small and simple as possible. The idea being to have it in sight, but out of the way.
Let’s hear your thoughts
Looks good gents. What happens if you have multiple operations that require an action, like replacing files?
That’s nice. Will there be an option to have it as an external window as well?
I bought my 1.7.1 license to support the development of column view!
Andcheers on the activity viewer. i like it.
Clever. I think one line progress bar is the best option, with a label showing current work (and maybe a queue count), and detailed info given with a tooltip on mouse hover, or with a click.
Also would be nice to have PAUSE button on every task so that I could, for example, stop one particular copy process to let another one on the same disk finish first.
@Gilbert
When user action is required, the full window pops up (the dialogues being anchored to the full window). You can close it again after you did what you had to.
@TwiRp
Sure, the separate window is the default view. You just have the option of this small progress bar instead.
@Ed
We’ll get there, don’t worry
@senz
The filename is displayed, if there’s only one operation, and it’s on a single file. Otherwise, all operations are happening simultaneously, so there’s no ‘current’ job. Double clicking the docked progress bar opens up the full Activity Viewer.
@Artem
Absolutely agree on the utility to have a pause button, and FL never had one. But I reckon we’ll be making progress on this front when coding the transfer queue. Let’s come back to it then.
looks great. i am constantly misplacing that activity viewer when using dual monitors and would be just fine having it docked at all times. is the separate window changing at all? like showing each process with a (X) button? and will the docked version still show even if the separate window is open? (this would be my preference.)
also, way to tease with Stack and new gear icon at bottom left.
A complete manual in PDF? :-0
) or Forklift 2 for the rest of us.
Forklift 2 for Dummies
@nate
the separate Activity window did not change. It lists each process separately, along with the big X. For the moment, you see either the docked, or the standalone full window. We have yet to devise the preferences for the new view, it might indeed be a good idea just to have the docked progress bar on at all times.
And again, you have won our Trainspotting Award! Congratulations, you have an amazingly sharp eye, Sir!
@Edgar
Well, I must say, there won’t be anything more substantial than the contents of the current Wiki. We will be making efforts to make editing possible to registered users, so that is something to look forward in terms of better documentation.
But we’re nowhere close to having a proper, professionally looking pdf, because we don’t really have the manpower for either the writing, or the design part. If you feel you’d like to volunteer for either role, write me an email.
@all
Ok, so does anyone have any other questions regarding Activity View? Come on, his is the time to ask!
Because, thanks to Nate, we will be discussing Stacks next.
Looks cool, I think that it is exactly what is needed. It allows you to see your overall progress at a glance, but obviously being able to open the separate window is awesome so you can see a more detailed view.
Oh and yay!! Transfer Queue!! Can’t wait for that one!
I’d like to have the docked view as the default view (AView was too often hidden somewhere). Could it display the current transfer rate?
Double click could open a more detailed Activity View like stacks.
Any ideas on the upgrade pricing?
please add the confirmation for Copy/Move/Delete… or at least make an option in preferences to set it..
Total Commander style
great app, I’m waiting for 2.0 and definetely buying it!
thanks!
@Karsten
Yes, there will be a preference to have the activity view docked by default.
@Sukh
You can read about our current pricing in this blogpost:
http://www.binarynights.com/blog/affordable-software.html
@bzx
Confirmations and conflict management can already be set in Preferences/Advanced in 1.7.x, so we’ll have them in 2.0
This is good way for Activity Window i think. Also consider a PAUSE OPERATION button please. When you copying load of stuff sometimes its very useful to have and cost next to nothing to implement.
I would like to see a compare file by content function.
So you can compare, for example, the content of a file on the webserver and the file on your local harddrive and easily see the differences in these files (marked by red).
This function I use a lot with Total Commander (to see if the file is changed on the webserver by another person then me).
If this would be possible I don’t have to use my PC anymore!
Update: I mean something like this:
http://connectedflow.com/changes/graphics/TextDiff.png
If that’s possible, it would be great!
What about making the progress bar grey. The aqua control’s constant animation is distracting for what’s meant to be a docked status.
The pause button is a perfectly sensible request. I’m not sure 2.0 will have it (there is still an unnervingly large amount of work to be done) but probably soon after that.
About the progress bar looks: maybe it isn’t that much apparent, but we’re pretty much hooked on aqua
@Jan
Yeah, diff in ForkLift would be great. Here is the forum thread where we started discussing this:
http://forum.binarynights.com/showthread.php?t=319&highlight=diff
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