Classic Shell: Forum

Hi, I found no occurrence for these features, so I am posting all together because I believe they are within the concept of ClassicShell and may be useful in the future.

FOLDER THUMBNAIL
I know that the Windows7 does not more allow customize the thumbnail of a folder, but it is undeniable that XP is the best OS for managing images in folders and such productivity was lost in later systems. So the suggestion is to recover lost XP behavior:
1 - Folders with frontal view, no more skewed, increasing the field of view.
2 - Ability to select any image for thumbnail of a folder on icon view mode or above.
3 - Automatically rearrange the thumbnail of folder with the last four images accessed when no specific thumbnail was chosen by the user.

FOLDER TREE
Windows 7 also does not allow more quickly display the folder tree to locate a specific folder or to quickly switch between sequential folders. To do this you must click Tools - Folder Options - checkbox - OK. It would be much more practical to have a button on the toolbar to quickly enable and disable the folder tree like in XP, but this feature is not available in ClassicShell. This is a possible addition?

ICON ANIMATION
In ClassicShell when we choose an icon to any button on the toolbar we can also choose an icon for disabled button, but we can not choose icons to activated buttons or just selected. This is very important when we set buttons of the bar to view files and need to know which mode is activated without clicking on any of them. Likewise, when we align sub-items in a same row of buttons on the start menu, we need to know which button is selected during keyboard navigation, because the skins are not enough for a quick identification.

Thanks for the attention, congratulation for the work!

FOLDER THUMBNAIL - Multiple people have requested this but I don't think that's possible

FOLDER TREE - Version 4.0.6 has a button to toggle the tree

ICON ANIMATION - I don't understand what you are asking. Is this for Explorer or for the start menu?

FOLDER THUMBNAIL -

FOLDER TREE - I use version 4.1.0, I searched tirelessly e did not find it. This button was removed? What is its name?

ICON ANIMATION - In both, ClassicStartMenu and ClassicExplorer. For example, I have all the buttons for view modes in ClassicExplorer bar. If my folder is currently viewing files in "list" mode, the list button should remain highlighted, but it does not. If I set a button to not show its label in ClassicStartMenu, the animation of the focused button is almost unnoticeable because its field of view is decreased and the what is animated is the background of the button and not the button itself.

Many thanks, Ivo.

The button is called "Navigation pane" and should be there by default.

Unfortunately the view mode buttons are not "state" buttons like the navigation pane. They don't reflect the current view mode in Explorer. They are just commands to change the mode.

Sorry, but I have seen that the navigation panel button just enables / disables the panel navigation, it don't builds the folder tree to point to the current folder. To expand / collapse all folders to point to the current folder is still necessary to access tools - folder options - checkbox.

Anyway, the panel navigation button really has the behavior that I mentioned about icon animation: it moves when used. But only for ativate/deativate status, not to hover cursor.

If you want the folder in the tree to match the currently open folder, then you need to enable the setting "Expand to current folder". This will enable the XP behavior.

Yes, tools - folder options - checkbox expand to actual folder... but I think that I can survival with this

Ivo, I appreciate your suggestions, but I fear that it does not recover the behavior of XP in its entirety, because by this way many clicks are required in Windows 7 to make what just one click could in XP. This is important for those who need quickly switch between expanded mode and compact mode of the navigation pane. Searching in the Regedit, I found the attribute "NavPaneExpandToCurrentFolder" attribute = dword: 00000000. This could be turned into a button within ClassicShell?

About the buttons on the display mode, also I found in Regedit the entry that seems set as "status button" the navpane button. Is "PaneVisibleProperty" = "PageSpaceControlSizer_Visible". But I'm not sure about that, and I'm probably wrong. Anyway, I hope you consider futurely this behavior for viewmode buttons and a button to automatically expand to current folder in the folder tree.

I still don't understand what XP behavior you are after. From what I remember, in XP the navpane always showed the current folder. There was no option to do anything else. This is what you get when you enable "Expand to current folder". BTW, the same checkbox is available when you right-click on a blank spot in the tree (for example after the last file). You don't need to go to the ribbon to access it.

Hi, Ivo.

Think I can express myself better with pictures. See bellow, in Windos XP the navigation pane can not be hidden easily as in Seven, except by a hidden setting that I don't remember now. The default in XP is to show the key-locations in the navigation pane, as in Seven...




... but the "Folders" button can switch between this and the folder tree, allowing you to expand to current folder directly.



However, in Seven, the NavPane button just hides/shows the panel. Yes, you can expand the folder tree by clicking the right button on a blank spot on the panel, but it still has some drawbacks:

1 - One click to more, which could be summarized in a button.
2 - If the current folder is in a very deep level, you will have to look for it with the vertical scroll bar.
3 - It is not easy to find a new point blank to undo the action, since the folders were expanded.
4 - If you find the point blank and uncheck the action, this will not return to its initial state, ie, to key-locations.

Looks like you want the XP-style task pane as in your first screenshot. It doesn't exist in 7 and Classic Shell cannot bring it back.

No, the Seven navpanel seems more clean, organized and straight than XP. I would really like to have the same XP behavior only, namely:

1 - NavPanel button to activate/deactivate the panel (ClassicShell already has it);
2 - ExpandFolder button to expand / compress to current folder (ClassicShell still hasn't it).