Sharing Is The Point?

Discussion in 'Misc Discussion' started by zdevilinside, Oct 6, 2017.

  1. zdevilinside

    zdevilinside Active Member

    Do any of you know what is going on with that site? Every time I have visited it recently, I get a message saying "Sorry, the board is unavailable at the moment while we are testing some functionality.

    We will be back soon.."

    A lot of us used to visit that site.
     
  2. Glenn

    Glenn Administrator Staff Member

    Pixelad sold the forum, but the buyer then said he'll take over payments from the following month, then he pretended like it never happened, Pixelad still holds the forums but no longer uses them, I think someone else applied an update to the forum which broke things (a lot), Pix said he was gone restore a backup, but that was over a month ago, so chances are he's abandoned it - at least for now.

    But most of all sharing is no longer the point, so I didn't want to put in the effort I usually did when SITP needed a hand to fix code things, I would have gotten more response if I had share my mods on Mars. Had I been asked to help I would, but most people know by now, if what I do isn't appreciated, I stop doing it - saying thanks is not appreciation, some feedback or at least "it works" is the bear minimum for me to continue to share my time.

    I never really enjoy the lack of discussion on Software forums, even majorgeeks is borderline as they often feel I am taking a dig at their efforts when I am only pointing out problems they can fix... if they want to. SITP's model needs to change to be useful but I don't see that happening, all it would take is forced comments to see links, it's absolutely essential that a forum has communication, else a bulletin board would do with links to the latest releases.

    I could put a lot more effort in to having people here at LastOS, but I enjoy just tinkering around and people can join in if they wish, makes things more organic and real responses are way more valuable than the shallow troll like responses I seem to see everywhere else.
     
    zdevilinside likes this.
  3. Trouba

    Trouba Administrator Staff Member

    [​IMG]
     
    zdevilinside likes this.
  4. zdevilinside

    zdevilinside Active Member

    Thank you for the update. I asked about SharingIsThePoint because it was my first "mod" website. In fact, Sop's builds were what took me there in the first place. I just hate seeing places and things I like on the web disappear. Lately, it has been happening a lot; AOL instant messenger was my first IM service (because I worked for AOL was beside the point), Fatwallet is closing on Monday (my first "deal" website) and now I find out what is going on with SiTP. :(

    I agree with you. It is nice to get feedback from your hard work. You know as well as I do that I appreciate the work of the modders here and have expressed that in PM and other ways. It is just sad to see so many things go down the toilet. :(

    I need to learn to create a forum like this one. My purpose wouldn't be for modding but for something that applies to my everyday life and those that want to live a similar one. Can you recommend any sites that I could visit to learn how to setup a forum with similar capabilities/setup?
     
  5. Glenn

    Glenn Administrator Staff Member

    Sent PM, I never included hosting options as that is the expensive part that needs more play details (like your predicted monthly data usage, speed, space etc), so you can just start small to test it out, or go big and try to get noticed. It's never easy making a forum people want/need to use (especially if another method for getting information already exists).
     
  6. zdevilinside

    zdevilinside Active Member

    Thank you for all of your help! :)
     
  7. vanTorX

    vanTorX Member

    Hi there. It is sad to hear about the SITP forums. Was also wondering for some weeks now about that displayed message there.
    I thought to look there to see if something is cooking from your shop and to check what was the latest Last10 version - I got confused by seeing in my torrents seeds Last10_x64_2016.09.iso which I subsequently found was 'experimental release' (uploaded 54.6GB) and the last proved Last10 is Last10_x64_2015.11_ReturnOfNights.iso which, as I found, I also happen to seed (uploaded 108.8GB).

    Actually right now I found I also have Last10_x64_2016.10.iso not among torrents seeds, I suppose it might be the last Last10 then, stable, that is trusty release?

    I suppose folks that care about your work should know about this forum and if you might have something to share out, you can always let us know here and upload to TPB or else to some file sharing uploading site. Myself I found Mediafire works well, I was sharing out from free account game installation 3GB in size and it was downloaded 444 times over a couple months period without it being blocked or something.

    This week I updated win10 that came with a new computer to the latest win10 version from MS and then applied the Last10 modding tweaks to it and it worked without glitch, thank you all here that worked on it, including the updated apps repository into which I also dipped a little. Myself I am mostly 'windows user' and I dip into its setups only on occasions such as this one and when I do, I am amazed how windows nowadays includes stuff that needed to be modded in years ago and with shutting up UAC (included in your last10 tweaks) and such likes as well as uninstalling Norton AV and installing Classic Shell start menu makes windows 10 pretty well livable.
     
    Glenn and Trouba like this.
  8. Glenn

    Glenn Administrator Staff Member

    I do plan on making a Last10 RS3 release, but I have found the few times I have installed it I get weird issues, so I was waiting for the next major Patch Tuesday to see if they fixed them, Trouba does a great job of sharing his own updated app collection here at LastOS and when it gets to me building a full release, I update all the apps he doesn't use himself (thus will not update :D ). He also helps me with the Tweaks and is the only one of us that does VM testing of additions to the tweaks before sharing his versions that I soon after mod (usually due to his habit of using UAC off like you mention, I keep UAC on because I aim at suiting basic PC users with LastOS's rather than advanced users (who know how to turn UAC off themselves for example).

    I don't think SITP will come back now, it's not my decision or in my control and I imagine the cost of it in it's current state will overwhelm the owner sooner or later to where it will not be worth their time to restore/repair or rebuild a new forum, people don't talk much on forums anymore, if it's not on facebook or they aren't great people (like those who post at LastOS), then they feel people are being insincere or even mocking them - I was nearly banned on another forum recently after I responded to a request asking about Norton AV (which by the way is a subscription service now and no longer offline registered), I said it's a bad idea to use any AV software and norton was one of the most CPU and HDD intensive ones out there - I had the original poster lash out at me saying "if you don't have keys I can use the STFU and don't bother posting in my threads again", then the Admin of the forum agreed that my comment was out of place (in the request thread they only want direct links and no conversation, even though ALL other threads were filled with small talk and advice), so I have stopped being active online, I only want to help people but it turns out the majority don't want help they want, what they want without a second thought - which as it turns out I never wanted thanks for any work LastOS did/does but I do require the respect (even if it is just for the time I spend) and I don't mean I want praise, I just don't like being disrespected publicly - never have :D

    I am off topic again, lately I have been offline quite a bit, just not much time in my days and when I do have time (such as after hours) I am too mentally drained to do anything more than watch a few TED speeches on youtube or something where I can learn something new.

    When I do get time to make a Last10 RS3 it may not be much more than what you have already done as all the tools are built to be use on ANY windows 10 post install now - so you can tweak and install any win 10 OS to be awesome, I just release OS mods for a AIO easy solution to people lacking time to do the offline OS update themselves. As I don't constantly use my PC or gain feedback on what people want/need in a OS anymore, I don't have anything new or exciting to add, it's just the same stuff as always - maybe a bit more refined. MS always introduces new and improved bugs in every win 10 release now tho and anybody who tried to mod the theme ends up with a miss mash of ugly once Microsoft Patches (which are 500+MB every 2nd Tuesday) restores unpatched .dll's to the system erasing all the hard work that goes in to making the OS look nice/usable. It's an ongoing joke between myself and trouba that using Win 10's Explorer is like staring directly into the sun as it is as white as you can make your screen produce - it doesn't look modern, nice or refined, instead it looks glaring and boring.

    Anyways, I have a binge of Stranger Things Season 2 (tv show) to catch up on, so tomorrow night is planned for me :p tonight will be filled with sleep and the knowledge that this post is all I had time to do on my PC today.
     
    JeremyLopez05 and zdevilinside like this.
  9. Trouba

    Trouba Administrator Staff Member

    That guy sounds like a Helpdesk employee, Glenn. The one that will ask you whether your power cord is plugged in. "Using an AV is a bad idea" probably displaced some rusty neurons up in his brain and he had a freakout. Were you on Retestrak by any chance? :D
     
  10. Glenn

    Glenn Administrator Staff Member

    No, but probably some of the members go on the same site (most modding sites are the same members after all).
     
  11. vanTorX

    vanTorX Member

    Glenn, thanks for in depth answer & comments on the win10 current situation.
    Perhaps instead of trying to mod win10 directly, it is better to use third party programs (where possible) that update 'themselves' if needed to continue running on updated win10.
    Like some third party Win explorers probably allow changing window pane color. Problem is, despite myself trying out several of them, I default to native explorer in the end for one reason or another. A while ago I used Xplorer2 for some time but then the registration 'broke' (it never holds up for long) and since I don't utilize features of such powerful programs much, I wouldn't consider paying up for it. I liked mostly having many locations displayed permanently in tabs and use two panes side by side and that was about it. Another powerful explorer is XYplorer or Directory Opus....

    I like to fix things but noticed that people pretty well never are interested in details why something broke, they just want to get it fixed. And if they are trying to fix something themselves, they don't go to the root of the problem with result the breakage re-occurs. It it the same as with computers and windows modding, as you say, people just want the end result and are not interested in any insights into it to become at least educated users or your efforts.
     
  12. Glenn

    Glenn Administrator Staff Member

    I respect that people have "better things to do" with their time than to think about their OS, The problem lays in the fact Microsoft charge money for their OS and it doesn't do what we want, they should offer a solution for that reason alone, but even because Light Gray text on a Dark gray or even black background looks much nicer to a descent percent of PC users, No to mention any OLED gains in the future when running less pixels (due to no back light just LEDs).

    A third party solution will not work, I could personally make a hack to change the colour of the background, but then the text will still be dark, thus unreadable on a dark background - so a useless tool to make.

    I did learn two useful hotkeys lately tho:

    Alt + Left Shift + Prt Scr - Toggles High Contrast mode

    Win Key + Pause/Break - will bring up the Sys Properties

    I know some people managed to mod using the high contrast theme, but I found that buttons would be hard to read, headings on windows were non existent etc, so not ideal, not to mention it is VERY ugly and not a nice environment to work with.

    Shell replacements and file managers would be a solution in the short term, but like you I am yet to find a nice free one that themes well:

    http://repo.lastos.org/Free.Commander.XE_v2017.740_ppApp.apz

    Free Commander XE allows theming, maybe I should take another look at that but I will still push for MS to fix their limits more than a patch.
     
  13. vanTorX

    vanTorX Member

    I checked out that commander and didn't fall in love with it. One thing that native win explorer does well is line selection, when it selects just the name of a file, not a whole line (column) width and in my experience it is exclusive at being able to do that. That is one of the first features I look for in any explorer. I like to be able to deselect by mouse click into 'empty space' and full line file selection makes it treacherous and outright difficult when files fill up the whole win explorer window view - I always use single click to open/run files and select by mouse over, those who open files by double click don't see that as issue.
    In dual pane view, if you have open Quick view panels, they are crossed - selecting file in left pane shows its info in right pane and vice versa. Not that I find this view practical, the info is geared to techies and where win explorer shows you a frame from selected movie, here it offers you playing the movie in that quick view area.... which is not what you'd want, win explorer way is way more useful.
    I tried to make icons in menu bar bigger but increasing their size works only for icons inside the drop down menus, not those icons in menu bar. On the plus side I see many interesting menu choices there, just it seems this explorer is more for tech use than your normal day to day use.

    About that Xplorer2, those who crack it obviously don't use it because then they would find out the crack fails in matter of some days, I found if you use preferences to customize the things to your liking, it seems to break the crack. Apparently the maker of the program has one up over the crackers (I have early version of the program which stays regged somewhere) . Still like you guys, I prefer free solutions like that commanderXE and will keep it in my arsenal.

    Re that high contrast feature, lately I was setting up computer for older friend, decreasing monitor resolution to make everything bigger, also in accessibility panel made mouse cursor bigger (also made it to go white on black background and vice versa), but high contrast as you say it total wash out, no idea who'd want it, perhaps it might be of some use with some type of special vision disability but I kind of doubt it. In this connection I strongly advise against changing the setting of size of text etc. from the default 100% (Settings, System, Display) because it is buggy as hell (including when you try to revert to 100%), nuff said. Only reliable and best way to increase text and all else is via resolution change.
     
  14. Trouba

    Trouba Administrator Staff Member

    Every try XYplorer? I've tried understanding what you meant about line vs name selection but I'm not sure what to make of it. If I am right in interpreting what you meant, I think XYplorer does that. Let me know if you need it.

    Q-Dir?

    Then there is of course the deep Directory Opus. I know one person who uses only that.
     
  15. Glenn

    Glenn Administrator Staff Member

    I used Opus when I owned an Amiga :D - changed a bit since then tho. They have had multiple rewrites from scratch.
     
  16. Glenn

    Glenn Administrator Staff Member

    http://en.ejie.me/

    I found this interesting Tabbed Explorer (single window) with bookmark/bar support, I use uniextract to look at it (runs as a ppApp), I noticed it doesn't scale well (I run 125%), but I will try to fix that and see if I can theme it - pretty cool if I can make it play nice tho.

    -EDIT-

    https://disqus.com/home/discussion/ejie/clover_30258_beta_released/newest/

    Seems they keep dropping features, has ties to adware and malware and generally makes me sad that such a great tool is wasted on a Chinese knockoff mentality, instead of a crisp tool we desperately need.
     
    Last edited: Nov 21, 2017
  17. vanTorX

    vanTorX Member

    Been busy, sorry for not following up sooner. By "line vs name selection" I mean that in windows explorer the file selection ends where the file name ends vs the selection in third party explorers that extends full width of the column no matter if the file selected has much shorter name than the column width (column width is determined by the longest filename in that column).

    Full column width selection means you don't have free space to 'click off' to deselect unless the window pane is large enough or files are few enough so there is free space underneath files to click into to cancel what is selected.

    And again this issue doesn't come up for those who don't use single click to 'run' files. Since I didn't use either XYplorer or Xplorer2 for some time now, I can't tell one from the other just from memory. Mind you, Directory Opus was always iffy when it came to medicine, it either didn't work or it broke before long. Only last year I was able to get hold of a portable version that holds up. You (Trouba) aptly labeled it 'deep' and I can only second it. :unsure:

    I find most important is how explorer handles basic everyday tasks, people have different habits and it is a thin and sometime nebulous line between liking it or not. Also the medicine has to hold because if you spend fair time tweaking settings to your liking, nothing is more annoying than for it to break loose.

    Thanks for the tips though, Q-dir I tried last year but somehow slipped back to using the default win explorer, typically I open two instances of it to pull files between them when doing file housekeeping. It is of course much easier to do those chores with dual pane tabbed explorer.
     
    Last edited: Dec 2, 2017
    Trouba likes this.
  18. The Freezer

    The Freezer Just this guy, you know Staff Member

    Alchemists Revolution is the sister-site to SitP; and it is still active. They share many of the same founders/owners, and I believe most of the content was cross-posted back and forth anyway.
     
    vanTorX, Crake and Trouba like this.
  19. vanTorX

    vanTorX Member

    Freezer, thx for the tip about Alchemists site. Btw LastOS is noted there as affiliated site (y) (as well as the now defunct SITP)
     
  20. vanTorX

    vanTorX Member

    I finally got to install the latest LastOS R3 from December 2017 on one of mine PCs and the full row select in List view in Windows Explorer hit me again in full force. All my other computers still run LastOS 2015, which have the good old way of selecting files in List view...

    I figured I'd post my further findings here, rather than starting new thread, since we have already had some discussion regarding it.
    While researching the issue, I found webpage that shows what I have in mind http://www.classicshell.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=4976

    Obviously others are in the same boat with me on this issue. Not sure why it was discussed on Classic Shell forum but the screenshots there tell the story.
    While casting about for alternate explorers, I found only two options already suggested here that work in List view in the 'old way', the Directory Opus and XYplorer. DirectoryOpus I found it quite hard to make it show files in list view, no doubt it is filebrowser only for experts.

    However what made me post here again was finding the amazing FileVoyager, free explorer https://www.filevoyager.com/screenshots/ which I think you might also find interesting. It would be my file explorer of choice it it wasn't for its super geeky file selection method which I can't fathom despite trying number of times. Apparently it works the way the old Norton Commander worked. Wonder if any of you is familiar with that funky file selection? https://www.filevoyager.com/doc/doc-the-main-interface/items-selection-and-deselection/

    Regarding the LastOS R3, only other thing I had issue with is that night shadow theme, in particular I found the file tree pane and the window header to be too dark for my taste and don't see a way to alter it without ditching the theme altogether.

    One interesting thing happened to me that baffled me for a while, probably nothing to do with your release. I install older version of Skype (7.36 or 7.40) on my PCs and to make it close into tray (not leave window displaying on windowbar, I change the Skype.exe compatibility to some older windows issue, like to Windows Vista. However I found if I make Skype to run in some compatibility, desktop shortcut hotkeys which use Ctrl-Alt as modifier keys stop working (as you likely know, all desktop shortcut hotkeys for some reason need both modifier keys).

    It seems bizarre since I don't see any connection, why making Skype to run in some compatibility to a previous windows version disables use of Ctrl-Alt modifier keys) not being expert of window guts, I thought I just let you know about this weird issue, in case you run into it or maybe you have explanation for it?
     
  21. Trouba

    Trouba Administrator Staff Member

    By the way, Win10 RS4 now has it where you can toggle the "modern app" theme between dark and light versions; previously we would reg tweak it to get the dark one (still do) but you couldn't make it display the light theme without another reg tweak or 3d party utility to achieve it. But since RS4, MS has made the dark/light theme for modern app windows easy to change -- it now features a toggle switch for "Choose your app mode: (Dark) (Light)"

    The actual visual style you're talking about is probably the custom theme/visual style of explorer that Glenn used as default. A lot of the custom themes always have some drawbacks; this one did too but was one of the better ones at the time. There's quite a few new ones now so it may deserve looking into for any future releases although I noticed many on deviantArt are now payware.

    Thanks for letting us know about FileVoyager, I'll see if it can be made into a ppApp or ssApp or both. I see it has version with and without VLC media player though I'd gravitate to the versions without.

    EDIT: Wow, that file explorer is driving me insane. When you use the marquee square selection option, and you select some folders, their folder names become blue. But when you click outside of it afterwards, it won't revert to normal again. And when you select over the previous selection, it won't append or change anything -- all stay blue/selected. So far all I can figure is to get out of the directory and come back to it. Also, I haven't been able to find how to select other than the very thing you hated, namely having to select all the way from the side. Even Q-Dir allows for selection close to the folder names. Another annoying thing: when you click on one folder and move your cursor whilst holding the left button (so folder is selected) but then you change your mind and hover back to the original, selected folder, it acts like you want to place that folder in another folder and an option to "move" the folder pops up, even when it's its own folder! Windows' explorer realizes you're on the same folder again and therefore doesn't ask you to move anything. All this seems extremely counter-intuitive. Luckily I was able to change the line coloring (grey-white, grey-white, grey-white -- awful) but I can't seem to find any options to change the above-mentioned behaviors.
     
  22. vanTorX

    vanTorX Member

    Yeah, that's bizarre, when I was reading help file and searching on net, it seems all that selection method is old Norton Commander way of doing it, which harks back to what, pre-Windows DOS days maybe?

    Primary selection, the brown one, I mind you can't get rid of unless you exit the directory and return, also don't understand that blue selection of many files, like when you select by marquee dragging. Don't forget about right mouse button, it is to deselect selection. However I played with it some week or two back and anyway I didn't figure any reliable way to have control, to know what I am doing. That's why I thought some of you guys from LastOS will say, hey that's simple, that's what we had in the days back when windows was not yet born...

    But I still would like to learn to handle this side of it because otherwise it is impressive piece of software otherwise easy to use, I still suppose if you know what you doing, it probably makes sense, I suspect it improves your file handling beyond the standard win explorer way.

    ------------
    There is one relevant forum post in the forum - suggestions section - to selection problem:
    https://www.filevoyager.com/forums/topic/my-list-of-hopefuls/

    and further down the FileVoyager maker replies:

    BTW I do have 'full row selection' off in FV I experiment with but maybe that's because I use List view everywhere (Preferences-FileExploration- in drop down menu select List view) but as you say, the file selection still selects past the file name, even if you don't see any change there except the cursor changes into hand.
    Also switched off the line coloring (Preferences-Colors - uncheck 'Odd Lines') and checkbox selection...

    Mind you, initially with the ribon menus, the Preferences are under Manage tab but when you switch to classic drop down menus, the Preferences move to under Tools...
    [​IMG]
     
    Last edited: Jun 28, 2018
    Trouba likes this.
  23. vanTorX

    vanTorX Member

    While both XYplorer and Directory Opus are close to WinExplorer functioning (before MS broke it), only DOpus gets it bang on (I use single click to launch file, that's something I do among first things after every windows install). When it comes to file selecting, the difference between these two is only in how marquee selection works.

    You can see how XYplorer marquee selects even files which the selection rectangle didn't cover. On the other hand, it allows you to select pane background colors independently for double panes which DOpus doesn't as you see on next pic. The tree pane background color can be set independently of double panes in both programs.
    [​IMG]


    Here in DOpus, the marquee selection works as it should, it allows me to select out renamed files. You'd be surprised how often I find this odd selection feature useful.
    [​IMG]

    I'd settle on DOpus as my final choice but unless I buy it, I doubt I will use it. Problem is with activation, the portable version 10.5 that I have is activated without problems but because it is portable, it seems to have problems replacing WE, obviously because it is self-contained. Full install latest v12.6 has problematic activation.

    But in the end, why should I bother, I think I will just install LastOS from 2015 in which WE works fine. The thing is, I don't know of some feature of the latest LastOS W10 version that I would really need, I can just use its tweaks in case there was some updating.
     
    Last edited: Jun 30, 2018
  24. Glenn

    Glenn Administrator Staff Member

    I would often just use "Open Command Prompt Here" when I right click on a folder. Then I would use "dir *_*.X /b >FileList.cmd" I would then open it in UltraEdit at Macro insert Move or Del commands to either keep/move the files or delete them. It's an old method from the DOS days, but I taught myself all of the methods before internet was in every home using the /? flags to learn what did what. As for your particular feature request, the only reason they changed it was due to touch screen support as you often do NOT want to poke at the names, you want to poke to the side of them so you can read it as you go. I absolutely hate how things change with NO options you can set to get it back, there is no need to do that unless it was a BUG, but if you look back through OS histories, you will soon learn many of the bugs turned in to features. because exploiting bugs to make something advanced happen quicker than any other method has been going on since the days of hardware hacks.

    Sorry I can't offer more hope to fix/add this I tried to disable full row select in FreeCommander, but it doesn't do anything anymore.

    I think MS modded the TreeListView API to default to that behavior which is why even old programs fail to work as expected on this "new windows".
     
  25. vanTorX

    vanTorX Member

    'Disable full row select' refers to Detail view, so that line with file Type, Date, Last accessed etc is not active, just the full Name column width. When I started googling up 'my problem' with the file selection in List view, all results referred to Detail view. It is just by chance I found just two results referring to what I was looking for.
    In my window computing 'career', I have used Detail view very, even extremely rarely, to sort by Size column, but I could easily live without the Detail view in which 99% of consumer users operate by default, because they don't know better. And that is reflected in the results when you try to google for solution.

    Windows OS could do with marked separation of commercial and consumer versions, where commercial would mean 'no touch' etc.

    My DOS abilities are like the Linux ones, middling or worse. Given yours, I wonder what you make of that special, old ways file selection method ala Norton or Total Commander (related to 'Free' Commander?) that the FileVoyager uses.

    I like how FV file selection sticks (in WE when you make selection and leave window, you need to activate it carefully so as not to deactivate that selection) but it is hard to deselect, even seemingly impossible to do if you stay in the directory, since you are supposed to use right button but it pops up context menu... IMO the maker of FV shot himself in foot with this feature.

    Went to look at XYplorer and Directory Opus prices and licensing and if I was to buy in, XYplorer would win hands down, even considering features, ease of setting to your liking, damn the inadequate marquee selection. BTW there is a funny word 'embiggen' (meaning 'enlarge') on DOpus site https://www.gpsoft.com.au/program/screenshots.html
    It looks like the people behind the program have German origins or is that Australian dialect?
     

Share This Page