Best file manager?

[Pradeep]

Well I'm on the hunt for a file manager. Important features are the printing of directories/structure and also exporting same to an Excel file.

Right now I'm reduced to dir>textfile.txt

Also if I could tell it to only look a specified number of levels down and give me the count of JPGs/TIFFs/etc it would be tremendous.

I've found a program called Directory Report which prints and exports just fine, but no specific file counting.

As a reward the one who recommends the finest program will have a drink drunk in his honour. Pay or freeware, either is fine.

TIA, Pradeep

 

[miksmi]

I use the Altap Servant Salamander, a two-pane file manager. I always thought it did everything until I saw your requirements. A few Unix commands will do what you want. Install Cygwin, Unix-like environment for Windows, and you'll have all the file and directory manipulation and counting tools you'll ever need.

directory structure: find / -type d
5 levels deep: find / -type d -maxdepth 5
file count 5 levels deep: find / -maxdepth 5 -name '*.jpg' -or -name '*.tiff' | wc -l

find is a tool to search for files/directories. wc is 'word count', which counts characters, words, or lines. 'wc -l' counts the number of lines passed into it, namely, jpg and tiff filenames, one per line.

You can save to a plain ASCII text file which Excel can import.

 

[Pradeep]

Thanks miksmi.

Unfortunately the end user for the program will be my boss or the secretary, and if I were to try to explain unix commandline to them it would be a disturbing experience. I really need a GUI tool.

Having the directory structures as an Excel file should keep them happy for now.

 

[Bozo]

Wasn't there a version of 'XTree' available for Windows?


Bozo :mrgrn:

 

[i]

If it's any help, if I were in that situation, I'd throw together some pretty-looking, internally-ugly VB application to gather the information required. Do you have the option to put something together like that yourself?

Heck, going back to the cygwin suggestion, you could create a simple script for each one of the functions you need. Surely these people could handle having to launch cygwin (double-click on an icon), and then typing in "findalljpegs 5" (or something), and then watching the screen to see the number printed out. Right?

 

[Buck]

If I'm following Pradeep, and he's talking about people like some of my customers, they don't type commands, they click -- that's it, plain and simple. It is very frustrating, because they also tend to be the ones that click on everything inappropriate and end up with virus infections and spyware issues, but don't manage to click on updates to protect against these invasions. They need something that is as easy as MSN Messenger or Word.
:smack:

 

[blakerwry]

Why not make a batch file that runs the commands and saves the output to a file and then opens that file in excel? Create a shortcut to the batch and your good.

Hopefully you can find windows alternatives to the linux command line programs mentioned previously, becaus I would imagine it being a pain trying to pass information from cygwin to windoes or vise versa.

 

[Howell]

We have people here who do some very complicated things with FTP downloading text files and text parsing to an output file. It's not intimidating to them because they don't know what they are actually doing. They just follow the process.

If you build a process that gets them the information they need and only ask them to make a minimal number of decisions, you'll have a winner.

Now I'll beat T to recommending XTREE GOLD. It's the fastest most super-duperest file manager around. Actor wa compensated for this endorsement.

 

[Mercutio]

Of course, there's always ZTree. Which is like Xtree, but understands modern filesystems, which is something that should make everyone happy.

Unless your clients like all the "~1"s, that is.

 

[Tea]

http://www.ztree.com

 

[Pradeep]

Thanks for the help everyone. Looks like I will be having quite a few drinkies.

ztree reminds me of dosshell days. A little primitive for me.

I'll get our software guy to write a little proggie when he gets back from Algeria.

 

[miksmi]

Not to hijack this thread but as it's run its course.. Does anyone use a Windoze two-pane file manager? I find it handy for copying/moving files from left pane to right pane (or vice versa). I use Altap Servant Salamander.

I like Servant Salamander handy features like copying the current directory's or filename's path to the clipboard (drive letter:filename or UNC), file and directory differences, and plug-in support. It supports Unix tar formats like TAR, TGZ, TAZ, TBZ, GZ, BZ, BZ2, Z, RPM, and CPIO. It has the usual features like an internal file viewer with extensive file format support.

What's your favorite Windows two-pane file manager (or any file manager)?