Re: Friendlier dired experience [CODE INCLUDED]

[Juri Linkov]

> I can see how one can end up with a package like this since I did it myself
> with "Tumme" (now "Image Dired") many years ago (Any Day Now I will have a
> look at it again and see how it can be enhanced now that we have
> better/different image handling built-in).

What I like in tumme/image-dired is the quick-preview mode for images.
AFACS, diredc supports the same but for all files with the 'C-x q' key.
I think a better key for this feature would be 'C-c C-f' that already
does the same in next-error capable buffers (compilation, grep, occur, ...)

> Tab-key switching
>
> Navigating back and forth using the Tab key is convenient. For me,
> personally, since I already have a dedicated key (f2) for switching to the
> next window, it's only slightly better because the key is slightly easier
> to press. I will consider binding Tab in my own Dired setup :)

I have bound TAB in Dired to do the same thing as web browsers do,
i.e. to navigate to the next link/dir.  Before that, I tried to use
TAB to switch windows between Dired buffer, but the problem is that
after developing the habit of switching windows using TAB, trying
to use TAB to switch windows fails in other modes.

> Could Emacs' different shells and terminals have this ability
> automatically by using some pre-processing of each command invocation,
> looking for open Dired windows in the same frame?

Maybe this page contains a relevant answer:
https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/ShellDirtrackByPrompt

> Multiple panel views
>
> Did not try this much but is surely useful depending on what you want to
> see at any given moment. I often use the "s" binding to sort differently,
> for example, so I see that different viewing modes are nice to have.

A long time ago I tried to emulate *Commander keys:

(mapc (lambda (elt)
        (define-key dired-mode-map (car elt)
          `(lambda ()
             (interactive)
             (dired-sort-other (concat dired-listing-switches ,(cadr elt))))))
      '(([(control f3)]       ""     "by name")
        ([(control f4)]       " -X"  "by extension")
        ([(control f5)]       " -t"  "by time")
        ([(control f6)]       " -S"  "by size")
        ([(control shift f3)] " -r"  "by reverse name")
        ([(control shift f4)] " -rX" "by reverse extension")
        ([(control shift f5)] " -rt" "by reverse time")
        ([(control shift f6)] " -rS" "by reverse size")))

but never used this, because after switching to Dired mode many years ago,
I lost all habits accumulated from other commanders, and never missed them
in Dired mode.  For example, the Commander-like keys above are not mnemonic,
whereas most Dired keys are.

> - Set both panels to same directory. Did not try this much or think about
> when it is useful but I guess quickly "syncing" the two panes, then being
> able to drill down, or go back in either of them would be the main use.

This feature might be useful because currently the quickest way to achieve
the same requires destroying the window configuration with C-x 1
then creating a duplicate Dired window with C-x 2.