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The lister is the very heart of Directory Opus 4 and 5. It comes in
three varieties that you can switch between as you like - name, icon action and
icon. Let's go through them one by one:
- Name mode shortcut:
 [
Name mode is the mode most like DOpus 4. It's the mode you'll spend most of
your "file management" time in since it offers the easiest access to the files
you'll need to work on. It should be the most familiar to you, so we won't
bother to go into much detail here, although if you want the low-down on
exactly what the different areas of the lister do, consult your Directory Opus
5 main manual on page 37. One thing that should be mentioned is the dynamic
resorting of files. Although this sounds high tech, it's very easy - simply
click on the field titles ("Name", "Size", "Date", etc.) at the top of each
lister. Clicking once on the title sorts all the files in that lister in
ascending order, while clicking a second time will sort in reverse order. You
can tell what field is being sorted on by the arrow in the button which will be
pointing downward for normal sorting and upward for reverse sorting. These
buttons can also be dragged left and right allowing you to change the order in
which the information about the files in the lister is displayed.
- Icon mode shortcut: ]
This mode most closely resembles Workbench. As such, it's probably the weakest
of the DOpus modes and the one you'll spend the least time in, unless you want
to show your "souped-up Workbench" to people! However, DOpus at its weakest is
still magnitudes stronger than Workbench, so unlike the Amiga's native GUI,
DOpus allows you to work in as many icon mode windows as you like at the same
time thanks to its multitasking.
- Icon Action mode shortcut: '
For those that like the accessibility of the icon mode, but would like more of
the power given by name mode, Icon Action mode is a good compromise. Not only
can you double click on programs as you are used to from Workbench, but you
have the added toolbar from DOpus to give you more power.
Each of these formats shares traits. They are all multi-tasking separate
programs in their own right, so even if one lister is busy, there's no reason
why you couldn't open up another one, even one showing exactly the same part of
your drive and use that while your other lister gets on with its job.
| If you want to type in the keys used for a hotkey in DOpus' editors, you can hit the caps lock key first. You can then type as normal into the string gadget instead of your keypresses being used as the shortcut.
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Pop-up menus
DOpus' listers also share certain other similarities. In all of them you can
move the mouse over the title bar and hold down the right mouse button. This
will pop up a hidden menu that allows you to perform certain functions,
including snapshotting the lister (and the icons within if you are in icon or
icon action mode. In these modes you can also arrange the icons in the window
to your taste). You also have the ability to switch lister mode using this
menu or to add a new drawer. There are also context menus for filetypes so that
you can hold the right mouse button down over files and get a pop-up menu which
not only contains standard options such as copy and delete, but also filetype
specific options such as "show" or "edit in ttx" depending on how you set them
up.
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Try holding down the right mouse button over a file, you'll
probably
get a pop-up menu like this.
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Groups
A group is a special sort of lister. Unlike normal listers, it can't switch
from icon mode and it doesn't represent the reality of
what's on your hard disk. Rather it uses "fake" icons for programs and files
that could reside anywhere on your hard disk and gathers them together in one
place. This can be very beneficial if you want to keep all your most-often used
documents in one place even if they are scattered all over your hard disk. It
doesn't have to be used for documents - it could also be for disparate graphics
programs, say, or prefs programs (however, these are all likely to be in the
same place anyway!).
FTP listers
If you aren't on the net, you may not know what FTP actually is, or even why
you'd want to have it in DOpus. Well, FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol and
it's one of the methods of transferring files to and fro over the internet.
Instead of requiring another program to be able to copy files to your machine
from elsewhere on the net, Opus just gives you another lister. You can pretty
much treat FTP listers in exactly the same way as you treat ordinary "local"
listers in DOpus these days. You can drag and drop files from them to create
"left-outs" on your hard disk, set the way each lister looks (and save those
settings), or type in a location in the text gadget at the bottom of the lister
(if you want to open a new ftp location you can simply type its name in the
text gadget, but remember to put the ftp:// that DOpus needs to say that what
you are typing in is an FTP site).
Pick a chapter:
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