File Explorer - daft restriction on column width?

Terry Pinnell wrote:
"Jonathan N. Little" wrote:

VanguardLH wrote:
Partenope there claims there is a File Extension column that can be
added to File Explorer and which actually shows the extension of the
files, not a common file Type to which many files with varying
extensions might be associated. If true, that means Microsoft had an
Extension column in WinXP, took it away in [Vista and] 7, brought it
back, and apparently it disappeared again in Win10.

There is a extension column in Explorer for Windows 10, it's column
label is "File Extension"

Thanks Jonathan, that column option is occasionally useful, but like
the others it's limited to a wasteful 80 px minimum.


80 px minimum appears to be hardcoded for any field column. But how
small is your monitor?

Last Windows version that was data-oriented UI was 2000 and subsequent
iterations have hidden or removed informational details from the IU. But
hey, Windows was never the most amenable to customization, it is not
Linux...

--
Take care,

Jonathan
-------------------
LITTLE WORKS STUDIO
http://www.LittleWorksStudio.com

Neil wrote:
On 9/22/2016 9:01 AM, Terry Pinnell wrote:

I think it's relevant to show why I think this was a stupid change by
MS. I hadn't realised it had occurred so long ago, as it's only a few
months since I changed from XP to Win 10 Pro.

I think you're in for a slew of such surprises.


I just 'love' the the 'modern' settings apps that are basically devoid
of settings where you really need to go to the old desktop version to
actually get things done.

--
Take care,

Jonathan
-------------------
LITTLE WORKS STUDIO
http://www.LittleWorksStudio.com

"Jonathan N. Little" wrote:

Terry Pinnell wrote:
"Jonathan N. Little" wrote:

VanguardLH wrote:
Partenope there claims there is a File Extension column that can be
added to File Explorer and which actually shows the extension of the
files, not a common file Type to which many files with varying
extensions might be associated. If true, that means Microsoft had an
Extension column in WinXP, took it away in [Vista and] 7, brought it
back, and apparently it disappeared again in Win10.

There is a extension column in Explorer for Windows 10, it's column
label is "File Extension"

Thanks Jonathan, that column option is occasionally useful, but like
the others it's limited to a wasteful 80 px minimum.


80 px minimum appears to be hardcoded for any field column. But how
small is your monitor?

24" 1920 x 1200, but I typically have many apps and folders open, so
every pixel counts!

--
Terry, East Grinstead, UK

"Terry Pinnell" wrote in message
...
B00ze wrote:

BTW, testing this highlighted another minor design flaw: you can only
add or remove a single option at a time.

Unless you go to "More" in which case you can add as many as you want at the
same time.

Terry Pinnell wrote:

I've no idea why you're discussing the Name column? My post was about
the Type and Size columns.

See my reply to Bennett that was 12 hours before yours to me.

"dadiOH" wrote:


"Terry Pinnell" wrote in message
.. .
B00ze wrote:

BTW, testing this highlighted another minor design flaw: you can only
add or remove a single option at a time.

Unless you go to "More" in which case you can add as many as you want at the
same time.

Thanks, didn't spot that.

--
Terry, East Grinstead, UK

On Wed, 21 Sep 2016 19:08:11 +0100, Terry Pinnell
wrote:

Neil wrote:

On 9/21/2016 12:55 PM, Terry Pinnell wrote:
I hope someone will tell me I'm mistaken here! But it seems that for
some reason MS has restricted the minimum width of a column in File
Explorer. Looks like 80 pixels. I often want far less than that,
sometimes barely any if all files have same extension. I was doing
that for several decades, including the last 15 in XP.

If so, is there some advantage I've missed? Looks like a daft design
change to me.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...triction-1.jpg


If file type is unimportant, why not just right click on the column
header bar and deselect it?

I didn't say it was unimportant. I just don't want to have to allow
space for 'GPX ' or 'JPG ' when a simple 'G' or 'J'
would do. In a folder I might have JPG, PNG, GIF, and BMP, with maybe
the occasional TIF. All obvious with their first letter.


Why not just turn off the file type column and set it to show the
extension as part of the file name?

On Wed, 21 Sep 2016 13:54:18 -0500, VanguardLH wrote:

Terry Pinnell wrote:

I hope someone will tell me I'm mistaken here! But it seems that for
some reason MS has restricted the minimum width of a column in File
Explorer. Looks like 80 pixels. I often want far less than that,
sometimes barely any if all files have same extension. I was doing
that for several decades, including the last 15 in XP.

If so, is there some advantage I've missed? Looks like a daft design
change to me.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...triction-1.jpg

http://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/3...dows-10-a.html

Don't use Win10 so cannot say for sure that 80 characters is the minimum
width for the Name column.


It's not. Nor is it for file type. I have both set to much less than
that here.

On Wed, 21 Sep 2016 19:41:06 -0500, VanguardLH wrote:

Peter Bennett wrote:

On Wed, 21 Sep 2016 13:54:18 -0500, VanguardLH wrote:


Which side of the Name column are you dragging to reduce its size?
Assuming the Name column is on the leftmost side of the panel, are you
dragging the left or right edge of the Name column? In Windows 7, I can
drag the right edge of the Name column to reduce its size down to the
icon, the whitespace between icon and filename, just the leading first
character of the filename, followed by an elipsis character ("..."), so
I would see "[icon][space]D…" in your example. I would be surprised if
File Explorer in Win10 didn't give me the same control over column size.

Option 3 in the article mentions how to drag the column handles. You
are saying dragging the right-side handle for the Name column stops at
80 characters. How about Option 4 where you can specify the column
width (which is in pixels, not characters, so 15 pixels would not be the
same and a lot smaller than 15 characters)?

the OP is looking at the Type column, not the Name column.

Then why is the OP talking about the extension of a file? Type will
show Icon, File Folder, PDF Document, Internet Shortcut, etc. The Type
field is not the same as the extension value. Sorry, the OP misled me
by asking about extensions, not filetypes.


For file extension that Windows "knows about", the Type column will
contain a wordy description: "firefox HTML Document" or "Microsoft
Word Document", but for "unknown" file extensions, the Type column
will just show the extension. Either way, that column seems redundant
to me, so I don't show it (but I do show extensions on the file name).
The Type column may be of use to those who don't show the extension on
the file name.


--
Peter Bennett, VE7CEI Vancouver BC
peterbb (at) telus.net
Vancouver Power Squadron: http://vpsboat.com

Ken Blake wrote:
On Wed, 21 Sep 2016 13:54:18 -0500, VanguardLH wrote:


Don't use Win10 so cannot say for sure that 80 characters is the minimum
width for the Name column.

It's not. Nor is it for file type. I have both set to much less than
that here.


Not 80 characters, 80 pixels.

--
Take care,

Jonathan
-------------------
LITTLE WORKS STUDIO
http://www.LittleWorksStudio.com

On 22 Sep 2016, Ken Blake wrote in
alt.comp.os.windows-10:

Why not just turn off the file type column and set it to show the
extension as part of the file name?

If you were asking me, I'd tell you that I often sort the list by file
type.

Nil wrote:

On 22 Sep 2016, Ken Blake wrote in
alt.comp.os.windows-10:

Why not just turn off the file type column and set it to show the
extension as part of the file name?

If you were asking me, I'd tell you that I often sort the list by file
type.

Me too.