File Explorer - daft restriction on column width?

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


--
Terry, East Grinstead, UK

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?

--
Best regards,

Neil

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.

--
Terry, East Grinstead, UK

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. The tutorial shows file and folders names
that are much shorter and the author was able to get the column width a
lot less than 80 characters wide.

How long is the shortest named file in the folder you are viewing when
you attempt to decrease the width of the Name column?

Per your pic, I cannot see how just 15 characters (and see even less how
a mere 15 pixels) would let you see "G" or any first character of the
extension of *every* file. If you reduced column width to just the "G"
of the "GPX" extension of the "Day08 Bude-CH.gpx" file was displayed (15
characters to just show "Day08 Bude-CH.g") then you would truncate the
other filenames a lot more severely for the rest of the files. I don't
know that Windows/File Explorer has ever had a right-alignment feature
so you could chop off a portion of the extension and have it guaranteed
no matter how long were the filenames.

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)?

On 9/21/2016 2:08 PM, 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.

I see. Well, the way XP presented things is pretty irrelevant at this
point, isn't it? The minimum width "problem" is the same way that
Explorer has worked since Vista.

--
Best regards,

Neil

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.


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

On 2016-09-21 12:55, 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

80 is the minimum in Windows 7 as well; probably comes from Vista. All
of the columns have a default value, which is totally inconsistent (try
adding all the date-kind columns, some are 80'ish wide, some are 120
wide, even tho they are all the same data, a date) and I think all have
a minimum size, which is probably inconsistent too.

Regards,

--
! _\|/_ Sylvain /
! (o o) Memberavid-Suzuki-Fdn/EFF/Red+Cross/SPCA/Planetary-Society
oO-( )-Oo Do bl Sp ce is a v ry saf me hod of driv compr s ion!

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 me in Win7, and right-clicking on the Type field and selecting More,
the smallest that I can make the Type field is 100 pixels. I suppose
they figured anything less meant you could not see the type for a file
and that you would hide that column.

If I shrunk the Type field down to 1 character, there would be no
distinction between "I" for "Icon" and "I" for "Internet Shortcut", or
between "M" for "Microsoft Excel Worksheet" or "Microsoft Word" or
"MHTML Document" (.mht files). The Type field is a description, not the
extension. The Type field does NOT distinguish between the numerous
extensions common to the same association.

In a test, I added the Item Type field. Looks to have the same value
(description string) as shown in the Type field. Neither list the
*extension* of a file as mentioned by the OP. I don't see Windows
Explorer (and probably File Explorer in Win10) let you add an Extension
column. I have no experience with the following product (a registry
hack) to know if it works on Win10:

http://www.xrayz.co.uk/extension-column/

http://superuser.com/questions/96897...file-extension
has Jamie claiming that column handler extensions for Windows Explorer
were removed in Windows Vista. The suggestion there is to use a
different file manager with the features you want. Explorer++ can have
an Ext[ension] column so you can sort by those or, like with the OP,
quickly see what is the extension if the Name column is too narrow,
especially for long filenames. Alas, they don't mention Win10 as
supported: https://explorerplusplus.com/faq#windows_versions. That
doesn't mean it won't run on Win10, just that the author isn't willing
to claim his product works under Win10 or he hasn't tested it. The
latest released build (1.3.5) is dated Feb 2013. Win10 went public more
than 2 years later. I didn't bother investigating other file managers.

http://windowssecrets.com/forums/sho...ndows-Explorer
http://www.classicshell.net/forum/vi...php?f=13&t=565

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.

So the OP may have to look to non-Microsoft file managers to get the
feature(s) he wants without concern about the whims of Microsoft in
giving and taking away features.

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"

--
Take care,

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

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. The tutorial shows file and folders names
that are much shorter and the author was able to get the column width a
lot less than 80 characters wide.

How long is the shortest named file in the folder you are viewing when
you attempt to decrease the width of the Name column?

I've no idea why you're discussing the Name column? My post was about
the Type and Size columns. And Name like all other columns has a
minimum width of 80 px. Which is why I said "Column widths are
limited..."

Per your pic, I cannot see how just 15 characters (and see even less how
a mere 15 pixels) would let you see "G" or any first character of the
extension of *every* file.

Eh? See my edited screenshot.

snipped the rest

--
Terry, East Grinstead, UK

Neil wrote:

On 9/21/2016 2:08 PM, 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.

I see. Well, the way XP presented things is pretty irrelevant at this
point, isn't it? The minimum width "problem" is the same way that
Explorer has worked since Vista.

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.

--
Terry, East Grinstead, UK

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.

Indeed!

--
Terry, East Grinstead, UK

"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.

--
Terry, East Grinstead, UK

B00ze wrote:

On 2016-09-21 12:55, 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

80 is the minimum in Windows 7 as well; probably comes from Vista. All
of the columns have a default value, which is totally inconsistent (try
adding all the date-kind columns, some are 80'ish wide, some are 120
wide, even tho they are all the same data, a date) and I think all have
a minimum size, which is probably inconsistent too.

Regards,

The only exception I could find in the score or so that I tried in Win
10, was the one called '#', whatever that's intended for, which has a
minimum of 40 px. Date Created/Modified/Taken all follow the 80 px
minimum.

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

--
Terry, East Grinstead, UK

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

On 9/21/2016 2:08 PM, 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.

I see. Well, the way XP presented things is pretty irrelevant at this
point, isn't it? The minimum width "problem" is the same way that
Explorer has worked since Vista.

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.

--
Best regards,

Neil