I've been playing around quite a bit with SpaceFM, using it as my primary file browser. SpaceFM's appeal lies in its ridiculous number of customization options. The default configuration that ships with antix can be seen in one way as hamstrung, and the UI can be very busy. Taking someone else's prompting, I suggest the following changes to the default configuration.

1. Show internal drives. The default config does not show the internal partitions in the shortcut viewer on the left. This can done in the devices/settings/show menu and putting a checkmark on"internal drives".

2. Turn off the file system view in the lower left. You can turn this off by clicking the"folder" icon in the toolbar. I find this view makes the UI seem very busy.

3. configure the root editor by default. This can be done in preferences/advanced.

4. In Devices/Settings/Unmount, uncheck the"unmount on exit". This will allow filesystems that spacefm mounts to remain mounted after spacefm exits.

5. Change default mount command to udevil mount -o %o %v . Coupled with a change to udevil.conf (below), this will allow spacefm to mount and unmount network file systems.

6. change unmount command to either udevil or auto (blank). pmount will give an error when trying to unmount a network filesystem.

7. change udevil.conf to allow more filesystems. the setting is"allowed filesystems" and it should really include cifs (samba) and nfs by default.

8. add the mountshare plugin by default. this plugin allows network share browsing and mounting in a quick little gui. I highlight this item in the runwiththedolphin video here.
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9. uncheck"always show tab bar" in preferences. This frees up some screen space and makes the ui less busy. the bar will automatically re-appear if using multiple tabs.

10. turn off the panel bar (view/panel bar). This further cleans up the look of the UI. The panels remain available via the show menu or by cntrl 1,2,3,4.

These changes will give a very clean UI, while still having all the numerous options for the file browser still available either in the menus or by keyboard shortcut.

I took an effort here to focus on a cleaner default UI and expanded mounting capabilities. I look forward to anyone's thoughts.

d.o.

I think it sounds good, one of the reasons I don't like spacefm, is that there is so much stuff in there, so I just look at it, and go back to mc or rox...
If it was a little bit"cleaner" looking, I might even try to use it some time

I just use IG Burn Tools plugin


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as my needs are pretty simple. Thanks for the other tips as I was unaware as usual D.O.

ah, good plugin tip, roky. do you need to install anything else to make it work or does antix already include the other tools? I rarely make cd's, but it looks handy.

I just check with apt-cache policy. I don't remember off the top of my head right now. Sorry.
This netbook has no burner so I never installed it on this computer.

I would vote to keep the tab bar.
I also would like to see default, side by side 2 pane view.
I also would recommend the selection bar on the bottom to change color to green with black text when selected.

I am not in my main machine right now to view all the changes I made, but those are some.

dolphin_oracle wrote: I look forward to anyone's thoughts.

In the following, where ideas are expressed they are not intended to disparage anyone else's ideas. They are simply an alternative viewpoint.


As far as I can tell, one of the design objectives of SpaceFM is to purposely include a wide range of configuration options in order that an end user may set it up to their own preferences. I suspect appeal of some of the suggestions will vary from user-to-user.

Attempting to produce"a cleaner default UI" is a desirable objective. In fact I was implementing some of the suggestions before having read the opening post.


Cleaner Interface

dolphin_oracle wrote: 2. Turn off the file system view in the lower left. You can turn this off by clicking the"folder" icon in the toolbar. I find this view makes the UI seem very busy.

10. turn off the panel bar (view/panel bar). This further cleans up the look of the UI. The panels remain available via the show menu or by cntrl 1,2,3,4.

Agreed, the Directory Tree Pane adds little benefit when used in conjunction with the Devices Pane and a File Browser panel.

Dave wrote:I also would like to see default, side by side 2 pane view.

In general terms I have a disticnt preference for dual panel file managers. Surprisingly, it is not the case with SpaceFM as it can make the interface appear"busy" when used simultaneously with the Device Pane. Depending upon the user, I often set this up as either:

• Device Pane + Single Panel File Browser
• No Device Pane + Dual Panel File Browser

What I would like to have available is a button or menu option that switches the entire SpaceFM display between pre-configured views. This would be preferable to the current method of sequentially adding or subtracting a File Browser panel to/from the current view. It would also dispense with individually switching on/off the Devices/Directory Tree/Bookmarks views for each File Browser Panel.

Dave wrote:I also would recommend the selection bar on the bottom to change color to green with black text when selected.

I don't understand what is meant by this.

dolphin_oracle wrote: 9. uncheck"always show tab bar" in preferences. This frees up some screen space and makes the ui less busy. the bar will automatically re-appear if using multiple tabs.

Dave wrote:I would vote to keep the tab bar.

I also would like the tab bar to be displayed. Here users find it distracting to have the contents of the window alter position to accomodate the adding/removal of the tab bar.

Off Topic, it is also the reason why here, ROX-Filer is used with an inherited fixed window size. It will be really useful to know if ROX can be globally forced to use a single window size for all instances irrespective of how they are opened.

dolphin_oracle wrote: 1. Show internal drives. The default config does not show the internal partitions in the shortcut viewer on the left. This can done in the devices/settings/show menu and putting a checkmark on"internal drives".

This might be attractive where a system has multiple disks, or more partitions than / and /home (e.g. multi-booting Windows). It may be less appealing to an unsophisticated user or on a simple systetm. I have an uncorroborated idea that many (most?) antiX systems installed to internal disk are a single partition (/) or dual partition (/ and /home) systems. However, if running antiX from USB (not something I do often) the value of showing internal drives might increase.


Use of Plugins

Firstly let me declare my interest in Connectshares. It was introduced in antiX-13-Full. I recently created a user guide for it that can be downloaded at the foot of this opening post
connectshares-user-guide-t4472.html

dolphin_oracle wrote: 5. ...
6. ...
7. ...
8. ...

I have various reservations about using SpaceFM in this way. The main ones are:

1. My preference is to use the standard linux tools rather than become tied to a single app+plugin
2. I cannot find a way for SpaceFM to automatically mount shares at system startup or login
3. I cannot find a way in SpaceFM to mount multiple shares simultaneously, each seems to handled manually, independently and sequentially
4. SpaceFM only works in a GUI environment

Connectshares:

• is a collection of scripts that makes use of standard linux apps. This makes it portable between distros.
• Is independent of file managers, plugins, FUSE etc. It is accessible to all apps (file mangers, word processor, media players etc)
• Has an option to automatically mount shares at system startup or login. This means the shares are already available when the GUI is available.
• Is able to mount multiple shares simultaneously. I often work on a network that offers six mixed Samba and NFS shares. They all get mounted simultaneously which is a boon.
• Works in both GUI and CLI environments. This is handy for instance when having booted in CLI mode to do maintenance, running smxi, etc
• Was designed to work in a similar way to mounting remote shares from a Microsoft Server or a Netware Server to a local Windows workstation. This might make it seem familiar to anyone who has used them in universities, colleges, corporate or SOHO locations.

rokytnji wrote: I just use IG Burn Tools plugin

A user installing a plugin is obviously fine and OK. Providing the same as a default may not be universally suitable. For example, this plugin uses standard linux tools, however it makes them available through a SpaceFM specific interface. If this becomes the accustomed way of using the tool, the user is effectively tied to SpaceFM, because the interface is only available via SpaceFM.

In terms of helping a user gain long term, transferable skills it might be preferable to use the underlying tool directly or indeed have SpaceFM start it through a non-SpaceFM specific interface.



In my opinion, SpaceFM is a fine file manager but antiX should consider carefully including plugins by default in order to avoid becoming tied/reliant on it. There are obviously pros and cons here. As is often the case, Linux and antiX offer lots of choices.

SamK wrote:

Dave wrote:I also would recommend the selection bar on the bottom to change color to green with black text when selected.

I don't understand what is meant by this.

Ok while taking screenshots, I relized that the selection bar is really called the status bar.
To change right click on the status bar

right click on the bar

right click on the bar

Click Highlight Bar

click highlight bar

click highlight bar

Select the color you would like and press ok, my preferance is green.

select color and press ok... green

select color and press ok... green

I am limited to 3 uploads __{{emoticon}}__

Right click on the status bar and select Highlight Text

right click on the status bar and select highlight text

right click on the status bar and select highlight text

Select the color you would like to have for the text and press ok, my preferance is black

select the color of the text and press ok

select the color of the text and press ok

Then there should be a green bar with black text for the selected panel (panel 1 in this case)

Green bar with black text

Green bar with black text

IMHO it makes it much easier to know what panel you have selected.

SamK wrote: In general terms I have a disticnt preference for dual panel file managers. Surprisingly, it is not the case with SpaceFM as it can make the interface appear"busy" when used simultaneously with the Device Pane. Depending upon the user, I often set this up as either:

• Device Pane + Single Panel File Browser
• No Device Pane + Dual Panel File Browser

If SpaceFM is set to iconview by default, it does not make it look much more busy IMO. It does not seem to take up much more space than 1 pane in icon view. Of course I always have my file manager open full screen so there is a bit more room to work with. I can see it being cluttered when used in a smaller window. However I feel dual pane is a very important / helpfull feature so I thought I might make mention of it __{{emoticon}}__

SamK wrote: What I would like to have available is a button or menu option that switches the entire SpaceFM display between pre-configured views. This would be preferable to the current method of sequentially adding or subtracting a File Browser panel to/from the current view. It would also dispense with individually switching on/off the Devices/Directory Tree/Bookmarks views for each File Browser Panel.

This may be possible using the"tools" menu in spacefm and some form of a script to switch the default configs. Then it would also give the ability to tweak each default view if needed. However I am not completely convinced this is the best meathod.... As I feel most of the changes are slight. I could see it being beneficial if there are a large number of changes. Of course most of the tweaking I see as minor now that I am use to spacefm.... but when I first started using it I kept going back to thunar / pcmanfm because of all the tweaking needed. Maybe if we made options in the tools menu like

• 1. Thunar Clone
  2. PCmanFM Clone
  3. Sunflower Clone
  4. etc.....

it may ease the"transition period" similar to that of which I felt

Another change that I make (because it irritates me when the window changes structure) is to keep a couple of lines of the task manager open at the bottom of the screen. That way it never changes size and if I need to see more than 2-3 queued tasks I can always scroll down to the next couple of lines.

I like Dave's suggestion on the color tab. I don't know about green... __{{emoticon}}__ but I often select the wrong window and I think Dave's suggestion would help with that.

I'm also kind of getting into connectshares a little bit. It would be very easy to integrate into spacefm as well via the"add new command" customization. I have my home network setup this way right now.

Dave wrote:Ok while taking screenshots, I relized that the selection bar is really called the status bar.

Now I see what you mean.

I can't help thinking that the matter is partly a product of the default
SimplyGrey icon theme that antiX ships with. It produces a grey tick
image on a grey background.

Changing the icon theme can change not only the icon image but also
its colour. It seems to achieve the goal of easier identification of the
active panel but in a less blatant way.

I seem to recall there was some discussion of changing the default icon
theme in the run up to releasing 13. I always change it. Perhaps the
change within the ISO is still in the works.

Dave wrote:

• 1. Thunar Clone
  2. PCmanFM Clone
  3. Sunflower Clone
  4. etc.....

I'm not sure about the naming convention.

• The names will only be recognized by Linux users
• The names will only have meaning to users that have used the named file manager
• There may be a maintenance overhead. As the clone view mimics the layout of a
  specified file manager it may have to be updated if the source changes its layout

Perhaps a more generic approach...

1. antiX Layout 1
2. antiX Layout 2
3. antiX Layout 3
4. antiX Layout 4

Or maybe a single button that sequentially steps through the available layouts (if that is
possible).

To make the changes requested here so we have a better default SpaceFM would mean editing some files and putting them in etc/skel.
So which files and what do we put in them? __{{emoticon}}__

Since I started the thread, I'll throw in two cents.

1. Keep 1,2,3,and 4 from the oroginal post as stated.
2. Item 8 - forget about the mountshare plugin. It has a tendency to fail anyway. (regards to SamK)
3. Change the color of the active status bar to help differentiation of the active window, per Dave's suggestion.
4. Keep the tab bar and panel bar (checkmarks) per SamK and Dave's preference. I've actually grown accustomed to the tab bar now, but I still tend to turn off the panel bar. As this is extermely easy, I say keep it in place by default.

Now for some possibly sticky points.

Items 5 and 6 - My opinion is that the mount and unmount commands be set to"auto".
Item 7 - add cifs and nfs to allowed file systems of udevil.conf.

These two items above allow spacefm the most flexibility for the user. being able to mount or at least access a network share is getting to be a standard item of linux filebrowers. just take a look at thunar, pcmanfm, and nautilus. rox doesn't really give you a method for this beyond using connectshares (which I'm a huge fan of), so I think spacefm should be able to.

As far as where the files are located, the spacefm settings are store in ~/.config/spacefm/ in a sessions file and bookmarks. This whole directory should be copied to / etc/skel (which works fine on my persistent usb stick). The sessions file is not really designed to be edited by the user directly, so all changes should be made in the spacefm gui.

udevil.conf is in / etc/udevil/

I've attached a screenshot of a sample two panel config (thanks SamK and Dave) that is very useful and uses the suggestions above.

Sorry to be a squeaky wheel here, but the suggested"let's micromanage the default spacefm configuration" details don't suit me.
I never use"icon view".
I seldom maintain dual pane view ~~ interferes with seeing see lastModified etc column content.
I believe"automounting all drives" has security security implications.
A"tweaking your spacefm settings for fun and profit" tutorial (instead of messing with the defaults) would be great.

Of all the details mentioned, probably the only"safe to presume it would be universally welcomed" change
is setting a highlight color for selected pane in the spacefm status bar
BUT
it would NOT be universally welcomed. About 23% of adult males have some degree of colorblindness.
For us, your"dayglo kermit green" behind the statusbar text will be perceived as gray-on-gray
instead of the high-contrast, as-packaged, default.