Since the Kickstarter campaign I have received hundreds of user feedbacks that challenged me both from User Experience Designer and from Developer perspective. Developing the program beyond concepts I have set for the campaign and during constant interaction with program users I have realized that some of the early decisions have costed me future extendibility. That fact along with many WPF limitations of which I was not aware have forced me to make many improvisations which I was not happy about.

One of the most common feedbacks was request for more vertical space for files and folders on laptop screens. Users were concerned with information density. Limitation on how Windows treats custom windows prevented me from using title bar space for more useful interactions that even further reduced usable vertical space.

45.6% of users voted to merge files and folders into the same list. Since I was merging them I wanted to go further and enable mixed sorting of files and folders.

There were many feedback requests to make OC dual-pane as many other commanders but with advantages that OC had. Even 29% of OC users requested it.

Since none of these changes were possible with current program architecture I have decided to rewrite most of the program. Splitting spare time between continuing development v1 and writing v2, I have managed to have first beta within 6 months.
Since majority still preferred columns view of v1 instead of dual-pane, I decided to make layout so flexible that I could easily have both.

One of realizations were that many novice users have found the interface too drastically different from Windows Explorer they were used to. I have decided to make default layout similar to Explorer's without the ribbon and to have general look similar to Microsoft Edge including the tab bar. Since Miller's columns were main feature I kept them as a richer implementation of Explorer's path breadcrumbs.

Some other features I have been experimenting with are 4-quadrants menus, directory watcher panel, and other usability improvements.

Find out more about the project and download the application http://onecommander.com/blog

 

Miloš Paripović