Active/Inactive

The terms active and inactive are used to refer to file panels.  The active file panel is the file panel that has Windows focus and is currently being used (or acted upon).  All other file panels are inactive.


Focused

Generally in Windows the control that is active is considered to have focus.  For use in this document focus will only refer to the item in the active file panel that is currently being pointed to by the cursor/selection bar.  It is the item (a file or folder) in the active file panel that has the Windows focus.  Please note that some configuration items in the program refer to focused and selected items and are referring to selected items in the active file panel.


Selected

Selected items are items in a file panel that have been marked for action.  This can be from zero to all items in the file panel.  Selected items are used by drag and drop, program commands, or the shell context menu.

Selected items will normally be displayed differently (see the section Configuration/Fonts and Colors for settings information).  Most of the time the item with focus will also be considered selected (and will be displayed appropriately).

Mouse Wheel

The mouse wheel can be used to scroll the list of items in the file panel.  Using the mouse wheel does not effect item selection.


Right Click

Right clicking on an item (or multiple if more than one item is selected) will display the Windows Shell context menu which will be specific to the file or folder type that is currently selected.

Right clicking on a scroll bar in the file panel will display a context menu with scroll options.


Left Click

Left clicking on an item in the file panel will set that item as focused and selected.  Left clicking on an item will also clear the selected status of all other items in the file panel.

Left clicking on an empty area in the file panel (either below all of the folders and files, or to the right of all items) will clear the  the selected state of all items in the file panel.  The focus will remain on the last focused item.


[Ctrl] Left Click

Left clicking on an item in the file panel while holding down the [Ctrl] key will toggle the selected state of that item (ie. selected items will become unselected and unselected items will become selected).


[Shift] Left Click

Left Clicking while holding the [Shift] key down will select all file panel items (both folders and files inclusive) between the focused item and the item being clicked.


Double Left Click

Double clicking on a folder or reparse point (symbolic link) will change the folder displayed in the file panel to the item that is double clicked.

Double clicking on a file will open that file using the Windows Shell (opens the file with the default associated program or will execute the program if it is an executable file).


Middle Click

Clicking the middle mouse button on a folder in a File Panel will open that folder in a new tab in the active file panel

[Alt] Key

Tapping the [Alt] key, if the Main Menu Toolbar is visible, will activate it.  Selected items are not affected by this action.  Pressing the [Esc] key from the Main Menu Toolbar or executing a toolbar command will return focus to the active file panel.


[Esc] Key

Pressing the [Esc] key in a file panel will terminate the effects of any filter that is currently in use in the current tab of the active file panel.  The panel will once again display the complete folder and file listing.  This keyboard action will also clear all selections.


[Tab] and [Shift][Tab] Keys

The [Tab] key will switch the active file panel to the next file panel.  This action does not effect selections in any of the file panels.


[Up] and [Down] Keys

The [Up] and [Down] arrow keys will change the focus to the next item in the file panel.  All selections will be cleared prior to this action unless the key results in no action (ie. pressing [Up] when on the first item on the list or pressing [Down] when on the last item in the list).

Using the [Up] and [Down] keys does not wrap (ie. if at the bottom of the first column of a multi-column list the [Down] key will not move to the top of the next column).

The newly focused item is also selected.


[Left] and [Right] Keys

The [Left] and [Right] arrow keys will change the focus to the item to the left or right of the current item in the file panel.  All selections will be cleared prior to the action.

Using the [Left] and [Right] keys does not wrap (ie. if at the right most column in the list the focus will not be changed to the first item on the next line of the list).

The newly focused item is selected.


[Alt][Left] and [Alt][Right] Keys

The [Alt][Left] and [Alt][Right] arrow keys will cycle though the history for the current tab of the active file [panel.  This is the same as the toolbar commands Backward and Forward.


[Pg Up] and [Pg Dn] Keys

The [Pg Up] and [Pg Dn] keys will change the focus to either the top or bottom of the current "page" or if at the top or bottom of the "page" will display the previous or next "page".  All selections will be cleared at the beginning of the operation.

The newly focused item is selected.


[Home] and [End] Keys

The [Home] and [End] keys will change the focus to either the first or last item in the folder being displayed in the surrent tab of the active file panel.  All selections will be cleared at the beginning of the operation.

The newly focused item is selected.


[Ctrl] with Cursor Keys

Holding the [Ctrl] key down while using the cursor keys will allow you to move the focus through the list of folders and files without affecting the selections.  

The newly focused item does not become selected.


[Shift] with Cursor Keys

Holding the [Shift] down while using the cursor keys will select all items between the last selected item and the newly focused item inclusively.  All previous selections are cleared prior to the operation.


[Enter] Key

Pressing the [Enter] key while the focus is on a folder or reparse point (symbolic link) will change the folder displayed in the file panel to the item that is focused.

Pressing the [Enter] key while the focus is on a file will open that file using the Windows Shell (opens the file with the default associated program or will execute the program if it is an executable file).


Printable Characters

Pressing any printable character key will activate the Command Line (see Using the Command Line for details).


[Alt] + Printable Characters

Pressing any printable character keys while holding down the [Alt] key (or [Shift] and [Alt] keys depending on the settings in the Configuration/Quick search (filter) section) will activate the Quick Search feature (see the Using Quick Search section for details).