Tabs

Directory Opus supports multiple tabs in each file display of a Lister, which means you can have multiple folders open at the same time, and rapidly switch between them to compare the contents, copy or move files from one to the other, or simply to provide quick access to multiple locations.

In the above screenshot, two tabs are open - the visible tab shows the My Pictures folder and the non-visible tab (if you were to switch to it) shows the Sample Pictures folder. To switch between tabs, simply click on the tab you want to become active. Using the keyboard, you can press Ctrl+Left and Ctrl+Right to move from one tab to the next.

Folder tabs are enabled by default - even if only one tab is actually open, the tab bar will be displayed at the bottom of the file display (or in a dual-display Lister, at the bottom of each file display). There are a number of options in the Folder Tabs / Options page of Preferences that let you control the folder tabs system. For example, you can configure it so that the tab bar is only displayed when there is more than one tab open.

There are a number of ways to open a new tab. By default, you can double-click an empty part of the tab bar (in the above screenshot, double-click anywhere to the right of the Sample Pictures tab) to open a new tab showing the current folder. You can also right-click on a folder and choose Open in new folder tab from the context menu, or hold the Alt key down when you double-click a folder to open it in a new tab. These behaviours can all be changed of course.

The Folder Options / Folder Tabs menu in the default toolbars contains a number of commands used to control tabs:

• New Tab for Current: Opens the current folder in a new tab.
• New Tab for Parent: Opens the parent of the current folder in a new tab.
• New Tabs for Selected: Opens any selected folders in new tabs (for example, selecting three sub-folders in the current folder and run this command, would result in three new tabs being opened showing those folders).
• New Tabs for Parents: Opens the parents of any selected items in new tabs. This is useful in a collection (e.g. Find Results) where the parent of the selected items is not necessarily the current folder.
• Tab Groups: This sub-menu lets you access any tab groups you have defined.
• Close Tab: Closes the current folder tab.
• Undo Close Tab: Re-opens the most recently closed folder tab.

You can manipulate a folder tab with the mouse in the following ways:

• You can switch between tabs by clicking on them with the left mouse button.
• Double-clicking a tab with the left button will close it (this can be disabled through Preferences).
• You can also click a tab with the middle-mouse button to close it.
• Dragging files from the current folder over another tab will copy or move them to that tab's folder. If you hover over the other tab without releasing the mouse button, that tab will be made active which lets you drop files into sub-folders within that tab.
• You can also drag and drop the folder tabs themselves - this lets you change the order they appear in the file display, and you can also move tabs from one file display to another (or one Lister to another) this way. You can create a duplicate of a tab by holding the Ctrl key down when you drag and drop the tab. You can also drag a tab out of a Lister and drop it on the desktop to open the folder in a new Lister.
• Normally tabs display the name of the folder they are showing, but if you click the left button on the label of the currently active tab, you are able to assign your own name to the tab. Once a tab has an assigned name it will not change even if you change folders in the tab. You can use several special "tokens" to insert information in the tab label:
  
          %P - full path of the current folder
          %N - name of the current folder
          %R - drive root of the current folder
          %% - insert a literal % character
• Right-clicking a tab displays the tab's context menu.

The tab context menu contains the following commands:
    

• Groups: This sub-menu lets you access any tab groups you have defined. You can also use this to save the current set of tabs as a new group. When selecting a group from this menu you can hold down either the Shift or the Ctrl keys to override the tab group's Close existing Folder Tabs setting; Shift means existing tabs will not be closed, Ctrl means they will.
• New tab: Opens a new tab using the settings in Preferences.
• Duplicate Tab: Opens a duplicate of the current tab.
• Duplicate Tab Above: Opens a duplicate of the current tab, in the other file display (depending on which file display you access this command from, 'above' may be 'below', 'left' or 'right').
• Move Tab Above: Moves the current tab to the other file display.
• Open Parent As Tab: Opens the parent of the current folder in a new tab.
• Open In New Lister: Opens the tab's folder in a new Lister.
• Split To New Lister: Splits this tab and any subsequent tabs to a new Lister (the existing tabs are closed, a new Lister is opened, and the tabs re-opened in the new Lister).
• Rename Tab: Assign your own name to the tab.
• Lock Tab: Lock or unlock the tab - see below for more information on locked tabs.
• Link Tab: Link or unlink the tab - see below for more information on linked tabs.
• Close Tabs To Left: Closes all tabs to the left of this tab.
• Close Tabs To Right: Closes all tabs to the right of this tab.
• Close All Other Tabs: Closes all open tabs except for this one.
• Close Tab: Closes this tab.

Note that most of these mouse actions can also be invoked using the Opus command set, which means you can also assign hotkeys to them. See the Go command for the full list of tab-related arguments you can use.

You can also hold various qualifier keys down to modify the linked state (see below for more details) of the clicked-on tab:

• Control-click a tab to link it with the active tab in the other file display (or, if already linked, unlink it).
• Control+Shift-click a tab to toggle slave mode on or off (see below).
• Shift-click a tab to override the normal behavior when clicking linked tabs (e.g., its partner tab will not come to the front as normal).

Linked tabs

In a dual-display Lister, a folder tab on one side of the Lister can be linked with a tab on the other side. When two tabs are linked, selecting one in the Lister to make it active automatically activates the linked tab too. Linked tabs are displayed in different colors from unlinked tabs, and you can configure these colors from the Display / Colors and Fonts page in preferences.

Slave tabs

You can also designate linked tabs as "slave" tabs, using the Slave Tab option in the context menu. When a tab is set as a "slave" it will automatically follow its "master" tab whenever the folder changes, in a similar manner to Navigation Lock.

The primary difference between slave tabs and Navigation Lock is what happens when the folder you navigate to in the master does not exist in the slave. Whereas Navigation Lock would go "out of sync" at this point, the slave tab will simply change to show the same folder that is shown in the master. (As an example of where that can be useful, you may wish to have a lister which displays its current folder as both Details and Thumbnails, side-by-side.)

Another difference between slave tabs and Navigation Lock is that Navigation Lock is always applied to whichever pair of tabs are currently active when the folder is changed, while slave tabs only affect a specific pair of tabs and do not do anything special when other tabs are showing.

You may choose to make both tabs in a pair slaves, in which case changing the folder in either tab will also change the folder in the other, or you may choose to only make one of the two takes a slave, in which case changes to the non-slave tab will affect both tabs while changes to the slave tab will only affect it.

Locked tabs

Folder tabs can be locked in a number of different ways. Primarily, when a tab is locked, it always displays the same folder. To lock a tab, right-click on it and choose a command from the context menu's Lock Tab menu. The different ways a tab can be locked are:

• Unlocked: The tab is not locked, meaning you can freely navigate away from the initial folder. 
• Locked: The tab is locked. Attempts to navigate away from the initial folder (that is, the folder that was displayed when you locked the tab) will cause a new tab to open, leaving the original tab unchanged.
• Locked (allow folder changes): The tab is locked, but you can navigate away from the initial folder. If you switch to another tab and then back again the original folder will be restored.
• Locked (reuse unlocked tab): The tab is locked. Attempts to navigate away from the initial folder will reuse an existing unlocked tab if one exists, otherwise a new tab will be opened.

You can also use the lock commands to lock or unlock multiple tabs at once - select the commands from the menu while holding down the following keys:

• Shift: Lock or unlock all tabs
• Ctrl: Lock or unlock the active tab and all other tabs to the right
• Ctrl + Shift: Lock or unlock the active tab and all tabs to the left