Thanks for your suggestions.

One last comment, note that the location profile may include only one of the paths.

Sorry about that. I kind of guessed my last 2 posts were confusing because they didn't seem to arrive at a clear conclusion/suggestion. But, I noticed that after I wrote them and didn't want to confuse things even more with a 3rd post..



Actually, I wasn't. The icon is 'open directory' icon; didn't think it would be related to bookmarks/shortcuts.

Now that I know what it does, it sort of answers my "I don't know how to access the 'Open Directory/Bookmark' functionality". But, that's about it --IOW, other issues still stand.



Again, 'Go To' is an inconsistency; IMO, it should have been called 'Open Directory/Bookmark'.



How ever wide you may make that dialog, there will always be a need for a wider one. This is basically due to the fact that you have no control on the length of path strings.

And, unfortunately, the most interesting part of a path string is the last part (the actual directory the user wishes to go); and if the user cannot see that last part, s/he will have to either horizontal scroll or do some guess work.

IOW, widening the dialog or adding a horizontal scrollbar to the listbox, IMHO, is user-friendly enough or long-term solution.

To me the most optimum solution (wrt user-friendliness) is to look a how browsers handle bookmarks in menus:

-- Let the user give a name (alias) to the path and display this a (sub)menu caption.
-- When a user moves the mouse over the (sub)menu caption, display the actual path on the status bar.



Actually, IMO, 'location profiles' (bookmark pairing) is also confusing and doesn't need a separate dialog. All of it could be handled with one bookmark dialog.

Here is what I would suggest.

Suppose you have a bookmark dialog with these fields:

-- Alias. (The name the user wishes to refer to this bookmark. Textbox. The user sees this as sub menus to the propsed Bookmarks menu.)
-- Remote path. (A memo)
-- Local path. (A memo)
-- Explanation (A memo. Useful if the user wishes to store some personal information about this alias.)

This dialog comes up when the user issues a 'Bookmark this' command and s/he has only to fill the 'alias' field.

Now, if 'Remote path' and 'Local path' are present, it is then a 'paired bookmark'; otherwise local or remote only.

An menu item icon hinting at whether this bookmark is paired/local/remote would of course be nice.



That may be so, but it still is a little too convoluted I think.

First, I don't see a need for 'location profiles' if it only means 'paired bookmarks'.

Secondly, in my 'location profiles' dialog I see entries I know that aren't 'paired'; so it kind of defeats the 'paired bookmarks' logic.

Thirdly, it isn't very intuitive as to what will happen if I rename an entry: Will I remove the path information, or will it simply re-alias it?

[Having tried it now, I know that it will only re-alias it, but I sill find it too convoluted/unintuitive. User should be given one dialog at the time of creating the bookmark (see above) and there s/he should be able to give that alias.]

{BTW, if you feel I am being a pain by appearing to be a back-seat driver, please tell me so. I will stop pestering you about this }

I'm bit confused by the your post, so I may not answer all the issues raised, but will try:
1) Are you aware of the "open directory/bookmark" icon on the toolbar?
2) The functionality in the main menu can be found under "Local / Remote > Go To > ..."
3) The size of bookmarks dialog should be expanded with long path. Though it never exceeds 700 pixel. I may raise this limit if it is not enough.
4) Clicking "Bookmarks": Expectation here is that you either use bookmarks or location profiles, not both. So WinSCP remembers what mode did you use the last time and when running "open directory/bookmark" command it opens the respective dialog. So in general you do need to do this "step".
5) Again: You can give a custom name to the location profile!

One more thing:

ATM, this is what I am having to do:

A) When using the context menu

1 - Left click
2 - Select 'Open Directory/Bookmark'
3 - Do some mental processing and guesswork since some paths are longer that what's displayed in the listbox, I have to select each candidate to see what exactly they are.
4 - Click OK or press Enter.

B) When using the main menu

I don't know how to access the 'Open Directory/Bookmark' functionality.

C) When using the main menu

1 - Press Ctrl+O
2 - Opens 'Location Profiles'. For 'Bookmarks' you need to click the 'Bookmarks' button. OK, I know this is nit picking a bit, but we're talking about user interfaces.

3 - Do some mental processing and guesswork since some paths are longer that what's displayed in the listbox, I have to select each candidate to see what exactly they are.
4 - Click OK or press Enter.

All in all, it is the 'step 4' that is the most expensive: Displaying (truncated) paths and not their user-given aliases make life harder for user.

Having said all that, don't get me wrong: I am more than grateful for your efforts with WinSCP. I can, of course, live without Bookmarks in WinSCP.

Yes, I am aware of that. But, that comes about because WinSCP 'explore's both the local and remote machines, as a result of which there has to be 2 different categories of 'Bookmarks' (local/remote) in order to eliminate any potential ambiguities.

Btw, are you aware that this would involve more clicks than the current approach?

This request has been added to tracker.

Will consider this.

One more thing, if I may:

Could you add something like 'Bookmark This' to the context menu; or better still change the name of 'Open Directory/Bookmark' to 'Bookmark This'.

Actually, when I sit back and think about it, it seems we need a 'Manage Bookmarks' functionality (submenu) as well as 'Bookmark This'.

Thank you.

From user's point of view, I think it would be much better if we had a top-level (main) menu item called 'Bookmarks' and under it two hard-wired submenus: 'Local' and 'Remote'.

And, since every other app out there let's us give a name to bookmarks, I think you should also consider 'nameable' bookmarks.

http://winscp.net/eng/docs/task_navigate#bookmarks


Bookmarks cannot have a name. Though location profiles can.

This is probably answered somewhere but I couldn't find it.

Here's my quip:

OK, so --it seems-- I can bookmark a folder/directory. This is great.

But..

1) How do I go that bookmarked folder again?

I can't find any 'Bookmarks' menu anywhere.

2) How can I (re)name that bookmark?

I mean, say I want it display 'My Home' instead of (say) '/home/me'