Personally, I think this version is looking way better then the previous one.
It has more structure, and it's finally obvious what the defrag button does (checked or whole drive).

But I think there's still too much white space on the first tab..

Any other reactions?

The empty space was one of the first things I noticed with RC1. I hope they fix it somehow.

I like the look a lot better. I still prefer the white box to the dialog box, however. On the file list tab I notice a very small amount of excess whitespace, and though not a huge problem, I think the file list box should be expanded to fit the entire tab so no whitespace exists. Regarding the other tab, just shrink the window and the problem is solved.

I'm glad to see the whole drive and space option, very welcomed features.

I agree that the GUI is looking decent again - I didn't much like the changes in RC1. My main niggle now is that the disk-space pie chart is unnecessary - I don't need this program to give me that information. If there is going to be a chart, one showing percentage fragmentation would be more helpful, please.

Defraggler Version 1.02.078 RC2

The GUI on this new version [RC2] is much better than RC1
- thanks !

Having played about with it for a while, here are my observations
and suggestions regarding RC2:-

Pros:-

1) The drive list, drive map and the tabbed panel area [containing the
drive status/properties or file list] are all resizeable and the
settings are persisted between invocations of the program.
- So, for example, I can set it do that all of my drives appear
in the drive list without having to scroll: excellent !

2) I like the fact that the "Defrag" button now shows "Defrag Checked"
or "Defrag Highlighted" according to whether one has checked or
highlighted fragmented files. Good !

3) I note that when "re-analysing" a drive that has been previously
analysed, that Defraggler just does it, without asking whether
the user really wants to do it. That suits me, because it's
one fewer click, and it's perfectly obvious on the "status" panel
whether or not a drive has been previously analysed.

Cons:-

1) I'm still not convinced of the need for the current tabbed panel.
- At least not in it's current form [see "Suggestions" ;-) ]
The Status/Properties information is of some use, but could be
tucked away elsewhere on the display [more of this later...].

2) I do not like the progress dialogue box when defragging selected
files: I prefer the simple small white progress window that was
used up to version 1.01.073 partly as a matter of style but mostly
because the old progress window was updated in a separate thread,
such that the file list could be scrolled whilst defragging was
taking place. This is not possible with the new progress dialogue
box. But much more important is the fact that the one can't even
minimise the Defraggler window whilst it is defragging selected
files !

3) Whilst I welcome the way that the label on the "Defrag" button
changes to "Defrag Checked" and "Defrag Highlighted" where
appropriate, I believe that the default label should be
"Defrag Drive", because that is what it would do !

Suggestions:-

1) Change the default label on the "Defrag" button to "Defrag Drive".

2) Reinstate the old simple progress window when defragging files.

3) Do away with the current Drive/File List tabbed panel and leave
this area to always show the file list (as before RC1).

4) OK, so the above was trivial; this next bit may require a bit of
concentration/imagination :-
Trim down the information in the current "Status" and "Properties"
panel and combine these two into a tabbed panel to the right of the
"Drive List" window, where there is currently white space.
This could be set (for example) to default to show the "Properties"
information at startup for the drive selected in the Drive List.
This would allow users to simply select other drives to view the
disk usage if they so wish [most often they won't].
=> But upon effecting an "Analyse" or defrag, this new tabbed panel
should change over to show the "Status information" for the
currently selected drive, which would be more useful to the user
having effected such an action. And, of course, as this new panel
would be tabbed, the user could flip between those if s/he so
chooses.

As for point (4), I've uploaded a couple of images (compressed in
a ZIP archive) to demonstrate the sort of thing I'm suggesting.
They're far from perfect, but should give the idea...

Well then, all: what are your opinions on these observations and
suggestions ?

ok this looks much better
it is obvious that most people do not like the new tabbed look
Perhaps a compromise would be to have the default focus on the file tab instead of on the drive tab
(or perhaps to keep the focus on the last used tab) .
In this case it looks pretty much to the earlier versions we are accustomed to like so much.

thanks for the quick fix anyway

hey thm.. I think that will be a helpful review
The alternatives that you show us on the screen could be useful..
what do you think of the one I made?

http://forum.piriform.com/index.php?showto...16186&st=31

it still has some free space though..

Here is my concept UI for Defraggler:

http://i28.tinypic.com/103ssjr.jpg

@Tottel (post #8) & "anonymous user" (post #9)...

Yup, I like both those alternative suggestions too, although they probably require a bit more screen space to keep a decent view of the file list. That's OK for me, as I'm lucky enough to have a nice *big* monitor !

I suggest removing the tabs as well, going back to the old layout, and then add the option to not have a horizontal split, but a vertical split. it would be much more efficient space usage for widescreen displays, as most are nowadays.

That way, the file list would be completely from top to bottom, and the fragmentation-display would have quite a big view area, allowing for a good detailed view what's going on.

Oh, and some options would be nice, like, not reporting that some files could not be defragmented. I can see that in the file list myself (It could get highlighted, thought).

I can set up a fake image to show my idea.

http://davepermen.net/Defraggler_QuickAdjust.png

Thats the idea.

Further I'd suggest removing the menu from the top and putting it down to the other buttons, open up the menu on click on the Action Button. The List with the Disks should be a ComboBox (dropdown), and on the Side, there could be additional info about the current selected disk.

This would further reduce unused space. Statusbar could be removed at the bottom and moved to the additional info at the top-right as well.

I can mock this up later in visual studio.

I really like defraggler. I just think it doesn't really have the perfect ui yet. And the direction, in which it gets developped, is definitely the wrong one. Looking a bit bloaty right now.

In my humble opinion I think the GUI should have been left alone at version 1.01.073. It didn't have all the non sense the newer versions after this one has which means yes its by far the fastest to defrag. Why must we look at a"pretty" GUI? I want a program that does the job and does it quick! I don't care to see roses all over it. Some of the best programs where made with simplicity in mind. So please Piriform think of your original goal when you made version 1.01.073 and bring it back! I would have only changed any bugs that made it crash and left it as is. But if these people MUST have their pretty GUI then at least make it as an option to switch between the two like make the older GUI an advanced option. I think others will agree though that since then defragging with defraggler is as slow as using windows defragmentation tool. So why use the newest defraggler?

BTW davepermen I like the idea of your GUI being the same as the version I'm talking about just different layout which I prefer the old layout still but your idea would still be great being that it could be a choice the user could make in the program.

the advantage of the new layout would be to be able to see much more files on widescreen displays (espencially 1280x800 which a lot of notebook users have) while not having to miss the defragmentation image, which shows the disks state.

i hate widescreen displays (much less usable real estate by default, as we normally always read and work from top to bottom), but defraggler would be a n app that would perfectly fit into the needs of a widescreen display to show it's information the fullest.

but having it as an option (split vertical / split horizontal) would be great, too.

just forget the tabs. they are useless and stupid.