Feature: Add setting to always auto size columns to fit

[welles]

What's the Problem?

Like in the native file explorer, you have to manually resize columns or click 'Size all columns to fit' when working with very long / short file names

Requirements

• Add setting to always auto size columns to fit
• Entering a directory triggers auto size
• Adding / removing a file or folder triggers auto size
• Renaming a file or folder triggers auto size

Alternatives

There could be a hotkey to 'resize to fit' all columns in the current view, which would already be an improvement over having to right-click the column header bar and select 'Size All Columns To Fit'

[ELowry]

Here are a few possibilities worth considering:

1. Using a system to store the desired column width as a percentage once set; so resizing columns would keep that percentage value regardless of the window size. This has the disadvantage of not playing well with smaller windows; so having a—possibly configurable—"minimum width" could solve the issue.
2. Automatically setting the size of date/size columns based on the "typical" maximum value they should reach. This could let the Name column fill up all remaining space by default. A user-defined "minimum-width" for the Name column would prevent issues with narrow windows.
   • Ex: The longest day would be Wednesday, September 30, 2022 in the "system" style; which has a fixed width
   • Ex: The longest file size would be 900.00?B since anything with one more digit would roll over to the next unit.

[notDavid]

I think this will be useful for reference, the corresponding Directory Opus settings:

1. DOpus ( Archive )

Auto-size columns: This option causes column widths in details and power mode to be automatically sized to fit their contents. Instead of using this option, which affects all columns, you can also configure this on a per-column basis on the Columns tab.

2. DOpus ( Archive )

The Width column in the fields list lets you specify the width for individual columns. If the Auto-size all columns option on the Display tab (see below) is turned on, all columns will be shown with their widths as Auto (and grayed out to indicate that option is in effect) - editing an individual column's width will automatically turn off the Auto-size all columns option.

The options are:
Auto: Automatically size this column. This has the same effect as the Auto-size all columns option on the Display tab, but lets you apply it on a per-column basis.

Expand: Automatically sizes the column the same as Auto. The difference is the widths of Expand columns are ignored in the calculation of Fill columns (see below), and columns set to Expand will go off the right hand side of the file display rather than making Collapse columns start to collapse.

Collapse: Automatically sizes the column, but its width is able to collapse (down to zero width if necessary) to allow other fields to fit without horizontal scrollbars appearing. For example, you might want the Description column displayed, but not have it force other fields off the edge of the file display. Setting it to Collapse means it will only appear if there’s space for it.

Fill: Columns set to fill will be automatically sized to fill any available horizontal space in the file display. If there is more than one Fill column they divide the available space between them. Columns set to Fill can potentially end up wider than they need to be (contrast with Auto + Fill described below).

You can also enter a desired pixel width into the Width field.

[yaira2]

If there was an option to always auto size columns and you overrode a columns width, would you expect it to auto size the next time you navigated to the same directory?

[intergrav]

+1, I keep running into this issue where there is a big empty space in the file type area / name and it drives me crazy lol

You could fit a lot more if this were added.

[yaira2]

@intergrav we can solve that independently from this request by changing the default width of the type column.

[yaira2]

Adding / removing a file or folder triggers auto size
Renaming a file or folder triggers auto size

These can affect performance, I wonder if a hot key is the better way to do this.

[github59173]

I find it odd that this hasn't been added, nor has Windows directly added this functionality, even though a large number of users have requested it from Microsoft for over a decade. I might not be looking in the right places, but this is the best file manager look-alike I have seen for Windows 11, and this feature hasn't been added?

[Draise14]

Yeah, this too would be very nice. I found the unresponsive column width loosing a lot of space specially on widescreens.