
I prefer InfoSelect myself, but it is a strange kind of PIM. 



Well, a few things might help you like the 3.1 File Manager better.

1) To get more than one window simply double click on a drive icon.
   That it only gives you one window to work with is a fallacy. You
   can drag files between windows, to any icon on the tree on the left
   side of the window, and to any drive icon. This beats your "left
   and right window" as you can have as many open as you wish instead 
   of just two.

2) You can launch any app from within File Manager by double clicking
   on the executable's icon.

3) You can launch any application and open a document file by double
   clicking on the document file's icon, provided you have
   associations set correctly. This is easily done with the menus. The
   "browse" capability adds a lot of functionality to 3.1. So if you
   name all your text files with .txt and point all GIF, TIFF, etc.
   files towards Paintshop or WinGIF, this takes care of your
   requirement for "text reading and graphics viewing".

I know someone who prefers using File Manager as his shell. Setting up
all the associations you need is the way to do it.

If Directory Opus is half as good as File Manager then it must be
pretty good indeed! File Manager just needs you to understand how
some things are done.










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