I have some enhancements to Dired that I offer to Emacs
developers.  They are in the attached file, dired+.el, which
is also here:
http://www.emacswiki.org/cgi-bin/emacs/dired+.el.  A
description is here (and some of it is repeated below):
http://www.emacswiki.org/cgi-bin/wiki/DiredPlus.

Don't think of this as a standalone library to be added to
Emacs as is.  Think of it as snippets of code, some of which
you might want to adapt or adopt.

I will not spend an inordinate amount of time discussing
each of the enhancements, possible changes to them, or
possible combinations of them.  If someone finds one or more
of the enhancements useful and wants to add those, fine.  If
not, fine.  If you like some idea but you want to implement
it differently, fine - go for it.  I won't spend time
recoding, repackaging, chopping up, or integrating any of
this. I won't propose patches.

If someone else wants to do any of that, fine.  If not,
fine. If no one wants to look at the code, fine.  Your time
is limited, and so is mine.  I am willing to answer
clarification questions.

FWIW, I and some others have been using this code for almost
a decade.  I think it is useful, but I won't try to convince
anyone of that.

----

For those who still have no Web access, I've attached a
screenshot, and I list here some of the enhancements:

* Changes some key bindings and menus.

* Adds some new commands.

* Adds a context-sensitive popup menu on `mouse-3'. The menu
  differs, depending on whether or not a region is active.

* Provides more mouse utility - you can select a region,
  then operate on its files. Alternative ways to select
  (mark) multiple files:

  . drag a region, then choose Mark in the popup menu
  . click, then Shift-click, as in Windows Explorer
  . Control-click, as in Windows Explorer (alternately marks
    and unmarks the file)

* Provides fancy highlighting (customizable through user
  variables).

  . You can see immediately if a file has the wrong
    permissions (e.g. writable or executable when it
    shouldn't be).

  . Less important files (defined by variable
    dired-omit-extensions or completion-ignored-extensions)
    are in a subdued face; other files stand out more. To
    hide less important files altogether, use `M-o' (it's a
    toggle).

About the highlighting -

* Different faces are used for:

  . file extension
  . file name
  . directory name
  . file size
  . time and date
  . file permissions: a different face for each kind of
    permission (rwx-)

* File and directory names can contain spaces - the entire
  name is highlighted.

* The entire line of a less important file is lowlighted.

* When a file is marked, the entire line is highlighted.

* Files that are marked and files that are flagged for
  deletion have the mark/flag highlighted differently.

* The entire line is highlighted on mouse-over, regardless
  of where on the line the mouse is. Click `mouse-2'
  anywhere on the line to open its file or directory.

* When the popup `mouse-3' menu is displayed, the line it
  pertains to is selected (`region' face).