Cloning the real Explorer's features-Features and Bugs

[xpclient]

Past suggestions (already present in latest version):
- The Views button should cycle through various views, only clicking the dropdown arrow beside the button should show the menu.

Few suggestions:
- Calculate the folder size correctly. At least on Windows 7 (not tested on other OSes), folder size is incorrectly calculated. The folder size shown should be either size on disk and it should be correctly calculated.
- Thumbnails for video formats if DirectShow/Media Foundation codecs are installed.
- Newly created or pasted files should be selected automatically. Newly created folder should be renameable.
- Large (24 x 24 icon) main toolbar buttons with text labels.
- Selecting an item in the left pane causes Cut, Copy, Paste, Delete, Properties, Copy To, Move To to remain grayed out/unavailable. These should be enabled in either pane.
- Integration with the Start -> Run box so Explorer++ launches when we type a path into the Run dialog box
- Breadcrumbs bar and dragging and dropping onto the breadcrumbs bar
- A search pane with fast and simple search like Windows XP (I know this is a shell feature rather than a feature of the file manager, or maybe integration with a free excellent replacement like Agent Ransack since Vista's search is indexing-oriented)
- Map network drive and Disconnnect network drive
- Intuitive file name sorting introduced in Windows XP onwards (like for filenames 1 to 10, 10 comes after 9 instead of between 1 and 2, that is as an example, instead of 1,10,2,22,3 it should be 1,2,3,10,22
- Showing encrypted or compressed NTFS files in green and blue colors
- Keyboard context menu key doesn't work, keyboard selection using Ctrl+Space doesn't work
- The "Share With", "Include in Library" and "Send To" context menus doesn't work on Windows 7
- Creating a new folder, any new file or shortcut succeeds however you can't do anything with the newly created folder or shortcuts until the view is refreshed.
- The Details pane needs to show a whole lot more metadata and in-place editing of metadata. Tiles view also doesn't display extra info as the real Explorer does.
- A "Remove Properties" menu item is missing which is there on Vista/7's Explorer's Organize dropdown menu. "Customize this folder" is also missing although it can be accessed from the item's properties.
- Would it hard to implement a "Preview Pane"?
- Support for icon sizes above 48 x 48 (Tiles View)
- More Categories (e.g. Date created is missing) in "Select columns"
- Grouping items and "Group By" menu
- Command line switches/parameters, important ones like /e <pathname>
- Any left drag action should get cancelled with right click like Esc does
- Implement right click drag
- Remember each folder view settings (If I set Thumbnail view for Pictures, it should only stay for Pictures folder). Other folders should follow the "Default View" setting.
- The File selection filter as an movable and editable text field/box next to the menu bar.
- A Search box (powered by Windows Search in the backend or initially just a file selection filter like the one on the View menu of Explorer++. Also the ability to create a virtual folder.
- Checkbox selection for any view
- A newly created folder should be renamable upon creation
- Dragging and dropping from the address bar icon to create a shortcut
- Exploring Control Panel should only list the items which are "Folders" (Admin Tools, Network Connections, Printers, Fonts) in the left pane
- A collapsible Favorites/Bookmarks pane in the left pane
- Support for browing FTP, WebDAV and NFS shares.
- Special buttons for libraries/special folders -> Play All for Music and Videos, Slideshow for Pictures

Explorer++ is now my primary file manager replacing the horrible Windows Explorer in Windows 7.

[preechaw]

For Folder shell integration, you may find this Registry import file useful.

(Warning: Registry manipulation can be a harmful activity. Use the file carefully at your own risk.)

Now, I'm using it to launch Explorer++ from the Run dialog.

Don't forget to copy explorer++.exe into c:\windows in order to use the Registry import file.

Cheers!

[xpclient]

Hey thanks so much!!!!!

[David Erceg]

Hi xpclient, thanks for all the suggestions, they are definitely appreciated

And nice work with the registry import file preechaw!

[xpclient]

That registry tweak unfortunately breaks all Control panel applets and other areas of the OS that use the shell namespace.

[David Erceg]

At the moment, Explorer++ can only open real filesystem paths passed from the shell. I'm actively working on getting this working properly (so that all paths are recognised) for the next version. Also, in the future, Explorer++ will not attempt to open any items in the Control Panel in-place. If you want to remove Explorer++ as the default file manager (but still keep it on the context menu), see the "default file manager" post within the help and support section of this board for information on the various registry keys.

[preechaw]

If you like to use ++ in normal situations, you may keep the registry tweak and explicitly choose 'Open' from the context menu for special folders like 'Recycle Bin', 'My Network Places', etc that ++ does not yet handle.

If you want to undo the tweak, follow these steps:

1. Launch Registry Editor (regedit.exe).
2. Locate the key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\Folder\shell.
3. Change the (Default) value on the right pane to 'open' by double-clicking it and type 'open' and click OK.
4. If you no longer want to see the 'Open with Explorer++' command, delete the key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\Folder\shell\explorerplusplus.

Cheers!

[sun]

There are some really good, but also some highly debatable suggestions here. The really good ones don't necessarily need discussion (just a lot of work, I guess), but the highly debatable ones should be turned into configurable options (if at all).

+1 on:

- Newly created or pasted files should be selected automatically. Newly created folder should be renameable.
- A newly created folder should be renamable upon creation
- Intuitive file name sorting introduced in Windows XP onwards (like for filenames 1 to 10, 10 comes after 9 instead of between 1 and 2, that is as an example, instead of 1,10,2,22,3 it should be 1,2,3,10,22

Explorer++ is now my primary file manager replacing the horrible Windows Explorer in Windows 7.

Yes, these sound nice to have.

- A collapsible Favorites/Bookmarks pane in the left pane

However, requires a lot of work to get it right. For example, Cubic Explorer implements bookmarks as a collapsible pane, but it gets in your way too often. Would have to auto-hide after 1 second of hovering out with the mouse -- and it gets even more complex when considering keyboard-only users.

-1 (or highly debatable) on:

- Calculate the folder size correctly. At least on Windows 7 (not tested on other OSes), folder size is incorrectly calculated. The folder size shown should be either size on disk and it should be correctly calculated.

There are plain simply better tools for the job - first and foremost: TreeSize.

- Thumbnails for video formats if DirectShow/Media Foundation codecs are installed.

Can quickly turn into a performance disaster.

- Large (24 x 24 icon) main toolbar buttons with text labels.

Extreme loss of screen estate.

- Selecting an item in the left pane causes Cut, Copy, Paste, Delete, Properties, Copy To, Move To to remain grayed out/unavailable. These should be enabled in either pane.

I'd never expect those operations to work in the tree view in the first place.

- A search pane with fast and simple search like Windows XP (I know this is a shell feature rather than a feature of the file manager, or maybe integration with a free excellent replacement like Agent Ransack since Vista's search is indexing-oriented)
- Would it hard to implement a "Preview Pane"?
- Support for icon sizes above 48 x 48 (Tiles View)
- The File selection filter as an movable and editable text field/box next to the menu bar.
- A Search box (powered by Windows Search in the backend or initially just a file selection filter like the one on the View menu of Explorer++. Also the ability to create a virtual folder.
- Special buttons for libraries/special folders -> Play All for Music and Videos, Slideshow for Pictures

Not everyone likes that media/preview stuff. This rather suggests a plugin/add-on framework.

- The Details pane needs to show a whole lot more metadata and in-place editing of metadata. Tiles view also doesn't display extra info as the real Explorer does.
- A "Remove Properties" menu item is missing which is there on Vista/7's Explorer's Organize dropdown menu. "Customize this folder" is also missing although it can be accessed from the item's properties.
- More Categories (e.g. Date created is missing) in "Select columns"

Some people prefer to just have simple and consistent name, modified, size, and description columns everywhere.

- Support for browing FTP, WebDAV and NFS shares.

-1000 on this. (unless it would be an optional plugin) You can use dedicated tools like Webdrive and others to mount network locations as drives to explore and work in them. Mastering that task is black art of its own and also involves to care about countless of details you'd otherwise wouldn't have to care at all for -- I can only recommend to have a quick glance at the amount of security/compatibility options that these tools (necessarily) need to provide. A file manager like Explorer++ should focus on its primary goal.

Cannot reproduce:

- Keyboard context menu key doesn't work, keyboard selection using Ctrl+Space doesn't work
- The "Share With", "Include in Library" and "Send To" context menus doesn't work on Windows 7
- Creating a new folder, any new file or shortcut succeeds however you can't do anything with the newly created folder or shortcuts until the view is refreshed.
- Grouping items and "Group By" menu
- Command line switches/parameters, important ones like /e <pathname>
- Any left drag action should get cancelled with right click like Esc does
- Implement right click drag
- Checkbox selection for any view
- Exploring Control Panel should only list the items which are "Folders" (Admin Tools, Network Connections, Printers, Fonts) in the left pane

It looks like these have been fixed already.