Explorer++ 1.4.0

Includes all changes from 1.4.0 beta and 1.4.0 beta 2.

Explorer++ 1.4.0 beta 2

Bug fixes

• In certain situations, the application could crash when closing a tab. See #252.
• If the main toolbar was moved below the address bar, the application would crash when selecting the address bar.
• A column present in version 1.3.5 was removed in an earlier development version. If a user ran version 1.3.5 and then updated to 1.4 beta 1, the application could crash when opening the "This PC" folder (due to the removed column no longer being valid).
• A large number of memory leaks in the XML load/save code have been fixed.
• Previously, not all columns were being saved to the XML config file properly.
• Some thumbnails weren't being retrieved correctly (e.g. PDF thumbnails).
• The set default columns dialog wasn't saving changes that were made. See #215.
• The "New Tab" jumplist item wasn't working correctly.
• Paths ending in backslashes weren't being parsed correctly when passed via the command line. See #202.
• The display window size was sometimes set incorrectly when resizing it. See #233.
• The text for a column wasn't always being retrieved correctly.
• Previously, even if another column was moved into the first position, the first column would still always have its text set to the name of each item. See #194.
• The 48x48 move to icon wasn't being displayed correctly.
• The size of the 48x48 refresh icon wasn't correct.

Misc

• Seconds are now shown again when displaying dates. See #149.
• An error message is now displayed when opening an item on the application toolbar fails. See #145.
• Due to the way in which listview items were deleted when navigating away from a folder, navigations away from large folders could be slow. This process should now be quicker. See #273.

Explorer++ 1.4.0 beta

New features

• The bookmarks system has been rewritten. The updated system has the following changes from the previous system:
  • Bookmarks are now managed in a very similar way to how they're managed in web browsers such as Chrome and Firefox. Bookmarks can be added to one of three top-level folders:
    • Bookmarks toolbar
    • Bookmarks menu
    • Other bookmarks
  • The add bookmark and manage bookmark dialogs are more functional than their equivalents in the previous version.
    For example, the manage bookmarks dialog allows items to be renamed directly (rather than by opening the edit bookmark dialog) and shows an appropriate context menu for bookmark folders in the treeview.
  • Bookmarks can now be copied/pasted.
  • When a bookmark is copied, the location of the bookmark is also copied as plain text. This makes it possible to paste the location into other applications.
  • Bookmarks can now be dragged and dropped between the bookmark windows.
  • Bookmarks on the bookmarks toolbar can now be arranged via drag and drop.
  • Right-clicking an item in the dropdown shown when clicking a folder on the bookmarks toolbar now shows the appropriate context menu.
  • In addition to being able to bookmark the current tab, it's also possible to bookmark all open tabs.
  • When a bookmark is displayed, the icon for the associated folder will be used (rather than a generic icon).
  • When right-clicking a bookmark folder, it's possible to open all child bookmarks in new tabs.
  • A number of issues present in the previous system are no longer relevant. For example:
    • The bookmark menu wasn't being built correctly (folders could be shown with the wrong name).
    • Selecting "Bookmark This Tab..." from the dropdown shown when clicking a folder on the bookmarks toolbar had no effect.
    • "Open" and "Open in New Tab" items would be shown when right-clicking a folder on the bookmarks toolbar, but selecting them would have no effect.
    • Neither the bookmarks toolbar nor the bookmarks menu would update when a bookmark was moved up/down.
    • The bookmarks menu wasn't updated when a bookmark was updated.
  • The bookmark description field has been removed.
• Settings are now automatically saved every 30 seconds. This helps to prevent recent tabs or other settings from being lost if the application crashes.
• The default icons used by the application have been updated. Additionally, a second set of Windows 10 style icons have been added. It's possible to switch between the two icon sets via Tools > Options > General > Icon theme.
• Added partial support for high DPI displays.
• It's now possible to reopen a recently closed tab using File > Reopen Recent Tab. The most recently closed tab can be reopened using Ctrl+Shift+T.
• The display window can now be displayed on the right. Previously, it was always displayed at the bottom.
• Support for the "Date Deleted" and "Original Location" recycle bin columns has been implemented.
• A context menu is now shown when right-clicking the empty space in the tab bar.
• When renaming a file, it's possible to move to the next item by pressing tab. Shift+tab can now be used to move to the previous item.
• Toolbar buttons are now available for the following actions:
  • Split file
  • Merge files
  • Close tab

Bug fixes

• The way in which column results and file icons/thumbnails are retrieved has been updated. This update brings a number of advantages:
  • Because of the way in which column result/icons/thumbnails were retrieved previously, it was possible for the application to crash if a navigation occurred while one of these items was being retrieved. Navigating to a different directory or closing a tab while results are being retrieved should now have no negative effects.
  • Column details are only retrieved for items that are visible (rather than all items).
  • Previously, it was possible for a user interface update to be done after a navigation had occurred. That is, column data for an item in a previous folder would be inserted into the listview for the current folder. This is no longer possible.
  • Previously, if an item was moved (within the listview) or deleted, it was possible for the wrong item to be updated once a column result/icon/thumbnail had been retrieved. This is no longer possible.
• When right-clicking on the listview background in Windows 10, Explorer++ would crash. To resolve this, the OneDrive shell extension is now ignored when showing the menu. See #35.
• Items in virtual folders (e.g. library folders) can now be renamed and deleted.
• Items can now be copied to/moved to virtual folders (using the "Copy To Folder"/"Move To Folder" functionality).
• New folders can now be created in virtual folders.
• Fixed issue with date conversion. Previously, dates would be converted in the current time zone, rather than the time zone in effect at the time being converted.
• Fixed an issue that caused taskbar thumbnails (shown on Windows 7 and above) to not always be displayed correctly. See #55.
• When renaming a file, it's possible to press tab to put the next file into edit mode. On Windows 10, pressing tab would select the next file, but it would not go into edit mode. Fixed. See #50.
• Previously, when creating a file via the new menu in Windows 10, the file would not be put into edit mode. Fixed. See #48.
• The Explorer++ icon shown in the volume mixer was larger than it should have been. Fixed. See #24.
• Under certain conditions, switching to a tab using the taskbar thumbnails would result in the wrong tab being selected. Fixed.
• Under certain conditions, refreshing a tab via the tab right-click menu would result in the wrong tab being refreshed. Fixed.
• Fixed a crash that could occur when switching directories.
• When grouping items by date created/modified/accessed, the items weren't being properly sorted into their groups (as month/year boundaries weren't being handled). Fixed.
• Previously, when a date was formatted as a friendly date, year/month boundaries weren't being taken into account. This meant that a date would only be shown as "Yesterday" if it was in the same month/year as the current date. Fixed.
• When adding or removing a column via the listview header context menu, the sort by/group by menus wouldn't be updated. Fixed.
• When opening the set file attributes dialog, the creation date shown was incorrect. Fixed.
• The set file attributes dialog wasn't correctly handling the case where an attribute checkbox was indeterminate. Fixed.
• There was an issue that meant that the group sorting direction in one tab could affect the group sorting order in other tabs. Fixed.
• When adding the folders button to the main toolbar (either by resetting the toolbar or by adding that individual button), the state of the button wouldn't be set correctly. Even if the folders pane was shown, the button wouldn't be checked. Fixed.
• When using the "list" view mode, right-clicking the empty space in a row would inconsistently result in the item being selected. Now, an item is only selected if you right-click its filename label.
• When loading from the XML config file, the initial color in the color rule dialog wasn't been loaded correctly. Fixed.
• There was an issue that prevented labels in the treeview from being unfolded. Now, if you move the mouse over a treeview label that's only partially visible, the rest of the label will be shown in a tooltip.
• Fixed a number of memory leaks.

Misc

• Windows XP and Vista are no longer supported. Windows 7 is now the minimum supported version.
• All menus are now drawn in the standard system style, rather than a custom style.
• More detailed help information is now available when starting Explorer++ from the command line with the --help flag. Each of the available options is listed and briefly described. The names of some of the options have also been updated.
• Starting a command prompt via the file menu opens a command prompt in the current directory. Starting an admin command prompt now does the same thing (rather than opening in the default directory).
• The format used to display dates has been updated. Previously, the date and time were separated by a comma. Now, they're separated by a space.
• Dates are now displayed without seconds.
• Infotips for files/folders are now retrieved on a background thread. This stops the application from hanging when retrieving the infotip for a large folder.
• Listview icons are now cached. This helps to avoid the flickering that can occur when refreshing a directory or going back/forward (the apparent flickering occurs as the default file/folder icons are replaced with the actual file/folder icons).
• The way in which the document summary fields (e.g. title, subject) are retrieved has been updated. This means that the fields should now be displayed for more file types (e.g. Word documents).
• When selecting a file path with spaces in the application toolbar button dialog, the path is now quoted (which is necessary for paths with spaces).
• The columns in the select columns dialog are now sorted by name, with the current set of columns appearing at the top of the list.
• When grouping by file extension, the application would attempt to retrieve the extension for both files and folders. Now, the extension will only be retrieved for files. Folders will be grouped together in a "Folder" group.
• The order in which view modes are cycled (when clicking the "Views" button on the toolbar or scrolling the mouse wheel while holding ctrl) has been reversed to match the order used in Windows Explorer.
• A third-party credits dialog has been added, which can be opened via the about dialog.

Explorer++ 1.3.5

New features

• Added support for another drag and drop format (which is used, for example, by Outlook 2003 when copying attachments).

Bug fixes

• The 'Open in New Tab' menu item was not always been added to the folder context menu. Fixed.
• Previously, file times could not be set for a directory using the set file attributes dialog. Fixed.
• A UTF-16 LE BOM is now written when pasting text (as a file).

Misc

• Logging is now avilable. It can be enabled using the following command:

  explorer++.exe -enable_logging

  Information will then be saved to Explorer++.log, which will be created within the same directory as the executable.

Explorer++ 1.3.4

New features

• Implemented the media protection column.

Bug fixes

• If the search dialog was closed while searching, the application would crash. Fixed.
• When clicking the 'Close' button while searching (in the search dialog), the dialog would not close until the search was finished. It could also result in a crash. Fixed.
• Fixed multithreaded bug in the search dialog.
• In certain areas (such as the search dialog), Unicode characters were not been converted to lowercase correctly. Fixed.

Explorer++ 1.3.3

Bug fixes

• The media duration column was previously showing times in 100-nanosecond units. Updated to hh:mm:ss.
• The processed search string (rather than original search string) was been stored in the search dialog. Fixed.

Misc

• When searching using the search dialog, if the filename entered already appears in the history list, it will simply be swapped to the first position (rather than been re-entered).
• The number of history entries stored for the filename field in the search dialog is now capped at 20.

Explorer++ 1.3.2

Bug fixes

• Under some circumstances, a copy and paste/drag and drop operation would fail (when copying a message from Outlook 2010, for example).
• Fixed bug in customize colors dialog (entries were not been moved up/down correctly).
• When renaming a file in the listview with IME turned on, text was been overwritten (because the text selection was modified). Fixed.
• Links to zip files will now be opened in an external program, if 'Open zip files in Explorer++' is unchecked.

Explorer++ 1.3.1

New features

• The sort mode and direction are now saved in the search dialog.

Bug fixes

• The image in the about dialog would not be shown when a translation was loaded. Fixed.

Misc

• The help file (if present) can now be launched from the Help|Help menu. It must be named "Explorer++ Help.chm" and be in the same folder as the Explorer++ executable.
• Updated 'Always hide the link (.lnk) extension' option to read 'Hide the link (.lnk) extension'.

Explorer++ 1.3

New features

• The complete state of most dialogs are now saved.
• Most dialogs can now be resized.
• Significant improvements to split file dialog.
• Context menu extensions are now shown on the main right-click context menu.
• Enhanced undo functionality. Multiple rename operations (such as those performed by the mass rename dialog) can now be undone as a single set.
• 'Delete permanently' button added to main toolbar.
• Added 'Close Tabs to the Right' entry to the tab right-click menu.
• The listview hover time can now be set by the user.
• Right-clicking search dialog results now brings up the file context menu.
• Search dialog results can now be sorted by name/path.
• Added 'Case sensitive' option to filter dialog.
• The folder navigation sound can now be disabled via the options dialog.
• The search dialog can now search using regular expressions. A case insensitive flag has also been added.
• Deleting an item in the treeview will select the parent folder prior to deletion (allowing the previously selected folder to be deleted).
• Right-clicking on the root desktop folder in the treeview now brings up its context menu.
• Trailing spaces are now trimmed when renaming an item in the listview/treeview.

Bug fixes

• In Windows 7 when closing a tab, the wrong taskbar preview pane would be closed (i.e. the taskbar preview pane for another tab would be closed instead).
• Fixed a crash that occurred when collapsing a node in the treeview.
• When single-click activation was enabled, and an area in the listview was selected, any file under the mouse when it was released would be opened. Fixed.
• Fixed 'Open Parent in New Tab' bug (parent of current tab would always be opened, regardless of which tab was clicked).
• When opening a folder in a locked tab, the newly created tab was not switched to correctly (which caused directory modifications to fail, for example). Fixed.
• Fixed toolbar bug (when a button was added or removed from a toolbar, the length of the toolbar would be reset, causing it to resize).
• Fixed listview gridline issue (Windows XP only).
• Under certain circumstances, translation DLL's would still be loaded, even if they did not match the current version. Fixed.
• Filename extension is now hidden correctly (if required) in details view.
• Size column now remains right aligned after sorting.
• When allow multiple instances was not set, and a new instance was started, it would not restore the previous window correctly if it was minimized. Fixed.
• Summary information stream codepage wasn't been checked. Fixed.
• Fixed control panel handling bug.
• Fixed drag and drop memory leak.
• Fixed bugs in mouse wheel handler.
• Fixed bug in options dialog (apply button not enabled when changing size selection in files and folders tab).

Misc

• Version number now takes the form: Major.Minor.Micro.Revision.
• Improved drag and drop interoperability.
• File sizes are now formatted according to the current system locale.
• When collapsing the direct parent of the current folder in the treeview, the listview selection would change to the parent. Now works when collapsing multiple levels.
• The 'Size On Disk', 'Total Size', and 'Free Space' columns are now right aligned.
• The current directory is now set when the directory or tab selection changes.
• Updated 'Handle zip files' option to read 'Open zip files in Explorer++'.
• The error message shown on a translation DLL version mismatch will now be shown in the target language (when possible).
• The (main) right click context menu is no longer owner drawn.

Explorer++ 1.2

New features

• Taskbar thumbnails are now shown for each tab in Windows 7 (this can be turned on/off by toggling 'Show taskbar thumbnails' in the Options dialog).
• 'New Tab' added to Tasks jump list in Windows 7.
• Numerous improvements to drag and drop/copy and paste.
• Text on the clipboard can now be pasted as a file. The file will be given a name of the form: Clipboard Text ([datetime]).txt. This also applies to drag and drop.
• Images on the clipboard can now be pasted as a file. The file will be given a name of the form: Clipboard Image ([datetime]).bmp. This also applies to drag and drop.
• The contents of the address bar can now be dragged and dropped.
• Large toolbar icons added.
• Files can now be dropped onto existing application toolbar buttons. This will open the dropped files in that application.
• 'Automatically synchronize treeview with main pane' option added; this setting controls whether or not the treeview will automatically stay in sync with the listview whilst browsing.
• 'Automatically expand nodes on selection' option added; if this setting is enabled treeview nodes will automatically expand when they are selected.
• Shift+Mousewheel down and shift+mousewheel up can now be used to browse backwards and forwards, respectively.
• The tab bar can now be hidden when there is only one tab.
• The tab bar can now be shown at the bottom of the listview.
• A navigation sound is now played when entering a folder.
• The current folder is now selected when navigating up.
• Listview groups can now be collapsed (Vista and later).
• Listview checkboxes can now be turned on by selecting 'Use check boxes to select items' in the Options dialog.
• Closing the last tab will now close the main window (provided the corresponding option is selected in the Options dialog).
• Items can now be rearranged in details view.
• It is now possible to show file sizes in one of: Bytes/KB/MB/GB/TB/PB.
• Ctrl+Backspace can now be used to browse to the root of a tab.
• Shift+Double Click will now open the selected folder in a new window.
• "Desktop", "Pictures", "Music", "Videos" and "Documents" are all now valid address bar shortcuts.

Bug fixes

• Several dialogs weren't closing when Escape was pressed. Fixed.
• Fixed 'Copy Universal File Paths' bug.
• Previously, if 'Hide file extensions' was checked, the display names of both files and folders would be altered. Fixed so that only files names are altered.
• When 'Single-click to open an item' was selected, navigation up would occur on a single click, instead of a double click. Fixed.
• Fixed directory modification bug.
• Fixed set file attributes dialog bug (file dates weren't been saved correctly).
• Fixed treeview rename bug (child items not updated).
• Fixed treeview sort bug.
• Fixed toolbar positioning bug.
• Fixed custom infotips bug.

Misc

• All settings are now saved to the registry (or XML file) when 'Ok' or 'Apply' is clicked in the Options dialog.
• The treeview no longer syncs with network/UNC paths.
• Copied data now remains on the clipboard after Explorer++ exits.
• Search dialog now turns patterns of the form '???' into '???' before searching.
• Main window now obeys startup position information (e.g. minimized/maximized, etc).
• Wildcard select/deselect is now case insensitive.
• Can now scroll listview/treeview, even when it does not have focus.
• The options dialog is now modeless.
• Handle zip files set to false by default.