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We're talking about software gadgets that help you navigate folders and work with files in Microsoft Windows here. Windows CommanderWindows Commander by Christian Ghisler is way awesome. The visual interface was first popularised by Norton Commander for DOS. Herr Ghisler has actually followed the essence of Norton Commander and made it even more relevant to the Windows world. For example, the column widths can be changed to accommodate preferences and long file names. There have been many shareware, freeware clones but none of them have the robustness, reliability and number of features that Windows Commander has. Forget about using Windows Explorer or File Manager to navigate, run programs or manage files - both are very error prone (how many clicks to get where you want, do you need to use the mouse to fiddle and position, have you accidentally moved/copied folders and files because of hand shake?). Windows Commander is not just looks, it is a safer way of managing files and folders. Plus, if your network connection slows down or hangs, you kill Windows Commander, not Windows Explorer (which might also tear down your Start Menu and freeze you out of your Windows session). Folder / File LaunchersI've dallied with a lots of freeware / shareware Folder / File launchers which sit in the system tray. Windows XP has even has that idea built-in to some extent (more about that later). My current eval is Metaproducts TrayIcon Explorer. I generally use them for a month or so, then get disinterested - something else distracts me, I move between too many machines which don't have them installed, the installation in the Startup group drags the machine boot time.... The idea is good - have a two click way to get to your folders or files that you use daily instead of launching Windows Explorer, then navigating around - usually somewhere in the order of three clicks or more (remember to use Windows+E). TrayIcon Explorer has the following positives - you can nominate whether to use expanding menu panels to see the files (suits folders with small number of files) or launch Windows Explorer. Even when you use the cascading menu panels, you can right click on an item and the Windows Explorer context menu opens. You can set this behaviour separately for each nominated folder (so that you don't wait forever to expand the SYS:PUBLIC of a Novell file server in an expanding menu panel) I am also playing with Bubble Pop Software's Open Subfolder which allows you to Right Click on a folder in Windows Explorer and show subfolders in a cascading menu panel. Open/Save Dialog EnhancersThe Windows Common Dialog for Open/Save operations is so pitiful that everyone tries to improve on it. Windows 2000 / XP has a Places Bar. Office 2000 has a different Places Bar. Office 2002 has another different Places Bar. Word Perfect for Windows 5.x and later have their special dialogs. The list just goes on and on. Unfortunately, Microsoft have not bothered to improve the central one, the one every developer could be coaxed into using - they just built enhanced versions for their own products. That means that whatever tool you choose, it will not appear in all products that you use. Microsoft also missed the point about Favourites - the same Favourites is used by MS Internet Explorer and by Windows Explorer - I don't want to be presented with Windows shortcuts/bookmarks when I am doing local disk/LAN navigation. Office 2002 has a good Places Bar that you can add nominated folders to. No further aids. Office 2000 has a different Places Bar but you can't add folder bookmarks to it without PLACES.DLL Go get places.dll - it's essential. Windows 2000 and Windows XP have their own Places Bar. For Windows XP, get the TweakUI. Windows 2000 has it's own TweakUI. For the Open/Save dialogs in other programs, I've been toying with Dialog Assistant - somehow it's not working as advertised. Associating more than one Program per one document typeOne invaluable Windows Explorer Add-On for the Right Click (Context Menu) that I have used for some time is BaxBex OpenExpert. The problem is that each file extension can only be associated with one program except in Windows XP. I can have several versions of Microsoft Access, several HTML editors and so on - I want to choose at launchtime, which one to activate by right clicking on the document in Windows Explorer (or Windows Commander). OpenExpert allows that. Windows XP already has some facility for multiple associated programs but it does not easily allow you to friendly name the item - so it could be MSACCESS.EXE which does not give you a clue whether it is Access 2000 or 2002. OpenExpert works with Windows Commander too. Getting the full path/filename of the file into a text documentIn my line of work, I often have to tell people where the file or folder is and put it in email or text documents. There are several Windows Explorer Add-Ons that allow you to right click on a file and then copy the pathname/filename to clipboard, then to your text document. I use the one by Mike Lin. Compressing the folder / fileLots of people use WinZip. Winzip is good but it is shareware. Windows Commander can pack files as well. Sending the folder / file to another drive/folderOften, if you use Windows Explorer, you want to move or copy a file/folder to another location. You could open two copies of Windows Commander, you could use drag and drop with Windows Explorer in tree+details paned view. Or you could use one of the Windows Power Toys Backing up to CDBacking up large files or folders with built-in Windows tools is onerous. Give Zip Backup a try. |
