/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

// On this day of our Lord 02-Aug-2002 08:09:01

// "He is the Alpha, the Omega", but for the moment just the Beta <g>
//

#undef WTL
#define MFC
typedef 2xExplorer<Z1, 1.4.1.10> Omega;

Well lads, 2xExplorer has made it happily to the 1-litre league (from its humble
750cc origins) utilizing state of the art quadratic reboring technology. You may
have perhaps heard that in the past few months I have been busy rewriting a brand
new file management kernel � the xplorer� project � that will eventually put a
bullet in the binary head of 2xExplorer (and a few other contenders in the explorer
replacement arena too). There's just a little glitch: the latter replacement has
still a long way to go before it matures into a usable file manager. So I thought
to meself, as you do, "why not have an intermediate release acting like a stepping
stone for the transition?", and sure enough that was the way to go.

2xExplorer has an old carcass of a code base and it needs all the support it can
get. So the new high-tech 0-1 parts transplant programme from xplorer� code base
was just dandy and greatly appreciated. The idea was to copy/paste reusable parts,
which I thought it would be quite straightforward, but in the end this has turned
out to be quite a substantial upgrade (150K+ of code) touching some fundamental
parts of 2xExplorer. I regret that some of the improvements are clearly intended
for gurlies (GUI stuff, impressive yet devoid of substance) but it's a big world
out there and they make 1 out of every 2 of total folk, so it's not good business
sense to ignore their needs <g>. But I believe there are stuff in this Z1 upgrade
to make even the most hardened of men happy, check out the summary:

* Sticky selection mode revolutionizing keyboard item selection

* New commands: hard-linking, split/merging
* Improved command execution
* More batch file templates and batch file generation from the find results pane
* Better thought-out zipfolder handling
* Copy names & copy thumbnail commands

Catering for the kitten-adoring fairer sex there is on offer:

* Single-click activation for views & tree

* Hover expansion for tree nodes & hands-free activation
* Infotips for items and dragged icons

Moreover there are fundamental changes deep down in the file management subsystem
that could go unnoticed � but very important nevertheless. Two of the most chronic
disabilities of 2xExplorer, namely its taking the clipboard for a ride without
warning and its substandard 32-bit arithmetic are a thing of the past. Ok, let me
elaborate on these and other new features.

1. STICKY SELECTION MODE ----------------------------

This is the classic type of feature that looks unimportant but has the elegance and
simplicity to change the way you use 2xExplorer for everyday tasks. [BTW it was a
pain in the @rse to implement too, had to go through all sorts of loops and hoops].

The standard behaviour of the windows list view control that underwrites both
folder panes in 2x is not geared for building up an item selection pattern
scattered along the view. Whenever you use the mouse or any keys, unless you hold
down the <Control> key, your prior selection is gone. Although this is marginally
inconvenient for plain selections, it is totally prohibitive for using tricks like
incremental search for name or extension (i.e. typing characters to home in on some
particular filename � hold <Shift> for a particular extension).

Enter the sticky selection mode. Once activated you can just remove your <Control>
key and feed it to a passing dog (they'll eat anything if starved :). You just
don't have to worry about maintaining the prior selection. Just click or type at
will and the only thing you'll affect is the focused item. Anything you select
sticks, hence the mode name. You can use the full range of selection commands like
<Insert> and <Ctrl+Enter> without worry and you can roam the view from top to
bottom using <Home> and <End> no problemo. As an extra usability incentive the
<Space> key can be used to toggle the selected item's state in-place (like <Ins>
but without moving down).

In fact if there's one drag it's that it's now hard to _un_select things since they
so stubbornly hold on to their status. You have to either click or press <Insert>
or <Space> to toggle some item's selection state. The new command Mark | Unselect
All <Alt+A> is also helpful.

If you are like me and switch to sticky selection mode for good, you'll be glad to
hear that there are more things you can do now without having anything selected.
For many commands the focused item takes on the role of the "selection", e.g:

* Item activation
* Browse into folder
* View or Edit file
* Status bar information

You'll still have to select things for normal file operations like copy/delete/etc.
In general note that if there's any sort of selection this takes precedence for
actions. The focused item is used as a substitute only when there's no selection.
Sometimes this can catch you off guard; the other day I nearly deleted 2 important
files when by the sheer inertia of prior use patterns I just clicked on a file and
was about to hit <Del> when I realized there were more items selected off-view �
that would have wiped out all 3 files! Checking the "Display delete confirmation
dialog" in the Recycle bin property page suddenly looks like a good idea.

So all in all, this is a neat usability improvement but some training and brain
recalibration is in order so as to avoid mini disasters and dramas. But after a
short while I expect this mode to really stick (pun intended). This mode is
accessible via the (slightly modified) Mark menu and also there's a toolbar button
for it.

2. PASTE HARD LINKS ---------------------------------

What is a hard link? Well, like a soft link, only harder <g>. Everyone is familiar
with the "soft" variety in the form of shortcut files. These are like "pointers"
(monikers is the official term) to something else in your filesystem but they are
distinct from their target. A hard link on the other hand is like having the _same_
file in different locations on some partition of your hard disk. When you realize
that despite this dispersal the file is stored only once (with a system akin to
reference counting) then it all begins to make sense: having access to a file from
many locations without the worry of wasting disk space or effort keeping all the
"copies" up-to-date. If you change one instance in folder "A" then all the other
images will automatically pick up the changes. This is simple to figure out if you
consider that all the various links actually point to the same disk storage
location. When you delete a file that has hard links, you don't actually delete the
file, just the particular link instance; only after eliminating all the links (and
the original source) will the disk storage be reclaimed. Hard link technology was
available from at least as far back as NT4 but it didn't make front page news since
M$ never offered any tools to harness their power.

Ok, that's the theory, let's see how it all happens in 2x. You normally copy the
file(s) you want to hard link _to_ using <Ctrl+C> or similar. Then instead of
pasting in the intended destination you use the Paste Hard Link command from the
new Actions menu. The first experience is bound to be unnerving since it feels like
a copy was made, but a peek at the total free space and the speed of the "copy"
will convince you that indeed something weird and magical took place. This is for
all intents and purposes a ghost image of the original. If you need further
convincing, just edit one of the 2 files and marvel at how the other one picks up
the changes free of hassle.

There are a few limitations in this hard linking business. First of all this is a
NTFS-only technology, so win9x users or FAT32 partitions need not apply. Perhaps
the sadder limitation is that you can't hard link to a file lying in another
partition (e.g. from a network drive to a local space); all linked instances have
to be in the same logical partition. I think that the limit for hard link images is
1024 per file, but surely that's no problemo. Lastly you can't hard-link folders,
but 2x has a nice workaround for this. When you copy a folder and then Paste Hard
Link for it, 2x automatically recreates the original folder tree structure behind
the scenes and inserts hard links to the contained files. So the target folders are
real but the files are proper hard links. Neato.

This is only too nice, but from a practical point of view what are the advantages
(if any) introduced by hard links? Why would you want to use them? (we may all want
to consult some seasoned Unix user for advice since they are familiar with hard
links more than us Windows folk). The textbook "hello world" example here is to
have a certain range of header files shared via hard-linking across various
projects. All are seemingly local to a particular project folder but they are
actually sourced from a centralized repository.

But a word of warning is in order. I have discovered that certain programs follow a
really daft procedure when saving files which destroys hard links. I was horrored
to discover that the old internal 2x's editor was one of them (!) � thanks to MFC
doing stupid things behind our backs. Tell me if you don't find this stupid:
instead of saving directly in the original file, a temporary file is created,
changes saved there and then the original file is overwritten; hence the original
link relationship is lost and you are left with 2 distinct files. Changes from now
on won't propagate to the original. I don't get it at all; what's the competitive
edge you get? Anyway, there are loads of unanswered questions in life, and besides
you'll be glad to hear that I have patched 2x's internal editor for this glitch;
editor� is fine too. Unfortunately heavy duty editors like Developer Studio were
also written in MFC � she rubbish! � and destroy hard links upon saving, which
makes a shambles out of the link-shared header file example above. So before
launching your linking strategy make sure that your editing tools are link-aware
and not destructive like Developer Studio. Or turn all such files to read-only.

Still all's not lost. The other night I had an alcohol-assisted inspiration. I
mostly work on a multi-boot notebook that has both win98, 2000 and XP for all these
cross-platform tests I need to do. This means 3 separate installations for all
things like developer studio, office tools et cetera, which doesn't help the hard
disk space at all. But think about it folks. If you install all programs on the
_same_ NTFS partition (let's forget win98) there's an interesting possibility. You
start by doing 2 separate installations for each OS but you can reclaim disk space
a posteriori by merely copying one of the installation folders and pasting it onto
the other via hard linking. Now stay with me folks, this is not as silly as it
seems <g>. The overwriting of common files will be releasing space since instead of
2 copies of the same file you'll be left with 2 images to a common file. That would
keep both registry & disk and thus man+dog happy. Who says alcohol is bad for you?
Ok, I admit this requires a bit further (sober) investigation, especially for
avoiding situations where e.g. a DLL has the same name in the 2 installations but
the files are actually different, but think of the possibilities! Any brave souls
that go ahead with this test please keep in touch for the testimonials.

3. SPLIT AND MERGE FILES ----------------------------

When was the last time you used a floppy disk? I use them all the time to
synchronize my home & work computers. Nice and simple and you don't need fancy
hardware and expensive software for CD bootlegging operations. Have you ever found
yourselves in the predicament where a file is just too big to fit on a floppy? Well
the new split/merge command duo has just solved this problem.

It's all very simple. During phase #1 you select a file and specify the split size.
2x will chop up the original in as many files as necessary up to this split size.
These files have extensions like .001, .002 etc, for convenient sorting. You can
then place the chopped files on floppies and take a hike. Over at the office
headquarters, you copy the fragments back on hard disk, select them and do a Merge
to get the original file.

Note that the selected files are merged in the order shown in the active pane. If
they are in the wrong order (e.g. file .002 preceding .001) the merge will not
recreate the original file but some twisted alter ego thereof. 2x will kindly warn
you when such an imminent blunder is detected. But once you have files sorted in
the proper order from .001 up to .999 or what have you, you have nothing to worry.
Also note that the merge command isn't limited to only work with files previously
split. You can elect to merge any bunch of files if you so please � because it
sounded like a good idea at the time � although you may want to have a confidential
chat with your local publican / licence-holder for the deep unconscious source of
all these unfathomable urges <g>

The split/merge command is not just for floppy-happy technological laggards like
this author. I can envisage all sorts of possible applications, like chopping up a
large file into manageable portions prior to emailing them as attachments etc.
You'll find the split/merge commands in the new Actions menu, too (it also contains
some commands previously found elsewhere).

4. COMMAND EXECUTION --------------------------------

As you know (?) the address bar recognizes 2 kinds of commands to execute,
depending on the prompt character you type: a "$" will launch a DOS command and ">"
a generic windows program. The special template tokens $L/$R/$N can be used as per
the batch file generator providing the building blocks for reusable commands stored
in the history list and accessible via the <Ctrl+F10> shortcut.

Although there's nothing inherently wrong with the old system, it was nevertheless
overhauled for even more flexibility. For example environmental string substitution
(e.g. %WINDIR% will be substituted for "C:\winnt" or what have you) is now
supported for both DOS and windows commands. Two new template tokens are introduced
too, $P and $I, which stand for the focused item path and the inactive pane path
respectively. These help break the assymetry that the original $L/$R (for left and
right pane paths respectively) could introduce in commands. For instance whereas
the command "$ copy $N $R" could only be used when the left (top) pane was active,
its novel equivalent "$ copy $N $I" is valid from either left or right panes. A
subtle yet important distinction this. The $P/$I tokens are naturally valid for
proper batch file generation too, see further down for info on this subject.

Also the windows command mode ">" got smarter and behaves exactly like Start | Run.
In the past it could only find programs placed somewhere along the system PATH
variable. This limitation went down the drain; if something cannot be found in the
path, then the list of officially registered applications (those that have file
types like .txt associated with them) is searched for a match. Even plain documents
can be launched like "> readme.txt" although this only has a curiosity value since
I can't imagine anyone opting to type rather than double-click � other than 500WPM
type-meisters perhaps <g>

Note that these improvements for the windows command execution will only work for
the default mode. If you have manually tweaked "szShellCmdPreample" in the registry
you won't get the new command location gimmickry. You may thus want to consider
resetting this option to its default empty string.

5. BATCH FILES FROM FIND RESULTS WINDOW -------------

The batch file generation capability of 2xExplorer is one of its stronger assets.
The find file results window is no match for scrap frames (a la xplorer�) but at
least now it can build batch files for the items it contains. The drill is the
usual one: item selection followed by the proverbial right-click and presto you
have access to the full might of the batch templates, including the new $P and $I
constructs. Let me remind the home viewers that the idea with batch file generation
is that you provide one (or more if comma-separated) templated command(s) which is
then applied to all the files you have selected. It's like a buy one get 10 free
offer and it doesn't take an inferential logic guru to figure out it makes sense
and saves you time and typing.

Batch file execution here has an interesting twist. There's no such thing as
"current directory" as far as the find results window is concerned. That is
determined by whichever pane is active, be it the left or right. Since the find
results window shows items which reside in many directories (sorry, I meant folders
:) unqualified $N tokens are more likely than not going to get you into trouble.
You can spare yourselves the aggro using the new $P token which really shines in
this context, since it represents the path of each individual item, regardless of
its location. Sweet!

The new $P and $I tokens are "documented" in the slightly revised batch build
dialog. You'll be glad to hear that the actual batch script viewer has gotten
bigger and I even threw in a couple of scroll bars free of charge, augmenting your
"user experience" <g>

6. USABILITY PROPERTY PAGE --------------------------

"Why can't I single-click to activate things like in explorer?" or "Why doesn't the
tree automatically expand its nodes when I hover above it?" are the most typical
questions exemplifying the kind of aggravation I used to receive from
(predominantly) nagging female users <g>. Well ladies, your wish was granted! A
whole new property page in the View | Options dialog caters for such usability
issues. (NB: I had to break my typical policy of having registry tweaks for such
details since I gathered that the target audience � poor cute things! � would have
rather lengthy head-scratching sessions following directives like "goto your
registry and edit this and that..."; so I added a property page to save them the
trip down the Town Hall messing about with the Mayor's stationery ;)
On a more serious note, you get to control things like single-click activation for
both views and tree, fine-tune what happens after you activate something in the
tree, etc. Note that if you opt for single-click activation for the tree you get
"hands-free" activation bundled in the bargain, i.e. you can browse into folders
without pressing the <Enter> key. You can pace up and down in the tree branches
(using the arrow keys) and whenever you stop for a breather you have the selected
folder loaded automatically in the active pane. [Come to think about it, tree-
roaming squirrels worldwide would love such an automated facility for nuts, no?
<g>]. But man or squirrel beware: This may generate many a false alarm and general
time-wasting when you accidentally have a longer pit-stop than planned, since you
may unintentionally open folders that happen to lie inbetween your intended A to B.
You have to stay focused all the time, which is a bit too much hassle for my
personal taste. The default wait state before this autoCD kicks in is 1.5 seconds.
You can make this shorter or longer to taste, editing the "msTreeAutoCDDelay"
registry value (under MainFrame Settings key). This value is in milliseconds where
1.5 secs == 1500. Don't you start harassing the Mayor now! � he's a busy man and
has all these parking tickets to process <g>

Single-click for the tree is bad enough but for views it leads to horrific
usability patterns. Ok, one saves an extra click per activation, but personally I
spend most of my time selecting rather than activating. How can peoples manage with
this track-(hover)-select thingme is completely beyond me. The new sticky selection
mode is absolutely incompatible with all this palava. A final word on this matter:
early windows 95 platforms without some recent version of Internet Explorer on
board won't get all these "usability" "improvements" � what a misnomer if there
ever was one! Never mind my nagging though <g>, I'm only sour for caving in under
heavy popular demand for features that aren't to my personal taste. Besides, there
are some useful stuff on this property page, too.

Take infotips for instance. Post win2000 you can have some useful information pop-
up as a tooltip window when you hover on some item in a list view. Not the standar
tooltips mind, these are just lame pains in the neck popping up with naff info that
you could have checked on the status bar anyroad. Thankfully you can do much more
important things with infotips showing information like file comments and other
stuff that are not available in 2xExplorer due to its 3-column limitation. More on
infotip power-ups will follow in the form of a tricks'n'tips artikel in due course.
Did you check the previous 2 articles in the series at the forum? don't delay, go
to http://www.netez.com/bbs/ today!

The final item in the usability page is my favourite. If you are like me and use
the list mode exclusively (from View | Pane style menu) you may find annoying the
default column autosizing behaviour of the control. In fact you may find it
sickening. It only takes one item with a long-ish filename to have the columns
overstretched way too far (like the USA case against Saddam � you people need to
stay cool; we don't need no more wars). Leaving my political hat to the side, the
max width box remedies this very situation and stops your view looking silly by
placing an upper column width limit you are comfortable with. I set it to 150
pixels so all items longer than that are cropped (you can still unwrap the full
name using the tooltip). Setting this to 0 reverts to the default unconstrained
behaviour. Note that this doesn't affect any other view style (e.g. details) just
the list mode. [Hang on! who's that guy with the suit and sunglasses staring at me
from behind that tree? Oh-no! It's down by law all over again! I didn't do it
officer! Io no sonno la terroristra! I am a good egg me! <g>]

7. MISCELLANEOUS STUFF ------------------------------

What can you buy for someone who has all the gimmicks already? It's all about
marginal improvement and homogenization, squeezing up the last drops of efficiency
improvement potential left.

COPY NAMES COMMAND. There are quite a few different ways to copy path+file names
open to imaginative minds. One is using the address bar, or <F2> for a dummy
rename, and yet another via batch file generator with a $P\$N combo. Admitedly none
was particularly snappy and people felt physically exhausted after all this to-ing
and fro-ing. You may put your antiperspirant spray to the side from now on though,
since the new <Alt+C> shortcut (Edit menu) is totally sweet. You get all the
selected names inserted in the clipboard in a swift stroke. On top of that you can
automatically get the short (DOS) 8.3 pathnames if you hold down <Shift> at the
same time (i.e. <Alt+Shift+C> all simultaneously). I regret that this command will
send a number of context-menu based pathname copy solution provider applications
into receivership and/or forced administration.

ZIPFOLDER DUALITY. Some users don't like this "zip files as folders" browsing
capability introduced in winXP (and sort of in 2000 too). In an attempt to offer
the best of both file and folder worlds, you can now view the byte size of the zip
instead of the utterly useless <folder> indicator for the size column. They are
also treated as files for comparisons, synchronization, viewing and whatnot.
Hopefully more people will find them less of a handfull to work with whilst
enjoying the direct browsing of their contents. And this time it will work for
winXP too straight out of the box, fingers crossed.

COPY PREVIEW IMAGE. The artistically oriented among you will surely rejoice at this
new facility which inserts a bitmap image of the item preview shown in the thumb-
bar straight into the clipboard, using this new command from Edit menu. This saves
you a <PrintScreen>, crop and re-copy combo, not to mention the visit to IrfanView
or what have you for doing all that preposterously long series of steps � in fact I
consider meself lucky that nobody has sued me for damages or/and loss of
productivity yet <g>. But now it's all about image acquisition made easy! Note that
you need to have the thumb bar visible for this to work but surely that's not much
to ask, no?

MIND THAT CLIPBOARD. The old self of 2xExplorer used up the clipboard like as if it
was it's own back yard, showing no respect whatsoever to its contents. Be it drag-
dropping or merely deleting files, it would take over the clipboard for satisfying
it's selfish and lazy-@rse-programmer motives. This long standing callous behaviour
has now been reformed into a new era of clipboard-friendliness and general
political correctness. Now if you place some text in the clipboard you may expect
to find it there after a series of file operations within 2x � unless of course you
deliberately place file items in there yourselves with <Ctrl+C>.

HUGE FILE AWARENESS. Another age old problem eliminated. Not many people have files
bigger than 4GB but for all server administrators out there handling terrabyte log
files, this 64-bit enabled era is for you. 2x was sent back to skool to make amends
for its substandard numeracy skills, and I am happy to say it has graduated with
full honours into a big number expert handler. This has sweeping effects throughout
the program including the ailing folder data <Ctrl+D> command. That should cover
you till the next millenium as long as you keep it below the
18,446,744,073,709,551,616 byte barrier. Try pronouncing _that_ number and/or
imagine how many Lamborghinis you could afford with that kind of figure showing up
in your bank account...

PANE SCROLLING GLITCH. 2x had this glitch whereupon if you scrolled a pane using
the scroll bars so that the focused item went out of view, you would have found
yourself in a predicament when activating the other pane, since 2x would
whimsically destroy your carefully laboured positioning. Some users found this
ordeal quite disconcerting and teat-irritating. This behaviour was "documented" in
FAQ# 22, which is a nice little trick I learnt from little$oft converting bugs to
"features" <g>. Fear no more since this glitch is a thing of the past. Now 2x won't
care showing the focused item for inactive views; it will only enforce the focus
visibility for the active pane. Cloud 9 revisited.

DRAGGED ICONS. When you drag a single item and have windows 2000 or better you'll
see this new gizmo offered for your visual gratification. If you drag a bunch
however I'm afraid it's back to the trusty rectangular indicator. There's no easy
way to obtain the bitmap of more than one icon at a time and I couldn't possibly
consider wasting time & effort on this clearly useless feature, devoid of all
practical value except perhaps for impressing adolescent/spotty yoof, taking their
minds off ice cream.

DRIVEBAR ICONS IN FULL COLOUR. No more the color starved pathetic excuses of drive
icons for XP users. Marvellous.

RENAME CORRECTIONS. Now if you rename something and the operation fails (e.g. due
to illegal characters or duplicate filenames) 2x will allow you to correct your
mistake rather than leaving you stranded & having to do the whole drill from
scratch.

SELECT ALL IN FIND RESULTS WINDOW. Long overdue <Ctrl+A> shortcut is finally here.

UNIX TEXT PRINTING BUG. The other day I was amazed printing some text file on Unix
(LF as end of line marker instead of the normal CRLF) through the internal viewer,
when a print job of around 5000 (!) pages was generated. If you think that the file
was 1 page at most, applying simple nonmonotonic reasoning rules will invariably
hilight a slight glitch at play. Apparently this is a documented (Q284948)
"feature" of the richedit control. Thanks mikro$oft! Unfortunately there's no
officially recommended patch so what I did results in an extra blank page, but
still that's better than 4998 blank pages, surely! You'll be glad to hear that the
external editor� doesn't suffer from this problem, if you follow FAQ# 24 and ensure
a decent version of the control exists on your system.

ENVIRONMENTAL VARIABLES IN PATHS. The address bar now understands paths that
include environmental variables like %TEMP% etc. What a jolly good idea!

FIND FILE NAMES. The "Named" box in Find files or folders dialog will now
automatically add "*" characters at the beginning & end of the name if it doesn't
already contain any wildcard characters itself. That makes it work like in the
windows find box. If you want to get back to the behaviour of previous versions,
set the "bAutoPadWildcard" registry value to 0.

All righty then, that's all the new features list you need to know about (hidden
agenda here? Is it easter yet? ;). After nearly four (!) years of continuous
development it is the end of the line for 2xExplorer. It has been a pleasant trip
and I hope you enjoyed the ride � I most certainly did! But you can't go on living
on borrowed parts. Omega is the last letter in the Greek alphabet and the last
chapter in the 2x saga. It's all too pompus and circumstantial, I know, but it
cannot be helped.

For an ever more agreeable file management experience, with loads of columns, bang-
on autorefresh capabilities, scrap frames, break-neck read speeds, general
performance and whatnot, all in an outfit half the size (expected) of 2xExplorer
you'll have to wait for yours trully to complete that xplorer� program, which
shouldn't be more than the 4 years it took for the original 2xExplorer project. Oh
no! But ask any motivational guru and they'll tell you: prolonged expectation
periods lead to increased gratification.

See you dudes!

Nikos

-------------------------
WWW: http://www.netez.com/2xExplorer
Forum: http://www.netez.com/bbs/