FlashBin 1.0.1.1 - Recycle Bin for Removeable MediaSubmitted by wraithdu on September 25, 2008 - 4:40pm
I was bored and took it as a challenge from here - http://portableapps.com/node/15746 This is the end result, FlashBin. The app runs in the tray and hooks the chosen hotkey. If files or folders have been selected it will prompt to Recycle them. Files on the same drive as the app will be moved to the FlashBin directory, which is configured in the INI file as a relative path to the app directory (omit a leading \), default is FLASHBIN in the same directory as the app. Files on other drives will be Recycled as normal. The tray icon will show the state of the FlashBin file directory, and monitors the filesystem for realtime updates (I was proud of that :)). Exit or pause the app from the tray. Download FlashBin 1.0.1.1 Release Notes:
1.0.1.0 (2008-09-25)
Known Issues:
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SWEET! Somebody did
SWEET! Somebody did something with it!
I is playing with it.
see you guys on wednesdays!
type .t OliverK in the IRC channel to find out what day and time it is where I'm living.
Cool! This would also be
Cool! This would also be great if it could be integrated into Xenon!
Kinda Is
It pretty much already is. As since FlashBin is hooking the delete key, it does when pressing it in Xenon as well. Though right-clicking and selecting Delete in Xenon will not work, there's not a huge point to incorporate it since pressing the delete key is so much easier. Nonetheless, I agree.
Sweet
This is great.
Wraithdu, You have officially
Wraithdu,
You have officially Won
^-^
AWESOME, THANK YOU
Now I don't have to make this.
P.S. Why did you use AutoIt instead of NSIS? Is NSIS incapable of making these type of programs or is there another reason?
THIS MESSAGE IS OPEN SOURCE!!! WOOO WOOO
2 Main Reasons
There's 2 main reasons.
1. He is more experienced with AutoIt.
2. It's /much/ easier with AutoIt as NSIS is an installer language that just happens to be suitable for creating out launchers.
...
I always do Right Click -> Delete (what can I say, I'm mousebound), so this is a no-go for me. Not that I really need it: As I use my drive every day, for everything, I've just trained myself to double- and triple-check what I'm deleting. After having deleted an important file or two from my drive with no way to get it back, I've become very careful.
Of course, the downside to this retraining is that now the Recycle Bin itself causes me headaches. I'll recycle files without a second thought and then, when I see the papers in the bin, I empty it on impulse, usually without checking what's in it first--a very bad habit that entirely defeats its purpose. I'm actually /more/ cautious when I know that deletion is permanent.
Anyway, I completely went off on a tangent with this post. I'll stop now.
The only problem is, there are several problems.
Unfortunately, hooking mouse
Unfortunately, hooking mouse clicks is pretty difficult and has a pretty good performance hit since you have to monitor every mouse click. You can't set hotkeys with the mouse buttons. Then I'd have to find a way to see which system menu item you clicked, which is a whole other rat's nest, not to mention the problem if you use a 3rd party file manager. Basically a real PITA and not worth the effort.
LOL Thanks everyone. I had
LOL Thanks everyone. I had no idea it would be 8 posts popular ;) What did I win?!
To answer one question, this would be a real bitch in NSIS. It was hard enough to figure out the function calls in AutoIt, especially for the shell notifications. Hell, I don't even know how to set a hotkey in NSIS. The language is just not designed for this kind of work.
I'll have a new version pretty soon that will have a little better shell notifications that will monitor the specific folder instead of the whole filesystem, and monitor for file creations as well as deletions. Bear in mind this is all JUST for the icon change!! I like a challenge and learning new stuff. It will also let you specify a different hotkey in case you don't want to hook the DELETE key. You'll have specify it in AutoIt terms in the INI.
Look for the release tonight or tomorrow.
Updated, see first post.
Updated, see first post. Didn't get the shell notifications to work like I wanted, so I went back to the original method which works correctly.
Good work wraithdu. :)
hi-5
Cancer Survivors -- Remember the fight, celebrate the victory!
Help control the rugrat population -- have yourself spayed or neutered!
Hmm.
I can't seem to get this to work, unfortunately, because it looked like a great little app. I'm running it from the C drive, I assume it can still work there?
One slight improvement to the packaging might be to put it in a separate folder (see Wikipedia's section on tarbombs for more information). :-)
"If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate."
Can you include some more
Can you include some more detail, such as your OS and the problem you are having? What is your assigned hotkey, and what happens when you press it?
If....
He posted that if you run it from the C drive the files will just go to the regular recycle bin.
THIS MESSAGE IS OPEN SOURCE!!! WOOO WOOO
Not sure what your comment
Not sure what your comment means, but FlashBin will work fine if you run it from the C drive. Files on drive C will go to FlashBin, files on any other drive will be recycled as normal.
Update
Added a tweak for the wait time in the INI (see Readme). Also hopefully mitigated some performance issues on XP.
Remember this isn't a perfect solution, so it *may* hiccup from time to time. Best results are probably achieved by setting FlashBin to use its own hotkey.
PS - Did you know that CTRL+D is a system hotkey for the recycle bin? I did not...
Ctrl+D... well, that means
Ctrl+D... well, that means sense. D for Delete. Not sure why they made two hotkeys for it, though. The Del key does the same thing...
The only problem is, there are several problems.
Ummm...not with a Firefox
Ummm...not with a Firefox window with the focus. Ctrl + D = "Bookmark this page".
I found that out the hard way just now... ;)
Cancer Survivors -- Remember the fight, celebrate the victory!
Help control the rugrat population -- have yourself spayed or neutered!
...
No, it doesn't open the Recycle Bin, it deletes the file that's selected in a folder (or the desktop). :) So it's a Windows Explorer hotkey, not a system one.
The only problem is, there are several problems.
Eraser?
This would have real usefulness for me and many others if you could integrate an optional command to select certain files from the recycle bin and run them through Eraser Portable or another shredding program. Any possibility?
Never kiss your honey
when your nose is runny.
You may think it's funny,
but it'snot.
Only For Portable Hard Drives
Just make it clear that it's only for portable hard drives. Eraser and similar programs don't work on flash drives due to wear leveling.
Live with purpose.
And if you don't know what
And if you don't know what "wear leveling" is, it means you can't completely delete files on any flash memory-based media that uses the technique (all of them we know of at this point).
More info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wear_leveling
Cancer Survivors -- Remember the fight, celebrate the victory!
Help control the rugrat population -- have yourself spayed or neutered!
But, from what I understand,
But, from what I understand, the constant shifting makes it bloody hard to recover the files anyway.
Or, Mr.Shotgun will make it really really hard :D
see you guys on wednesdays!
type .t OliverK in the IRC channel to find out what day and time it is where I'm living.
Exactly.
For example, why not just have a right-click menu option when you select a file or group of files in the recycle bin? The option can say "Delete with Eraser (not for Flash drives). You could even add an "are you sure?" popup.
The default would stay as a normal delete, but with a right-click, portable HD users could delete securely.
Never kiss your honey
when your nose is runny.
You may think it's funny,
but it'snot.
no
Im for keeping it simple. Having eraser separately is enough I think.
"What about Love?" - "Overrated. Biochemically no different than eating large quantities of chocolate." - Al Pacino in The Devils Advocate
No way. Eraser is staying
No way. Eraser is staying separate. You have an older version of EraserPortable to choose from, or my program EDT (EraserDropTarget, linked in this thread somewhere). EDT was a huge undertaking, and I have no desire to remake it in this app, or integrate FlashBin into EDT.
EDT is a great program and it
EDT is a great program and it works like a charm. It doesn't get much simpler than dragging and dropping. ;)
Secure removal
If you are interested in secure removal, check out EDT - http://portableapps.com/node/10984
I will not be integrating anything like this in FlashBin. If you're worried about securely erasing data, you should not be using the Recycle Bin anyway. EDT is a much better solution for you.
Dream coming true? Yes~
Ah, Alright!xD Thank You Very Much for making a "Recycle Bin Portable" program! *huggles*
Hnnn, I was looking for something like when a file from the removable drive is deleted (without manually running the Recycle Bin program), it will be detected then be moved to the Bin folder of the drive... something like that (can't elaborate details x~x;; sorry)... but I guess running first the program is inevitable for the "Recycle Bin, in a portable fashion" feature to work ^_^;;
Here's more features of the Recycle Bin that I'm thinking of:
>>Capability to undo delete (that actually kinda works like undo move, in the portable's case)
**Apparently, even though the file being deleted is not in the removable drive, Flash Bin doesn't include it in Windows' undo action.
>>Space Allocation (percent)
**Not necessarily a new partition for the bin, nor a preset occupied/allocated space in the drive. When the free space of the allocated bin space is not enough for the deleting file, the app deletes the "oldest-deleted file/s", if any. If the deleting file is too large for the allocated space... well... bypassing the bin would defeat the bin's purpose, so I hope the feature that I'll later mention is possible.
>>Deleted File Properties (Time/Date Deleted, Original Location)
**... o.o To me, that sounds like it needs its own explorer/file browser or something, to display those properties of the file... I'm also thinking, the app could have its own tab or a "Time/Date Deleted" and "Original Location" entries in the Properties dialogue box, that shows/applies only to files inside the bin directory.
And a feature I just thought of (not existing in Recycle Bin):
>>If a file is being copied/saved to the drive AND the drive is full, the app deletes "oldest-deleted file/s" in the bin big enough to give space to the file (if ever there are files in the bin).
**This is different from the Space Allocation feature I mentioned; this time, it deals with the free space and the size of all the deleted files. If ever this will be applied/possible, it will overwrite the Space Allocation feature then.
... If it's impractical to have such features, its alright not to include them ^_^ so as to not make the program complicated or what.
... Oh, and the icon! XD
I'm imagining something shaped like a thumb drive, with its body as its bin and its USB plug at the bottom... or, its USB plug serves as its bin. Both ideas, well, look like bloated thumb drives, kinda cylindrical-like but not exactly cylindrical, aheheh xD
Pardon the smilies ^_^;;
YYYYYYESSSS, a portable Recycle Bin is at my fingertips now! Thank You Very Much again!
I appreciate the enthusiasm!
I appreciate the enthusiasm! I'll respond best I can -
- Yes, there must be a program running to accomplish this type of action.
- Files not on the drive are recycled. If that action is not added to the windows undo action, then there's nothing I can do unfortunately. The undo history must be some action of the explorer shell, internal to Windows, and that's not something I can manipulate. I'll see if it's something I can reasonably implement internal to FlashBin.
- Both ideas regarding free space - don't forget, FlashBin only deals with files on your flash drive. So in essence you're just moving files around on the same drive. Your net free space doesn't change.
- Adding anything regarding properties to the explorer shell or the prop dialog would require a complicated shell extension (DLL) to be installed. That's a bit beyond my current C++ knowledge, and certainly wouldn't be portable. Outside that, FlashBin would require it's own interface to display files and information. That's out of FlashBin's design scope.
- I'm no graphic artist, but if you want to contribute an icon I'll certainly consider using it!
Is this possible?
In Ccleaner Portable, in the options>include area, there is an area for including folders to be empted, (or wiped-Secure deletion, I have my version set to Gutmann 35 passes) Could the FLASHBIN folder in the FLASHBIN directory be included in the above Ccleaner location, letting Ccleaner erase the files in the FLASHBIN instead if just using the normal deletion? Or maybe something, where your Eraserportable could be initiated to wipe the folder?
In a mother's scolding voice: Get that proprietary software out of your computer!
You don't know where it's been!!!!
Sure, you could use CCleaner
Sure, you could use CCleaner or EDT to erase FlashBin's folder. It's not protected or anything. But search around this forum and read up on why secure deletion on a flash drive is useless and just kills your drive faster.
You should only use secure deletion tools on physical HDDs, not flash based media.
Thanks
I'm using a portable HDD, but I never thought about the flash drive wear. Thanks for the heads up and thanks for your personal apps. They're great!
In a mother's scolding voice: Get that proprietary software out of your computer!
You don't know where it's been!!!!
Yeah, wear leveling means
Yeah, wear leveling means that shredding is useless. When you try to overwrite something on flash media, the writes just get redirected to a different physical sector, defeating the purpose.
The only problem is, there are several problems.