Xenon File Manager Portable 2.0 Beta 3

The tag for your download link says Task Coach...

Error message when opening preferences menu

"Can not enumerate items in 'images/themes' (error 3: system cannot find the specified path.)"

After closing the message, the preferences window displays fine.

Closing the preferences window will reset the default View and Panels styles, even u had changed them for the current session within the main window.

Initial impressions are very good - I could see myself moving to using this as a replacement for explorer in time... those tabs are nice.

However, I've found a couple of things about it, some that I'd call a bug, and a few that are more in the realm of feature requests.

First the bugs.

• When I delete a file by selecting it and hitting the Delete key on my keyboard, the display doesn't refresh to show the file having gone until I hit the F5 key.
• Folders with the system attribute set are not shown in the folder pane, even with show hidden files ticked. They show correctly in the detail tab, just not the folder tree. Since this includes the PortableApps and Documents folders, this is quite an issue

And the wishlist.

• When you open a new folder, it can take quite some time before anything at all is displayed. I suspect this is something to do with pulling icons out of the exe files, since it only takes a second or two for document folders, but just took a little over 8 seconds to display a folder with around 60 exes in it. Would it be possible to at least show some kind of "busy" message, or, ideally, fill out the file lines then go back and update the icons?
• It would be nice to have a status bar across the bottom to show things like the number of items, the total size, etc.
• Would it be possible to have a history of previously selected folders in the address bar, or an auto-complete feature, to ease typed navigation to a folder?

I've been putting off trying out any of the file manager replacements, but playing with this one, I'm starting to wish I'd done so sooner

Thanks for all the effort you've put into it already

Hi
Here is my polish update files for the 2.0 version

Download it here:
http://www.alice-dsl.net/m_t/xenon_pl.zip

Thanks for updating it!

As usual, some layout bugs that already come from previous releases.

I did notice a few bugs:

• It doesn't refresh the view after deleting a file/folder;
• And more important: When renaming a file, it creates a folder with the name of the file itself (without ever renaming the original file), and, although that folder can be read by other file managers, Xenon can't properly read it.

This was tested in WINE 1.1.16 in Ubuntu 8.10.

1. Your appinfo under control should just say

[Control]
Icons=1
Start=XenonPortable.exe

2. Also within AppInfo the homepage should be the portable page meaning portableapps.com/Xenon

3. Also within AppInfo the publisher should be PortableApps.com & MI3 Software

4. The app directory should be Xenon not xenon

5. The installer needs to be upgraded to 0.12.3

6. Line 164 through 204 is commented in your launcher. Why not just delete it?

First off thanks for this. I have the Xenon Portable that's hosted on the Applications page, I think it's 1.6. It was OK but I didn't use it much. Saw this topic and thought I'd take it for a spin.

No problems on this machine. XP Pro Sp2 and since you asked about color depth, 1024x768x32. Looks fine here.

[Bug/Issue] "Home" directory isn't quite portable. I mean, at work my flash drive is F: and at home it's L:. I set it to the flash drive's root (here at work) and it just says "F:\" up there. I don't even know what F is at home. One of my memory card readers, I think. Can it take a relative pathname? Just "\" without the quotes would do it, but it won't take manual entry, I can only fill that box in by browsing to a folder. Maybe put a few radio buttons in with quick entries that would be portable. Like "Device root" would be \ (in Windows) and "My Computer", behind the scenes, it's a system variable, right, like "%COMPUTER%"?

[Issue] Association editor is kinda buggy/sloppy. Just adding a program isn't enough and it won't remember it. You have to point at "(No Program)" and hit Edit. Also, the movie template doesn't have a lot of common formats. I added AVI, MOV, and FLV just to accommodate the files I have.

I haven't really messed with the more extensive features, and I really don't need to. My needs for it are pretty basic, so that's all I got.

Though, is there any way to launch Xenon when you click Explore on the menu?

It doesn't refresh after deleting things, and it won't delete folders.

Tested on Windows Xp service pack 2.

I can't figure out the portable File Associations so may want to make this easier to see and do ie own menu item?

Also with the tabbed browsing is it possible to set it up so that you can double click on the tab bar to open a new tab like in Firefox?

As stupid and silly and well all round superficial as it is to say, mayube a little eye candy

Lastly, thanks for your work

Some I'd forgotten, others new (esp. since Beta 3)

* The version tracking in Help>About isn't keeping up. It says it's "1.9 (aka 2.0 beta 1)". Beta 2 said it and Beta 3 says the same.

* Drag and drop for copy and move?

* If a program's running (e.g. VLC or CoolPlayer) and we double-click a file that would open that program, can the file just be sent to the app, or must it re-open the app? CoolPlayer is fine with this, but VLC will open a second copy. Since VLC takes a day and a half (lol) to open, it would be great if it would be sent to the one we opened last Wednesday (rofl).

* Bookmark editor. Seems like you have to hit Add to create a blank line and then hit Browse to edit that. Like the seemingly unnecessary extra step in associating a program with a set of extensions. Also, when I make a bunch of bookmarks (Root, Docs, Music, and Video) they show up as full paths, including the F drive, not the global variable ($DRIVE$ ?) you said it would make, and it won't let me type that in; I have to browse to it. To be fair, I haven't tried on a second computer yet to see if the paths really are relative. Thirdly, when I go back into the bookmark editor, it appears to have saved nothing (though the bookmarks appear in the menu) but if I double click on the phantom entries, voila, they appear.

* Open and Open Alternate are a mess. I had no idea Open Alternate opened a folder in a new tab; that was just a guess. The context menu should be a little more dynamic based on what you're right-clicking on. For folders, it ought to say Open and Open In New Tab. For files, it ought to check its associations database, much like Windows Explorer, and have, for example for a music file, Play In VLC, Play in CoolEdit, and Edit With Audacity.

I do realize this is a beta release, just letting you know what I find. Hopefully all this stuff gets sorted for the next stable release.

I couldn't get Xenon to delete a folder. It was in My Doucments title "New Folder" there was nothing inside it and I had no problem deleting it within explorer.

I was using portable Xenon 1.5 for a short while and appreciated the tick box to enable a search IN files for content (liked that it worked for ODT too, or was that something already on my computer than enabled odt search).

It opened a separate window and also listed the directory location where a file was found.

In version 3 beta 3 (downloaded 4/27) Search only opens a side panel for results, and no indication of where a file was found?

And version 2.0 won't search inside any files, even in text files? Did I miss a tick box somewhere or is that (very desirable) feature removed?

Also, the view with the folders showing. In 1.5, clicking on the left panel items would cause the right side to follow follow, but on 2.0 beta the right side does not react to click on the left panel.

(using xp sp3)

Thanks

I use Xenon 1.5 because it's the only File Manager that sets icons and file associations, both.

Xenon 2 seems to have left out the icons?
That's one good feature now gone.

I've tested it on Windows server 2003 SP3. In general it looks good but the icons for vista theme are very small on my display compared to tango.

Things that keep me from using it full time.
1. I don't get any of my windows context menus on right click. That removes a whole lot of features and accessibility.

2. It is slow. Very very slow at displaying folders even when I switch between tabs. It's as though it reloads the entire folder when I switch from one tab to another and this slowness makes is dreadfully painful to use for everyday use.

3. The folder pane is a pain. I doesn't close folders behind you. . . everything stays open and it's sketchy at times. Makes the entire folder pain useless. I get around faster with it off which isn't the case in most file managers.

Love 1.5's file manager with icons. It's the only one out there like that, that I've found. Gives you the feel of being on your home computer even on USB; furthermore, it can be used for all associations on your regular computer to keep your windows OS clean and pristine.

I would love to see something like Q-Dir+Xenon = perfect windows file manager. . . in my opinion

Keep up the good work.

UPDATE. . .
reverted back to 1.5 and it removed all my files?!?!?!?!?!?!
MAJOR FUBAR! Don't know what it did or why but it's a good thing I had it backed up. . . guess I won't be using it any longer.

On more than one occasion, Xenon inexplicably deleted files and deleted entire contents of folders. Within Xenon, I may have tried to delete one file within a folder, but it deleted all files within that folder and also all files within another folder that I had explored previously. On more than one occasion, within Xenon, I opened a disk clean-up utility such as "CCleaner" and it deleted most but not all of the contents of a folder containing another clean-up utility. Is this a bug? Or did I do something wrong? I used Xenon in the same way that I would use Windows Explorer, so I can't imagine I did anything wrong. When I tried to open the folders containing the mysteriously deleted files, I initially got Xenon's "Cancel, Retry, etc." dialog.