Xenon File Manager Portable 1.5 Pre-Release 5

A lot faster than before.
Can't wait for this to come out :D:D!

I am trying it now, at the afternoon (GTM) I will give some info as now I am at school.

Will download and try it on the 15th when I finally move to my new house and get connected to high speed internet

The X which closes the tab became bigger when I resized the window.
Also, a hover effect for it would be really nice (Just make it a little lighter). Hover effects makes it a lot easier to click on something.

The bug where the folder pane is blank is still occuring. If you fire up a new copy of Xenon and click View - Show Folders without clicking on a folder or file first, the folder pane comes up blank. If you click on any folder and then hit refresh, it'll show up.

Ok, we need a few polish bits that I can see...

1. The splash screen is stretching the JPG. Probably because we removed the outline so it's 2 pixels shorter in length and width. Just a quick change in the code will fix that.

2. The PortableApps.com Default Theme could use a better close icon. I like the one I'd suggested. So, I've made it into an ICO for you. Just add it in.
https://portableapps.com/downloads/app_extras/xenon/closetab.ico

3. As mentioned above, the close icon stretches and distorts if you maximize the Xenon window.

4. We need to add a default help file to the root directory. You can use the PortableApps.com template from the others. You could actually place that in the Xenon directory and have the root one be a simple Javascript redirect to it if you want.

5. About the shellexecute... would it be easier for you if we did it as calling the executable specified by %PortableApps.comShellExecute% with three parameters? I'm thinking: open "X:\Path To File\File Name.extension" errorifnotdefined in Xenon's case. Would that work for you?

6. Also, don't forget to update the version in Help - About.

I just tried my graphics skills (Ok, I threw some images together :P) at putting together a new preview for the Tango theme. It's better than the original, but really not fantastic. If NeoRame has something better, that's great.

preview.jpg

preview_tango.pdn

This is kinda buggin' me, because Explorer only does it when you bypass the recycle bin. I realize Xenon doesn't use the recycle bin either, but is there a way to stop the message about 'are you sure you want to delete the file blah?', or could a option be added?

Also, I don't know who's in favour with me on this, but I always use the traditional F2 for rename, and control+r for refresh. I know F5 is normally refresh too, but so is Control+R in most cases. I've seen John be picky on some other features Explorer users are used to, so maybe we should have those key combinations set to their traditional values? Up to what people prefer I s'pose.

Finally, I've been having a few bugs. One, I start up Xenon and the folder pane and navigation pane are blank forcing me to manually enter a location into the go bar. Now my folder pane is not working. It only expands and collapses directories, I cannot enter them (navigation pane is blank). Now Xenon has stalled (third time), I'm gonna try a re-install and use it as a base file manager to see what problems I run into and I'll get back to you.

Edit: Pre-Release 2: I have a clean install. I've tested this multiple times now. When selecting 'Show Folders' as your first action when at the default location (root of the drive), the folder pane displays properly. However, if you are to first go to the Computer root, and then select to 'Show Folders', it only displays a blank pane.

Curious, is there a reason drives are not striped at the Computer root? I think it would look better if they were.

For note: Bookmark editor and bookmarks are working flawlessly so far.

I know they did before, but they don't seem to now. Is there a reason custom folder icons are not shown, or is there an option for this? This will be needed to match the new Platform icons.

When using Control+C and Control+V to copy and paste, they work fine some of the time, but other times they just they just won't perform any action at all. Toolbar buttons and menu items that perform the action appear to always work.

For note: Once instance when pasting the window asking me of I would like to replace X with Y did not show the info about X and Y. I cannot reproduce this.

When entering an invalid path into the address bar, no error is given, just nothing happens. I think an error should be given if it's not too hard.

How hard would it be to add a feature to use Tab to move from the address bar, to the folder pane (when shown), to the navigation page, and then back to the address bar, etc. I can move from the address bar to folder pane to navigation pane only if an item is selected in each and cannot go back to the address bar. It would be handy if it's not hard, but it can wait.

File association editor is working flawlessly so far.

Searching does not work from the computer root. This would be helpful to have. I'm not sure whether it's a limitation, forgotten feature, or bug.

That's all I've noticed so far. Sorry to bombard you, I just don't want you bombarded with bugs and small little user annoyances when this is released. I'll continue using it to check for anything else. No crashing since, it may have just been my PC.

I got an 'Error Deleting' window, with the three options (quit, retry, retry as admin) available. I would say maybe have some small dialog somewhere on the error window saying that the file may be in use, as that's what the problem was but Xenon doesn't tell you that.

Thanks.

P.S. Buttons are pretty big in that Window eh?

Ok, until now, Xenon is acting great. But I have a few ideas for version 2 (even though I know that it may be faaaaaaaar away).

• Better performance
  • On my Windows Vista SP1 (and other systems unsupported) it runs slowly and it even blocks when a folder has many stuff inside.
• Better integration
  • So, here there is a lot of stuf to show. I even made screenshots
    Screenshot (original)
    Screenshot (mockup)
    So, let me explain what we have here:
    • Using native toolbars instead of toolbox appearance Instead of using that awful toolbox appearance, we use native toolbars, that look better on every system.
    • Firefox 3 like Tabbar That shiny tabbar is used by Firefox on Windows Vista, maybe we could use that there, and on other systems use a normal toolbar.
    • Removing height of textboxes even though the textboxes are ok with no borders, with borders it is better to remove something like 2 pixels of height.
    • Minor details on tabs as you can see in the screenshot, the tabs look a little different. I added 2 pixels margins on the left, and the active tab has no border on the bottom (Maybe Vista Only).
    • Future changes If you think of adding a bookmarks bar use Firefox 3 blue toolbar scheme for Vista (the one used on Windows Mail), as I think it would look better.

These are my 2 cents. I know these ideas are awfully hard to implement (and even more on AutoIt/AutoHotKey), but if only some of those where applied (only on version 2 as it requires a lot of code change, right?) I think it would be a good usability improvement. Xenon has potential and should be developed as much as possible.

If I attempt to open Xenon Help on a system which already has an instance of Firefox physically installed directly to the host machine and with that instance also open on the desktop then I get an error message directing me to close that open instance first.

Strictly, this is an issue with Firefox Portable rather than Xenon, since Firefox Portable also generates the same error on open if a host desktop instance of Firefox is already open, but I thought you might like to know about it.

Robert

When I hit the link to the main app, the description says its freeware! I thought we only host open source!

Edit: I mean, it says the launcher is open source, while the app is not.

I've just tried Pre-Release 3 on vista, and I haven't found any problems yet and doesn't leave anything obvious behind.

Thanks for all the bug fixes and small improvements, pre-release 3 is working great. The only thing I've noticed so far is when changing icon sets (after closing the icon set window), it gives me a small message box saying The drive is not ready. I'm sure that's an easy fix unless it's just me.

Edit: Title of help.html file is still Jooleem.

I just noticed the folder icon in the PortableApps.com theme are reverse as they are in the standard set. @ John Haller, are the icons in the next platform release not going to be going the regular way so they open left? If so, they icon needs to have its images flipped.

John, when the BUUF theme is packaged for it's final release will you package it with Xenon? The Icons themselves are finalized it just needs a new preview.

HI all! Like always I have a cardreader with empty slots. When I start Xenon 1.5 pr4 it shows me error: Disk not ready, etc! This bug was in previous versions of xenon! But in pr3 it was fixed, now it apears again!

When some program change the file or files in current tab Xenon doesn't refresh file tab automatically. I need to press F5 button. I think this feature will helpfull in future versions of Xenon.

Is Russian language exists??? If not, maybe I can do it for Xenon? How?

On search files with mask "*.exe" xenon shows me error:

---------------------------
AutoIt Error
---------------------------
Line -1:

Error: Subscript used with non-Array variable.
---------------------------
ОК
---------------------------

One of my antivirus programs thought Xenon Portable was a virus. Normally, this would not be a problem, but it was scanned using ClamWin Portable.

1) Right click on any file not associated with a program
2) click open
3) you will get "the file dos not have any program associated with it ...
4) click OK
5) you will get line:-1, Error:Unable to execute the external program ...
5) Xenon will shut down

Regards