Filesystem Dialogs Library 2.1

Filesystem Dialogs Library 2.1 is designed as a professional program that provide the most powerful user-friendly file and folder selection options and simple file managament tools for the session.

Major Features:

1. You can use all your existing comdlg32.dll calls, just call the according functions accordingly
2. Can give back multiple files from different folders (that comdlg32.dll cant) for example when loading multiple recent documents
3. Option to call the dialogs like normal forms (without modal mode, and the user can continue their work while browsing - this is the prefered mode)
4. All window/column position/size & sorting settings are saved for every application and/or the user can choose to always use his/her favorite dialog settings
5. Very high quality thumbnail mode (that supports much more formats then the Windows dialog, and displays audio, HTML, text files too)
6. Option to cache the thumbnails on a per folder basis (like the Windowss Thumbs.db just with a little bit better quality and with audio file support)
7. If bass.dll is found audio thumbnails are generated from all formats that BASS supports
8. FreeImage.dll is supported also (adds many more formats)
9. Recent document list on a per-application basis (favorite feature) available with one click
10. Recent folder list, available with one click
11. Customizable favorite folders list
12. Implements by far the best folder selector (with the same recent and favorite list)
13. Automatically decodes URL encoded filanames, underscores
14. Viewer for pictures/images & an integrated web browser for the rest of the files (secondary display viewer mode - for dual display setups)
15. Unicode support

Installation

1. Unpack the Filesystem Dialogs package ("Filesystem Dialogs x.x.x.zip").
   
   • In Delphi menu: Component: Install component.
   • Unit file name: select "FilesystemDialogsDefs.pas".
   • Compile and save package.
   • If everything went smooth you can access Filesystem Dialogs's dialog component on 3delite's tab.
   • Other language developers see the "FilesystemDialogsDynamic.pas" source for the simple structures (two needed) that can be converted to your language.
   • Supported thumbnail and viewer file formats
2. Pictures:
   
   • JPG images (*.jpg, *.jpeg)
   • TIFF images (*.tif, *.tiff) (You need a license to use the LZW compressed format)
   • GFI fax images (*.fax)
   • SGI images (*.bw, *.rgb, *.rgba, *.sgi)
   • Autodesk images files (*.cel, *.pic) old style only
   • Truevision images (*.tga, *.vst, *.icb, *.vda, *.win)
   • ZSoft Paintbrush images (*.pcx, *.pcc)
   • Word 5.x screen capture files (*.scr)
   • Kodak Photo-CD images (*.pcd)
   • Portable pixel/gray map images (*.ppm, *.pgm, *.pbm)
   • Dr. Halo images (*.cut, *.pal)
   • CompuServe images (*.gif)
   • SGI Wavefront images (*.rla, *.rpf)
   • Standard Windows bitmap images (*.bmp, *.rle, *.dib),
   • Photoshop images (*.psd, *.pdd)
   • Paintshop Pro images (*.psp)
   • Portable network graphic images (*.png)
   • If Free Image Library (FreeImage.dll) is found in the process space or in the file system path, additional formats are available, - also there is a twice chance that special non-ordinary formats are recognised too:
   • Amiga (*.iff, *.lbm)
   • DirectDraw Surface (*.dds)
   • Raw Fax format CCITT G3 (*.g3)
   • High Dynamic Range (*.hdr)
   • JPEG Network Graphics (*.jng)
   • Commodore 64 Koala format (*.koa)
   • Multiple Network Graphics (*.mng)
   • Sun Rasterfile (*.ras)
   • Truevision Targa files (*.tga, *.targa)
   • Wireless Bitmap (*.wbmp)
   • X11 Bitmap Format (*.xbm)
   • X11 Pixmap Format (*.xpm)
3. Audios:
   
   • MPEG audio Tag-ed with ID3v2 containing SESC frame (*.mp3, *.mp2, *.mp1)
   • Free Lossless Audio Codec audio file Taged with ID3v2 containing SESC frame (*.flac)
   • But every file is checked, if it contains a SESC frame it is displayed as an audio file.
   • Furthermore if bass.dll is found in the process space or in the file system path, thumbnails are generated for all audio files that BASS can open (all the file formats that BASS supports or there is a BASS plugin loaded for the particular format).
4. Webpages:
   
   • HTML files (*.html, *.htm, *.mht)
   • URL files (links) (*.url)
   • Flash files (*.swf)
5. Text:
   
   • Text files (*.txt, *.text, *.log)
6. Keyboard shortcuts
   
   • F1: Online help (this page)
   • F3: Viewer on/off
   • F7: Create new folder
   • Esc: Close the dialog & cancel
   • Ctrl + A: Select all
7. When navigating in the lister:
   
   • F2: Rename selected item
   • Left arrow: Up one folder
   • Right arrow: If on folder go into it
   • Up arrow: Navigate on the list up and wraps down if reaches top
   • Down arrow: Navigate on the list down and wraps up if reaches bottom
   • Any character: The usual quick jump to the file name beggining with that letter
   • Ctrl + D: Copy selected file name to the clipboard
8. While pre-viewing:
   
   • Left mouse button: Hold down and drag image
   • Middle mouse button: Reset all view
   • Mouse wheel: Zoom in and zoom out
   • Right mouse button: Full context menu for the file
   • PageUp: Previous file
   • PageDown: Advance to the next file
   • Secondary full-screen viewer:
   • Esc: Close
   • Space: Audio Play/Pause

Settings:

1. Automatically go into folders after creating them: Go into folders after creating them. Quite a reasonable event. You can disable it for backward compatibility though.
2. Milisecond precise time display: Timestamp will display ms (milliseconds) too.
3. Display Artist - Title in Description field for ID3 Tag-ed files
4. Display ID3 data in the Description field. First ID3v2 is checked if non existent, falls back to ID3v1. This does take longer time to update the list though.
5. Formats checked: .MP1 .MP2 .MP3 .MP4 .M4A .WAV .MPC .AAC .APE .VQF .FLAC
6. Disable tree view until first use (greatly increases performance)
7. The tree-view won't be refreshed/updated until the first use (clicking on it etc.) this results about twice the speed when changing folders.
8. Always use last used folder (per app.):  Always use last used folder when the dialog pops up. That is from where you last browsed for files.
9. Remember only one dialog setting and use it for every application:  Only one dialog appeareance will be used for every application. That is: the new dialog will be opened at the same place and will use the same settings where you last left it.
10. Save settings on "Cancel" too, not only on "Open" and "Save":  Save dialog's settings (column layout, filters, view mode etc.) every time the window is closed, not only when an "OK" type button or event is commited, but on "Cancel" or when the user simpli closes the window with the close button (X) too.
11. Show Scrollbars on Recent Folders List and Drives and Favorites List:  You should use an app. like Wheeler to gain control over the lister with the mouse wheel.
12. Font for Lister:  Select a font for lister display. User's preference.
13. Warning: Draging is a bit broken with another font!
14. Recent folders to remember: Number of visited folders to remember.
15. Don't display file extensions:  Only for those who don't like seeing the .jpg extension.
16. When saving files force extension case to
17. Force extension case to lower or upper case. Select for convinience.
18. Upper case: Pic.Jpg -> Pic.JPG
19. Lower case: Pic.Jpg -> Pic.jpg
20. Display file extensions converted too:  Display file extensions converted to the selected case.
21. Use Lanczos filter for thumbnails (slow filter but gives highest quality): Using Lanczos filter will result the highest, most crisp quality for the generated images, but will take more time to generate the thumbnails. Recommended though. Without Use Lanczos filter for thumbnails checked the most simple and fastest linear mode is used which results pixely thumbnails. But is much more faster though.
22. Generate thumbnails for folders which contain pictures:  Little thumbnails will be generated and shown on top of folder icons in thumbnail mode, so you can see the first pictures inside the folder.
23. Generate thumbnails for recognised audio files: Unique feature, only available with BASS. If BASS library is found in the process space and is in an initialized state, thumbnails will be generated from all audio files supported by BASS (and it's plugins). Very usefull feature for applications dealing with sound and audio files.
24. Note that you still get thumbnails for audio files even without BASS, if they are Taged with ID3v2 and contain sample cache (SESC frame).
25. Save SESC (cache for sample graphics) into ID3v2 (+0.35% file size): Save the "thumbnail graphics" data into the file, in an ID3v2 Tag. This sample cache is very small, it's about 0.35% size of the file (for example: ~30KB for an ordinary MP3 file), and the next time when a thumbnail is needed for the audio file this cache will be used which means no sampling is needed, which means nearly instant thumbnail display (this is even faster then generating a thumbnail for a picture file).
26. Cache the thumbnails (~1MB on every ~100MB):  Save the thumbnail cache (inside Thumbs Filesystem Dialogs.db in every folder in ID3v2 format) and obtain instantenous loading of non audio thumbnails (~45MB/DVD).
27. Zoom small images x2:  Will magnify small images two times (to the double), that can fit with this double size into the thumbnail. This is the opposite what should happen as the thumbnails are about creating small pictures.
28. Center folder names on folder thumbnails (else aligned to the left): Folder names will be centered on folder thumbnails (recommended as it is more perspicuous), if you uncheck this, the text is aligned to the left. 
    

Requirements: Delphi (TOpen/SaveDialog compatible) component and C++ header included, VB, C# or any dev. environment that supports the stdcall calling convention.

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