It’s a simple and stupid problem. I have all of these MP3 files of varying artists stuffed into a Music folder, and now I want to sort them into subfolders. The easiest way to get it done, it would seem, would be to go into my Windows Explorer and filter on a particular keyword (like, “linkin” or “system”) and have the file manager display only the files that match that keyword. So I fire up Windows Explorer and…no dice. That feature doesn’t exist–even as we round the tenth year of the Microsoft graphical user interface.
The problem, I think, is that two of my most-used desktop applications over the course of a day are a web browser and a database package. Over time, I simply get used to being able to use feature sets available in both.
So–as technologists often do–I get to thinking, “Somebody else has to have run into this same problem. Surely if I Google for ‘windows explorer alternatives,’ I will find a viable solution…with a nice user interface…for free.” Optimistic, I know. What makes the search even more daunting is the fact that searching for Windows tweaks always tends to unearth the earlier days of dot-com opportunism, er, enthusiasm. Once Windows 95 hit the shelves, anyone with a copy of Visual Basic was able to write up a quicky application–no user interface too cruel. The Internet, while being surpassingly cool, was also a breeding ground for these kinds of cut-n-paste coders. Anyone with a copy of Frontpage could slap together a website, complete with a shopping cart accepting Visa or Mastercard.
A good hour or so of Googling finally turned up this gem six or seven pages deep. The application is called, somewhat cryptically, A43. The website, which is thankfully light on those loud, shaking banner ads and 24-point headlines, states, A43 is a freeware file management utility for Windows 2000/XP.
The screenshot was sharp enough and the price was right, so I figured I’d give it a try.
==The file manager, much to my surprise, was actually pleasant to use: no obnoxious fonts, no seizure-inducing color schemes, and no dialog boxes clamoring for attention. I quickly found the “file mask” box below the explorer window, where I was able to type in “*evanescence*.*” and filter. Sweet. Once I finished copying the files, I didn’t want to have to type in *.* again to reset it. Instead, I right-clicked the box and–sure enough–a context menu gave me the option to list All Files again. Beautiful. Works just like my database tools. Once I finished with my Music folder, I was able to click on the Back button to get back to the Desktop. Works just like my web browser. :)==
Here’s a short list of other features that A43 has going for it:
* Thumbnail viewer
* Text editor with word wrap, undo, and line numbers
* Advanced find file feature
* Hex editor
* Open DOS window (at the current location)
* Drag-and-Drop Zip/Unzip/Make Executable Zip built in
* Customizable fonts and colors
A43 is currently being actively developed (the most recent release was on 9/16/2003) by B. G. Miller, who originally designed the software for his personal use and has since released it as freeware. Highly recommended: check it out.
Dude, this is beatifully simple software! And, might I add, ridiculously lightweight while still fully featured. There’s still some good stuff that Windows explorer XP has that this may not (I’m thinking specifically of the cool “filmstrip” and “View as Slide Show” stuff for digital imaging), but for a file manager, this is A+ stuff. I also don’t get that “Microsoft is breathing down your neck” feeling when using it. I feel like MS monitors windows explorer or something, because for a simple file manager, windows explorer is just too slow. What’s it doing in the back end? This is great stuff. A+ find K!
p.s. – I put a shortcut icon on my shortcut bar to A43, but I changed the icon to look like windows explorer (at work)! This way, A43 is my file browser! Gotta love this K… sweetness…
I don’t like it. here is why:
1) a file manager doesn’t need to include a text editor. That is going well beyond its scope.
2) a file manager doesn’t need a “find file” feature. I know that statement sounds contridictory, but its true. Again, because it is beyond its scope. ‘Find Files’ should be a seperate application. The file manager itself should only have to dead with files in the current directory being viewed.
3) Open Dos Window. While this might be a handy thing to have, you shouldn’t need it. If the file manager was doing its job well, you wouldn’t need it. Honestly, I’d like to hear why this is included. If i wanted to do it from the commandline, i woulda opened a command line (and usually do) instead of a gui file manager.
4) Hex Editor : see text editor. There are fabulous hex editors out there already.
5) Built in zip sounds silly. Why not include a plugin interface so that the user can add which ever zip tools they would like? (I prefer 7zip on windows over any other i’ve seen. most people like winzip)
being able to sort on *foobar*.* really isn’t anything special, at least in the commandline. (BTW: *foobar*.* is the same thing as *foobar*). This is actually why i don’t even touch a file manager anymore. The GUI file managers are just so dang limiting, and cumbersome to work with.
Also. If you have all your music in one large directory, and want to orginize it into directories, you might wanna check out a thread on begroovy. I wrote a quick and dirty perl script to do just that (but for images) for someone. It could be easily modified to match music files, and be case insensitive and such.
Something like that is far more tedious than one should have to endure doing by hand.
There are also some much more advanced perl and python scripts that you can find on freshmeat, to do just this sort of thing. A couple (i forget which ones) will look at your id3 tags and go as far as creating album names as well inside artist directories.
Altp.
actually, i just reread my post, and need to correct myself.
*foobar* is NOT the same as *foobar*.*
that was a sincerly dumb rewritting of a pattern match on my part. sorry about that
Altp.
Mike, these features are very useful. You’re talking semantics of the software genre-box “file manager”. This is more, obviously, than just a file manager. It’s a general “all access” manager. And compare it to windows explorer for a minute… looks a lot better from that angle, doesn’t it?
Mike,
Regarding your numbered list that would probably make a fine numbered list if I didn’t shut off HTML in my comments:
1. I don’t think including a text editor is too far out of whack. I agree that A43 may be overreaching in some aspects where it could be focusing more on being a makes-me-glad-I-didn’t-buy-a-Mac file manager, but I don’t think including a text-editor is overreaching. I jump in and out of text editors all of the time editing CSS, HTML, configuration files, etc. Having that integrated into the file manager is a nice perk.
2. I disagree. Aside from “locate” in Linux–which is arguably still “part” of the command line “file manager”–where do you ever see a separate find file application used in an OS? Windows has it built in. Mac does (I’m pretty sure), too. Besides, if I’m unsuccessful finding a file from a top-down approach via the file manager, I don’t want to fire up another application to do a bottom-up search.
3. I think there are just some command-line things that you can’t easily accomplish in the GUI. There are different strengths in each: GUIs are good with multimedia (thumbnails), command lines are good with manipulating text (grep). Putting an “Open Command Line Tool Here” in a GUI file manager acknowledges that fact. I appreciate Linux in that the open source community has effectively designed panache into both: Nautilus is a great file manager, and bash is one of the nicest command line shells I’ve used.
4. I think you’re right about the Hex Editor–I’ve never used one, so I don’t really require one to be in my file manager.
5. The nice thing about A43 is that it doesn’t override your context menu. When you right-click on files, you still have every option available to you as you would in Windows Explorer. That way, you can choose which compression utility you want. That said, I don’t think most people really care which compression software they use, just so long as it works. My wife’s laptop has StuffIt installed to deal with compression without WinZip adware. I’m inclined to uninstall StuffIt (which has its own subtle upgrade messages) and just use A43.
Filtering files is not something I’ve only wanted to do for MP3s, but other files as well. It’s nice to have a quick-to-access textbox to let me filter rather than tinker with a Perl script. Again, though, it kinda comes down to what tools you use. At work, I’ve written a productivity task-management database that lets me quickly filter out a particular task category with a few (/very/ few) keypresses. On the other hand, you program in Perl on a regular basis. To each his own, I suppose.
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I don’t think including a text editor is too far out of whack.
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The thing is, the text editor included in a ‘file manager’ will be a stripped down text editor. It will never include the features that come with something like emacs or UltraEdit (probably the best windows text editor out there. If i used windows any more than I do, i would prolly buy it)
I would much rather be able to right click->edit with a text editor i define than one that is built in. I would much rather see the file manager consentrate on things like network protocols so that I could connect to my server witht he file manager and interact with the files as if they were local. Or even, just raw speed so that when I open a directory with thousands of files, they just all appear.
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where do you ever see a separate find file application used in an OS?
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MacOS X .. its called Sherlock.
But, aside from that, for the sake of being able to easily replace your find application with a better tool. The find utility and the file manager should be designed to work together (both being able to call each other), but find shouldn’t be included directly with the file manager, as the same application.
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GUIs are good with multimedia (thumbnails)
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Actually, i generally turn thumb nails off.
… Seriously, i don’t like them all that much.
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I think you’re right about the Hex Editor
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the logic behind it is the same as the text editor. Someone that doesn’t use a text editor often, but uses a hex editor frequently would see the logic in 1 and not in 4. Granted this person is rare, a bit odd.
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And compare it to windows explorer for a minute… looks a lot better from that angle, doesn’t it?
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To be honest. Windows explorer, that is just the file manager part that pops up when you hit windows_key+E, is one of the few things Microsoft has done right. BeOS Tracker was close, as was MacOS 9’s file manager, but neither were quite as good. I really don’t like OS X’s, i found it very cumbersome to use. I like being able to see the ‘details’ view all the time (name, file type, permissions, date modified, owner) and OS X’s always defaulted back to icons. Nautilus, though it has all the feature i want, is a burden even on my Dual 1.8Ghz Xeon with 1Gb of ram. Windows File manager ‘feels’ polished. Its generally very responsive (even on huge directories), and its one of the things that I have not had crash on me (or at least less than any other I’ve used, except maybe Norton Commander).
Gawd, I feel like a troll now
Sorry about that. File managers are one of those topics that set me off though. I really don’t truly like any of them. THey all have too many flaws, and I always find myself back on a command line, no matter which OS it is.
My perfect filemanager would be something very simular to Norton commander, but updated to handle modern problems. I would probably like a couple lines at the bottom of the screen to see terminal output instead of jut one … but, iirc, you could turn off a panel to see output behind it. I know MC still exists, but, i’d rather not be in a terminal.
Altp.
God Bless the open source community. I bounce between Linux and *BSD, currently using Debian testing/unstable, BUT I was raised on DOS/Windows. Over the last year I have been force fed the command line (did it to myself). Now I rarely use a GUI file manager. I seem to always waste time. Also only using the command line causes me to be more organized. When I need a basic GUI file manager, I normally use Rox Filer. I use the console for things I once insisted on using in a GUI. IRC (irssi), music (cplay,mplayer,mpg123,ogg123, …). Oh and I have easy switching (and only one login) between them (using screen). With screen I can detach, then reopen in another terminal (whether in some xterm app, or remotely).
I guess I have become a freak/fanatic. But fanatic only means I am a ‘fan’… so yes I am a fanatic (Christian Fanatic also…). Sorry for the rambling.
“Why are we hiding from the police, daddy?”
“Because we use vi son, they use emacs”
I used my old nick (trep) before sorry about the confusion… I almost forgot something.
I installed cygwin on my work desktops so I could have the power of the bash shell everywhere. I also found a nice script that will open files from the bash shell based on windows associations. Next project is to learn latex. The only GUI file manager I use at work (under windows) is IrfanView’s ThumbNail viewer.
sean
Altp/Mike/You,
A few things –
1) Find is integrated into finder in OS X. Sherlock is a weird internet pseudo browser thats a direct rip off of Watson by Karelia software. Advanced Find used to be in Sherlock, but was still in finder to a degree. Finding a file is a core function of just about every file manager on the planet – so deal with it.
2) Just like you don’t need an electric screwdriver EVERYTIME you need to unscrew something, you don’t need emacs or ultraedit for EVERY text file. There is an advantage in speed and process flow to being able to do the basics of text editing inline… tweaking a 3 line config file for example… or adding a quick journal entry to the top of a file… or whatever. Don’t say just because it isnt the best at its function out of every specialized app out there it shouldnt exist. Over specialization CAN happen.
3) Opening a dos window is VERY helpful. In fact, one of my favorite powertoys used to be “Command Line Here” – it’s because there are many things you can do in a gui just as easily/ more enjoyably / etc that you cant do on command line, but the inverse is true. A good example would be copying an arbirtary group of files out of a folder and leaving the remainder. At a command line you would have to type a bunch of various patterns and names to match them all… in the windows world you would have to type many commands, while on linux you could get all fancy with a nice forloop going… but its still a lot of typing, and a lot of room for error. In the gui, just ctrl-click the ones you want, drag, done. But then agian, you may want to run a perl script in a certain folder you find while navigating – open a dos window there, type the script name, boom… done. There are advantages to both.
I guess my point is realize that no interface is perfect for everything. There are two ways to approach the problem- 1 is with a tool box of small tools (think command lines + pipes) and the other is with a swiss army knife – then you throw in VERY specialized apps, which mostly act as “small tools” – but all of those have their own value. If both tools are sitting in front of you, it’s easier to use a real screwdriver than the crappy thing in the swiss army knife. But if you have to go GET the screwdriver from the garage or whatever, maybe the swiss army knife takes less extra effort. both are ok. Both have value. Flexibility is good. I am ranting for no discernable reason. I will stop.
ken
2xExplorer http://netez.com/2xExplorer/ is another win32 file manager that looks efficient. I ran the executable directly from a zip file and it opened nice and quick (so nothing to install). I won’t be using it, b/c I want my terminal =P
Google Directory (or DMOZ) has a nice list of file managers: http://directory.google.com/Top/Computers/Software/File_Management/File_Managers/Windows/Orthodox/
Sean, thanks for the tips. I had skipped over 2xExplorer because the website and screenshots looked a little to busy to me (I’m such a UI snob).
I’ll give it a try though, thanks!
If this is improper for me to post here forgive me.
I just wanted to share to all those that have tried A43,
whether they use it or not, thank you.
A43 is freeware because I have been blessed over the years with
so much from others. I know A43 is not the so called ‘real world’
application, but it does offer me some benefits and others have
shared the same with me. The biggest benefit being someone,
somewhere, took time to drop a note and say thank you. Makes
me feel like I made a little contribution in this life. These are
gifts of a life time.
Thanks for the space.
Bradley
but, i was curious to know if there is are any radically new options instead of applications which make it more easy to use different applications….
say something like totally new navigations etc. flying throught the hard disk etc…
The reason that I have some problem with windows explorer is two fold.
1. It’s too slow to browse a large directory. I am talking about directory with 10,000+ files. It’s even slow to browse a parent directory of a directory with 10,000+ files. Probably windows explorer has a look forward feature that causes it slow down. I am not sure.
2. It is too slow to copy and paste through windows explorer with large number of files.
For these two reasons. I use old dos to do file manipulations for large directories. Imagine the frustration.
-Kundi
Hi.
Guess this one should interest you (it´s call Tracker):
http://www.trackerv3.com/shots.htm
Regards.
Brazil
Brazil–thanks for the recommendation. Tracker looks pretty sharp.
Windows Explorer is slow. A43 is quick, looks fine but there are two things I miss:
#1: I want to be able to open a new window od the browser when I press CTRL-N.
#2: I want to have a commandline where I can enter adresses of folders like “d:\data\videos”, press Enter and the folder is shown in the active window.
Nevertheless this tool looks useful. Good work!
Owi!