Request: Miniscule file manager

TychoQuad · Post by **TychoQuad** » 2003 Oct 21, 00:42

Hi Nikos, as you know, I use xplorer2. I find it the best file manager on the planet, and use it every day.

However, I have a request for another file manager, not to replace xplorer2, but to suppliment it.

I use an alternate shell called geoshell. Being a maker of a file manager, I'm guessing you would know what i'm talking about, but anyway, Geoshell and most alternative shells don't support proper desktops. This can be a pain, as I'd prefer to have instant and constant access to anything I put on the desktop. Searching for something tiny which I could constantly run, and hold my desktop icons with ease turned up negative, so I came here.

What I'm asking for is a file manager without any toolbars, window borders (or a non-standard xtra thin one) close maximize or minimize buttons, nothing but one content area. I was thinking that the user could set the folder it uses by the shortcut used to execute it (I'd put a shortcut to C:\app\name.exe "c:\docs&sett\myname\desktop" in my startup folder.

If any options were to be added, I'd like the ability to set the window to be always on top, or always on bottom, set transparency levels, and the ability to autohide to the edge of the screen, revealing itself on hover, similar to the windows taskbar (or geoshell bars

)

I realise this is a rather extreme "feature" request, but I'm starting to get desperate. Thanks for your time.

Post by **nikos** » 2003 Oct 21, 12:14

so why won't geoshell provide a desktop? What are they providing then? Is litestep the same thing, desktop-wise?

x2 could in principle serve as the desktop but i think geoshell et al programmers should get a bit more creative themselves

TychoQuad · Post by **TychoQuad** » 2003 Oct 21, 12:35

They aren't providing anything. All shells I've seen that don't simply overlay Explorer, treat the desktop folder like an ordinary folder, which means nothing really. Personally I agree that this is codswhollop, Geoshell's excuse is that it would add too much bloat, and would be really hard and come out stupid if crowbarred into a plugin. I haven't read Litestep's excuse.

Ever since finding xplorer2, i have been using it as a desktop folder, but every time i shut down, I kick myself for not cleaning up the desktop folder, mainly because I forgot anything was there.

What I was hoping on finding, was a file manager so small, it pretty much omitted any feature bar drag and drop, for the sake of speed. This I could run all the time on my desktop. I haven't found anything which can fill this gap to this day. If you know of something, let me know

Thanks for your time.... again

Post by **nikos** » 2003 Oct 21, 13:59

i don't know of any, although a peek at www.shellcity.net might bring something

still if you are running x2 anyway, why does size matter?
to simulate a desktop perfectly all you need are registry tweaks that allow icons to be placed around like win desktop does, and these positions to be remembered; the latter part will require a separate program but i've already seen some that "save icon locations"

mimeryme · Post by **mimeryme** » 2003 Oct 22, 06:52

Litestep has several plugins which allow folder contents to be displayed on the desktop a la Explorer's Desktop interface.

I use blackbox for windows and I happily use x2 (keyboard shortcut Win+X) and access the desktop (Ctrl+Backspace).

I haven't used geoshell in a while, but blackbox allows for menus to display dynamic content. Perhaps geoshell has a similar implementation.

TychoQuad · Post by **TychoQuad** » 2003 Oct 22, 10:07

nikos wrote:still if you are running x2 anyway, why does size matter?
to simulate a desktop perfectly all you need are registry tweaks that allow icons to be placed around like win desktop does, and these positions to be remembered; the latter part will require a separate program but i've already seen some that "save icon locations"

The thing is, I don't want to run x2 all the time, just when i want to manipulate folders. It's the desktop content i want to access see at any time, just like all modern OS's allow you to do.

Also, I don't want to simulate the desktop perfectly, The only featues the windows desktop has that i want, is dynamically updated content, and drag&drop. In fact, i believe something like this could be much better than a windows desktop, because even when showing icons, with a transparency level set, it could still allow you to see the desktop background with relative ease.

mimeryme wrote:Litestep has several plugins which allow folder contents to be displayed on the desktop a la Explorer's Desktop interface.

I'll have a look, but to be perfectly honest, I'm not a big fan of litestep... I might use it for a desktop if I can keep the memory usage down. Shouldn't be hard if I'm only running this plugin.

mimeryme wrote:I use blackbox for windows and I happily use x2 (keyboard shortcut Win+X) and access the desktop (Ctrl+Backspace).

I haven't used geoshell in a while, but blackbox allows for menus to display dynamic content. Perhaps geoshell has a similar implementation.

I've had a play with blackbox, and I find it nice, but not so nice in many other ways. I've been using a quick menu to get to my desktop, so it's not too dissimilar to your solution.

Oh yeah, and there isn't any menus "dynamic enough" to handle a desktop in geoshell, the plugin arcitecture is too restrictive.

TychoQuad · Post by **TychoQuad** » 2003 Oct 22, 11:41

ARGH! I'm never, ever, EVER touching litestep again... not without a barge-pole anyway...

That thing is wayyy to complicated... i couldn't even set it to run one plugin...

tick69 · Post by **tick69** » 2003 Oct 26, 19:31

I have been using litestep fo r many years. I really like it and will probably never give it up. Rember windows '95? Ever use the 'powertoys' from windows '95? There was a powertoy called 'deskmenu' -- very light, a little icon in the systray. you right click on it and a list of all desktop icons and namespaces pops up. you can see verything on the legacy desktop that other apps put there and you can run them with one click. That is your quick and dynamic access to the desktop.

As far as sending things to the desktop quickly and easily, you can right click on anything and choose send to --> desktop(create shortcut) and add a shortcut to the desktop just as easily, not quite drag and drop, but just as convienent.

As far as cleaning it up easily, that may be a chore for geoshell--never used it. In Litestep I have a dynamic folder in my menu and I can follow it down to the desktop level and rightclick on anything there and choose 'delete' and its gone.

This is a lightweight solution that should be able to do what you want.

TychoQuad · Post by **TychoQuad** » 2003 Oct 27, 03:40

Not Really... While this Deskmenu powertoy is a nice idea, I could create a geobar which could do exactly that much more conveniently. The problem with that solution is that the contents of the folder are not constantly bugging me to clean them up. That's the issue here, I'm not particularly fussed in which folder it uses, It's just that that's the folder Windows chooses.

Also, your drag and drop substitute is definately NOT adequate. Shortcuts on the desktop are useless, and only waste my desktop, memory and HDD space. The whole point of this is that my desktop beccomes a temporary storage location, which constantly pesters me to clean it up, and can do so by simply finding the files a home, and throwing them there with the mouse, or two hotkeys. Finding the file's actual locations within a shortcut would be time consuming and counter-productive.

HOWEVER, being a litestep user, maybe you can help me!

I have seen that there are a number of litestep plugins designed to create a desktop enviroment, however, I can't use them, because I can't wrangle the step.rc file. I don't suppose you could strip a litestep distro down to just the litestep.exe and step.rc with nothing active, essentially dedicating the shell to a desktop program? That way, I can test desktop plugins, and if one of them suits me, I won't be losing out on memory, because all litestep would be doing is running this one plugin

tick69 · Post by **tick69** » 2003 Oct 27, 06:04

This is the first Step.rc I used, LSBasic-it is written to look close to windows to not scare new users and it uses the warf bar. I never used the warf bar in any of my custom themes, devoting my energy onto shortcuts.dll and popup.dll. I would tak a picture of a control panel type look and cut it into pieces and assign a different program to each button and customize the right-click list as well. I also used a weather plug in to get the local weather for me and jamp to control winamp without having to look at it. other than that, I did not go in depth into fancy plug-ins and what not.

BTW Westep got annoyed with other litesteper's and pulled out. This theme is about three years old and I could not get a response out of him. Last time I checked, his sight was down.

; LiteStep b24.6
; LSBasic theme by West
; westep@email.com
; URL: westep.cjb.net/

;[litestep]
Include C:\Litestep\user\popup.rc

Icons ".extract=$ThemeDir$Misc\Icons\basic.dll"
Sounds "C:\Litestep\Themes\LSBasic\Misc\Sounds\"
ThemeDir "C:\Litestep\Themes\LSBasic\"
LsImageFolder "C:\Litestep\Themes\LSBasic\Images\"

ThemeAuthor "West"

ThemeName "LSBasic Distro v1.03"
LsNoShellWarning

;[modules]

LoadModule $Module$desktop2.dll
LoadModule $Module$taskbar.dll
LoadModule $Module$wharf.dll
LoadModule $Module$shortcut2.dll
LoadModule $Module$systray2.dll
LoadModule $Module$hotkey.dll
LoadModule $Module$popup2.dll
LoadModule $Module$command.dll

;[lstime2]

LSTimeThemeFile $ThemeDir$lsclock.thm

;[popup2]
PopupTitleAlignment "Center"
NoPopupBevel
NoPopupMenuBevel
PopupOverlapX "4"
PopupOverlapY "-16"
PopupTitleHeight "19"
PopupSubmenuHeight "18"
PopupFontface "Tahoma"
PopupFontHeight "13"
PopupTextOffset "8"
PopupTitleBold
MinPopupWidth "160"
PopupAutoSeparator
PopupTitlePix "popup title.bmp"
PopupEntryPix "popup entry.bmp"
PopupSelEntryPix "popup selected.bmp"
PopupBottomPix "popup bottom.bmp"
PopupSeparatorPix "popup separator.bmp"
PopupArrowImage "popup folder arrow.bmp"
PopupSelArrowImage "popup selected folder arrow.bmp"
PopupTitleColor "FFFFFF"
PopupEntryColor "000000"
PopupSelEntryColor "FFFFFF"

;[shortcut2]

ShortcutShowCaptions
ShortcutSoundClick "$Sounds$shortcut.wav"

;[shortcuts]

*Shortcut "My Computer" 16 16 $Icons$,108 .none .none $MyComputer$
*Shortcut "Network Neighborhood" 16 64r $Icons$,117 .none .none $Explorer$ $Network$
*Shortcut "Recycle Bin" 16 64r $Icons$,144 .none .none $Explorer$ $Bitbucket$
*Shortcut "My Documents" 16 64r $Icons$,109 .none .none $Explorer$ $MyDocuments$
*Shortcut "My Music" 16 64r $Icons$,112 .none .none $Explorer$ $MusicDir$
*Shortcut "My Pictures" 16 64r $Icons$,113 .none .none $Explorer$ "$MyDocuments$\My Pictures\"
*Shortcut "Favorites" 16 64r $Icons$,52 .none .none $Explorer$ $Favorites$
*Shortcut "Control Panel" 16 64r $Icons$,35 .none .none $Explorer$ $Controls$

;[wharf]

WharfAnimStep "32"
WharfBevelWidth "0"
WharfCapHeight "18"
WharfTitlebarPix "wharf cap text.bmp"
DefaultBackPix "wharf tile.bmp"
FolderBackPix "wharf folder tile.bmp"
FolderPix "wharf folder arrow.bmp"
WharfAutoUnpress
WharfOpenSound $Sounds$wharfopen.wav
WharfCloseSound $Sounds$wharfopen.wav
WharfMinSound $Sounds$wharfmin.wav
WharfMaxSound $Sounds$wharfmin.wav

;[wharf definition]

*Wharf "" "clock.bmp" @$LitestepDir$lstime2.dll

*Wharf "System" $Icons$,96 Folder
*Wharf "Shutdown..." $Icons$,130 !Shutdown
*Wharf "Log Off" $Icons$,95 !Confirm "Do you want to log off?" "Log off?" !Logoff !None
*Wharf "Recycle LiteStep" $Icons$,148 !Recycle
*Wharf "Help" $Icons$,80 $Browser$ $HelpDir$lsbhelp.html
*Wharf "Find files..." $Icons$,55 $User$files.fnd
*Wharf "Switch shell..." $Icons$,159 $ShellSwap$
*Wharf "Edit theme.rc" $Icons$,142 $Editor$ $ThemeDir$theme.rc
*Wharf "Edit step.rc" $Icons$,142 $Editor$ $LitestepDir$step.rc
*Wharf "Edit user.rc" $Icons$,142 $Editor$ $User$user.rc
*Wharf ~Folder

*Wharf "Apps && Tools" $Icons$,4 Folder
*Wharf "MS-DOS" $Icons$,47 $DOS$
*Wharf "System Config" $Icons$,25 $Config$
*Wharf "Paint" $Icons$,124 $Graphics$
*Wharf "CD Player" $Icons$,6 "cdplayer.exe"
*Wharf "Media Player" $Icons$,101 $Audio$
*Wharf "Mozilla Express" $Icons$,120 $MailClient$
*Wharf "Mozilla Explorer" $Icons$,86 $Browser$
*Wharf "Windows Explorer" $Icons$,50 $Explorer$
*Wharf "Wordpad" $Icons$,181 $WordPad$
*Wharf "Notepad" $Icons$,118 $Text$
*Wharf ~Folder

*Wharf "Run..." $Icons$,150 !Run

*Wharf "Command console" $Icons$,33 !CommandFocus

;*Wharf "Show Desktop" $Icons$,42 !MinimizeWindows

*Wharf "" $Icons$,169 @$Module$vwm2.dll

;[systray2]

SystrayBGColor "FF00FF"
SystrayX "-64"
SystrayY "-94"
SystrayDirection "Left"
SystrayWrapCount "3"
SystrayWrapDirection "Up"
SystrayIconSpacingX "4"
SystrayIconSpacingY "4"

;[taskbar]

TaskbarActiveFont "Tahoma"
TaskbarFont "Tahoma"
TaskbarActiveFontHeight "13"
TaskbarActiveFontBold
TaskbarFontHeight "13"
LSTaskbarText "FFFFFF"
TaskbarSkin "taskbar middle.bmp"
TaskbarLeft "taskbar left.bmp"
TaskbarRight "taskbar right.bmp"
TaskButtonSkin "task inactive.bmp"
TaskButtonLeft "task inactive left.bmp"
TaskButtonRight "task inactive right.bmp"
TaskButtonSkinActive "task active.bmp"
TaskButtonLeftActive "task active left.bmp"
TaskButtonRightActive "task active right.bmp"
TaskBarStartButton
StartButtonText "Hal 2000"
;[vwm2]

vwmNoGathering
vwmBackBmp "vwm.bmp"
vwmSelBmp "vwm selected.bmp"
vwmWinBmp "vwm window.bmp"
vwmDesksX "2"
vwmDesksY "2"

;[command]

CommandHideOnUnfocus
CommandHiddenOnStart
CommandNotMoveable
CommandBevel
CommandBGColor "A0A0A4"
CommandTextColor "000000"
CommandBorderColor "A0A0A4"
CommandWidth "240"
CommandHeight "24"
CommandBorderSize "4"
CommandTextSize "13"
CommandTextFontFace "Tahoma"
If ResolutionX <= 800
CommandX "280"
CommandY "288"
ElseIf ResolutionX = 1024
CommandX "392"
CommandY "372"
ElseIf ResolutionX >= 1280
CommandX "520"
CommandY "500"
EndIf

;[eof]

TychoQuad · Post by **TychoQuad** » 2003 Oct 27, 08:53

Whoa, Whoa, Whoa!

See what I mean? If this is a simple litestep config file, I'd hate to see a complicated one!

I want a file maximum 10 lines long, with a dead obvious place to put the location of the plugin file I want to try. No shortcuts, no taskbar, no systray, nothing exept the plugin I'm about to try. I have geoshell to answer for the rest.

I can't get over this, that shell is INSANE! nothing designed for end users should be that complicated! That's NUTS!

Jaykul · Post by **Jaykul** » 2003 Oct 30, 16:43

Just how minimal do you want it? Save this to "desktop.hta" and launch it.

<html><head><title>Desktop</title>
<hta:application id="Destkop" applicationName="Desktop"
singleinstance="yes" innerBorder="no" windowstate="normal"
border="thick" // make it "thin" disables re-sizing. "none" looks neat
scroll="no" // don't need these, the iFrame has them
caption="yes" // set = no to turn off the title bar.
sysmenu="yes" // if we've got a caption, you might as well have this.
icon="C:\Shell\geoshell\icons\The Planet.ico" // we don't use this if there's no caption
showintaskbar="no" // could enable this, if you want.
>
</head><body style="margin: 0px; padding:0px;">

<script language="VBScript" type="text/vbscript">
<!--
'make the window whatever size you like (WIDTH, HEIGHT)
self.resizeTo 500, 500
'position the window wherever you like (LEFT, TOP)
self.moveTo 20, 20

'load the desktop
document.write("<iframe src=""" + CreateObject("WScript.Shell").SpecialFolders("Desktop") + """ style=""width: 100%; height: 100%;""></iframe>")
</script></body></html>

ps. I'm watching everywhere

mimeryme · Post by **mimeryme** » 2003 Oct 31, 00:39

TychoQuad wrote:ARGH! I'm never, ever, EVER touching litestep again... not without a barge-pole anyway...

That thing is wayyy to complicated... i couldn't even set it to run one plugin...

I have not been using litestep for a while since win9x, but was similarly dissuaded by the step.rc configuration's seeming complexity. When I did use it for win9x it was merely a trial run here and there w/ small attempts of my own configuration.

Litestep is still not my first choice as a replacement shell, but I am more comfortable w/ the step.rc than previously as I discovered great readme sites (official site? don't remember). Anyway, I made a litestep setup which should allow you to run from the getgo w/ desktop icons only.

You need to add a configuration line to disable the warning about running on top of another shell (add LSNoShellWarning at the top of the step.rc).

I've added my own comments in the step.rc to ease configuration. You can take a look at the step.rc, but the setup was designed for Litestep to be the main shell. I'm not positive whether or not it will launch startup files or not.

http://mime.ryme.net/download/litestep2.zip

TychoQuad · Post by **TychoQuad** » 2003 Nov 01, 05:29

Jaykul: I know your everywhere

Also, while that is very, very close to what I'm after, I'm afraid I can't call an IE based solution in any terms "minimal" Plus, mshta.exe can be considered a bigger security risk than IE itself... Fiddling with it anyway, I discovered that it's almost exactly what I'm after, I just set the border to none, changed the size and stuff. If I could get something like this, exept fully stand alone, not requiring any existing windows/microsoft files, I'd be laughing. The only things I'd add, would the ability to make it transparent, and set it's z-order to desktop, so it always stayed on bottom, even when in focus.

mimeryme: When I get home, I'll test this again, but when executing here, (Uni computer) I get an error stating "Unable to load stepsets.dll" which then proceeds to crash litestep.