blog: column handlers are back

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nikos
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Re: blog: column handlers are back

Post by nikos »

pro/ultimate are the same wrt shell columns
wperkins99
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Re: blog: column handlers are back

Post by wperkins99 »

I'm still confused.

If I click on your link to the 32-bit install program in your Blog entry on folder column handlers, it installs the 32-bit "Professional" version, not the 32-bit "Ultimate" version.

That's why I asked the question.

What am I missing here?
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Re: blog: column handlers are back

Post by Kilmatead »

wperkins99 wrote:What am I missing here?
What you're missing is that the Ultimate version did not exist in 2010 when the blog was written and Nikos never had the foresight (hindsight?) to go back through old blog posts looking to update the links accordingly. :D

Just use the main site downloads as usual, though if you already had ultimate installed, you've had these columns since the beginning.
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Re: blog: column handlers are back

Post by wperkins99 »

Kilmatead wrote:
wperkins99 wrote:What am I missing here?

... though if you already had ultimate installed, you've had these columns since the beginning.
Ohhh. I see.

Thanx, as always.
Will D. Perkins
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Re:

Post by wingood »

Leo Davidson wrote:
nikos wrote:I am sure many 3rd party file managers will follow xplorer²'s example.
I'm not sure who is following whom considering some file managers never dropped/lost support for this stuff in the first place (even on Vista/Win7, even years ago when Vista was brand new). :-)

I totally agree that it was silly of Microsoft to remove the support from Explorer, though.
care to name names?!
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blog: column handlers are back!

Post by wingood »

First, applause to Nikos. 10years late to the party :party: , but still a bug-bear.

I've read something somewhere, re streams, and tag data. I think it was that

'the metadata created by filemeta (folder tags) cannot be searched' - ie, by (void) everything'

I see I can 'add a tag' to... pictures? (even via the details pane!)
Is there anyway to do this for * (or at least bat, Folder, dll) ?

The way I see it, there may be two levels of solution -

a partial (add comments to folders, hopefully inc. on multiple selection) that you can at least benefit from in grouping & sorting operations
a more full solution, where these tagz can be used as search filters...

I contemplated trying to rip out the new property thing @ {883373C3-BF89-11D1-BE35-080036B11A03}, but it now points to shell32.dll, and it that's not the epitome of exercises in futility... I don't know what is.


(To clarify, I'm basically after write tag(s) permissions (comments and some others), on almost all file types...


big thanks :alien:
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Re: blog: column handlers are back

Post by Kilmatead »

You already can add comments to all filetypes or folders, just by selecting them and using <Alt+Z> (Actions -> Set Comment). This text will show up in the Comments [S] column, and may be referenced within search filters. The operation may also be applied to multiple items at the same time, if desired.

As the comment data is (mostly) stored within Alternate Data Streams (ADS) it naturally will not survive transfers to older FAT32 disc formats.

As for metadata beyond 'comments'... that's (as it's always been) a different story, and subject to shell-extension support, etc.
RightPaddock
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Re: blog: column handlers are back

Post by RightPaddock »

Kilmatead wrote:As the comment data is (mostly) stored within Alternate Data Streams (ADS) it naturally will not survive transfers to older FAT32 disc formats.
Ditto for cloud stores and FTP services. Many (most?) file based backup/restore solutions know diddly-squat about them. Same for android/ios phones and tablets, not sure about Windows phones.

RP
Windows 10 Pro (64 bit) version 1809 - Xplorer2 version: Pro 2.5.0.4 [Unicode] x64 2014-06-21
wingood
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Re: blog: column handlers are back

Post by wingood »

I don't get it. I don't get why microsoft culled so much functionality when they went vista.

I don't get why tags can't be added to any file... mp3's have metadata, right? and text files, and all other files... is it the same principle? And what dictates which types of tags (fields) are available to each filetype?

If I change an mp3 to a txt and back... I'll lose my tags?

And how the heck did XP store folder tags?!?!?!?!? I don't see desktop.ini's, but I can even categorise my folders.


I count > 200 fields. I reckon I'll never use 90% of them now/

I got a whole heap of questions
Kilmatead
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Re: blog: column handlers are back

Post by Kilmatead »

wingood wrote:I don't get why tags can't be added to any file... mp3's have metadata, right? and text files, and all other files... is it the same principle? And what dictates which types of tags (fields) are available to each filetype?
Look at it broadly... (this is the "long answer")...

No one organisation is responsible for the standardisation of all filetypes and their underlying (binary) formats. Just because a filetype is considered "common" by a user does not mean that ("under the bonnet") it will resemble another filetype structure, as they are created by different organisations with different (often proprietary) purposes. And since metadata properties are dependant-upon and defined-by the filetype itself (not the operating system!), it's all part of the same problem.

For example, the MP3 "standard" is a format which was created by the MPEG organisation (Moving Picture Experts Group). While the JPG "standard" was created by the Joint Photographic Experts Group (JPEG). Naturally, there is no reason these two groups should ever talk to each other, as they are in completely different fields, and these standards were not created (originally) in the interests of users, but more in the transmission formats used for digital representation. But take the case of PNG files... surely anyone with a mind would say "obviously something called the Joint Photographic Experts Group would be involved in that too, no?" Well, no, they weren't. PNG was originally created by an ad hoc group of enthusiasts and tech-types to subvert the GIF format which was the proprietorial son of the Unisys Corporation, and they certainly couldn't care less about talking to JPG, MP3, PNG or any other free-lance group. And once corporations began to get into the act, this opened the door for Adobe to randomly "standardise" (create) the PDF, without regard for anyone else.

You begin to get the idea.

The long and short of it is that all filetypes are historically different in their actual qualitative/quantitative forms even within the confines of a shared filesystem (such as FAT, NTFS, and ReFS). Now, bear in mind that what users call "files" were around long before Microsoft ever existed (so before DOS, etc), and thus they were never actually standardised by their competing corporate overlords - IBM, DEC, etc., either.

Thus, when you say "metadata" that is not a 'single something' that is controlled or even created by Windows in a type-agnostic fashion in any way whatsoever. Ancillary-("meta") data even within accepted formats is also open to interpretation. For example, the PNG metadata "standard" defines itself in such a way that permits further subdivision into "public" (i.e. adhering to the standard), and "private" (which can be in any format at all, completely unstandardised). Many programmes designed to read the PNG format will just refer to internally unknown data formats as "corrupted", but that doesn't mean the data is actually corrupted, it just means the programme in question doesn't recognise the private format.

So... to answer your question, the "principle" of metadata within files is nothing more than an abstract notion, and it (and the form it may take) is not in any way controlled or standardised across types... even types which "appear" to be similar (such as pictures) to the end-user.

That, in a nutshell, is why tags cannot be generically added to just any file. Even Alternate Data Streams (which may be used, in part, as a generic poor-man's substitute) aren't 100% reliable since they are not easily portable or shared.

As to why MS removed much functionality when transitioning to Vista... well, that's what they do (and continue to do to this day). In the case of the shell, they will parade around terms like "security" and "homogenisation", but what they really did was wash their hands of the whole thing, and declare their own independence from responsibility. Sure, they maintain the interface structures necessary to read object data (COM, etc), but they don't want anyone (such as yourself) confusing them as being "in charge" of the overall paradigm, and thus expecting them to be able to control it, because they can't.

So - while MS will happily say that they support properties and tags, the underlying reality of actual implementation is very different, and they won't officially support anything other than office-types, realistically speaking.

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