Using as "Default" file manger [Technical]

[Jaykul]

Well, I tried setting x2 as my default filemanager, and it quickly became obvious that there are going to be some problems ....

1) apparently, x2 doesn't handle IDlists as specified in the explorer commandline: %SystemRoot%\Explorer.exe /idlist,%I,%L

the /idlist,%I lets explorer know that the %I is a pidl, which needs to be looked up to get the path, see MSDN documentation here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us ... folder.asp. It's important to handle these as a default file manager (note that PowerDesk does) because, for instance, a right-click on the system tray gives an option to "Open Network Connections" which ONLY specifies the pidl

2) It appears that x2 doesn't handle DDE messages either, since the alternative method of launching (which explorer uses) is using ddeexec.

Bottom line: I can start xplorer2 on my "network connections" by issuing a command like:

Code: Select all

xplorer2_UC.exe ::{20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D}\::{21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D}\::{7007ACC7-3202-11D1-AAD2-00805FC1270E}

but none of the windows tools do that, so none of the special locations work (eg: right click the network neighborhood and choose "explore" or "open").

[fgagnon]

definitely not recommended...
see FAQ C1.

[nikos]

i couldn't possibly be @rsed with DDE, this legacy monster, for such a small feature. Why won't explorer pass the ::{CLSID} format? How much more simpler could it get?

i didn't know about this "/idlist" flag but then how are you going to pass a pidl from the command line? These are binary data, unprintable. If you can find more details i'll see if it can be added

[Jaykul]

Well, I dono what the stuff in the FAQ is about virtual folders, I used to use 2x as the default filemanager ... and I haven't really had any trouble with using x2 that way, except these few items which don't open to the right spot. I just do it the way PowerDesk does: I don't remove any of the default settings, just add an association for x2, and then make that association the default one.

After playing with idlists and DDE ... it seems to me that if you delete the DDE key, even explorer doesn't correctly open these locations just from the /idlist parameter. But, PowerDesk does, so it's clearly possible. You can see what the %I is (it's different each time, I don't get that) by assigning the "open" command of Folders to something like:

Code: Select all

cmd.exe /k echo %I

and removing the DDE information. Then just right-click your network systray icon and choose Open Network Connections.

Personally, I just launch X2 (I have a hotkey Win+E assigned to it) and browse to these things from there, I've been doing it that way for years, and can't see any reason to get to "network connections" from the systray icon (which I have disabled) instead of from the filemanager's tree-view

I can play with it a little more, but since I'm not really bothered by the fact that it doesn't work right, and I'm not the one trying to sell a file manager, I'm not very motivated.

[nikos]

neither am I!