xplorer² Exponential growth to file management productivity

User Interface customization

Basic program options tweak how UI elements like the active folder view and the tree behave, whether you want dark mode interface and such. Using layouts you can define different workspaces, sets of panes and their positions and sizes to suit different file management tasks.

Under Customize main menu you will find several categories of favorite lists, that are maintained in a uniform fashion (Add/Organize/Execute as we saw for bookmarks), and in particular:

• Toolbars. Add up to 10 extra toolbars and customize each with command buttons for a particular task.
   
• Column sets. Store the columns of item information you want to see in detailed view mode.
   
• User commands. Store DOS or windows commands and programs you find executing frequently.
   
• Folder groups. Store related folders and reopen them in a tabbed pane, each folder in its own tab. This feature can be conceived as a multi-bookmark.
   
• Custom groups. Store item categories based on rules you define.
   
• Macros. Keep a library of useful UI automation macros, which you execute often.
   
• Layouts. (this list is under Window menu) Remember the position and the visibility of view panes and toolbars. Storing different layouts you can quickly switch among different modes of operation

Each of these lists can hold up to 100 saved items, if you need more you must first delete some of the old unused entries. The same limit applies to saved hyperfilters. If you want to see more items in Customize submenus, saving you the trouble of using More... menu commands, increase "Custom menu items" advanced option. Then you will have direct access to more favorite customizations.

If you add any of these special favorite commands on a toolbar, right click on the button and pick Properties menu command. This gives you a shortcut access to the list's Organize menu, where you can change the item's properties. For example you can edit the commands of a macro this way.

Keyboard customization

Bookmarks and other items listed under Customize menu can be assigned custom keyboard shortcuts (in the range 0-9) using dialogs similar to figure 8. To change the keyboard shortcuts of all other menu commands use Customize > Keyboard command. This way you can assign e.g. <F5> to be used for folder refresh and so on.

Figure 51. Keyboard customization dialog

The dialog lists commands organized by the main menu bar (File, Goto, ...) . Use the Category drop down list to select the menu that holds the command you want to remap, e.g. for Refresh we need View menu. Scroll down to find the command you want and click on it. You will see its current keyboard shortcuts in Current keys box. To set a new key, click in Press new shortcut key box and type the key e.g. <F5>.

Click assign button to set the new combination, it will be then listed in Current keys box. If you want to remove the old accelerator, select it and click remove button. To reset all key mappings to "factory defaults" click reset all button.

Change as many commands as you want, and click ok to finalize the new key bindings. All menus will be updated to show the new keyboard shortcut next to the command name. You only need to change command key bindings once, and next time you restart xplorer² it will remember your favorite keys.

Customize > Keyboard use menu command lists the current key assignments for all xplorer² commands. You can copy out the text, paste it to an editor and print them out so that you remember the quickest way to reach your favorite commands.

Toolbar customization

Figure 52. Toolbar customization dialog

Any command from the menu system that shows an icon next to it can be placed on a toolbar. You know which commands you need to use more, so you can place them on a toolbar for easy access. Also you can remove toolbar buttons that you don't use that match and replace them with others you enjoy more.

The dialog shows all buttons that are Available [1] (all menu commands with icons), and a list of buttons Current [2] on the toolbar. Select any command from the Available list and click on Add [3] button to add it to your toolbar; likewise select a button from Current list and click Remove to get rid of it.

Finding a command to add can be a bit of an ordeal, as there is no way to search for commands, you just scroll the list till you see the icon you are after. Toolbar button names may or may not be similar to their respective menu commands, sorry about that! As for commands in Customize menu (macros, user commands, bookmarks etc), you can identify them by their list name.

The current list shows items in the order they appear on your toolbar. Select an existing command and move it up/down with the buttons [4]. When you add a new button, it gets inserted before whichever item in the current list you have selected. If the new button ends up somewhere you don't like, use move up/down to relocate it.

When you are done customizing buttons, click Close button to see your new toolbar. Or if you changed your mind, click Reset button to undo your recent changes.

Use Customize > Toolbars > Add new menu to add a new toolbar with a name, and get to customize it immediately, adding buttons for a particular task. You can have up to 10 such extra toolbars. It makes sense to organize extra toolbars in a task-oriented fashion, bunching relevant buttons together. Whenever the need arises you activate the toolbar using View > Toolbars menu (or right click on any toolbar). You don't have to keep all toolbars visible at all times. Toolbar visibility is one of the properties associated with layouts — each layout can have its own set of active toolbars.

Toolbar skins

For a quick face-lift of xplorer² appearance, you can download and install custom toolbar and menu item images that other xplorer² users have created and shared with the community. To see what's available click here.

You can also create your own skin. It's easy and no programming is required. Just grab the original button images and modify to taste with any image editor, then drop them in the installation folder. You may also consider sharing them with the rest of the world - just drop us an email.
Download skin designer pack (17 KB)

Nowadays you need two skins, for the 2 available toolbar icon sizes. One should have buttons 16-20 pixels square (x2skin.png), and the other should be any size you like up to 48x48 to match your screen's DPI (x2skin_XL.png)

xplorer² context menu

You can put any of xplorer² menu commands in this submenu, whatever you need to have handy as a context menu command. Use xplorer² > Organize command to add and remove items from this special menu:

Figure 53. Organize xplorer² submenu

Use the little toolbar to add, remove and reorder existing menu commands. When you click Add new you get a dialog similar to keyboard customization, where you can select a menu command by category as they appear on the main menu bar. You can add separators too for grouping commands. When you are all done click ok button to finalize the menu; commands will appear nicely with icons and keyboard shortcut information, see the above picture.

This submenu is inserted in the context menu of all items, active folder, folder tree, even the background menu where you click "nowhere". If you don't want to clutter your shell context menu with extra commands, you can remove xplorer² menu using the advanced option "Don't add xplorer² commands in shell context menu".

Program options

xplorer² has many options that you can fine tune so that it behaves to your liking. Use Tools > Options menu to bring up the program options dialog, a property sheet as in the picture to the right with basic tweaks. There are even finer options to tweak, using Tools > Advanced options menu command, which opens a separate program with a plethora of possible adjustments. The main options dialog is organized in three property pages, each focusing on a section of the user interface. Most options are self-explanatory once you read the checkbox description. Many options come with a help tooltip, which pops up when you leave the mouse pointer hanging over the option, helping you understand what they are meant for. If you have difficulty locating an option, use the search box [1] at the bottom left corner with a suitable keyword. Click on Find next button a few times till you locate the option you seek. Each matching option appears  highlighted  with a thick border. Most program options are specific to the current layout. You see the layout name on the option dialog's titlebar (it is the [Default] layout in this example).

A fundamental option is "Save program state on exit", which controls the persistence of all other settings. If you have this option ticked, xplorer² will save settings on exit, meaning the state of the window, all the tabs and any recent changes to program options, will be remembered; next time you run xplorer² it will look exactly as you last left it. Turning this option off isn't recommended; if you want xplorer² to start at fixed locations use command line arguments instead of disabling saving settings on exit.

Changes you make to global properties like bookmarks and items in Customize menu are always saved on exit, regardless of this option. If you have it disabled, use Actions > Save settings now menu command whenever you want to save a snapshot of your latest settings.

xplorer² professional saves settings only in the windows registry. This is the recommended location even for ultimate edition, when you have it installed in your home/base computer. If you want to run ultimate edition in portable mode, pick "File in installation folder" from the drop-down list as the destination for saved settings. This will create an INI file in the flash drive, next to the program.

You can change as many options as you like, switching property pages as necessary. When you click ok button the changes you made will take effect immediately — well most of the time! There are some major options like turning dark mode on/off that necessitate opening a new window — this is done automatically with minimal interruption to your workflow.

General options

Show administrative shares. If you access network PCs you normally only browse public shares. This option (requires elevation) shows administrative shares like C$ that give you local filesystem hard disk access to remote PCs   Dark mode UI. Tick to enable the fashionable dark mode where everything is on black background. You don't get much flexibility choosing colors in this mode. Untick the option to return to normal window colors.   Eat the first mouse click. If you click to activate a folder pane with your mouse where many items are selected, you risk losing the selection, unless this option is ticked. Alternatively press <TAB> key to switch folder activation.   Redirect DOS command output. Tick to use the modern xplorer² console replacement, otherwise a normal MSDOS console window is used for external commands.   History items maintained. How many past inputs to keep for combo boxes. Each dialog has 1-2 comboboxes where you enter your text parameters; this number controls how many are remembered. If you type more than this limit, the older ones are discarded. History items assist repetitive commands with autocompletion. Privacy concerned users should click clear history button and set history items to 2, which means remember nothing.   Thumbnail size. Basic pixel size for thumbnail view mode. This also affects the size in Mini thumbs view mode, through the advanced option multiplier "Mini-thumb size factor". You can see bigger thumbnails with dynamic zoom (<CTRL> + mousewheel)   Item icons. Select what icons to show for files and folders using the drop-down list. The available options are normal for rich regular icons and overlays simple for faster document-related icons; won't show icons for executables plain for super fast plain icons (just 3 types); will show only basic icon overlays no icons will show plain text listings, very frugal. Thumbnail view modes work   External text editor/viewer. If you don't like the internal editor² for text documents, enter here your alternative full paths for the replacement. You should leave the Viewer blank though because editor² reads search keywords from xplorer² content search commands, and you can find them with <F3> once the text file is loaded.   Byte size limits for extracting. Some legacy file size limits for certain operations. Set them to 0 to cancel the limit. You should mainly worry about "Item in ZIP/FTP" that is the maximum size that will be extracted from archives for searching and "Checksum column" that is the biggest file to calculate MD5 checksums (they are quite slow accessing the entire file)

Window options

Single click activation. Click once to open items — instead of double click Infotips for items. Shows popup details when you leave the mouse button on a file; the information is file type related. In scrap windows it also shows the full path. Hover selection. Oddball selection mode by hovering on an item. Not really suitable building large selections — incompatible to sticky selection mode. Automatically re-sort contents. When autorefresh senses a change in the folder contents, any new files are inserted in their rightful sort position — otherwise they are added last. Causes panes to "jump" in fast changing folders like Downloads. Highlight primary sort column. The sort column in detailed view mode shows with a different background color. Mouse peek preview. Turn peek preview with both mouse buttons on/off. Folders sorted. Using the drop down list you control whether folder items are sorted mixed as files, or separately (first of all) or after files.   Hands free activation. Load folders in the active pane as you browse the tree with arrow keys, without pressing <ENTER> — after a small timeout. Automatic branch expansion. During drag-drop, if you hover your mouse over a tree node it will expand so you can locate subfolders. Keep synchronized with folder. The tree aligns with the active folder, as you browse, change tabs etc. Otherwise you can manually align the tree pressing <ALT+T> Show 2 trees. Shows a separate tree for each left/right pane. Hides the quick access list too.   Text preview size. Only a few bytes from a text file are loaded in the previewer pane in draft mode. Increase this number to see more file content, but expect delays. Start playing media files immediately. Plays music and movies automatically when you select one — otherwise you must click on play button. To enable this option play something first. No hex preview. Tick to disable the hexadecimal preview of files that don't have a normal preview (e.g. to stop seeing binary contents of EXE files).   Main font. Choose a bigger or smaller font for folder contents and other window panes. Fonts for menus, titlebar etc are controlled by your system display settings Inactive background. Choose a different color for the background of inactive panes. Default is a slightly darker tone than the active folder pane — which is white. Plain menus. Tick to hide less frequently used commands for a less confusing menu bar. Untick to show all menu items. Dialog balloon help. Clear this box if you don't want to see the explanatory balloon help tips in dialogs.

Advanced options

Status bar panes. Tick to enable or disable certain statusbar information panels.   Highlight active pane's titlebar. Change the active pane's titlebar color so you can tell it apart easily, not just by background color. This is recommended if you use dark mode UI.   Extract custom icon overlays. Enable icon overlays through shell extensions, eg. for TSVN repository controlled folders. Otherwise only show basic overlays for shortcuts and shares.   Quick preview docked to the right. The free lite version doesn't support docking panels; tick this to put preview to the right side of the window — otherwise it goes under the tree.   Explorer-style path autocompletion. Autocomplete paths like windows explorer, using a popup window. Otherwise autocomplete path stubs pressing <F1> key repeatedly till you find the correct folder.   Close old window after cloning. Tick to close the old window when you clone a new layout window, otherwise both remain open   Preserve modified date for comments. Setting a file comment will not change its modified date — if you so prefer   Faster network access. Tick for faster network access albeit a bit poorer on visuals. Disables posh icons, folder size calculation and automatic tree alignment.   In-place edit of file properties. Turn on the convenient spreadsheet property edit mode   Folder options. Your windows folder options are largely irrelevant to the behavior of xplorer² but there are a few that do matter, like hiding extensions and operating system files. This button gives you access to your control panel   Undo explorer replacement. If you change your mind about xplorer² replacing windows explorer, use this button to restore windows explorer. It will probably ask you to run xplorer² elevated to complete the system wide modification.

Advanced options tool

Figure 54. Advanced options tool

Advanced options are split in two categories, global and layout-specific, and are selectable using the tab control [1]. Global options affect all layouts, and layout options are just for a single layout. Use the layout selector drop-down list [2] to choose which layout you want to change.
The layout selector is set to the xplorer² layout that was active when you started the external settings tool

There are too many options to describe in detail, the most important ones were mentioned in the body of this document, so you can search for them by name using the search box [4]. Or use a generic keyword like thumb and click Find next button a few times to see what tweaks are available related to thumbnails.

The main body is the property control that lists all tweakable program options, and lets you change them. There are numeric, text, color and other types of properties. As you select properties, you get to read brief explanations about what each one does in box [3].

After you are done changing options, click on ok button to save them and then restart your xplorer² to see them in action.

Backup and transfer settings

You spend time and effort to tweak xplorer² settings to your liking, so you want to safeguard them against the numerous setbacks that are unavoidable with computing. Hence you should make a backup of your settings every once in a while, and keep them safe in case you need to restore them. xplorer² saves its settings in the registry (or INI file if you run ultimate edition in portable mode). Use Actions > Export settings menu to save your current settings to a standard registry information REG file. Ultimate edition gives you an option to create an INI settings file, see the question to the right. All settings are exported, window sizes, dockable panes, fonts, tabs, layout information etc. Keep this x2settings.REG file (or however you chose to call it) somewhere safe, perhaps in your backup disk drive. If a case arises where you need to restore settings, one possibility is to fully quit xplorer² with File > Exit menu, then double click on the previously exported x2settings.REG file which will be automatically imported. When you restart xplorer² it will look like it did when you created the settings snapshot. Another way is to do Actions > Import settings inside xplorer². You must browse the REG file you want to import and select it before using the import menu command. You are effectively using xplorer² as a giant Open dialog. For ultimate version, ensure your current settings persistence option matches what you are trying to import (must be registry for REG and file for INI import).

Another use for backed-up settings is for troubleshooting problems. After series of tweaks you may find your xplorer² is in a rut and won't work properly. An extreme attempt to bring order is to fully uninstall then reinstall xplorer² with its "factory" settings. Export your settings before such drastic measures so you can restore them — but chances are the problem will return.

HKCU\SOFTWARE\ZabaraKatranemia Plc\xplorer2_UC
HKCU\SOFTWARE\ZabaraKatranemia Plc\xplorer2_UC.global
HKCU\SOFTWARE\ZabaraKatranemia Plc\xplorer2_UC.customLayout
... (other layouts)

Finally if you want to move xplorer² to a new PC, export its settings from the old one (before uninstalling), then import them to the new PC. Not all settings are transferrable, e.g. bookmarks and user commands with full paths expect a similar folder hierarchy organization — which may be absent (even small path differences make bookmarks unreachable).

Window layouts

 
Figure 55. Two sample layouts side by side

A layout keeps information about the entire xplorer² window and in particular:

• Whether it is ribbon or menu-based
• How big is the window and what panes are visible (tree, quickviewer etc)
• How big is the main UI font
• How many toolbars show and what command buttons do they contain
• How many tabs appear and which folders you browse in them
• Is it dual or single pane, dark mode or white?
• The mini-scrap pane contents may differ (if pane is turned on)
• Most options are also layout-specific, e.g. you can have single click activation only in one layout and double-click for the rest.

The bottom half of Window menu is a list organizing saved layouts, like we have seen many times in Customize menu and bookmarks. Use Window > Organize to assign icons and shortcut keys to saved layouts — note you cannot rename or reorder them like other favorite lists but other than that the list management is similar, e.g you can delete unwanted layouts.
These limitations are due to the fact that a layout is an entire registry key with your custom window settings

Some people use layouts to organize different sets of folder tabs, but that's not the recommended use case. If the only thing you need is to switch folder tabs, you can use folder groups, perhaps combined with a custom desktop shortcut to launch xplorer² with these particular folder groups using arguments. At any rate each layout starts with a fixed set of folders every time (unless you ticked "Disable per-tab setting policy..." advanced option).

When you start xplorer², it comes up in its default layout. If you want to start with a different layout, use "/S:layout name" command line argument. However it is recommended you make your basic modifications to the default layout so you don't need to invoke another one as your default.

 

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