xplorer² Quickstart Guide

Whether you work with documents in your office or school, or collect photos as an amateur, you will have lots of files. Windows explorer is a basic file manager that will soon annoy you with its inconsistencies and limitations. If you deal with many files and folders you need a heavy duty file manager like xplorer², which will help you be productive, with almost every kind of file you possess:

xplorer² integrates fully with Windows Shell model, so it can browse in all locations, even within "virtual" folders like compressed archives and SFTP. It can utilize more than 300 system file properties and integrates with any shell extensions you install to see more properties, icon overlays, document previews and so on.

With its small size (around 3 MB) and low system resource use, advanced multi-threaded multi-window design for speed and efficiency, customization, a clean minimalist interface and keyboard shortcuts for most frequently used commands, we trust you won't be disappointed for choosing xplorer² for your file management needs. In fact chances are you'll never look back to explorer or any other file manager!

How to use this guide

This HTML document has many internal cross references and links that jump to other parts of information, possibly far away from what you were reading. To come back where you were (before clicking on any anchor), use your browser's Back button or press <Alt+LeftArrow> keys.

At major section boundaries, you will find links to jump to the previous and next sections, and the table of Contents .

Each section begins with a quick overview of the subject at hand, followed by more in-depth information. Various popouts are sprinkled all over the place with extra information or warnings. Most sections include further reading articles and demo videos, which you recognize by these symbols:

Links to demo videos, which may be more to your liking if you prefer video explanations to reading manuals

Instructions often refer to commands in the menu bar and are shown in bold print, including the menu "full path", the names of all main and submenus you need to open to access the command. Menu paths are separated by > symbols. E.g. File > New tab means you open File from the main menu and find New tab somewhere in it.

Some explanations include keyboard shortcuts you press to invoke a command, as an alternative to using the menu. Keyboard shortcuts are placed in angle brackets and can combine more than one keys, e.g. <CTRL+C> means you must press CTRL and C keys together.

Most of the information herein regards the professional xplorer² edition. A few advanced commands are only available in ultimate edition and are clearly marked as such with

icon. Note that many features are missing from the free lite version. Such commands are marked with [P] in the lite version menu system

Program Interface overview

demo video: overview of program features

xplorer² window presents the contents of one or more folders, and offers a palette of file management commands to work with the files you see. The figure below demonstrates all the window features — it may look complicated but you can turn off GUI elements you don't need using View menu.

Here is a brief description of the main window elements, by their reference number in the red circle:

As with all windows programs, xplorer² can be resized or maximized to see more file contents. Within the window, the dual panes and all the peripheral panes like the tree can be resized using splitter bars. Place your mouse over the lines dividing the panes, and it should turn into a resizing cursor

; then you can grab the splitter with your mouse and move it left/right (or up/down) to change the relative pane sizes.

As in windows explorer, with xplorer² you work with one folder at a time, which is the active tab of the active pane (either ① or ②). The active folder path is shown in the addressbar ⑤ and in the active pane's titlebar (the window titlebar is showing summary paths of both active and inactive panes). Use the folder tree, drivebar or type paths in the addressbar to browse a different folder.

In the active folder pane you select one or more files with the mouse or the keyboard (or using a command from Mark menu) to operate on them, using a menu or toolbar command. Selected items show with a blue background color. In multi-selections, a single item is the focus, which is drawn with a dotted rectangle as in the pic to the right. It is usually the item you clicked on last. The focused item is special as it is the one that gets previewed in panel ⑧, whose details show in pane ⑫ and the statusbar. When only one item is selected, it is also the focus obviously.

xplorer² uses context sensitive menus depending on where you right click on. It presents the commands that are relevant to the area you clicked. For example if you right click on a tab you see tab-related commands, if you right click on the list header you see commands related to columns and so on. Thus you don't need to search among the hundreds of main menu bar ④ available commands; always try a right click first.

xplorer² user interface is using standard windows OS components that are easy to automate with accessibility tools (NVDA/JAWS for visually impaired users).

Working with files

You manage files by clicking on them to select them, then use any toolbar or menu command. Right click on the selected files to show the standard shell context menu with windows explorer commands like copy, delete, rename etc. You can drag selected items with the mouse and drop them to other locations e.g. move them to different folders.

Another standard shell item is the background menu. Find an empty spot (without any text information) and right click to see the menu. If you have difficulty showing the background menu — can't find where to click? — then right click on the folder icon on the pane's titlebar ①. In there you will find Explorer submenu with more shell related commands, e.g. create new word documents etc. To see extended commands press <SHIFT> key as you right click.

Dual panes and tabs

When you are not copying or comparing folders, you can turn off the dual pane mode with View > Dual pane menu command, giving you more room to work with folder contents. Use the same menu to turn dual panes back on. The main window figure above shows the dual panes stacked vertically, but you can also place them side by side with View > Tile horizontally menu. Drag the splitter (divider line) to make one pane bigger than the other; <CTRL+E> keyboard shortcut will make the panes equal size.

Only one pane is active at a time, the one with lighter background color (the left one in the picture to the right). All menu commands operate on the active pane. The right hand side pane is inactive, drawn with a darker background color. Press <TAB> key to make the other pane active — or click on it with the mouse. The background colors will swap, signalling the change of activation.

If you have trouble recognizing which pane is active, you can choose a darker color for the "inactive background" through settings. For extra visibility tick "Highlight active pane's titlebar..." option.

Usually both panes are set in the same style, e.g. both showing details, however you can configure the 2 panes independently. Click on the first pane to make it active and choose a mode from View > Pane style menu, e.g. List. Then click on the other pane to activate it, and choose its view mode from the same menu. Remember all file management occurs within the active pane, whichever it may be. It is the single focus of your workflow.

You can add more folders using File > New tab menu command. A freshly opened tab inherits the folder and view properties of the previously active tab, but from then on it is totally independent. You can browse different folders, change its style to thumbnails, or whatever you desire.

You probably have worked with tabs before (e.g. your internet browser) so you will know about the little tabs that represent each folder. Only one tab is active at a time; click on a different tab to bring up another folder (and simultaneously hide the previously active folder). You can add tabs for both the left and right (dual) panes, however only the 2 visible folder tabs are in business (one active, one inactive). You can open as many tabs as you like, but if you have too many of them, it may get confusing — use Window > Find tab menu command in such cases to find a particular folder by its (partial) name.

Each tab shows the folder icon and its name. To see the full path, hover the mouse on a tab and a popup window will appear showing the path. The active tab is drawn with an orange highlight to tell it apart (if you cannot see this color use advanced options, "Folder tab highlight"). You can have tabs on top or to the bottom of the pane to suit your style.

To close a tab you can double-click on it or press <CTRL+F4> keys. Use Window > Close all tabs menu command to close all tabs except for the active one. If you close a tab by accident, you can bring it back using Window > Reopen tab. You will find more tab related commands if you right click on a tab to see its context menu.

You can move a tab left or right using the respective menu commands. You can also drag-drop a tab to a different location. Move across command sends the tab to the inactive (dual) pane.
You can make a tab stand out by giving it a color tag (this actually tags the folder) or Rename it — then you see your own tab title instead of the folder name.
Copy all paths menu command copies all the paths as clipboard text. Paths are separated with commas. One possible use is to start a file search inside all tabs.
When you Lock a tab, then you freeze its location. Locked tabs will not change folders. If you attempt to change folder, a new tab will open. Locked tabs show a little lock instead of the folder icon. Use Lock menu again to unlock a tab. For more information here's a demo video

You can save a set of folder tabs using Customize > Folder groups > Add current menu command. Then you can easily restore the set, picking it from folder groups menu again. The same menu appears when you right click on the empty space past the last tab (or on the [X] button to the far right of the tab strip). The list of tab sets is managed in the same way as bookmarks, so you can make them easily accessible with Organize menu eg. you can add a folder group on any toolbar. If you want to change the folder tabs in a previously saved set, setup the active pane with the tabs you want, then save the set with the same name.

Moveable panes

Let's start with the toolbars, including the addressbar. Toolbars can be rearranged with the mouse, if you drag them by their handle on the left edge, that looks like a dotted vertical line

. You can put two or more toolbars in the same row, or split them into separate rows. Or right click on a toolbar and pick Auto arrange command from the context menu, if you don't mind the default widths. Other commands in the toolbar context menu:

Text labels turn button labels on-off. You can turn off labels to save space; in such a case you can see the label as a tooltip window when you hover the mouse on a button.
Tick Small icons to switch to smaller button images, again in the interest of saving space. Or tick the option off to see larger, more clearly identified icons.
Once you are done arranging the layout use Lock toolbars to fix their position. The drag handles disappear. The only way you can move the toolbars is if you use the menu command again to unlock them (toggle)
Toolbars can be customized, so you can remove default buttons you don't need, and add the menu commands you use more frequently for easy access.

All peripheral panes (tree, quickviewer etc) can be rearranged to taste if you grab them by their titlebar and move them around to another side of the xplorer² window (all 4 sides are available for docking). An outline rectangle indicates the new docking location. You can have more than one pane docked to the same side. Using splitter bars you can resize both the entire dock side width (or height for top/bottom docks) and the relative sizes of panes within each dock. For clarifications please watch the demo video

If you hold down <CTRL> key while dragging a panel it will stay floating (detached). This way you can make it bigger without affecting the usable area of xplorer² window. Another space saving idea, especially for panes you don't need visible all the time, is to have them minimized. Use the little pin on a pane's titlebar to auto-hide it. It then turns into a button (see Preview vertical button in the image to the right). If you hover your mouse over such a button, the minimized pane appears, taking up the entire side of the window. Move the mouse away and the pane will again hide. This is best understood with the demo video . The little [x] to the right of the titlebar will permanently close a panel. All these actions (float/dock/etc) are also available from a titlebar's context menu.

Once you setup the panes to your liking, use View > Toolbars > Lock dock sites command to fix their position. Note when you resize the entire xplorer² window, the dock widths and heights are adjusted proportionately, to keep the same relative sizes.

Folder tree

xplorer² folder tree can be turned on/off using View > Show tree menu command, or pressing <CTRL+T> keys. It contains the entire filesystem starting with the Desktop root node. Once you find your desired folder, expanding tree branches as necessary, click on it and its contents will be read in the active pane. The selected folder will appear with bold letter in the tree. If you are a keyboard person, use the arrow keys to locate your folder. With the default "single click to change folder" option the last folder selected will be activated (there's a small timeout). If you want to browse the tree without activating folders, either disable the single click mode, or hold down <ALT> key as you move around the tree nodes.

Except for choosing folders to browse, the tree can be set to follow the folder you browse in the active pane. This makes sense if you consider that you can switch to folders with all sorts of means in xplorer², not just with the tree. This behavior is enabled ticking "Keep synchronized with folder in active view pane" tree option. Then you can see the nearby siblings of the active folder. Without this setting, you can manually align the tree and folder pane using View > Locate in tree menu command.

By default xplorer² shows only a single tree that is shared among the dual folder panes. Some people prefer to have a separate tree for each pane, and this is yet another option called "Show 2 trees". In this setup, the tree(s) become part of the dual panes and cannot be moved around the docks.

Each tree branch is arranged by Name, but it is also possible to sort sibling folders by date modified, using the background context menu, which displays when you right click on some empty space. With the same menu you can choose whether you want small or large folder icons (toggle). Finally you can turn the folder exclusion filter on/off with Use blacklist menu.

The entire tree namespace may include folders you never use, e.g. Libraries or some duplicate folders that appear in multiple locations. You can hide such unwanted folders by right clicking on them and then picking xplorer² > Hide this folder context menu command. Hiding a folder automatically enables the blacklist. If you want to see all the folders again (perhaps to un-blacklist some), pick Use blacklist from the background menu, to turn off the exclusion filter.

Formerly blacklisted folders have Hide this folder menu ticked, just untick the menu item to cancel the blacklisting. This command appears in the customizable xplorer² submenu, that is added on top of the standard shell context menu for files and folders. Note that only top level folders can be blacklisted.
For more information watch this demo video folder blacklist

Quick Access List

To begin with QAL is populated by your most frequently used folders, but you can add more folders with drag-drop (make sure you watch the demo video). Select a single folder either from the tree or a regular pane, and drag it over the QAL tree section. Be careful to drop it inbetween existing folders (you will see a horizontal insertion mark and the drop action will be Link), otherwise you'll end up moving the new folder inside the one existing in the QAL! For safety you can drag-drop new folders using the right mouse button, so if something goes wrong you can cancel the drop. Using drag-drop you can also reorganize items in the QAL, e.g. move them up or down.

Folders in the QAL can be used as bookmarks for browsing, drop targets for copy operations etc. The QAL branch can do everything the "normal" tree nodes do. There are only two exceptions:

You can rename items in QAL without affecting the real folder name. This way you can provide more descriptive names and avoid duplicate folder names. Use the context menu or select a folder and press <F2> to rename it.
When you press <DEL> key on a QAL folder, it merely removes said folder from the list, whereas if you tried the same in the "regular" tree, you'd actually delete the folder itself! To avoid mishaps, right click on the unwanted QAL item and use Remove from pane context menu command, which is clearer to understand.

If you remove QAL folders only to find them present again when you restart xplorer², you must disable the feature that automatically adds the most frequently used folders in the QAL using advanced options (search for "Frequent items in tree")

If you don't need the QAL, untick "Show quick access list" tree option. Then only the desktop-rooted folder hierarchy will show. Also note that QAL is not available when you opt for 2 trees.

Status information

But the status bar usefulness doesn't stop here. If you browse the menu commands, you will see a brief explanation of what each command does on the statusbar! This also applies when you hover your mouse pointer over a toolbar button. It is a mini instruction manual. Often while xplorer² is busy executing one of your commands, a progress bar shows on the statusbar, giving you an idea how much more is left to be done.

Not bad for a little bottom line, isn't it? If nevertheless you don't want any of the above, you can disable the statusbar altogether using View > Toolbars > Status bar menu command. If you disable the statusbar, all error messages will show as message boxes.

Ribbon toolbar

The ribbon has 3 command tabs (item ② in the above figure). The basic Home tab contains the most frequently used commands, whereas other tabs offer more detailed control for advanced features. The leftmost File tab is a traditional drop-down menu where you can exit the program, get help, and get back the original menu if you don't like the ribbon!

The command buttons in each tab are split in categories (see ① Browse, Clipboard, etc), or logical groups. Many ribbon buttons are split into a main command like Paste and a drop-down portion that shows variations of the main command (e.g. Paste link). You can get information on what each button does if you hover the mouse over it.

The ribbon offers limited customization support. You can right click on a button you use frequently and put it on the Quick Access Toolbar ③, the little toolbar the ribbon puts on the window titlebar. You can put up there all the commands you need then right click on the ribbon to minimize it, and reclaim the space it uses.

Most of the commands in the full menu system appear in the ribbon, albeit at different, more intuitive locations. This is a basic choice you have to make early, because if you learn the ribbon version of the commands it will be hard to revert to the menu bar interface (and vice versa).

If you want to get the menu bar back, you can remove the ribbon using Show normal menu command under the leftmost File ribbon tab. Or if you just want to use an advanced command that's not available in the ribbon, use the command finder, the little question mark button

on the quick access toolbar.

Typical workflow experience

Your everyday interaction with xplorer² is to browse one or more folders, then click on files to manage them this way or the other. xplorer² helps you get to your folders quickly, and ultimately find the files you are after, with pin-point accuracy. Then use menus and toolbars to work with your files. Most of the time you work in one folder at a time, as your filesystem is organized in your drives. Using scrap windows you can work with items from many folders simultaneously — e.g. modify files in a folder and all its subfolders.

Working with the mouse is easy, but for increased productivity xplorer² is keyboard friendly. Almost everything can be done with the keyboard. Lots of commands have keyboard shortcuts; if you are used to different accelerator keys, you can remap keys to your taste. You will find reminders of keyboard shortcuts in menus

and toolbar infotips

so you know that pressing <CTRL+F> is a quicker way to access the file search command! To move around the various panes, there are many keyboard shortcuts that involve the <TAB> key, e.g. <SHIFT+TAB> jumps to the addressbar. There are more useful hidden keyboard shortcuts in the appendix

Most menu commands will open a dialog box that lets you setup the file operation to taste. All these dialogs are described in detail in this documentation. All of them include an OK button you use to start the command procedure, and CANCEL which you click to abort the operation before it even begins — in case you picked the wrong menu by accident. Some dialogs are resizable, look out for the sizing handle

at the lower right corner. To help you focus on the active dialog, xplorer² shades (darkens) its main window till you finish setting up the dialog's parameters. If you find this behaviour distracting tick the advanced option "Disable main window alpha shading..."

When xplorer² is really busy working on your commands, especially if the job is big and hard, then you need to wait a while (a wait cursor

will show). Most lengthy operations show a progress dialog that lets you see how much is left to be done, as well as buttons to pause or cancel the job altogether, as such:

Some less intensive jobs may show a progressbar on the statusbar instead, which again gives you an idea how much work is left to be done. To cancel such commands press <ESC> key (if it doesn't respond immediately, try keeping ESCape pressed down for a few seconds).

During file operations, it may happen that folder contents get changed, files added or deleted or modified. xplorer² senses such changes automatically and refreshes the active folder pane so it stays up to date. This feature is working most of the time but if you find that xplorer² didn't pick up all the changes use View > Refresh menu command to force a re-read of the contents. Working inside a constantly modified folder (e.g. Downloads folder during an active file download) may waste too many resources, so you should consider suspending the autorefresh feature using View > Hold autorefresh menu item.

During file operations, problems are possible for a variety of reasons and causes. In case of errors, xplorer² will pause what it's doing and alert you to the problem. Some errors can be ignored or skipped, but it depends on the command being executed, the folder type and so on. Some errors are terminal, so xplorer² will abort the operation and issue a warning message on the status bar (you will hear the dreaded ding sound as well).

In general errors are caused by inadequate permissions, e.g. you are trying to copy into a folder that belongs to another user. Sometimes you can work around UAC restrictions launching an elevated xplorer² process via Window > Administrator menu command. However it is not recommended to run in administrator mode all the time. You can tell when xplorer² is running elevated by the * showing after the program name in the window titlebar. Window > Administrator command is then disabled.

See the troubleshooting section for some common problems and workarounds.

xplorer² is well tested and stable, so it shouldn't crash or hang very often. There are thousands of active users so real problems get reported and fixed quickly. However you cannot expect taxes and program death <g> so crashes are possible, especially if you use buggy shell extensions. If you find a reproducible bug please report it using Help > Crash information menu command. See the appendix for the kind of information required to troubleshoot crashes and hangs.

Under normal circumstances, xplorer² automatically saves its settings on exit, which means next time you run it, it should look exactly like last time you used it (window size and position, folder tabs, the lot). If you want to start xplorer² at fixed locations, use command line arguments to specify fixed folder paths for the left and right panes.

Input history

To access this history, either click on the drop-down arrow button of the combo-box, or start typing and xplorer² will find all the matching items from the history and present them to you as such:

Notice that the partial string you type is matched both at the beginning or the middle of history strings. Once you see the item you need to repeat, press <Down> arrow a few times to select it, then <ENTER> key to close the autocompletion popup. Press <ESC> key to close the popup without selecting anything.

How to get help

Use Help > Tip of the day to see bitesize, helpful tips and tricks every time you start xplorer². The tips window is modeless, meaning you can read the tip and try it out at the same time. When you had enough of these tips, untick "Show me tips every day" checkbox — but leave them on for a while, you will be surprised by what there's to learn!

All the tips are available in a single file called X2TIPS.RTF in xplorer² installation folder, if you prefer to search in them, print them out etc.

Further reading
◪ The most useful xplorer² tips and tricks for better everyday file management

From our experience with customer support, some commands tend to confuse users. In such cases xplorer² shows a 1-off clarifying message. If you don't want to see that message again, tick Don't show this message again and you won't be bothered with it again.

Command finder

The command search algorithm uses menu text and the brief explanation messages that appear on the statusbar describing each command — so you don't need to remember the menu name, you can search for what the command does, too. Use the Keywords input box for your search keywords; any matching menu commands will be listed in the results box. Note searches are case insensitive, so you can use capitals or lowercase keywords. If your query returned too many results or no results, try changing your search keywords.

If you are using a translation of xplorer² GUI, you must use the same language for search keywords. You search for commands as they appear in the menu bar — but you don't need to worry about accented letters: rôle is the same as role.

The search results box lists all commands that match your query, one command per line. The full "menu path" is presented e.g. File > New tab means open File from the menu bar and use New tab command from File menu. Some commands may have 3 or more segments if they are in submenus (the > character separates submenus). However you don't need to remember the whereabouts of the menu, just double click on a command in the results pane and you immediately execute the command — just as if you used the menu! If you prefer the keyboard, select the command row and press <ENTER> key to execute it.

Browsing the shell namespace

You can create folders at will, move them around, copy and delete them. Likewise you can create, move, rename and delete files within any folder. There is only one rule: each item in a folder must have a unique name — but you can have identical names in different folders.

In the old days of DOS consoles (DIR command anyone?) folders had to be reached by typing their names. To browse a folder a few levels deep, you had to type the names of all intervening folders, the path you had to travel to reach your target folder. The full path is the address of each folder starting from the top (root) folder. As at each level names are guaranteed to be unique, the path can identify any folder unambiguously.

Paths use the backslash \ special character to separate folder names. The backslash is a reserved symbol that isn't allowed to be used in folder or file names. For example to address the subfolder in the pic to the right, we compose its path using all higher (parent) folder names, starting from root as such:

root\folder\sub1

Files also have path names, you just append the file name to its parent folder path name, using a backslash as a separator as usual. Thanks to GUI programs like xplorer² you no longer need to type folder paths manually, but you come across them all the time so it's good to know what they are.

With xplorer² you seldom need to type folder path names manually. A large proportion of the program's infrastructure is there to help you get from A to B quickly and effortlessly with a variety of folder access mechanisms:

Normally you browse folders in the active pane but there are other possibilities, depending on keyboard modifiers:

The addressbar

You can also type file names (with or without a folder path), which is a quick way to browse a certain folder and select the named file item in one stroke. It also accepts simple wildcards that constrain item visibility.

The addressbar isn't clickable; for this functionality use the pane's titlebar (see figure 6. Remember xplorer² introduced crumb browsing years before windows explorer copied the original feature. To save you typing it supports path autocompletion. If you tick "Explorer-style path autocompletion..." option it helps you complete path segments using a popup completion list.

The combo box drop-down portion includes a recent history of your browsed folders, saved bookmarks and your most frequently used paths. You don't need to click on the rightmost arrow extend the drop-down history, just type part of the path you are after and hit <Up-Arrow> key to fetch the first matching path; if that isn't the one you are after, press <Up-Arrow> again a few times, to see all completions. For example, typing fresh would match a history folder named C:\TEMP\FRESHMAN. You can also type saved bookmark names.

You can also start external programs and pass files in the active pane as command line arguments. Type a > prompt character followed by a program name to run it. For example type:

and press <ENTER> to start notepad and edit the currently focused file in the active pane!
$N represents the selected filename and is one of the available tokens that let you build a reusable command palette.

Folder types

Another class of filesystem folders are remote or network folders, which give you access to hard disks of other computers via LAN or other connection. Instead of a drive letter, network roots are identified by a PC name and a root share folder, with two leading backslashes:

\\PCname\share\subfolder

Network folders are much slower and xplorer² takes special precautions when dealing with them. Other remote access folders are cloud drives like OneDrive, DropBox etc, but they also behave like regular folders most of the time — except for cloud-only files that are available on demand. xplorer² is careful not to cause unnecessary downloads for such cloud content.

Despite these local/remote differences, all these folders are regular filesystem, and you manage them in a similar fashion. All xplorer² menu commands work in filesystem folders.

Another folder class are in reality files, compressed archives like ZIP and RAR. They contain a local filesystem of files and subfolders, that's why windows shell treats them as "folders". Only a subset of commands apply to zipfolders. They are also slower than normal folders, as their contents need to decompress for many operations. As they contain files, xplorer² tries to offer a near-filesystem experience in terms of browsing and previewing.

xplorer² can also browse mobile phones (cells) and cameras and extract your photos, videos and other files. When you connect your phone via USB cable, it will appear as a special folder in ThisPC and you can browse into it. Such devices aren't read as normal filesystem folders, they are based on MTP protocol, and are quite slow to access. You are better off removing the SD card from your phone and using a card reader to get your photos faster.

Finally there are virtual folders, shell constructs that merely organize real folders, like ThisPC that contains all local and connected hard disks, Recycle Bin that manages files deleted and a few more special folders. You don't do much file management inside such folders, and each has its own peculiarities. Menu commands that are not relevant in special folders are disabled.

File types

File type is also associated to an icon, the user friendly way to tell file types apart. All text .TXT files have the same icon as in the pic to the right. These icons are the only way to tell the kind of files if you disabled extensions (ticked "Hide extensions for known file types" system folder option).

Whereas you are free to rename the base name portion of a filename to help you identify it, it is unwise to change its extension. This poor attempt at file type conversion will probably make the file unreadable. Only plain text files can have their extensions changed without risk.

Shell also uses icon overlays, little modifiers of basic icons, to convey extra information about a specific file. For example version control systems like TSVN use overlays to indicate the modification status of files in a repository. Another common overlay is the little arrow icon that denotes a shortcut file, a special file type with .LNK extension that is a "pointer" to a real file located in another folder (like the program shortcuts

on the desktop).

Folder bookmarks

One way to organize bookmarks is the Bookmarks menu that looks like the pic to the right. It is a flat list of folders with a customizable icon and an optional keyboard shortcut for keyboard enthusiasts. You add folders to the list using Add current menu, which adds the current folder in the list with a name you choose. Then choose a folder from this menu list to browse it instantly.

As you add more folder bookmarks, this list will grow and cannot be seen in its entirety in the menu. Any extra bookmarks will be available from Bookmarks > More menu, which opens a dialog that shows all the saved folders (looks similar to figure 8 below), for easy picking. By default up to 25 bookmarks will show in the menu; to see more increase the "Custom menu items" advanced option, a setting that affects other similar menu lists (under Customize menu). Up to 99 bookmarks can be saved in this fashion.

Bookmarks, like any menu items with icons, can be added to the main toolbar (item [7] in figure 1) for easier access. Right click on the toolbar and pick Customize from the context menu to add one or more bookmarks. Watch this demo video for more details. Bookmark names can also be typed in the addressbar and also autocompleted by partial name and <Up-Arrow> key.

A bookmark stores just one folder that is loaded in the active pane. Bookmarks > Dual submenu manages a similar list of paired bookmarks. If you are in dual pane mode, Bookmarks > Dual > Add current will store both left and right folders as a pair; when you reinstate such a pair it will bring up two folders instead of just one. Another menu list caters for sets of tabs: Customize > Folder groups submenu will save all the tabs in the active pane as a single item. If you pick a saved folder group from the menu, all the folder tabs will be recreated in one stroke. All these menu lists are managed in the same way.

As you traverse the menu items of any customized list, you get to see the "description" of each item on the statusbar, so you can e.g. see the path that each bookmark menu item represents: bookmark details

Note: in the ribbon interface bookmarks are called favorites, and a similarly operated menu drops under the star button in Home tab.

Bookmarks > Organize menu command lets you manage the menu list. Organize dialog shows all the stored bookmarks, including any that are not seen in the menu (if there are too many). This dialog allows you to reorder items (put frequently used bookmarks further up in the list), change properties and delete bookmarks that are no longer necessary.

The organize list shows bookmark details [1]: the name, "description" (this is the actual folder path), and any shortcut key associated to the bookmark for easy invocation by keyboard. To operate on the list use the little toolbar [2] (use the button popup tooltips to see what each one does) or equivalently right click on an item to modify it using the context menu [3]. Use the search box [4] to find a bookmark by name. This box matches strings in both name and description columns. Click Find next to find the bookmark; if that wasn't the one you wanted, click Find next again for the next match.

Double click on an item to modify its properties; a secondary dialog will open that lets you change the Name, Path, select a custom icon and assign accelerator keys (they must be a combination of <CTRL> and <SHIFT> with a number 0-9. Don't use <ALT> because it will make the bookmark load the folder in the inactive pane.

The default bookmark icon is that of the bookmarked folder — that most of the time looks the same. Use Custom from the drop-down list to choose a completely different icon, that helps you find the bookmark easier (especially if you add it to a toolbar). The Plain icon option assigns a plain but fast folder icon, which is advisable for slow network folders. When you are done changing properties, click OK to confirm or cancel to discard any changes.

Managing and using bookmarks from a menu is not the most efficient way to go around browsing favorite folders. You can also use the tree's quick access list and the mini scrap pane to drag-drop folders, then click on them to browse them.

There is also the legacy quick bookmark in Go to menu, intended for temporary bookmarking. You set it on the current folder browsed using Set quick-mark menu, then you can quickly return to the same folder using Quick bookmark menu or by <CTRL+F1> keys. There are tons of alternative ways to browse a favorite folder in xplorer² — add this extra one in the bargain :)

Column mode

Usually when you browse into a subfolder, the current tab switches entirely to it. Say you were browsing C:\path\DESKRULE and then you entered the subfolder C:\path\DESKRULE\INSTALLER, you'd expect to see the contents of INSTALLER folder replacing the old pane contents. If you turn on Miller browsing (File > Column mode menu) then both the original and the subfolder contents will show side by side. If you enter a new sub-sub folder e.g. C:\path\DESKRULE\INSTALLER\APPX then a third side panel will open, and so on. As you browse deeper, panes to the left shrink in width. If you have too many folders simultaneously open, a scroll bar will appear to help you manage the panes, since only a few of them will show at a time.

Miller browsing will strike Windows users as odd, but it is popular with Mac computers and their Finder file manager. Its advantage is that you can see neighboring folders simultaneously and transfer files from one to the other. Like dual pane browsing, only increased to multiple panes!

You move from one miller pane to the next either with left/right arrow keys, or clicking with the mouse. Only one folder is active in a miller column set, which will show in white background; all the other folders show with a darker background. The active folder is dominant: its path shows as the tab's current path, and all menu commands will operate in files selected in the active pane, just as if it was the only folder showing. After you create miller panels, each one could be set independently (e.g. one in thumbnails, the other in details, and a 3rd in list mode. But usually they all share the same view mode.

Let's go through the elements of a tab showing side-by-side folders, showing this mini-hierarchy:

When you open a new miller pane, the old pane shrinks down in width. By how much? If the pane is in detailed view mode, then it will be shrunk to the width of the NAME column. If it is in list or thumbnail mode, then it will shrink to the size of the currently selected folder item. You can set a maximum width limit to miller columns from program options (Window property page) setting a value for Max list column width. There are more tweaks available using Tools > Advanced options editor, e.g. the maximum number of side panels (default is up to 6 parallel folders).

If you use the folder tree or any other UI element outside the miller container to browse into a folder "far away" (e.g. typing a path in the addressbar), then the current miller pane is reset to the new folder. But miller mode remains active, so if you browse subfolders of this new master folder, sideway panels will pop up. To turn off miller mode completely, use File > Column mode menu or click on the equivalent toolbar/ribbon

button. Also note that miller panes will not survive a program restart, only the last active folder will be re-loaded when you start xplorer² next time.

Namespace extensions

Another class of plugins that xplorer² understands are those of the popular Total Commander, another windows file manager. There are plugins for extended folder browsing (packer WCX), preview and thumbnails (WLX) and file attribute & text content (WDX) for file search. There are tons of such plugins available to download for free, so if you cannot find a windows standard shell extension for some exotic file type, you might be lucky with a total commander plugin. TC plugins must be installed with a plugin manager to be integrated with xplorer² — whereas standard shell extensions are discoverable immediately once you install them.

Deep path support

The low level NTFS filesystem does support long paths, up to 32767 characters long, and that should be enough even if you go crazy with long folder names — individual folders and file names are still limited to 260 letters. Super deep paths have a leading path descriptor that marks them as such (\\?\E:\temp\deep start\...). Unfortunately at windows shell level things are still retrograde. xplorer² is deep path aware, and can happily copy and manage files beyond the 260 letter limit, but most other windows programs cannot, and this goes for most programs that open your files. Put a word document in a deep path and you will find that MS Word cannot open it — so what's the point using deep paths? The best xplorer² can do is to copy the deep file into a temporary location so you can at least read it (but you cannot edit it!)

Under the circumstances you must avoid long folder names so you keep your documents at levels above (less than) the 260 character limit. If you insist on using deep paths, you can provide shell access using folder junctions, where you create a shortcut to a deep folder and place it high up in the hierarchy so that it looks "shallow" to deep path unaware programs.

File properties

There are familiar properties like file Name, Size and date modified, and more exotic ones like Owner and Comment. Common properties apply to all file types, but there are some that apply only to particular types, as dimensions for photos, duration for music etc. Properties that aren't applicable for a file type remain empty.

File properties are divided in 3 main categories that determine how they are compared:

Date formatting

Most people don't need millisecond time information for files and folders, and xplorer² can show user friendly dates instead of bland numbers. Sorting by date uses the precise file dates, but for display purposes something more palatable is shown, like yesterday or last month.

The figure above contrasts precise dates [1] with 2 different friendly date options available. Method [2] uses big chunks of time durations (the same date categories used in grouping), whereas extra-friendly file age [3] has better resolution, which is at least one-day accurate even for very old files. If you prefer friendly dates, tick "User friendly date..." option; if you want file ages [3], you must also tick "Extra-friendly file dates..." advanced option — otherwise method [2] is used.
NOTE: the details pane always shows precise dates, even when friendly dates are enabled

Folder views

Sort options

Click on the column header to arrange by the corresponding file detail, e.g. Name, Size, Comment or whatever else happens to show up as a file detail. Click on the same column again to reverse the sort direction from bigger to smaller and vice-versa. A little triangle shows the active sort mode (Name in the example above) and its ascending/descending direction. When you click on a date column, it defaults showing the most recent file first (descending), whereas text and numeric properties default to ascending order.

A folder usually contains both files and (sub)folders. By default xplorer² groups the folders separately, but you are free to choose another bundling scheme, using "Folders sorted" program option. You can have them separately at the top or bottom of the list, or mixed with files — using whatever sort method is in force.

Text properties like Name are compared strictly alphabetically, which means that 10 comes before 2. If you want your files sorted numerically (e.g. file1, file2, ... file10), tick "Natural number sort" option in the Advanced property page of program options.

Manually arranged folders

Choosing details

Current scheme box [1] lists the columns you have already chosen and show in the header. Click Remove button to remove the selected column from the current set. Columns available for selection box [2] lists all available properties, included e[X]tended properties provided by shell extensions. Select a property from the available box and double click on it (or click Add button) to add it in the current column set.

As there are hundreds of available properties, use the filter box [3] to search for a column by name, e.g. type date to see all date-related properties that can be used. [S]tock properties have a description as well, showing extra information on what they do in box [4].

Use the arrow buttons [6] to rearrange column order in the header. You can also rearrange columns by drag-drop (when the column selection dialog doesn't show). Grab a column with the mouse and drop it where you want it in the header row.

You can save a group of columns as a set using Customize > Column sets submenu. Define a set of columns then use Add submenu to save the set with a descriptive name. The list of column sets is managed in a way similar to bookmarks list. You can have one column set for (say) photos, one for music and so on, and quickly switch among them using Customize > Column sets list. The Predefined drop-down list [5] in the dialog above gives access to such saved column sets for use in the dialog.

Note: The same column customization dialog is used to select columns for infobars.

Show in groups view mode

Custom groups

Using the small toolbar at the top-right corner (or the context menu) you can define, edit, reorder and delete custom categories using standard hyperfilters as they are used for file search. These may be as simple as a name wildcard, or a boolean combination of file properties. Each filter determines the group membership. Items are placed in the first matching category (in the order they appear in the dialog). Any items that cannot be categorized end up in the "unspecified" group.

The example in figure 12 will create (up to) 3 categories in each browsed folder, one will have files with CPP, H and RC extensions (it is wildcard based), the second will gather all folders, and all the remaining files will be in unspecified category.

Once you define a custom grouping you can save and reuse it using Customize > Custom groups menu. The group submenu list is managed in a similar fashion as bookmarks menu. Such saved groups are also available through the Predefined drop-down list in the above dialog.

If you want to stop arranging in groups (either simple or custom) uncheck the menu command View > Arrange by > Show in groups or click on the equivalent toolbar button.

Folder view settings

xplorer² offers a sense of continuity as you browse your filesystem folders, maintaining your settings including view modes, sort orders, column widths, etc; it even remembers the item that was focused the last time you browsed a folder and brings it into view when (and if) you return.

In other words, xplorer² uses the current view settings for any pane as default. If for example you change from detailed view mode (View > Pane style menu) to list mode, then list mode will be default from then onwards for all folders browsed in that pane or tab.

A different way to manage folder view settings is to setup a pane like you want it using various commands from View menu (e.g. pane style, number of columns, grouping, sort order) then declare this view mode as default using Actions > Folder settings > Default menu command. This way you tell xplorer² which default view mode to use for all folders. If you change any view parameters in some folder they will only last temporarily until you browse another folder, where the default settings will again return.

Note that folder settings can be different for each pane (left/right or up/down in dual pane mode), and even for each folder tab in a pane. You can have one pane in detailed view mode and the other in list mode. When you quit xplorer², only the active tabs save their settings; next time you start xplorer² all tabs will look like the two last active tabs.

xplorer² does not change its view mode automatically to suit folder contents. You can force particular folders in a fixed view mode using Actions > Folder settings menu. So for instance you can have "My pictures" folder to appear always in thumbnails, even when you are browsing in a pane that is normally in detailed mode. When you get out of such customized folders the pane returns to its previous view mode. When you enter a folder with custom settings a status bar pane icon will appear as an indicator.

Under this concept, you setup a default pane style for most of your folders, e.g. details, and for the few exceptional folders you want to browse differently, save a custom view mode. When you first use Save menu to turn on a custom folder view, xplorer² asks you whether to apply the same mode to its subfolders — that may make sense if all subfolders have similar special content. Here is an easy way to do it:

Enter the target special folder; its view mode will be the same as all other folders
Use Folder Settings > Default menu to safeguard the default style
If you skip this step, you must change the pane style back to what it was once you come out of the special folder
Change the pane style, sort order etc to customize the special folder
Use Folder Settings > Save menu to fix the changes (for this folder only)

The menu command Suspend is an on/off toggle you can use to temporarily stop observing custom folder settings. When enabled it is as if there are no special folders.

Simple file management

Use the tree to locate folders, and select file items with the mouse. The preview pane will show a draft preview of the focused item. Double click to open the selected document in its registered application, or use the right click context menu to perform file operations as copy, delete, rename and so on (these commands are also available from File menu). To transfer copied files, switch to the destination folder and use Edit > Paste menu command, or use drag-drop. These are all elementary actions and will not be elaborated further.

If you hold down <SHIFT> key as you right click, you get an extended menu with more commands. For example, the context menu of executable files will include a Run As command that allows you to run a program impersonating a different user.

An underused hidden gem is Send to submenu. You can create a compressed folder out of the selection, attach files to emails (mail recipient command) and more — you can even customize this menu for special targets.

Right click on some empty spot to open the active pane's background menu. In there you will find commands to create new files and folders, change the pane style etc. Thus, just using the mouse and context menus, ignoring the entire menu system in xplorer², you can do all the basic file operations!

All these basic file operations like drag/drop, copy/paste, rename and delete can be undone, albeit not by xplorer², but from windows explorer! If you find you have made a mistake, minimize xplorer² and any other window that obscures the desktop, then right click on the background and you will find the undo menu command. As xplorer² uses windows explorer for its basic file operations, it is possible to undo them in this roundabout way.

Rename and change type

When you create a new file or folder using Actions (or a pane's background menu), the item is created in the active folder and immediately you get in rename mode, to change the default New File.txt. We saw that changing extensions is potentially dangerous that's why xplorer² selects only the base name when you rename inplace rename

Recycle and delete

Only local filesystem files and those in USB-connected hard disks are moved to the recycle bin; other locations are deleted directly. Files that cannot be recycled include:

Network files
Files in USB sticks (flash drives)
Files in phones and tablets
Deep paths (length >256 characters)
All non-filesystem items (e.g. zipfolders, FTP)

You must be extra careful when you delete files in any of the above folder types. It is recommended that you have delete confirmations enabled (using recycle bin properties) as an insurance policy. Delete confirmations that go into the recycle bin look slightly different than permanent deletions. Please study the following confirmations; the second one (permanent) requires special care because it is very hard to undo.

You can browse recycle bin in xplorer², just like any other special folder in the shell namespace. Note that instead of the regular filesystem columns, you see details like Original location and Date deleted, which is information related to this special folder. Sort by Date deleted column to see the most recently deleted items first. Then select one or more deleted items and use Restore context menu command to undo their deletion:

Don't forget to empty your recycle bin from time to time, using the context menu on the recycle bin desktop icon. If you accumulate too many recycled items, deletion will become sluggish.

Super-charged drag-drop

When you drag, you must find the desired drop destination. Most UI elements in xplorer² window accept drops, like the active and inactive folder pane, the folder tree and so on. If a pane contains too many items and you cannot see your target, you can scroll the window (while dragging) if you place your mouse pointer near the window edge where you want to move towards. You can drop to a different folder tab if you leave your mouse a second or two over a hidden tab — it will then activate to accept your drop. This spring-loaded folder feature also works in the tree, where you can open tree branches by hovering over them.

Drop targets are usually folders but you can also drop on program icons (EXE files, they will receive the dragged files as arguments to open them) — this method also works for user commands you place on a toolbar. Naturally you can drag-drop to other windows programs, not just inside xplorer². Use <ALT+TAB> or the windows taskbar to select a different window to drop into.

The default file operation when dropping is Move if you are working within the same drive (e.g. reorganizing files under C:\) or Copy when you drop to a different drive (e.g. from C:\ to E:\). You can override these defaults using keyboard modifiers:

<SHIFT> to move files
<CTRL> to copy files
<CTRL+SHIFT> to create shortcuts

You will see the changing drop cues (label and mouse cursor) when you press these modifiers while dragging. If you don't remember which key to use, drag files with the right mouse button; when you drop, a context menu will open to select the desired operation!

Previewing and launching items

Except for regular information like file sizes and dates, xplorer² offers access to the contents of files, as long as they are in normal or near-normal (e.g. zip) folders.

The most convenient option is to turn the quick viewer pane on from View menu. Then as you move the cursor around in a folder pane you can see the preview of the focused item. The quick viewer can show text (including RTF, Unicode and UTF-8), graphics, HTML, office documents, even audio and video files. There are 2 modes selectable by tabs at the base of the previewer panel. The figure below shows draft and native previews of the same document. The left one is plain text, the right one shows also formatting.

The Draft tab shows fast previews of most file types. For photos and graphics of all sorts you see a large thumbnail, which can be zoomed in/out and rotated through a toolbar zoom toolbar

or touch gestures. xplorer² uses windows system thumbnail cache to offer quick image previews. It embeds Windows Media Player to offer previews of music and movies.

For plain text files like TXT or CPP, it loads and displays the first few KB (the limit is adjustable). Using the context menu (see right pic) you can change the preview font (Set Font command), select and copy text, Search for text in the preview etc. Normally xplorer² can figure out the encoding automatically; for the rare cases it won't, use Encoding submenu to pick a code page or indicate the text format (UTF-8, unicode etc). If you turn Tail mode menu command on, xplorer² loads the last few lines of the text file instead of the beginning. This makes sense for log files. Finally if you turn on Text only menu, xplorer² will show all file types as text — e.g. images will show a hex dump (47 49 46 38 GIF8 00000) instead of the thumbnail. Select this menu item again to turn on regular image previews.

Advanced office document types like PDF, DOC and XLS are also previewed as unformatted text using text filters meant for desktop search. When a document was scanned for text (e.g. a file search result), any matching keywords are highlighted so you can quickly see the surrounding text context. Use Find next menu to find the next search keyword match.

The internal text viewer called editor² is also aware of search hits. If you open a plain text file (a search result) in editor² using File > View menu, then <F3> key will find the keyword you searched for in xplorer²!

The little pin at the right end of the previewer's tab strip is the equivalent of View > Lock viewer menu command. When you lock the preview panel, it will stop following the focused file and remain fixed to the present file. A possible application is to listen to music while you browse. Unpin the previewer to resume normal previewing as you click around the panes.

Click on Native tab to switch to more accurate, slower previews. This mode is identical to the preview panel in windows explorer. To see accurate previews for your file types, you need to install preview handlers. Luckily when you install an office suite, it automatically adds preview handlers and text filters for its associated file types. If you have problem with certain document types, you can search for preview plugins.

As you can see in figure 14 above, native preview looks nicer, and you can preview the entire document, not just the first few lines. However it feels cramped in the narrow space available, so opening the document in its native program may be the better option. Draft mode is quicker and adequate for most preview needs.

Peek preview

The previewer is one of the adjustable panes so you can resize and dock it to various locations. To see bigger previews you can use the splitter bar to resize the pane. But this larger preview comes at the expense of other panels, that end up shrunk.

Instead of a permanently docked preview pane, an alternative method is View > Peek preview menu, which pops a large window previewing the selected item. Hit any key (except PageUp/Down) and the preview goes away! The preview is similar to the Draft quick preview tab, so it will show images and plain text (including text extracted from DOC/PDF/XLS documents) only. For music/video or accurate Native preview you must still use the regular quick preview panel.

Likewise you can press both left and right mouse buttons together simultaneously to preview the file under the mouse cursor. Just enable "Mouse peek preview" from options. Then let go of the mouse keys and the preview will go away!

A variation of this command can show popup previews for two files simultaneously. Select 2 items that have thumbnail previews (e.g. photos) and press <Alt+Shift+Q> keys and a popup window will show their large previews side by side for easy comparison. This is especially useful when considering similar photos before you decide which one to keep. Press any key or click the mouse to hide the preview window.
NOTE: if just one item is selected and you are in dual pane mode, this command compares the focused items in the left and right folders.

Starting programs

Extract text information

Edit > Copy columns menu likewise copies all details, but only for selected files. The information is placed in the clipboard as text, which you can paste wherever you like.
This command also works in the folder tree where it copies all expanded branches under the selected one.

You don't have to find the exact folder to open, pasting the full path will do the job nicely! Here is a demo video system open

On a different note, Edit > Extract text menu command is meant for formatted text documents like DOCX and PDF, where it will extract pure (unformatted) text and save it in a separate file, using text filter modules available for desktop search. For example text from ESTATEMENTS.PDF will be saved in ESTATEMENTS.PDF.TXT.

One possible use is to compare PDF documents for modifications, using a text comparison tool like WinDiff.

Changing file properties

The most intuitive way to change properties is straight into the detailed view mode. Like in-place file rename, you can slow double-click (click twice but not too fast) on any property that is changeable, and you can edit its contents as such:

You can think of the active folder pane as a little MS Excel spreadsheet, where you can change cells of various properties, like date modified as above. All properties are edited as text, so you must make sure you stick to the expected format — or an error will result. In the above pic, Name, Modified and Keywords can all be modified in-place, but Size cannot (it is innate.)

Details pane

In figure 15 a PNG (image) file happens to be selected. We can see a little thumbnail preview on the left, followed by standard information as Name, size and date modified, but as this is an image we also see its dimensions in pixels. The most important type-specific information is shown e.g.:

Properties that appear as links (like name and comment in figure 15) can be modified. If you click on such a property link, it's like you used the menu command that changes said property. Innate properties like Size just show a bold title, since they cannot be changed directly.

Industrial scale folder management

In large folders, most files are hidden from view, especially if you are showing full details (one file per line). A standard horizontal or vertical scroll bar

will appear, giving you an idea how many items are hidden and about your current location within the folder. You can operate your scroller with the mouse to see hidden items, but for more precise control use the keyboard to roam the active folder pane:

As you move around, the focused item is changed and usually cancels all previous selections too. To move the focus without affecting the existing selection hold down <Ctrl> or turn Mark > Sticky selection on. This will help you to hand-pick items scattered in the folder listing (similar to explorer's checkbox selection mode).

Filtering for visibility

demo video: wildcards, autofilters and quick filters

There are several types of visual filters, activated from View > Visual filter submenu:

Simple name wildcards like *.TXT that allow only matching filenames.
Instead of using the menu command you can also type a wildcard straight in the addressbar and press <ENTER> to apply it.
Rule based (aka hyperfilters) are boolean expressions that combine file property conditions, and optionally contained text stipulations.
Auto-filter command pops a menu that lets you select one of the file types present in the current folder.
Hide folders is a simple filter that only lets files to show.
Selected only is a manual and temporary filter that hides any items that are not selected, in case you want to concentrate on the selection only.
The On/Off command turns the visual filter on and off (toggle). It is a quick way to reinstate the last used proper visual filter

Except for this visual filter submenu, you can use the quick filter box next to the addressbar to type part of a filename and show only matching items. There are even filters using color tags, a topic discussed in the sequel.

Whenever any filter is hiding items from view, you will see a green funnel

icon on the statusbar. Double click on this icon (or use View > Show all menu) to cancel the filtering and see all the items in the folder.

Wildcards for text matching

xplorer² can filter on regular expressions too, which are a more complex kind of text wildcard. Regular expressions are supported in rule-based filters.

Automatic type filters

Hidden files and global filters

When the program option "Show hidden files and folders" is not enabled, then any files or folders that are marked as hidden (have the H file attribute) are not shown at all. This is like an implicit filter on the file attribute property. The little eye

icon will appear on the statusbar when hidden files are obscured in this way.

One way to block a particular file or folder from showing in xplorer² is to change its attributes to include H (assuming it doesn't already have the attribute). Then it will not be visible if you turn off show hidden files option.

xplorer² supports a global exclusion filter for both folder views and tree, hiding matching files and folders. The advanced setting "Global exclusion filter" is defined as a comma separated list of wildcards to exclude from view (alternatively it can be a saved hyperfilter name defined earlier). For example *.DLL,*.SYS would define a global filter that hides any DLL or SYS files permanently.

When you define a global exclusion filter, the hidden files statusbar icon will show as a reminder. You cannot turn off a global filter, it is always enforced. As it is pervasive, only relatively fast file properties are allowed. If you attempt to use a slow hyperfilter here, it will be ignored.

Selection engine

These simple selection and unselection methods work with one item at a time. You build a large selection adding more items one by one. This manual effort can get tedious and unpractical if you require many items selected — not to mention that one accidental unprotected click can unselect everything you worked so hard to select in the first place! To protect against such mishaps use Mark > Sticky selection menu; when this mode is on, all mouse clicks work as if you had <CTRL> key pressed. To resume normal selection mode, select Sticky selection again to turn it off.

There are several commands in Mark menu that help you select and unselect multiple items in one go. Let's start with the simple additive commands, that select items on top of those already selected: (to start a fresh selection cycle, just hit <Alt+A> to unselect everything beforehand)

Now let's discuss the non-additive marking mechanisms. These will destroy any previous selection, so they must be done first:

All these criteria-based selection commands affect all files and will reset any previous selection leaving only items that unambiguously pass the criterion in question. Typically such commands are performed first, possibly followed by elementary (un)marking commands to refine the selection. However when such criteria are used to unselect files (e.g. see Unselect button in figure 16) they only affect matching items.

Mark menu also contains a number of commands that affect the selection which are explained in other parts of this guide. Broadly speaking they consider all the files with a variety of criteria, and select files that match them. For example in dual pane mode you can mark items that need to be copied to synchronize two folders, or source files that must be built to make a compiled language project.

Selection clipboard

Searching for text in files

The simplest use of this dialog is to type one word or phrase to search for in Find what input box, and click select button to start looking for text inside files that are shown in the active pane. Matching files are selected and any prior selection is cleared. If you hold <SHIFT> as you click on select button, any existing selection is preserved and matching files are added on top. It is also possible to unselect matching files using the respective button.

This command finds text exactly as you type it, and internal spaces are significant (it's not like google search). For example searching for "this that" is different than "that this" (reversed order), and even "this that" (notice the extra space separating the words). Don't use quotes " unless you want to find a quote character. Think of it that you search for phrases instead of individual keywords. The advantage is that you can search for symbols as well as numbers and letters.

The command automatically detects the encoding of plain text files (UTF8, unicode etc), if a Byte-Order-Mark (BOM) is present at the beginning of files. If BOMs are missing or you want to search within OEM files, you can force the encoding using the combo box supplied (see figure 16). To disable content interpretation altogether, including encoding and text filters, pick Raw encoding; this will allow e.g. searching for BOMs or other binary content.

Defining hyper-filters

These complex filters are pervasive in xplorer² user interface, and a common dialog structure is used to define them, regardless if they are used for visual filtering, rule-based selecting or file search. Once you get the hang of them, you can use them everywhere to match files with precision. Here is an example dialog for visual filtering (View > Visual filter > Rule based menu command); if you compare it with find files dialog, you will see that are very similar.

Hyper filter dialogs have 3 sections that define the filter (name [1-3], contained text [4] and additional rules [5]). At least one section needs to be filled in with your file matching parameters. Empty sections appear disabled (ghosted) to minimize visual clutter in this admittedly complicated dialog. Let's have a quick look at the input fields:

You can define hyper-filters with as few or many criteria as you want. You can go from a nearly empty filter (e.g. all fields clear except for Folders box that will find all folders) all the way to any arbitrarily complex filter with tens of rules combined in boolean contexts. Only items that match all aspects of the filter are considered hits.

When a filter dialog shows up, its fields are loaded with the filter you used last time. If you want to define a new filter, click clear button to empty all fields. Note the button controls in section [7] depend on the command, it's filter for visual filtering, select when you are going to use the filter for selection and so on — they act like the typical OK button, that closes the dialog and executes the filtering command.

Saving and reusing filters

To store a filter, type a descriptive name for it in the Predefined [6] combo box and click on the Save button (see figure 17), and the current definition will be added in the drop down list. From then on you only need to select the saved filter from the Predefined list and its rules will be automatically restored for you.

To modify a previously saved filter, make your property rule changes and save it again with the same name — thus overwrite the old definition.

To delete a saved filter that's no longer needed, first select it, press Clear button to delete all its rules and finally click on Save button to confirm the deletion. Arguably this isn't very intuitive; the dialog UI is streamlined for saving and using complex filters, which is what you do most often anyway.

Property rules

You can add, edit, reorder and delete rules using the little toolbar on the top right of the Additional rules list box (similar to how we manage bookmark lists). If you right click in the rules box, a context menu pops up with the same commands as on the toolbar. All the usual keyboard and mouse clicks are also recognized within the list, e.g. <DEL> key will delete the selected rule, double-click will edit a property and so on. Each rule has a descriptive text and an icon reflecting its boolean context (+ for AND, - for NOT and | for OR).

Searchable file properties belong to three broad categories: dates, numbers and text. This determines how the properties are interpreted & searched: number and date rules are matched as ranges between a Low and High limit, and text properties are searched for contained text (e.g. we are searching whether the comment property includes a keyword).

Click on Add new toolbar button to add a new rule. A dialog opens to select a property and set the rule parameters as such:

Figure 18 shows the parameters for a numeric property (File size), which comprise a minimum and maximum limit. A file size x will match the numeric rule if it falls within the limits you supply (min < x < max). Either limit may be missing if you want an open-ended rule; in the above example the minimum size is empty, so that makes the rule Size less than 10MB (x < 10MB for the mathematically inclined). If you are after an exact number, make both minimum and maximum limits identical.

Numeric properties support units of measurement using the Units drop down list. File sizes in bytes will be big numbers, so it is convenient to pick Mega as a unit — that implicitly multiplies your typed limit by a million (10MB ~= 10,000,000 bytes). Properties with small values (e.g. picture width) don't need units, set them to 1.
Minutes unit is for matching audio and video Length (duration) property, measured in minutes

Let's have an example. Say you want to find a file whose size is either smaller than 1K or above 2K but not inbetween. The simple solution would be to use two Or rules, one searching for files up to 1K and another one above 2K. Or you can use your boolean skills and define a single rule that says: Not "size between 1024 and 2048". Your boolean expertise saved you a couple of seconds there <g>

If you select a date property, the middle part ③ of the rule definition dialog will change as above, to accept your desired date range. Date properties can be defined as periods from the present time (During the previous) or as ranges (Between). Leaving any end of the range empty (untick the checkbox) removes the respective date boundary. For example if the low end of Between range is unticked, the rule will match any files that are up to the date specified in the upper limit box. You don't specify time (hour) limits directly. The low range is assumed from the beginning (00:00 midnight) and the high end includes the entire day (up to 23:59)

With During the previous mode you must select the time unit (years, months, seconds etc) and the quantity (number), so you can create rules like modified during the previous 3 months. This can also be expressed in Between mode with a low date limit 3 months from today, and the upper set to now — but it wouldn't be as clear to grasp.

Finally, if you select a text property (like Comments or Owner) ), the middle part ③ of the rule definition dialog will change as above. You search text properties like you search for text in files: just type part of what you are after in Find box. All searches are case (and word boundary) insensitive for the broadest possible match. In this example if a file's Comment property contains any references of test, it will be a match, else no cigar. Wildcards (* and ?) are also supported, unless you tick the verbatim option. Advanced string matching is possible ticking the Regular expression option.

After this long explanation, you managed to define a single rule; click ok button (see figure 18) to add it to the current hyperfilter — the new rule will show in Additional rules box. In the same fashion you can Edit an existing rule; double-click on it and the rule definition dialog will let you change the match conditions.

The up/down toolbar buttons in additional rules box are meant to reorganize the rules. When xplorer² is testing files against a hyperfilter, it processes the rules in the order they are shown in the rules box, so it makes sense to put fast rules first and slow rules towards the end of the list, to accelerate file matching. However xplorer² does this reordering automatically even if you won't!

Easy filter and selection

Most of the work you do in xplorer² involves finding, filtering and selecting items, before doing something with them. The edit box next to the addressbar is a convenient way to do all these things from a single tool. Arguably it is one of the best productivity features in xplorer²!

By default the quick filter box is set to (visual) filtering mode. Instead of fumbling with wildcards and complex rules and dialog boxes to pass parameters, start typing what you want to find in the active pane and after the 4th letter the quick filter will automatically activate and show only files with matching names — you don't even have to press <ENTER> to start filtering, it is done live and as you type. If you type enough letters, the active pane list will shrink to a couple of items only, hopefully including the one you are after. To reveal all hidden files, click on x to the right of the box to clear the filter — View > Show all menu command does the same.

Normally the quick filter tries to match your input with filenames only; your partial filter string can appear even in the middle of filenames and it will be considered a match (e.g. type hel and you will match help.txt, shell.dll and any other file that contains hel. If you want to match text against all details shown in the pane (e.g. size, date modified and anything else that is visible), use the drop-down menu and tick All properties option. This type of filtering is slower therefore in large folders filter-as-you-type won't work — you need to press <ENTER> key to filter out files that don't match. You can even search for text inside documents ticking Text contents menu item, but that will make things even slower.

xplorer² ultimate can search much faster in all properties and text contents if you tick Windows search menu. You can find whole words or stems (beginnings) quite nicely this way, if you browse folders that are in the search index. In professional edition this command is disabled.

Use the drop-down menu to switch to Select mode. The action button will change into . Instead of filtering now the box is used for selecting matching items. The idea is the same, what you type is matched against the filename or optionally all visible details (or even contained text). Press <ENTER> key to select matching items; those that don't match remain unselected — but visible.

Quick filter and selection mode work with the items in the active pane (it works even in the mini-scrap) — usually that means items in the current folder browsed. If you switch the box to Search mode from the drop-down menu, then it can search the current folder and its subfolders, like a regular find files command.

If you do a simple search for filenames only, matching filenames appear immediately in a popup window, and automatically update as you change the search keyword (live search as-you-type). You can preview and open files directly using the context menu on search results, or browse the containing folder for more file management actions. To jump into the search results pane press <TAB> key. As the popup is space limited, the search stops after 25 results are found; if you cannot see your target file, click the footer for robust search, which will do a regular full scale file search.

The live minisearch feature does not work if you tick any slow match options like All properties. In such a case a regular search is performed, in a separate window.

The colorful button to the right of the filter box, is another way to quickly filter files based on their color tag. Please see the following section for more details.

Legacy quick search

Despite their expressive power, fumbling with hyperfilters and text rules can be too time consuming. Mark > Quick search menu is a convenient shortcut that selects files that contain a phrase, either in their content or in some text column, including filename. It is a local search mode (scans items already in the pane) equivalent to a hyperfilter with one rule per text column, each matching your phrase in a boolean OR fashion (i.e. any one match will be enough); if no column matches the phrase, the command searches the text within the file. This latter slow stage can be skipped if not required, hitting <Esc>.

Quick search will only scan columns that are visible in the active pane. To make the most of this command you may have to activate a few interesting columns, e.g. Comments, Version information etc, depending on your context.

Quick search uses the addressbar for text input. Instead of using Mark menu you can press <SHIFT+TAB> to jump to the addressbar and type your phrase, beginning with a colon, e.g. :your phrase, then press <Return> key to apply; any matching items in the active pane will be selected. If instead of marking you want to filter the matching items (hide everything that doesn't match), type your text and press <Shift+Return>. Stored hyperfilter names are also understood if enclosed with curly braces, e.g. :{saved_filter_name} is a valid input.

Manage color tags

Sometimes you need to mark a file for later processing. One way is to place the item in the mini scrap pane. Another possibility is to color tag it, so whenever you browse its container folder it will stand out with a color border drawn around its name. Likewise you can color tag a folder in the tree pane, making it easier to locate — then its tab's icon

will also be painted with the same color.

Color tags are set through the shell context menu (xplorer² adds a couple of its own commands at the top). Alternatively add the Color tag

button to the toolbar via customization.

To tag a file (or a bunch of files), select them, click with the right mouse button, and from the Color tag submenu choose the color you like.
To change the color of a previously tagged file, just apply another color using the menu
To untag a file (cancel the color tag), use Clear tags menu command; the color border will be deleted and the file will show normally.

There are three predefined tag colors to choose from; you can add more colors with some tweaking.

Adding a color tag won't change the actual files in any way (xplorer² uses a private database for color tagging information). You can use many colors for different kind of markings — the meaning of colors is entirely up to you. The color borders drawn around the names can be combined with rule-based color coding — but color tagging is much simpler and quicker.

Find color tagged files

Click ok button to start the search. If there are any tagged files with the colors you ticked, they will be presented in a standard search results window. If nothing can be found you'll get an error message instead — consider enlarging the search scope e.g. ticking Search everywhere option in the find tags dialog, or tick more color boxes (there is a tick all command in the right click menu).

The tag search dialog is very fast but will only search for colors. If you want to combine colors with regular file attributes like names etc, use find files dialog and add a rule on the color tag stock property. In this context tags are plain numbers in the order they appear in the color list (1=red, 2=green etc). This kind of combined search will be much slower though.

Color coding filetypes

The custom color coding dialog (left) shows all the color rules you have defined in a list [1]. You can manipulate individual items (add/delete/edit) using the toolbar [2] and the equivalent context menu commands, as we saw earlier. The list shows the exact effect (color and font) that each rule will have on matching items.

"Color coding filetypes" is rather a misnomer for what this system offers. Not only can you change colors, but also fonts (apply bold and italic effects). And we don't just filter on filetypes, you can use any file property using mighty hyper-filters to define a color category. For example the encrypted files category above is defined using the file attribute property (see dialog to the right) — of course you can also use a wildcard like *.cpp to target a file type (extension).

Double click to add or change a color rule. The top section [4] is where you define the text attributes: foreground and background colors, and bold/italic style. The Description field isn't very important in terms of function, only as a reminder for your records — typically a summary of the filter. The biggest portion of the dialog is for defining the membership rule (compare with figure 17) — don't be put off by the apparent complexity. For simple wildcard color coding you would only use the Named edit control.

To turn on color highlighting tick Activate color coding [3]; clear the checkbox to return to normal colors. You can also turn individual color rules on/off using the checkboxes in front of each rule, if necessary. Note that coloring is a view-related property, so you can have e.g. the left pane highlighted and the right normal. You must turn color coding on/off for each dual pane (or tab) separately.

Multi-folder containers

Use Window > Scrap container menu (from the main window) to open a scrap window. Many commands that deal with subfolders (e.g. file search) also create scrap windows automatically to present their results, files that reside in different folders. As you can see, scrap windows look similar to the main window (see figure 1) and they work more or less the same way. The figure below demonstrates all the possible window features, most of which are optional and can be turned off using View menu.

Here is a brief description of scrap window elements, by their reference number in the red circle:

Populating scrap panes

You can build collections in one go or step by step. Each new batch of items is added to the existing collection. To remove one or more selected items use File > Remove menu, or right click someplace empty and use Clear from the pane's background menu — that will clear all contents and you can start a new collection.

Scrap containers accept items from both filesystem and "virtual" folders. If you want to see file details in mixed-bag collections, say regular files and compressed zipfolder items, prefer stock columns that work consistently in both types of folders.

The flat earth view

Use File > Browse flat on a folder from the main window; this will open a new scrap container for the contents
Right-drag a folder and drop it in a scrap, then use Browse flat menu command; this way you can flatten folders in an existing scrap container.
If you want contained subfolders only instead of files, right drag and use Get subfolders menu command
The right drag menu command Link target inserts a local shortcut to a network item instead of the remote item; see the discussion in mini-scrap section below
Highlight a folder in a dual-pane scrap and press <Alt+Return> to flatten it in the inactive pane.

Such flat views are useful when you want to operate on items recursively into subfolders, instead of doing things one folder at a time. We are sure you'll discover many more uses yourselves!

Managing collections

Shell "documents"

The term "scrap" suggests something fleeting and impermanent, and indeed these containers were originally conceived as quick-and-dirty temporary holders of items, which would be discarded as soon as some simple file operation was performed on them. However, it was soon realized that there was another possible use mode: saving scrap contents for future use.

Actions > Write contents creates a file with .CIDA extension and writes location information for all the items in a scrap pane. You can reopen such saved files at a later time and restore the scrap container, just like as if it was a shell document. xplorer² registers .CIDA files for its own use so you can open them by merely double-clicking on them, even when xplorer² isn't running — or use Actions > Load contents menu.

You can take advantage of this functionality in many ways. For instance you can create cida files as "table of contents" that keep the locations of files with similar content throughout your filesystem. This would be equivalent to creating a normal folder and keeping shortcuts to the same documents, but if you go the scrap way you have direct view of the actual files. Or you can create playlists out of your music collection and save each as a CIDA file, one for each genre. The sky is the limit!

Normally you will be reusing cida files on a single computer to access a set of related files. If you want to access the same files from a different PC you must save some extra information to make the cida file location-independent; that is the purpose of "UNC pidl files" type in Save as type drop-down box, as in this snapshot:

Multiple scrap containers

You can see a list of all windows in xplorer² process (including scraps) via Window > List menu. To help you identify which window is which, scraps that are generated automatically have a descriptive titlebar, like the one below created by Browse flat command:
scrap titlebar

Loading CIDA and search results also have good titlebars; for the scrap windows you open manually, use Window > Set title menu command to set a titlebar that reflects the contents — that should help you remember what each scrap window is all about.

Mini scrap pane

It can be argued that in some situations it will be more convenient to have a scrap pane (virtual folder, drop box, "playlist", multi-folder view or however you want to call it) within the main xplorer² window, rather than opening a separate scrap container. This functionality is furnished by View > Mini scrap menu command.

There is only one such pane available per window, but it is quite versatile. It is resizable and dockable on any window side. It is almost identical in functionality to a stand-alone scrap container: you can put in it files and folders from many locations, you can select view modes, sort orders, even arrange the content in groups. Most of the menu commands are available too, including load/save through the background context menu. When you click on the miniscrap, it becomes the active view (instead of the folder panes), and you can preview items as you select them in the miniscrap!

The miniscrap is rather small for managing lots of items, but here are a few possible uses:

If there is no stand-alone scrap container open, <CTRL+S> sends selected items to the miniscrap. By default the contents of the miniscrap are automatically saved and re-loaded when you restart xplorer²; this makes its use as a bookmark pane very attractive and convenient. You can access a number of recently used "playlists" too through the context menu. An alternative is to right-drag a stored CIDA file and drop it onto the mini-scrap, picking Browse flat from the context menu.

To stop the mini scrap reloading the last CIDA document on startup, empty its content before you close it, e.g. select all and then hit <Del> — or use Clear from its background menu. Or untick the advanced option "Load last contents file...". For more tweaks see the miniscrap section of the advanced options editor. The default contents file name is %APPDATA%\zabkat\x2_mvtmp_.cida

Advanced file management

Advanced copy/paste

A common operation is creating a duplicate of a file in the same folder. This can be done with two keystrokes, <CTRL+C> followed by <CTRL+V> will paste a "Copy of" item. xplorer² offers Edit > Duplicate menu command as an alternative.

Instead of pasting the whole file, you can create a windows shortcut (LNK) file using Paste link menu (or while dropping). These are small files that point to the real file (think of all the shortcut program icons on your desktop). When you double click on a shortcut, the target file is opened.

Other special kinds of targets can be created using Edit > Paste special submenu as below:

If you copy a folder item, then Folder structure command enables you to paste only the local hierarchy of subfolders to a different location.
When you copy items from scrap containers and they happen to reside in different folders, the oddly named Structured scrap clips command will paste preserving the relative folder structure of the source items - creating subfolders as necessary. In contrast, a plain Paste would place all items in the same folder.
If you want to paste a copied selection on multiple folders use Multi paste command, after selecting the folders you want to "drop" into. Then each target folder will receive a separate copy of the source files. This feature is more effective in scrap containers where the target folders can be arbitrarily located.
The remaining 3 paste special menu commands create various advanced NTFS links, and are discussed below.

NTFS links

So which kind of link is best? There is no clear cut winner. See the table below for advantages and disadvantages of each type:

As you can see for most uses a symbolic link is the best option (if you don't mind the elevation to create one), except for when you rename the linked file. The humble LNK shortcut can survive if you rename or move its target, because of the link tracking windows service!

Robust file transfer

When it comes to transferring large amount of files and folders, the windows copy dialog comes rather short. xplorer² in exchange for the fancy animations, offers a robust alternative when copying from and to regular filesystem folders. The main features are:

The dialog has 3 main areas: where you want the files copied, whether to apply a filter and various options.

Most of the time you don't need to tweak any copy options. You just press <F5> key to show the dialog and immediately press <ENTER> to start the robust copy using whatever options you used last time. In fact to copy to the inactive pane with the last used options press <CTRL+F5> key combination, and it will be done without showing the dialog!

Copy progress

The progress dialog is horizontally-resizable. You can see information about the file being copied (From and To fields), a progressbar indicating how much work is done, a rough Estimated time left, and some statistics associated with the transfer; there's even a graph of the transfer speed over time, to keep you mildly amused :) — you don't really need any of this information. You can casually inspect the progress also on the (windows) taskbar icon:
taskbar

A pause button exists to temporarily halt the file copy (for whatever reason); then click on resume button to continue, or cancel to abort the copy altogether. If you abort, the files transferred up to that point are not deleted. Whatever's done, is done. If you want to restart a failed or abandoned copy, use "Overwrite if newer else skip" option (see below) so that you don't waste time with files that were successfully copied in the first attempt.

If the source and destination folders contain items with same names, they will be overwritten. The old version will be replaced with the new file being copied. As this is a radical and irreversible step, by default xplorer² requests your approval with this messagebox:

To help you decide which file to keep, xplorer² shows brief information (size and date attributes [1]) about the existing item in the destination folder, and the new one that is about to overwrite the old version. You should focus on the last line that highlights the differences of the new item older,smaller and then decide: to overwrite the old file click Yes button, or No to keep the old (existing) file. The action buttons [2] include yes/no to all buttons, that reply yes or no to any subsequent overwrite confirmation automatically. You see the pattern in the first few confirmations and you decide whether the remaining can be dismissed in the same fashion. If you click cancel at this point you abort the entire file copy.

Another option is to keep both files, saving the new one with a different name you specify in input box [3]. Doing this file by file manually can get tiresome, but you can tick the option "Rename target" which will create such unique name copies automatically (it adds _1 to the base name). However keeping all these extra files isn't sustainable in the long term, sooner or later you must decide if they are all worth keeping or are just duplicates.

When it comes to replacing folders, i.e. when the destination contains a folder with the same name as the source, by default the target isn't overwritten — just extra files are added in it. If you want to use the same overwrite semantics for both files and folders, tick "Replace the entire folder" option; then if a folder collision is detected, the entire old folder (cum subfolders) is first deleted, then replaced with the new contents. This is liable to destroy a lot of old content, so please be careful.

For most people, the smarter overwrite option is "Overwrite if newer else skip" (available as backup from the drop-down list, see figure 22). It is an automatic way to resolve conflicts; it compares file modification dates and keeps the most recent file (assuming it contains later changes you made). If the source file is older or identical (in terms of date modified) to the existing, it is skipped. This mode is perfect for backups, where you keep an up-to-date copy of your working documents in a safe external location (e.g. USB disk). If you do this daily, you don't need to copy your entire documents folder, only new and changed items. Thus you save time and effort — no time wasted confirming file replace operations.

Error handling

The progress dialog has a log that records each file operation individually. You can browse this using error log button (see figure 23) — a misnomer really because it shows more than errors. You can search the log pressing <CTRL+F> keys, or if you just need the error lines, right click in the log window and pick Show errors menu command. For subtle problems search for the special @@@ marker.

When you copy in backup mode, only files that were copied are logged (newer and modified) — there are usually fewer of them in large backups.

To make sure you get a chance to see the log after the end of the transfers, tick the option "Keep progress window open..."

Unattended file transfers

During silent operation, any events encountered that would normally require user intervention are dismissed automatically. More specifically:

Transfer options

Set of options can be saved and reused. First tick all the options you need, then give them a descriptive name in Predefined box, and click Save button. Then you can quickly select saved option sets straight from the main transfer dialog (from the options drop-down list). To modify a previously saved option set, change the tickboxes and click Save again (using the same descriptive name) to overwrite the old definition.

To queue or not to queue?

If xplorer² is in in the middle of a large copy, any extra jobs will be added to the queue. You don't have to wait, just use Edit > Copy to command normally, and once one job is finished the next one will begin, until the queue is empty.

You don't normally worry about queued copies, but if you want to see what is waiting use Edit > Queue status menu command, which will show you queued jobs in a dialog similar to bookmark organization. You cannot change properties of any waiting jobs, but you can delete or move them up/down the order using the dialog toolbar buttons. Double click to see details on the source/target folders and any special options used.

Another recommended option is to set the task priority to background, which won't overwhelm your PC resources, thus you can continue working during big copy tasks.

If you opt for silent operation, then no errors will be shown till all queued jobs are finished. In the very end, and only if there were any problems, you will be notified about it.

Partial support for special folders

When xplorer² is copying from or to special folders you will see the regular windows explorer progress and overwrite confirmations windows, that look different — compare with the snapshots in this section.

Advanced copy tweaks

Robust deletion

Whenever you start a delete operation that cannot go in the recycle bin (e.g. you press <Shift+Del> or delete in an external flash drive) the robust delete dialog kicks in:

The first row of the dialog shows how many items are going to be deleted (beware of selected items hidden out of view you didn't mean to delete), and the full paths of the first few of them.

Deleting is much simpler than copying, but the robust delete dialog offers some similar options, as confirmation controls (checkboxes) that are self-explanatory. There is also a "Silent operation" option when you do unattended deletions and don't want to be delayed with confirmations or error reports. Errors are ignored but then probably the deletion will be partial.

When deleting folders, all their contents are removed recursively down to the deepest subfolder. This includes any hidden or system files that may reside within. If you don't have permission to delete them, an error will result.

You can even specify a filter (either a simple wildcard or a complex hyperfilter) so that only files that match it will be deleted. This makes sense when you are deleting into subfolders and you only want to remove a certain kind of file.

Click on Delete button to start the deletion. You get to see a progress report dialog like the one to the right. It is possible to pause and resume deletions, but they are usually too quick and you won't have time to do it! The dialog has a tab control you can switch among displaying progress or the Log. The latter text information is searchable, right click to see the search menu (like the one in robust copy log)

The little Actions menu has commands to change the log's font and clear it. There's also a delete queue but usually it is empty unless you do a lot of successive deletions.

Robust deletion is permanent, deleted files won't go in the recycle bin hence you cannot undelete them easily. Use this command with care — that's why there's no option to skip the robust delete confirmation, it's your safety blanket.

Mass renaming

The most important setting is the Mode. Using this drop-down list [1] you set various modes that determine what kind of renaming is performed:

Replace whole name. You compose a new file name using Target name template box [2]. You add variability to the name template using various special tokens from [3]
Match and replace part. This is a simple search and replace operation in filenames, use What to match to set the string to be searched for, and what to replace it with in [2]. Usually you search for something fixed but the replacement template may have variability with $-tokens if necessary.
Search and multi-replace. Simple match and replace will only do the first match of the string you search for (if any exists). In multi-replace mode all occurrences are replaced. For example if you search and replace OLD with NEW, the filename oldAndold.txt will end up newAndold.txt in single match mode and newAndnew.txt in multi-replace mode.
Note that search is not case sensitive, OLD will also match "old"
Change case. There are various methods to choose. Here you don't supply any template (both search and replace fields [2] are disabled). Each existing filename is CAPITALISED or turned to lowercase; camel case is a curiosity that turns spaces and word breaks into capitals (e.g. "hello world-son.txt" becomes helloWorldSon.txt). Finally remove accents leaves only plain letters in filenames so the German über.jpg will become uber.jpg, slovak žena.png will turn to simply zena.png and the like for all diacritics.

The list [4] shows you a preview of the transformation that is going to happen if you go ahead with the rename. The column old name lists a sample of the currently selected filenames in the active pane, and new name shows how each name is going to change. xplorer² automatically generates a preview from time to time, or you can click on Preview button to see the pending name changes. If your names are long you can resize the dialog window horizontally or/and vertically.

Variable rename templates

If you remember the name of the variable token, you can type it straight in Target name box [2] or use Special tokens [3] list to help you find the token you are after. You can use multiple $-tokens in a template. The tokens useful for renaming are a subset of the available $-tokens used for command scripts. Here are some examples:

Rename with regular expressions

Tick the RE box (to the left of What to match field) to enable changing filenames with complex regular expressions. This is an advanced renaming mode that can help with certain kinds of rearranging parts of the filename using backreferences. This box is only available when Mode [1] is set to search and replace, and disabled in all other modes.

Here is an example. Let's say we have a filename LOG.17112006.TXT that contains a date in DD-MM-YYYY format, and we want to convert it into a more standard YMD (year first) format. We use a regular expression to match the 8 digits separated in 3 groups (day, month and year), then use backreferences to rearrange the 3 groups.

To match the original date format, we use (\d\d)(\d\d)(\d\d\d\d) in the What to match dialog box. There are 3 groups defined in brackets that match the date in the filename:
(\d\d)(\d\d)(\d\d\d\d)
LOG.17112006.TXT

To invert the location of the 3 groups and add separating dashes between the year, month and day, we use $3-$2-$1 in the Target name template (replace) box. $3 is a special backreference that stands for the 3rd group (year), so the resulting filename will be
LOG.2006-11-17.TXT

Note that parts of the original filename that were not matched by the regular expression remain unchanged. You can use any kind of search and replace trickery for other tasks too, e.g. to eliminate parts of the filename (leave the replace string empty). Sadly you cannot combine $-tokens within regular expressions.

Bulk rename workflow

Once you setup the rename parameters and previewed the results, click rename button to start renaming. Selected files are renamed in the order they are listed in the active pane. A progress bar on the statusbar shows you how much work is left to be done. If everything goes according to plan, you will see the new names at the end of the operation. If there are any problems, you will be informed and asked what to do; if the error is important just abort the rest of the files.

The mass rename dialog has many options. You can save your favorite rename operations, including all options, search and replace strings and so on with a name, and repeat them again later. Use the Predefined drop-down box (item [5] in figure 27) to supply a name for the current options, then click Save button to store them. In subsequent runs, use the drop-down portion to access your predefined settings and repeat rename operations easily.

Note the File attribute drop-down box is permanently disabled in mass rename mode. This field is used for changing other text attributes (comments etc) in bulk

Rename in stages

Depending on your sort order, the selected files may be rearranged after each rename step, e.g. if you sort by name. If you want to preserve the original order as well (e.g. if you plan to add numbers to them), tick off "automatically resort contents..." option from Window property page.

This procedure could be automated using macros, especially if each rename step is saved and available from Predefined drop-down list

xplorer² makes extra effort to keep the original set of files selected and in order, which unfortunately leads to slower renames. If you are not using multiple rename steps you can set a small number to "Stepwise rename limit" advanced tweak

Changing timestamps and attributes

For files, date modified tells the last time you edited the file, made some changes in its content; whereas creation date is record of when the file was originally created. File dates and times are accurate to the millisecond although you can choose to see less detail.

File attributes are status flags and are mostly interesting for anorak types :) — see the expert section below. The shell property sheet allows changing some filesystem attributes like Archive or Read-only, but not all of them. xplorer² offers access to all attributes as well as to timestamps of files. Using Actions > Change attributes menu command on a selection of items you get this dialog which allows you to change 4 basic attributes and touch dates/times.

When the dialog first appears, it shows the current dates and attribute flags of the selected item. If more than one items are selected, then it shows dates of the first one and common attributes are ticked. If only some files have an attribute (and some don't) then the relevant box shows in

indetermined state instead of ticked. Only things that you actually change are affected; so if you don't check any date boxes, these won't be updated. In this way you can change only attributes or just dates, or both at the same time.

To change a date, first tick its checkbox to enable the date and time change controls (observe how the modified row is enabled but date created is disabled in the above dialog snapshot). You can then set a specific date and time, or click on Now button to reset the date to current time (this is called touching a date).

When you are all set click ok button to go ahead with the changes, or cancel to abort the operation. If multiple items are selected, they will all be changed in the same fashion — they will be identical in terms of whatever changes you made. Otherwise each item keeps its original dates or/and attributes. The active folder pane will autorefresh to show you the new attributes you just set for the selection.

File attribute flags

File date manipulation

Except for fixing dates (set the same date for all selected items), you can swap various date properties, and shift a file modification date forward or backward. Use Actions > Change dates menu command (or the equivalent ribbon UI command found on Workbench tab, under Attributes button) to modify the selected items' dates.

First choose which date to change (Modified or Created) using the leftmost dialog drop-down box, then choose the operation to apply. You either set the date equal to some other date property of the same file (e.g. set the modification date to the date a picture was taken or the video media creation date), or you can shift the existing date relatively by some amount forward or backward. Use negative numbers in Shift by box to set the date in the past.

It is also possible to set a date from the filename too, if the name contains the standard date format YYYYMMDD HHMMSS (e.g. some cameras set names like PIC_20181026_192237.JPG). For this operation select Name [S] from the property drop-down box. Naturally trying to set non-existent or invalid dates will generate an error message (e.g. text files don't have a Picture date property).

A possible application of Shift by operation is to adjust modification dates that were adversely affected by summer/winter time changes (DST) that may seem like fake file modifications to backup and comparison programs. Sliding dates up or down by one hour exactly will cancel the problem (prevalent mostly on FAT32 filesystems). You can shift dates by seconds or years, depending on the unit you select from the drop-down box.

Another way to remedy such phantom DST "modifications" is Actions > Sync-touch menu command, that will match filenames in the active folder pane with namesakes in the inactive pane, and will transfer date modified information from active to inactive panes. For this to work you should have the "original" and "backup" folders in the active and inactive pane respectively, and make sure that all differences are down to DST — or you may forgo real modifications in content! Here is a sync-touch demo video touch dst

Click on Touch dates button if you want to set all selected file dates to the same date and time — this actually uses the previous dialog for changing attributes.

Splitting and merging

Sometimes you may want to transfer large files between two PCs and find that a single file is way too big to fit on e.g. a floppy disk or even CD. The Split and Merge commands from Actions menu will come handy in such a situation.

Actions > Split menu expects a single big file selected (the command is disabled when you select more than one file). First you break down the large file in as many portions as necessary, declaring your preferred split size (in kB) in the dialog, The standards drop-down lists a few typical media you may choose to provide an automatic split size — e.g. portions that will fit in a single CDROM. Split pieces will give you an idea how many chunks you will get for the selected file, for each selected split size.

Then you choose the target folder that will receive the fragments and click ok button to start splitting. For example if you have a file called bigone.dat that is 10MB and you break it down in chunks of 1MB, you will end up with 10 files named bigone.dat.01, bigone.dat.02, ... bigone.dat.10.

This will allow you to place the file segments on floppy disks and do the transfer to another computer. There you just need to make sure to place all fragments in a single folder, select them all after sorting by name (so that they'll be in order), and use Actions > Merge menu to put them back together; the file will be restored keeping its original modification date. You can now delete the split fragments!

File and folder comments (tags)

Comments are small pieces of text associated with files and folders, 100% controlled by the user and ignored by the filesystem. There are many possible uses for comments:

You set and modify comments for one or more selected files using Actions > Set comment menu command, which displays this dialog:

Comments can be as long as you like (up to 4096 characters to be exact), that's why you get a big box to type your comments. The dialog shows any prior comments if any exist; if multiple files with comments are selected, you see the comment of the first one selected.

When changing the comment of a single file Multi-file operation group is disabled because its modes aren't needed: you just see the entire comment and you get to change or delete it as necessary. When many files are involved you have 3 options:

When you are happy with the comments and the operation, click ok button to set, modify or clear the comments of the selected files. When the operation is over you will see a message on the statusbar "Operated successfully on xxx items", which should be equal to the number of selected files — unless there was some problem.

Alternate data streams

File comments rely on an advanced NTFS feature called alternate data streams (ADS). One way to view ADS is like separate chapters within a file. What you usually regard as file is the main stream where your data is held, e.g. your text. With NTFS you can associate other streams with a file or folder. So FILE.TXT can carry a stream called OTHER and it will be addressed as FILE.TXT:OTHER using a ":" to separate the stream name. When you move the file around, all these alternate streams are silently carried along.

The standard stream for comments is called SummaryInformation, but unfortunately the property system makes a mess of it for most file types, so xplorer² uses its own stream called x2_AFSComment. This makes things consistent within xplorer² but obviously other programs like windows explorer will not be able to read such special comments.

xplorer² has a couple of commands that deal with ADS, in Actions > ADS submenu. View streams command shows a summary of file streams as the pic to the right, including the first few bytes of each stream (including byte size information). Split streams command extracts any named streams from a file and saves them in separate file(s), for your perusal.

To clear any ADS and leave only the main file content stream, you can copy a file to a flash drive and back, or compress it in a simple ZIP archive then extract it — all extra streams will be washed out!

Another use of ADS is the Zone.Identifier information your browser attaches to files you download from internet, which cause various "unsafe" warnings. If you trust the downloaded file, press <ALT+ENTER> to see its properties and tick Unblock box in general property page.

Bulk change of file properties

Examine and maintain your filesystem

Comparing & synchronizing folders

Many times you have two or more folders that have the same contents and you want to keep them synchronized, i.e. make sure all "versions" stay updated whenever you make changes to one of them. The typical scenario is a daily backup of your current work documents, from your PC onto a safe removable drive, so if a mishap strikes your PC you can retrieve your work with minimum losses from the backup location.

Folder synchronization needs to track all changes between 2 folders, either on a single level or deeply including all the subfolders. Possible changes include:

That's when xplorer² and its dual pane layout comes in handy. It is ideal for comparing the contents of any two folders, and finding items that are missing from either one, or have been changed in any way. Once you identify the differences, you can decide how to deal with them — e.g. copy the new and modified files manually to equalize the folder contents.

xplorer² doesn't have a real synchronization function, it merely compares folders and marks the differences. The misnamed menu command Mark > Synchronize panes compares the contents of 2 folders, and tries to find file names missing left and right. When the same file exists both sides, it checks the modification date to find which version is "newer" and marks it as such. Here is an example comparison:

When you press <F9> key xplorer² compares the folder contents and marks (selects) unique files like STYLE.CSS that exists only in the left folder, and newer versions of files that exist both sides (compare the modification dates of NEWHELP.HTM, the newer version on the left is selected and the one on the right isn't). File X2TIPS.TXT has identical dates left and right so it isn't selected at all. To really synchronize the 2 folder contents, one must copy only selected files from one pane to the other (this must be done twice, once in each direction — observe the unique file NEW FILE.TXT on the backup folder to the right).

Notice how the plain <F9> "synchronize" command didn't mark any folder differences. Folder modification dates aren't very reliable to track changes in deeper levels. We will return on this important matter later.

For more control on what gets marked (selected) after the comparison, use Mark > Sync wizard command. The dialog indicates that comparison has two facets; first you determine how you want to compare items and then which items to mark. The large number of combinations allows you to do all sorts of checks to suit your synchronization needs.

The comparison logic first tries to match items left and right using the filename as a guide. If a file in one folder doesn't have a matching namesake in the other folder, it is immediately considered unique (cf. the checkboxes in figure 33). If a file exists in both folders, the two copies are compared for differences, using the mechanism you specify:

Given the wealth of xplorer² browsing options and comparison parameters, there are many ways comparisons can become "abnormal". Here are a few things to keep in mind:

The relationship between files is fixed by their properties and the comparison scheme you select. The second phase is to decide which files you want to mark, ear-tag them for further processing. There are checkboxes for all item states and you can check as many of them as you wish - although not all combinations make sense, e.g. selecting both "older" and "newer" files. The drop-down menu on the top-right lists some common scenarios for your convenience (modes for marking different or identical items).
The plain synchronize command <F9> is equivalent to ticking Unique, Newer and Modification dates options

Ticking Undetermined option will mark all those items that were not successfully compared (those with the question marks mentioned above). Tick Consider folders option to include folder items in whatever comparison method the files go through — but only in terms of name and date properties, their subfolders aren't considered. For this and loose name matching option see the deep sync section.

When all dialog settings are set to your liking, click ok button to start the comparison. Usually this is done very quickly unless you are checking custom slow properties or file contents. A progress bar on the status bar will keep you informed of the comparison progress. If it takes too long you can hold down <ESC> key to abort the operation.

When xplorer² finishes comparing you get the verdict either that "The contents of the two folders seem identical" or if any differences are spotted items are selected for further action. For example if you were scanning for differences, you can proceed by copying the marked files to the "passive" folder, ensuring that the files in both folders are the same, both in number and most recent content. Note that there may be unique and newer items in both folders — obviously not the same items — that need to be carried across.

Deep synchronization

When many subfolders are involved, mirror browsing and comparing folders one by one is cumbersome. An easier way to compare two folder hierarchies is to browse the required root folders in a normal dual-pane window and pick Tools > Compare subfolders. This command will open a dual scrap window, flatten each hierarchy in a separate pane and will also launch the synchronization command. If grouping is supported, items will be grouped by folder helping you to inspect the comparison results. This way you will reveal all the changes that need to be made acting on all subfolders simultaneously.

Arguably, inspecting the results of a deep folder comparison isn't the easiest thing to do. xplorer² turns on Mirror scrolling mode to help you examine files left and right, but there may be just too many results to juggle. To protect the marked files, you should turn on Sticky selection from Mark menu. Another handy feature is pressing <ALT+DOWN> keys to jump to the next selected item, in case they are far apart. Or to focus just on the marked items use View > Visual filter > Selected only menu and concentrate on the differences.

Once files are marked, use the special Edit > Sync-o-paste command available in scrap containers to copy all the files in their matching folders. So items selected in A:\ will end up in c:\documents\kenny, those in A:\help will end up in c:\documents\kenny\help and so on. Note that Sync-o-paste acts on the selected items and doesn't require a prior Edit > Copy command.

Another drawback is that when a folder sub-structure is entirely missing from one hierarchy, all contained items are left in an undetermined state, since their matching folder isn't available.

Backup synchronization

If you find this form of deep synchronization with scrap containers a bit of a headache, you can try an alternative that is based on robust copy <F5> command. Selecting Overwrite if newer else skip transfer option will result in copying only files that are new or changed, just as if you did a synchronization based on modification dates — and it doesn't need scrap containers or any prior synchronization commands! This will work best if you have all the changes in one folder hierarchy and you want to mirror them to some other "backup" location like a removable drive.

Checking file transformations

The folder synchronization command just described checks for modifications of different versions of the same file. A variation on this theme is checking the state of file transformations, when the compared filenames are slightly different.

If you are involved in programming, then you will recognise this situation as compilation of source code to object files. So starting from a C++ file xplorer2.cpp the compiler churns out the machine translation in a new file called xplorer2.obj - notice the change of extension from .cpp to .obj. Mark > Check build command checks the states of source files comparing them to their "transformed" versions.

Figure 35. "Make" check dialog

The dialog shown in the above figure accepts as input the transformation rule, which observes the source and target filename extensions. It can be seen that multiple comma-separated extensions can be used to check for all compilation projects in one stroke. Also note that a generic wildcard is accepted for the From field whereas the To field must be just the target extension(s), without the "." (e.g. type obj instead of .obj).

You don't need to supply more than 1 extension if you target only a particular transformation e.g. from *.PNG to GIF. The Predefined drop down list has a few sample transformations that are programming oriented. You can add your own extensions to the predefined list through registry editing.

The idea with this command is to browse the "source" items in the active pane, and the "transformed" equivalents in the inactive (both could be in the same folder), then tick the boxes to locate items that either need transformation or they are Up to date. Click ok button and Check build command will then examine names and their filetimes and select source items in the active pane according to the checkboxes you ticked.

Once source and target files are matched their modification dates are examined to figure out which is newer. If the source is newer, it must have been modified since last build (cf. figure 35 checkboxes) and it requires re-compilation. If the target is newer then it is up to date, whereas if it doesn't exist at all the source is not built. You can check as many boxes as you want to tell xplorer² which source files to select. Let's take an example.

Figure 36. Sample project check

Using the options in figure 35 on a pair of hypothetical source and target folders, xplorer² marks all source files that require compilation. The file folderItem.cpp was modified after it was last built (check the date of its target folderItem.obj) so it is marked. browserView.cpp hasn't been compiled at all (no browserView.obj exists in the inactive pane), so it is "not built" and hence marked. instance.cpp on the other hand is up to date, and finally IEHost.h is completely irrelevant for this transformation rule so it is left unselected. Note that nothing is selected in the inactive pane to the right; this command is checking one way only.

Like the folder synchronization command, Mark > Check build merely ear-marks files that require building without actually taking any further action. It is up to the user to decide what to do with the selection afterwards, e.g. generate a script file that executes the compiler for each source file.

This oddball command doesn't make claims of being a substitute for make type tools. For instance it cannot check for cross-dependencies from modified header files etc. Still it can be useful for simpler scenarios like MatLab projects compilation, or batch converting image files from one format to another.

Visualize disk space usage

According to the second law of computers, no matter how big your hard disk, eventually it will fill up with movies, videos, pictures and what have you. Do you need all that stuff? Is space wasted in temporary and duplicate files? xplorer² has some tools to let you focus your disk cleanup effort at the biggest offenders, files and folders that take up the most space.

Tools > Folder statistics menu command creates a detailed analysis of the active folder and its subfolders. If you want to examine your entire hard disk, first browse the root C:\ folder then invoke the statistics command — naturally the bigger the hierarchy, the longer it will take to analyze. It will calculate details for each subfolder like number of files and size used, and will do so recursively for all the contained folders, and present the results as a tree:

Figure 37. Folder data window

The largest folders appear first. To aid visualization of space usage, a little pie chart is shown too, popping out a pizza slice for each folder you select in the tree. Drag the splitter bar with the mouse to make the pie bigger or smaller. You can also use the tooltips over the pie pieces to discover the folder names.

The second main tree branch shows the 10 biggest files in the hierarchy examined, arranged by size. Examine the big files branch to see whether you don't need some of them and you can delete them to save space. Select a file and press <ENTER> key to browse its containing folder.

The tree is for information only. You can examine and open branches, but you cannot do much file management. If you want e.g. to delete a large unwanted folder, use Actions > Browse menu (or double-click on the folder) to open it in a regular xplorer² window. The tree won't autorefresh either, so if you delete a folder branch, use Refresh command to update the tree information.

The single menu bar item called Actions holds a few commands, the most useful of which perhaps is Copy, which copies the entire selected tree branch as text, that can be subsequently pasted in a text editor for printing or whatnot. Use Find and Find next to search for folder names (this will open tree branches automatically). You can also switch the sort mode from size to sort by Name — although the former arrangement is more useful in this context.
Another useful menu command is Empty folders which detects folders that are empty (they have no file contents), and puts them in a scrap container for further action (e.g. select all of them and delete them). Empty folders won't take up much space but some people want to get rid of them regardless. This command is smart enough to discover the topmost empty folder in a local hierarchy, and ignore its empty subfolders (if any) — that will be deleted with their parent folder anyway.

Once you discover the biggest size offenders, clean up your space deleting junk files, e.g. duplicates, similar pictures etc.

If you analyze your entire C: drive you will discover that C:\WINDOWS is probably the biggest folder. However you shouldn't delete stuff inside it — you may save space but at the expense of your system stability! Windows folder size isn't as bad as it looks anyway because many "duplicate" DLLs are hard linked so the space usage is less than that reported by folder statistics.
To cleanup space from C:\Program Files uninstall apps and tools you don't use.

Continuous folder size

Subfolder objects themselves do not take much space, that's why in detailed view xplorer² prints just <folder> in the size column. Obviously the files inside a folder take up space, so it is possible to see this information for each folder — in regular xplorer² windows that is.

While browsing a folder with subfolders, Tools > Subfolder size command will show you the size of each individual subfolder, so you can tell which one takes most space. The size shown is recursive, including space occupied by all deeper level subfolders. This command also works in special folders like phones and zipfolders.
Recursively adding up subfolder sizes takes a lot of time and effort. As an optimization, Subfolder size command will only calculate sizes for selected folders. If there is no folder selected then all sizes will be calculated.
folder info

Enable the stock Contents column to see the number of items (subfolders and files) contained in a folder. This information is not recursive, it won't tell you about files deep inside sub-subfolders, only direct folder contents.

The contents column is sort of programmable. Instead of calculating all contained files and folders it can count through a wildcard (or a comma-separated list of wildcards). Thus you can only count say, *.MP3 files contained. This tweak is an advanced option called "File count rule". It can also be the name of a saved hyperfilter — but only fast properties are allowed

If you want to see subfolder sizes all the time, without pressing <CTRL+D> for manual subfolder sizes, activate the option "Calculate subfolder size automatically". This is a major resource hog, so if you are browsing a top level root folder like C:\ it won't work automatically. Sometimes calculating these sizes takes so long that you may browse a different folder before the recursive addition is complete — definitely not recommended!

xplorer² doesn't cache folder sizes, so each time you visit a folder the sizes are calculated again and again. This is totally wasteful, so if you like to see folder sizes and have pity on your system resources, please download a plugin called folder size, that works well with xplorer².

Further reading
◪ Remedies for reclaiming critically low hard disk space
◪ Delete intermediate Visual Studio project files to free space

Detecting duplicate files

Everyone is a digital hoarder nowadays. We take hundreds of photos with our phones, download music and movies, accumulate work documents, and we want to keep it all stored forever. Over the years many file collections are infested with duplicate or items that just waste disk space. xplorer² will help you discover and reclaim this wasted storage space.

Duplicates come in many guises. In the simplest case a file will exist in many carbon copies using the same name. A little bit trickier is when a file exists with many different names but the same data content (renamed). Check duplicates command will help you detect all these kinds of extra files.

Duplicate files could reside anywhere, in your PC's hard drive or in external storage. The first step is therefore to load all the folders you want checked in a scrap container. If you want to check on external hard disks you must have them all connected. Here are some possibilities:

Have you tried i-DeClone?
i-DeClone (another tool by ZabKat) can find exact and near-duplicate files (e.g. the same movie saved in different formats). i-DeClone helps you find more duplicates and is better streamlined for the cleanup task. Help yourself to the free trial

Browse the top folder you want checked (e.g. MyDocuments) and use Tools > Check duplicates menu command. This will load all files of the active folder and its subfolders (optionally for the inactive dual pane, too) in a scrap window.
Manually build a collection of files to check. You can add folders to scan dragging them with the right mouse button then using Browse flat from the drop menu. Once your collection is complete, use Tools > Check duplicates from the scrap window's menu bar.
A combination of the above methods: use Check duplicates command in the main xplorer² window to browse flat a hierarchy, temporarily abort the scan, then add extra folders e.g. from external devices using right drag in the same scrap window.

You should focus on your personal documents and ignore duplicates in system folders like %WINDIR% or AppData. There is usually waste in these folders but deleting hidden and system files is unsafe and may destabilize your PC. Checking your entire ThisPC folder for duplicates is possible but will take a long time.

Figure 38. Duplicates' detection parameters dialog

Next you specify the comparison criteria with the above dialog box. The options set in the dialog determine how the investigation is to proceed. You can have any combination of boxes checked (use clear button to reset all checkboxes before a fresh search) but the fastest would be to assume that duplicates would be 100% exact copies, that is they will have the same name, modification date and size.

If you are comparing modification dates, there could be phantom differences introduced e.g. by FAT32 partitions, that are only 2-second accurate for stored files. For such cases use Ignore XXX seconds box in the dialog. You get to choose how many seconds (or hours!) to ignore when comparing modification dates. Any 2 files that fall within the date tolerance limit are considered to have the same date.

Custom file properties can also be used as criteria for "sameness". Select the property you want using the drop-down box and you can extend the duplicates tester in creative ways (e.g. find all music files by the same artist or owner).

The ultimate proof that 2 files are identical is their content. Files may have the same name and size but differ in their contents. This is even more so if you go for custom file properties like Author or Title. Therefore the results of the comparison should be taken with a pinch of salt. Don't delete MP3s as "duplicates" only because they belong to the same Artist!

If you suspect you have identical files with different names or/and timestamps, then you can clear all boxes except for content (same size is then also implied whether you tick the box or not). This is the most robust detection mechanism but at the same time very time consuming, since each file is compared to each and every other same-sized file in the container, regardless of their name.

To speed-up content comparisons xplorer² uses the same statistical content trick as in synchronize command, where only a portion of huge files is examined instead of each and every byte. Also small files are excluded because there may be too many of them and you wouldn't save much space by their elimination. The advanced option called "Ignore small duplicate files" defines the limit of what is considered "small file" (default 1KB and under)

If you intend to delete duplicate files, please make sure you check Select all duplicates box in the dialog before you go ahead with the command. xplorer² will assume that the first item in each group is the "original" and select the remaining items for deletion.

When you are all set, click ok button to start the duplicate discovery process. Depending on how many items are in the scrap window and your scan options, the comparison may take long time. A progress bar will give you an idea of how much work is left to be done.

Ultimate xplorer² edition has among other things a much quicker duplicates detection algorithm, that allows you to search your entire hard disk for duplicates and get results in reasonable time.
There's also a new zabkat tool purpose built for finding duplicate and similar files, called i-DeClone, which is even more capable!

Figure 39. Sample duplicate file groups

After the command finishes its work, all files that match the user criteria are bunched together in groups with different background color as in the above figure. All unique items are hidden. Note that some groups are made of 3 or more duplicate items.

Notice the Group ID column, which counts the duplicate group numbers. This is a pseudo-property as it doesn't corresponds to the files, only their relationship — but it is very useful regardless. If you change the sort order examining e.g. file dates or whatever, click on Group ID column header to restore the duplicate groups.

Such listings provide preliminary evidence of duplicate files. Depending on your dialog parameters you may need further proof before actually deleting the redundant copies. A good guide is the checksum column that you can activate using View > Select columns menu. It shows a numeric "summary" of a file's contents. When checksums are different files are 100% different; equal checksums on the other hand do not guarantee identity — although they imply a strong possibility that the files are identical.

To build up your confidence use the previewer pane to examine file contents. If you are working with images switch on Detailed thumbs pane style to see little thumbnails for each item. If you are working with plain text files you can use your trusty Diff tool to check pairs of files: select the 2 files then Tools > Run command menu to launch WINDIFF $A to compare them line by line ($A token represents the 2 selected items).

If you use hard links they will come up as "duplicates" but most likely you don't want to delete the "copies". Use the Links stock column to see whether duplicates in the same group are hard links of each other (Links would be equal to the number of items in the group)

If you want to keep a file group entirely, select its items and press <DEL> key — in scrap windows this merely does a File > Remove command, the files aren't deleted. Otherwise to really delete duplicate files you must first select them. This is easier said than done when you are dealing with thousands of duplicates.

One easy method is ticking Select all duplicates in figure 38 before you even start checking. This command can't tell which is the "original" out of the identical files, but it uses the initial sort order of the items, leaving the first one in each group unselected and marking all the others. If you want to keep the older copy then make sure you sort by Modification date — ascending from older to newer — before starting the duplicates checker. Thus in each group all items but one will end up selected and ready for deletion.

If this automatic selection doesn't suit you, then you need to examine each group individually and select duplicates manually. As you finish with a group, delete the selected items immediately using File > Delete menu — or pressing <Ctrl+Delete> keys. This slow step-wise deletion will spare you any selection mishaps.

The duplicate results GUI really needed to offer checkboxes (like i-DeClone does it) instead of relying on fragile selection states. Use the following safety measures to protect large selections as you scroll and examine duplicate groups:

Turn on sticky selection mode <ALT+S>
Periodically save the selection via Mark > Selection > Store menu; then you can reapply the selection with the same submenu.

Technically speaking, when duplicate files are shown, the pane is both filtered since unique files are hidden from view (notice the green filter icon on the statusbar of figure 39), and unsorted since files are displayed in groups regardless of the original sort order. You can cancel this mode using Tools > Reveal unique or View > Show all menu command.

The following commands till the end of this section apply to scrap containers only, they don't exist in the main window menu bar.
You must open and populate a scrap window with the files you want to examine.

Discover similar and bad quality photos

Another source of clutter in your hard disk is your photo collection. It is very easy to snap lots of photos with your mobile phone or camera, but not all of them are worth keeping:

Bad quality. Over- or under-exposed pictures, blurry or shaken, they needn't be preserved for posterity!
Near duplicates. If you took 10 pictures in rapid succession to capture the moment, do you need to keep all of them?

xplorer² has commands that let you quickly discover bad and similar pictures, offering you the option to delete them and clean up your disk space. First you can choose the Blur file detail (use <ALT+K> keys to choose columns in detailed view mode). For JPG pictures it shows a number, which is big for pictures that are suspect; values greater than 100 indicate bad quality, whereas smaller values indicate smaller defects. Sort your picture collection by this column to bunch the bad pictures together, then inspect and delete what is not worth keeping.

To get rid of similar pictures, flatten a picture folder or use any other means to fill up a scrap container window with JPG photos to examine. Use Tools > Find similar photos menu command (or if using the Ribbon UI see under Duplicates button on the Home tab) to group them by similarity. Whereas checking for duplicates will only find files (pictures) that are exactly identical, this command finds pictures that are slightly changed.

AI quality detection
Both blur and similar photo detection use artificial intelligence SVM algorithms. As such they are good but not perfect. A photo showing only blue sky might appear "blurred" to AI but you should know better. Always preview photos before deleting them

Figure 40. Find similar pictures dialog

The dialog controls how similar pictures are found. To achieve reasonable detection speeds, it examines pictures either by filename or by modification dates, so that it only considers pictures that are likely to resemble each other (shot one after the other). Alternatively you can choose As they appear in pane radio button if you want to be in charge of the order photos are examined (e.g. in whatever sort order is in effect). At present only JPG photos are compared, any other file types you add in the scrap container are ignored.

You can tweak the similarity threshold up or down, to match pictures that are more closely (or loosely) related. A value around 80% is a good compromise discovering similarities without too many false duplicates — mistakes cannot be ruled out however. Even ChatGPT isn't flawless, never mind lowly SVM detectors.

Click ok to start the comparisons. Any similar photos found will be placed in groups, as per the duplicate checker function (i.e. in bands organized by Group ID column) and thumbnail view mode will be automatically enabled to let you compare the similarities discovered. Then just select and delete those you don't need, leaving 1-2 best pictures per group. Select two photos and press <ALT+SHIFT+Q> to preview them side by side in a large popup window (similar to peek preview but for a pair of photos).

Tick Select all duplicates in advance to mark photos for deletion automatically. However this will usually keep the first photo (in terms of date taken) as "best" which may not be the case. Always examine the groups yourself. Optionally turn on the Blur column to see which photos are technically of poorer quality.

The workflow is similar to duplicate results, you must somehow select what gets deleted and be careful to preserve the existing selection. Some groups may be totally rubbish so you can select for deletion all photos in such groups. In the end use File > Delete menu command to remove the unwanted photos.

Fuzzy groups

Fuzzy grouping is an interesting (albeit oddball) feature that could be put in various uses. It uses fuzzy matching to group together items that are similar but not identical. For example, we can put all our music album folders in a scrap container (use right drag then Get subfolders from the drop menu), then use Tools > Fuzzy groups menu command to group the folders by name similarity. Just watch the groups in the following picture, which shows the dialog and the resulting groups simultaneously:

Figure 41. Group similar filenames with fuzzy grouping

As you can see, using a 40% fuzzy factor, the first group contains all folders that contain "Gismonti" in the title, the third group has works by Dave Holland and so on. If you make the factor bigger (say 60), the fuzziness decreases, so items have to be more alike to be grouped together. For best results try a few different values until you hit on the desired groupings. You can use any text column for fuzzy grouping, it doesn't have to be by Name only. Just pick what you need from Group on column drop-down list. If you pick a number or date property it will be considered as text too — as it appears in the window.

Fuzzy grouping is a special case of custom grouping, only here the command defines the categories automatically using the property and fuzzy factor you supply.

Even weirder fuzzy groups

If you specify a negative number as fuzzy factor, then files will be clustered together in terms of mutual distance. The negative number you specify will be the number of clusters (groups) — e.g. —5 will create 5 groups. Clustering is an AI algorithm that bunches together items that are "close" together, e.g. if their dates are similar. At present you cannot cluster on text columns like Name or Comment, only numeric and date properties can be used for Group on column. Any items that don't support the selected property will remain ungrouped in Unspecified category.

If you use a regular expression (instead of a number) as the fuzzy factor, you can identify common substrings in filenames or other properties, and group on them. Let's use an example, consider these files:

alpha (2002).mp4 beta (2002) action.mp4 New File 2123 old (2001).mov alien (2001).mp3

Four of these have a year, or 4 digit number, in brackets. If we use the regular expression $\d{4}$ that matches this pattern for a fuzzy factor, we will generate these automatic groups:

Figure 41a. Group filenames with common parts using regular expression

See how the file that doesn't have a year in brackets ends up in the unspecified (non-matching) group.

Here's another use of this command. If you browse shell:recent folder of recently accessed documents, you cannot arrange by file type because all files in there are shortcuts; the .LNK extension is masking out the real file type. You can work around this problem putting all items in a scrap window and do a fuzzy group on NAME [S] property (not full name) and this regular expression (that matches the extension past the dot):

\..*

You will see that files are grouped by their original extension!

Convert groups to folders

Regular (sort column) or custom groups (even fuzzy grouping) in scrap container collections can be converted into actual folders using Tools > Extract groups menu command.

Figure 42. Convert groups to folders dialog

The dialog has 2 modes, or two ways to generate folders, one for real groups (tick Create a subfolder out of each group), and one for implied groups by date — the latter has 2 sub-modes, see below.

Say you used View > Arrange by > Show in groups menu to show items alphabetically grouped using their first letter, you can then use extract groups command to create folders that contain the items of each group. You choose a top destination folder and xplorer² creates subfolders under it, one per group (the folder names match the group titles you see). You can either copy or move the original files into these subfolders, depending on the checked state of Leave a copy... box.
Click Copy (or Move) button to start organizing files into group folders. Simple explorer copy routines are used for the transfer. To see the newly created folders you must browse the destination folder you specified (e.g. C:\TEST in the above example).
For example if we had a scrap window showing groups by date (see the picture to the right) and used this dialog to split the groups, it would create one folder for each of the date categories — folder name matching group name — and place all the files of said group in their respective folder.
Unlike other xplorer² commands, all the visible items are sent to group subfolders, not only those selected. A few other irregularities to note with this command:

Only regular (filesystem) files are handled, and not any folders
Files in deep paths (>=256 characters long) are ignored
The unspecified group (if it exists) isn't exported
conversion sample

This command can also organize items by date, whether you have groups or not. This is useful e.g. if you have a truckload of photos in a scrap and you want to automatically move them in subfolders according to their modification date. Use the two date radio buttons to choose how to have them organized, either one folder per year, or you can have items organized by year and month (i.e. each year subfolder has 12 subfolders corresponding to months). Folders are only created for items that need them; there may be gaps in the sequence if files for a yearly period (or month) are missing.

Usually last modified date is used for automatic folder creation, but you can pick any other date you want (e.g. picture date) by placing it before the date modified in the details. To reorganize column order either use ALT+K command or drag-drop using the column header.

You can apply additional order to your photos using the export groups command in stages. For example, if you want to organize your photos by camera model as well as by date, so that you have one folder per camera model, and inside that you organize by year/month, you can do it as such:

Put all your photos in a scrap container e.g using search or browse flat menu command
Add the file detail you want to organize by, e.g. camera model
Sort by this column (click on its header) and turn on groups (View > Arrange by > Show in groups menu)
Convert the current grouping into folders. Now you have one subfolder per camera model.
Enter each of these subfolders and reuse Export groups command, now using date information to create the sub-sub-folders. For this last step make sure you move items (untick "leave a copy..." box), so that your photos are only stored once.

Step 5 is a bit fidgety, because it must be repeated for each camera model folder created in step 4. For destination folder use the same path as the camera model folder created in step 4.

This procedure could be automated using macros

Search for files and folders

xplorer² unleashes the full potential of file searches since you can use any and all pieces of file information as parameters. You can thus home in to the files you are after with unparalleled precision avoiding irrelevant hits. You can search a few hand-picked folders — even within zip archives, or whole networks, and even refine search results.

You initiate a search using Tools > Find files command. The ensuing dialog (figure 43 below) is relatively simple considering the amount of information it conveys. Broadly speaking it is divided in two sections, the search context [1] that specifies where to search, and the hyper-filter [2] that controls what to search for, the parameters of the files that will be considered positive hits.

Figure 43. Find dialog: scope and filter selection

First we concentrate on the top portion [1] where we define which folders and how to search in them. By default the search context to Look in is the folder you were browsing when you issued the <Ctrl+F> find command. This is the root search folder and everything under it will be searched, all the way to the deepest subfolder. You can also specify broader contexts using the Special folders drop down box. This includes popular search locations like Documents, local hard drives, This PC that includes anything attached to your PC and any mapped network drives etc. Selecting a special folder as root for the search overrides Look in field.

You can search multiple locations too: the Look in box accepts multiple comma-separated folders; e.g. typing C:\ , D:\TEMP will instruct xplorer² to search both these folders. You can also exclude folders using a leading minus sign, e.g. C:\, —*temp* will search all C:\ except any folders with "temp" in their name. The excluded portion must be defined as a wildcard.

Usually you will want to search all the subfolders below those specified in the Look in field, as long as Search subfolders is checked. You can also control the traversal method: Depth first will favor files in deep subfolders whereas Breadth first will scan the folder tree in layers. Both methods will scan the entire searched folder hierarchy eventually.

If Archived content is checked, xplorer² will step into zipfolders, FTP sites and pretty much any other unusual folder that comes in its way. You can use all stock file properties and even search for contained text just like in regular folders. The down side is that searches become much slower, so only tick this box if you know your target file is within an archive.

By checking Local search, you instruct xplorer² to search within the files already contained in the scrap window, possibly inserted by an earlier find command. This essentially refines the search. A similar result can be achieved using Mark > Matching a rule command in a scrap container window.

Use search index is usually ticked for ultimate edition and makes searches much faster, especially if you search for contained text. This will be elaborated in a following section. The only case you want to untick this time saving option is when you search for symbols and special characters that windows search does not index.

The search scope usually includes all folders under the root of the search, but there are some exclusions as follows:

Folders with Hidden attribute will be skipped if "Show hidden files and folders" is disabled.
Folder junctions that fork out to remote parts of the filesystem are skipped unless the advanced option "Treat folder junctions as normal folders..." is ticked
You can exclude certain folders by path or wildcard using "Find blacklist" advanced option. These folders are also excluded from Browse flat command.
Manually add exclusion wildcards in Look in field via the leading minus (-) notation mentioned above.
Add a boolean Not rule on Path column; Folders excluded thus will be entered (so it's not a very efficient method), but no files will be found in them

Search criteria

After you setup where to search it's time to define what to search for. You may recognize the framed dialog section [2] as a familiar hyper-filter that defines the properties of the files and folders we're trying to find. As we've already presented these filters in detail, we'll just brush them quickly here.

When it comes to defining the search parameters, you are really spoilt for choice. The search hyper-filters defined in the dialog comprise:

A wildcard (Named field) to search for particular filenames or types (e.g. *.txt, *.dat). The drop-down portion includes some common document types (e.g. audio, video etc) for your convenience. The little number box next to the name can do fuzzy searches or even regular expressions matches on names.
Checkboxes for limiting the search to Files and/or Folders (or both).
Contained text criteria, when you are after files that must contain some string. All the functionality of the find text in files command is available embedded in the find dialog. Regular expressions can be used too, checking the RE box.
Additional rules based on information available in file columns. You can add rules that match file dates, byte sizes or any other file property that's available — all of them can be used for searching!

Name, contained text and additional property rules defined are normally combined in a boolean AND fashion (they must all be satisfied for a hit). Name and contained text can also be of boolean NOT type if you use a leading minus (—*.PDF will match anything but PDFs). Additional rules can have all boolean contexts, even OR — see the little +/— icons in front of each rule. -

PS. try drag-dropping a file in the filter part of the find dialog and see what happens!

Search workflow

When you press <CTRL+F> to start a new search, the find files dialog uses the same options and hyper-filter as the last time you searched for something. What changes is the root folder of the search, which is set to the folder you are currently browsing in the active pane.

If you want to do a new kind of search, first click Clear button to erase any traces of the last hyper-filter. Then manually add the new filter parameters or repeat a filter you saved earlier using the Predefined drop-down list. When you are all set, click ok button to start searching.

Searches can take a lot of time to complete. As soon as you initiate a search, a scrap window opens and shows matching files and folders as they are discovered. An active message pump allows you to start working with the first matches immediately, while the search is ongoing. You can abort a search by pressing the <Esc> key — or close the scrap window.

A running search command slows down both the scrap and the main window, especially when using slow hyper-filters. Sometimes it will be better to Window > Clone a new main window before you start a search. This clone will run in its own thread and will be relatively unaffected and more responsive to user input.
It is not advisable to start another search while you have one going, that's going to slow things down even more!

You can check the progress of a search either by noticing the folder being scanned on the statusbar, or use Tools > Search status menu for a more detailed report, including all the folders that have already been examined, information about errors or exclusions, etc. This information is available even after the conclusion of the search. The search log is itself searchable using the context menu.

The scrap container with search results is a fully operational file management pane, so you can preview, open or manage all the files and folders found immediately — but wait till the search is finished if you plan to do any operation en masse. If you want to see a search result in a regular xplorer² window, right click on it and pick Open file location from the context menu.

If you searched for contained text, the draft preview tab will show you the keywords found highlighted . If you click in the preview pane and press <F3> key you will see the next keyword match, if any exists. If you used any fancy file properties in your hyperfilter, right click on the scrap pane list header row and use Details from filter menu command. This will make sure all properties you searched for appear, helping you understand the search results.

Further reading
◪ Can't find your documents? see the search troubleshooter
◪ Preview highlighting of search results demo video preview keyword hits

Search in virtual folders

If you tick Archived content search option, xplorer² will also enter and search compressed archives like ZIP, 7Z, RAR and the like (if you have installed the compressed folder extension or a WCX plugin). If you are browsing within a zipfolder to begin with, then you don't even need to tick Archived content option, it is implied.

Many search parameters are valid in archive search, so you can search by name, size, dates and so on. Most of the stock properties are valid too. These special folder types support their own custom properties, and they can be used as search criteria as well! See for example a zipfolder which has columns for CRC-32 and compression ratio (pic to the right).

You can also search for contained text in compressed files. xplorer² temporarily extracts (decompresses) the searched files and searches them like "normal" documents. Obviously this will be a slow operation. custom folder columns

Searching for contained text in archives will only work for files up to a size limit (see "Byte size limits" in program options), and in particular the limit set for "Item in ZIP/FTP". If you want to search for content in large archives, it may be quicker to first extract all files yourself, and then search in the regular folder created.

You can also search inside connected phones (which appear under ThisPC umbrella folder) using basic properties and even contained text. Searching in cloud folders is also possible, only xplorer² won't check for contained text in cloud-only (offline) items unless the advanced option "Allow downloading on-demand cloud files..." is ticked.

When xplorer² extracts files from zipfolders, phones and such for searching or previewing them, several temporary files and folders are created in system %TEMP% folder. These have names beginning with x2tmp_xxx. All these temporary files are deleted when you quit xplorer²

Repeat saved searches

If you repeat a certain search often it makes sense to keep it for later. Once you search using <Ctrl+F> use Tools > Save search menu command in the scrap window to save the last search scope. This includes all the properties of the search dialog (figure 43): the starting folder, the search context (e.g. search subfolders and other flags) and the search filter.

Give a good descriptive name to each saved search so you can recognize it later. To repeat a search saved earlier, open a scrap window and use Tools > Recent search menu. Note xplorer² does not cache old search results, the search is repeated from scratch. If you want to save the results only, create a CIDA file using Actions > Write contents menu.

xplorer² installer registers the .X2FND extension for saved search files. So another way to start a saved search is to double click on a saved search file. xplorer² by default puts them in AppData folder but you can move them anywhere you like.

Fast indexed search

Searching for stuff is ubiquitous in our modern computer life. xplorer² professional can find stuff on your desktop but it takes its time doing so. You need to search in a small targeted folder tree where you expect to find your documents. If you search your entire PC regularly, professional edition will be painfully slow.

Desktop search is a windows system component that accelerates file searches creating a search index, a database of file properties and contained text. When you create a new document, its properties and text contents are added to the database, making subsequent searches very fast indeed. Instead of searching folders one by one, hits are retrieved looking up this index.

xplorer² ultimate edition can tap in the fast searches available in windows explorer, querying the indexing server directly. You will notice a substantial speed increase especially if you search for text in the file contents.

DeskRule search tool
A specialized search tool by Zabkat combines fast and reliable file searches, in a fashion that is closer to internet keyword searches you are used to. It can also find photos by map (GPS) and files stored in disconnected storage.
Help yourself to the free trial

You don't need to do anything special to take advantage of this integration; when you press <Ctrl+F> to start a search, in many situations xplorer² will automatically retrieve results quickly from the system index in phase 1 of the search. It will then pause and allow you to review the results. If you think the file you wanted wasn't found just click on robust search button (you will find it at the very end of the results) to continue with xplorer² robust (albeit slower) search, folder by folder.

To take advantage of fast searches you must make sure your work documents are indexed. This is easier if you store your stuff under the system Documents folder, which is automatically indexed. If you keep your documents in other locations, right click on the top level folder and use Add to search index command from xplorer² submenu. This need be done just once, then any new document you create in that folder (or its subfolders) will be indexed automatically.
You can add any local folder to the search index. You can even add removable USB drives — but these need to be connected if you want to fast-search in them. Adding network folders in the index on the other hand is next to impossible. Network searches are condemned to be slow.
index folder

There are a few limitations to keep in mind. Searching for text in files will only find whole words and not partial keywords — at best you will find stems at the beginning of words. So if you search for long you will find files containing the words Long and Longer, but not those containing prolong. You can't search for special characters like brackets, math symbols or quotation marks (they are ignored). Search index is good for word searches only.

xplorer² will not use the indexing server in the following occasions:

When searching in folders outside the scope of the system index (e.g. removable or unshared network folders)
When a local folder isn't indexed (add folders in the system index using the Indexing Options applet in control panel)
When the search filter includes complex properties like regular expressions or fuzzy filenames
When searching for file attributes (properties) not covered by the system index, e.g. the Signed By xplorer² stock column.

When you search for mixed properties, only some of which are indexed, xplorer² will do a hybrid search. It will query the index for those properties that are supported, then do a slow search for the remaining non-indexed properties — but only for files returned by the index. This will lead to acceptable search speeds.

Ultimate edition has yet another way to find files fast by Name. If you search only by name, and if you are looking for files in a local hard disk, xplorer² will use the NTFS Master File Table (MFT) to find the results very quickly. To use this mode you must be running with full administrator privileges.

Fast and simple search

A simpler way to access the system index is Tools > Fast search menu command. Instead of defining detailed search rules, you just type a keyword. xplorer² then starts a search under the current folder for any file or folder that contains this keyword in its name, text contents or any other searchable property (e.g. tags or author).

Figure 44. Fast search for files dialog

Tick Everywhere box if you want to find keywords in any searchable property. That is the simplest search mode. If you want to target something in particular like Filename or text Content use any of the other checkboxes. You can tick as many as you like. You can use custom indexed properties as well using the drop-down list (see Author in the above example).

If you search for more than 1 keywords, all of them must be present somewhere, but in any order — this is how google search works. In contrast, if you did the same in the main search dialog without using commas, the exact phrase would be located — not partial words. In fast search format use quotation marks to search for "exact phrases".

Once you type your search keywords and tick the property options, click ok button to start the search. Like regular search a scrap window will open for the results. However here there is no backup robust search phase, files will only be found if they are indexed. If you see an error message on the status bar, make sure the folder you are searching within is in the search index.

Automation of DOS (and windows) commands

In spite of the drag-drop and click-happy era of file management we're living in, for some tasks you can't beat the efficiency offered by traditional command line execution of programs. In the old days, instead of clicking on icons to start a program, one had to type its path/name in a command processor window (DOS console). This may seem quaint and antiquated but it is very powerful since you can specify extra arguments that modify the behaviour of the program in question, specify which files to operate upon etc.

xplorer² brings the command line into the third millennium, easing its use while maintaining all its power and flexibility. If you are familiar with the DOS console, you can regard the active pane cum addressbar combination as a graphical console that shows the folder contents of the "current directory" at all times. As you browse folders the "current directory" is updated automatically, and the commands you type can access the folder contents directly.

You can start composing text commands using Tools > DOS command menu, or just get into the addressbar with <Shift+Tab> and type the special prompt $ character that instructs xplorer² to interpret the input as a DOS command — otherwise it could be mistaken for a folder path. For instance typing $ dir and pressing <Return> will execute the DOS dir command, producing the listing of the current folder's contents - arguably not the most useful command within xplorer²'s context!

The commands you type correspond to names of executable files that exist on disk - minus the .exe or .com extension - and in the end of the day launch the respective application. So you must make sure you type the names correctly and that the files themselves can be located. If you have a program called windiff.exe located in c:\tools and you want to call it while browsing c:\work, then you must type its complete path in the addressbar, e.g. $ c:\tools\windiff. Alternatively you can add c:\tools to the PATH environmental variable and reference its contained programs just by name

DOS commands create usually text output that goes into a DOS console window. xplorer² uses its own user friendly console window, but you can also use the traditional MSDOS console.

TIP: if you want to open a MSDOS console window at the current folder location, type a solitary $ dollar (without any command) in the addressbar and press <ENTER>. This window is then independent of xplorer² — just close it when you are done with it.

Except for DOS commands ($-prompted) you can also execute generic windows programs using the special character >, e.g. typing > winword will launch MS Word. In this sense you have all the functionality of the standard Start > Run menu straight from the addressbar. This execution mode is mostly for programs that have their own user interface and don't need a console window for their output.

Except for launching both DOS and windows commands, the addressbar assists you during the typing process in a number of ways:

It supports path autocompletion using the <F1> key.
Start typing partial paths and press F1 a few times to complete folder and file names matching the stem
<Ctrl+Enter> inserts the focused filename from the active view straight in the addressbar. Using <Ctrl+arrow keys> you can move the focus around while remaining in the addressbar, so you can insert more than one filenames as part of a command.
Special tokens can be used in place of explicit command arguments. So instead of typing > windiff file1 file2 that compares only these two files you can type > windiff $n $i which is reusable for many situations. All commands are available for future use through Tools > Run history menu.

Commands launched from the addressbar normally apply only to the single focused item in the active folder view. If you want to apply the command to all selected items use a double prompt character, e.g. >> or $$. Then instead of running the command once, it will be repeated for each selected item. This construct is a simple road to scripts without a dialog window.

$-Tokens

Instead of typing specific filenames as parts of a command, you can use special characters that get automatically substituted with the name of the item(s) that happen to be selected when a command is executed. For example the commands $type file1 and $type $N are equivalent if file1 is the focused item in the active folder pane. Using special tokens like $N saves keystrokes and allows for reusable commands. So whereas $type file1 can only be used to type (show the contents of) file1, the version with $N can be used to type any file, as long as it is selected in the active view.

There is a variety of $-tokens, each representing a different part of the active item or even the all selected items taken as a whole. Let's use a hypothetical situation to clarify the meaning of each $-token. Suppose we have a dual-pane arrangement where the right view is active and the contents are:

Left pane: (inactive) shows the contents of c:\music and contains 10 items, out of which only one is selected & active, called titles.txt
Right pane: (active) shows the contents of c:\work\c++ and contains 2 items, both selected; the first one is called file.txt and the second one active.cpp. The focused item — the one with the dotted rectangle around it — is active.cpp

The following table lists all the available tokens. The third column shows what each token would have been substituted for, given the above scenario. Unless stated otherwise all tokens act on the single focused (or active) item in each pane.

Table 3. Reusable command tokens

Token	Description	Example
$N	Local filename	active.cpp
$B	Base name (before .)	active
$E	Filename extension (past .)	cpp
$P	Parent folder path	c:\work\c++
$D	File modification date	13/3/2004 10:12
$C	Parent folder plain name	c++
$F	Full path name	c:\work\c++\active.cpp
$U	UNC path name (network accessible)	\\comp\share\active.cpp
$S	All selected filenames	active.cpp file.txt
$A	All selected filenames (fullpaths)	c:\work\c++\active.cpp c:\work\c++\file.txt
$>	Like $A but selected fullpaths are saved to the list file `%TEMP%\x2tmpList.txt` and this file is used as argument	%TEMP%\x2tmpList.txt
$L	Left (top) pane path	c:\music
$R	Right (bottom) pane path	c:\work\c++
$I	Inactive pane path	c:\music
$Q	Filename from inactive pane	titles.txt
$G	Path and filename from inactive pane	c:\music\titles.txt
$Z	Temporary filename extracted from zipfolder, FTP, etc Within normal filesystem folders it behaves like $F	%TEMP%\x2TMP_001_active.cpp
$nn	Automatically incremented counter starting from number nn Possible counter formats are $1 for the sequence 1,2,... $001 for 001,002,..., $5 for 5,6,... and so on	01
$[s:l]	Extract part of the filename starting at s and for l letters $[4:3] will extract 3 letters starting from character 4 Use a negative start to count from the end of the name	ive (extracted from active.cpp)
$?	Asks for an argument	(whatever you type)
$$	Escape for a single $	$

Many of these tokens are intended for renaming large numbers of files, as they are used in File > Mass rename command. But you can use them for any other purpose too; just type as many tokens as necessary in a single command and they will all be substituted according to the above rules.

Now we are in a position to explain the celebrated windiff command used to compare the focused item in the active pane to its namesake in the inactive pane:

>WINDIFF "$N" "$I"

Consulting table 3 above, $N corresponds to the focused item, its full name without path, and $I is the path of the inactive pane (without explicit filename). Note we enclosed tokens in quotation marks to guard against spaces in paths and filenames. This generic command template can be used to compare whichever file is active — and regardless which pane is active (left or right).

$Z token can be used to extract files from compressed ZIP archives. It can be used to compare files in ZIPs with those in regular folders. Make sure the zip folder is active, and use this command:
windiff $z $g
$z will stand for the temp file extracted and $g is the focused item in the inactive (regular folder) pane. Note you must select the correct file in the inactive pane as well, perhaps using Mirror scrolling command <CTRL+M>. $I wouldn't be useful in this situation as the extracted filename is somewhat mangled with x2TMP_xxx stem.

You may have noticed that all tokens in table 3 were listed in uppercase. If you type a token in lowercase then it is interpreted in a slightly different fashion, using the short 8.3 version of whatever name the normal uppercase token would have produced. To clarify, had $N corresponded to undocumented.h the lowercase $n would have resulted in UNDOCU~1.H, which is the equivalent old DOS filename.

8.3 filenames look obscure but they don't contain any spaces so they can be used in commands without worrying for quotes. In some partitions 8.3 names are disabled (they usually exist for C: but not for extra partitions). In that case xplorer² will add quotation marks to protect against spaces in filenames, when lowercase tokens are used.
Tokens that correspond to multiple items like $A automatically add quotes as necessary (even in uppercase format)

Another kind of token can be used to extract the text of a particular file column. The generic format is ${column_name}, e.g. ${size} will fill in the file size as it appears in detailed view mode. You can use any of the available columns, which comes handy for mass renaming as e.g. you can use MP3 tags as part of the filename.

For date property tokens you can supply your own format specifier, overriding the way dates appear in columns. This is most useful when friendly dates are in force. You can supply a custom date format as ${Modified:yyMMdd HH:mm} where date and time format pictures come after the property name, separated by a colon :

The colon modifier has an application for counter tokens too, signifying a step size. So whereas plain $01 generates the sequence 01,02... the modified version $01:3 would generate the sequence 01,04,07... (numbers increasing by 3).

The addressbar in scrap windows also supports command execution. The only difference is the concept of the "current directory". So whereas in normal browser windows the current directory is synchronized with the active folder, scrap windows contain files from many folders and as a result there is no current directory in the DOS sense. Therefore you should only use tokens that carry full path information, e.g. $F instead of $N, otherwise you may have problems addressing the intended files. The tokens $L, $R and $I don't have any meaning for scraps altogether.

Command output redirection

Most DOS commands don't have a GUI of their own and rely on the console window for their output. This is the traditional black & white system DOS box, which is rather awkward to use. xplorer² comes with a substitute console that is nearly equivalent in functionality and much easier to work with, e.g. it can mark and copy text like a normal editor window, search for text, etc.

Figure 45. User-friendly vs traditional DOS console

This modern version of the DOS console automatically follows the browser window, changing its current directory as you browse folders with xplorer². The working path is shown on its title bar. It receives the output of all $-prompted commands issued from the addressbar and from command scripts, too.

The top row toolbar lets you easily copy/paste and even search for text in the console output. You can also select the font to use.

You can also type commands directly in the console window - that's the purpose of the input field ("addressbar") shown in figure 45, as well as deliver input to running programs (e.g. Y/N responses). This input area supports path autocompletion with <F1> key and maintains a history of past commands too.

The xplorer² console doesn't have a "prompt" line, but you can type extra commands in its addressbar — they will operate on the current directory (folder) you browse in the main xplorer² window. You can also type anywhere in the console window and press <ENTER> key to execute commands. This is a bit weird, but it works!

If despite all the extra functionality you prefer the traditional DOS console, you can disable it unticking "Redirect DOS command output..." program option. Note that in such a case you'll get a separate console for each DOS command you execute.

Automatic script generation

Commands launched from the addressbar operate only on the single focused item within the folder being browsed (unless a double prompt as >> is typed as discussed above). In some occasions you may need to apply the same command to a number of files as for instance for batch conversions of MP3 files. For this task it is more convenient to use Tools > Command script menu to treat all selected files in one stroke.

Figure 46. Dialog for batch file generation

In this dialog you specify a command Template that will be applied to each and every selected file name. The syntax is identical to the addressbar commands, using the familiar $-tokens instead of actual file names. Command templates may contain multiple comma-separated commands as the above snapshot illustrates. If you want to add a comma verbatim in a command escape it with two ,, commas.

If you don't remember the token names to use, you will find most of them under Special tokens drop down list. For extended information click $-token help button. As you compose your command template use the preview button to double check the command looks like what you intend it to! It will apply the template on the first selected filename and show the command(s) in the preview window. The example above inserts a counter at the end of the filename by a laborious route (copy then delete instead of a simple REN) — it was selected for demonstration rather than for its usefulness :)

The script generator replicates the command template for each selected file in succession. Plain text parts are reproduced verbatim and $-tokens are replaced on a per-file basis. If you have 100 files selected then 100 sets of commands will be generated, effortlessly. Let's have an example using the template ren "$N" "$B_$01$$.$E" on a selection that comprises 2 files, x2help.htm, x2help.ccs.

This template has four special $-tokens, N for the whole name, B for the base, E for the extension and an automatic counter starting from 1 with a leading zero ($01). The double dollar is an escape for a single $. For each file the generator copies the constant parts of the template including spaces and quotation marks, and substitutes the variable parts using the file in question. For our two files this translates to (notice the counter in the second line):

ren "x2help.htm" "x2help_01$.htm"
ren "x2help.ccs" "x2help_02$.css"

The commands are executed on each item in the order they appear in the active pane. Most of the time this isn't important unless you use automatic counter tokens; in this case make sure your selected items are sorted in the appropriate sequence before executing the script.

The use of quotation marks around the filenames covers for situations where names contain spaces. An alternative is to use lowercase token versions like $n that are guaranteed to be free of spaces, albeit rather mangled.

Once the script is generated, there are a number of alternative modes of execution, each activated by a dialog button:

Execute (DOS). This is the natural mode, running a batch file in DOS. Behind the scenes a file called x2tmpScript.bat is created in the %TEMP% directory.
Execute (shell). This is the script equivalent of >-prompted windows program execution. In this case templates cannot contain commands like ren that require the DOS interpreter.
Edit. Instead of immediate execution you can edit the script file, perhaps adding a few final touches. If you are in dual-pane mode the inactive pane will focus onto x2tmpScript.bat so that you can easily execute the final script by double-clicking, after you save your changes.

You should note that the wizard is merely manipulating strings and is oblivious about their meaning or command syntax. If you make any mistakes you will notice during execution! Always preview the template before executing the commands.

Batch scripts using DOS commands are very last century. Nowadays administrators are more likely to use powershell to work with files on the command line. xplorer² scripts can be used to execute powershell commands on selected items, as long as you enclose everything in powershell -command "...". Use full path tokens to address files as xplorer² current directory won't be transmitted to powershell. Here is an example:

powershell -command "& {(get-item '$F').LastWriteTime = get-date '${Picture date}'}"
This uses $-tokens to change the modified time of selected JPGs to the date the photo was taken!

Further reading
◪ Advanced file management using windows scripting host (WSH)

Favorite user commands

Instead of typing commands in the addressbar, you can store your favorite commands in a list for quick and frequent access. The easiest way to add a command is to first find the executable program (browse its container folder and select the EXE file), then use Customize > User commands > Add current menu command. This will pick the executable's full path and you just add whatever command line arguments you need and store it in the list.

For more customization use Customize > User commands > Organize menu, which will open a dialog like we have seen for organizing bookmarks. Edit the user command you just added to change the icon, add a keyboard shortcut for quick access and so on:

Figure 47. Setting individual user command properties

The Name is just a mnemonic for your own use, as it appears on the user command list. The important part is the Description which is the command line, including the program and the arguments. Notice you must start the command with the correct prompt character ($ for DOS and > for windows GUI tools). Click on Info button to see a reminder of available $-tokens.

The "description" field is rather narrow for most commands with rich arguments. But never mind, long commands will wrap in multiple lines. As long as you don't add newlines, you should be fine. You cannot use commas to define multi-line commands either.

For really reusable command templates, you can use environmental variables like %WINDIR% in the command paths, these are recognized and substituted for the correct full path before execution. The special environmental variable %X2DIR% stands for the full path of xplorer² installation folder, and can be used for portable commands, assuming you save your extra tools where you keep your ultimate xplorer².

Once you define a command, you can access it from Customize > User commands list. For easier access assign a keyboard shortcut to it, or add it on a toolbar through customization. User commands in toolbars are drop targets, meaning you can drag drop a file on a command button and it will open in the respective user command.

The order of command items determines their position in the respective submenu. Items in the top of the pile are easier to access so you should keep the most frequently used ones near the beginning (use organize command to reorder them). Each submenu shows up to 20 user commands; however you can define up to 100 items for each category and access them using the More... menu command.

Here are some examples of really useful external commands. The first uses the $A token to join multiple selected PDFs in a single file called OUT.PDF. The second can convert any video file to the MP4 format. Obviously you need to download the tools first and change the paths to match your installation.

Table 4. Useful external commands

Name	Description
join pdfs	$ "C:\Program Files (x86)\tools\pdftk bin\pdftk.exe" $A cat output out.pdf
convert to MP4	> C:\PROGRA~2\tools\FFMPEG.EXE -i "$N" "$B.mp4"

Optional command line arguments

When executed from the command line xplorer² accepts a number of optional arguments that control some aspects of the program. The complete command line is:

xplorer2.exe /F:n /P /R:rootFolder /S:registryKey /L:searchFromFolder /I:settings.REG /M /1 /2 leftFolder rightFolder

All arguments are optional and are described in the following table. The last two arguments — without the / switch character — specify starting left & right pane folders for the main window. These can also be the names of folder groups saved in Customize menu if you want to reinstate a particular set of tabs upon startup.

If you start with a scrap container (/F:1 switch) leftFolder can be a cida file or a name of a folder to flatten.

Table 5. xplorer² command line arguments

Switch	Function
/F	Starting window type. By default a normal browser window is opened, equivalent to /F:0. If you want to start with a scrap window use /F:1
/P	By default xplorer² runs in a system resource-friendly single process mode, even when you launch separate instances. Using /P you force new instances to open as separate processes.
/R	Roots the program on a folder other than the default desktop. For instance `/R:c:\winnt` will force both the tree and view panes on c:\winnt and won't allow users to reach other parts of the namespace unless underneath the root node; e.g. d:\ will be off-limits whereas c:\winnt\system will be accessible
/S	Registry key extension for storing program options. The default key is `HKCU\Software\ZabaraKatranemia Plc\xplorer2` but you can have multiple parallel keys with different options. Keys can be changed dynamically with Window > Save layout menu. For instance `/S:preview` will load options from the key `...\ZabaraKatranemia Plc\xplorer2_UC.preview`
/L	Causes a scrap window to issue a "Find Files" command when it first comes up. The search is rooted at "searchFromFolder"; alternatively it could be a saved search `.X2FND` file. Can only be used in conjunction with /F:1
/M	Does not allow window to open in minimized mode on startup
/N	Do not restore slow folders from last session (e.g. network) in case they are unavailable
/1	Forces single pane mode
/2	Forces dual pane mode
/T	Doesn't restore folder tabs on startup (by default you get all tabs reopened - as you left them at last use)
/D	Force xplorer² to nag you for a registration key
/I	(portable version) Initialize registry with a custom settings file. The settings file should be in the same folder as xplorer² and be created with Actions > Extract settings on your "home" PC. For ultimate version this can also be a INI file bypassing the registry
/E	Run in windows explorer replacement mode
/Z	Silently start and stay in the background without a window
/B	Execute one of the saved macros (see Customize > Macros menu) when xplorer² starts. For instance `"/B:sample macro"` will launch the saved "sample macro" (assuming the name exists). This switch is useful for automating tasks using the task scheduler

You can take advantage of these options by creating a desktop shortcut for xplorer² (or use the one added by the installer). Right click on the shortcut icon and pick Properties from the context menu. Switch to Shortcut property page, and add the required command line arguments in the Target field, past the executable name. You must leave a space between the executable and each option you add. The snapshot to the right illustrates a shortcut that launches the program using the options /1 C:\, which means start with a single pane and browse folder c:\

Likewise you can create multiple desktop shortcuts, each for a different starting folder or starting layout (passing the layout name with /S: switch). Rename these desktop shortcuts to recognize what each one does.

if the folder path you want to pass as an argument contains spaces, enclose it in "quotes". Likewise, if a layout name contains spaces, enclose the entire switch in quotes, as such:

xplorer2_64.exe "c:\some path\with spaces" "/s:layout name"

Advanced programming and scripting

One step up the ladder from DOS scripts, come user interface macros and file property algebra. These advanced topics are closer to computer programming than casual file management, but they don't require a degree in computer science to take advantage of. If you are used to MS Excel cell expressions, you should get the hang of it quickly. Note that xplorer² doesn't offer a fully scriptable programming model with file and user interface objects, but a simpler macro language for user interface elements, that should be within the reach of xplorer² medium-to-advanced users. As for the programmers amongst you, I refer you to the windows scripting host for the full monty <g>

User interface automation with macros

A simple in-app "programming language" allows you to automate many program tasks. It is not a full blown scripting language (as e.g. the one in MS Excel) but it is surprisingly versatile and easy to use. You write scripts, that is sequences of simple text commands that manipulate the program window as if a robot was in control. You can do these sorts of tasks:

Execute a command that launches a dialog
Find windows (dialog control elements) like buttons, text fields etc
Set text in edit controls
Check radio buttons
Select from lists
Click buttons
Wait for commands to finish

All in all you can do whatever any user could do using the keyboard and the mouse to operate the program, only do it in a tightly controlled fashion. You can string commands together that operate on a series of dialogs to achieve complex results. Many times you can get a head start using the macro recorder, where you just use the program for what you intend to capture with the macro, and get a skeleton implementation for free. However first let's do it the hard way, writing everything from scratch. Here is an example script:

# copy selected files with filter
COMMAND "copy to"
WAITWND
FINDWND filter
FINDCLASS combobox
SETTEXT *.pdf
OK

As you can tell from the command names, this macro is equivalent to clicking on the Copy To toolbar button, waiting for the dialog to appear, then finding the Filter box and setting its value to "*.pdf" ; and finally "clicking" the OK button to start copying the files with the selected options (only PDF files will be copied).

Use Customize > Macros > Edit macro menu and copy/paste the above script in the editor area as such:

Figure 48. Macro editor: compose new macro

Going quickly through the macro editor dialog, we see a Command drop-down that lists the most popular commands, which you can insert with guidance on the expected arguments. Clear button erases any previous macro so you can start fresh. When you are ready, click Run to execute the macro, or Debug button to troubleshoot problems. Save will add the current macro in Customize menu so you can use it again in the future.

Click Run to run the above macro. If you had any PDF files selected, it will copy them to the inactive pane, otherwise it will do nothing. When a macro is running you cannot work with the main program window. You will see dialog boxes opening and closing in auto-pilot mode, following the macro commands. A macro control window appears on top of other windows that shows the progress of the execution. To abort a macro mid-way through its execution click on the Cancel button.
While a macro is running you should not switch to another window or application, otherwise the macro will probably fail. Nor should you interfere with random clicks or keypresses. Just hang in there till the macro is finished!
running macro
When you repeat a macro saved in Customize > Macros list, it works in silent mode; you won't see any dialogs poping up, just the result of the macro instructions. When the macro finishes, you will see a message on the statusbar — unless some error steals the show!

To abort a silent macro that seems stuck press <CTRL+BREAK> to stop it — if you can find the key!

Macro command syntax

Each line of a macro contains just one command and its arguments, if any. For example:

COMMAND "copy to" # start the copy to dialog

COMMAND is the reserved command name that tells the macro what to do, "copy to" is the argument (which program command to execute), and the rest is the comment. Comments are ignored by the script but help you to make sense what each command is doing. Inline comments begin with the hash # symbol.

The macro language instructions and searched command and window labels are all case insensitive. You can use any case you prefer, e.g. command "COPY TO" is just as valid as the above example.

Arguments are necessary for many commands. They are usually constant text strings as the name of the toolbar button you are trying to click. Use "quotes" whenever you have spaces in arguments (many words). Arguments can also be numbers e.g. 32793 is the equivalent identifier for "Copy to" toolbar button (use Help > Command finder menu to find numeric equivalents to commands). Most of the time it will be easier to use the text label, but sometimes there will be no alternative than to use the number, e.g. for hidden commands. Arguments can also be variables, which will be discussed below.

Commands names should be searched as they appear in xplorer² menus or toolbar. If you are using a translation, search commands in your native tongue; using english names will not work in this case. For language-independent macros use command ID numbers instead of their names.

Many commands return a value, e.g. FINDWND returns the handle to the window found. You don't see this result immediately but it is stored in the last result register ($0). Subsequent macro commands may rely on the previous result to function properly, e.g. CLICK needs a window handle found earlier. The last result is piped from one command to its successor automatically.

9 elementary variables are supported to be used as arguments, called $1 to $9. Most of the time you will use $0 if you want to visualize the result of the last command (MESSAGE $0).

Finding windows and menu commands

The most important operations you will be using all the time is finding control windows (buttons, edit controls etc) to operate, and issuing message commands (using menu or toolbars) to the program — using FINDWND and COMMAND respectively.

If you are familiar with windows programming, you will know that each menu command and toolbar button appearing in a program's user interface correspond to a message number. Likewise, controls that appear in dialogs have an identifier number. For instance 32793 is the message number corresponding to "Copy to" toolbar button; and the OK button in most dialogs translates to number 1. Unless you are a big time geek <g> that can use Resource hacker or Spy++ you cannot be expected to know these numbers!

Laymen needn't worry. Instead of fumbling with cryptic numbers, you can use the text that appears on a menu, toolbar or dialog button to tell the macro which command you are after. Take note which text appears on the menu command you want to issue, and use it as the argument to COMMAND. For toolbars use the tooltip if the button you are after has no text showing. It is best to use the full command text as it appears in the GUI, which will ensure that the intended command will be issued. Partial names can be used too, but keep in mind that the first matching name will be used, which may be some other command or window! All

TIP: When troubleshooting macros, insert a MESSAGE $0 instruction under a FINDWND or COMMAND. This will show you which window or command was found ($0 is the last result variable). Once you are done debugging you can delete or comment out these MESSAGE $0 instructions. Alternatively you can run the macro in debug mode where you single step the execution and see detailed information about each command, see which window is operated upon etc.

Finding buttons on dialogs is easy, just use the name of the button with FINDWND. Other controls have some descriptive text label before them, which may be used to locate the control. Sometimes a control has no useful text or label; in these cases locate the control nearest to the unlabelled one, then move forward or backward with NEXTWND or PREVWND instructions till you hit the desired dialog control. The directions "forward" and "backward" correspond to the tab order in the dialog — or in plain english, what happens when you press <TAB> key to move around in a dialog window.

When searching for commands and windows, keep in mind that the search is within the active window. If no dialogs show, that means the main program window; if a dialog is showing, the search is within the dialog controls. Use the wait instructions (e.g. WAITWND) to make sure the window you want to manipulate has had time to show up.

Dealing with syntax and execution errors

When you first start working with macros, inevitably you will make mistakes. For example you can misspell an instruction name or forget a necessary argument. In that case a syntax error will result and the macro editor will highlight the token that caused the trouble. Here are some pointers to keep in mind:

One macro instruction per line. Don't use ; to terminate commands
Some instructions expect arguments, some don't
If your arguments contain spaces, enclose them in "quotation marks"
Are there matching unique labels for all jump instructions?

Once the basic syntax is correct, you can try running the macro. Here you may encounter subtle problems that will cause execution errors. The macro will stop, highlight the command that faulted and show an error message. Here are the runtime error codes explained:

1: unknown?: mystery error code probably caused by an error message during executing the command in the GUI
2: Wrong argument: you passed an empty variable to a command that expects an argument
3: Search failed: a command or window could not be found (or is disabled)
4: Wrong window class: you tried to operate a window in an unsupported way, e.g. change the text of a button or click an edit control
6: Command disabled: the command or window cannot be manipulated because it is disabled

Error code 2 (wrong argument) is raised also when an instruction cannot find the correct last result from the previous command. For example you cannot use CLICK without a preceding FINDWND. Most commands that operate on dialog controls require a window handle in the last result $0.

When you get an unexplained error 3 (not found), it could be that the dialog didn't have time to appear. If you use COMMAND and expect to operate the dialog controls, use WAITWND to make sure that the dialog is visible before you start manipulating its controls. FINDWND instruction is searching the dialog that is currently active (excluding the macro dialog itself).

Finally you may realize that a running macro is doing crazy things that were not intended. In that case click on Cancel button to abort the macro execution.

Debugging macros

The simplest problem you encounter is a syntax error, where you make a spelling error to a command name or forget to close a quotation mark. These errors are easily corrected in the macro editor (see the previous section). Somewhat harder are runtime errors that reveal something's wrong with the logic of your macro.

When you run a macro and it errors out, you are offered to run it again in debug mode. Or click Debug button in the macro editor to enter the debugger.

Figure 49. Running a macro step by step

In debug mode, the running macro (modeless) dialog is taller — you can resize it to taste. Instead of running the macro wholesale, it runs one line at a time. The current instruction is highlighted. Click on step button to proceed with the next instruction. Each command shows a little information in the Debug log area which you can examine to see if it does what you meant to do.

A cool feature is that it will highlight the last dialog control found — notice the thick border around the Filter combobox in the above picture.

It isn't quite in the same class as WINDBG, but with all the information shown, you should understand what the problem is, and go back to the macro editor to correct it.

Conditional execution

By default all execution errors are terminal and stop the macro dead. However you may want to take responsibility and manage the execution despite previous errors. For example, if a control cannot be found you may want to try to search for another. If you want to ignore all errors, use the instruction: ERRORSTOP 0.

Once you turn off the automatic error handling, the last result $0 variable will reflect the execution status of the last instruction. You can test for success using the JUMPOK instruction, which will jump to a label (i.e. move the point of execution) only if everything goes well — otherwise the instruction immediately below it will execute. Here's an example that looks for a window called test and stops execution manually if not found:

ERRORSTOP 0
FINDWND test
JUMPOK found
MESSAGE "window not found"
EXIT
LABEL found
CLICK

Using conditional jumps and GOTO instructions you can modify the order that script lines execute. Instead of linearly executing all lines in sequence, you can jump to earlier or later lines depending on your logic. Jump destination points (LABEL) can be any text you like to make sense of your script. If you have multiple jump points, make sure each label gets a unique name.

Simple loops are also possible using a control variable as a countdown counter, as such:

POP 5 # repeat 5 times
STORE $1
LABEL repeat
MESSAGE $1
DECR $1
JUMPOK repeat
# end of loop

The trick is that DECR instruction updates (decreases by 1) the counter variable $1 and the last result, so when it reaches zero, you break the loop (JUMPOK fails). Also note the roundabout way to initialize the counter variable using POP then STORE.

Macro command reference

The macro composition dialog has a listbox with the most common commands so you don't need to remember the names. Below you will find the full list of supported macro instructions and their expected arguments.

A typical instruction accepts a single argument, but there are some that apparently work on thin air without arguments. This is because they use the result of the previous command as their argument — this is called pipe argument. For example CLICK operates on the result of an earlier FINDWND command. If a command fails the result is zero (void).

Arguments can be either constants (strings or numbers) or variables ($0 to $9). Variables represent strings, numbers or window handles, depending on what is stored in them. The last result is kept in variable $0. Unless otherwise stated, the following table uses name for either a string or number, furnished either as a constant or variable.

Table 6. Macro instruction reference

Instruction	Argument	Pipe arg.	Result	Description
FINDWND	name		window	Find a window by name on it or next to it (if labelled). Searching for part of the name is ok if you are sure that it will uniquely match the window. Also finds by window numeric identifier. The search is in the topmost active dialog or the main window. FINDWND 0 returns the currently active dialog.
FINDCLASS	name	window	window	Find a window by its exact class name (e.g. edit, button etc). If the prior result is a window, it finds the next window of the same class, if any, possibly cycling from the top.
FINDFRAME	title		window	Find a top level window by its titlebar text and switch to it (make it active). The window must be selectable, e.g. not blocked by a modal dialog.
GETFOCUS			window	Returns the active window (where you last clicked).
SETFOCUS		window		Activates the window
NEXTWND		window	window	Returns the next window in the tab order
PREVWND		window	window	Returns the previous window in the tab order
CHILDWND		window	window	Returns the first child window (of whatever was found earlier)
PARENTWND		window	window	Returns the parent window
CLICK		window		Clicks on the window found earlier. May fail if the button is disabled
CLICKDEF	name	window		Executes the default accessibility command for child name (if using a number, start from 1). This is for non-standard buttons that don't have window handles (exposed through MSAA). For many standard controls it's equivalent to double-click on a list item.
SETTEXT	name	window		Sets the window text to name. Only meant for edit controls and combo boxes.
ADDTEXT	extra	window		Adds the extra text to the existing edit control text, at the current insertion point. In contrast, SETTEXT replaces the entire window text, discarding the old contents
GETTEXT	$var	window		Gets the text of the last result window and stores it in variable $0 - $9
GETCOUNT	$var	window		Gets the number of items in listview control and stores it in variable $0 - $9
GETITEMTEXT	index	window	text	Extracts individual item text from windows like listview controls. Items should be specified by a number from 1 to `GETCOUNT`.
SELECT	name	window		Selects an item in a combo, list or listview control either by name or by number (1 → max items present). SELECT 0 will unselect everything
GETSEL	$var	window		Gets the selected item number in selectable controls and stores it in variable $0 - $9
SETCHECK	1/0	window		Checks or clears a checkbox or radio button, if enabled. Special value 2 means flip previous state
OK				Terminates the active dialog. It is a combination of `FINDWND "ok"` followed by `CLICK`. It may fail if the dialog won't close due to validation errors.
CANCEL				Simulates pressing ESC key. If a dialog is active this will be equivalent to clicking on Cancel button

COMMAND	name		help text	Issues a program command (WM_COMMAND) by number or by name. It is equivalent to using a menu command or toolbar button. Searching by name is more intuitive; it finds the command from a menu or toolbar that corresponds to the (partial) name. For toolbar buttons without names use the tooltip (popup) name. If the active window is a dialog, it finds the named button and simulates a click. If the command is disabled (e.g. ghosted toolbar button), it fails. If successful, returns the explanation text of a the command issued (use MESSAGE $0 to see it).
CMENU	name	window	number	Simulate a context menu (right click) on the window last found, and find the menu command that corresponds to name. Returns the command identifier of the menu item found. Can be used for the shell context menu or any other background menu
WAITWND				Wait till the active window changes, e.g. a new dialog window opens
WAITIDLE				Wait till the active window finishes processing the last command.
WAIT	period			Wait a fixed amount of time in milliseconds (1000 = 1 sec). The argument may also be a window handle in a variable, where it behaves like WAITIDLE for that particular window.

ERRORSTOP	1/0			Turns the "resume on error" policy on/off (default is to stop on any error).
LABEL	name			This instruction doesn't do anything but marks the destination of a jump/goto instruction
GOTO	label			Unconditional jump to label name
JUMPOK	label	any		Conditional jump to label name. Checks the result of last command and if it is failure/empty/0 then does nothing. So it only jumps if the last command was successful
JUMPERR	label	any		Conditional jump to label name. Checks the result of last command and only jumps if it was 0/failed/empty — the opposite of JUMPOK
EQUAL	name	any	0/1	Compares its argument with the last result. If the 2 values are compatible and equal, the result is 1, else 0
DECR	$var		$var-1	Decreases the variable ($1 - $9) by one and updates last result too. Used for loop control.
INCR	$var		$var+1	Adds 1 to a variable ($1 - $9) and updates last result too.
MATH	expr		number	Calculate the `expr` argument and store the integer result. Allows performing simple integer arithmetic e.g. ($1+3)/2
POSITIVE	$var		0/1	If variable is positive (>0) returns 1 else 0. Meant for integers mainly.
EXIT				Stops execution; any instructions below this are ignored
JSR	label			Unconditional jump to label name as a subroutine. There is no stack and no nesting is supported. Use regular $0-$9 variables for information exchange
RET	code		=code	Resume execution at line following the last `JSR` instruction. Used to return from a "subroutine" with a code inserted in $0

MESSAGE	name			Pauses execution showing a message. Debugging aid mainly used to visualise the result of the last command as MESSAGE $0
ADDSTR	name	old	old+ name	Adds name to the old string result. If you need a newline use "\n". Intended for composing longer messages. With an empty argument it resets (empties) the string result.
CHOPSTR	format	full	part	Splits the last result string into tokens and returns one of them. The format argument includes the split character and the substring number to return. For example `\2` would separate a path on \ points and return the second part; `\t-1` would split on tab characters and return the last part (negative numbers count from the end)
REM	any			Comment line that doesn't do anything but explain something. For inline comments use #
INPUT	prompt		text	Pops up an input dialog where you enter a string, which is then stored in the result. Prompt is used as the question to ask. Tip: use `INPUT 0` to import the text from the clipboard.
STORE	$var	any		Stores the last result in a variable $1 — $9 for future use
POP	any		=any	Copies the constant or stored variable into the last result $0 register to be used in a subsequent command
SENDKEY	keys	window		Send keyboard input to a window. E.g. `CTRL+LEFT` will send a combination of control and left arrow keys. Most special keys are recognized by name (see VK_xxx names), and for the rest you can use the equivalent virtual key code number, e.g F1=112 (from hex 0x70)
KEYDOWN	key			Simulate a single key press down (and hold). Unlike SENDKEY a window target isn't required as pipe argument, the key goes to whatever window has the focus. Can be used to simulate `<SHIFT>` combined with button clicks in dialogs.
KEYUP	key			Simulate a single key release. Each KEYDOWN should have a matching KEYUP or the keyboard will go funny.
NOPOPUPS	1/0			Turn silent mode on/off, i.e. don't show any of the dialogs that would normally appear during macro execution. This mode is on by default if you repeat a macro.

Harnessing macros will take some practice. Below you will find some sample macros you can play with. Try running them in debug mode (line by line) to see what they do with xplorer². Observe the inline comments for extra explanations.

⊕ Click here to show sample macros →

# select files modified before 2017
# ---------------------------------
COMMAND "matching a rule"
WAITWND
FINDWND clear
CLICK
COMMAND "add new"
WAITWND
FINDWND property
SELECT modified
FINDCLASS SysDateTimePick32
SETTEXT 0 # clear date
FINDCLASS SysDateTimePick32 # next one
SETTEXT "1 jan 2017"
OK
OK

# copy selected files with filter
# -------------------------------
COMMAND "copy to"
WAITWND
FINDWND filter
FINDCLASS combobox
SELECT "only source" # saved filter
FINDCLASS combobox
SELECT default
OK

# execute Diff command from TSVN context menu
# (operates on active view's selected item)
# -------------------------------------------
GETFOCUS
CMENU diff
GETFOCUS
SENDKEY down # select next item

# browse C:\ folder
# -----------------
FINDWND address
FINDCLASS combobox
SETTEXT "c:\"
SENDKEY enter

# show paths for all items in left pane
# -------------------------------------
FINDWND "left pane"
STORE $1 # listview window
GETCOUNT $2 # total items, process in reverse
LABEL loop
POP $1 # restore window
SELECT $2
COMMAND "copy names"
WAITIDLE # command finished?
INPUT 0 # import clipboard
MESSAGE $0 
DECR $2
JUMPOK loop

# show the last column of the selected item
# -----------------------------------------
COMMAND "copy columns"
INPUT 0 # from clipboard -> $0
# first line is the header, skip it
CHOPSTR \n2 # \n is for newline
# columns separated by tabs
CHOPSTR \t-1
MESSAGE $0

# search in selected folders
# --------------------------
GETFOCUS
STORE $1 # browser window
# create comma separated list of selected paths
# SENDKEY alt+ctrl+C # easy way; let's do it hard!
COMMAND "selected only" # hide unselected
WAITIDLE
POP $1 # restore window
GETCOUNT $2 # total items, process in reverse
LABEL loop
POP $1
SELECT $2
COMMAND "copy names"
WAITIDLE
INPUT 0 # import clipboard
STORE $4
POP $3
ADDSTR $4
ADDSTR ","
STORE $3
DECR $2
JUMPOK loop
COMMAND "find file"
WAITWND
WAIT 1000 # 1 sec, dialog appeared?
FINDWND look
SETTEXT $3
# now add search criteria

# remove duplicate tabs (same folders)
# ------------------------------------
GETFOCUS
PARENTWND
FINDCLASS WTL_DNTabCtrl
STORE $1 # tab window
LABEL restart
GETCOUNT $2 # total tabs
DECR $2 # exclude close button
LABEL loop
POP $1 # tab window
GETITEMTEXT $2
STORE $3 # path to find
POP $1 
GETCOUNT $4
DECR $4
LABEL inner
POP $2
EQUAL $4
JUMPOK skip # skip current tab
POP $1
GETITEMTEXT $4
EQUAL $3
JUMPERR skip
POP $1
SELECT $4
COMMAND "close tab" # close duplicate
POP $1
GOTO restart # tabs changed
LABEL skip
DECR $4
JUMPOK inner
DECR $2
JUMPOK loop

Automatic macro recorder

If you don't need the full power (and learning hassle) of the scripting language, you can record simple macros pressing <F12> key to start the macro recorder (or use Customize > Macros > Record macro menu command). Use the mouse and the keyboard to do what you like (issue commands, tweak dialog controls and buttons, etc), then click on finish button to stop recording. The equivalent script representing your actions will be generated automatically and presented to you, just as if you had typed in the instructions. Then you can do slight modifications with the macro editor.

The recorder will only generate plain macros (without loops), and the resulting code looks spaghetti, but it should be adequate for the average macro requirements — and you don't need to do any "programming". If you start the recorder and click Finish immediately, without any actions, you will be presented with the last macro used.

Saving and reusing macros

You can save useful macros for later in Customize > Macros list. The saving procedure is a bit unorthodox, but straightforward. First finalize the macro commands and test it well with the editor. When you are done, bring up the editor again (use Edit macro menu command to edit the last macro), click Save [1] button, give it a descriptive name [2] for the list, then Run [3] the macro. If you don't run it, it won't be saved. If you don't want to run it fully, you can "cheat" clicking the Debug button, then cancel the debugging without running anything. This way you will save the macro without running it.

The macro list menu works like bookmarks, use its Organize menu command to add icons for toolbar and keyboard shortcuts for easy access. You can also edit an existing macro from organize dialog, adding or removing instructions, but it will feel a bit crumped. Another way to modify a saved macro is to first run it, then edit it (as the last macro used with Edit macro menu), and finally save it with the same name — which will overwrite the previous definition.

Programmable column: file property algebra

You may be familiar with DeskRule's desktop detective panel that enables searching with combinations of file properties and attributes. xplorer² (ultimate edition only) programmable column is an extension to this concept: it allows you to combine file properties, boolean and arithmetic operators and a few functions into expressions, whose result is the value of the Programmable [S] stock column. This result can be then used as any other column, for display, sorting, filtering and searching for matching files. It is really versatile and the possible uses are too many to enumerate — just use your imagination!

To use the programmable column, switch to detailed view mode, right click on the column header row and pick Programmable from the menu. This will allow you to change the expression and will show the programmable column too:

Figure 50. Define programmable column expression

The programmable column definition dialog has controls that guide you to create expressions, with drop-down lists for file properties, boolean and arithmetic operators and some simple functions. Or just type your expression in the edit box provided. As you type, it will autocomplete file property names for the more experienced users. Say you type $EXT (the dollar is very important) a popup will find all the matching properties that have ext in their name and you can insert them easily — press the <Down> arrow key to select from the completion list.
All elements of programmable expressions are case insensitive

Click preview button to see the results of your expression on the selected file in the active folder pane. If something goes wrong, it will pop a syntax error with the likely error location.

All file properties (columns) can be used in the calculations. The rules can also search in files (GREP function) and extract specific file bytes (FBYTES function). The result of the expression can be either text or number or even a date, depending on the properties and operators used. If you use conjunctions of boolean operators, the result will be 1 or 0, for true or false respectively.

For instance the above example expression if(FBYTES(1,3)="50.4E.47", "its PNG!", ${Extension}) will check each file's contents to detect whether it is PNG format, in which case it will show "its PNG!"; for other file types it will show the extension. See how it works for the few files in figure 50 above.

Programmable expressions are not programs. The expression can be as long as you like but it is evaluated as a single line of "code". Think of cell expressions in MS Excel
=SUM(A1:A5)

If programmable column is enabled, it applies the last expression you defined on each and every file, and shows the end result. There is only one programmable column, but you can save expressions you use frequently by supplying a name in the Predefined box in the above dialog and clicking Save button. This is similar to storing hyperfilters for search commands. Then expressions become available for future use from the history drop-down dialog control — pick one from the list and the programmable column display will be updated.

File attribute algebra

This dialog allows you to do amazing feats which would normally require you to write a program or advanced shell script. You can combine any file property with arithmetic (add/subtract/multiply etc), relational (equal, greater than etc) and boolean operators (and/or etc) to create arbitrary expressions that can be evaluated for each file. For example take the expression:

(${Modified} > ${Created} + 2) & ${Size} + 5KB < ${Size on disk}

It will match files whose modification date is later than the creation date + 2 days, and (&) their reported size plus 5 kilobytes is less than its total size on disk. As this uses the & (AND) boolean operator, the result will be 0 (false) or 1 (true). This value will show in the programmable column, and can be used as a search rule to identify files with custom qualities.

When you become familiar with the "official" property names and operators, you can type such expressions manually (press <Ctrl+DownArrow> key to autocomplete properties), or you can use the dialog drop-down lists to help you compose a complex rule with properties, operators and functions. A few clarifications are in order:

Variables. These are file attributes, enclosed in braces with a leading dollar ($) sign; ${Modified} is the date last modified property (consistent with their use in $-tokens). The name inside the bracket is the same as the column name — it may include spaces. Type a $ then start typing part of the property name and the dialog will offer you the possible name completions.
If you use special properties that not all files possess, the expression may fail. If for example you try to use "date taken" property on a text file, the expression will come up blanc (false always) — it is only supported for JPG files.
Constants. Anything that is not a variable or a recognized operator is considered a constant. The type is automatically deciphered, e.g. 2 is a number, 3.4 is a floating point number, 25/12/15 is a date and so on. Numbers can be followed by KB/MB etc if you prefer size units.
Date constants. Except for regular dates, you can use things like "yesterday" or "last year" (use quotation marks to preserve space characters). You can also use constants like "March 2015" which would match any date within the said month. For date ranges use the > and < operators in a conjunction e.g. ${modified} > "25 feb 2015" & ${modified} < "1 jun 2015"
Wildcards and regular expressions. A string constant can be either a literal like "hello world" or wildcard like test.*. Many of the special characters that appear in regular expressions could be mistaken for arithmetic operators, so please put wildcards and regular expressions in single quotes e.g. 'FILE[1-9].TXT'. Also note that when comparing string operands, equal (=) implies identical strings (ignoring case), whereas the approximate (~) operator means that one string needs to be part of the other, e.g. a partial match.
Sometimes it is hard for the program to automatically fathom out a regular expression or differentiate it from a wildcard, if there are not enough special characters present. In that case, to force a regular expression enclose it all in brackets e.g. '(a.+)'. The meaning of the regexp will be the same and it will be unambiguously recognized as such.
Unusual operators. Most operators have their usual sense, e.g. 1+2=3 will always be true. Here are a few exceptions:
- When you subtract dates, the result is a number (their difference in days).
- $date + number increases the date by that many days
- Adding strings concatenates them "str"+"ing" = "string"
- You can compare strings, e.g. "a" < "box" is true (like sorting strings)
- All string comparisons are case insensitive so "A"="a" is true
- Using brackets you can have really complex expressions with nesting.
- Arithmetic operators are calculated first, followed by comparisons. Boolean operators execute last. Use brackets to override the default operator precedence.
- Arithmetic between mixed types (except those mentioned above) will likely result in a syntax error
Helper functions. Various string and date functions are supported like len(text) which returns the number of characters in the string argument (=4 in this case). Functions require one or more arguments that should be enclosed in brackets and separated with commas, e.g. find(abc,b), and return values that can be used even within other functions, e.g. mid(${Name}, find(${Name},'12'), 5) will extract a substring of 5 characters in the filename, after the first occurrence of 12 in said filename. Anything goes inside function arguments, including arithmetic operations etc. If you supply the wrong number or/and kind of argument to a function, a syntax error will be triggered. See the table below for all the supported functions.
TIP: If you want to use a string constant that happens to be a reserved function name, use quotes, e.g. len("len") is a valid expression that would return 3.

Table 7. Supported helper functions

Function	Description
num=`LEN`(str)	Return the number of characters in string, e.g. `len('abc')` returns 3
substr=`MID`(str, nStart, nLen)	Extract a substring out of a bigger text string, starting at position nStart and extracting nLen characters, for example `mid('abc12', 2, 3)` would return the string '`bc1'`. Can be also used to access individual characters if nLen is 1.
str=`TRIM`(str)	Eliminate whitespace around a string, if any. It cuts off any leading or trailing spaces, e.g. `trim(' ab ')` would return `'ab'`
num=`FIND`(strHaystack, strNeedle)	Find a needle in a haystack and return the position of the first occurrence — or 0 if nothing is found. `find(abc12,bc)` would return 2. The search isn't case sensitive.
num=`DPART`(date,str)	Access parts of the date, e.g. `dpart('march 2016', year)` would return 2016. The second argument str can return other parts of the date e.g. `month` or `day` (or even just `d`).
date=`DATE`(str)	Converts text to dates. Usually this is done automatically; still this function can be used without an argument (`DATE("")` ) to return the current date and time. This can be used e.g. to calculate the file age in days.
str=`DATETIME`(date,dfmt,tfmt)	Format a date using separate date and time format strings. If you omit tfmt (3rd argument) no time will be shown. Format strings are the usual windows specifiers `yyyy MM dd` (see the documentation for GetDateFormat).
xxx=`MIN`(xxx,xxx)	Compare the two arguments and return the smaller one. This function accepts all kind of argument types (numbers, dates, etc) and returns the same kind. So `min(-1,2)` would return -1.
xxx=`MAX`(xxx,xxx)	Similar to MIN function, this returns the larger of the 2 arguments
xxx=`IF`(term, if_true, if_false)	Evaluates term and if it is true returns the second argument, else the third. The 3 arguments can be whatever makes sense for your conditional logic. term is true if it isn't empty or if it is non-zero.
num=`ABS`(num)	Returns the absolute value of a number, e.g. `abs(-1.3)` would be 1.3
str=`STR`(xxx)	Convert any type of argument into a string, useful for passing dates and numeric variables to other string functions. It can also convert hex strings obtained by FBYTES into plain text
num=`GREP`(str)	Search file contents for occurrence of text (can be a wildcard). If successful a positive value is returned, else 0 if keyword is not present in file.
str=`FBYTES`(nStart,nLen)	Extract nLen bytes from file, starting at file offset nStart (beginning=0). The returned string is the hexadecimal representation of the file bytes. For example PNG files can be identified because `FBYTES(1,3)="50.4E.47"` (use a hex file viewer to understand why)
num=`INT`(xxx)	Convert any type of argument into a number; it can also convert hex strings from `FBYTES` if up to 4 bytes long.
substr=`TOKEN`(str, separ, nTok)	Break up a string at separ points, and return the nTok entry (1=first token, -1=last). Special separator values are " " to break at spaces, \n which breaks at newlines and \t that splits on tabs. Similar in concept to `CHOPSTR` macro instruction. Example: `token("hello world"," ",2)` returns `'world'`.
stdout=`SYSTEM`(strCmd)	Execute DOS command strCmd and collect its console output. For example `system('dir "' + ${path} + ${name} + '"')` will execute the DIR command on each item (this example isn't particularly useful :). Note the use of 'single ears' to compose the command including the "double quotes" around the path name -- in case it contains spaces -- and the `+` operator used to compile the command string. With a little imagination it can be used as a poor man's (slow) column handler! Commands executed should be in %PATH% or full paths must be specified. External commands that don't write to a console (e.g. GUI programs) are not supported.
num=`DIRCNT`(wildcard, type)	Applies only to folder items and returns the count of direct subitems that match the wildcard (`'.JPG'` will count all the JPG files, `''` will count everything; regular expressions allowed). The second argument can be `files`, `dirs` or `both`, to count items of the specified type (dir=folder).
xxx=`FILE2`(expr, path)	Calculate a complex expression on a different file path for comparison purposes. The expression can contain anything (except for an embedded `FILE2`) and must be included in a single "quoted" string, e.g. `FILE2("GREP('hello world')", "d:\path\" + ${name})`. If you need quotes within the subexpression, use 'single ears'.
xxx=`FILEPROP`(prop, path)	Fetch a certain file property from a different file path, for comparison purposes. For example `${Modified} > FILEPROP(${Modified}, "d:\path\" + ${name})` will compare the current item's date with its namesake in `D:\path` folder to see if it is newer. Note only a single property can be fetched, which should not be in "quotes" — but you can have multiple FILEPROP statements if required
path=`PNEXT`(num)	Returns the path of the next (num=1) or previous (num=-1) item, as they appear listed in a pane. This path can then be used in FILEPROP or FILE2 to fetch a property of a neighbouring item, e.g. `${size} - FILEPROP(${size}, PNEXT(1))` would calculate the size difference of 2 items (except for the last one in the list). PNEXT cannot be used for sorting or searching for items.
ok=`EXISTS`(path)	Test if a path exists. Return value is 1 if it is a file, -1 if a folder, or 0 if nothing exists.

If there is some problem with the complex expression like a misspelled file property or an operation between incompatible arguments, xplorer² will report a syntax error, highlighting the trouble spot. Correct the typo and you are ready to search.

Sometimes a property name on its own can be a useful rule, e.g. ${Keywords} without any other operators will match files that have some tags defined. Or combine it with a leading NOT (!) operator to match files that do not have tags! Bare property names are also convenient for yes/no properties like ${IsFolder}, otherwise you must be careful to compare them only against zero (=false or no).

The programmable column is useful for many advanced search tasks, e.g. find pictures whose width/height ratio is 4/3. It will also allow general tomfoolery like (${Modified} - ${Date taken})/2 = ${Size}, which arguably is not much use <g>. A final note is that extracting this column is rather slow; the more properties you use in an expression, the slower it gets. If you use multiple properties in a search expression, use the faster ones like filename and size first, and leave the slower ones (e.g. GREP) at the very end.

User Interface customization

No 2 people are the same, so xplorer² is customizable to a minute degree, to make it your own — from basics as the window looks and layout, down to behavior of individual commands. Important tweaks are available from program options, others more specialized are available through an external settings editor.

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

When you add a new item in these lists e.g. with Customize > Column sets > Add current menu, you only define the item name. For further customizations, including a different icon and a keyboard shortcut, please use the Organize menu item of the list.

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>.

If you try to set a key that is currently in use for a different command, the dialog will let you know about it; decide whether you want to keep the old command assignment or just remap it to the current command. Soon you must use complicated combinations with <CTRL> <SHIFT> and <ALT> keys because you will run out of simple accelerators.

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.

If you switch to Miscellaneous category, you will find many useful "hidden" commands that aren't in any menu. They are identified by number but you can see what they do in the command description pane (or use the command finder to search for obscure commands). For example command 57640 lets you repeat whatever menu command you used last — default shortcut key is <CTRL+Y>

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

As we have already seen, toolbars can be moved around, show large or small icons, and show command labels for clarity — or hide them to save space. You can also pick what buttons each toolbar contains. Right click on a toolbar and pick Customize from the menu:

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.

If you are looking, say, for the user command you added with the label WINDIFF, click in the Available list [1] and press the first letter W a few times. It will show you buttons that start with W and you will soon locate the one you are after!

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.

You can reorder toolbar buttons with the mouse, when you don't see the customization dialog. For a normal toolbar hold down <SHIFT> key and click on a button. You will see a big rectangle drawn around the button, then move it with the mouse and drop it to its new position. Drop it outside the toolbar to remove it completely!

Add separator buttons (the first one in Available list) to organize toolbar buttons in groups. These are the little vertical bars

you see. You can add as many separators you need and position them to split groups.

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.

You can do away with the limitation about icons and put any menu command on a toolbar through a macro. So you create a simple macro that just invokes the menu command, add it to the customized list, and then it has an icon and can be added on the toolbar indirectly! For more details see this blog post.

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

The shell context menu is a system menu that contains commands to handle selected files and folders, simple things like rename and properties, plus any advanced commands you added by way of context menu shell extensions. xplorer² adds a couple of its own menu commands at the top of this context menu, under xplorer² heading.

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.
persistence options

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.

When you quit xplorer², only the active folder tab will save its settings. When you restart xplorer², all tabs will look identical. If you want to save settings for each tab individually, tick the advanced option "Each folder tab can have different settings"

Further reading
◪ If you have problems with settings not persisting properly, check the options troubleshooter

General options

The first property page has general options, the most important of which are:

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)
general page

Window options

The second property page has options for folder view panes, where you browse folder contents, the folder tree pane and the quick viewer, each in its own group of checkboxes. The most important settings are:

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 play wmp 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.
window page

Advanced options

The third property page has more advanced behavior options, the most important of which are:

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

Advanced options tool

xplorer² offers many more micro-adjustments to its working with registry editing (see details). As registry isn't everybody's cup of tea, there is a user friendly tool to help you with these micro tweaks. Use Tools > Advanced options menu that will quit xplorer² and start the settings editor:

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.

Searching for options works in the current tab only, find next will cycle through the matching options in the current tab. Switch to the other tab (global or layout [1]) to search all possible matches for your keyword. If a property isn't found in the active page, the tab will be switched automatically for you.

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.

Settings are organized in registry keys. There is one key for global options, one for the default layout and then any number of keys for other layouts you have defined in Window menu. So the following registry keys are in use:

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).

Further reading
◪ Migrate your license and settings to a different PC
◪ Registry hack to reset settings without uninstalling — and with minimum harm to your basic xplorer² settings

Window layouts

One moment you browse general files and need a dual pane generic file management window, the next you are in a folder full of photos and you need a large previewer pane to examine them. You could use View menu to turn panes on and off to suit your current browsing needs, but for large UI changeovers you can save and reuse layouts (aka workspaces) that let you change the window appearence in one stroke.

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.

xplorer² starts in its default layout. You should first do all your customizations to make sure this basic layout meets your most frequent demands. For some people that's all that's required. If you want to define special workspaces on the other hand, make your changes to the window and its options, then use Window > Save layout menu to define a new layout with a descriptive name for your reference. Then use Window menu to switch among the layouts you have defined, or back to the Default layout. Whenever you choose a layout from Window menu, a new xplorer² window opens for it. You can read a custom layout name on the window's titlebar in [square brackets]: layout title

When you first save a layout make sure you give it both a name and optionally a longer description about what it is meant for. This is the only time you get to set a layout description — without having to resort to registry editing. This description shows on the statusbar as you traverse the layout items list in Window menu.

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).

Each layout is a dynamic changing entity. As you use the layout, change folders, close tabs, change pane styles, all these modifications are persisted and modify the essence of a layout. When you re-clone it, you will start where you left it last time. If you want a layout to be frozen and always stay the same, tick off "Save program state on exit" option — which is itself tied to a particular layout!

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.

Installation and registration

xplorer² is designed for Microsoft Windows operating system (albeit some run it on Linux and Mac using emulators like Wine and Parallels). Once upon a time it run on everything including windows 98, but nowadays the minimum platform is windows 2000 — but it is tested only for windows XP and later, including the latest windows 11 version.

You can download the free trial from the website and evaluate it for free and full power for a period up to a month, then you must either buy or uninstall it as it will stop working. At any point you can uninstall xplorer² using Add or remove programs applet from your system settings (or control panel)

boxshot Designed for: Windows XP and later
Languages supported: English, French, German, Japanese, Spanish, Chinese, more
Free trial period: 21 days

xplorer² comes in 3 editions, a free lite version that has basic functionality, and the paid professional and ultimate editions. Commands missing from the free lite version are clearly marked with [P] in the menus, and will pop an advertisement for professional version if selected

Normally the download page detects your operating system version (usually 64 bit windows nowadays) and lets you have the correct installer for your OS. Sometimes when your important shell extensions are 32 bit, you may want to download the 32 bit xplorer² installer that integrates with 32 bit DLLs, using the version selector next to the download buttons (see pic to the right).
Click on the download button for the edition you are after (pro or ultimate) and once it is finished you can run the installer. It is digitally signed and virus free so there shouldn't be any problems running it.
bit selector

The installer is standard, you get to pick the installation location etc. When you reach Additional tasks page (see picture), you can choose how to install xplorer². There are some general option checkboxes [1], a selector for GUI translation [2] if English isn't your cup of tea, and an option to replace windows explorer [3]. Most options are self-evident, here are brief descriptions:

Create desktop shortcut. Puts xplorer² shortcut icon on your desktop so you can start the program easily. You can also pin it on your taskbar or use Start menu to type the program name

Modern skin. Includes nice and big toolbar buttons, recommended to leave it enabled

Add to folders context menu. Whether to add a "Open with xplorer²" command in shell context menu for folders, lets you start xplorer² with a particular folder easily.

Multi-monitor manifest. Tick this if you are using many monitors with different DPI resolution, it will make xplorer² automatically adjust its window when you move it across monitors, changing fonts etc so it remains scaled and readable. If this doesn't work well for you, run the installer again and leave this box unticked — and try to sort things out with compatibility tweaks

Translation. Pick one of the available languages using the drop-down list. Note that translations are only for the user interface; all help and support are offered in English. You can switch between a custom translation and english using Help > English translation menu command.
Translations are maintained by volunteers; if you find any problems with the quality please contact support.

Replace windows explorer. Tick to use xplorer² to open folders by default instead of windows explorer. Note this option does less than most people expect it to do. Windows explorer still exists and runs your desktop. When you double click on folder icons on your desktop, xplorer² appears, that's all. You may as well run xplorer² and open all your folders within the program. Some programs that launch folders do not respect this association and open windows explorer directly. System open/save dialogs cannot be replaced; to help navigate these dialogs copy folder paths from xplorer². To run windows explorer, right click on a folder and tick Open from the context menu (not Open with xplorer²)

Replace explorer for all users. Tick to replace windows explorer for all users — or just for you. It may upset your spouse if she shares the same PC!

installer options

When you tick the option to replace windows explorer, xplorer² automatically starts whenever you log in. It also takes over <WIN+E> key to open itself. When you close xplorer² window, the program stays in memory (you will see it in program manager in a low resource state); to fully quit xplorer² use File > Exit menu command. If you have problems with folder windows opening out of the blue, disable the explorer replacement mode by uninstalling then reinstalling xplorer² without ticking this option [3]

Program updates

xplorer² is under constant development, and updates are released a couple of times each year with added features and bugfixes. Every 3 years or so there is a big paid for update where the major version number changes e.g. from 4.x to 5.x. Minor updates are free.

Every few months or so xplorer² will prompt you to check if there's a newer version available. If your license allows it, download and install the latest and greatest version. To cancel these reminders tick Don't show this message again dialog box. From then onwards you can manually use Help > Check for updates menu command to check for newer versions.
When you install an update, it's best to install it over the old version, so that your settings and license key will be preserved. If you want to do a clean install on the other hand, uninstall first and answer YES to both questions (remove settings and license file).

Use Help > What's new? menu command to read what features were added in the latest version.
check for updates

Ultimate (portable) edition

Ultimate edition is the best xplorer² money can buy. It is more expensive but you get the best algorithms for search, advanced features like the programmable column and portability. See this comparison table:

Table 8. Comparison of xplorer² editions

	Professional	Ultimate
Explore and preview
Folder tabs and dual panes
Advanced search & file management
Fast desktop search	—
Portable use (without installation)	—
Unique extra features	—

If you are using xplorer² on the move you will find that saving program settings in the windows registry is not an option. One of the main advantages of xplorer² ultimate version is its portability. Using options ("Save program state" drop-down list) you can tell xplorer² to store its settings in an INI file instead of the registry.

If you keep your ultimate version on a USB stick then pick the settings persistence option "file in installation folder", which will save the settings in a file called X2SETTINGS.INI next to the xplorer² executable program. If you installed the ultimate version on your hard disk and still don't want to use the registry, pick the option "file in user appdata folder" (usually C:\Users\<you>\AppData\Roaming\zabkat), as the installation folder inside C:\Program Files will most likely be protected and inaccessible.
INI files are slower so if you have xplorer² installed on your home base, you'd better save settings in the registry.

If your company regulations won't allow you to install programs, you can create a portable xplorer² installation on a USB stick (flash drive) and run it from there without installation — assuming you are allowed you to run stuff off USB sticks at work.

Here are the step-by-step instructions to place xplorer² ultimate in a USB stick environment. For example assuming we want to setup the portable version within F:\x2portable\ folder:

Install xplorer² ultimate on your home computer (on your C:\ hard disk) and use your unlock key to activate it.
Setup the program options to taste.
Use the menu command Actions > Export settings to write the settings to the file F:\x2portable\x2settings.INI — click on legacy settings task button
Copy all the files in the installation folder (typically C:\program files\zabkat\xplorer2) including the license file X2.LIC to the USB stick (F:\x2portable)
(optional) If you are using the mini-scrap pane make sure you place the CIDA contents file on your USB stick too, by right-clicking on the miniscrap and choosing Save as command - but note that all contents must be on the USB stick.

If you have problems setting this up please watch this demo video:

Not all your favorite settings may be reusable in different computers; e.g. some of your bookmarks may point to inexistent folders. Using environmental variables in path definitions may alleviate this problem. If you want to have portable user commands, install your tools in subfolders of your xplorer² portable location (under F:\x2portable\) and use %X2DIR% environmental variable to address them instead of fixed paths — it points to xplorer² installation folder. For example edit the user command description to %X2DIR%tools\myTool.exe which will be equivalent to F:\x2portable\tools\myTool.exe but won't depend on the drive letter your USB stick happens to be assigned with.

After you properly set up your portable edition in a removable medium like a USB stick, then you have these advantages:

No installation is required to be used in any computer. Even if you don't have administrative privileges you can enjoy your xplorer² wherever your work happens to bring you.
No traces left in the host computer. After you quit xplorer² the foreign registry will be unmodified.

To ease the way you access xplorer² from your removable media you can create an AUTORUN.INF file in your root USB drive folder, and set it to open xplorer² (whenever you plug in the USB stick), editing it as such:

[autorun]
open=x2portable\xplorer2_64.exe [optional arguments]

Program registration

xplorer² is a "try before you buy" application. You can download and install it, then use it for free at full capacity for a limited time period. This way you can tell if it is the right tool for you before buying it. The longer you take to evaluate the more nags it will throw at you, including this nag dialog when you start it:

Figure 56. Registration prompt nag dialog

Click on Continue in trial mode to proceed without a key. Eventually after a period of evaluation at full capacity, it will ask for an unlock key to let you run it. At this point you should make up your mind, whether to purchase or uninstall. Use Secure online order to buy a license — all major credit cards and paypal are accepted for payment.

xplorer² is licensed per user. If you are the only user and have 2 computers, you only need one license key. But you must add a seat for each extra user. Your purchase will entitle you to free upgrades and support for one year (at minimum, perhaps longer). The version you buy is yours to keep and will work forever. Costs will only be incurred for updates, if you want them.

How to use your unlock key

After you complete the order process, the registration key will be sent to you via email. Once you receive your key by email, click on I have an unlock key and start the external license manager in full administrator mode. If you see any UAC elevation prompt click Yes to run xplorer² elevated.

As a matter of courtesy to new users xplorer² does not ask ('nag') for a registration key during the first day you start using it. If you have a key and you want to use it immediately then start xplorer² and use Help > Activate with key menu command. If you are using the ribbon this command is in License management menu under the leftmost File ribbon tab.

Open the email with the unlock key, and copy/paste the long funny looking key (all of it, usually 3-4 lines of text) and paste it in the license manager window, then click on Activate license button. If all goes well, you can restart xplorer² and enjoy the program in full power. If you use Help > About menu command you will see your name and email as the proud owner of a fully licensed xplorer²

Figure 57. Paste unlock key in license dialog

The professional and ultimate editions have different unlock keys. If you bought a license for xplorer² professional it can only be used if you install the professional version (and vice versa for the ultimate edition). You can check which xplorer² version you are running using Help > About menu command — or check the window title bar of the license manager. If you don't have the correct version installed just get the relevant trial version from the website. You can quickly tell which license you bought from the format of the registration reference number (see the email receipt). Ultimate version keys are longer.

professional: X2.4-12345678
ultimate: X2UL.4-E2282F64

If there's something wrong with your key, xplorer² will tell you about it with an error message, which will include a brief explanation of the problem and a numeric error code (see the pic to the right). Here are the most frequent error codes and their remedies:

Key typo (failed checksum -2:3). Did you copy out the entire key? It should be 3-4 text lines and look like the one in figure 57 above. Some people leave out the trailing = (equal) signs. Spaces & formatting doesn't matter but you shouldn't modify the key in any way.
Key for other program (-3:2). If you own other zabkat programs, you will find that all unlock keys look similar, so you may end up using your i-DeClone key to unlock xplorer²! Please make sure the key includes the token |X2.xxx| (or |X2UL.xxx| for ultimate) which indicates a key for xplorer². This error may also indicate you are using a professional key to unlock ultimate edition (or vice versa).
Wrong version (expired key -5:5). Most likely you are using an older version key to unlock the latest version 5.x. You must either pay for an upgrade or download the older version you bought.

If you still have problems please watch the demo video about using the key, and failing even that you can always contact the support team, quoting the exact error code.

Suspected bugs

xplorer² is thoroughly tested and used by many people all around the world, so persistent bugs are few and far between. However being a low-level tool, and given the diversity of operating systems it runs, the multiplicity of user configurations, and buggy shell extensions people install, crashes and hangs are a sad fact of life, like taxes.

When xplorer² crashes for one reason or other, it usually restarts itself automatically. If you see a lot of crashes in similar circumstances, please notify program support using Help > Crash information menu command. This tries to retrieve extended information on the latest crash and attaches it to an email meant for xplorer² customer support.

Crash information is a windows minidump file named x2minidump_xxx x64.mdmp, where xxx is your installed version number. Some email clients people use won't allow direct attachments; in that case xplorer² adds the line "Please manually locate and drag-drop the attachment here using the path: ". Please locate the MDMP file in %TEMP% folder and attach it to your email report.

Another type of problem is xplorer² getting stuck, not responding. This occurs naturally sometimes, when xplorer² is busy in a heavy computation you've asked for, but if it doesn't come back (after waiting a reasonable amount of time) it could be stuck for good. You can try pressing <ESC> key a few times; failing that, start another xplorer² instance using its desktop shortcut, and immediately use Help > Crash information menu: this should detect that there's a stuck instance and generate an email with information about the problem. Please send it forward to xplorer² support.

This trick cannot help if xplorer² is hanging when it starts. Many times startup troubles are down to unavailable network drives you were browsing last time, so you can try starting xplorer² at fixed safe locations without tabs, using command line arguments like:
xplorer2_64.exe /1 /T c:\

If safe starting folders won't solve the hang, you can try the procdump tool. A more drastic solution would be to uninstall, erase all your settings, then reinstall. However this will lose all your bookmarks etc

If you think you've discovered a bug, please ask yourself a few questions before seeking support:

Will rebooting your PC solve the problem? It is a well known and sad fact that windows isn't the most robust operating system in the world. Many times starting afresh will make the problem go away.
Try downloading the latest xplorer² version your license will allow. Bugs are fixed all the time, so please keep your version current.
Is this a known issue? Try searching the documentation (including the plain text files, xplorer² Mark > Containing text command will be helpful) for a relevant keyword. Your bug may be a "feature" after all!
Can you reproduce the bug? If you can't, neither would the development team so they couldn't help you. Some crashes are just freak 1-off ignorable events.
Think of the context when the problem occurs. Is it only for some specific files or folders? What is their common characteristic? Please include as much information as you can when reporting a bug.

Thank you and sorry for any inconvenience caused!

Troubleshooting common problems

Table 9. Problems and solutions

Problem	Solution
I can't use my unlock key	Please copy/paste the entire key from the registration email. For more information see this step by step guide
My unlock key stopped working	Old keys bought for previous xplorer² versions will not work for the latest version. You must either get a replacement key (either free or paid upgrade) — or continue using the older version you bought originally.
xplorer² is slow to start	Did you leave xplorer² browsing network locations that are no longer connected? Try using /N command line switch or start on safe fixed locations.
General browsing is very slow	If browsing folders is painfully slow, you may be using too many of the advanced features. Prime suspect is sorting folder items by a slow property or color coding on slow rules. The more you ask from xplorer² the slower things will become! More info...
Safely eject USB drive	Don't just yank USB cables, always right click on the external drive icons (e.g. on the drivebar) and pick Eject or Safely remove from the context menu, and wait for the notification that it is "safe to remove hardware". xplorer² should unlock any resources if you e.g. are browsing a folder on the device. For external hard drives also use the eject button on windows taskbar.
Can't delete locked files	If you get a File in Use error when deleting files, see if you have the file open in its application. You must first close the file then delete it. If you are previewing the file in xplorer², usually there shouldn't be a problem because xplorer² turns off the preview before deleting. However some native preview handlers are buggy and may lock files. In that case turn off the previewer with `<CTRL+Q>` then restart xplorer² to delete the file.
Can't copy files in system folders	If you try copying files into protected folders like `c:\Program files` you will get an Access Denied error. The workaround is to copy files with drag-drop instead of robust copy. See here for more information on UAC
Audio or video preview doesn't work	xplorer² uses an embedded version of Windows Media Player (WMP) for playback. If your videos show without picture or sound, or xplorer² crashes on media preview, try downloading a recent media codec pack like K-Lite
I cannot see thumbnails	xplorer² shares the fast windows thumbnail cache for quick image previews. Sometimes the cache gets full or corrupted and must be rebuilt. For this and other recovery options click here. An extreme solution is "Don't use windows thumbnail cache" advanced option but then extraction will be slow.

Further reading
◪ All frequently asked questions (FAQ)

Appendix

Keyboard shortcuts

Keyboard is faster than mouse, that's why xplorer² is keyboard happy. All menu commands have keyboard shortcuts, and those that don't can be assigned keys of your choice. This section lists some keyboard shortcuts that help navigating in large folders, and also for tabbing around xplorer² window panes.

The <ALT> key modifier is used a lot in any command that is meant for browsing. So whereas pressing <ENTER> on a selected subfolder name will browse into it, <ALT+ENTER> will browse the folder in the inactive pane — the active will stay put. <ALT> works the same way with mouse-initiated folder browsing, e.g. from the tree.

Most of these commands aren't on any menu bar; the command ID column can be used to find them in the Miscellaneous category of keyboard customization dialog. Some don't have xplorer² command numbers, meaning they are internal and cannot be changed

Table 10. Keyboard shortcuts for navigating contents

Key	Description	ID
Arrows	Move selection to the nearest item in the direction of the arrow key
Home	Move to the first item in a folder
End	Move to the last item in a folder
Page Up	Move up one page full of items
Page Down	Move down one page full of items
Alt+Up	Move to the previous selected item without harming the selection	32839
Alt+Down	Move to the next selected item without harming the selection	32838
Ctrl+Alt+Up	Move to the first item in the previous group	33110
Ctrl+Alt+Down	Move to the first item in the next group	33109
Ctrl+Shift+Left	Collapse all groups	33200
Ctrl+Shift+Down	Move active list item down (temporary)	33103
Ctrl+Shift+Up	Move active list item up (temporary)	33104

Ctrl+E	Toggle between two equal and one large view pane	33032
Tab	Switch to inactive folder pane	32857
Ctrl+Tab	Switch to tree pane	32858
Ctrl+Alt+Tab	Switch to mini-scrap pane	32861
Shift+Tab	Switch to address bar	32859
	Switch to the filter box (addressbar)	33250
Ctrl+Shift+Tab	Switch to quick preview pane	32860
Ctrl+Shift+F6	activate next window pane	33525
	activate previous window pane	33526
Ctrl+Alt+Left	Switch to previous view tab	33039
Ctrl+Alt+Right	Switch to next view tab	33038

Ctrl+Alt+Z	Toggle quick filter or quick search mode	33542
(customize)	Toggle between the Draft and Native tabs of QuickViewer	33050
Ctrl+Y	Repeat last menu command	57640
Ctrl+Alt+F10	Repeat the last shell context menu command (eg. TSVN submenu)	33125

These keyboard shortcuts are the default assignments, assuming you haven't changed them already!

When it comes to jumping into various panes, there are both direct jump commands e.g. <SHIFT+TAB> jumps to the addressbar, and cycling commands (33525 activate next pane) that jump to neighboring panes in a ring. If you cannot remember the exact TAB shortcut that takes you some place, use cycle a few times to get there!
Press <ESC> key from any peripheral pane to return back to active folder pane.

Stock properties

The modern windows file property system is rich and mature, but things weren't always this way. xplorer² stock properties provide a consistent set of basic and advanced properties, that work in both old and recent Windows OS versions. Moreover they work both in regular filesystem and special folders like compressed zipfolders. So whenever you can, use a stock property instead of the system equivalent, for a consistent browsing and searching experience.

Stock properties appear first in column selection dialog and are recognized by the [S] symbol after their name. The first few are duplicates of basic file properties like name, size and date, but you will find lots of interesting extended properties that are unique to xplorer² like digital signature information for executables.

If you need some other file property not covered by stock and windows columns, have a look at WDX plugins or legacy column handlers — all of which appear with [X] symbol in the column dialog. If you are a programmer it is relatively simple to create your own WDX plugin (much easier compared to a shell column handler) for that special file property you cannot find elsewhere!

Table 11. Stock file properties

Name	Description
Name	Display name (may not include extension depending on your folder options)
Full name	Actual file name
Extension	Filename extension (without the dot)
8.3 Name	DOS 8.3 short name, guaranteed without spaces
Size	File size
Size on disk	Actual size occupied on disk (including compressed/sparse files and sector allocation)
Type	File type, e.g "Text document"
Attributes	File Attributes
Modified	Date last modified
Created	Creation date
Accessed	Last accessed date

Path	Full path of container folder (not including the file name), useful for search results
Medium	Data medium information (hard disk label)
Contents	Number of direct subitems in a folder, can be used to detect empty folders
Characters	Character length of full pathname, for tracking extra long names
Infotip	Extended file type specific information (what you see in the popup tip but in a searchable column)
Links	Number of hard links (=1 if there are no associated links)
Shortcut to	Path to (real) target object associated with LNK shortcut or junction

Checksum	Simple checksum of contents (xplorer² own flavor)
MD5 hash	MD5 digest for data integrity (slow, examines all the file up to a limit)
Comment	Extra user information, can be used for all file types
Keywords	Document related keywords
Streams	Alternate data streams (ADS) counter (=1 if just the contents stream exists)
Stream names	Named streams attached to file (ADS) if any
Version	Executable program or DLL version
Company	Company owning the rights of binary code
Description	Module extended information
Signed by	Authenticode digital signature, for secure installers

Width	Picture width in pixels (EXIF) — applies to all image types
Height	Picture height (EXIF)
Picture date	Date picture was taken (EXIF) — only for JPG camera photos
Blur	Photo blur (bad quality probability if greater than 100)

Group ID	Logical group identifier (for duplicates)
Color tag	Index in color tag array; numeric equivalent of color border (0=untagged, then 1,2,...)
Programmable	Combination of file properties (ultimate only)

editor²

The internal text viewer and editor is a lightweight notepad replacement, very capable for simple editing — the present xplorer² manual was composed in editor² ! It is a separate program distributed together with xplorer², and handles by default text and RTF documents with File > View menu command in xplorer².

Figure 58. editor² main window

It is a simple program with a menu, toolbar, statusbar and the main editing area. It is quick but surprisingly powerful. It understands all popular text encodings (plain, UTF8, unicode, custom codepages) and adjusts file load and saving accordingly. It is customizable, setting fonts, colors, tab sizes etc with View > Options menu. Here are some handy features for simple HTML and source code editing:

Indentation. Automatically align code blocks with View > Auto indent menu, and move selected blocks in and out
Match brackets. Select an opening (or closing) bracket or brace, and find its partner with Search > Match brace menu
HTML tags. Similar to brace matching, you can find the matching closing (or opening) tag if you click on the opening one and use Search > Match tag menu. Thus you can find the matching pair of <DIV> </DIV> or any other HTML tag. Hold down <SHIFT> to select the entire block.
2 bookmarks. Use Search > Set bookmark menu to set a bookmark at the current caret location, then press <F8> to quickly return there. You can set 2 such bookmarks to jump around (new bookmarks overwrite the oldest one). Press <SHIFT+F8> to extend the selection to the nearest bookmark.
Autotexts. With a single click or key you insert commonly used text like HTML tags. You define your own with Autotext menu
Macros. The same UI scripting language is available in editor² to do bulk manipulations of similar lines. Not for the faint hearted

editor² is closely integrated with xplorer² text searches. Whatever you search in xplorer² is communicated to editor² (and vice versa), so if you recently searched for text in files then open one of the hits in editor² pressing <F3>, another <F3> (Search > Find next menu) will locate the keyword you searched in xplorer²!

All menu commands

Here you will find all main window menu commands with brief explanations of their use and cross linking with sections in the manual where they are explained in more detail.

Table 12. Main window menu commands

Command	Description
File
Browse	Browse folder or launch item
Clone+browse	Browse the focused item in a new window
Enter archive	Try to browse archive item as folder (requires WCX plugin)
New tab	Browse the focused item in a new tab
Column mode	Browse folder trees using side by side (Miller) panels
Browse flat	Open a scrap container for selection (folder or cida) and add all contents recursively (`<CTRL>` to reuse an existing window)
Send to scrap	Place selection in the nearest scrap container window
View	View file contents as text
Edit	Edit file contents as text
Shell edit	Execute the edit shell verb on the selection (type specific)
Properties	Displays the shell properties of the selected item(s)
Rename	Rename the selected item in place
Change type	Rename an item including its DOS extension
Mass rename	Change selected filenames in bulk using name templates
Delete	Send selected items to the recycle bin (`<SHIFT>` for permanent deletion)
Close	Close this window
Exit	Quit the application (all open windows)

Go to
Up a level	Browse one level up from the current folder
Back	Return to the folder browsed before
Forward	Advance to the next folder in list
Find target	Find target item pointed to by this shortcut file (resolve link)
Select drive	Goto a local disk
Recent folder	Select among folders recently browsed in this pane
Drop target	Folder where you last drag-dropped or pasted something (helps undo accidental drops)
Special folders ►
My documents	Contains personal files
My pictures	Digital photographs
My music	Audio files (MP3 etc)
Downloads	Files recently downloaded
Recent items	Documents and folders accessed (opened or saved) recently
Recycle bin	Deleted documents
Desktop	Namespace root
Root	Root drive of current folder, e.g. C:\
My computer	Local and mapped drives (This PC)
Network	Computers near this
Control panel	Computer settings
Printers	Available printers
Start menu	Folder representing the Start button
Startup	Programs that start every time you logon
CD burning	Files waiting to be written to CD (XP or later)
Send to	Targets appearing in the Send To shell context menu
Compatibility files	Redirected folder for legacy applications (Vista or later)
Quick bookmark	Go to the folder bookmarked earlier
Set quick-mark	Set quick-bookmark on the current folder
Frequent ►
(...)	Browse this frequently used folder
Mirror browsing	If checked, the panes follow each other as you traverse the folder hierarchy
Mirror scrolling	Automatically scroll the inactive pane to reveal items matching the active focus
Same folder	Force inactive pane to the same folder as the active one (`<ALT>` for the inverse)
Swap panes	Mutually exchange the contents of the two panes

Bookmarks
Dual ►
Add current	Add left/right folders in the dual bookmark list
Organize	Rename, delete or reorder dual bookmarks & assign shortcut keys
(...)	Restore these two folders
More	Select folders from the complete dual bookmarks list
Add current	Add current folder in the bookmark list
Organize	Rename, delete or reorder bookmarks & assign shortcut keys
(...)	Go to this folder
More	Select a folder from the complete bookmarks list
Internet Favorites	Go to the folder holding internet explorer's favorites
Explorer Favorites	Favorites (links) folder as included in windows explorer

Mark
Select All	Select all items
Unselect all	Unselect all items
All folders	Mark all items that are assumed folders
Sticky selection	Toggle sticky item selection mode (like checkboxes, unaffected by clicks or keys)
Select group	Select items that match a wildcard filter
Unselect group	Unselect items that match a filter
Invert selection	Select unselected items and vice-versa
Select range	Select a number of items below the active one
Total size	Mark items whose combined size approximates a given total byte size
Synchronize panes	Select items that differ among the panes, using date information
Sync wizard	Synchronize panes with tailor-made options
Check build	Mark items according to file transformation rules (e.g. compilation)
Containing text	Select files that contain some specified text string
Matching a rule	Select items whose properties match a complex rule
Quick search	Select items with text in either filenames, columns or file content
Selection ►
Store	Remember the selected items for later use
Select	Select all items stored earlier in the selection clipboard
Unselect	Unselect all items stored earlier in the selection clipboard
Combine	Combine the existing and saved selections in a boolean AND fashion
Show	Bring selected items into view

Edit
Cut	Cut the selection and put it on the Clipboard
Copy	Copy the selection and put it on the Clipboard
Copy to	Transfer selection robustly to another folder (`<ALT>` for last target)
Move to	Move selection to another folder (`<ALT>` for last target)
Queue status	Examine and organize the queued transfers
Paste	Insert Clipboard contents
Paste Link	Create shortcuts to the items held in the clipboard
Paste special ►
Folder structure	Paste all and only subfolders without any files they contain
Structured scrap clips	Paste items (sourced from a scrap container) recreating the original subfolder structure
Multi paste	Insert clipboard contents on all selected folders
Hard link	Create hard links for the items held in the clipboard (NTFS only)
Folder junction ►
Paste	Create a junction here pointing to the folder in clipboard
Delete	Remove folder junction without harming the target folder
Symbolic link	Create symbolic links for the items held in the clipboard (Vista or later)
Duplicate	Create a copy of the selected item(s) in the same folder
Copy path names	Copy the full path names of the selected items to the clipboard (`<SHIFT>` for short 8.3 paths)
Copy filenames	Copy selected filenames, without the folder path
Copy preview	Copy item's preview image as bitmap
Copy columns	Copy selected items' column text as it appears in the active pane (for printing etc), `<ALT>` for highlighted column only
Extract text	Extract unformatted text from selected document to a new file
Export CSV	Export view contents in CSV text format for Excel

View
Dual pane	Toggle single/dual folder pane mode
Tile horizontally	Align dual panes left/right (untick to align up/down)
Ribbon	Show the ribbon UI or a traditional menu bar
Quick viewer	Show or hide the quick previewer pane
Lock viewer	If checked the previewer will stop following the active item, freezing on the last item
Peek preview	Popup preview of the focused item (click both mouse buttons)
Toolbars ►
All toolbars	Show or hide the toolbars' container (rebar)
Status Bar	Show or hide the status bar
Info bars	Show or hide detailed information bars for the active item (file)
Lock dock sites	Fix dock panes to prevent their rearrangement (toggle)
Details pane	Show or hide the item details pane
Pane style ►
Large icons	Displays items using large icons
Small icons	Displays items using small icons
List	Displays items in a list
Details	Displays detailed information for each item
Thumbnails	Displays preview icons for items
Mini thumbs	Displays smaller previews for items
Detailed thumbs	Displays item details and a thumbnail preview
Select columns	Organize columns for detailed view mode
Arrange by ►
Name	Sort alphabetically by name
Size	Sort by size, from smallest to largest
Date	Sort by modification date, from most recent to oldest
Type	Sort by filename extension
Other	Sort by a non-standard column (through header row click)
Unsorted	Do not sort items; display them in the order read from disk
Ascending	Toggles sorting from smaller to largest
Manually	Arrange icons using the mouse (desktop-like)
Randomly	Item positions picked at random
Show in groups	Group items in the window by the sorted property
Custom groups	Group items using a complex filter for each category
Autosize columns	Adjust column widths to fit all items (`<SHIFT>` to use headers)
Refresh	Refresh pane contents (usually done automatically when changes are detected)
Hold autorefresh	Temporarily suspend the active pane's autorefresh sensor, useful for slow or fast-changing folders
Raw contents	Browse a virtual folder exactly as it is stored on disk (bypass explorer); try it on the system `Fonts` folder to see what it does.
Show Tree	Show or hide the folder tree pane
Locate in tree	Locate the browsed folder within the tree hierarchy
Mini scrap	Show or hide the temporary item hold area (drop box)
Visual filter ►
Wildcard	Constrain item visibility according to supplied wildcard
Rule based	Show only those items whose properties match a complex rule
Auto-filter	Show only one file type from those present in this folder
On/Off	Toggle the wildcard- or rule-based filter on/off
Hide folders	Hide all folders from the active pane (toggle)
Selected only	Hide all items that aren't selected
Same filter	Force the same visual filter to the inactive panel
Show all	Cancel all visual filtering modes, showing all items

Actions
New file	Create a new (empty) file
New Folder	Create a new folder
Set comment	Set, edit or clear item's comment, if possible
ADS ►
View streams	Show any alternate data streams contained in the selection
Split streams	Extract secondary streams from the active item
Bundle to go	Pack all (selected) file information for transport, including ADS comments etc
Unpack bundle	Restore file information from an existing bundle
Change attributes	Change dates and DOS attributes of the selected items
Sync-Touch	Synchronize modification dates of matching items (from active to inactive panel)
Change dates	Various operations on file dates (shift, touch etc)
File properties	Change text file properties (Author etc) in bulk
Split file	Split the selected file into smaller chunks
Merge files	Combine selected items into a single file (in the order shown in pane)
Shred	Total annihilation of the selected items
Save settings now	Save all current settings immediately
Export settings	Export program settings in a .REG file that can be reused in another PC
Import settings	Restart xplorer2 to import settings saved earlier
Folder settings ►
Save	Save settings for this folder, including pane style, columns and sort order
Clear	Clear all stored settings for this folder
Suspend	Temporarily ignore all custom folder settings for this view pane (toggle)
Default	Show all folders like this one; untick for variable folder view settings

Tools
Run command	Start any windows (GUI) program
DOS command	Run a command that requires the DOS interpreter (dir, ren, etc)
Run History	Select a command from the history list
Repeat command	Quick-repeat of the last command executed
Command script	Creates a script (batch file), applying a command template on each selected item
Find files	Look for files and folders that match a filter
Fast search	Quick search using windows indexing server, under current folder
Check duplicates	Examine items under current folder for possible duplicates
Compare subfolders	Compare pane contents considering all subfolders
Map network drive	Assign a drive letter to a network resource
Backup copy	Copy newer and changed files only, to inactive pane (with subfolders)
Free space	Check the free space in the disk(s) being browsed; refresh views if necessary
Subfolder size	Calculate total size occupied by folders and their subfolders
Folder statistics	Display statistics for this folder and its subfolders
Options	Configure options for the program & this window
Advanced options	Open an external program to tweak advanced program settings

Window
Scrap container	Open a scrap container for temporarily holding items from various folders
List	List all windows controlled by this application; optionally switch among them
Administrator	Start an elevated xplorer² window to bypass UAC (access permissions)
Close tab	Close the active folder tab
Close all tabs	Close all folder tabs except for the active one
Reopen tab	Reopen the most recently closed tab
Find tab	Search and locate a tab by its path
Activate tab ►
(...)	Switch to this tab
Clone	Open another explorer window like this one (runs in its own thread)
Save layout	Store the present window layout and history settings
(...)	Browse the active item in a new window using this saved layout
Organize	Assign shortcut keys for or delete window layouts
More layouts	Clone a window from another saved layout (not showing in the above list)

Customize
Toolbars ►
Add new	Add an extra toolbar
Organize	Rename or delete extra toolbars
(...)	Add or remove buttons from this toolbar (right-click on it for text options)
Column sets ►
Add current	Add the current column set to the list
Organize	Rename, delete or reorder column sets & assign shortcut keys
(...)	Restore this column set
More	Pick a column set from the complete list
User commands ►
Add new	Add a command template to the user menu
Add current	Add the currently selected executable program as a user command
Organize	Rename, delete or reorder user commands & assign shortcut keys
(...)	Execute this command
More	Pick a command from the complete list
Folder groups ►
Add current	Add the current folder group (tab set) to the list
Organize	Rename, delete or reorder folder groups & assign shortcut keys
(...)	Restore this folder group
More	Pick a folder group from the complete list
Startup	Restore original folder tabs present at program startup, to recover previously unavailable network folders
Custom groups ►
Add current	Save the current view categories in the list
Organize	Rename, delete or reorder custom groups & assign shortcut keys
(...)	Restore this custom group
More	Pick a custom group from the complete list
Macros ►
Record macro	Record new macro command (`<CTRL>` to repeat last macro)
Edit macro	Start the macro editor
Organize	Rename, delete or reorder macros & assign shortcut keys
(...)	Run this macro
More	Pick a macro from the complete list
Keyboard	Change keyboard shortcuts to menu commands
Keyboard use	View assigned and available keyboard shortcuts
Color coding	Customize item appearence according to file type

Help
Quick start	Introductory guide to xplorer² (shows this document)
Tip of the day	Tips & tricks for maximizing your exploring experience!
How do I?	Show or hide the on-board tutorial pane with demo videos (requires internet connection)
Command finder	Locate a menu command by matching a keyword
Activate with key	Use the registration key you purchased to unlock the program
Register program	Upgrade and/or obtain a license to use the pro version without restrictions
Upgrade to ultimate	Power up your xplorer² experience getting the ultimate edition
Donate	Support the development of this program by making a voluntary donation (free lite version only)
Check for updates	Goto the website for the latest program build
Online support	Get connected to the online customer support centre
Translation	Toggle english translation on/off (assuming you added a language during installation)
Last error	Show the last error message again
Crash information	Locate the crash minidump file; email as attachment to customer support
About xplorer²	Display program information, version number and copyright
Licence agreement	Read the terms & conditions associated with using the program
What's new?	See a list of recent changes and added features
Tell a friend	Recommend xplorer² to a friend — thanks for spreading the word!

Scrap container windows have almost the same menu commands, except for those special in the table below

Table 13. Scrap window special menu commands

Command Description
File

Browse Load the selected items into a regular folder pane (open container)
Remove Remove selected items from this pane (real files not affected)
Clear Empty all pane contents

Edit

Sync-o-paste Enforce deep synchronization results, copying selected items to their respective target folders

View

Arrange by ►
Path Sort by the parent folder's path

Actions

Load contents Open CIDA content file written earlier
Write contents Save active pane's contents in a file for later retrieval
Recent File ►
(...) Open this CIDA document
Import clipboard Insert items from clipboard names (one full path per line)

Tools

Search status View a log of an ongoing or past find files command
Save search Save last search parameters to a file, to repeat later
Recent search ►
(...) Repeat this search
Reveal unique Reveal items hidden as a result of a duplicates check (like View > Show all menu)
Find similar photos Group JPG pictures according to their similarity
Fuzzy groups Group items according to a similar name, or other text attribute
Extract groups Create folders out of group or date information

xplorer² user manual

xplorer²

Introduction