Altap Salamander 2.53 beta 1 Changelog

Release date: March 4, 2010

List of most important changes in Altap Salamander 2.53 beta 1 since version 2.52

  • Early Access Program has started on our official support forum. The Early Access Program (EAP) gives you the opportunity to download and install the latest development release to test new features and bug fixes even before beta version release.
  • Support for displaying x64 pseudo-directories C:\Windows\Sysnative, C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc, C:\Windows\System32\catroot, C:\Windows\System32\catroot2, C:\Windows\System32\DriverStore (only Windows 7), C:\Windows\System32\LogFiles, and C:\Windows\System32\spool. They are displayed with link icon overlay to express they are not real directories.
  • Added "Compare Directories: ignore time differences of exactly one or two hours" and changed "Time resolution of file compare (used in Compare Directories)" to "Compare Directories: ignore time differences up to". When Compare Directories detects pair of files with time difference of exactly one or two hours, it informs you that you can change settings to ignore it (to bypass DST related file time shifts). And when it should be ignored, it is, but it shows a note about how many pairs of files has this time difference.
  • Compare Directories: the initial dialog box has simplified and advanced section. Use the More button to reveal or hide the advanced section.
  • Compare Directories: new option "Select subdirectories contained only in one panel".
  • Compare Directories: new options "Ignore files" and "Ignore directories". Handy for example for ignoring SVN or CVS directories while comparing source code repositories.
  • Copy/Move dialog box: it is possible to save current options as defaults for further use. See the drop-down menu on Options button.
  • Find Files and Directories: new option Full Row Select in Options menu.
  • Support for accelerated mouse wheel scrolling (scroll farther as you roll the wheel faster) introduced by MS IntelliPoint drivers. Supported in panels vertical scroll, horizontal scroll using Shift+Wheel, menu scroll, thumbnails resize using Ctrl+Wheel, viewer, etc. High resolution mouses are supported now.
  • Plugins Manager, plugins in menu: plugins are sorted alphabetically (default ON). It is possible to order plugins list manually in Plugins > Plugins Manager window.
  • When Ext column is separated, names with only one dot which is at the beginning (e.g. ".htaccess" or ".cvsignore") are displayed in Name column (they should be in Ext column but more users want them in Name column).
  • Option "Select whole name (including extension) when entering new filename" changed to "Select also filename extension in Quick Rename and Pack commands".
  • New option "Select also filename extension in Edit New File command", default on.
  • Shift+F4 (Edit New File) has new button with commands to save/revert default filename.
  • Support for longer commands in command line: approx. 4KB in W2K and 8KB in XP/Vista/Win7. See help for limits overview.
  • Support for longer User Menu commands: approx. 4KB in W2K and 8KB in XP/Vista/Win7 when executing through shell (cmd.exe) and approx. 2KB in W2K/XP/Vista and 32KB in Win7 when executing directly. See help for limits overview.
  • Import configuration from file to registry and export configuration from registry to file are handled by our own routines (thanks to Jan Patera's RegLib library). It solves problem with escalation required by formerly used regedit.exe on Vista and Windows 7. Moreover also user without admin rights can import/export configuration now.
  • Exported configuration file can newly contain also clearing of the registry key with configuration. It avoids unwanted merge of current configuration in registry and configuration from file.
  • Vista or later: configuration is exported to application data directory (typically C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Roaming\Altap\Altap Salamander) instead of installation directory (because it is probably in C:\Program Files which is read-only). Default configuration file (config.reg) is also searched in application data directory (if it is not found in installation directory). Relative file name in -C command line parameter is searched in the same way.
  • Added warning when importing configuration from file which does not contain configuration for current version of Salamander.
  • Help/Task List: it is possible to terminate the current process too.
  • Added option "Use fast directory move on Novell Netware": turn ON when renaming directories in scope of one Novel Netware drive is working, it is much faster than moving all contained files and creating all necessary directories.
  • Smaller Registry footprint: colors are stored as DWORD instead of string (saving 20 bytes per item)
  • Smaller Registry footprint: Viewers configurations: Arguments/Command/Initial Directory values are not stored when values are default empty string.
  • Options > Configuration > Appearance > Highlight focused row option: default changed to ON.
  • Files > Security > Owner command was removed (doesn't work from Windows Vista). Files > Security submenu was removed. Files > Security > Permissions command is now Files > Security.
  • Find Files and Directories: it is possible to use Focus command when multiple items are selected.
  • Plugins Manager remembers last selected plugin during one Salamander session.
  • Drive Information (Ctrl+F1) dialog box layout prepared for Exabytes.
  • Plugins Manager window: better columns width calculation. Plugins with too long names will not scatter table anymore.
  • SDK version of Salamander (Preview Builds and SDK builds) contains trace messages. Added Autostart Altap Trace Server and Log Trace Messages to File items to window menu (click on icon in upper left corner of main window). On the first start of SDK version of Salamander, it displays question if you want to start Altap Trace Server automatically.
  • Find: width of the Size column updated for current (2010) file sizes. Size up to 1TB will displayed without clipping.
  • Copy/Move operations to archives and plugin file systems: warning "Options will be ignored" could be suppressed. Option could be also set in Options > Configuration > Confirmations > Show message.
  • Altap Salamander requirements: Microsoft Windows 2000, XP, Vista, or Windows 7. Both x86 (32-bit) and x64 (64-bit) Windows versions are supported. Windows 9x, ME, and Windows NT 4.0 are no longer supported and tested with Altap Salamander.

Installer/uninstaller

  • Unified Altap Salamander installer containing all plugins. There is no more Full and Standard version.
  • Vista or later: added support for starting installed Salamander and opening readme file from installer.
  • Vista or later: added support for installation from not administrator accounts (placing shortcuts to current user's folders instead of administrator's).
  • Installing program shortcut to folder Programs under Start Menu instead of directly to Start Menu (recommended by MS).
  • Shortcut for uninstalling Salamander is not installed into Start Menu any longer (recommended by MS). To uninstall Salamander go to Control Panel (XP: Add or Remove Programs, Vista/Win7: Uninstall a program).
  • Vista or later: if user wants to install program shortcut to desktop, he must select this option manually (recommended by MS). It is still not necessary under older Windows (it is selected by default).
  • Quick Launch is no longer supported in Windows 7. So we are not offering placing program shortcut to Quick Launch in Windows 7.
  • Removed option to install shortcuts to Start Menu Group (it is not recommended by MS - single program shortcut is enough).
  • Warning is displayed when installing Beta or Preview Build version (it is not for use in production environments; it is only for testing and time limited).
  • Silent (unattended) installation mode supports upgrading from older versions and reinstallation of the same version (repairing). If newer version is found, installation is skipped.

NEW PLUGIN: Automation

  • With the Automation plugin you can automate common tasks using scripts written in any language supported by the Windows Script Host. Windows comes with JScript and VBScript engines preinstalled, however 3rd party scripting engines are available for languages such as Perl, PHP, Python, Ruby and others.
  • Automation plugin comes with comprehensive documentation (see Help > Contents > Plugins > Automation) and sample scripts (see plugins\automation\scripts).
  • Do you like contests? Look at Automation Script Contest for 3 free lifetime licenses of Altap Salamander.

7-Zip plugin

  • Updated to 9.10 Beta. New method LZMA2, deleting files from solid archives
  • All read and write errors no longer cause hard failure but have a dialog with Retry & Abort buttons.
  • Custom column "Packed Size" renamed to "Packed".
  • Custom columns are now empty for folders, they used to be "DIR".
  • Don't ask for the same password of a single archive multiple times.
  • Extracting archive: when all needed files are extracted, extraction is aborted (preventing useless extraction only to memory).

Check Version

  • Better presentation of results: versions details are not shown until you click on "show details", text is not scrolled, refreshing when configuration changes.
  • You can filter out also Release versions and also only one version of module (not all versions of module).
  • Preview Build (PB) version of CheckVer plugin defaultly checks for new PB versions. It can be turned off manually in CheckVer configuration.

Database Viewer

  • Support for accelerated mouse wheel scrolling (scroll farther as you roll the wheel faster) introduced by MS IntelliPoint drivers. High resolution mouses are supported now.
  • It is possible to find longer texts (limit is 200 chars instead of 100 chars).
  • Better (Unicode-friendly) way of handling FindDialog.Text.
  • Tab as a potential field separator now has the same priority as ".:;," and higher than all the other characters.

File Comparator

  • Support for accelerated mouse wheel scrolling (scroll farther as you roll the wheel faster) introduced by MS IntelliPoint drivers. High resolution mouses are supported now.
  • Binary compare: found differences are added one by one to Differences combo box and File Comparator window is not blocked. So you can focus differences before comparison is finished. Moreover plugin shows comparison progress in title bar.
  • Binary compare uses buffered files when scanning for differences, instead of memory mapped files. It is up to 7x faster when comparing two files from the same disk.
  • Added Recompare to toolbar.

Multimedia Viewer

  • UTF8 support in WMA.

Network plugin

  • Remote Desktop Connection (Microsoft Terminal Service Client): added support for showing drives of local computer in Local Computer folder when you are connected to remote computer.
  • Windows XP Mode on Windows 7: added support for showing drives of host computer (Windows 7) in Host Computer folder when you are connected to virtualized Windows XP.

PictView plugin

  • Added option "Remember path when saving screenshots, scans, clipboard pastes".

Portable Executable Viewer

  • Added showing real file offsets to resource data.

Registry Editor

  • Shift+F3 opens regedit.exe with current registry key displayed.

UnISO plugin

  • Added support for compressed ISO images of type ISZ. Only non-segmented non-encrypted images are supported.
  • Added support for BZIP2-compressed DMG packages.

UnRAR plugin

  • Added custom column "Packed".
  • Added support for multi-part archives with naming .001, .002, 003, etc.

WinSCP plugin

ZIP plugin

  • Added custom column "Packed".
  • Supports unpacking to alternative filename when opening file for viewer.
  • Illegal chars in file and folder names inside archive replaced with underscore.
  • File and folder names in UTF8 inside archive are detected and converted to local encoding.
  • Fixed rare problem with corrupted archives created by AS 2.52. For fix please see https://forum.altap.cz/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=3811

Other links

Back to Changelogs