Missing icons beside file/folder name

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Am on 3.60.00.65 with XP SP1.

I do not have any icons beside the name of a file or folder.

There is just a blank space there.

I only get to see an icon when I select a file or folder int he right panel.

I can't help but think that I must have changed a setting - but which one? Or is there an error somewhere?

[admin]

There is a setting to not show icons in the file list (View/Style List/Show Icons) but that will not create a blank space but a sheer nothingness.

I suggest you restart TrackerV3, and/or Reboot your system. To check for any bad INI settings, start the app without INI-file (simply rename your INI, and rename it back after the test).

Did that help?

[spinner]

There is a setting to not show icons in the file list (View/Style List/Show Icons) but that will not create a blank space but a sheer nothingness.

I suggest you restart TrackerV3, and/or Reboot your system. To check for any bad INI settings, start the app without INI-file (simply rename your INI, and rename it back after the test).

I looked at the setting for View > Style List > Show Icons but it was already ticked to show icons.

I renamed the INI file and restarted TrackerV3 but that didn't help either. Weird.

If I go back to an earlier version like 3.50.0005 then it is OK!

Must be something to do with how TravkerV3 is inetracting with Windows. I am on XP Pro+SP1 and with all patches except SP2.

[admin]

Must be something to do with how TravkerV3 is inetracting with Windows.

Yeah, but with your Windows. Because you're the only one reporting this problem. Very strange... out of ideas...

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Must be something to do with how TravkerV3 is inetracting with Windows.

Yeah, but with your Windows. Because you're the only one reporting this problem. Very strange... out of ideas...

I use a non-standard small icon size. Could that be the reason, do you think?

I used this registry key

\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop\WindowMetrics

and set "Shell Small Icon Size" to 14 (default is 16).

But why would it be just TrackerV3 which is affected?

[admin]

set "Shell Small Icon Size" to 14 (default is 16).

Well, then TrackerV3 gave you what you deserve!

What in the world do you achieve by shrinking icons designed for 16x16 to 14x14???

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set "Shell Small Icon Size" to 14 (default is 16).

Well, then TrackerV3 gave you what you deserve!

What in the world do you achieve by shrinking icons designed for 16x16 to 14x14???

Heh heh! But the truth is that all my other applications are ok with the smaller icon size.

I notice too some other strangeness with TrackerV3 and icons. I use MicroAngelo http://www.microangelo.us/mod.asp to change the icons for my Windows drives so I can put my own custom icons in.

Windows Explorer (and other apps such as Acdsee show the correct icons). However I have seen TrackerV3 regularly use my custom C drive icon for all the other drives too. Even more starngely, right now TrackerV3 does not use any custom icon at all for any of my drives but instead it uses what might be the XP default.

Strange, huh?

[admin]

Strange, huh?

Ok, let's it explain it like this: contrary to most comparable programs TrackerV3 does not just throw a bunch of MS Windows Common Controls onto a nifty interface. No, I've written everything from scratch: every pixel you see (at least where the action is: tree, list, panel) is written by me, not by MS. Purpose: I gain maximum control over what the app does and what not. Advantage: speed, lightness, and features you find nowhere else. Disadvantage (for some maybe, not for me): not every superfluous Windows gimmick (like allowing 14x14 icons ) gets through to TrackerV3 in the expected way.

[Manifold]

Eeerm. Not to be rude, but a lot of people online always praice that programming language C++ or C#. Most don't like this Visual Basic. They say it's too slow. Have I got something wrong here? Could you explain properly to me?

[admin]

... a lot of people online always praice that programming language C++ or C#. Most don't like this Visual Basic. They say it's too slow. Have I got something wrong here? Could you explain properly to me?

It's just a very old rumor and it's simply totally wrong. There is a bunch of reasons why it came up, here are some:
(a) VB has a much flatter learning curve than C++, so every bobo can write a working app after some hours. And many bobos did and are doing. Now, "working app" does not mean "working fast app", in other words: the majority of VB-apps around is disgraceful crap.
(b) VB allows for bad coding style in many ways, it's very lax and forgiving. Again, this of course has led to heaps of bad code.
(c) I think the C-folks back this rumor because they are pissed off by the fact that VB-development-time is so much faster than C-dev-time.

The fact is that VB-apps can be as fast as anything. It's not the language but how you use it. If you're interested in VB's speed check out my other site: http://www.xbeat.net/vbspeed/

BTW, do you have the impression that TrackerV3 is extremely slow?

[spinner]

... a lot of people online always praice that programming language C++ or C#. Most don't like this Visual Basic. They say it's too slow. Have I got something wrong here? Could you explain properly to me?

-- snip --

BTW, do you have the impression that TrackerV3 is extremely slow?

TrackerV3 is like greased lightning. That's why I use it. It behaves as if it's on nitro. :-)

I am the OP of this thread and you will recall that I was using 3.60 and I had to go back to 3.50 to see the icons in the right hand panel because I was using a small icon size setting of 14 rather than 16. (In \HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop\WindowMetrics.)

The smaller icon size lets the lines of file and folder listings in other applications become less tall and that way I see more lines on a screen which lists files and folders. Personally, I find that very useful.

If I reset the small icon size back to 16 then 3.60.0051 will show the icons on the right hand panel (before they were completely absent).

Like version 3.50, version 3.60 still does not show the custom icons for the different drives on the left hand tree. Oh well, I can live without that but it would have been a nice touch to have seen them there.

The most important thing to me is that even if I change the small icon size from '16' then I still don't get any icons on the right hand window. Any chance of this being in a later release?

[admin]

The smaller icon size lets the lines of file and folder listings in other applications become less tall and that way I see more lines on a screen which lists files and folders. Personally, I find that very useful.

That convinced me, man! And, would you believe, I did it and it works! The app reads "Shell Small Icon Size" from registry at startup and reacts properly.

Now I'm very curious if it works at your computer, too!

[Manifold]

The fact is that VB-apps can be as fast as anything. It's not the language but how you use it. If you're interested in VB's speed check out my other site: http://www.xbeat.net/vbspeed/

Nice site that. Nothin' else I can say. Might book mark it and show some C zealots. XD.

BTW, do you have the impression that TrackerV3 is extremely slow?

Let me try to explain.. If I open TrackerV3 for the first time, then it takes a second or so for it to load. After loading, it takes a while (depending on the file contents) to render the files in the right pane. Now, this is normally alright. I can bear the slightly slower-than-explorer speed in turn for Trackers functions for some files. But when it opens huge files, like say the program files, or the WINDOWs file, it takes too long.

In all, Explorer, on my machine, is by far the quicker loader of files. In any case.

[admin]

Spinner,

concerning the display Custom Drive Icons: seems to work fine. This is how I created a custom icon for my drive E:

How to test drive icons with TV3 (example for drive E):
--- Regedit
--- Create this key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\DriveIcons\E\DefaultIcon\
--- in "DefaultIcon" you'll see an automatically created string named "(Default)" (dt. "(Standard)")
--- set the value of Default to the path of the icon you created, eg C:\WINDOWS\WorkDrive.ico. This should be a 16x16 32-bit WindowsXP icon (but others may work, too, dunno).
--- restart TrackerV3

[admin]

... In all, Explorer, on my machine, is by far the quicker loader of files. In any case.

If you did not turn it off, the OS has an internal file system caching to reduce slow hardware activity. When you open a large folder with TV3 a second time you'll see the effect of this caching: it's much faster than the first time. In other words: the slowness of first time access to large folders is the slowness of your harddisk, not of TV3.

But it's true that Explorer displays large folders on first access faster *apparently*, but when you then scroll down to the end of the list you'll note the work it still has to do because it wasn't done before: scrolling is slow, icons are not yet painted, etc. TV3 on the other hand displays the list only after all the work is done. It's a question of display strategy.

Further Explorer might use additional caching (which could be the reason for its large footprint in memory), but that's just a guess. TV3 does not do any caching.

Finally and frankly: I don't claim that you can do everything with VB exactly as fast as with C++. But with many tasks you can come very close when you use it optimally.