Questions from a new user

[edwardcr]

Hi
I'm a completely new XYplorer user, and, like many other people, making the move away from Windows Explorer. Also like many other people, I seem to have narrowed my choice down to XYplorer or Directory Opus, so I'm trialling both at the moment.

I'm inclined to go with XYP because of its relative simplicity compared to DO, plus the fact that it's lower on resources. I don't want built in FTP (I'm very happy with FTP Voyager) or Zip file handling (WinRar works fine for me), although a Preview Pane is useful for a quick look at files. I find DO completely overwhelming (I'm a businessman, not a serious computer person), and a complete memory hog once you start doing anything serious such as viewing a number of PDF files in the viewer.

After a few days of use, I have come up against a couple of issues with XYP, and I'm hoping there might be some useful suggestions out there as to how to fix them. I have searched the forums as well as I can but haven't found any solutions to 3 and 4.

1 Setting XYP as the default file manager.
I understand that this can't be done easily in XYP. There are posts about this referring to a WIKI link, but this seems to have been down for the last couple of days. Can anyone give the info I need to allow me to do this?

2 Changing the date and time on files.
The same comment as above.

3 Preview Pane - displaying MHT and HTTP files.
Most of these file display perfectly, but with a few (maybe one in twelve) I get the following message;
"An error has occurred in the script on this page. (Then some technical info). Do you want to continue running scripts?"
Whether I press No or Yes the result is the same - I may have to press the button up to 10-12 times before the page loads.
I should add that these same pages load perfectly in Firefox, IE8, Opera and Chrome. They also load fine in the DO viewer.

4 Preview Pane - displaying MSG files.
When I click on these files, after some delay they open in my default email program, Chaos Intellect, instead of in the the Preview pane.

Any solutions will be gratefully received!

[j_c_hallgren]

2 Changing the date and time on files.
The same comment as above.

Hi and welcome to the XY forums!
(BTW, the preferred abbrev is XY instead of XYP...just a FYI)

The answer to this can be found in my and TheQwerty's reply in
http://www.xyplorer.com/xyfc/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=4074

------ regarding some of the other points -------
Our user jacky is the "owner" of the user wiki so we'll have to let him resolve that issue...however, there is a script to set XY as default here: http://www.xyplorer.com/xyfc/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=3279 but it's from Jan 2009 so things might have changed since...not sure...sorry.

[admin]

Hi and welcome!

1 Setting XYP as the default file manager.
I should make clear that this is NOT a feature of the file manager but one of the operating system. Editing the registry is necessary to make XYplorer (or any other file manager) the default file manager. However, since XYplorer is a portable application that's promoted as "not changing the system or registry" it does not offer to make this registry edit for you.
However, the necessary changes are fairly easy to do, and if you have the courage to edit your registry here's what you have to do. But: If you paste the following script into a *.reg file (call it e.g. xyfm-reg.reg) -- after you adjusted the paths to your XYplorer! -- you can run that reg file and XYplorer should become the default file manager.

Code: Select all

REGEDIT4

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Drive\shell]
@="XYplorer"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Drive\shell\XYplorer]
@="Open in XYplorer"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Drive\shell\XYplorer\command]
@="\"E:\\XY\\XYplorer\\XYplorer.exe\" %1"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\shell]
@="XYplorer"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\shell\XYplorer]
@="Open in XYplorer"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\shell\XYplorer\command]
@="\"E:\\XY\\XYplorer\\XYplorer.exe\" %1"

2 Changing the date and time on files.
Check help file under "Time-stamping". Here's also a video:
http://www.xyplorer.com/videos/vid003.htm

3 Preview Pane - displaying MHT and HTTP files.
Could you send me one of the trouble files, please?

4 Preview Pane - displaying MSG files.
Please try this and let me know whether it works:

Code: Select all

Issue: Files to be previewed within XYplorer are opened instead.
Solution: Follow these steps:
  1. Launch Windows Explorer. 
  2. On the Tools menu, click Folder Options.
  3. In the File Options dialog box, click the File Types tab.
  4. In Registered file types, click the file type you want to
     preview in XYplorer, and then click Advanced.
  5. From the Edit File Type screen, tick the "Browse in same window" 
     check box, which toggles whether a file of this type is launched 
     inside or outside of Internet Explorer. 
  6. Click OK to close the dialog boxes.

Don

[jacky]

About the wiki: sorry it was down, but it seems to be back up & running right now...

[edwardcr]

Thanks for your responses.

1 Looking at the solutions for making XY the default file manager, it appears that it's not possible to make it a complete replacement, which is what I actually wanted - as even after making these changes it still won't access the system folders. Is that correct? It seems strange, as Powerdesk, Explorer2 and Directory Opus can all do that. Is there any reason why XY can't?

2 I saw the date and time settings in the Info Panel, but never thought of simply clicking on them to make the changes!

3 Don, as you suggested, I've tried to attach one of the problem MHT files. When I tried to upload the file as an MHT file I received a message saying that "The extension mht is not allowed". So I tried to upload the file renamed with a TXT extension, and got the same message. Then renamed as a JPG, and got the message "It was not possible to determine the dimensions of the image". I'm at a loss to know what to try next.

If I do manage to get the file to you it isn't one of the worse ones, as you only have to click the error box twice. Some you have click 10 - 12 times. AS I mentioned in my first posting DO will display these same problem MHT files, but they do take longer than normal to open in the preview pane.

4 Your solution didn't work. The "Browse in same window" box was greyed out, and though I've researched how to make it available none of the suggested fixes worked.
I should add that EML messages disply fine, and that DO is just as problematical in this area - emails, both MSG and EML are previewed in hex(binary)!

[admin]

Thanks for your responses.

1 Looking at the solutions for making XY the default file manager, it appears that it's not possible to make it a complete replacement, which is what I actually wanted - as even after making these changes it still won't access the system folders. Is that correct? It seems strange, as Powerdesk, Explorer2 and Directory Opus can all do that. Is there any reason why XY can't?

2 I saw the date and time settings in the Info Panel, but never thought of simply clicking on them to make the changes!

3 Don, as you suggested, I've tried to attach one of the problem MHT files. When I tried to upload the file as an MHT file I received a message saying that "The extension mht is not allowed". So I tried to upload the file renamed with a TXT extension, and got the same message. Then renamed as a JPG, and got the message "It was not possible to determine the dimensions of the image". I'm at a loss to know what to try next.

If I do manage to get the file to you it isn't one of the worse ones, as you only have to click the error box twice. Some you have click 10 - 12 times. AS I mentioned in my first posting DO will display these same problem MHT files, but they do take longer than normal to open in the preview pane.

4 Your solution didn't work. The "Browse in same window" box was greyed out, and though I've researched how to make it available none of the suggested fixes worked.
I should add that EML messages disply fine, and that DO is just as problematical in this area - emails, both MSG and EML are previewed in hex(binary)!

1. Where do you expect to "access the system folders" -- in the Tree?
2. A better interface is planned...
3. Send it to me per email. It's under Contact on the XYplorer homepage.
4. It works fine here. It seems to depend on the Office/Outlook version and/or the OS.