29 August 2008

Maya IFF Plugin

A new plugin allows you to view Maya .IFF files in the Opus viewer pane.

(Note that Maya IFF files are differnet to the Amiga IFF ILBM format which Opus handles internally. The plugin will not break IFF ILBM support and once installed you can view both types of IFF files without doing anything special.)

Go to the plugin's webpage for more information:

http://www.pretentiousname.com/maya_iff/index.html

23 August 2008

Directory Opus version 9.1.1.0

A free update for all Directory Opus 9 users is now available for download from GP Software.

Bugs fixed / minor changes:

User Interface:

  • The Find panel's multiple folder selection system is now easier to understand. The Remove Folder button now only removes the selected item from the list and does not clear the path field as well. The Remove All Folders drop-down command now clears the entire path list and resets the path field to the lister's source path.
  • The Select Icon dialog's drop-down MRU list is now limited to 10 items instead of growing indefinitely.
  • The path field at the bottom of the Select Destination dialog now updates when an item is selected from the Recent or Favorites drop-downs.
  • It was possible to select text in the Output Window (Script or FTP) and delete it by pressing the delete key - this has been fixed.
  • The Output Window can now be closed by pressing Escape.
  • Fix for files larger than 2 gigabytes sorting incorrectly in the Find Window.

Listers & Display Modes:
  • Fix for incorrect alpha-blending of some toolbar/menu icons (e.g. Favorites).
  • Fix for crash which could occur when double-clicking an already selected folder in Thumbnails and Icon modes.
  • Fix for incorrect item spacing with some fonts in List and Icon modes.
  • The Rename INLINE=ext (and other parameters) command now works in Thumbnails, List and Icon modes.
  • Listers showing collections which are deleted will now notice and go to the collection root.
  • Fixed a problem where CD drive icons in some places would not update correctly when the disc was changed. Also improved handling of folder icon changes in folder tabs, breadcrumbs bars and folder trees.
  • Fix for problem with url/lnk targets not being displayed in the Description column on folder read.
  • Copying file paths to the clipboard is much faster, especially with large numbers of files.
  • If you select multiple files and push Enter the files are now launched in series instead of in parallel. (In particular, this works around a bug in Microsoft Word where it would open several empty windows if it was not already running and you launched multiple .doc files in this way.)

Flat View:
  • If the "Automatically sort new files" option was disabled, in FlatView (Grouped) mode items would appear at the bottom of the list making them appear to be in the wrong location. They are now correctly positioned at the end of the appropriate branch.
  • Fixed a problem with FlatView listers viewing a junction folder not correctly noticing file changes within that junction.
  • Fixed a problem when attempting to drag folders to their own parents in FlatView.

Folder Tree:
  • The Folder Tree now correctly detects changes to the Public (All Users) Desktop folder.
  • Newly created zip files are now sorted correctly in the Folder Tree (if Zip files are displayed in the tree).
  • Fix for zip and folder icons at the Desktop level sometimes disappearing when their corresponding items were modified.
  • Fix for painting artifacts in the Folder Tree when horizontally scrolling a full-row selection tree.
  • Fix for painting artifacts in the Folder Tree if folder tree has both colour and image set.
  • Fix for painting artifacts in Folder Tree if background image is set and new items are added to an open branch of the tree.

Context Menus:
  • Fix for TortoiseSVN 1.5 icons not appearing on the context menu under Windows XP.
  • Fix for only some files being added to the zip if the Add-to-Zip context menu item was used from Explorer's Search Results and the files were not all in the same folder.
  • Compatibility fix for certain context menu items (convertXtoDVD and HHD Hex Editor Neo) which pass 0 index to GetData instead of -1 as per the API documentation. Explorer allows/ignores 0 so Opus does as well now.
  • The "working directory" is now supplied to context menu extensions, where possible. (i.e. When it's a real directory and all selected items have the same parent.)
  • Fix for some context menu handlers when files are right-clicked in Flat-View or Collections.
  • Slight speed-up for context menu generation.
  • Fixed generic context menus being used instead of Opus's custom ones when folders or zips that were direct children of Desktop were right-clicked in the folder tree.
  • The Desktop folder now has a context menu when right-clicking on a folder tab.
  • Fixed potential crash with some context menu extensions when certain Filetype CONTEXTMENU commands were placed on toolbars. (Some context menu extensions don't cope with being initialised without a file list. Opus now avoids this.)
  • The ContextMenu command can now work on folders as well as files.
  • Fix for CryptoForge context menu not working correctly.

Status bars:
  • Status bars with customized background images or colors are now drawn using the current Windows theme (visual style) instead of the old Win95-style borders and grip.
  • When the resize grip overlaps part of the status bar (due to a thin window and/or wide status bar) the status bar elements now fade out towards the grip instead of being cut off abruptly.
  • On Vista, glass status bars (when enabled) have a themed resize grip instead of the old Win95-style grip.
  • Fix for incorrect alpha-blending of icons on Vista glass status bars (when enabled).
  • Glass status bar are now turned off for maximized windows. This is for aesthetic reasons and to avoid the difficulty of choosing custom text colors that are visible on both light and dark backgrounds (since glass goes very dark when maximized).
  • Glass status bars are now slightly "frosted" for better readability and to make the glow around text more subtle.
  • Text on glass status bars is now more similar to titlebar text in terms of default color & glow.
  • Bar graph frames on glass with f=2 are now solid white instead of black. New arguments f=4 and f=5 force solid black and white frames, respectively, regardless of glass.
  • New bar graph frame argument f=6 produces an indented border, the opposite of f=1.

Vista:
  • Fix for left-hand, "themed" toolbars on Vista not adjusting their background when the status bar was toggled.
  • Fixed Vista rendering problem with truncated toolbar chevrons.
  • Under Vista, the "View Help" in the Help menu when on the desktop did not work.
  • Under Vista, RMB drag no longer incorrectly shows the no-drag cursor.
  • Under Vista, the Go /Desktop User XXX command now works correctly.

x64:
  • Fix for Explorer Replacement mode in x64 version - previously Opus was not trapping calls to Explorer made from 32 bit applications (e.g. Firefox).
  • The Windows Messenger 'Send File' function (Copy WINMSGR) did not work correctly under x64.
  • Fixed a crash that could occur when reading Amiga icons on an x64-based system.

Preferences:
  • The Explorer Replacement exclusion list is now correctly checked even when Opus isn't already running.
  • Fix for Image Preferences where changing the "When Shared" setting to "Tiled" did not take effect until Opus was restarted (except for the "Standard" images where it worked immediately).
  • Fix for the Display - Images page in Preferences affecting some Color settings when reset to defaults.
  • Fix for the Folder Tabs background color always coming from Preferences, whether or not "use system color" was set, if an image was used for the Folder Tabs background. (The background color could have been wrong for images that didn't fill the Folder Tab strip or for images that were alpha blended with the background color.)
  • Fix for Office2003-style toolbar "custom" color gradient boxes being the wrong way around in Preferences.
  • Fix for Office2003-style toolbar non-"custom" colors overriding the "custom" color choices if the non-"custom" colors had ever been changed from the defaults.

Toolbars, Customization & Commands:
  • Fix for buttons imported from .DCF files always having their icons turned off if they used named internal icons.
  • It is now possible to display \t in a button label by escaping the slash - i.e. \\t.
  • Having the Copy WINMSGR=list command on a toolbar or menu now works even if the contact list has not been opened.
  • Dropping a drive from My Computer on to a toolbar in Customize mode now correctly creates a Go button.
  • Fixed a problem with commands that tried to set a variable using @set with the value {sourcepath$}.
  • The Set FULLROWSELECT command now allows you to toggle between 'select' and 'display' mode by specifying both options (e.g. Set FULLROWSELECT=Toggle,Select,Display).
  • Fixed a problem where a function with multiple CreateFolder commands with the READAUTO flag set could cause a dummy file entry to be displayed in the list.
  • Fix for label position being ignored with several types of generated buttons when used outside of context menus (i.e. on toolbars/menus):
    • Open-With menu
    • Sent-To menu
    • Shell-New menu
    • Context Menu (i.e. Filetype CONTEXTMENU on a toolbar)
    • Namespace Menus
    • Copy-to-Collection menu
    • Windows Messenger contacts menu
    • History, Back and Forward lists
    • TabGroup list
    • FTP site list
  • Copy COLLLIST now takes its icon from the button or menu item rather than forcing a particular icon to be used.

Media Files & Viewers:
  • Fix for Play window not auto-closing after playing MP3 files.
  • Play window now displays basic information for MP3 files.
  • Movie & GIF thumbnail borders now match the aspect of the video/image, instead of being padded to the full thumbnail size, when film sprockets are enabled. (This was already the case when sprockets were disabled.)
  • Fix for resource leak when generating movie thumbnails.
  • Fix for problem getting EXIF data from Fuji photos with corrupt GPS tag.
  • Fix for incorrect bitrate & datarate reports for some AVI and WMV files.
  • Fix for incorrect track number (+1) shown for WMA tracks from Napster.
  • Fix for garbled output when converting 16-bit images to GIF.
  • Fix for bug that caused Amiga icons (and possibly other low color-depth images) to be jumbled when reduced in size (e.g. when displaying very small thumbnails).
  • The MultiView plugin now re-opens almost instantly if it has been used recently.
  • The MultiView plugin now ignores XML files as it did an awful job of displaying them.

FTP:
  • Small change to enforce directory listings as ASCII with TYPE A for rogue Compaq servers.



See also: FAQ: Why doesn't the auto-updater detect the latest version?

9 August 2008

MultiView plugin 4.0.0.10

An update to the MultiView plugin is available:

  • The plugin now re-opens almost instantly if it has been used in the last few minutes.

  • The plugin now ignores XML files as it did an awful job of displaying them.
With the old plugin if you moved from a .doc to a .txt to another .doc there was a slight dekay (~1.5 seconds) as the second .doc file was loaded. This was because when the Text plugin took over for the .txt file the MultiView plugin shut-down and when the .doc file was selected the MultiView plugin had to be started up again. The new MultiView plugin now remains active for a few minutes so that it is available instantly if you need it again.

(Note: All of this is moot if you are using the ActiveX plugin instead of the MultiView plugin. ActiveX is the default.)

You can grab the new MultiView DLL from the forum thread discussing the issue or wait for the next Opus update.