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File manager:
Color Commander:    Description

 

Color Commander - is a file manager with tabs. The main idea is that for people with normal vision, color is the one of the most information sources. And for people with some eye problems (except the color blindness) and older age, the color becomes is even more important source for information.

 

OS supported:

Windows,

Linux,

Android (in future).

 

Language of development: AL-IV.

 

Stage: BETA. If you have not backups configured, it is better not experiment, with important files. Any time something could be wrong. I predicted you!

 

Important peculiarities of copy/move operations:

  • All the copy/move operations in the session are always sequential, one file by another (or directory, in case of moving directories from one location to another on the same disk). In case when you copy/move some other files while such operation is in progress, new operations are added to the queue.
  • It is always possible to pause the operation;
  • All the operations are written to the operations Journal;
  • There are no drag-n-drop operations so your will never catch your files occasionally and loose it in some unknown place;

Download (13/09/2023):

Download version 0.82 compiled for.Net . (Requires .Net installed to run)

Download version 0.82 compiled in Delphi/VCL .

Download version 0.82 compiled in Delphi/KOL .

Download version 0.82 compiled in Free Pascal (Windows) .

Download version 0.76 compiled in Free Pascal (Linux, x64) .

 

Source code are not available for now.

 

 

 

Changes history:
 
(2023-9-14), Version "0.82":

Added: Delete unfinished (downloading) files - if there are finished with the same name are present

Added: Deleting empty subdirectories

Added: Continuation of copying of large enough (>2Mbytes) files: copyed as .part files, then renamed. If copied to the same destination after cancelling operation is continued if possible

Added: Auto-pause while copying (to fix problems writing enormouse files to SSD disks)

Changed: In the copy/move dialog, most of options moved to the menu to free the dialog space

Changed: Time elapsed now is calculating (in copy/move operations) on base of file sizes rather then on its count handled/total

Added: Naming sessions

Added: Drawing amount of available items in filters labels





(2023-9-7), Version "0.81":

Added: Compact view mode ALT--/ALT-+ - decrease/increase columns count

Changed: Faster drawing



(2023-8-30), Version "0.80":

Fixed: Nullify directories

Changed: Launched/queued process buttons at the right side are drawn at the bottom side when the right space is too small


(2023-8-26), Version "0.79":

Fixed: Wiping files in sub-directories

Changed: some small improvements



(2023-7-24), Version "0.78":

Changed: Change font size in some dialogs/forms on activation if the size was changed in the main window

Changed: Shortcuts to close all yhe tabs right/left to the current changed to Ctrl+Alt+R/L, to avoid intersecting with Ctrl+R (Run) or Alt+Letter (Opan a disk)



(2023-7-3), Version "0.77":

Fixed: Deleting in <<Search dupes>> dialog: empty lines separating groups did not delete

Fixed: In Find files window, when another search started, top line did not change, so results of searching could be invisible until manual scroll (very weird)



(2023-6-13), Version "0.76":

Added: Search of files which names are not satisfying to a pattern specified

Changed: Launching unfinished torrent file with double click calls the first command from associations (even when not default)

Fixed: After launching unfinished torrent file with mouse double click it was attemting to be opened by its temporary extension (usually not associated in the system) which led to display an annoying message saying that it was not possible to open the file

Changed: Faster copying files, showing size of copying files in progress, showing time wasted for the operation at the end of copy

Changed: Search duplicated files: colorization, additional space between groups

Changed: Find files dialog also colorized

Added: In find files, it is now possible to restrict searching by file size

Added: Splitting view vertically to show/compare two directories sharing some mouse/keyboard commands to allow navigating them synchronously

Changed: Different font size to represent file size





(2023-5-21), Version "0.75":

Added: Searching duplicated files

Fixed: Autoscroll after mouse wheel

Added: Eject drive for removable drives (in the below menu called by the left mouse click on the status bar)

Fixed: Slowing down for attempts to preview directories

Added: Previewing video as 2x2 frames collage using ffmpeg.exe utility

Added: Menu on preview area to turn on/off previwing of texts, images, video, archives, using descript_ion file and to set maximum images size allowed to preview

Added: Separate button to copy selected files/directories to the clipboard

Fixed: Sorting in descendant order in the Find files dialog





(2023-5-17), Version "0.74":

Added: For extensions .part, .!qb, etc. added to unfinished files by torrent clients / browsers the previous (final) extension is used to open files (configurable: Additionally\Handle unfinished ...)




(2023-5-16), Version "0.73":

Fixed: When moving directories, after an answer Yes to an ask if to merge existing directories, final names of destination directories was doubled

Changed: Speed up copy/move for less info on current progress

Changed: Copy/move progress shows now also amount of items left to handle



(2023-5-11), Version "0.72":

Added: Button <<Stop but finish current>> in the copy/move progress dialog

Changed: Double click to select <<Another application>> in the dialog <<Open by>>

Fixed: When another application made <<default>>, that time it was not used to open a file - but previously selected <<default app>>

Fixed: When skipping draft/temp files by masks while copying/moving letters case was taking into account

Added: It is now possible to change option <<Skip temp files>> before starting a copy/move operation, from the below menu

Added: Checking thath target file system does not allow large files (greater then 4GBytes) before copy / move operations

Added: Protect interval 500 ms after mouse up preventing directory refreshing to minimize wrong double click operations



(2023-5-3), Version "0.71":

Fixed: Sudden selecting a lot of files when mouse move over the window from outside

Fixed: Deleting Read only files

Fixed: File attributes: attribute <<Read only>> is not showing correctly

Changed: Main algorithm placing images in a collage was modified (simplified and improved)



(2023-4-28), Version "0.70":

Added: Short messages in the bottom right corner of the main window about copying/moving/deleting and copy/cut files operations

Changed: While copy/move files, these are opened without taking into acoount their share restrictions so even files opened for write can be copied - but with possible corruptions in the file structure

Changed: Shift+DELETE now deletes files/dirs permanently without any asks

Fixed: Sudden selecting a lot of files when mouse move over the window from outside



(2023-4-25), Version "0.69":

Changed: Stop opening same session when restarted even if it was earlier running two instances

Fixed: Deleting nesting files with additional options (wipe, nullify etc. was ignored and all then were deleting to Recycle Bin)

Changed: Deleting with SHIFT+DEL not empty directories works faster (C#)



(2023-4-10), Version "0.68 REL. 2023-4-23":

Changed: While previewing from the descript.ion, file name is skept if the first line contains symbol '='

Fixed: Clear all command deleted only not filtered files

Fixed: In open by application dialog, parameters stored for an association did not load into editing fields

Added: For open by application, an option added: <<Do not wait ending the process>>

Fixed: Ambigous error messages <<Could not read source file>> while copying - removed

Fixed: Calculating approximated ending time while copying / moving files



(2023-2-22), Version "0.67":

Added: Automatic opening several sessions (application instances) if these were closed almost at the same time (less then 10 seconds in between)

Fixed: Automatic scroll to a selected file in the list after mouse wheel to another position



(2023-2-19), Version "0.66":

Fixed: An answer about merging directories did not asked while moving directories (the operation just ignored)

Fixed: Moving files to the same directory disabled

Changed: To ask for replacing a file with a 0 size file, another instance of ask dialog is used then for other overwrite asks (and it has another color to differ it easily)



(2023-1-21), Version "0.65":

Fixed: Font in preview area was flickering for text from descript.ion file

Fixed: Representation of sessions in <<Open session>> menu

Fixed: Switching between two last tabs stopped working after changing a current directory in the current tab

Fixed: when file was double-clicked without selecting it first, then system default application was used to run it.

Fixed: after double-click on a file, not only file was launching but sometimes it was marked as queued to launch again when the process launched finished.

Added: Highlighting filters over mouse cursor.

Fixed: Asking question about target existing when a directory is copyied to a target via <<Copy to>>/<<Move to>> menu items.

Added: Delete files modified erlier then date specified.

Changed: Deleting files to Recycle Bin speed improved.

 
(2023-1-20), Version "0.64":

Added: Nullify files operation ( modification of permanent delete): files stay existing but its size becomes equal to 0.

Changed: Delete menu becomes the sub-menu with 4 possible operations

Changed: Form coordinates saving now done in a context of a session (rather the in the common section of all the sessions)

Changed: While sorting by name, first [text] in square brackets and following symbols which are not letters or digits are skept before comparing.

Fixed: If double click a file quickly after previous open another file, the same application was used to open the second file.

Changed: Amount of tabs is shown in the Color Commander main window header.

Added: Hex edit for the color set for an extension in the Setup colors dialog.

Fixed: Count of tabs shown in the common menu (pop up on the Address button) was restricted < 10.

Changed: Sorting of sessions by date and time provided in the common (Address) menu in the list of sessions to open

Changed: <<Open with>> dialog re-designed, double-click opens with a program selected.

Changed: Rules on button <<Switch between current and last active tab>> (or CTRL+TAB): selecting a tab now has no effect until any mouse or keyboard click was done in the file list or buttons/preview area. Clicked tab become the last active, and previous active tab is stored to switch later with CTRL-TAB or <<Switch>> button. And when switched these tabs are swapped so switching again will activate these two tabs alternately until another tab will selected and activated.






(2022-12-14), Version "0.62":

Added: Paste file(s) with SHIFT pressed means overwritign an existing without additional asks



(2022-12-10), Version "0.61":

Added: The button to jump to the last active tab (where at least mouse or keyboard key was pressed on files)

Changed: Rename of a single file done in a memo control with wrapping text by words, to fit long file names without resizing the dialog

Added: Optional skipping first [text] in square brackets while sorting and filtering files



(2022-12-4), Version "0.6":

Fixed: Small fixes in mouse event handlers



(2022-10-23), Version "0.59":

Changed: Lighter colors for light colors scheme



(2022-9-26), Version "0.58":

Changed: Show tree of directories function improved (and fixed)



(2022-9-1), Version "0.57":

Changed: Resizing columns speed optimized (less drawing while dragging the mouse)

Added: Controlling additionally added copy/move tasks from the Copy details dialog (these can be removed or moved to the start or to the end of queue)

Fixed: Cancelling use of descrpt.ion as a source to preview text file in the ask overwrite dialog while copy/move files

Added: Sorting by columns in the Find files dialog

Added: Sorting by descript.ion records corresponding to catalog items

Added: In the Catalog to text operation the option added: Quotations for file names having spaces

Added: Displaying an image in the background of the preview text, if it's (relative) path is specifyed in the last line of the file/directory description (of the destcript.ion or description.XX file). Gif, Jpeg and png are supported as such preview images

Added: Displaying an image as a preview for a file for which an image file exists in the same directory with the extension .jpg, .gif or .png



(2022-8-23), Version "0.56":

Changed: Color specific for a directory used to fill the extension column, and the color of the parent directory is used as the background of the header of that column

Fixed: Preview ZIP, 7z etc. in Linux

Fixed: Pressing keys twice in Linux (Free Pascal): filtering with keyboard did not work



(2022-8-20), Version "0.55":

Changed: Colors used to represent directories now selected from a wide set of 'safe' Web colors on the base of the directory path (calculated hash), so directories now save that corlor forever. This color is used for the tab abd to fill the right side of the files list (as the background for command buttons and previews)

Changed: Sometimes while copying large directories progress stopped for a long time without understanding the user what is doing: actually this was a period of saving several not too long files in the (slow or remote) destination directory. Now the progress shows in such case names of saving files, the application stays responsible and looking more stable

Fixed: Sometimes menu item <<Open with>> did not work until reopen the application

Fixed: Showing changes history in the About dialog



(2022-8-4), Version "0.54":

Added: Ctrl-O to use/ignore file descript.ion / description.XXX

Changed: More readable text (file names) over hatched lines (when hatching is used to indicate recently accessed files), more correct color tone calculating when creation time changed for files by another applications

Changed: In Linux, button '+' on tabs just duplicates current tab (earlier it did nothing)

Fixed: Better working in Linux (earlier, crashed too often)

Added: Option <<Run as another user>> in <<Run>> command dialog (available on executable files .exe, .bat, cmd)



(2022-8-1), Version "0.53":

Added: Flag <Start paused> in the target selection dialog (called by F5/F6 and correspondent menu items)

Added: Hints on some items, and special mouse icons on some items to indicate that the hint is available and/or mouse operations at that locations

Added: Mount ISO image as a virtual disk (in Windows10+ only)



(2022-7-11), Version "0.52":

Added: Silent mode while Copy/Move, with all question 'answered' with default answers

Added: Button to do something on the end of long Copy/Move operation (there are 3 possibilities: to beep, to shutdown or to launch some application/command file)

Added: Opening home directory ( Desktop directory in Windows) with CTRL-W

Changed: Showing amount of skept objects in the copy/move progress and in the ending message (which now closed automatically after 10 seconds of exposing it)

Changed: Catalog-to-text now works for several catalogs selected as well as for an entire disk; aloso options were added: Sorting and including top-level directory in results

Fixed: Freezing after asking on deleting file which could not be deleted

Fixed: While copy/move to non-present disk (operation Copy-to /Move-to with a predefined target(s)) operation could not work and did not resume when disks were attached. Now, an error is shown on each directory which is not accessible

Changed: When file is copied in-place (copy/paste in the same directory), and it is locked by another application, it is therefore can be allowed to try read fro copy (it is failed only in case when opened for totally exclusivbe access)

Changed: In ask for overwrite dialog, when two text files are different, difference is shown more visually by another colors from the first really different line

Fixed: Not all copy/move operations were logged in the Journal of operations

Added: Capability to view last 3 auto-hiding messages (about copy/ move operations results)

Changed: Text preview style when info about file or directory was extracted from the descript.ion file

Fixed: descript.ion did not reaload when modified



(2022-7-1), Version "0.51":

Changed: Loading directory faster on first enter: first only names are load, then attributes are loaded in the background

Changed: Faster adding just created files/directories, and marking just deleted files/dirs with gray colors

Added: Indication of process of collecting data in the form <<Catalog to text>>, + several additional options (Sort by names, Include top level directory), + capability to work the operation on several directories selected, too



(2022-6-29), Version "0.50":

Changed: Progress dialogs for copy, move and delete operations

Fixed: C#: positioning copy dialogs when shown first

Fixed: When all files shown only because of filters are gone, filtering become off automatically



(2022-5-30), Version "0.49":

Fixed: After ''moving'' enough small files, source files did not deleted in some cases (actually copying was performing there)

Added: An option <<Run command on finish>> was added for commands which can be run with buttons on the right side panel

Added: In the Find files dialog, an option added to exclude files present in the specified target directory (only file names, sizes and modification date are compared)

Changed: In the Find window and in the Journal of operations, full length text from cells under the mouse cursor is shown like hints in status panel



(2022-5-11), Version "0.48":

Added: Showing/changing attributes of files/directories (via menu calling dialog forms implementing the functions); also showing / changing file owner and grant full access rights to a current user are possible in those dialogs

Changed: Top & bottom dashed lines in the file list to show if the start /end of the list is in view: blue if all the files/dirs are visible, red when some files are filtered or not shown still these are system/hidden

Changed: In asks to overwrite/ merge while copying the checkmark <<Apply to all>> made unchecked by default

Changed: In Find files, by default searching is done without any special order



(2022-4-11), Version "0.47":

Fixed: Gradient fill added for top and bottom line if those lines are not first/last in a list of filtered files/dirs



(2022-4-2), Version "0.46":

Added: Show long file names under mouse cursor

Added: Scroll to selected lines (1st or last) by mouse wheel rotation on the status line

Changed: Option <<Store time used/ Highlight used files>> now does not affect network files/directories

Changed: The option above (Store time used) now works for directories too (time when it was visited last time from the Color Commander via ENTER/double click is stored in time creation of the directory)

Changed: In Find dialog, selecting the edit with file name pattern on the dialog show

Fixed: In Rename dialog, on CTRL+V all CR/LF are replaced to spaces

Fixed: Setting top position to show the last page

Fixed: Too slow moving lot of files

Fixed: Updating directory view, when a file downloading ended

Fixed: Sudden changing top position and hiding moving items out of view when files list was sorted other then by names and directory changed (level up button or BACSPACE/ESCAPE)

Fixed: Shorten long file names function did not work



(2022-2-13), Version "0.45":

Fixed: In case a directory contains a comma, operation Copy-to/Move-to via a menu failed

Changed: Localization added for some buttons (Find dialog, Copy/Move progress)

Changed: In the Find dialog, an option added Only directories, and the Reset button



(2022-1-30), Version "0.44":

Fixed: C#: faster scanning root of the Computer, for CD/DVD, and avoiding rescanning fixed HDD labels

Fixed: Resizing columns in Find files dialog

Added: Buttons +, x

Added: Switching to a previosly active tab clicking on an active



(2022-1-26), Version "0.43":

Added: WEBP images preview

Fixed: Copy/Move very large files (more then 4Gbytes)

Changed: If file with size greater then 1Gbytes can not be deleted to Recycle Bin, it is asked to be deleted permanently

Changed: Maximal image file size for previeing it increaed to 2Mbytes



(2021-9-22), Version "0.41":

Added: Option to store time when file was last time used from the CC (stored as file create time), with additional colorization such files.

Changed: It is possible now to open files with .cmd/.bat files in Windows, not only with .exe executables

Fixed: Showing percents in copy/move progress dialog

Fixed: Slow speed of copying files in directories having a lot of files



(2021-4-25), Version "0.40":

Added: Filter <> to filter files only / Directories only

Changed: If the is no active process and only possible, then the larger button used to show that process and to avoid miss clicks on it while the active process is ending and we are targetting the next process to launch using this button



(2021-4-7), Version "0.39":

Fixed: Localization under Linux

Fixed: Preview of Windows-oriented files .ico and .cur does not occur in Linux now (led to crash the application)



(2021-4-3), Version "0.38":

Changed: Better copy files speed

Fixed: Delphi/FPC versions could not work correctly due to a bug in {Thread} implementation



(2021-4-1), Version "0.37":

Changed: Copy/paste of a directiry in place creates a copy of the directory in the same parent directory (changing its number suffix to 1, 2, etc.)

Fixed: Sloooow copying files due an annoying typo



(2021-3-17), Version "0.36":

Added: Working with paroled 7z archives, too (same delting problems)

Changed: Updating tree of directory if one of directories in tree was disappeared (deleted or renamed or something else)



(2021-3-11), Version "0.35":

Added: Chain (of 2 items): buttons showing a process started from the CC and a queued or possible to put to the queue (current file). The item queued (selected with AQUA) will start immediately then the active process (yellow-dashed) is ended

Fixed: Deleting a paroled rar archive file (with filenames paroled).



(2021-2-15), Version "0.34":

Fixed: Restoring order paremetes when returning back in history



(2021-1-31), Version "0.33":

Added: Preview images/texts/... for conflicting files while copy/ move operations

Changed: Searching in correspondance to a direction specified improved, finding results faster

Added: Shortening too long file names while copying/moving (optional)

Fixed: Jornal operations - fixed

Fixed: FPC: Encoding problems fixed for {Config} in Windows (FPC uses UTF8, but strings in the registry are stored natively as WideStrings)

Changed: Before renaming a set of files these are sorted alphabetically in ascending order



(2021-1-26), Version "0.32":

Added: List catalog to text



(2021-1-18), Version "0.31":

Added: Preview Zip/7z/Rar/Tag/Gz/ Bz2 catalogs

Fixed: In linux, typing in the Address edit is unlocked

Changed: To switch to dark theme, intermediate converting colors to HSL used: result seems to be ideal



(2021-1-13), Version "0.30":

Added: Find files dialog

Added: Common menu item <Apply language file> (simplifying) installing localization files

Added: Preview for images and text files, and a capability to represent a directory in form of color blocks tree (on demand only)



(2021-1-12), Version "0.29":

Added: Run menu for executables, with capability to add parameters, if there are files copied in the Clipboard, these are inserted as parameters -- this is a good replacement for drag files on an executable to run it with files as parameters as implemented in the Explorer

Changed: Menu Open with/Run moved to the top position

Fixed: Menu Copy to...

Changed: Sort order options are saved separately for each tab (and in between sessions, too)

Changed: In list of sessions to open, [Today]/[Yesterday] are placed in the date position, if the session was saved today/yesterday.

Added: Command <Separate this session> in the common menu

Added: Option <Skip temporary files> in Copy/Move operation, with a capability to adjust masks of skipping files.

Fixed: Better calculating items handled while showing prrogress in copy/ move operations.

Added: Estimated time left is showing while copy/move (though very approximate still objects can be added dynamically into queue to handle nested subdirectories)

Changed: Most operations getting information on disks which could freeze executing are moved to threads making the CC more resposible

Changed: A list of already selected applications is available to select in dialogs <Open with...> and <Select another> simplifying associating apps with extensions

Added: In About dialog, changes history can be shown (controlled by checkbox)

Fixed: Restore tabs closed after commands Close tabs left/ Close tabs right and restoring a closed tab Computer



(2021-1-7) , Version "0.28" by "Vladimir Kladov":

Added: Published 1st release
 

(C) by Vladimir Kladov, 2021-2023.