QuickZip 5.1 allow you to perform powerful archive operations over a wide range of archive types using a familiar explorer like interface. I have added the following improvements in Quick Zip 5.1.15.

Autoupdate will be enabled in the next few days.

Download link #1 (Quickzip.org)
Download link #2 (OverFiles – English)
Download link #2 (OverFiles – French)

QuickZip 5.1 allow you to perform powerful archive operations over a wide range of archive types using a familiar explorer like interface. I have added the following improvements in Quick Zip 5.1.14.

Bugfixes :

• Fix – [87] Context menu doesnt work in subentries under library.
• Fix – [88] Use right click to initialize drag and drop does not work.
• Fix – [89] Rename or add files in multiple layers of archive. (archive in archive)
• Fix – [90] Wrong command shown for archive inside archive (Extract to %outer archive%), Removed.
• Fix – [91] Crash when Cancel Bookmarks folder creations.
• Fix – [92] Display gitch when mouse over an item in breadcrumb.
• Fix – [93] Shell context menu can not be enabled in 64bit system.
• Fix – [94] Shell context menu does not invoke command if  template is not defined (edited).
• Fix – [95] Wrong files copied when copy physical directories with archive inside to another physical directories.

If your system have Microsoft .Net framework 4.0 (instead of 3.5 SP1) installed, a new client is loaded, with some small enhancements.

• Window Icon now update as directory changes.
• Asynchronous loading for directory tree and breadcrumb.
• When selecting multiple entries, the status bar now contains multiple icons stacks together (up to first 10 entries)
• When dragging  entries, a ghost image shown next to the mouse cursor.
• Directory in directory tree expand automatically when drag over.

Autoupdate will be enabled in the next few days.

Download link #1 (Quickzip.org)
Download link #2 (OverFiles – English)
Download link #2 (OverFiles – French)

QuickZip 5.1 allow you to perform powerful archive operations over a wide range of archive types using a familiar explorer like interface. I have added the following improvements in Quick Zip 5.1.13

• Settings – allow setting of a number of options, use auto-translate and specifying external applications for toolbar.
• Auto Translate – create translation script automatically using Google Translate.
• Metadata viewer – browse metadata of a file, EXIF for jpgs.
• Faster file list loading – uses EXIF’s thumbnail when loading  jpgs  in Icon, LargeIcon and ExtraLargeIcon view mode.
• Crash fix – [62] Cinch is not compiled property in previous version, resulting in startup crash for a number of users.
• Crash fix – [80] SHGetImageList out of memory fix.
• Fix – Codepage problem when adding files to zip.

Autoupdate will be enabled in the next few days.

Download link #1 (Netvigator.com)
Download link #2 (Quickzip.org)
Download link #3 (OverFiles – English)
Download link #3 (OverFiles – French)

QuickZip 5.1 allow you to perform powerful archive operations over a wide range of archive types using a familiar explorer like interface.

I have added the following improvements in Quick Zip 5.1.12

• Bookmarks –  A directory in directory tree that act as a shortcut to other directories.  You can add a directory to bookmarks using the star button on the breadcrumb bar, or drag it to the Bookmarks directory or it’s sub items.
• Small fixes – including auto-scroll, a simple password input dialog, directory tree dragging fix, startup directory change,  and progress dialog graphic gitch.
• Crash fixes – I have applied fixes to the reported crashes mentioned in this post.
• Translation – German translation updated to 5.1.11 (Frett), added French translation script which translated by Google Translate API.

Autoupdate will be enabled in the next few days.

Download link #1 (Netvigator.com)
Download link #2 (Quickzip.org)
Download link #3 (OverFiles – English)
Download link #3 (OverFiles – French)

Previous version is running fine, bug crash after autoupdated.

• Cinch related
  When implementing new shell extensions in 5.1.9, I signed Cinch.dll but forgot to update the version number, so the file is skipped when auto-update, and QuickZip 5.1.9+ complaints about that.
  Re-install should solve the issue, I have updated the version number in next version.

Crash when start (every time)

• Unsupported .Net framework version
  I received a number of crash reports from computers running .Net 3.0 and .Net 3.5 (without SP1), please upgrade because Quick Zip 5.1 requires .Net 3.5 SP1 or .Net 4.0.

Crash when start (sometimes)

• Crash when raising BreadcrumbItem event
  BreadcrumbItem sometimes raise Show/HideCaptionEvent, which triggers changes in the ControlTemplate, it wont trigger if the control is not loaded.  Unfortunately, when a control is loaded it’s not necessary to be rendered, so it crashes if the event is raised between loaded and rendered.
• Crash related to CAKE3
  CAKE3 have a routine to check if a filename is an archive (CakUtils.IsArchive()), based on the dll in the install directory, it create a list of supported archives on the fly when the class is initialized, this list is then saved to a cache. It works okay in qzLite3.  but in QuickZip5, as the routines is called several times from different threads at the same time, it start causing crashes.

Crash when running

• Crash related to Selecting items
  File list crash if selection changes when either Current directory is changing or the file list is not completely loaded.
• Crash when AutoUpdate
  QuickZip do check for new version every 2 weeks (if not turned off in about dialog , which can be accessed by pressing F1), it downloads a file from quickzip.org to identify if a new version is available, it crashes if the downloaded file is invalid (e.g. when I updating the file).
• Crash when running a Toolbar Open command
  Crash when select an unassociated file and press “Open”, although I expect it should show the “Open with dialog”, it returns an error, “There is no application associated with the specified file for this operation”.

I have applied fixes to most of the bugs above, hopefully these bugs will disappear in 5.1.12.
Thanks for sending the crash reports.

• Translator – An easy to use application that can edit translation script, script opened is automatically updated to the latest version.
• Search archive – When you type a file path in the breadcrumb text box, it will display directory / archive that match the file path as hint (thats how it works in the previous version); if not, it will use Window Search to lookup archives with similar filename and display them.
• More responsive file list – Previous version returns the file list when it’s completely loaded, although it wont jam the UI (it’s loaded on separated thread), you have to wait a couple seconds to load a large directory. This version returns an item in file list as soon as it’s created.
• BugTrap report additional crash information – I am unable to figure out some reported crash because InnerException, the actual location of the crash, is not included.
• Media Player update – I have increased the viewport size (viewport is an area that holds the visible items, if items is in the viewport, it’s created, otherwise it’s freed to reduce memory usage), so the player wont flicker as much when scroll normally.

I received a number of crash reports in 5.1.10, they can be classified into 3 categories:

1. Crash after selected a file and pressed Open.
2. Crash when starting. (in MainWindow Constructor)
3. Crash in one of the components (in BackgroundWorker)

Because bugtrap in 5.1.10 does not produce sufficient data, I am unable to figure out the cause of crash in 2 & 3.

Autoupdate will be enabled in the next few days.

Merry Xmas and Happy New Year!!

Download link #1 (Netvigator.com)
Download link #2 (Quickzip.org)
Download link #3 (OverFiles – English)
Download link #3 (OverFiles – French)

I have updated the component with the following changes:

• Namespace changed to QuickZip.MVVM from AsyncBackgroundWorkerTest.MVVM.
• More constructor included in AsyncBackgroundTaskManager
• Improved performance.
• CompleteAction return exception if thrown.

Download – AsyncBackgroundTaskManager2.zip (3.37kb)

AsyncBackgroundTaskManager and AsyncObservableCollection is a BackgroundTaskManager/ObservableCollection that support a list and run asynchronously.

Download – AsyncBackgroundWorkerTest.zip (49.8 kb)

Introduction

Cinch included a class named BackgroundTaskManager, which offload cpu hogging work from UI thread, and notify the UI when a work is completed.

BackgroundTaskManager uses BackgroundWorker to do the tricks, but it is easier to use:

BackgroundTaskManager<string> _bgWorker = new BackgroundTaskManager<string>(
  () => { return CPUHoggingWork(); }
  (result) => { Result = result; }
);

The advantage of using BackgroundTaskManager is that you can write all related code in one place, and you won’t mis-write UI updating code in non-UI thread (and vice versa).

BackgroundTaskManager works for me in most cases except when I wanted to use it to return a list of items, BackgroundTaskManager only allows return all items when the computation is completed, but I want it return item as soon as it’s constructed.  So the result is AsyncBackgroundTaskManager, a BackgroundTaskManager that support async tasks.

Although ObservableCollection have a constructor that takes IEnumerable<T>, it still blocks the thread when it’s loading, so after I completed the AsyncBackgroundTaskManager, I derived a new ObservableCollection class, named AsyncObservableCollection, which uses AsyncBackgroundTaskManager to populate it’s items in a separated thread.

How to use?

The constructor of AsyncBackgroundTaskManager takes a couple parameters :

• taskFunc (Func<IEnumerable<T>>)  or taskEnumerable (IEnumerable<T>) - Specify what to return here, you can use linq or a method that returns IEnumerable<T>.
• newItemAction (Action<T>) – Runs in UI Thread when a new item is prepared.
• removeItemAction (Action<T>) – Optional, Runs in UI Thread when an item should be removed.
• completeAction (Action<IList<T>>) – Runs in UI Thread when taskFunc is completed.

_bgWorker2 = new AsyncBackgroundTaskManager<StringModel>(DispatcherPriority.SystemIdle,
    from fi in new DirectoryInfo(_path).EnumerateFiles("*", SearchOption.AllDirectories)
        select new StringModel(fi.FullName),
    (model) => { InternalCollection.Add(model); },
    (model) => { InternalCollection.Remove(model); },
    (modelList) => { _aborted = (modelList == null); });
_bgWorker2.RunBackgroundTask();

The constructor of AsyncObservableCollection takes similar parameters, taskFunc and completeAction :

_internalCollection2 = new AsyncObservableCollection<StringModel>(
    from fi in new DirectoryInfo(_path).EnumerateFiles("*", SearchOption.AllDirectories)
    select new StringModel(fi.FullName),
    (modelList) => { Debug.WriteLine(modelList.Count.ToString() + " polled."); }
);
_internalCollection2.Load(false);

How it works?

There are only 158 lines in the AsyncBackgroundTaskManager class, so you wont find any magic there.

The code below appears many times.  It alerts the UI thread when the collection should be changed.

 _dispatcher.Invoke(_priority, new ThreadStart(() =>
            {
                //Do something
            }));

So compared with BackgroundTaskManager, instead of using BackgroundWorker, it creates a new Thread to invoke TaskFunc, then loop the IEnumerator for items.   Then for each item returned, it alerts the UI Thread using NewItemAction.

Further Improvements

Performance affected because it invoke the UI thread every times when a new item is returned, this can be avoided if I change the component so instead of pushing new item to UI thread, the UI thread create a DispatcherTimer to pull new items when it have time.

Reference

Cinch MVVM Framework V1

This article have been posted on CodeProject.  You can find a list of my articles here.

QuickZip 5.1 allow you to perform powerful archive operations over a wide range of archive types using a familiar explorer like interface.

I have added the following improvements in Quick Zip 5.1.10

• Previewer – Embedded document, image, audio and video viewer that can browse documents in the file system and archives.
• MediaPlayer – Standalone version of Previewer, it can be started by pressing “Browse Media” button in Toolbar.
• BugTrap – When the application crashes, user can choose whether to send me the debug information.
• Translation – German translation updated to 5.1.9 (Frett)

A detail list of changes can be found here :

• BugReport
• Improvements

Autoupdate will be enabled in the next few days.

Download link #1 (Netvigator.com)
Download link #2 (Quickzip.org)
Download link #3 (OverFiles – English)
Download link #3 (OverFiles – French)

DirectoryInfoEx includes a range of classes to support operations in  normal and shell directory (like Desktop and Libraries in Win7), yet provide similar interface as System.IO.DirectoryInfo.

I have updated DirectoryInfoEx to 0.22, with the following changes.

• ImageExtractor, which uses IExtractImage interface to extract thumbnail of supported files, return null if none extracted.
  e.g. ImageExtractor.GetIExtractImage(@”C:\xyz.doc”, new Size(120,120), hq);
• PreviewControl, it’s a WinForms version of Tamir Khason’s WPF Preview Handler, I did some modification so it can report if it support a specific file type, and added support for multiple instance.  The main class, PreviewHelper, is no longer coupled with the WPF/WinForms.
  e.g. Controls.Add(new PreviewControl(@”C:\xyz.doc”));

You can download the component here, or read the article in codeproject.