FileAlyzer Lite 1.0.1 - technology preview

[PepiMK]

Download FileAlyzer Lite 1.0.1

FileAlyzer Lite is our attempt to get a smaller butr immediately appearing preview of file contents available - it doesn't show all the details FileAlyzer itself does, but it's right there integrated into Windows Explorers file property sheets, loading only though when you open one of its tabs. Giving the quick glimpse at file details before deciding if you want to open it in the full version FileAlyzer thing.

Oh, and next to the loading time, there's another advantage that might be quite helpful sometimes: many of its tabs allow comparison of files if you open the Explorer property window with more than just one file selected (see for example the first and third screenshot below).

FileAlyzer Lite currently uses some of the display features of Windows XP and above (e.g. the listview headers you see in the screenshots above) - if the display on older Windows versions is not really optimal, please be patient, we'll be working on that.

Another currently still kind of minor problem: it runs only on 32 bit Explorer; that means if you've got the 64 bit version of Windows installed, you can use these only from the 32 bit Explorer (or, like me, from alternative file managers like Total Commander, which are also 32 bit). 64 bit compatibility might be worth looking at as soon as I've played around with the FreePascal 64 bit compiler.

Oh, and it's called "technology preview" since I wanted some feedback on where you want this to go and whether you find it useful or not before going too public

[PepiMK]

Export and import tables:


Multiple section tables (and alternative section table view):


Archive content:


Syntax highlighted text preview and audio properties:

[ckit-]

Long Pathways with spaces bug!

[ckit-]

You need a Preview tab for pictures, EXIF and IPTC tabs in this new Lite version.

[PepiMK]

Spaces: hmmm since the hashes display, it's probably a problem only when clicking the button to open the full version? Thanks a lot, found and fixed!

Pictures: support for more than just bmp/wmf would blow up the file. Will have to check how much.

EXIF/IPTC: sure! The reason why I didn't integrate the same EXIF information as in FileAlyzer is that the code I used there is not really displaying all details. I think I have to write an EXIF reader myself (in FileAlyzer, I use a free library for that), and that needs time.
New EXIF reader
Show IPTC information

[Rosenfeld]

zip files: Archive tab is there but blank. Does it only show the contents with .rar files?

[PepiMK]

The supported archives types should be .zip, .rar, .cab, .chm, .nsis (installer exe).
Can add more if you name some that would be of interest (edit: justed added .tar and .arj).

The whole archive support is self-written though (initially for Spybot-S&D), might be it's missing some special cases (though I actually wrote it because I didn't want to make the mistake of about half of all AV manufacturers who did not recognize zip files when using some padding bytes at a special place).

Is this a zip file you created yourself? Using which software? Do you have a sample with harmless content you could lend to me so I could update the zip recognition?

[Rosenfeld]

I have now found out a little more. The zips I was trying it out on contained just one file: Archive tab was blank.
I then created zips with 2, 3, 4, n, etc. files: Archives tab shows (n-1) files. The first file is always missing.
I'm using Winzip 11.1. Tried both Legacy and optimal compression.
I have tried compressed .pdf, .txt. .xls files, all with the same result.

The attached test 2.zip contains 6 small files (to keep the file size small). The second zip, filealite test.zip contains a screen shot of the Archives page when opening the properties of test2.zip, together with test2.zip open to show its contents (I've zipped the png file because previously when attaching a png file it displayed too small to read: this zip file archive page is blank as it contains only 1 file.)

[Rosenfeld]

For .wav files, I also don't get what you show. Only 1 Hashes tab, which does not display the info your screenshot for saknade.wav shows:

[PepiMK]

Ah thanks, can reproduce it with this file and will look into it!

Regarding "only one hashes tab", I've renamed one of them to "FileAlyzer" after making that screenshot - two tabs with Hashes needed because the main FileAlyzer one allows copy'n'paste of hashes and opening big FileAlyzer, the other one allows to compare hashes. So that's just a rename operation between versions.

What's more critical is the way hashes are displayed for you - you don't see which entry is which hash.
The reason for that is that the view that is visible on most screenshots - bold headings with that blue line underneath it - is available only with a quite new Shell Controls library, which ships with XP and Vista only. Not sure if older versions can be updated with that new DLL (these are explicitely described as non-redistributable by Microsoft, so there won't be an official source to download this new shell controls version, and I have no idea whether they would work at all).
I did add an option to instead add a middle column with the hash name - doesn't look as fine, but helps recognizing which is which. This is a problem that might happen with some more tabs, but I didn't want to give up the modern view on XP and above, since wherever it is available, it brings more overview without using additional resources.