Factor Mystic

I’m pleased to announce the first stage of my roadmap to fully open Default Programs Editor with the release of Aero.Wizard and Aero.Controls.

What are Aero.Wizard and Aero.Controls?

Aero.Wizard is an WinForms implementation of an Aero Wizard Dialog. Aero.Controls is a package of a half dozen WinForms controls, intended for use with an Aero Wizard Dialog. These are some of the components I wrote for the creation of Default Programs Editor 2.0 with the revised user interface, and I’m now freely releasing them to the public.

Aero.Wizard:

Aero.Wizard Info Screenshot

Aero.Wizard Features:

• History/Navigation handled automatically
• Page contents are children of separate container controls, which can be created in design time like a regular Windows form
• Glass title area degrades gracefully when running a theme without glass, or on XP
• Blank Wizard Page template included
• Use with Aero.Controls pack to make Windows UX Guidelines compatible user interfaces

Aero.Controls:

Aero.Controls Info Screenshot

Aero.Controls Includes:

• Main Instructions Label
• Command Link button
• Instant Search Box
• UAC Shield Button
• Split Button
• Listview with Mixed State checkbox
• Aero Link Label

Both of these projects strive to adhere to the Windows User Experience Guidelines, freely available documentation from Microsoft which provided the basis for the DPE 2.0 restructuring.

Licensing

I debated for some time on this issue, trying to figure out a permissive license where I could retain some amount of ownership without being overbearing. I settled on BSD, which in my opinion is very permissive and seems to be low-friction for other developers to use this code in their projects.

Downloading

Both projects are hosted on Bitbucket (Mercurial) and you can either clone the repositories, or download the latest revision as a zip file. I encourage anyone to contribute bug fixes or report issues on each project’s public issue ticketing system.

Aero.Wizard on Bitbucket

Aero.Controls on Bitbucket

What’s next?

With the release of this code pack, my plan for fully releasing Default Programs Editor is underway. It is now possible to fully replicate the UI with this release. The next step is for me to continue refining and documenting the base file association library the project is built on, then release that as well as the UI logic for the program itself. Be looking for that in the next few months.

If you’ve ever clicked on some file in Windows and seen this dialog box, you know what I’m talking about:

The web service is completely useless, and most of the time you already know what program you want to use to open the file. Luckily, it is easy to disable this dialog box with Default Programs Editor (download). Simply launch the program, and click on the Options button:

Options button

Then, click the button that says

Disable 'Search web for unknown extension' Dialog Box

Disable 'Search web for unknown extension' Dialog Box

And that’s it!

Now, when you try to open a file with an unknown extension, Windows will skip the unknown extension dialog and display the “Open With…” window to choose a program.

Version 1.2

• Fixed a critical bug that caused an immediate crash on Vista x64.
• Added automatic online error reporting (can be disabled in Advanced Configuration).
• Added a friendly error dialog when the program crashes, replacing the generic .Net one.
• A couple of minor UI adjustments.

Default Programs Editor- Error Dialog

What information does the crash report have?
OS version, last executed method from a logging functions, and a stack trace. No personal identifying information. Each crash dump is saved to C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Local\factormystic.net\Default Programs Editor\<version>\ , which is also where the advanced.config file is saved.

64 bit

The x64 bug was quite odd. I was initially debugging on a vanialla rtm install, and the program worked fine. It wasn’t until I installed hotfix KB932471, an update for .Net 3.0, that it successfully crashed. I’m not sure exactly what changed in the framework to make it start crashing, but the bug was a relatively simple fix.

Download.

This is a walkthrough on how to change the “edit” context command for batch files from notepad to some other text editor

Start the program and make sure you’re on the “File Association” tab. On the left where it says “Search by Extension”, start typing “bat”. It searches as you type, so the .bat entry will come up right away. Select the pertinant entry on the list, and the middle and right panels will update with the file type details.

For this example, the right pane is what we need, because it has the list of context menu commands (“verbs” in Windows file association jargon). The one is the default double-click verb for this file type, but we’re changing the “Edit” entry, so click that. Note that the current action is to run notepad.exe, and pass the file you’ve clicked as the parameter (that’s what the “%1″ is). Click the “Edit…” button.

Here you can edit the verb text and command. In the example here, I clicked “Browse…”, which opens a standard Windows Open dialog, and searched for EditPlus. This should be fine if you have that particular editor installed, otherwise, choose your preferred text editor. The path to your editor will be put into the command text box. You’ll need to add “%1″ to the end, so that your editor knows what file you’ve chosen to edit. Then click “Save”.

Note that there is now a tree node for Edit. The child nodes for any verb are also Edit commands, but the highest precedence setting is the one that Windows uses in the context menu. Since our modification is the top node for Edit, it’s the one that Windows will use when you right click a .bat file. Done!

This is all the options I have to autoplay DVD’s-

MPC can play DVDs, so let’s make Windows use MPC to play a DVD when one is put into the computer. To start, open Default Programs Editor and switch to the “Autoplay Handlers” tab. Now, select the media type you want to change settings for, which in this case, is “DVD movie”.

The drop down list in the middle pane is just like the drop down list in the Windows autoplay settings. The checked list below it allows you to add or remove autoplay choices for this media type. However, Windows doesn’t know that MPC can play DVDs, so we’ll need to get it onto the list. Then, we can check it to make it an option for DVDs.

Click the “Add…” button.

Autoplay descriptions show up in the list as “Action Text” using “Provider Text”. For example, in “Play DVD movie using Windows Media Player”, “Play DVD movie” is the action and “Windows Media Player” is the provider. So for this, put some variant of “Play DVD” and “Media Player Classic”. You can also choose an icon for this entry. Windows comes with a ton of icons which work well for things like this; I selected one that says “DVD” on it. Finally, put in the full path to Media Player Classic. You can do this with the “Browse…” button. Before you save, make sure to add “%1″ to the end of the command string. Just like in the other examples, this is so Media Player Classic knows what to do when Windows starts it.

Note that “Save” has a shield icon on it. This indicates that a UAC prompt will pop up when you click it. Go ahead and do so, and confirm the security warning. The program is now in Administrator mode, with our new autoplay handler highlighted. Check it do add this as a possible autoplay handler for DVDs. Now, it will show up on the drop down list of options. Selec it and hit “Save” to confirm.

Media Player Classic is now added to the DVD autoplay choices, and is the currently selected action. Done!