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Altap Salamander 2.5 - Development History
For information about latest Altap Salamander 2.5 please visit this page.
Altap Salamander 2.52 beta 2 was released on August 21, 2009:
- Altap Salamander core changes:
- New Password Manager with option to protect your passwords with Master Password. If you
are concerned about unauthorized use of your computer (by malware or person), use the Master
Password to store your passwords encrypted using AES-256 algorithm. In such case you will
have to enter the Master Password once each Altap Salamander session need to access your
saved passwords. Right now only FTP Client is using Password Manager, but we will also
update the WinSCP plugin.
- Windows XP and Vista: changed Numerical sorting option to be compatible with
Windows Explorer when file name extensions are displayed.
- Compare Directories: comparing of files by Content is up to 7x faster for files
on the same disk (even on different partitions).
- Altap Salamander 2.52 is now backward compatible with plugins for versions 2.5
and 2.51.
- Horizontal mouse wheel events detected on Windows XP and 2000. Microsoft Intellipoint
drivers must be installed.
- Old hack removed: the dot in the beginning of the file name means the extension
separator now. For example file ".txt" has the text file icon. Directories has no
extension, the part behind the dot is just another part of the directory name.
- Better error handling while reading icons from network drives prevents
Salamander from infinite panel refreshing caused by unreadable icon.
- Fixed calculation of extension column (optional) width when Show names
option was switched to In upper case.
- Better low memory handling, Abort/Retry/Ignore message box is displayed.
It is possible to click the Ignore button to pass NULL into application.
- Fixed problem with accessing admin shares on computers with underscore
in the name as "\\comp_a\c$".
- Improved external archivers calling. Packing or Unpacking using external archiver
no longer block another instances of Salamander.
- Fixed drag and drop with no key modifier (Shift or Ctrl). When dragging from plugin
file system to Windows Explorer window (to disk where the TEMP directory is placed), the
Move operation was performed instead of Copy.
- Fixed drag and drop from Find window to Windows Explorer under Windows Vista.
Moved items stayed in the Find window.
- Improved files association reading in Windows Vista. Now reading also Registry
keys UserChoice and OpenWithProgids.
- Reverted recent change in order of items used in context menu operations.
See forum.
- Better horizontal scrolling in panels: the panel under cursor is scrolled instead
of active panel.
- Fixed progress bar painting. The font was not initialized properly.
- Windows Vista: cancelling of the UAC elevation prompt caused lost of active
panel focus.
- Main thread priority is lowered while calling context menu methods so shell
extensions doesn't run on higher priority.
- Fixed support for ClearType in the Directory and Information bar.
- Improved algorithm for choosing colors in Directory Line.
- Fixed detecting of total memory for the Bug Report.
- Altap Salamander SDK: new CSalamanderCryptAbstract interface (AES
and SHA1 algorithm), new CSalamanderPNGAbstract for PNG reading from memory or PE
resources. New CSalamanderZLIBAbstract (ZLIB library).
- New DiskMap plugin:
- Disk space analyzer that graphically shows disk space usage as set of nested rectangles.
- You can easily identify which files and folders take up the most space.
- Scan whole disk or user-specified directory branch.
- Display context menu for selected file with option to focus file in Salamander panel.
- Created by Ondrej Zarevucky, for screenshot see Altap Salamander forum.
- New UnCHM plugin:
- Extractor of Microsoft Compiled HTML Help archives (files with .CHM extension).
- Use the Unpack command (Alt+F6) to extract .CHM archives until we will support Ctrl+PgDn to open non-associated archive in panel.
- Several plugins patched:
- All plugins now accepting the Always on Top option from Altap Salamander main window.
- Horizontal scrolling supported using Shift+Mouse Wheel or mouse wheel tilt.
- File Comparator plugin:
- New option "Auto-Copy Selection to Clipboard".
- It is possible to drag and drop file names into edit boxes in the Compare Files dialog box.
- Added support (by default ON) for converting Unicode text to Normalized
Form C (i.e. composite characters converted to precomposed ones if such exist).
Normaliz.dll, if present, is used for this.
Normaliz.dll is part of Windows Vista, MSIE7, Windows Media Player 11
or just free download idndlpackage.exe.
- Better UTF16 detection.
- Fixed GPF when files become equal after re-compare with changed options.
- Wrong bigEndian endianness was sometimes still used when comparing as UTF8
after UTF16BE or UTF32BE was used.
- Fixed GPF (or random behavior) in the "Show Only Differences" mode
when the only difference is in EOL at EOF of one of the files.
- Attempt to correctly select & display selected combining diacritics on XP+.
(W2K - don't seem to support combining diacritics.)
A better approach for full support even when not selecting is needed,
probably removal of dependence on fixed-width font should made at the same time.
- User defined encoding has higher priority than BOM, UTF16, and UTF8 detection.
- The File Comparator window has the same size and position od Salamander's main window,
including the maximized state.
- FTP plugin:
- New Password Manager used to store passwords in Windows Registry. Option to use Master Password and strong AES-256 encryption.
- Support for TLS FTP (also known as FTPS or FTPES with AUTH TLS). Needs libraries libssl32.dll and libeay32.dll from OpenSSL.org.
There are two new options in Connect to FTP Server > Advanced: "Encrypt control connection with TLS/SSL" and
"Encrypt data connections (file transfers and directory listings) with TLS/SSL".
- Support for ZLIB compression (MODE Z). New option in Configuration > Defaults and Connect to FTP Server > Advanced:
"Compress data transfers if server supports compression (MODE Z)"
- Ctrl+Right Click on edit line with password (Connect or Proxy dialog box) would reveal the password.
- Listing cache and cache of viewed file are deleted when you close all FTP connections to the server.
- 7-ZIP plugin:
- Updated to 7z 4.65 of 02/03/2009
- Better encrypted archives handling.
- Improved error handling while extracting or testing corrupted archives.
- TAR plugin:
- Added support for Debian packages .DEB
- GZIP: files longer than 4GB before compression complained about premature EOF.
- GZIP: if original file name contains ':', it is replaced with '_'.
- Encrypt & Decrypt plugin:
- Fixed random deadlock while closing window Create a Key.
- Eroiica plugin:
- Added support for Microsoft Print System Documents *.XPS
(actually a ZIP file w/ a bunch of XML, JPG thumbnails and PNG rasters).
- Added new items in the File menu: Focus, Select/Unselect, Delete.
- Added new toolbar item: Select/Unselect.
- Fixed memory leak on every ZIP-based document (OpenOffice, MS Office 2k7, XPS).
- Thumbnail extraction from ZIP-based document was too much memory-hungry.
- WinSCP plugin:
- Renamer plugin:
- Configuration: command can contain variables as $(SalDir) or environment variables for better Salamander portability.
- Added stripping of diacritics
- Registry Editor plugin:
- Configuration: command can contain variables as $(SalDir) or environment variables for better Salamander portability.
- UnISO plugin:
- Added support for Apple Hierachical File System Plus (HFS+):
Hybrid UDF/HFS+, ISO/HFS+, ISO/UDF/HFS+ CD/DVD images,
Apple disk image with HFS+ partition,
Apple disk image with HFS partition with HFS+ partition wrapped inside, and
Single HFS+ partition image.
- Better "normalization" of names (removed trailing spaces, etc.)
- Symbolic links marked as links to have overlay icons.
- Supported ADC compression.
- DMG: Extract only HFS/HFS+ partition to avoid dealing with EFI File System.
- DMG: Better detection of uncompressed DMG, was misinterpreted as non-DMG disk image
- DMG: HFS+: Pure HFS partition with wrapped HFS+ properly detected.
- DMG: AES128-encrypted and BZIP2-compressed DMG files properly detected and rejected.
- Embedded BootDisk images no longer have .img suffix but .ima, because our UnFAT
plugin uses .ima and not .img (which is associated to UnISO).
- Fixed detection of Joliet extension
- PictView plugin:
- Digital camera raw images now also get auto-rotated in the viewer
(the change affects at least some DNG, CR2, NEF and ORF files).
- Network plugin:
- New options in plugin configuration: "Show administrative shares", "Show items from My Network Places at top
level directory", "Show network computers at top level directory", "Scan network on start of Salamander".
- Fixed network computers enumeration, all computers are visible.
- DB Viewer plugin:
- New menu File > Other Files.
- Added UTF8 and UTF16 parsers.
- Improved heuristics for detecting separator in CSV.
- Multimedia Viewer plugin:
- Fixed crash on W9X on UTF16 mp3 tags.
- Fixed some mem leaks on UTF8 and UTF16 mp3 tags.
- MP3, OGG: better support for UTF8 (MP3, OGG) and UTF16 (MP3).
- UnMIME plugin:
- Fixed extraction of filenames from .MHT created by MSIE7 or Win7 problem report creation tool.
Altap Salamander 2.52 beta 1 was released on January 29, 2009:
- Altap Salamander core changes:
- Panel contents are refreshed even if Salamander's window is not active.
- You can store user name and password when connecting to network share (only on Windows XP and Vista).
- Smarter method for choosing color of hot text in the Directory line. Hot text should be better visible on Windows Vista.
- When more items are selected in the panel and context menu is opened, the focused item is passed on the first position.
- Windows Vista: correct icons are displayed (Drive bar, simple icons, archive icon, folder icons, Find window, etc.)
- Updated and corrected terms: My Documents -> Documents, My Computer -> Computer, Network Neighborhood -> Network,
Plugins bar -> Plugin bar, Drives bar -> Drive bar, Hot Paths bar -> Hot Path bar.
- Better handling of "out of memory" states. The message box is displayed, asking user
to free memory and press the Retry button or terminate Altap Salamander.
- Better handling of error states while copying encrypted (EFS) files and directories.
Copying without encryption is now offered instead of simple error and operation termination.
- When files and directories with encrypted attribute (EFS) or with alternate data stream (ADS)
are copied to disk that doesn't support EFS or ADS, user is informed about stripping of encrypted
attribute or ADS.
- Faster and more robust method for files overwriting (ADS are cleaned using opening files
with CREATE_ALWAYS flag eventually using ADS enumeration instead of deleting destination
file). Now we can overwrite files in directories where files deleting is denied.
- The error message "Directory is not empty" could be displayed while deleting directory
with subdirectory opened in another panel, another instance of Altap Salamander, or in
Windows Explorer. Now we are trying to delete such directory multiple times before the
error message is displayed so opened handles to subdirectories could be closed and directory
is deleted without error.
- The queue of Copy/Move operations contained also other operations (such as change
of attributes) so "Wait until all other Copy/Move operations are finished" option
was not working when e.g. Change Attributes operation was paused.
- Tortoise SVN: notifications about icon-overlay changes are monitored (shell notification
SHCNE_UPDATEITEM) and panels are updated accordingly. Works also in inactive Salamander.
- On Windows XP (unlike other Windows) the name ie5_5.txt is sorted before ie5_.txt by
Windows Explorer. Salamander is doing the same now.
- Opening/running files from panel was changed to be compatible with Windows Explorer.
Context menu is obtained with CMF_DEFAULTONLY flag and default item is used.
- Change Drive menu: for substed network drive the substed path is displayed.
- Context menu: IContextMenu3::HandleMenuMsg2() is now supported, so hot keys
are working in owner draw menu (used for example by Tortoise SVN 1.5.x shell
extension).
- Directory line: Throbber (known from web browsers) displayed next to the current
directory means background reading of panel content. For now used by new Network
plugin, see below in the plugins section.
- When panels split bar is dragged, panels are resized "on the fly". Old behavior
is activated when Windows option "Show window contents while dragging" is disabled
(for example in Remote Desktop client).
- Drive bar: file system plugins are included (FTP, WinSCP, Network, etc).
- Drive bar: icons of shared drives are displayed with shared overlays now.
- You can resize Salamander's main window without flickering on Windows Vista now.
- Windows colors profile change is better propagated to running Salamander's windows.
Rebar control and toolbar colors are changed now.
- System font changes are now handled properly by Salamander.
- Fixed bug in Remote Desktop connecting to Windows XP. When larger files were copied
to the clipboard on the remote machine, local Salamander could freeze for long time
(until file was transfered from remote to local machine).
- New command line parameters: -A (set path in active panel), -O (same behavior as
with "Allow only one instance of Salamander at one time" with option turned on),
-P (set active panel).
- Command line parameters -O, -I, and -T will not change corresponding options in
Altap Salamander configuration.
- Shift+F4: "Select whole name" option is ignored now, whole text is always selected.
- Improved support for Fast User Switching, Terminal Services (Remote Desktop), and running
Salamander under different user using RunAs command.
- Improved support for mouse wheel: horizontal scrolling by mouse wheel tilting is supported
in panels and viewers. Officially supported from Windows Vista (WM_MOUSEHWHEEL message).
- New mouse wheel shortcuts: Shift+MouseWheel for horizontal scroll of panel,
Ctrl+MouseWheel: change thumbnail size (Thumbnails mode must be selected in the panel),
Alt+MouseWheel: change current view mode of panel (Brief, Detailed, etc).
- First patches for Windows 7 (beta build 7000).
- Improved Help > Task List command, the process list is refreshed automatically.
Selected item is not lost during refresh.
- Fixed problem on Windows Vista where sometimes wrong window was activated when progress
window of operation (Copy, Move, Delete, etc.) is active and operation finishes (its window
is closed).
- Another 50 minor bug fixes and improvements.
- Network plugin:
- New plugin for browsing network (network neighborhood) directly in panel.
- Reading network is not blocking panel, so user is not forced to wait for the result.
You will appreciate it especially when some error occurs (e.g. server was shutdown)
and system timeout is annoyingly long.
- Plugin remembers all visited paths, so if you visit them again, they are
displayed in panel instantly (while reading current state of network on background).
- While reading network, throbber (animation) is displayed in the Directory line.
- Altap Salamander can open UNC paths in \\server form now, try using Change
Directory (Shift+F7) command. It is also possible to change path from root of UNC
path (e.g. \\server\c) to list of server's shares (e.g. \\server).
- 7-Zip plugin:
- Plugin updated to 7-Zip version 4.62.
- Improved speed.
- Added support for 7z archives compressed with the BZIP2 method.
- Added ARM/PPC/SPARC/X86/IA64 codecs into 7za.dll.
- Added support for 7-Zip archives with encrypted file names.
- Fixed Test Archive command.
- File Comparator plugin:
- Support for comparing Unicode files.
- Option to divide panels horizontally.
- Autodetection of SBCS is used only when "Encoding of text files" is "Automatic"
or "ASCII-8, automatic input conversion".
- In HEX/binary mode is possible to selected text and copy it into the Clipboard.
- ZIP plugin:
- Support for compression of file with size over 4GB.
- Support for compression into ZIP files with size over 4GB.
- Support for creating of multivolume archives with volume size over 4GB.
- Support for comments (displaying and editing) on ZIP archives with size over 4GB or ZIP archives
containing files over 4GB.
- WinZIP 12.0 was not able to open our encrypted archives compressed with level 1, 2, 8, and 9.
- Added encryption methods AES128 a AES256 for compression.
- PictView plugin:
- Added autorotation when viewing EXIF JPEGs (it makes viewing of portrait photos easier).
- Support for capturing of non-rectangular windows.
- The Shift-Select tool can select any rectangle with predefined aspect-ratio, not only square.
- Added support of progressive RGB JPEGs with 1:1:1 subsampling.
- Added reading of TIFFs with proprietary RLE compression of HMR.
- Added detection of nonsense pseudo-thumbnails in EXIF JPEGs.
- Transparency preserved when saving GIF as 32-bit PNG,RAS,TGA.
- Updated Olympus EXIF makernote support.
- "CMYK" or "LAB" shown in window title instead of 16777216 colors for CMYK/LAB images.
- Added support for BLP textures used by Blizzard Entertainment in World of Warcraft.
- Shift-mouse wheel scrolls horizontally.
- Extended support for GPS tags and added support for Epson makernotes in EXIF JPEG's.
- Support for horizontal scrolling when mouse wheel is tilted (new WM_MOUSEHWHEEL known from Windows Vista).
- Added Tools Configuration dialog page.
- "Pipette picks colors in hexadecimal" moved from Advanced to Tools Configuration.
- Fixed crashes on scanning.
- Eroiica Viewer plugin:
- Various minor fixes when reading CGM drawings and XLS sheets created in OpenOffice.
- Added support for JBIG2 compression in PDF documents.
- Shift-mouse wheel scrolls horizontally.
- Support for horizontal scrolling when mouse wheel is tilted (new WM_MOUSEHWHEEL known from Windows Vista).
- UnISO plugin:
- Fixed operations on files with size over 2GB.
- Fixed reading of NRG images, including AudioCD.
- Support for reading od track and album names from AudioCD images.
- Fixed reading of MDF files with sub-channel data.
- Improved reading of UDF images.
- Support for UDF 2.50 and 2.60 (Extended File Entries and Metadata Partition).
- Support for UDF Virtual Partitions.
- Support for multi-session UDF 2.50 and 2.60.
- WinSCP plugin:
- Checksum plugin:
- The Calculate command was moved to background so Altap Salamander windows is not blocked anymore.
- Support for SHA1 and SHA256 hashes.
- Added plugin configuration where you can choose calculated hashes.
- Database Viewer plugin:
- It is possible to change size of the Fields window.
- Shift-mouse wheel scrolls horizontally.
- Support for horizontal scrolling when mouse wheel is tilted (new WM_MOUSEHWHEEL known from Windows Vista).
- UnMIME plugin:
- Added support for Content-Location: needed by web-archives.
- Name from file Content-Disposition & Content-Location is not lost if Content-Type is presented.
- TAR plugin:
- Fixed extracting of gzipped archives: if original file name contains Unix path
(e.g. /var/mailman/archives/private/grass5/2005-July.txt), only the real
file name part is taken. The file would be unextractable otherwise.
- UnFAT plugin:
- Fixed reading of volume labels.
- Renamer plugin:
- Ctrl+A (select all) shortcut is supported, even on older Windows.
- Multimedia Viewer plugin:
- Fixed reading of Bitrate and Frequency for mpeg 2 and 2.5.
Altap Salamander 2.51 was released on March 19, 2008:
- Altap Salamander core changes:
- Support for upgrading and repairing existing versions of Altap Salamander or Servant Salamander. It is possible to install Altap Salamander 2.51
to Altap Salamander 2.5 (or 2.0) directory. Previous version will be uninstalled, old configuration and registration keys will be imported into new version.
- Installer: when registration keys (KEYS25.ZIP or KEYS.ZIP) are found beside the Salamander installer, they could be imported during installation.
- Improved handling of paths with symbolic links (Windows Vista) and substs.
- Windows Vista: walking through the legacy directories (now junction points) as C:\Documents and Settings.
- Better confirmation text when deleting single reparse point: "deleting junction point"
(or volume mount point or symbolic link) instead of "deleting file" (or directory).
- Windows Vista: deleting of symbolic links is possible now.
- Better handling of corrupted configuration: emphasized "Delete Configuration" button and new option to
exit application and keep corrupted configuration untouched. Also WaitToKillAppTimeout and AutoEndTasks
Registry values are checked when corrupted configuration is found.
- Upgrade Code (for purchasing additional licenses) is displayed in Help > About Altap Salamander 2.51.
- Compare Directories: unreadable and inaccessible directories (for example due to insufficient permissions)
are selected as different now.
- Option to turn on/off icon overlay handlers, see Options > Configuration > Icon Overlays.
- Fixed problem with Offline Files icon overlay (it unintentionally turned on "available offline" for
directories which parent directory was "available offline").
- Commands Pack (Alt+F5) and Edit New File (Shift+F4) takes into account
"Select whole name including extension when entering new file name" option,
introduced for Quick Rename (F2) command.
- Support for hiding keyboard accelerators in menus and dialog boxes. To show accelerators press the Alt key.
- Optimized memory utilization of sorting algorithms.
- Improved exception handling (to better catch exceptions from faulty shell extensions)
- Fixed several minor bugs and problems.
- Support for v2.5 plugins: plugins for Altap Salamander 2.5 work without any modifications
in Altap Salamander 2.51.
- PictView plugin:
- Thumbnails from Alternative Data Streams on NTFS disks on Win2K (created by Explorer) are no longer upside down
- Added Czech translation of libexif
- Fixed corruption of some makernotes when updating thumbnails in EXIF JPEG's
- Extended support for Pentax & Olympus and added support for Casio, Fuji & Sanyo makernotes in EXIF JPEG's
- Fixed scrolling and panning of images higher or wider than 65535 pixels (originally or after zoom)
- Added support for Windows XP tags in EXIF JPEG's
- Added Alpha-blending of interleaved 32bit PiNGs
- Added reading of BMP files with DXT1 and DXT3 compressions for DirectX Textures
- Added reading of progressive CMYK and YCCK JPEG files with subsampling 1:1:1:1
- Fixed reading of non-rectangular DDS files
- Fixed wrong precision when reading some progressive JPEG files
- Fixed crash on writing SKA files.
- Flipped zoom-in & -out on Ctrl-Wheel, for reasons of consistency with MS & Adobe SW
- Eroiica Viewer plugin:
- Registered OpenOffice suffix *.ODP
- Landscape PostScript documents no longer loaded as Portrait
- All formats: Support for rotated rasters
- Drastic speed up of reading PDF documents with shadings or clippings (20 times faster is not uncommon)
- Numerous fixes and improvements in reading PDF and HP RTL documents
- Added reading of mline objects and hatched ellipses in DWG drawings
- Registered CAD Keycreator *.CKD files, standard CompoundFiles with bitmap thumbnail
- Registered OpenXML documents (MS Office 2007) *.DOCX,*.PPTX,*.XLSX files, ZIP-ed bunch of XML files & a JPEG or WMF thumbnail
- Fixed spurious crashes when reading several ESRI shapefiles simultaneously (the ESRI input module is thread-safe now)
- Fliped zoom-in & -out on Ctrl-Wheel, for reasons of consistency with MS & Adobe SW
- Altap Self-Extractor:
- Windows Vista manifest with "requires administrative privileges" option can be optionally included.
- 7-Zip plugin:
- Upgraded to 7-zip version 4.51.
- WinSCP plugin:
- Support for language versions: language-dependent resources are separated.
- Encrypt plugin:
- Better handling of "no disk free space" situation while cleaning disk free space on NTFS partition.
- Undelete plugin:
- Fixed unhandled exception when "reading volume snapshot" was cancelled by user during latest stage.
- Fixed problem introduced with "file damage estimations". In some rare cases we reached out of 'bitmap' range
- UnRAR plugin:
- Better handling of encrypted volumes, the All button is default in the Password dialog box now.
- Renamer plugin:
- The Skip All and Overwrite All buttons works in overwrite confirmations now.
- PEViewer plugin:
- Fixed buffer overflow vulnerability.
- UnLHA plugin:
- Fixed problem when there was not enough space on target path.
- UnISO plugin:
- Better buffering while reading ISO image.
Altap Salamander 2.5 was released on April 27, 2007:
- Altap Salamander core changes:
- New option Options > Configuration > General > Select whole name in Quick Rename.
- Ctrl+A works in Command Line and edit fields.
- Fixed (RC3) problem with wrong GUI font.
- Fixed (RC3) problem with blinking icons.
- Fixed (RC3) instability caused by overlay icons support (Tortoise SVN/CVS).
- First version of Altap Salamander 2.5 SDK for plugins developers.
- All Altap Salamander 2.5 changes.
Altap Salamander 2.5 RC3 was released on April 13, 2007:
- ALTAP News:
- Help system is finished and available online.
- We have changed name from Servant Salamander to Altap Salamander to make
it easier to remember and pronounce. Upgrade from Servant Salamander 2.0
to Altap Salamander 2.5 will be free of charge.
- Final version of Altap Salamander 2.5 will be released during April 2007.
- As soon as language translation support will be finished, we will release
updated version 2.5 with language packs.
- Altap Salamander core:
- Initial support for Windows Vista. You can install, uninstall, and run
Altap Salamander, import registration keys. Please report us all Vista
related problems on discussion forum.
- Support for Icons Overlays (Tortoise SVN and Tortoise CVS).
- Transfer speed and time estimation is displayed in Copy/Move progress windows.
- Transfer speed can be limited for Copy and Move operations.
- Running operations can be queued using new option
"Wait Until All Other Copy/Move Operations are Finished".
- Salamander icon color (and main window title) can be changed using new
configuration page Main Window or from command line.
- Quick Rename: only name part (without extension) is selected.
- We fixed almost 25 bugs and made another 10 improvements in the
Altap Salamander core.
- PictView plugin:
- Added alpha-blending of 32-bit Photoshop PSD files
- Added alpha-blending of non-interleaved 64-bit PiNG files
- Fixed reading of PiNGs with 16 bits per channel
- Fixed reading of bottom-left Canon Raw CR2 images
- Added reading of RGB and CMYK TIFFs with 2 extra channels
- Proper distinguishing of alpha-channel of 32-bit TIFFs from spot channels
- Partial elimination of the "small vertical shifts" problem on partial
repaint of zoomed images. It should now work in most common cases, often
on the expense of CPU time.
- Fixed interpretation of APEX values in EXIF JPEG marker
- Pipette & statusbar now take RGB values and eventually also palette index
directly from image data, no longer from HDC
- Added support of Olympus Digital Camera ORF files
- Added support of 24bit JPEG data inside Nikon & Adobe Digital Camera Raw
formats NEF and DNG, if present
- Eroiica Viewer plugin:
- PostScript & PDF: Important stability fixes
- PostScript & PDF: extended support & speed optimizations of rasters & fonts
- DWG: Added support of hatches in R13/R14 files
- HP-GL: Added suppport for custom line dash styles
- HP-GL, HP-RTL: Rasters: fixed sizing & positionig & in some cases also R<->B swap
- All formats: fixed polypolygon fill & outline styles
- Office formats: improved support for Far East languages
- RTF: added support for embedded DDB rasters
- Added support for OpenOffice: PNG thumbnails, if present, are now extracted
and shown by both the viewer & thumbnailer
- Undelete plugin:
- File health estimation (Good/Fair/Poor/Lost).
Servant Salamander 2.5 RC2 was released on October 27, 2006:
- ALTAP News:
- Help system is nearly finished and included in this RC2 version. It is
approximately 600 KB of plain text, we hope it will be helpful for you.
The last two chapters that remain to do: FTP Client and Internal Viewer.
- We will change the name of Servant Salamander to Altap Salamander in the
final version to make it easier to remember and pronounce. Upgrade from
Servant Salamander 2.0 to Altap Salamander 2.5 will be free of charge.
- As soon as language translation support will be finished, we will release
the RC3 version with language packs and soon final version 2.5.
- Do you have a digital camera and want support for RAW images in PictView
plugin? Please look at our discussion forum how can you help us:
http://forum.altap.cz/viewtopic.php?t=1449.
- Servant Salamander core:
- Salamander behavior during system shutdown/log off/restart was completely
reworked. The problematic confirmation message box introduced in RC1 was
removed and system waits for us.
- Shell extension salshext.dll is not placed to TEMP directory anymore.
Home directory of Salamander is used instead.
- Internal Viewer: Space/Backspace for Next/Previous file (same as in PictView plugin).
- Better reparse points support: when you delete reparse point (junction point
or mount point) only link is deleted, the target directory remains untouched.
- Panel context menu (right-click unused space in panel): Paste Shortcut and
shell extension commands (Tortoise CVS/SVN) are now displayed.
- New User Menu variables: FileOrDirToCompareLeft & FileOrDirToCompareRight,
FileOrDirToCompareActive & FileOrDirToCompareInactive, ListOfSelectedFullNames.
- Splash Screen can be turned off: Options > Appearance > Show splash screen
at startup.
- Drive Bar content is synchronized during Refresh and Open Change Drive commands.
- Easier Quick Search on German keyboards: you can use < key (and / and \) to match
any string of characters.
- PictView plugin:
- Upgrade of Canon & Nikon makernotes support in EXIF JPEGs
- Added support for Sony, Canon, Adobe Digital Negative, Pentax Digital, Camera images ARW, CR2, DNG, and PEF
- Extended reading ANI, DCX, DDS, PCX, PSD, and TIFF images
- Fixed thumbnail extraction from JPEGs
- Eroiica Viewer plugin:
- Added Open command to File menu and toolbar
- Added Pan & Zoom tools
- Major fix of PFltPDFs.dll crashes on systems with over 1000 TTF fonts
- Fixed reading of multipage PS files (1st page was read repeatedly)
- Added support for Apple Mac charsets in RTF & MS Word documents
- Minor fixes in reading MS Word, MS Excel, CGM, HP-RTL, and PDF files
- FTP Client plugin:
- new option in context menu and plugin's menu: List Hidden Files and Directories
(uses "LIST -a" for listing hidden files and directories on Unix FTP servers)
Servant Salamander 2.5 RC1 was released on April 27, 2006:
- ALTAP News:
- We are releasing Servant Salamander Release Candidate 1 with prolonged
expiration limit, so we will not bother you with another installation
procedure until the final version will arrive.
- Servant Salamander 2.5 RC1 looks pretty stable now. Further development is
freezed, only major problems will be fixed.
- We are working on language translation support, help system, and documentation.
You may notice that each plugin has own .SLG file with language dependent resources.
Help system is working, each plugin has own help which is merged with main Servant
Salamander help (not included in RC1). Now we have to write documentation
for each plugin.
- As soon as these tasks will be finished, we will release the RC2 version
with language packs. We hope you will help us polish all language translations.
- For Servant Salamander version 3.0 there will be feature-poll opened on
our web site. Please keep posting your ideas to Official Support Forum
available at http://forum.altap.cz/.
- Servant Salamander core:
- You can unplug USB disk (using Unplug or Eject Hardware window) while disk
is opened in Servant Salamander panel.
- Thumbnails size can be adjusted at Options > Configuration > Appearance page.
- Safer Servant Salamander configuration: there is a new confirmation message
that should discourage users from shutting down computer while Servant Salamander
is running. It should prevent the known problem with configurations lost and
help until we will add support for text based configuration.
- Long awaited User Menu update: active/inactive panel could be addressed.
List of selected names could be passed to executed application.
Newly available parameters: FullPathInactive, FullPathLeft, FullPathRight,
FileToCompareLeft, FileToCompareRight, DirToCompareLeft, DirToCompareRight,
FileToCompareActive, FileToCompareInactive, DirToCompareActive,
DirToCompareInactive, ListOfSelectedNames.
- Panel in Detailed mode: new "Smart Column Mode" for Name column (default on).
This mode should minimize horizontal scrollbar usage. You can turn it off using
Options > Configuration > Views or by right clicking the Name column.
- Panel in Detailed mode: widths of fixed columns and "Automatic Column Width"
settings are now separated for left and right panel.
- Compare Directories: Size and Date+Time options are separated.
- Custom plugins columns (for example size, date, time in FTP Client) now works
correctly in Compare Directories, Make File List, Tiles mode.
- Disk operations: long file names can be skipped (Skip, Skip All).
- Better support for long directories/files names. You can View, Edit,
Quick Rename, Copy to shorter paths.
- Message boxes: Using Ctrl+C hotkey you can copy message box content to the
Clipboard (as text).
- Horizontal scrollbar position is not reset by panel refresh.
- Mouse wheel is supported in shortened menus.
- New menu item: Left(Right) > Sort By > Sort Options.
- Panel in Detailed mode: new highlight mode. Try to turn on
"Configuration > Appearance > Highlight focused row" option.
- Small step to Servant Salamander portability: User Menu, Viewers,
Editors, External Archivers has a new path variables
$(SalDir), $(WinDir), $(SysDir). You can use "..":
"$(SalDir)..\viewer\viewer.exe".
- Window menu: Always On Top is moved above Close command.
- Plugins, language translation support: language dependent resources
are moved to separate .SLG files.
- FTP Client plugin:
- Context menu on files/directories displayed in panel.
- Download/upload: new button "Overwrite All" in "Target File Already Exists" dialog box.
- Support for IBM iSeries/i5, AS/400
- PictView plugin:
- Added saving to G4-compressed Intergraph Raster Format, known as .CIT.
- Fixed saving 32bit TGA files (entire image was marked as transparent).
- Thumbnails correctly mirrored & rotated for TIFF, CALS & Intergraph formats.
- Added reading of PNG-in-ICO for Windows Vista.
- Added reading of thumbnails from CorelDraw! 13.0 *.CDR files.
- Reading/saving comments for Intergraph format.
- Information (F3) dialog box displays bit depth for TrueColor TIFF, PiNG, and PSD.
- Alpha-channel support for ICO,PNG,TGA,TIF.
- Eroiica Viewer plugin:
- Better support for encrypted PDF files.
- Important fixes in reading PDF and (Encapsulated) PostScript files.
- Added reading of 15bit rasters inside Macintosh PICT files.
- Minor fixes in reading MS Word & Excel files.
- UnISO plugin:
- Support for bridged ISO/UDF images
- Roxio Creator Classic 7.1 *.c2d supported
- Undelete plugin:
- Support for recovering files from disk images.
- Support for disk volumes mounted to directory (Window 2000 and later).
- Please try "Plugins > Undelete > Recover Deleted Files And Directories"
on your disks (all FAT and NTFS partitions are supported) and let us
know if you have troubles to open your volumes.
- We are licensing standalone Undelete Library to software developers. Please visit
http://www.altap.cz/salam_en/comp_undelete.html
for detailed information.
Servant Salamander 2.5 beta 11 was released on January 27, 2006:
- ALTAP News:
- The winner of Servant Salamander Logo Contest
is Greek artist Manolis Gerasidis.
This Servant Salamander version comes with his new icon, splash screen, and
about box. We believe you will get accustomed to them quickly.
- The Official Support Forum is finally online.
Please use these forums for your questions, suggestions, bug reports, or
comments. We do our best to reply in one working day. We will refine
the Frequently Asked Questions from this forum.
- For system administrators: Windows Installer package (MSI) will be
part of Servant Salamander distribution. We had technical issues in
previous beta version but this time MSI support will be finished
and we will contact you (if you sent us email).
- We had several technical problems with our web server and workstations
during last weeks. All is running well now, and we will focus on final
version 2.5 finishing. The last major task is support for language translations.
- Servant Salamander core:
- Special icon overlay for Offline files (files with FILE_ATTRIBUTE_OFFLINE attribute).
- Internal Viewer: Find command speed was improved (on files opened from network path).
- Options > Configuration > Drives: old "Removable media" splitted to "Floppy drives"
and "Other removable drives (USB flash drives, ZIP and JAZ drives)".
- Bottom bar: improved readability.
- Another 20 bug fixes and 10 improvements.
- FTP Client plugin:
- Support for proxy servers HTTP 1.1, SOCKS 4, 4A, 5.
- Support for TANDEM mainframe.
- The "connection has been lost" warning can be suppressed.
- The panel is refreshed immediately after operation is finished.
- PictView plugin:
- Success of Saving can be reported on status bar only and not always by MessageBox
- Added support of Hemera Photo Images *.HPI
- Thumbnailer processes alpha-channel of 32bit PiNGs & ICOns
- Eroiica Viewer plugin:
- Major upgrades of reading CGM and East-Asian RTF
- Major fixes in reading PDF
- Various fixes in reading HPGL, HP-RTL, HP-PCL, Gerber, MS Word
- Major fix in synchronization between WrokerThread and viewer threads
- Fixed saving as BMP and Placeable WMF
- Window title may contain file name only or with path
- 7-Zip plugin:
- UnISO plugin:
- Support for ISO images larger than 4GB (double-layer)
- Minor bugfixes
- TAR plugin:
Servant Salamander 2.5 beta 10 was released on September 27, 2005:
- ALTAP News:
- FTP Client is finished and ALTAP Translator will be released soon.
Final version 2.5 will be available in English, Czech, and German language.
We will do our best to release final version 2.5 this year.
- ALTAP web server was reinstalled from scratch, we are preparing a discussion
board for better support of Servant Salamander community.
- Servant Salamander Logo Contest
will be closed in two weeks. Please don't hesitate and send us your artwork!
- For system administrators: Windows Installer package (MSI) will be
part of Servant Salamander distribution. Unattended deployment
should be easy now. If you want to test beta version of MSI package,
please let us know.
- FTP Client plugin:
- Support for FTP proxy servers (to-do: HTTP 1.1, SOCKS 4, 4A, 5).
- New Resume and Overwrite buttons in Solve Error dialog boxes.
- Implemented Skip and Pause buttons in operation dialog box.
- Support for '@' character in username.
- Support for German IBM AIX servers.
- Updated parsers: Microsoft IIS (Windows NT), VMS.
- WinSCP plugin:
- Upgraded to WinSCP 3.7.6.
- When file overwrite operation fails, there is option "delete and create".
- New Synchronize option: "Selected files only".
- Directory dependent file masks, for example '*/public_html/*.html'.
- Please visit this winscp.net page for all changes.
- 7-Zip plugin:
- UnISO plugin:
- Support for Alcohol MDF/MDS archives.
Servant Salamander 2.5 beta 9 was released on June 29, 2005:
- New features:
- Preparations for language translations (Servant Salamander and all plugins).
- DOS Navigator color scheme is available at Options > Configuration > Colors.
- Minor bug fixes.
- FTP Client plugin:
- Upload to FTP servers was implemented.
- Please test browsing of your favourite FTP servers in panel and Delete, Change
Attributes, View files, Copy to FTP server (upload), Copy from FTP server (download),
Create Directory, and Quick Rename (F2 key) commands.
- Unfinished options and buttons are disabled, all other should work well.
- Enjoy this plugin and let us know if you encounter anything strange
or not working.
- PictView plugin:
- Print command.
- Progress bar on Save.
- Save can be canceled with Escape.
- Minor bug fixes.
- Eroiica Viewer plugin:
- Fixed GPF: No file open, Ctrl-Left/PgUp/Right/PgDn.
- Fixed nonsense page# in TB: no file open, hit I (inverse bground).
- Added File-Other Files-Prev/Next/Last/First/PrevSel/NextSel, also (Shift/Ctrl)-(Back)Space.
- Window title is now " - Eroiica Viewer" when a clipboard paste is being viewed.
- File-Reload disabled when viewing a clipboard image.
- XLS: Partial support of merged cells.
- Most PFltXXX.dll's: using MSVRT.dll instead of statically linked RTL.
- Major upgrade of IGES filter.
- Minor fixes & impromevements in CGM, HPGL, PDF, XLS filters.
- Extraction of PDF thumbnails from embedded XMP data.
- WinSCP plugin:
- Upgraded to WinSCP 3.7.5.
- Plugin utilises online help of WinSCP application (Help button is present on most of dialogs).
- Authentication banner, if any, is shown during authentication.
- File size can be optionally used as comparison criterion for synchronization.
- Please visit this winscp.net page for all changes.
Servant Salamander 2.5 beta 8a was released on March 31, 2005:
- Fixed bugs:
- Copy/Move/Quick Rename: operation masks inspired by Windows "copy"
command were abandoned because e.g. mask "*(2).*" for name "file.txt"
produced "file.txt(2)" instead of expected "file(2).txt". We returned
to original operation masks and enriched them with handling of masks
with more dots (e.g. "*.*.old" for adding ".old" to the end of name).
- Eroiica Viewer: Fixed crash on almost every PDF.
Servant Salamander 2.5 beta 8 was released on March 25, 2005:
- New features:
- Options for Copy and Move operations:
- Preserve Archive, Compressed, and Encrypted attributes.
- Preserve owners and permissions (not inherited) on NTFS drives.
- Preserve dates and times of directories.
- Reparse points (Volume mount points, Junction points) icons are displayed
with shortcut overlay.
- Operation masks are compatible with Windows 2000 shell: "a.b" + "*.*.c" = "a.b.c".
- Save/Load Selection command: selection can be saved/loaded using
Windows Clipboard instead of internal buffer. This feature can be
used for exporting selected names to Clipboard or to select names
stored in Clipboard.
- Make File List command: archives and file systems can be listed.
- Make File List: you can export list to Windows Clipboard,
Internal Text Viewer, or to the file.
- Make File List: new variables File Name Part and File Extension Part.
- Painting and scrolling speed was optimized in internal text viewer.
- Compare Directories: new option Compare attributes of subdirectories.
- Copy/Move operations with "Overwrite older and skip other" options was
optimized and is four times quicker.
- Servant Salamander can be started even after expiration.
- FTP Client plugin:
- This version of FTP plugin is only preview version. It means that it is incomplete,
we are still working on it.
- Create Directory command was implemented.
- Quick Rename command (F2 key) was implemented.
- Link overlay for icons of links on UNIX servers.
- Better support for UNIX ftp server. It handles also German date-format on HP-UNIX now.
- The most important missing feature is Copy to FTP server (also called upload).
We are working on it now, we will publish new version as soon as we finish it.
- Plugin supports active and passive transfer modes. Proxies and SSL sockets will be
supported in future.
- Please test browsing of your favourite FTP servers in panel and Delete, Change
Attributes, View files, Copy from FTP server (also called download), Create Directory,
and Quick Rename (F2 key) commands.
- Unfinished options and buttons are disabled, all other should work well.
- Enjoy this preview version and let us know if you encounter anything strange
or not working (except missing features described here). Thanks!
- WinSCP plugin:
- Upgraded to WinSCP 3.7.4.
- Progress of each background transfer is shown in separate window.
- Support for IPv6.
- SFTP protocol optimalisation (up to 500%).
- Support for UNC paths.
- PictView plugin:
- New Copy To command.
- Support of FUJI digital camera RAW format *.RAF.
- Support of MJPEG QuickTime *.MOV format (used by Nikon... for "videos"), only 1st frame extracted.
- Fixed crash on saving 4-bit GIFs.
- Added saving 32bit PiNGs.
- Added saving transparent color to paletted PiNGs and GIFs.
- Fixed wrong colors and rashes on reading Adobe Photoshop PSD format.
- Fixed support of corrupted EXIF User comment tag.
- Eroiica Viewer plugin:
- Support of thumbnails embedded to PDF files.
- Major upgrade of CGM filter.
- Numerous fixes in PDF, Word, HPGL, WMF, EMF.
- Undelete plugin:
- Support for restoring (deleted) encrypted files on NTFS drives.
Servant Salamander 2.5 beta 7 was released on November 26, 2004:
- New features:
- Options for Copy and Move operations:
- Queuing option: Wait until all other Copy/Move operations are finished.
- Overwrite older and skip other existing files without asking.
- Only files: prevent creating of empty directories.
- Filter by file names using wildcard.
- Filter by file date, time, size, or attributes.
- Configurable hot keys for plugins commands. Look at Plugins Manager window.
- Option to display Size column in Kilo Bytes, or in short format (KB, MB, GB, etc.)
- Configuration page Keyboard with comprehensive list of keyboard shortcuts.
- Large icons are finally supported in Icons, Tiles, and Thumbnails panel mode.
- Find: new Ignore Directory List to skip directories such as "System Volume Information".
Look at Options menu at Find window.
- Internal text viewer, Servant Salamander panels and toolbars: optimalization of drawing speed.
- Disconnect window: displayed drives are alphabetically sorted.
- Compare Directories: directories are not selected if the Compare subdirectories option is cleared.
- FTP Client plugin:
- This version of FTP plugin is only preview version. It means that it is incomplete,
we are still working on it.
- View command was implemented. Downloaded files are cached for subsequent viewing.
- Support for VxWorks ftp server (VxWorks is a real-time operating system used for example
in the Mars Exploration Rovers Spirit and Opportunity).
- Support for OS/2 ftp server.
- Better support for MVS ftp server.
- Better support for UNIX ftp server.
- Smarter error handling in progress window.
- Better and more accurate progress and time estimation.
- The most important missing features are Copy to FTP server (also called
upload), Create Directory, and Quick Rename (F2 key).
- Plugin supports active and passive transfer modes. Proxies and SSL sockets will be
supported in future.
- Please test browsing of your favourite FTP servers in panel and Delete, Change
Attributes, View files, and Copy from FTP server (also called download) operations.
- Unfinished options and buttons are disabled, all other should work well.
- Enjoy this preview version and let us know if you encounter anything strange
or not working (except missing features described here). Thanks!
- PictView plugin:
- Status bar.
- Crop command.
- Support of Nikon and Canon digital camera raw formats *.NEF and *.CRW.
- Command Select/Unselect opened file in Servant Salamander panel or find.
- Better selection with Space and Shift modifiers (like Adobe Photoshop has).
- Eroiica Viewer plugin:
- Support of images in Excel 97/2000/XP/2003 documents.
- Support of Far East Excel documents.
- Support of SolidWorks files *.SLDASM, *.SLDDRW, *.SLDPRT.
- Support of Microsoft Visio Drawings *.VSD.
- Support of encrypted PDF documents.
- Major fixes and optimization of reading PDF documents.
- WinSCP plugin:
- Upgraded to WinSCP 3.7.1.
- Duplicate files command.
- SSH core upgraded to PuTTY 0.56.
- Added support for UTF-8 encoded filenames for SFTP protocol version 4 and newer.
- Multimedia Viewer plugin:
- Support for WMA, WAV, and OGG.
- Copying to Clipboard is supported.
- Export file information to the HTML.
- Keyboard navigation.
- 7-Zip plugin:
- New packing options: compression level and method, dictionary size, solid archive.
- Many bug fixes.
- Look at www.7zip.org for more information about 7-Zip.
- Undelete plugin:
- Undelete command is available at Plugins menu.
- Many bug fixes.
- This version cannot recover encrypted (NTFS based) files.
- Renamer plugin:
- Unchanged names are grayed in the real-time preview.
Servant Salamander 2.5 beta 6 was released on August 31, 2004:
- New features:
- Disconnect (F12) dialog box was improved: you can disconnect from file systems
such as WinSCP or FTP.
- In the configuration you can suppress confirmation 'The directory doesn't exist. Do you want to create it?'.
This confirmation appears when you create multiple directories together (aaa\bbb\ccc).
- Pack (Alt+F5) command was improved: if target archive already exists, you can overwrite it.
- When the left or right panel is Zoomed (Zoom Ctrl+F11 command), you can use the
TAB key to switch between panels.
- Directory Line: you can single click last part of current path to choose the
Change Directory command.
- Compare Directories: you can compare against file systems such as WinSCP or FTP.
When comparing by contents, estimated total progress is displayed.
- New view mode: 'Tiles' with 48x48 icons. Only simple icons are displayed in this version
of Servant Salamander.
- We fixed almost 20 reported bugs and made about 15 small improvements in the Servant Salamander core.
- New FTP Client plugin:
- This version of FTP plugin is only preview version. It means that it is incomplete,
we are still working on it.
- The most important missing features are View (F3 key), Copy to FTP server (also called
upload), and Quick Rename (F2 key).
- Plugin supports active and passive transfer modes. Proxies and SSL sockets will be
supported in future.
- Please test browsing of your favourite FTP servers in panel and Delete, Change
Attributes, and Copy from FTP server (also called download) operations.
- Unfinished options and buttons are disabled, all other should work well.
- Enjoy this preview version and let us know if you encounter anything strange
or not working (except missing features described here). Thanks!
- New 7-Zip plugin:
- Support for packing and unpacking 7-Zip (*.7z) archives.
- 7z format supports LZMA compression with very good compression ratio.
- Look at www.7zip.org for more information about 7-Zip.
- New Undelete plugin:
- You can recover deleted files from NTFS, and FAT 12, 16, 32 partitions.
- Support for recovering compressed (NTFS based) files.
- This version cannot recover encrypted (NTFS based) files.
- Eroiica Viewer plugin:
- DXF, DWG: Better support of fonts
- MS Word: Complex formatting fixed
- WMF, EMF: Background of texts
- PDF, PS: Various improvements
- Faster response in thumbnail-mode
- HPGL: clipping & rotation fixed
- PictView plugin:
- Improved EXIF support & thumbnail-extraction
- Format & compression options on saving
- Histogram
- Saving as CCITT G4 TIFF
- Faster and better display
Servant Salamander 2.5 beta 5a was released on May 31, 2004:
We released this fixed version for beta testers who had problems with
main window activation in the 2.5 beta 5 version. Please let us know
if you find any main window activation related problem in the 2.5 beta 5a.
- Fixed bugs:
- Main window stayed inactive after Copy/Move/Delete operations. This problem
occurs only in conjunction with other installed software.
- Drive Bar: inserted separators caused incorrect active disk indication.
- Type column in the panel: contained random text for directories.
- Windows Registry plugin: icons background color doesn't match the panel color.
- UnISO plugin: some directory and file names were truncated by one character.
- New features:
- List of Working Directories can be saved to the configuration. Look at History configuration page.
- List of Working Directories: startup paths are always added to the history, even if no operation is performed.
- Compare Directories: options are saved to the configuration.
- Look below to learn more about Servant Salamander 2.5 beta 5.
Servant Salamander 2.5 beta 5 was released on May 28, 2004:
- New features:
- Sort directories by extension is back. Look at Panels configuration page.
- File handles are temporarily closed when Copy/Move error message is displayed,
so you can work with these files.
- Junction Points are handled properly now.
- You can choose the directory that will be opened when the current panel path
is inaccessible. Look at Drives configuration page.
- You can use Ctrl+Backspace for deleting whole words in edit lines.
Use Cltr+Left/Right to skip whole words. Not supported on Windows 9x.
- New options for the Change Drive Menu. Look at Change Drive Menu configuration page.
You can set visibility for your drives and separate groups of drives by separator.
- New confirmation for Find: "Do you want to stop searching?"
Look at Confirmations configuration page.
- Better initial dialog box for importing old Servant Salamander configuration.
You can import your old registration keys now.
- We are preparing two new plugins: UNDELETE will be able to recover your deleted files.
NTFS and FAT 12, 16, and 32 will be supported. Screenshot:
[1].
With FOLDERS plugin you will be able to browse your Desktop, My Computer, Control Panels,
etc. Screenshots: [1],
[2].
Both plugins will be free of charge.
- We fixed almost 25 reported bugs and made about 20 small improvements in the Servant Salamander core.
- Eroiica Viewer plugin:
- Major changes in reading *.DWG from ACAD 9-12.
- Partial support of images in Excel files *.XLS.
- Support of a new type of images in Word files *.DOC.
- Major fixes in reading Portable Document Format and PostScript files *.PDF and *.PS.
- Fixes of reading Ruplan *.RIS, AutoCAD *.DXF, Metafile *.EMF and *.WMF, HPGL and HP-RTL,
AutoTrol *.DG, Computer Graphics Metafile *.CGM.
- PictView plugin:
- Added support of CorelDraw! 12.0 *.CDR.
- Added support of DirectX textures *.DDS and *.DTX.
- Added partial support (thumbnails only) of Paint Shop Pro 8 *.PSP* images.
- Added support of a new type of CMYK JPEG.
- Fixed playback of Animated GIFs.
- Support of Nikon maker note in EXIF JPEGs.
- Refreshing and creating JPEG thumbnails. Look at menu item Plugins / PictView / Refresh Thumbnail.
- Fixed rotating and saving tiled images.
- Fixed reading of 2-bit Amiga IFF/ILBM images.
- Fixed reading of interlaced PNG files.
- Improved reading manufacturer-specific tags in EXIF.
Library was updated to latest EXIF Tag Parsing Library.
- UnISO plugin:
- Support for El Torito extension (bootable CD): you can extract all boot images from ISO image.
- Improved stability.
- WinSCP plugin:
- Upgraded to WinSCP 3.6.1.
- Background transfer queue.
- Moving remote files to different remote directory.
- Context menu for files.
Servant Salamander 2.5 beta 4 was released on February 27, 2004:
- New features:
- You can hide plugins displayed in the Change Drive menu (Alt+F1/2).
Look at menu Plugins > Plugins Manager.
- Improved support for USB removable drives, unplugging is not blocked.
- Better handling of disk changes when using removable media. Automatic Retry on CD, DVD, ZIP disk insertion.
- You can suppress confirmation for Email command.
- Better Directory Merge confirmation: ask for subdirectories merge too.
- New confirmation: Do you want to add files into existing archive?
- Essentially optimized speed of short operations. Moving one directory on the same drive
takes 100ms instead of 700ms in version 2.5 beta 3.
- We fixed almost 80 reported bugs and made about 30 small improvements in the Servant Salamander core.
- New UnFAT plugin:
- Open FAT image files, browse directories, view and extract contained files.
- Supports standard FAT 12, 16, and 32 partitions including VFAT (Long File Names).
- New Checksum plugin:
- Commands Verify Checksum and Calculate Checksum were separated from the Split & Combine plugin.
- ALTAP Self-Extractor:
- Option for automatic creation of target directory.
- Custom WWW link in bottom-right corner of self-extractor dialog box.
- Custom vendor name in bottom-left corner of self-extractor dialog box.
- Database Viewer plugin:
- Mouse wheel is supported.
- DiskCopy plugin:
- Write image smaller then disk capacity is now possible.
- Improved stability.
- Encrypt plugin:
- Eroiica Viewer plugin:
- Supported images in MS Word documents.
- Fixed reading of PDF, DXF, HP-RTL, WMF, EMF, XLS, and RTF format.
- New command: Full screen.
- FileComp plugin:
- Focused difference remained focused after recompare (doesn't change to first).
- Improved stability.
- PictView plugin:
- New format supported: MNG Multiple Network Graphics.
- Improved reading manufacturer-specific tags in EXIF. Library was updated to latest EXIF Tag Parsing Library.
- UnISO plugin:
- Support for UDF (Universal Disk Format) Revisions 1.02, 1.50, 2.0, and 2.01 including
VAT (Virtual Allocation Table) and Sparing partitions. UDF is a file
system defined by OSTA.
- Support for multisession IMG (Clone CD) images.
- Improved stability.
- Windows Registry plugin:
- You can use Alt+F7 to open Find dialog box.
- WinSCP plugin:
- Upgraded to WinSCP 3.5.
- Full local and remote directory synchronization.
- SSH core upgraded to PuTTY 0.54.
- Operation masks supported.
- Improved stability.
- ZIP plugin:
- Improved extraction of 'weird' zip files.
- Improved stability.
Servant Salamander 2.5 beta 3 was released on November 30, 2003:
- New features:
- Support for Alternate Data Streams (ADS) on NTFS partitions (supported from NT 4).
Alternate Data Streams are copied and moved together with the owner files
and directories.
- Create Directory command was improved: you can create multiple nested
directories at the same time. Simply separate individual directory names
with the backslash (e.q. newdir\suddir).
- New sort option: Use numerical sort for numbers contained in strings.
When you check this option, Servant Salamander will sort names like Explorer
in Windows XP.
- New Sort By Time option: you can put newer items on top.
- New confirmation: Directories merge. Appears if the copied or moved
directory already exists in destination path.
- New confirmation: Do you want to close Servant Salamander?
- Plugins Manager was improved: you can change plugin order in which they are
displayed in menu and Plugins bar.
- New Plugins bar to access plugins commands using mouse.
- New command in Plugins menu: Last Command (Ctrl+I). You can quickly
execute previous command from Plugins menu.
- When Environment Variables are changed, Servant Salamander will reload them
automatically.
- Quick search mode on national keyboards: you can use either slash character (/)
or backslash character (\) to match any string of characters. Just type
t/.doc to focus names matching t*.doc* or type /.htm to
focus names matching *.htm*.
- Zoom command was improved: last panel width is restored when you return from
Zoom mode.
- CD-ROM, CD-RW, DVD-ROM, DVD-RW, and removable drives: label is detected
from Windows instead of showing predefined "Compact Disc" etc.
- Plugins interface of Servant Salamander was updated: calling conventions
and types of return values were changed to be compatible with plugins
written in Borland Builder, Borland Delphi, GNU C, Watcom C, etc.
- Sort by Attributes is supported (Left/Sort By/Attributes command).
- New Encrypt plugin:
- Creates compressed and encrypted archives (*.ENA, format specification is available).
- Browse and extract encrypted archives.
- Password or key based encryption, used as a base for the encryption key
(alghoritm designed by Peter Gutmann).
- Strong encryption algorithms: AES (Rijndael), Blowfish, and TripleDES in either ECB or CBC mode.
- Password hash algorithms: SHA-1, SHA-2, and HAVAL.
- Encryption key lengths from 128 up to 448 bits.
- Strong random number generator.
- Secure shredding of temporary files used during View or Execute operations.
Main Shredder features:
- Unrecoverable shredding of selected files and directories.
- Shredding of free space on disk.
- Supported shredding methods: Peter Gutmann's method, DOD 5220.22-M (US Department of
Defense shredding method), and Random overwrite algorithm.
- Supports shredding on NTFS, FAT32, FAT16, and FAT12 partition.
- Shred Cluster Tips and ADS (Alternate Data Streams) on NTFS partitions.
- New WinSCP plugin:
- This plugin is provided by Martin Prikryl. WinSCP plugin is based on
well-known open source project WinSCP.
- WinSCP is a SFTP and SCP client for Windows using SSH. Its main function is secure
copying of files between a local and a remote computer. Beyond this basic function,
WinSCP manages some other actions with files (e.g. changing attributes, deleting,
and viewing).
- WinSCP supports two secure transfer protocols: SFTP (SSH File Transfer Protocol)
and SCP (Secure Copy Protocol). SSH version 1 and 2 are supported.
- Please send your questions, suggestions, comments, and bug reports to
winscp@prikryl.cz.
- New UnISO plugin:
- Open CD image files, browse all sessions and directories, view and
extract contained files. Show CD image properties in UnISO Viewer.
- Supports standard CD-ROM formats including ISO 9660 (Level 1, 2, 3),
Level 2 Long (Names up to 212 characters), Joliet, Romeo, Rock Ridge,
Hybrid HFS-ISO, Apple Extensions.
- UnISO supports CD image files, such as BIN (CDRWin), BWI (BlindRead/BlindWrite),
C2D (WinOnCD), CDI (DiscJuggler), CIF (Easy CD Creator), IMG (Clone CD),
ISO (Generic ISO image), NCD (NTI CD-Maker), NRG (Nero Burning ROM),
PDI (Instant CD/DVD Image).
- New Eroiica Viewer plugin:
- This plugin is provided by Parallax69
Software International.
- Supported formats:
- BLA RIS - Ruplan ASCII Format
- CGM - Computer Graphics Metafile
- DG - AutoTrol
- DGN RDL - MicroStation Native Drawing Format
- DOC DOT - Microsoft Word 6.0/95/97/2000/2002
- DRW - Micrografx Version 1 and 2
- DSI - Cimage
- DWF - Autodesk Drawing Web Format
- DWG - Autodesk AutoCAD Format
- DXF - Autodesk Drawing Interchange Format
- EMF - Enhanced Metafile
- GBR GBX GRB - Gerber Native Drawing Format
- HPGL - Hewlett-Packard Graphics Language
- IGS IGES - Initial Graphics Exchange Specification
- PCT PICT - Macintosh PICT
- PDF - Adobe Portable Document Format
- PLT RTL - HP-RTL
- PRT - CadKey Native Drawing Format
- PS - PostScript
- RTF - Rich Text Format
- SAT - ACIS text format
- SHP SHX - ESRI Shapefile Format
- WMF - Aldus Placeable Metafile
- WMF - Windows Metafile
- WPD WP WPF - WordPerfect 5.x and 6.x
- WRI - Microsoft Write
- XLS XLT - Microsoft Excel 5.0/95/97/2000/2002
- Please send your questions, suggestions, comments, and bug reports to
support@parallax69software.com.
- New Windows Mobile plugin:
- Access Pocket PC, Pocket PC Phone Edition, Smartphone, and Windows CE devices from
Servant Salamander. Explore your mobile device's directories, view files, copy, move,
delete, rename files and directories, or change their attributes.
- Microsoft's ActiveSync software must be installed on the desktop computer to
connect plugin with your mobile device.
- Developed by Juraj Rojko.
- Please send your questions, suggestions, comments, and bug reports to
wmplugin@rojko.cz.
- New Multimedia Viewer plugin:
- Replacement for old MP3 Viewer plugin. Parsers are licensed from
powerful tool for media cataloguing: Disk Explorer Professional.
- Displays information about multimedia files:
- MP3, MP2 - MPEG 1 or MPEG 2 audio files, layer I, II, and III
Displays MP3 ID3 Tag version 1 and 2
- VQF, 669, IT, MOD, MTM, S3M, STM, XM - Tracker Modules
- Its modular architecture ensures that plugin can support new data formats
as they become available.
- PictView plugin:
- New commands: Focus, Rename, and Delete.
- Show EXIF information about image file, such as shutter
speed, aperture, focal length, etc. Use the File/Show Exif command.
- New supported image firmats:
- 2BP - Pocket PC/Windows CE bitmap
- CLK - Corel R.A.V.E.
- ZNO - Digital Journal
- UnMIME, UnRAR, and ZIP plugin: fixed crash when reading archive.
- Split/Combine plugin: command Calculate CRC/MD5 creates listing
including subdirectories.
Servant Salamander 2.5 beta 2 was released on August 29, 2003:
- New features:
- Operations Copy, Move, Delete, and others can be Paused and Resumed.
- Full support for Drag and Drop is finished. You can use drag and drop
to unpack from archives, pack to archive opened in panel or simply drop
files on the archive file. You can drag and drop between or inside Registry
Editor plugin panels.
- Unpacking from archives using clipboard Copy and Paste commands is
supported now.
- My Documents directory is accessible from Change Drive menu (Alt+F1/2).
You can hide this item in the Options/Configuration/Appearance.
- Encrypted File System (EFS) on NTFS version 5 is supported. It provides
cryptographic protection of individual files on NTFS volumes using
a public-key system. You can encrypt, decrypt, and find encrypted files now.
- Mounted drives are supported under Windows 2000 and later.
Free space is correctly detected now.
- Drive Information dialog box (Ctrl+F1) displays new flags of NTFS v.5 volumes:
named streams, Encrypted File System (EFS), object identifiers,
reparse points, sparse files, and disk quotas. Substed drives are identified.
- Improved Quick Search mode. Just type t/.doc to focus names
matching t*.doc* or type /.htm to focus names matching
*.htm*. Slash character (/) matches any string of characters.
Use Up, Down, Home, End, PageUp, and PageDown keys to navigate over matching names.
- Hot Paths Bar provides another way to access Hot Paths.
- New option in the Internal Viewer: Auto-Copy Selection to Clipboard.
Select required text and it will be automatically copied to the clipboard without
pressing Ctrl+C.
- Better Copy performance, destination drive is less fragmented.
- During Quick Search mode you can select using Shift+Up/Down/Home/End.
- Change Directory dialog box accepts platform-independent paths.
You can enter C:\WINDOWS as well as C:/CYGWIN/ETC.
- You can enter to the archive using Ctrl+PageDown.
- Quick menus navigation, press PageUp or PageDown key to navigate between
separators divided sections.
- Hot keys are dynamically assigned in the menus with history and plugin lists.
- Improved bug reporting system.
- New Disk Copy plugin:
- You can copy or replicate floppy disks,
- create a disk image (snapshot) from floppy disk,
- write disk image to floppy disk with verification.
- PictView plugin:
- Support for animated GIFs and cursors.
- You can select part of viewed image and copy it to the clipboard.
- ZIP plugin:
- Unpack and decrypt 128- and 256-bit key AES-encrypted files (Rijndael cryptographic algorithm, Advanced Encryption Standard).
- Unpack Deflate64 method (enhanced deflate compression method, provides greater compression and reduces the size of your Zip files).
- Unpack large archives (Zip64) with size over 4GB.
- Create archive to size 4GB.
- Split/Combine plugin:
- Creates SFV (CRC32 checksums) and MD5 (Message Digest number 5) files.
- Support for verifying integrity of files by using the SFV or MD5.
- Compatible with popular md5sum utility.
- Fixed bugs:
- "Unexpected value type" message during Servant Salamander start.
- Options > Configuration > Views > Available Columns doesn't appear.
- Problem with entering back-slash character on some national keyboards.
- Couple of minor bugs.
- Servant Salamander 2.5 beta 2 is available for download.
Servant Salamander 2.5 beta 1 was released on May 31, 2003:
- Key features:
- Operations Copy, Move, Delete, and others are running at background, the
main window is not blocked.
- You can view thumbnails (reduced pictures, etc.) in panel.
- Compare Directories can compare content of files and works with subdirectories
- PictView plugin supports Full Screen mode, can open next/previous picture,
can save picture to GIF, JPG, and other formats, has support for scanners.
- File Comparator plugin for text/binary files compare (2 files are side by side).
- Find contains Refine (search in files that were found previously), Append (add
to found files), Find Duplicate Files, and has more powerful Advanced options.
- Registry Editor plugin for browsing of Windows Registry in panel.
- Split/Combine plugin for splitting and combining of files.
- FTP Search plugin for files searching on public FTP servers.
- Database Viewer plugin for DBF and CSV (Comma Separated Values) files.
- TAR plugin now supports: TAR, TGZ, TAZ, TBZ, GZ, BZ, BZ2, Z, RPM, and CPIO.
- viewing and searching in files with size over 4 GB.
- UnMIME plugin supports MIME, UUEncode, XXEncode, and BinHex encoded files.
- UnLHA plugin supports LHA/LZH archives.
- Much more features are listed below.
State of project Servant Salamander 2.5 on May 20, 2003:
- We are preparing Servant Salamander 2.5 beta 1 for release.
- Operations Copy, Move, Delete and other are running at background, the main window is not blocked.
- Drag and drop extracting files and directories from archive is supported.
- FTP Client news: plugin will be released with the next beta version of Servant Salamander 2.5.
Files upload and download code is not finished by that time.
State of project Servant Salamander 2.5 on February 28, 2003:
- FTP Client news: We have finished keep-alive feature. It prevents FTP server
from closing connection due to no activity of client. It can work in two modes: without
data transfer (sending of NOOP or PWD command - fast, but it doesn't work on
most of servers) and with data transfer (sending of NLST or LIST command -
slower, but it works on all servers). We have finished memory cache for
lists of files and directories from server. All visited paths on server can
be reopened without any communication with server (your computer can be
off-line). We continue in work on recursive file operations.
Any number of concurrent operations is possible. Salamander's main window
is not blocked until end of operation. Each operation can use any
number of concurrent connections. Operations with small files or without data
transfers (Delete, Change Attributes) are much faster with more than one
connection. Each operation
tries to finish as much work as possible without need of assistance of user.
It means no modal message-boxes with errors, automatic selection of next work
if current work can't be finished, reconnecting, resuming, using alternate
filenames, etc. Operation can borrow opened connection from panel and after doing
its work it can return this connection back to panel. It's handy for smaller
operations and for servers with limited number of allowed connections from
one computer.
We have attached some screenshots from nowadays version:
Copy operation dialog in basic mode:
[1],
Copy operation dialog in detailed mode:
[2],
Change Attributes dialog:
[3],
Change Attributes operation dialog in detailed mode:
[4],
solving of connection error (after clicking on Solve Error button):
[5],
configuration of operations defaults:
[6].
- We have added option for files content compare and for compare including subdirectories
to Compare Directories command. Quick Rename command can also work directly in
panel (on single mouse click as in Explorer). Selected/unselected files in panel
can be hidden. Find Files and Directories dialog contains newly
Refine (find in found files and directories), Append (add to found files and directories),
and Find Duplicates (find files with same name, size, or even content) commands.
- We have finished some frequently wanted features in PictView (e.g. Full Screen view mode,
open next/previous picture from panel or Find dialog, saving to GIF, JPG, and other
formats, Screen Capture command, support for scanners).
- We have finished plugin for browsing of Windows Registry in panel.
State of project Servant Salamander 2.5 on October 25, 2002:
- We have finished parsing of text listings from server in FTP Client. It supports
following types of FTP servers now (in couple of versions): Unix, Novell
Netware, VMS, MVS, IBM z/VM (CMS), and NetPresenz (MACOS). Each type of
server defines its own columns in panel and rules for parsing. Everyone can
add his/her own definition of new type of server. Types of servers can be
also exported and imported from files, so adding support for
other types of servers would be very flexible. We are working on support for recursive
(in other words: "including subdirectories") file operations now.
We have attached some screenshots from nowadays version:
browsing two different FTP servers (Unix and VMS):
[1],
browsing MVS (IBM mainframe) server:
[2],
server types in configuration:
[3],
editing VMS1 server type:
[4],
editing VMS1 server type rules for parsing:
[5],
testing parsing rules for IBM z/VM (CMS) server type on sample of text listing:
[6].
State of project Servant Salamander 2.5 on July 30, 2002:
- We continue in work on FTP Client. We have finished working with paths (changing
of current directory, etc.) on various types of servers (Unix, Windows/Netware,
VMS, MVS). We have increased tolerance for connection failures during operations
on server (e.g. connecting, changing of path, and listing of current directory).
If connection fails, it's restored automatically and operation is repeated.
If there's no operation in progress, connection failure is only reported
and connection is restored just before next operation. We have finished
listing of current directory on server. It supports active (PORT) just as
passive (PASV) mode of data connection. Downloading (from server) and uploading
(to server) of files work the same way as listing. So all problems in
communication with server are solved. We will work on parsing of files and
directories information from text received from FTP server during listing
(current working version displays this text in one column only, this simple
mode will be used only for unsupported servers where parsing fails). Then we
will add support for recursive (in other words: "including subdirectories")
file operations on foreground (it freezes panel and uses active connection)
just as on background (it doesn't freeze panel and uses new connection to
server).
We have attached some screenshots from nowadays version:
[1]
[2]
[3]
[4].
- We have added menu, toolbar, and commands for rotating, cropping, and saving
of images to PictView plugin. See the new look of PictView:
[1].
- We have added support for additional web-based searching services to FTP Search
plugin. It uses twelve services for searching now.
- Offline Media Browser plugin is fully functional and supports merged views
of directories (handy for directories which occupy several disks), getting
of MP3 tags from files, and offline searching for files and directories.
- Encrypt plugin is nearly finished. We have finished shredding of files and
disk free space. We are working on files encrypting - the last thing to do
is cryptographically strong generator of random numbers (designed accordingly
to the paper of well-known researcher Peter Gutmann).
- We prepare new plugin which should replace MP3 Viewer plugin. Sound Viewer
plugin will support MP3 ID3v2 tags and other formats (WAV, OGG, etc.).
State of project Servant Salamander 2.5 on April 24, 2002:
- We are working on FTP client. We have finished support for logging of
communication with FTP server and operations with these logs (saving to disk,
copying to clipboard, etc.). We have finished service for sending user commands
to FTP server (support for extra services of FTP server). This service will
be used internally for all other communication with FTP server. We are continuing
in work on parsing of files and directories information from text received
from FTP server. We have attached some screenshots from nowadays version:
[4]
[5]
[6]
[7]
[8].
- Plugin for decoding of MIME, UUEncode, XXEncode, and BinHex supports also
decoding of yEnc now (yEncoder/yDecoder for Usenet).
- We have added command Shared Directories in Commands menu. This command shows
the list of shared directories. You can open them in panel or stop their sharing.
- We are working on Servant Salamander SDK. Plugins
interface was extended by interfaces for HyperLink, Menu, MenuBar,
ToolBar, ProgressBar, button with arrow, and button for choosing of colors.
Plugins can use these windows to enrich its look.
- We are working on Offline Media Browser plugin for cataloguing of removable
media. We have finished saving and loading of media data. It has relatively
flexible format, so it allows storing of various data about files. E.g. content
of files (handy for files like readme.txt), thumbnails, MP3 tags, picture
sizes, etc. This data will be available for viewing and searching without
need to insert appropriate media. We are working on user interface of this
plugin now.
- We prepare Multimedia Viewer plugin for playing audio and video files. Viewer
will be based on Media Control Interface (MCI) provided by operating system.
State of project Servant Salamander 2.5 on February 15, 2002:
- Due to lack of time and essential changes in plugin interface we are not able
to release new plugins in version for Servant Salamander 2.0. These plugins
will be released as a part of version 2.5, so immediately after finishing
of the FTP Client plugin.
- Work on FTP Client continues. We have finished exploration of competitive
products and have designed interface and functions of FTP Client to be most
suitable for Servant Salamander. We are working on parsing of files and
directories information from text received from FTP server now. Each kind
of FTP server uses different format of this listing. Our point is to let user
to specify his/her own description of this format (there are too many kinds of
FTP servers). We have attached some screenshots from nowadays version:
[1]
[2]
[3].
- We have finished FTP Search plugin for files searching on public FTP servers.
Plugin sends user's request to web-based service designated to search in
content of these FTP servers and shows found files in its own window. You
can download found files using FTP client. It's possible to easily add
support for other web-based services.
- The UnRAR plugin supports RAR 3.0 archives.
- Support for Z and CPIO archive formats were added to the TAR plugin. You can
use the TAR plugin to unpack archives with following extensions: TAR, TGZ, TAZ,
TBZ, GZ, BZ, BZ2, Z, RPM, and CPIO.
- We have started to work on plugin for cataloguing of removable media. User
will be able to store media contents to plugin's database and later to browse
them in panel. Finding in this database will be also supported. When user
will try to open some file from this database, plugin will ask him/her
to insert appropriate media.
- We have started to work on plugin for browsing of Windows Registry in panel.
Plugin should replace system utility RegEdit. Its advantage will be ability
to use Quick Search when browsing in panel, to store registry paths to Hot
Paths, and to copy, move, and delete keys and values as if they were directories
and files.
- You can lock toolbars and so prevent their unwanted dragging.
- Panels support two new display modes: icons and thumbnails. Panel in icon
mode shows icons (size is 32x32 points) with names of files and directories
under icons. Panel in thumbnail mode shows reduced views of file content.
Following pictures explain these modes better:
[1]
[2].
- Commands in User Menu can be placed in submenus now. We have also supported
starting of screen savers and items from Control Panel.
- You can select one of three user's skill levels (beginning, intermediate, and
advanced) in program options. Beginning users will see only most important
commands in menus. When they learn them, they can switch to richer versions
of menus.
- Hot key Ctrl+N was added again. It sets optimal column widths in panel. It
solves situation when column with long names of files have shifted other
columns out of visibility.
- We have added page History to the Configuration dialog. You can choose if you
want to save histories (lists of used values). You can also clear all histories
(it works in plugins too) from this page.
State of project Servant Salamander 2.5 on November 13, 2001:
- We have finished interface for "file-system" plugins. We are working on
FTP client plugin now.
- We have added support for code pages used in West Europe. We have added
support for code pages used for Cyrillic (Russia, Ukraine, Bulgaria, etc.).
- Automatic recognition of file code page was added to viewers.
- Internal viewer can automatically recognize file type (text or binary file).
- We have finished plugin for files compare. It supports text and also binary files.
- We have added support for viewing and searching in files with size over
4 GB (only on Windows NT/2000/XP, Windows 9x/ME doesn't support such files).
Internal viewer handles files with size up to 8 EB and the Find command
handles files up to 16 EB (maximum on Win32 platform). Servant Salamander
is completely prepared for work with even so big files now.
- The Email command (the Files menu) was added to make sending of selected
files using electronic mail easier. We plan to add option to automatically
compress files (to ZIP archives) before sending.
- Better support for "My Network Places" (Windows ME and 2000). Shortcuts of
network drives work correctly.
- PEViewer plugin doesn't display text files (e.g. CONFIG.SYS). These files
are displayed in internal viewer.
- CheckVer plugin supports connecting to Internet using HTTP and FTP-passive
protocols. It's possible to use CheckVer even behind firewalls in companies
now.
- Plugin for viewing DBF and CSV (Comma Separated Values) files will support
automatic recognition of values delimiter in CSV files.
- We have added the Drives toolbar, which contains all logical drives. Clicking on this
toolbar allows you to change drive in panel (it makes work with mouse easier).
- The Find command supports the Refine function (new search in files that were
found by previous search).
State of project Servant Salamander 2.5 on September 25, 2001:
- We have finished plugin UnACE 2.0. It supports unpacking of ACE 2.0 archives.
- Support for RPM archives was added to TAR plugin. You can use TAR plugin to
unpack archives with following extensions: TAR, TGZ, GZ, TBZ, BZ, BZ2, and RPM.
- We have finished Split/Combine plugin for splitting and combining of files.
Files can be split to parts fitting some standard medium size (3.5" floppy,
ZIP 100MB, ZIP 250MB, or LS 120) or to user-defined parts. Plugin calculates
checksum (CRC32) for file before splitting, so when it combines file parts back
to this file, it can check if the resulting file is correct. Plugin also creates
batch file (.BAT) for combining of file parts without Servant Salamander. You
can run this batch file on every computer with MS-DOS or Windows operating
systems.
- We have started to work on plugin for encrypting of files and directories.
Plugin Encrypt will compress files and directories using BZIP2 algorithm
and then it will encrypt them using specified password. It will support following
encryption algorithms: AES (Advanced Encryption Standard, originally Rijndael;
keys have up to 256 bits), BlowFish (keys have up to 448 bits), and 3-DES (keys have
168 bits). You will be able to choose these hash functions:
SHA-1, SHA-2, and HAVAL. Plugin will also support file shredding and free disk
space shredding. It will be based on following specifications: DoD 5220.22-M
(Department of Defense: NISPOM) and Peter Gutmann: Secure Deletion of Data
from Magnetic and Solid-State Memory. Shredding means multiple overwriting
by special pattern to irreversible destruct the original data (common deleting
doesn't destroy data, so they can be restored).
- Plugin for viewing DBF files supports CSV (Comma Separated Values)
file format. Due to definable columns separator, it can also view tab-delimited
files (columns separated by tabulator character).
State of project Servant Salamander 2.5 on August 30, 2001:
- There are 7 men working on project Servant Salamander 2.5 (including plugins).
- We are finishing interface for "file-system" plugins. The first file-system
plugin will be FTP client. We are working on this interface for several months
now. It is far more complicated than currently used interfaces for viewers
and archivers. File-system plugins will be able to display new columns in
panel and own icons, set content of information line, handle command
line, and to handle standard commands. E.g. the Copy command (F5) in plugin
FTP client works as file download or upload. We'll work on plugin for
network browsing (UNC paths browsing) and Windows Registry browsing and editing
when we finish FTP client. Another planned plugin adds support for
direct interconnection of two computers using parallel cable or TCP/IP
connection. Time-consuming development of interface for file-system plugins
brings us ability to simply create all needed plugins as in case of viewers
and archivers.
- We have added support for language versions. All language dependent resources
are separated in standalone libraries SLG. On start of Servant Salamander,
you will be able to choose your language.
- We are finishing ALTAP Translator. It's software for easy localization and
making of localization upgrades (it's needed always when we release newer
version). Servant Salamander 2.5 will be available in English, German, and
Czech language. Other languages will follow from independent translators.
- We are working on plugin for text files compare. Both files are displayed
concurrently each in one half of window. Differences are highlighted using
various colors.
- We have finished plugin for decoding of MIME, UUEncode, XXEncode, and BinHex
encoded files. These encodings are used for files attached to e-mails.
- TAR plugin supports BZIP2 archives.
- We are working on plugin for unpacking of RPM archives. They are used for
software distribution in Linux (e.g. Red Hat distribution).
- We have finished plugin for LHA/LZH archives.
- We are working on plugin for splitting and joining of files.
- We are working on DBF viewer plugin (supports dBase II, dBase III, dBase IV,
FoxPro/FoxBase).
- We are finishing Eroiica viewer plugin for XLS, DOC, RTF, PDF, and PS documents
(all versions of Microsoft Excel and Microsoft Word).
- We are finishing Eroiica viewer plugin for DWG, DXF, CGM, DGN, DRW, HPGL, ME10,
PICT, RIS, and SAT vector images.
- Quick search of names in panel allows searching for names matching simple
mask now (e.g. test*.doc or *.xls).
- The Convert command and internal text/hex viewer supports IBM EBCDIC coding now.
- The Copy and Move commands (F5/F6) can create nonexistent part of target
path (such path must be followed by backslash).
- Copying to archives (packing) is independent on target panel content. You can
copy from disk to any archive you want without opening the archive in target
panel.
- Refreshing on slow network drives is optimized. Panel content is refreshed
only if you make some change on displayed path.
- Basic operations (Quick Rename, View, Alternate View, Edit, and Delete) allow
working with files with problematic names (problematic for file managers without
Unicode support).
- PictView (image viewer plugin) will support image saving and conversion
to couple of basic formats.
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