Altap Salamander: Introduction

What's New in This Release

This section describes enhancements, new features, and changes that was made on Altap Salamander.

List of the most important changes in Altap Salamander 2.54:

  • Included translations: English, Czech, German, Spanish, Hungarian, and Romanian.
  • Altap Salamander now comes with 'Compatible with Windows 7' certification.

List of the most important changes in Altap Salamander 2.53:

  • Support for language translations. Standard package comes with English, Czech, and German translations.
  • Support for x64 pseudo-directories as C:\Windows\Sysnative or C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc.
  • Several improvements in Compare Directories command (ignore DST shift, ignore masks).
  • Copy/Move dialog box: option to save default options.
  • Find: new option Full Row Select.
  • Support for accelerated mouse wheel scrolling (Altap Salamander panels, menu, viewers).
  • Plugins Manager: alphabetically sorted plugins.
  • Edit New File (Shift+F4): option to change default name.
  • Support for longer commands in command line (up to 8KB).
  • Option Use fast directory move on Novell Netware.
  • Improved Altap Salamander SDK version (trace server autostart, new samples).
  • Early Access Program has started on our support forum.
  • NEW PLUGIN: Automation - automate common tasks using JScript or VBScript.
  • 7Zip: updated to 9.10 beta. New LZMA2 method. Several improvements.
  • Check Version: better presentation of results.
  • File Comparator: up to 7x faster when comparing binary files on the same disk.
  • Network plugin: better Remote Desktop (Terminal Services) support.
  • PictView: new option "Remember path when saving screenshots, scans, clipboard pastes".
  • Registry Editor: Shift+F3 opens regedit.exe with current registry key displayed.
  • UnISO: support for compressed ISZ images, support for BZIP2-compressed DMG packages.
  • UnRAR: support for multi-part archives named .001, .002, 003, etc.

List of the most important changes in Altap Salamander 2.52:

  • New Password Manager with option to protect your passwords with Master Password.
  • Up to 7x faster Compare Directories (by content) command for files on the same disk.
  • Backward compatibility for 2.5 and 2.51 plugins.
  • Panel contents are refreshed even if Salamander's window is not active.
  • Better handling of encrypted files (EFS) and files with alternate data stream (ADS).
  • Fixes and improvements related to Fast User Switching and Terminal Services (Remote Desktop).
  • Better support for mouse wheel (wheel tilting, new shortcuts).
  • New command line parameters.
  • New plugin for browsing network (network neighborhood) directly in panel.
  • New DiskMap plugin: used disk space analyzer and visualizer.
  • New UnCHM plugin: extractor of Microsoft Compiled HTML Help archives.
  • FTP plugin: option to encrypt passwords with AES-256 (uses new Password Manager).
  • FTP plugin: Support for TLS FTP (also known as FTPS or FTPES with AUTH TLS).
  • FTP plugin: Support for ZLIB compression (MODE Z).
  • UnISO plugin: Added support for Apple Hierachical File System Plus (HFS+).
  • TAR plugin: Added support for Debian packages .DEB.
  • File Comparator can compare Unicode files now.
  • 7-Zip plugin: updated to 7z 4.65.
  • ZIP plugin can create files with size over 4GB.
  • WinSCP plugin updated to latest WinSCP version.
  • Checksum plugin: SHA1 and SHA256 hashes are supported.
  • PictView supports autorotation when viewing JPEGs or digital camera RAW files with EXIF.

List of the most important changes in Altap Salamander 2.51:

  • Support for symbolic links (introduced in Windows Vista).
  • ZIP plugin: Altap Self-Extractor must be licensed for any use (except 30 days evaluation). Licenses of Altap Self-Extractor are significantly cheaper now.

List of the most important changes in Altap Salamander 2.5:

  • Operations Copy, Move, Delete, and others are running at background, the main window is not blocked.
  • Operations Copy and Move display current transfer speed and estimated time left (remaining time). You can also set speed limit.
  • Operations Copy, Move, Delete, and others can be Paused and Resumed.
  • Compare Directories command can compare content of files and works with subdirectories.
  • User Menu update: support for submenus, added variables for compare/merge applications (two files or directories to compare/merge), active/inactive panel can be addressed, and list of selected names can be passed to executed application. See the Advanced submenu of the context menu on the button behind the Arguments box in Configuration/User Menu. See Customizing User Menu for details.
  • Icon overlays are displayed in panels (Offline Files, Tortoise SVN, Tortoise CVS, etc.).
  • Quick search mode: 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*. You can also select items using Shift+Up/Down/Home/End keys.
  • Full support for drag & drop is finished. You can use drag & drop to unpack from archives to disk, pack from disk to archive opened in panel or simply drop files on the archive file. You can use drag & drop to move or copy between disk and plugin file systems and also inside one plugin file system or between plugin file systems.
  • Packing to and unpacking from archives using clipboard Cut, Copy, and Paste commands are supported. Copying and moving from disk to plugin file system using clipboard Cut, Copy, and Paste commands are also supported.
  • Documents folder is accessible from Change Drive menu (Alt+F1/F2). You can hide this item in the Configuration/Change Drive Menu.
  • PictView plugin:
    • Full Screen view.
    • Rotating and flipping of displayed image.
    • Image saving and conversion to couple of formats.
    • Opening next/previous picture from panel or Find dialog
    • Show EXIF information about image file, such as shutter speed, aperture, focal length, etc. Use the File/Show Exif command.
    • Command Select/Unselect opened file in Altap Salamander panel or find.
    • You can select part of viewed image and copy it to the clipboard.
    • Print command.
    • Crop command.
    • Histogram command.
    • Screen Capture command.
    • Status bar.
    • Support for scanners.
    • Support for animated GIFs and cursors.
    • Alpha-channel support for ICO, PNG, TGA, TIF.
    • Reading/saving comments for Intergraph format.
    • Added reading of PNG-in-ICO for Windows Vista.
    • Support for *.HPI (Hemera Photo Images), *.NEF and *.CRW (Nikon and Canon digital camera raw formats), *.2BP (Pocket PC/Windows CE bitmap), *.CLK (Corel R.A.V.E.), *.ZNO (Digital Journal), *.MNG (Multiple Network Graphics), *.DDS and *.DTX (DirectX textures).
  • 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.
    • Set speed limit.
    • Preserve Archive, Compressed, and Encrypted attributes.
    • Preserve owners and permissions (not inherited) on NTFS drives.
    • Preserve dates and times of directories.
    • Only files: prevent creating of empty directories.
    • Filter by file names using wildcard.
    • Filter by file date, time, size, or attributes.
  • Find Files and Directories:
    • Refine: search in files that were found previously.
    • Append: add to found files.
    • Find Duplicate Files.
    • Added the Ignore Directory List command to skip directories such as "System Volume Information" and a temporary directory.
    • More powerful Advanced options.
  • Added plugins (click on the plugin's name to get basic information about the plugin):
  • Panel in Detailed modes: new Smart Column mode for Name column (default on). This mode should minimize horizontal scrollbar usage. See Configuration/Views for details.
  • Panel in Detailed modes: new highlight mode. Try to turn on the Configuration/Appearance/Highlight focused row option.
  • Small step to Altap Salamander portability: User Menu, Viewers, Editors, External Archivers has a new path variables $(SalDir), $(WinDir), $(SysDir). You can use "..": "$(SalDir)..\viewer\viewer.exe".
  • Save/Load Selection command (see menu Edit/Advanced): selection can be saved to and loaded from the clipboard or the internal buffer. This feature can be also used for exporting selected names to the clipboard or to select names stored on the clipboard.
  • Make File List command: archives and file systems can be listed and you can export list to the clipboard, Internal Viewer, or to the file.
  • Configurable shortcut keys for plugin's menu commands. See the Keyboard button in the Plugins Manager dialog box.
  • New view modes in panels: Icons (32 x 32 icons), Thumbnails (small previews of pictures, drawings, and documents), and Tiles (48 x 48 icons). See Selecting Current View for details.
  • You can choose the directory that will be opened when the current panel path is inaccessible. Look at Drives configuration page.
  • New options for the Change Drive Menu and the Drive Bar. You can set visibility of your drives and separate groups of drives. See Configuration/Change Drive Menu and Drive Bar for details.
  • NTFS Junction Points are handled properly now.
  • Better handling of disk changes when using removable media. Automatic Retry on CD, DVD, ZIP disk insertion.
  • Support for Alternate Data Streams (ADS) on NTFS partitions (supported from Windows NT 4.0). 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 options for panels, see the Sorting section in Configuration/Panels.
  • When Environment Variables are changed, Altap Salamander will reload them automatically.
  • Encrypting 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. See Compressing and Encrypting of Files and Directories.
  • Volume mount points and junction points are supported (on Windows 2000 and later). It means that e.g. correct disk free space and drive information are displayed.
  • 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).
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • Added the Hot Path bar. It provides another way to access Hot Paths.
  • Added the Drives toolbar which contains all logical drives. Clicking on this toolbar allows you to change drive in panel.
  • Added the Middle toolbar (placed between panels) which can contain all buttons available for the Top toolbar.