GSOC idea to implement the explorer

[Andrew Green]

I was just looking at the Google summer of code(GSOC) ideas and
noticed "implement the explorer". This grabbed my attention as I have
recently been working on a windows xp explorer clone.
Also it mentions a reference to ReactOS explorer written in c++. Well
there is a second explorer which is planned to be more true to the xp
implementation and written in c. Currently it's called explorer new as
it is not yet complete and is just a shell.
I was wondering if it was possible to share this code. As it would
probably be beneficial in the long term.
It already has support for shell extensions. When running under
windows I can add any extension such as Quick launch, language bar and
so on.
Here is a pic of my working copy(trunk doesn't have this theming yet.
Though I should finish it soon)
http://img156.imageshack.us/f/yaytheme.png/

This is just an idea. I know it's very incomplete. Though it is showing promise.

Here is a link to the  "GSOC implement the explorer" page I mentioned
http://wiki.winehq.org/SummerOfCode#head-18241c95194e4e1c597bd2923cf296084fc...

Any comments and ideas are much appreciated.

[Roderick Colenbrander]

On Sun, Feb 20, 2011 at 4:05 AM, Andrew Green  wrote:
> I was just looking at the Google summer of code(GSOC) ideas and
> noticed "implement the explorer". This grabbed my attention as I have
> recently been working on a windows xp explorer clone.
> Also it mentions a reference to ReactOS explorer written in c++. Well
> there is a second explorer which is planned to be more true to the xp
> implementation and written in c. Currently it's called explorer new as
> it is not yet complete and is just a shell.
> I was wondering if it was possible to share this code. As it would
> probably be beneficial in the long term.
> It already has support for shell extensions. When running under
> windows I can add any extension such as Quick launch, language bar and
> so on.
> Here is a pic of my working copy(trunk doesn't have this theming yet.
> Though I should finish it soon)
> http://img156.imageshack.us/f/yaytheme.png/
>
> This is just an idea. I know it's very incomplete. Though it is showing promise.
>
> Here is a link to the  "GSOC implement the explorer" page I mentioned
> http://wiki.winehq.org/SummerOfCode#head-18241c95194e4e1c597bd2923cf296084fc...
>
> Any comments and ideas are much appreciated.

As of Vista, Explorer itself seems to be a small application which
hosts the IExplorerBrowser control. Last year it was decided to
implement this control properly (someone worked on it for GSoc, but
not sure about its status and whether the code is in). This control
can be used in the file open/save dialogs and in explorer.exe itself.
I would research what happened to this code (and where it is, perhaps
it has to be merged in).

Roderick

[Nikolay Sivov]

On 2/20/2011 18:58, Roderick Colenbrander wrote:
> On Sun, Feb 20, 2011 at 4:05 AM, Andrew Green  wrote:
> > I was just looking at the Google summer of code(GSOC) ideas and
> > noticed "implement the explorer". This grabbed my attention as I have
> > recently been working on a windows xp explorer clone.
> > Also it mentions a reference to ReactOS explorer written in c++. Well
> > there is a second explorer which is planned to be more true to the xp
> > implementation and written in c. Currently it's called explorer new as
> > it is not yet complete and is just a shell.
> > I was wondering if it was possible to share this code. As it would
> > probably be beneficial in the long term.
> > It already has support for shell extensions. When running under
> > windows I can add any extension such as Quick launch, language bar and
> > so on.
> > Here is a pic of my working copy(trunk doesn't have this theming yet.
> > Though I should finish it soon)
> > http://img156.imageshack.us/f/yaytheme.png/
> >
> > This is just an idea. I know it's very incomplete. Though it is showing promise.
> >
> > Here is a link to the  "GSOC implement the explorer" page I mentioned
> > http://wiki.winehq.org/SummerOfCode#head-18241c95194e4e1c597bd2923cf296084fc...
> >
> > Any comments and ideas are much appreciated.
>
> As of Vista, Explorer itself seems to be a small application which
> hosts the IExplorerBrowser control. Last year it was decided to
> implement this control properly (someone worked on it for GSoc, but
> not sure about its status and whether the code is in). This control
> can be used in the file open/save dialogs and in explorer.exe itself.
> I would research what happened to this code (and where it is, perhaps
> it has to be merged in).

David Hedberg was working on this and it's merged already in shell32, it 
implements some new interfaces and kind of treeview support for 
shellview (that was originally list based only).
> Roderick

[Andrew Green]

I had assumed that the browser part of explorer simply hosted another
control or collection of controls. Though explorer is more than a
browser. It also acts like a desktop shell.
Though I understand this is probably the lower priority on the wine
developers list. As integrating into Linux desktop is probably the
preferred and most used mode. I thought that sharing reactos explorer
and working on making a complete explorer(including extensions) would
be the goal.
Though now I'm saying it I feel rather silly, as this really is the
least important part of wine.

[Juan Lang]

Hi Andrew,
> Though I understand this is probably the lower priority on the wine
> developers list. As integrating into Linux desktop is probably the
> preferred and most used mode. I thought that sharing reactos explorer
> and working on making a complete explorer(including extensions) would
> be the goal.
> Though now I'm saying it I feel rather silly, as this really is the
> least important part of wine.

Hey, if it's your itch, feel free to scratch it.  I actually would
like to see a better explorer in Wine, if nothing else to have a more
intuitive way to play around with the shell namespace than opening a
file/save dialog.  I haven't had time to work on it myself.

Regarding sharing code:  last I heard, the official attitude is "it's
complicated."  C++ code isn't acceptable in the Wine tree at all, of
course, so that ruled out ReactOS's explorer long ago.  New
submissions that are aimed at their tree as well as ours would
probably be acceptable.
--Juan

[Andrew Green]

Thank you for your support.
I will probably make two proposals. One for theming and one for
explorer. Of course my proposals will only be using c as the
programming language.
It looks like I have a lot of research to do before I can submit my application.

On Wed, Feb 23, 2011 at 3:20 AM, Juan Lang  wrote:
> Hi Andrew,
> > Though I understand this is probably the lower priority on the wine
> > developers list. As integrating into Linux desktop is probably the
> > preferred and most used mode. I thought that sharing reactos explorer
> > and working on making a complete explorer(including extensions) would
> > be the goal.
> > Though now I'm saying it I feel rather silly, as this really is the
> > least important part of wine.
>
> Hey, if it's your itch, feel free to scratch it.  I actually would
> like to see a better explorer in Wine, if nothing else to have a more
> intuitive way to play around with the shell namespace than opening a
> file/save dialog.  I haven't had time to work on it myself.
>
> Regarding sharing code:  last I heard, the official attitude is "it's
> complicated."  C++ code isn't acceptable in the Wine tree at all, of
> course, so that ruled out ReactOS's explorer long ago.  New
> submissions that are aimed at their tree as well as ours would
> probably be acceptable.
> --Juan