Disk Controls is set of 22+ components that can make your life much easier if you developing software that works with disks (Hard / Floppy / CD / RAM / Network), shell and file system.

The DiskControls pack contains:
Two advanced search engines, which will find any file or folder by specified criterias (DiskScanner and MultiDiskScanner components);
The FolderListView component which let's you to display filtered contents of any directory and looks and feels like Windows Explorer. Supports big number of features such like automatical sorting of the list items with arrow-style sort mark on the header section, individual context menus for every shell object, possibility to hide or show some list columns, automatic drag'n'drop support via OLE and so on…;
The FolderMonitor, which will check your folders for any changes;
The VirtualDrives engine, which can define, redefine or delete the virtual drives from the file system;
The FileTail utility, which works like tail command in Unix, and can monitor the file for its changes;
Several components that provide you with detailed information about any shell objects (files, folders or drives), can retrieve the version information from executable files and dynamic-link libraries;
Component which can install or uninstall new file types into the shell (dcFileAssociation);
Component which performs the operations with files and folders on shell level (dcFileOperations);
Several advanced edit controls and dialogs for browsing and selecting the files and folders;

DiskControls: Components Overview

1. dcDiskScanner - extremely easy to use and powerful threaded search engine that scans the drives and folders for files (specified by wildcarded mask) and / or directories that matches to specified searching criteria. To find files — just point the starting folder + wildcarded searching mask, and DiskScanner will return the matches by specified criteria with lightning-fast speed. You may also specify desired file attributes, size and time range, search or not the files in subfolders and hidden subfolders. Besides file names it can return the file type, date and time of last modification, file icons (32x32 and 16x16).


2. dcMultiDiskScanner - The dcMultiDiskScanner component is enhancement of the dcDiskScanner component. Used to search files in multiple locations with multiple searching masks. MultiDiskScanner operates with two lists — IncludeList and ExcludeList that describes desired and unwanted searching paths and file masks.
For example, you would like to find all files in the "c:\windows\" directory, including all subfolders except "c:\windows\system". Just put the "c:\windows\*.*" path to the IncludeList, point that this path should include subfolders, and put "c:\windows\systems\*.*" to the ExcludeList.


3. dcFileOperations - allows to perform the shell operations with files and folders, like copying, moving / renaming and deleting the shell object(s). Every process execute the shell dialog box which amuses users displaying smooth progress bar with according animated picture. These operations uses high level functions of the Windows Explorer so, for example, "Delete" command moves files to the "Recycled bin" instead of erasing them permanently.


4. dcFolderMonitor - watch specified folder for changes and fires special notification event if any changed occurs in any file or the directory structure.


5. dcVirtualDrives - lets an application to determinate, define, redefine or delete virtual drives (MS-DOS device names) from the file system. (See demo program here).


6. dcDiskInfo - provides detailed information about system disk (Hard, Floppy, CD, RAM or Network drives). Returns the letters of available disks (ie. ACD), disk capacity and free space, file system information, serial number and shell icons (large and small), associated with specified disk.


7. dcFileInfo - provides detailed information about any file — size, type, shell name, creation and last modification dates, small and large shell icons. You can get the information even from opened file and specify/change the date/time when file was created. last modified or last accessed.


8. dcFileCRC - calculates a CRC (Cyclic Redundency Check) for any files. Supports three methods of checking: CRC32 (most frequently used method, used in such programs like ZIP, RAR, ARJ etc), CRC16 (applicable to XModem protocol), CRCArc (used by SEA's "ARC" utility).


9. dcFileTail - utility component with functionality similar to the tail command in Unix. It monitors files for their changes and triggers the event where program can receive appended part of data. Also, like the tail command of Unix it can return specified number of text lines from the end of file (very useful to receive some last entries from log-files).


10. dcVersionInfo - used to extract version information from a file.


11. dcShellIcon - retrieves the icon images (32x32 and 16x16) for any specified shell object (file, folder or disk). It can determinate the real icons for shortcut files (without link overlays), or otherwise - put link mark to the shell icons . Able to show the shell object both in opened and closed state (for example, opened and closed folder icons: or ), or even in selected state .


12. dcShellLink - creates the shell links (shortcut files) and provides detailed information about any existing shortcuts.


13. dcShellProperties - displays the "Properties" dialog box or context menu for the shell objects (file, folder or disk).


14. dcFileAssociation - lets an application to read, modify, install and uninstall the file types (extension associations) in the Windows shell. Component provides with detailed information about any file types installed to the system (ie. pas, .wav, .doc, .gif, .html), determines location to executable file, argument string, icon file, icon index and two icon images (32x32 and 16x16) associated with specified file type.
Also, with dcFileAssociation you can install new file types or modify existing, changing the location of executable file or an icon image, associated with specified file type. For example, you can install ".yourdatafile" extension, specify the executable program for this file type and point the file icon that will associated with this file extension in the shell. After opening the any file with ".yourdatafile" extension (clicking the file icon), the application associated with this file type will be executed to process some data from ".yourdatafile".


15. dcFolderListView - the ListView control for displaying contents of any directory. The directory contents can be filtered by file attributes or multiple file masks. User can browse folders, execute files, perform major file operations like in standard shell list view control used in Windows Explorer. dcFolderListView supports big number of additional features like automatical sorting of the list items with arrow-style sort mark on the header section, individual context menus for every shell object, possibility to hide or show some list columns, automatic drag'n'drop support via OLE (user can drop files from Windows Explorer and vice versa) + a lots of properties and methods for complete customization.


16. dcFileEdit - enchaned TEdit, with button at the right side of control which automatically executes the file-selection dialog and returns result in the edit control.


17. dcFolderEdit - edit control with button at the right side, used to select the folder from “Browse for Folder” dialog. See also dcBrowseDialog component.


18. dcOpenDialog - enhancement of standard TOpenDialog. dcOpenDialog can remember last used folder in the system registry.


19. dcSaveDialog - enhancement of standard TSaveDialog. dcSaveDialog can remember last used folder in the system registry.


20. dcBrowseDialog - makes an "Browse For Folders" dialog box available to your application. The purpose of the dialog box is to let a user select local / network folders and and files. Also user can create new folders using special button. Use the Execute method to display this dialog box.


21. dcSystemImageList - gives access to the system image list. That's the image list which all icons (32x32 or 16x16) for various file types that Explorer uses. All these icons represents the files within the Windows shell.


22. dcIcon2Bitmap - utility component that will help you to convert icon images (TIcon) to bitmaps (TBitmap). In example, it may be very useful if you would like to store bitmaps instead of icons, returned by various components of DiskControls pack, in the TImageList collection.

[/b]

[b] Only for V.I.P

Warning! You are not allowed to view this text.