ShellBrowser .NET Components v6.1
ShellBrowser .NET Components v6.1
The ShellBrowser .NET Components is a set of UI controls that look and behave exactly like the Windows Explorer. In short: You can use them to integrate explorer components in your applications or even build your own explorer. The Visual Studio components imitate the corresponding parts of the Windows Explorer, including correct icons with overlays, the Explorer context menu, thumbnails, details, virtual folders and shell extensions. All components offer full .NET drag and drop support.
The ExplorerBrowser is a wrapped system component including a configurable Windows File Explorer window.
File Preview functionality is available using the ShellFilePreview. It enables users of your app to see the content of files without opening them. The ThumbnailImage component displays thumbnails of the selected file instead.
The ShellControlConnector control enables you to synchronize multiple shell controls without a line of code.
The non-visible ShellBrowser control gives you easy access to frequently used shell functionality, the ShellChangeNotifier informs you about relevant shell operations.
Interesting sample projects and a detailed help file are included.
All components are written in C# but can be used in all Visual Studio languages (like C#, VB.NET, and C++).
The ShellBrowser .NET Components are royalty free and involve no runtime fees. Download our Visual Studio components today!
V6.1 (Minor release, 30 April, 2019)
New features and improvements
•ShellAddressBar: There is a new component "ShellAddressBar". It resembles the address bar known from Windows Explorer, containing a section that splits the current path into "BreadCrumbs" and allows easy navigation in the file system. Additionally it optionally contains a history and a search edit box. These panes can be turned on or off using the "VisiblePanes" property.
The new "HistoryToolBar" that is included in the "ShellAddressBar" can also be used standalone.
In addition, ExplorerBrowser now uses the ShellAddressBar instead of a ShellComboBox.
•Examples: A further sample project in the style of a classic "commander" file manager with 2 columns has been added.
•ShellListView: Standard .NET Drag/Drop events are now called, even if the "ShellDragDrop" property is true. However, it is not yet possible to set the "Effect" parameter via the event arguments. This is only possible using the "CopyMode" property of the control.
•ShellBrowser: The "Desktop" node in the ShellTree now has a context menu too.
•ShellFilePreview: Depending on the PreviewHandler, it is now possible to view files that do not have a physical path (e.g. files on an attached mobile phone). This now typically works for pdf and text files, and images.
•ShellListView, FileList, and ShellTreeView: Implemented the "ItemChecked" event for the ShellListView and FileList and the "NodeChecked" event for the ShellTreeView. They indicate the checking or unchecking of an element. In contrast to the "CheckStateChanged" the event is not called when a checkstate is applied indirectly or automatically applied by ShellBrowser.
•ShellListView, FileList: Date/Time columns now display values without seconds.
•ShellFilePreview: When the preview is synchronized via ShellControlConnector, it is now loaded after a small delay. This avoids the unnecessary loading of files that are only selected very shortly and also loading the preview doesn't interfere with message handling, so that double-clicks are not disrupted and not recognized anymore.
Bugfixes
•PathEdit: The "Browse" button is working again.
•ShellListView: Drag-and-Drop of files from an attached mobile phone to a ShellList now works as expected in 32-bit applications.
•ShellListView: Breaking change: Removed the obsolete "Details" property.
•ShellListView: Folders are not affected by a set filter. In the last version, they were accidentally filtered too.
•ShellListView: Instead of remaining empty, the ShellList now displays the contents of a folder even if it is disabled.
•ShellListView: Fixed a problem that wrong or too small columns were displayed after browsing a folder on an attached mobile phone.
•ShellListView: The "New" menu item in the background context menu is now disabled in zip folders.
•ShellListView: Under certain circumstances, the automatic refresh of the ShellList stopped working after an edit operation was cancelled via code. This has been fixed.
•ShellListView: Fixed the issue that thumbnails might be empty for files that are copied to the directory that is currently displayed in the ShellList.
•ShellListView: Now handling exceptions that might have occurred if asynchronous tasks return to an already disposed or currently disposing control.
•ShellListView: Fixed a sorting problem when pasting files into a folder - instead of respecting the sort order, the files were alphabetically sorted between the subfolders in the same parent folder.
•ShellListView, ShellTreeView: It is now possible to temporarily hide custom context menu entries that are assigned to the "ContextMenuStrip" property of a ShellListView or ShellTreeView, by setting the "Visible" property of the menu items to "false" in the "Opening" event handler of the ContextMenuStrip. The setting was ignored in the last version.
•ShellTreeView: The "Favorites" folder in Windows 7 is filled again instead of appearing empty.
•ShellTreeView: When selecting a path, the ShellTree now fully expands all relevant nodes, instead of just inserting nodes for this path only. The problem that sometimes the destination node appeared twice in the ShellTree was fixed.
•ShellTreeView: If a node beneath "Quick Access" is selected, controls connected via the same ShellControlConnector instance will now display the link target of the selected node, instead of remaining in the Quick Access scope. The ShellTree keeps the selection in Quick Access if the "Expand to current folder" setting is false in Windows Explorer.
•ShellTreeView: The "NoFillOnStartup" property has been fixed to work with multiple roots. If set, the roots of the ShellTree will not automatically be expanded when the program starts. If this avoids automatically expanding a slow folder, this can improve performance.
•ShellTreeView: Fixed a flickering problem that was caused by the asynchronous loading of the network node when navigating to a network path while the network node was still collapsed.
•ExplorerBrowser: The "ThumbnailSize" property is now only applied if view mode is "Thumbnail".
•ExplorerBrowser: Execution of the "DefaultAction" (i.e. the action that takes place on double-click) can now again be intercepted in the "DefaultAction" event by setting "e.InvocationProcessed" to true.
•ExplorerBrowser: Fixed bug when trying to access items in "C:\Users\\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\History".
•ExplorerBrowser: Dropped support for CheckMode.Checkboxes as it is incompatible with Windows 10 Dark Mode (use CheckMode.AutoSelect instead).
•ExplorerBrowser: The "Selectionchanged" event is now fired only once, when a different element is selected.
•ShellSearchEdit: The text hint is now updated if the folder that defines the search scope is renamed.
•ShellFilePreview: The Excel PreviewHandler is now released correctly, if the previews of two or more Excel files are unloaded "at the same time" (i.e. at program end), instead of not being able to shut down the Excel process or eventually causing an error in Excel.
Also, we tried resolving exceptions that appeared to occasionally occur when the preview component is disposed.
•Many minor improvements and fixes have been incorporated.
New features and improvements
•ShellAddressBar: There is a new component "ShellAddressBar". It resembles the address bar known from Windows Explorer, containing a section that splits the current path into "BreadCrumbs" and allows easy navigation in the file system. Additionally it optionally contains a history and a search edit box. These panes can be turned on or off using the "VisiblePanes" property.
The new "HistoryToolBar" that is included in the "ShellAddressBar" can also be used standalone.
In addition, ExplorerBrowser now uses the ShellAddressBar instead of a ShellComboBox.
•Examples: A further sample project in the style of a classic "commander" file manager with 2 columns has been added.
•ShellListView: Standard .NET Drag/Drop events are now called, even if the "ShellDragDrop" property is true. However, it is not yet possible to set the "Effect" parameter via the event arguments. This is only possible using the "CopyMode" property of the control.
•ShellBrowser: The "Desktop" node in the ShellTree now has a context menu too.
•ShellFilePreview: Depending on the PreviewHandler, it is now possible to view files that do not have a physical path (e.g. files on an attached mobile phone). This now typically works for pdf and text files, and images.
•ShellListView, FileList, and ShellTreeView: Implemented the "ItemChecked" event for the ShellListView and FileList and the "NodeChecked" event for the ShellTreeView. They indicate the checking or unchecking of an element. In contrast to the "CheckStateChanged" the event is not called when a checkstate is applied indirectly or automatically applied by ShellBrowser.
•ShellListView, FileList: Date/Time columns now display values without seconds.
•ShellFilePreview: When the preview is synchronized via ShellControlConnector, it is now loaded after a small delay. This avoids the unnecessary loading of files that are only selected very shortly and also loading the preview doesn't interfere with message handling, so that double-clicks are not disrupted and not recognized anymore.
Bugfixes
•PathEdit: The "Browse" button is working again.
•ShellListView: Drag-and-Drop of files from an attached mobile phone to a ShellList now works as expected in 32-bit applications.
•ShellListView: Breaking change: Removed the obsolete "Details" property.
•ShellListView: Folders are not affected by a set filter. In the last version, they were accidentally filtered too.
•ShellListView: Instead of remaining empty, the ShellList now displays the contents of a folder even if it is disabled.
•ShellListView: Fixed a problem that wrong or too small columns were displayed after browsing a folder on an attached mobile phone.
•ShellListView: The "New" menu item in the background context menu is now disabled in zip folders.
•ShellListView: Under certain circumstances, the automatic refresh of the ShellList stopped working after an edit operation was cancelled via code. This has been fixed.
•ShellListView: Fixed the issue that thumbnails might be empty for files that are copied to the directory that is currently displayed in the ShellList.
•ShellListView: Now handling exceptions that might have occurred if asynchronous tasks return to an already disposed or currently disposing control.
•ShellListView: Fixed a sorting problem when pasting files into a folder - instead of respecting the sort order, the files were alphabetically sorted between the subfolders in the same parent folder.
•ShellListView, ShellTreeView: It is now possible to temporarily hide custom context menu entries that are assigned to the "ContextMenuStrip" property of a ShellListView or ShellTreeView, by setting the "Visible" property of the menu items to "false" in the "Opening" event handler of the ContextMenuStrip. The setting was ignored in the last version.
•ShellTreeView: The "Favorites" folder in Windows 7 is filled again instead of appearing empty.
•ShellTreeView: When selecting a path, the ShellTree now fully expands all relevant nodes, instead of just inserting nodes for this path only. The problem that sometimes the destination node appeared twice in the ShellTree was fixed.
•ShellTreeView: If a node beneath "Quick Access" is selected, controls connected via the same ShellControlConnector instance will now display the link target of the selected node, instead of remaining in the Quick Access scope. The ShellTree keeps the selection in Quick Access if the "Expand to current folder" setting is false in Windows Explorer.
•ShellTreeView: The "NoFillOnStartup" property has been fixed to work with multiple roots. If set, the roots of the ShellTree will not automatically be expanded when the program starts. If this avoids automatically expanding a slow folder, this can improve performance.
•ShellTreeView: Fixed a flickering problem that was caused by the asynchronous loading of the network node when navigating to a network path while the network node was still collapsed.
•ExplorerBrowser: The "ThumbnailSize" property is now only applied if view mode is "Thumbnail".
•ExplorerBrowser: Execution of the "DefaultAction" (i.e. the action that takes place on double-click) can now again be intercepted in the "DefaultAction" event by setting "e.InvocationProcessed" to true.
•ExplorerBrowser: Fixed bug when trying to access items in "C:\Users\\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\History".
•ExplorerBrowser: Dropped support for CheckMode.Checkboxes as it is incompatible with Windows 10 Dark Mode (use CheckMode.AutoSelect instead).
•ExplorerBrowser: The "Selectionchanged" event is now fired only once, when a different element is selected.
•ShellSearchEdit: The text hint is now updated if the folder that defines the search scope is renamed.
•ShellFilePreview: The Excel PreviewHandler is now released correctly, if the previews of two or more Excel files are unloaded "at the same time" (i.e. at program end), instead of not being able to shut down the Excel process or eventually causing an error in Excel.
Also, we tried resolving exceptions that appeared to occasionally occur when the preview component is disposed.
•Many minor improvements and fixes have been incorporated.
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