Cubic Reality » CubicExplorer

Notes (weeks 15-29) – Resting and some art

Marko — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 17:04:52 +0000

Long time since last update. Not much has happened, I’ve been resting most of the time. No work at all which is good I guess. Instead I’ve been focusing on filming and making music. I build a new studio for that purpose. I also bought a new computer to handle HD video editing. That had a ripple effect to my office which now has more powerful work machine (the old studio heart, powered by Windows 7).

Even though I haven’t done any coding, I have done some research for CE 2.0. I was planning to start working with it few weeks ago but we’ve had a nasty heat wave here in Finland for the past 3 weeks, so I need to wait until it passes. Even though I love sauna, I can’t stand hot weather. Can’t really do anything intelligent in temperature like this (30-35°C). Once the office stops boiling, I’ll start to work with CE 2.0. I’m bored out of my gourd and look forward to start work again.

So far it looks like I’ll be using FreePascal compiler for CE 2.0. I was thinking about C/C++ compilers but didn’t see any valid reason to use them. CE 2.0 will be targeted to Windows, Linux and Mac. I’m not yet sure about the license scheme though. CubicExplorer will be open source but not sure about CubicCore which is the technology CE will be build upon.

Anyway, at the moment I’m glued to a fan and hoping that the weather will cool down. Here’s a little video of what I’ve been filming:

Notes (weeks 14-?) – Rehabilitation break

Marko — Sun, 18 Apr 2010 14:51:26 +0000

It’s been quite interesting few weeks. I finally found a core reason for the problems I’ve been having my entire life. It’s called Asperger syndrome (wikipedia). I’ve been going through my past by looking at it from Asperger’s point of view, it finally makes some sense. The diagnose is not official yet, but I’ll probably go to neurological tests to make it so.

Personally I don’t think Asperger’s is a sickness/condition you need/can cure. It’s just a different way of looking at the world. Our brains just work differently than most peoples, which is not a bad thing necessarily. For example, I have a photographic memory in some situations. On the other hand, sometimes my memory works very poorly.

My next mission is to learn how to cope with the negative effects of this condition. For example, the breaks I’ve been having with CubicExplorer’s development are directly caused by those negative effects. The goal is to maximize all positive effects and minimize negative. Positive effects include logical thinking, pin point accurate concentration, looking at problems from different perspectives, good memory…etc. Those abilities fit perfectly into programming, that’s why I like coding so much. And that’s why I’m very exited and positive about the future.

What happens next and what about CubicExplorer?

I finally got a temporary disability pension (lasting to the end of 2010). It’s quite difficult thing to get here in Finland (it took 2 years and 4 doctor statements for me). This means I can finally focus on solving these issues without pressure. It also means I have to take distance to this site and CE. You can think of it like rebooting your brain.

However, when I’m not feeling any pressure, I can be very productive and I’ll most likely will work with CE because I’m very exited about it’s future. I’ve started polishing CE 1.0 and hope to release it before summer. Also there will be snapshot releases as soon as I add new bug fixes or features. However, it’s also possible that there isn’t much progress on CE during this year, at the moment it’s impossible to say how things move.

Another change is these “weekly” notes I’m writing. I have to stop them for a while also and write only if there is something to report. However, I might start writing to the blog section more about non-CE related stuff, not sure yet.

Anyway, the way I see it, this break is a very positive thing for CE. I’m looking forward to keep building CE and to make it a program it deserves to be.

Have a great spring everyone! Snow is melting and floods are subsiding here in Finland .

Notes (weeks 11-13) – Vacation

Marko — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 11:10:40 +0000

Here’s some quick notes. I took few week long vacation. Nothing special, just chilling. Feeling much better now. I’ve done little bit of work with CE. It looks like the version manager was holding back the progress, so I set it aside for a while and focus on polishing CE. I’ve been rewriting the Stack panel. Also I’m working on a new element called StackBar. It’s similar to Stack panel but it’s a toolbar where you can drag and drop files/folders.

Anyway, new snapshot coming next Friday.

Notes (week 9-10) – Planning and resting

Marko — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 16:34:52 +0000

So, I’ve been taking it easy for the last few weeks. About 7 years ago I suffered from burnout. My tolerance for pressure dropped to zero and has stayed there ever since. If the stress gets too high, my body/mind can’t handle it. That’s the reason for these breaks. Usually they happen in fall and winter. I am however working to solve this problem. I’ve tried many different work methods and keep developing new ones so these breaks wouldn’t happen so often. Also I’m in a rehabilitation program so I’m still optimistic in solving this issue.

While I’m resting I usually do music and/or videos as making them helps release stress. Here’s one example:

Sleepless night ride – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQ2461n4SOQ

CubicExplorer 2.0 and CubicCore

For the past 2 months I’ve been doing some heavy thinking about CE’s future. More specifically I’ve been collecting ideas for CE 2.0. The picture is getting more clearer everyday. At the moment CE is just a bunch of compromises and far from what I envisioned it to be. To make CE work as it should, it’s necessary to start from a blank page and rewrite everything. Of course that’s not literally true because there’s over 80000 lines of code in CE, so I can reuse many things.

CE 2.0 will have completely different way of functioning. Actually, CE will be just a bunch of scripts and templates. All the hard work is done in a separate platform I named CubicCore. Everything will be dynamically created and based on scripts and plug-ins, so there will be unlimited number of ways you can customize CE. Also the UI should be way more stable and hang free because all the real work is done in background.

CubicExplorer 0.90-1.0+ and coming weeks

The development of CE 2.0 will happen side by side with CE 1.0. Also, CE 1.0 will act as a testing ground for modules that will be used in CE 2.0. By modules I mean features like QuickView, FileSearch, TextEditor…etc. So there should be steady stream of snapshots coming even when I’m working with CE 2.0. However, the development of CE 2.0 won’t start until I have released CE 0.90 final. At the moment only piece missing from it is the Version Manager. After that I’ll polish every feature.

Anyway, things are moving slowly but surely. At the moment my main goal is to get back on the horse and start writing some code. I’ve already spent few days in the office so things are looking good. To ease up the stress, I’ve decided to work only 4 days per week. Hopefully that will eliminate these longer breaks.

Notes (week 7) – Building network

Marko — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 17:55:53 +0000

There’s been no progress in CE this week. I’ve been rebuilding my work environment which turned out to be quite a big job. Mainly it’s because my central server is now powered by Windows 7 and not Linux which I’m more familiar with. To get all things working together without a problem isn’t that simple it turns out.

Anyway, by trial and error, things are starting to be functional at last. So hopefully I can get back on working with CE next week. As there wasn’t any progress, this weeks snapshot isn’t anything major. There’s only one bug fixed, a bug which I already fixed few weeks ago. The new server should help in preventing mistakes like this from happening in future.

Change Log

Fixed sort columns bug in list view mode (again).
Updated Turkish translation

CubicExplorer 0.91.0.1253 (SVN Snapshot)
Installer (2.3MB)
Zip (2.6MB)

Notes (week 6) – Symbolic links

Marko — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 15:50:39 +0000

This week I’ve mostly been building a new server. One of it’s uses will be to function as a backend to the Version Manager. It will be used to create CE builds and publish releases. I’m using Windows 7 as the operating system. Because my hardware is fairly old, I’ve had to fight hard to make everything work.

Since I’ve been using Windows 7 on my laptop for some time now, I’m getting more used to it. I’ve also done some reading on how the UAC works. That information will be useful in making CE fully compatible with Vista and Win7. In this weeks snapshot I’ve added a “Create Symbolic Link” action (read more about Symbolic links). This action uses UAC elevation technique that will be used in the Version Manager if there aren’t any major issues. Let me know if you have any problems with it.

Change Log

Added “Create Symbolic Link” action
Updated Spanish translation

CubicExplorer 0.91.0.1251 (SVN Snapshot)
Installer (2.3MB)
Zip (2.6MB)

Notes (week 5) – Only few changes

Marko — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 19:17:57 +0000

I had a bit of a relapse this week, seems like I was pushing too hard. This meant I had to take it easy with the work. I did make progress with the Version Manager but wasn’t able to finish it for this weeks snapshot. I did however made InfoBar auto refresh when renaming etc. Also by default, folders are now included in search results. You can control this from Attributes tab:

Change Log

Updated Hebrew translation.
Removed border around Drop Stack.
InfoBar now refreshes on rename etc.
File Search now includes folders to results by default.

CubicExplorer 0.91.0.1246 (SVN Snapshot)
Installer (2.3MB)
Zip (2.6MB)

Notes (week 4) – Bug Fixes

Marko — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 20:33:39 +0000

I’ve spent most of the week coding the Version Manager. Unfortunately it’s not yet implemented in this weeks snapshot. Reason for that is Vista/Win7 support which is causing some problems. Past few days I’ve been doing some research on how to fix those problems and also learned how Vista/Win7 works in general (information I’ll need later when I’ll make CE fully compatible with Vista/Win7). Anyway, here’s how the Version Manager looks now:

I’ve fixed bunch of bugs for this weeks snapshot. Also I added option in Advanced settings to make CE use jumbo size icons in InfoBar (Vista/Win7 only). Reason why it’s not enabled by default is because I haven’t yet figured out how to get around a bug in Windows itself. At the moment if selected file doesn’t support jumbo icons, a small icon is displayed instead.

On other notes, I’m still keeping little distance to the forum. Since I’m still not fully functional, I’ll have to keep the pressure at minimum. However, I do read all forum posts.

Change Log

Added Hebrew translation
Added Use_JumboIcons_in_InfoBar option in Advanced settings.
UI accessibility enhancements in Translator.
Fixed possible crash at CE startup.
Fixed crashes in Search.
Fixed crash in TextEditor.
Fixed crash in Translator sort column.
Fixed sort column size remembering bug.
Fixed InfoBar multi selection bug.

CubicExplorer 0.91.0.1239 (SVN Snapshot)
Installer (2.3MB)
Zip (2.6MB)

Notes (week 3) – Snapshot

Marko — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 15:15:08 +0000

I used this week mostly to fix my house and to build the work system. I did however manage to design the Version Manager (Online Updater). It’s called Version Manager because it will allow users to make backups/”portable packages” of CE installations. Also it will have an option to roll back to previous versions and snapshots. It’s fairly simple to code so we should have a working prototype in next weeks snapshot.

I also fixed some bugs:

Change Log

Fixed filter bug when changing tab.
Fix try for “list index out of bounds” error in search.
Fixed selection issue when using Info Bar.
InfoBar now gets information in background.

CubicExplorer 0.91.0.1228 (SVN Snapshot)
Installer (1.9MB)
Zip (2.2MB)

Notes (week 2) – Polished Info Bar and CE’s future

Marko — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 17:45:34 +0000

I spent some time polishing the Info Bar this week. I’m pretty happy with the results. It now has some text formatting to make it more pleasant for eyes. Also the thumbnail image is resized smoothly now. The file information shown comes from Windows (same info as you see when hovering mouse over file in Explorer). That means I have little control over what information is shown. However, it does allow people to use 3rd party extensions to add more information. Plans are to make Info Bar customizable but at the moment it’s not top priority.

So what is top priority at the moment? Hmm, I’ve been thinking about CE’s future whole week. There are two important areas that need to be fixed:

1. The layout scheme (panels, toolbars, dual/multi-view etc.). It’s almost ready, only some finishing touches are needed.

2. The file system handler. This is a big one to do. At the moment I’m using Jim’s Delphi components to handle most interaction with Windows file system. However, while it’s a fine component package, it’s not quite optimized for CE’s use. So, I’ve been playing around with an idea of creating my own tools. This would make it possible to add some interesting features (virtual folders/files, ftp and other network protocol support, instant search/filtering, offline access etc.). The new handler would be database driven so it should be pretty fast.

However, the top priority goes to online update feature. That’s a feature i think everyone (including me) will enjoy. Also it allows me to release daily snapshots for testing purposes. I’ll start working with this feature next week. Once it’s done I’ll try to fix as many bugs as possible and release official 0.91 version.

Anyway, here’s the snapshot…

Change Log

Added “Clear Filters” button
Enter key now starts search
Fixed crash on Search end (fix try)
Updated Spanish translation
Updated Italian translation
Polished Info Bar

CubicExplorer 0.91.0.1223 (SVN Snapshot)
Installer (1.9MB)
Zip (2.2MB)

Notes (week 1) – Info Bar

Marko — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 07:08:50 +0000

Getting back to work this week. Little slow start as always after longer break. However, I did make some nice progress. I fixed few bugs that have been bugging me since the last snapshot. The enhanced tooltip introduced in last snapshot turned out to be quite nasty when browsing network drives. So I removed it for now.

Biggest change in this snapshot is the Info Bar. I’ve been using Windows7 quite a lot lately and it has similar thing which I like a lot. CE’s implementation of the bar is little different and there’s still work to do until it’s done. The finished solution will be customizable and there will be some editable fields (file name for example). For some reason the thumbnail does not have proper aspect ratio in Windows7. I didn’t have time to fix it for this build but I’ll do it next week.

Change Log

Added Info Bar.
Added Romanian translation.
Updated Greek translation.
Updated Russian translation.
Enhanced file search.
Removed InfoQuery hints.

CubicExplorer 0.91.0.1214 (SVN Snapshot)
Installer (2.2MB)
Zip (2.5MB)

Notes (weeks 42-53) – Resting and planning future

Marko — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 14:06:30 +0000

So, I’ve been resting for the past few months. Reason for that is a burnout I had some years ago which still effects my ability to work. It gets worse at this time every year due to "Seasonal affective disorder". Anyway, this break has had some positive side-effects. I’ve had much time to think about the future of CE and other projects related to CubicReality.

The current state of CE is pretty awful. It’s filled with bugs and unfinished features. Also my motivation level to code it has gone down quite a bit lately. To solve those issues, I’ve decided to do some major changes in my life. The only way to ensure CubicExplorer’s future and quality is to make it my full-time job and run it like a business. CE will however stay free so no worries. In some distant future there might be an optional registration, not sure yet.

I’ve already built a nice office and I’m looking forward to start work next week.

Happy New Year everyone! – Marko

Notes (week 35-41) – Break and new search engine

Marko — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 09:58:08 +0000

So, I took little break which happens every fall. I’ve had some other stuff I needed to take care of and also I needed some time to rest. This week I started to work with CE again. I rewrote the search feature from scratch. It now has a new more powerful engine and lot’s of advanced search options including content search. I haven’t done much testing yet so there might be some bugs left.

Next I will finish the DualView implementation. I haven’t yet checked the forum but I’ll go through all posts next week.

*UPDATED 18.11.2009*

CubicExplorer 0.91.0.1209 (SVN Snapshot)
Installer (2.2MB)
Zip (2.5MB)

Notes (week 34) – Physical work for a change

Marko — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 22:14:07 +0000

Very little progress on CE this week. I started the change to separate tabs from pages which means tearing down some old code and writing some new. Most of the week however has gone in helping my sister to move. We painted her new apartment and the actual move was yesterday. A lot of stuff was moved and the biggest one was piano which we had to carry from 3. floor down. I guess I still have some muscles since pretty much every place is hurting now.

Anyway, next weeks schedule is almost clear and I have the opportunity to work with CE. I’ll check out the forum tomorrow. It seems there has been some spam posts lately. To all forum users, if you see spam, hit the Report to moderator link.

Notes (week 33) – SVN Snapshot

Marko — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 15:06:05 +0000

Nice progress this week, however DualView is not yet available in this build. I made some changes to the layout system which took quite a lot of time. Yesterday I started to work with DualView but got stuck because I didn’t have clear vision on how I should make it happen. So far all pages (FileView, TextEditor, FileSearch and QuickView) have been “living” in tabs. That made things difficult when you need to access 2 pages at the same time. So I went to sleep thinking about it and in the morning woke up with an idea on how to solve that problem.

Basically I will be (actually I already wrote most of it today) creating a generic way to control pages. This should be quite flexible system which means it won’t be limited to just DualView. With it, there can be unlimited number of panes and other elements grouped into one view. It’ll be available next week.

About today’s snapshot, I added options to control what get’s saved with different tab types. Until now, everything was saved which made it annoying to customize the UI because you would have to do the same changes to all tab types. I’ve also added options to enable/disable some threaded functions in the FileView. All these can be found in Option dialog’s Advanced page. Also there is a new theme shipping called Shine thanks to badloginname from the forum.

Change Log

Added RememberInnerToolbarLayout, RememberOuterToolbarLayout, RememberPanelLayout Options.
Added ThreadedDetails, ThreadedEnumeration, ThreadedImages options.
Added theme Shine.
Updated 3rd party components code.

CubicExplorer 0.91.0.1186 (SVN Snapshot)
Installer (2.2MB)
Zip (2.5MB)

Notes (week 32) – Back to work

Marko — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 06:26:12 +0000

So, I had my much needed vacation. Nothing special, just chilling. Taking a break helped a lot and there has been some nice progress this week. I finished the changes to the layout system which came out quite nice. I still might add one extra option in it but nothing major. So next week I can start working with the DualView and finish the job.

Anyway, I was thinking of releasing a snapshot today but I’m not going to do that because the current CE build is just too buggy and there aren’t any noticeable changes. Next week there definitely will be a snapshot release.

Notes (week 28) – Slow progress

Marko — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 08:43:14 +0000

It’s been quite unproductive week. The DualView is pretty much a mess at the moment and I’ll have to take few steps backwards and rewrite some code. The problem lies in the layout system which is designed to handle only one pane and a single active tab. So I’ll need to do some changes on how layouts are saved and loaded. As a side product to those changes, I will be adding options to lock toolbars and panels.

Another problem I’ve been having is my motivation level which was pretty much zero this week. Due to my programming style, pretty much all ideas and how things should work exist only in my head. If the motivation level is high, that vision is clear. This week however, it’s been just a blur. To boost up motivation, I started to play around with QuickView related stuff. Here’s the result:

Basically, I coded a framework for plugins that can be used to add more viewers in QuickView. It works very nicely and I’m looking forward to implement it in CE. This has indeed boosted my motivation level so I’m hoping to finish the work with DualView by the end of next week.

Notes (week 27) – DualView development

Marko — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 13:17:37 +0000

First I’d like to thanks everyone who left a comment or sent me an email regarding of Mr.Cat. Much appreciated .

This week I’ve worked in implementing the DualView host into CE. As I feared, it’s quite a big and messy job. Because CE was developed to have only single file view, there are a lot of core functions I need to change to make everything work. That makes things quite difficult because changing some of the core functions might have side effects for many different features. But slowly things are moving forward.

At the moment CE is pretty much useless and filled with bugs so I won’t be releasing snapshot this week. Hopefully by the end of next week I have tied all the loose ends.

Notes (week 26) – R.I.P. Mr.Cat

Marko — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 17:42:05 +0000

It’s been a bit sad week for me. On Monday I had to put my cat (the unofficial mascot of CubicReality) to sleep. He was about 18 years old and had been living with me for 17 years. For the past few weeks he had been sick and was in pain so there was no reason to prolong the inevitable. It’s a tuff decision to make as some of you may know. After all, he was an equal family member.

Obviously that has affected on the progress of CE since my mind is somewhere else. However, I have managed to create the foundation for DualView. Next step is to implement it in CE. I’m hoping to get that done within next week. There will be a toolbar between panes (you will be able to hide it). Also there will be switch for horizontal and vertical panes.

Notes (week 25) – Happy Midsummer!

Marko — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 13:49:25 +0000

Here’s a fresh snapshot. This week wasn’t too productive but I did get some things done. The biggest change is filtering with text patterns, you can find it in the Filters Panel. There’s currently 2 modes available, normal and strict. Normal mode filters out any file/folder that does not contain the specific text. Strict mode allows you to use * and ? wildcards to make more advanced filtering. At some point there will be also support for regular expressions.

Next week I’ll start to work with the DualView. I decided to use a simple tab indicator approach to make it. I received lots of great ideas and feedback from you guys about how it should be done. Thanks to everyone . I know that the upcoming DualView implementation will not satisfy everyone, I’m not even sure I like it. However, it’s a good starting point.

Happy Midsummer to everyone! Hyvää Juhannusta!

Change Log

Added text pattern filter.
Added option to close CE when last tab is closed.
DriveBar now uses Alt+LeftClick to open in new tab.
Updated Polish translation.
Fixed Lower/Upper case bug when renaming folders.
Removed "Load this session at startup" from Session Manager.

CubicExplorer 0.91.0.1168 (SVN Snapshot)
Installer (2.2MB)
Zip (2.5MB)