SCEP

Description

SCEP is a multi tab file explorer for Windows.

SCEP does not aim to provide bunches of additional features to the Windows file explorer but has a clear focus on a simple goal : integrate, as seamlessly as possible, a multi tab mecanism to the native file explorer.

The goal is quite similar to Clover's but the technical approach is totally different and the code is released under MIT license.

Licensing

SCEP is released under MIT license.

Gallery

General

Light mode	Dark mode

Versions

SCEP 0.1.2 - 22/05/2022

• Bug fix : invalid behaviour when hitting hot key (CTRL+C, DEL...) while renaming

SCEP 0.1.1 - 25/04/2022

• The Windows Installer does not require administrator privileges any more
• The icon overlays are back in the explorer window
• UNC paths work

SCEP 0.1.0 - 24/04/2022

• Embedding file explorer in tabs
• Open folder in new tab with middle click or through a context menu dedicated entry
• Close tab with close button or middle click
• Dark mode / Light mode
• Breadcrumb bar
• Address bar with autocompletion and icons
• Full support for translated paths (Users, Desktop, Documents... folders)
• Full support for Windows Known Folders, including virtual folders (such as Network or Libraries)
• Main hot keys handled :
  • F2 : rename
  • F5 : refresh
  • CTRL+C : copy
  • CTRL+X : cut
  • CTRL+V : paste
  • CTRL+L : address bar focus
  • CTRL+T : open new tab
  • CTRL+W : close current tab
  • CTRL+Z : undo
  • CTRL+Y : redo
  • CTRL+A : select all
  • DEL : delete
  • SHIFT+DEL : delete (without bin)
  • ALT+UP : navigate up
  • ALT+LEFT : navigate backward
  • ALT+RIGHT : navigate forward
• Full support for icons and icons overlays.
• On startup, SCEP reopens the previous tabs
• Windows installer

Towards SCEP 1.0

Major missing features:

• Search
• I18N of the GUI and the installation program
• Autoupdate (with https://github.com/VioletGiraffe/github-releases-autoupdater ?)

Minor missing features:

• Handle remaining hot keys :
  • CTRL+SHIFT+N : create new folder
• Handle navigation inside archives (zip) for breadcrumvs and address bars
• Better CTRL-TAB behaviour
• Tab context menu : close tab, duplicate tab, copy full path to clipboard, close other tabs...
• Reopen closed tabs (and its shortcut CTRL+SHIFT+T)
• Add settings to allow hidden files and folders in breadcrumb bar address bar (linked to the file explorer equivalent setting ??)
• Add history menu on backward / forward buttons
• Middle click on backward / forward butttons opens a new tab
• Middle click on breadcrumb button opens a new tab
• Windows + Shift + E to set focus to a running SCEP instance and open a new tab

Others :

• Doxygen comments and html generation
• CI/CD on GitHub

Known bugs :

• The light style palette does to perfectly match the Windows lighr palette.
• Media addition or deletion is not handled in the breadcrumb bar

Third party Code, Libraries and Assets

• GUI built with Qt Toolkit (LGPL license, (C) 2017 The Qt Company Ltd.): https://www.qt.io/product/qt6
• Windows dark mode detection and activation made with linkollector-win (MIT license, (C) 2020 Andreas Schulz): https://github.com/Longhanks/linkollector-win
• Breadcrumb bar developed as a C++ port and adaptation of breadcrumbsaddressbar (MIT license, (C) 2019 Makarov Andrey): https://github.com/Winand/breadcrumbsaddressbar
• Icons from Icons8: https://icons8.com/

Main design

SCEP is build as a Qt main window containing a QTabWidget, each tab embedding a native Windows file explorer window.

The win32 window corresponding to the windows file explorer can be integrated in a Qt application thanks to the following methods: QWindow::fromWinId(HWND) and QWidget::createWindowContainer(QWindow*).

The file explorer window is created as a IExplorerBrowser.

• Pros: It creates a full explorer window that can be tweaked (catch middle click event, react on user navigation, add custom entry to context menu...)
• Cons: The explorer window does not contain the ribbon nor the breadcrumb bar/address bar.

Several other tests have been made for this integration (launch explorer.exe, create IWebBrowser2...) and their drawbacks exceeded the current implementation ones (hard or impossible to tweak explorer.exe, parlty disabled or ineffective ribbon for IWebBrowser2...).
That is the reason why SCEP has to reimplement the following elements:

• Navigation buttons
• Breadcrumb bar
• Address bar
• Search

Building from sources

Prerequisites

• Powershell >= 5.1
• Microsoft Visual Studio 2017 or higher
  Warning : SCEP can be build using VS 2017 but the packaging process requires VS 2019 or higher
• Qt5 or Qt 6
  Warning : SCEP can be build using Qt 5 but the packaging process requires Qt 6
• Visual Studio extension : Microsoft Visual Studio Installer Projects

Tested platforms:

• Successfully built for x64 and packaged on Windows 10 with Microsoft Visual Studio 2022 and Qt 6.2
• Successfully built for x64 (but not packaged) on Windows 10 with Microsoft Visual Studio 2017 and Qt 5.14

Setting up environment

In the SCEP root folder:

• Copy env.ps1.proto as env.ps1
• Fill the expected environment variables:
  • VS_DIR: The Microsoft Visual Studio root directory
  • BUILD: The build platform, should be x86 (32 bits) or x64 (64 bits)
    Warning : Only tested with x64
  • QT_DIR: The Qt root directory

Build, develop and package

Open Powershell in the SCEP root folder:

• .\qmake.ps1 calls qmake.exe and generates the Microsoft Visual Studio (MSVC) solution.
• .\devenv.ps1 opens the SCEP solution in MSVC (aka devenv.exe)
• In MSVC, it is possible to build, modify and debug SCEP
• Note: a future script .\build.ps1 will allow to build SCEP without opening MSVC and will be able to be used in CI/CD context.
• .\setup.ps1 packages SCEP and creates an installation program in the SCEP root folder.
  This script requires SCEP to be built in release mode beforehand.
  The installation program name is SCEP_x.y.z_[x86/x64].msi, with x, y and z standing for major, minor and patch version numbers.

Versioning

The version numbers (major, minor, patch format) are set in the VERSION file located in the SCEP root folder.

In order to change the version numbers, it is necessary to :

• Modify the VERSION file,
• Recreate the MSVC solution (.\qmake.ps1)
• Rebuild SCEP (in MSVC or with .\build.ps1)
• Generate a new setup (.\setup.ps1)
  Warning: This script will warn about 2 modifications made to SCEP.vdproj: ProductVersion have been updated to match VERSION file content and ProductCode have been overwritten with a new GUID in order to handle smooth update. These modifications must be commited and pushed.