Altap Salamander Development News

[Jan Rysavy]

We would like to let you know about current Altap Salamander development status. Our current plan is switch to Visual C++ 2008 (from Visual C++ 6) so we will be able to work on major issues such as x64, UAC, and Unicode support. Second big task is ongoing update of our existing outdated website.

Please note this thread will not reflect everything what is happening here in Altap, but it should contain important tasks we are working on.

[Petr Solin]

We have received couple of questions why we are switching to VC++ 2008 instead of current version VC++ 2010. We have simple reason and it is compatibility of produced executables with W2K+. VC++ 2010 produces executables compatible with XP SP2+ (minimal requested platform of the VC++ 2010 CRT is Windows XP SP2). VC++ 2008 seems to have everything we need and moreover, switching to VC++ 2010 seems to be very easy, just automatically convert project files, source code does not seem to require any changes.

We have had problem with msvcr90.dll and msvcp90.dll (C and C++ dynamic runtime libraries) because they require installation which is not possible when you want to use Salamander from USB stick or from network drive. We have solved it by building custom versions of these libraries (salrtl9.dll and salrtlp9.dll) in VC++ 2008.

Our main problem with switching to VC++ 2008 is switching to its internal resource editor. We have used external resource editor which is no longer supported, so it cannot be used under current 64-bit versions of Windows. We have two parts of resources, first (mainly dialogs) is editable with VC++ 2008 resource editor and second (mainly strings) is editable only manually because it contains additional comments for translators. We have to split resources manually to these two parts because VC++ 2008 resource editor does not keep comments without change in source code of resources. Moreover it uses "modern" W2K+ dialog style (DIALOGEX + DS_SETFONT | DS_FIXEDSYS) which was not supported by previously used resource editor, so layouts of dialogs are slightly changed by this conversion. We have to enlarge some controls to show whole texts.

What is already finished:

• Salamander's core
• utilities: SalOpen, MUIRes, SalamExt, SalSpawn, and UninstPl
• 7-Zip plugin
• Automation plugin
• Database Viewer plugin
• DemoMenu plugin
• DemoPlug plugin
• DemoView plugin
• Disk Copy plugin

[Petr Solin]

We have finished these plugins:

• DiskMap
• Encrypt & Decrypt
• Eroiica Viewer

VC++ 2008 has reported two runtime errors during test of Encrypt & Decrypt plugin, so we have fixed two bugs (use of uninitialized variable and modifying of stack behind space reserved for variable). I really like these runtime checks in VC++ 2008, very helpful.

Currently we are solving File Comparator plugin. Due to changes in STL we must adapt source code using hash_map.

[Jan Rysavy]

Altap Salamander source code was migrated from CVS to Mercurial.
TortoiseHG looks great, we are reporting problems we found.

[Petr Solin]

We have finished these plugins:

• File Comparator
• FTP

FTP Search plugin is obsolete and we have decided not to support it in new version.

[Petr Solin]

We have finished these plugins:

• Checksum
• Check Version
• Internet Explorer Viewer
• Multimedia Viewer

[Petr Solin]

We have finished these plugins:

• Network
• PAK
• Portable Executable Viewer
• PictView
• Registry Editor
• Renamer
• Split & Combine
• TAR
• UnACE
• UnARJ
• UnCAB
• Undelete
• UnFAT
• UnCHM

[stepand76]

Good news! Could you tell us what is the overall progress? What is remaining to release a preview build?

[Ether]

Good news! Could you tell us what is the overall progress? What is remaining to release a preview build?

Seems to me that these are still waiting to be done: UnISO, UnLHA, UnMIME, UnRAR, WinSCP, Windows Mobile, ZIP.

[Petr Solin]

We have finished these plugins:

• UnISO
• UnLHA
• UnMIME
• UnRAR
• Windows Mobile

Only ZIP plugin is remaining, it contains also Zip2SFX and Self-Extractor. We have changed dialog layout to current style (W2K). It was necessary because VC 2008 resource editor uses it. We will have to fix layouts of dialogs in all language versions (enlarge some controls to show whole texts).

[Petr Solin]

We have finished ZIP plugin, Zip2SFX, and Self-Extractor. Switching Salamander to VC++ 2008 is finished. We are testing new version internally now. Debugging features in VC2008 have already found couple of problems, we have fixed them.

[Petr Solin]

We have removed obsolete source code from Salamander and plugins. Version 2.55 will run on Windows 2000/XP/Vista/7, so all special variants for Windows 95/98/Me/NT4 have become useless and has been removed.

[SelfMan]

We have removed obsolete source code from Salamander and plugins. Version 2.55 will run on Windows 2000/XP/Vista/7, so all special variants for Windows 95/98/Me/NT4 have become useless and has been removed.

OH YES!!!!

[Petr Solin]

We are switching resource modules (dialogs, menus, and texts) to new version 2.55. Version 2.55 will be available in these languages: Czech, English, French (partially translated), German, Hungarian, Romanian, Russian (partially translated), Slovak (new), Spanish, and maybe also Ukrainian (translation is in progress). We have solved couple of problems on our new web pages (broken links in help section, etc.). We are also fixing bugs found due to VC 2008 debugging features (buffer overrun in Find, icon reading error when switching between panel view modes).

[Petr Solin]

We have finished changes for 2.55 for these languages: English, Czech, Slovak, German, Hungarian, and Romanian. We will continue with Spanish, French, and Russian.