Better Explorer Improves File Management on Windows 7 (and 8 Preview) - hopkinshodauld

At a Glance

Expert's Rating

Pros

Context-sensitive medallion eases accession to tools
Inexact Windows Explorer alternative
One-ups Windows Explorer with many features

Cons

More or less Windows Explorer features are lost

Our Finding of fact

Better Explorer (aka BExplorer) looks and behaves the room Windows Explorer will in Windows 8–except that it runs in Windows 7.

Better Explorer Beta 1 screenshot — Better Explorer Explorative 1's new Conditional Select button combines filtered seek with survival, allowing you to quickly foreground multiple files that meet criteria you specify.

If you're eager to get a horse sense of what Windows Explorer will flavor similar in Windows 8–Beaver State simply want a different and Thomas More powerful alternative to Windows 7's file direction tool–weigh this unoccupied project of the CodePlex ASCII text file community. Running on Windows 7 (or the latest consumer trailer of Windows 8), Exploratory 1 of Better Explorer seems to have resolved some of the buggy behavior users reported with early versions: I experienced no of the crashes I read or so in user reviews.

The virtually immediately visible difference between the current Windows Explorer and Better Internet Explorer is the use of the ribbon interface. Like the stream version, Better IE's menus are context-sensitive–they shift depending on what you're looking at–and so is the ribbon itself. Fated file operating room folder selections bring out tabs for exceptional ribbons: For instance, highlighting the Libraries folder summons a Libraries tab, and selecting an image brings up an Image Tools tab. Other specialized ribbons are available for folders, drives, and search (the latter appears when you click in the search box next to the location field).

Little like a sho apparent, but highly useful, is Better Explorer's ability to get at multiple folders in tabs, eliminating the need to launch new Explorer windows when you want to attend Thomas More than 1 file out Oregon folder at once. Merely click New Tab (or Dead ringer Tab to duplicate the current selection) on the far right of the Home ribbon.

The ribbon, as was common, is particularly effective at exposing features hidden in traditional menus–simply Better Explorer in approximately instances goes on the far side the file direction tools in Windows 7's Explorer by providing casual access to other Windows features. The Drive Tools ribbon, accessible when you click on a drive under Computer, has buttons for format, cleansing, and/operating room optimizing the drive–features found in the System Tools subfolder of Accessories. The Image Tools let in buttons for rotating and flipping images, converting image files to one of quintet popular file formats, and setting an image as desktop paper.

One other major addition in Advisable Explorer Beta 1 is a Conditional Select button on the National ribbon. This combines filtered search with selection, allowing you to rapidly play up triune files that meet criteria you specify for name, size of it, date created, date modified, and last date accessed.

Better Explorer is not without flaws. In few cases, I couldn't see features that are easy to access in Windows 7 Explorer–for instance, I was unable to figure exterior how to view pictures in an image folder A a slideshow. The constant shifting of menus and ribbons supported linguistic context can be a bit puzzling–for example, a Manage menu detail seems to come and go–and a few the limited ribbons cause so a couple of buttons that you question if they were really necessary. But the convenient access that it affords to many Indian file management and other features make Better Explorer in many ways, substantially, major than its Microsoft cousin.

–Yardena Arar