File Browser

Introduction

Bundled with expecco comes a tool called "File Browser", which can be used for typical day-to-day tasks related to file and directory management. It is operating system independent and works the same on all supported platforms.

It can be opened via "Extras" → "Tools" → "File Browser In...".
Also some popup menus offer an entry to open a File Browser (eg. a text view, in its "Others" → "Tools" → "Open File Browser on It") when a valid filename is selected, or a freeze value of a step in an activity diagram)

The browser contains sophisticated search functions (by name, size, access time or contents), file difference viewer, duplicate file finder, bulk rename, deep copy or remove and other useful functions.

It also includes a hex dump view, an image viewer for the most popular graphics formats (TIFF, GIF, PNG, JPEG and many others), a simple HTML viewer, an XML structure viewer and support for ctags for easy navigation inside source code files.

The file browser is derived from the standard Smalltalk/X file browser, which is described in the Smalltalk/X online documentation.

Opening

Opening via the Main Toolbar Menu

You find multiple items in "Extras" → "Tools" → "FileBrowser in".

Opening from a Text Editor

Code editors, document editors and many other text editors provide an open-menu item, as shown in the following screenshot:

Notice, that the menu item is only enabled if the selection represents a filename.

Opening via the Freeze Value's Menu

If an input/output pin with a type of "Filename" and it has a freeze value, the popup menu contains an "Open FileBrowser" item.

Opening via the Activitylog

If an input/output pin's value represents a filename, the pop up menu also provides this function.

Opening via an Action

Make yourself an elementary action, in Smalltalk:

   FileBrowser default openOn:<fileOrDirectoryName>.

or in Javascript:

  FileBrowser.default().openOn(<fileOrDirectoryName>);

Of course, the filename can also be provided by an input pin (of type StringOrFilename).

Editors

A double click on a file will present the file's contents in a filetype specific editor.

XML Files

The XML file is parsed and a DOM tree is presented. This also includes an xpath entry field to locate elements within the document.

HTML Files

A preview (not supporting style sheets or Javascript) is presented.

MD (markdown) Files

A preview is presented. The markdown is first converted internally to HTML, which is then shown using the builtin HTML viewer.

Source Code

For many common programming languages, a tag list is shown at the right, to quickly navigate to individual fuctions within the text. However, be aware that it is not meant as a replacement for power editors or IDEs.

Images

If the file contains a bitmap image (JPG, PNG, GIF, TIFF, WEBP and many other formats), the picture is shown in the lower area, and the area's own toolbar offers a bitmap editor to be opened on it. Be aware that this editor's main task is to edit icons; i.e. small bitmaps. It is not meant as a replacement for powerful image editor like gimp or photoshop.

Archives

Tar and zip archives are supported and the contents is listed. In addition, extraction or the preview of individual files is offered.

Tools

Searching

Click to open the search tool in the lower area, which offers a file-search utility with various filters and options. Files can be searched by size (eg. find files larger than a given size), by modification time, by contents (includes a string, does not include a string). Also, duplicate files can be found quickly.

Terminal Window

A VT100 compatible terminal window can be opened for a shell/cmd on the local machine or via ssh on a remote machine.

Remote Folders via SFTP

The toolbar shows an extra remote machine folder icon to connect via secure FTP to other machines. Useful to transfer test data to/from test machines.

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