Immersive Explorer version 0.3.0 Alpha http://www.julien-manici.

com/immersive_explorer/ =================== Immersive Explorer is designed to be an alternative to the default file explorer included in Windows (known as Windows Explorer). It aims to provide an "immersive" experience to the user by focusing on the cont ent rather than hiding it behind useless icons and large window chrome and borde rs. It will also avoid the user from having to open different applications and navig ate between multiple windows when doing things as simple as viewing a picture. For example, when the user want to see a photo, instead of opening Windows Photo Viewer in a new window, the photo will be displayed directly in the Immersive E xplorer window. Although it is not a Windows 8 "Metro application", it is designed around the "M etro" user interface guidelines. It will be optimised for touch-screens, but will offer a great experience for de sktop users too (with features like scroll-to-zoom, keyboard navigation). Immersive Explorer is based on Win32/.net/WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation). It uses graphical hardware acceleration to display fluid animations and transiti ons, making it look more modern than the default GDI-based Windows file explorer . Note that this app is not a complete replacement for the Windows Shell (it's jus t an alternative to Windows Explorer) and it won't even need admin rights to be installed. As it is not based on WinRT, unfortunately it means s RT devices (but it will work on Windows 8 tablets I expect Windows 8 (x86) tablets to be more popular g power users, so lack of Windows RT support is not =================== Release notes : Version 0.3.0 (2012/09/14) : -fixed a bug that blocked the display of the folder thumbnails and items count o n some computers (that bug also caused the use of lots of CPU resources). -fixed a big performance regression issue related to thumbnails loading (introdu ced accidentally in version 0.1.2) -displays the title on audio files Version 0.2.1 (2012/09/07) : -bug fixes and visual improvements -translations are now automatically downloaded -added controls for video playback (play/pause, skip forward/backward, stretch) -added another picture viewer (inherited from Windows 7 Logon Background Changer ). Not optimized yet. May be removed in future versions depending on feedback. -pushed the expiration date to 2013/01/05 Version 0.2.0 (2012/08/25) : -bug fixes and visual improvements -added support for translations (english and french translations included; no au tomatic download yet for other languages) -added video thumbnails and basic video playback support (click to play/pause, n o extended controls yet) that it won't work on Window like Surface Pro). than Windows RT tablets amon a huge problem.

-icon and description are now displayed for EXE files -pushed the expiration date to 2012/09/15 Version 0.1.2 (2012/08/04) : -bug fixes and visual improvements -very basic support for audio playback (no playlist support yet) -supports JPEG thumbnail extraction when available for faster thumbnail loading -on the "My Computer" screen, thumbnails are now displayed only on the "My Pictu res" tile -pushed the expiration date to 2012/08/25 Version 0.1.1 (2012/07/29) : -added a temporary icon for the exe file -fixed a compilation issue that prevented the app from working on 32bit systems Version This is te. It will /08/04. 0.1.0 (2012/07/28) : the first public release of Immersive Explorer. Please do NOT redistribu check online for updates at startup, and expire automatically after 2012 Expect at least a new update every week.

Most features are not yet working, there is still a lot of bugs, and I'm aware t hat scrolling performance is still bad on low end CPUs. I'm releasing this version just to offer a preview of this project as it is bein g developped, and to hear your suggestions early in the development phase. You can visit this page http://www.julien-manici.com/immersive_explorer/ to subm it me suggestions and bug reports. When the app will reach version 1.0, it will be open-sourced. For now the code q uality is not good enough to be shared widely. Features supported in this first release: -local file system browsing (no network drive support yet, write operations are not supported in this version) -picture viewing (scroll to zoom, tap to zoom, arrows up/down to zoom, but no to uchscreen support yet - except for pinch-to-zoom) -MD5/SHA1 hash calculation Features that will be supported in the near future: -caching and performance improvements -touchscreen support -picture manipulation (rotate, crop, and mass resize) -file system operations: move, copy, delete, rename -advanced view filters and sorting =================== Configuration required : -Windows 7 or Windows 8 -A Core 2 Duo processor, or better (this app will be optimised to run on low end CPUs like Intel Atom or AMD Fusion in a future version) -At least 1 GB of ram -The .NET Framework 4 must be installed (it is already installed by default in W indows 8, but not on Windows 7)