[bug] Installing WCX plugins

[XPEHOPE3KA]

2Juergen
For gifs you can also try GifWCX plugin.

About TC searching the directories: it doesn't do it always. I still have imagine.wcx (and it is INSTALLED) under %COMMANDER_PATH%\Plugins\WLX\Imagine\ and cdtracks.wfx under %COMMANDER_PATH%\Plugins\WCX\audioconverter\, but I don't encounter any problems in installing new plugins of ANY type. /maybe it is because those entries in [XXXplugins] sections are not last?

Bah, it's like shooting a colibri in the open sky after a litre of vodka... please, Christian, look carefully in your code


Maybe this topic needs moving to the main forum?

[Juergen]

About TC searching the directories: it doesn't do it always. I still have imagine.wcx (and it is INSTALLED) under %COMMANDER_PATH%\Plugins\WLX\Imagine\ and cdtracks.wfx under %COMMANDER_PATH%\Plugins\WCX\audioconverter\, but I don't encounter any problems in installing new plugins of ANY type.

I see. Interesting.

/maybe it is because those entries in [XXXplugins] sections are not last?

I don't think so. As I wrote, I encountered this issue even when in wincmd.ini there was no entry concerning Imagine at all! On my system, just the existence of any .wcx file in the wlx\ subdirectory caused the problem.

Bah, it's like shooting a colibri in the open sky after a litre of vodka...

please, Christian, look carefully in your code

It couldn't harm.

Maybe this topic needs moving to the main forum?

I don't know. However, if the moderators want to do so, I wouldn't mind.

Regards, Juergen

[XPEHOPE3KA]

On my system, just the existence of any .wcx file in the wlx\ subdirectory caused the problem.

Maybe the directory's creation date is guilty? Bah, I guess colibri is still alive...

I think that if Ghisler won't be able to reproduce the bug himself, you can send him a backup of your TC...

[petermad]

2Juergen

I just renamed "Imagine.wcx" to "Imagine._wcx

Why don't you just MOVE Imagine.wcx to %COMMANDER_PATH%\Plugins\wcx\Imagine\ - then you won't have the problem in the "Associate with" dialog.

[XPEHOPE3KA]

2petermad
Because it needs imagine.dll in its directory.

[Juergen]

Bah, I guess colibri is still alive...

I think the colibri should drink a litre of vodka. Then it would be easier to shoot it.

SCNR, Juergen

[XPEHOPE3KA]

Then it would be easier to shoot it.

Of course! It won't be able to fly then but try to catch it after a litre of vodka...

[petermad]

2Juergen
I have found out that TC suggests %COMMANDER_PATH%\plugins\wlx\bzip2\ only if it finds a wcx file in the %COMMANDER_PATH%\plugins\wlx\ directory BEFORE it finds the %COMMANDER_PATH%\plugins\wcx\ directory. So in order for that to happen you must be using the FAT and not the NTFS file system, because TC apparantly is searching the files in disk order..

Try and open your %COMMANDER_PATH%\plugins\ directory and then choose to show it UNSORTED - do you see the wlx directory BEFORE the wcx directory? If so, you must be using FAT.

With FAT the solution is to restart TC (to get all plugins out of memory) and then move all the directories in %COMMANDER_PATH%\plugins\ temporarily to another location and then move all the directories back but in another order so that the wlx directory is placed AFTER the wcx directory. This will have no efect under NTFS since NTFS always stores files and folders alphabetically.

[XPEHOPE3KA]

2petermad
You seem to be wrong. I have NTFS only and used to have problems.

This will have no efect under NTFS since NTFS always stores files and folders alphabetically.

"This is wrong" - says my experience. Just opened me Downloads folder and chose Unsorted - the files are NOT sorted by name, though they should according to quoted statement...

[petermad]

2XPEHOPE3KA

This is wrong" - says my experience

My experience says the oposite.

Did a little searching:
http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/file/ntfs/filesDir-c.html says:

To improve performance, NTFS directories use a special data management structure called a B-tree. This is a concept taken from relational database design. In brief terms, a B-tree is a balanced storage structure that takes the form of trees, where data is balanced between branches of the tree. It's kind of hard to explain what B-trees are without getting far afield, so if you want to learn more about them, try this page. (Note that the "B-tree" concept here refers to a tree of storage units that hold the contents of an individual directory; it is a different concept entirely from that of the "directory tree", a logical tree of directories themselves.)

From a practical standpoint, the use of B-trees means that the directories are essentially "self-sorting". There is a bit more overhead involved when adding files to an NTFS directory, because they must be placed in this special structure. However, the payoff occurs when the directories are used. The time required to find a particular file under NTFS is dramatically reduced compared to an unsorted linked-list structure--especially for very large directories.

http://neworder.box.sk/news/12473 says:

Directories under NTFS are indexes that contain the filename attribute, file reference, timestamp and file size for the files organized by that index. Indexing and sorting the files speed directory access, there is no need for NTFS to organize the data every time you list the contents of the directory. The duplicate attributes in the index also save time - as the NTFS doesn't need to look up that information in the MFT every time the directory is accessed. Also, because the index contains the file reference (a 64bit number identifying each file) there is no need to search through the MFT for the file.

http://blogs.msdn.com/oldnewthing/archive/2005/06/17/430194.aspx says:

In summary, therefore, Explorer sorts the items so you (a human) can find them. NTFS sorts the items so it (the computer) can find them. If you're writing a program and you want the results of a directory listing to be sorted, then sort it yourself according to the criteria of your choice.

So maybe the filenames in your downloads directory contain non-latin letters?

[XPEHOPE3KA]

My experience was wrong, because my fingers misused Ctrl+F6 and Ctrl+F7... You see: my head isn't guilty at all

So, you are right at that point. But it doesn't explain why I had problems on an NTFS partition. Maybe TC searches dirs by their modification date or something...

[petermad]

2XPEHOPE3KA
Even though NTFS sorts the dirs, the sequence can still fool TC.

If you have a wlx file in the wcx dir, then tc will suggest the wcx dir for wlx files.

The problem is that TC doesn't take into account that different kinds of plugins can be installed into the same directory.

TC's searc algoritm should be expanded to look for directories with the names WLX, WCX, WFX and WDX in stead of just looking for files with those extensions - or even better - count the number of files with a certain extension and the use then directory with the highest count of the wanted file type - but that will still not be fool proof.

But looking for directories with the names WLX, WCX, WFX and WDX would help a lot - I think a great number of TC users organizes their plugins in those 4 folders.

[XPEHOPE3KA]

I think that there should be four vars instead of one pluginbasedir - one per plugins dll extension. That way autosuggesting feature will never fail while we still will be able to install imagine.wcx, cdtracks.wfx and the like...

[Sir_SiLvA]

But looking for directories with the names WLX, WCX, WFX and WDX would help a lot - I think a great number of TC users organizes their plugins in those 4 folders.

I dont as I dont prefer cryptig names - mine are called FileSystem, Inhalt,
Lister and Packer whereas the last not only contain packing plugins but aslo executeables like uc2, upx, winrar, etc....

Don't be like Microsoft! Write "kibibyte" instead of "kilobyte"

This is wrong even in Commodore times it was called kilobyte which sounds far better for me then kikibyte....

[XPEHOPE3KA]

I dont as I dont prefer cryptig names - mine are called FileSystem, Inhalt,
Lister and Packer whereas the last not only contain packing plugins but aslo executeables like uc2, upx, winrar, etc....

So, my solution about four new vars is better.

This is wrong even in Commodore times it was called kilobyte which sounds far better for me then kikibyte

Kibibyte, ok? Well, maybe you will also consider Earth being flat. Even in ancient times it was so. And it sounds nicer: [flæt]. It even is faster to pronounce as it has only one vowel sound, while [raund] has two...