ExpPrint allows you to easily view, print, and save listings of files and directories from Windows Explorer.
Listings can be viewed in a detailed layout format with one item per row, or in a concise multi-column layout.
Detailed listings can be sorted by any property (name, size, type, date, version, etc.), and there are lots of options for customising the listings content and style. You can create your own custom settings and save as many as you want. You can also generate an XML, HTML, or text file of the listing.
You can view, print and save listings containing:
ExpPrint's architecture is based on flexible XML data formats and it is easily customisable by anyone familiar with current web technologies (CSS and XSLT). Additionally, custom plug-in viewer extensions can be written in a .Net programming language (C#, Visual Basic, etc.) if you have special requirements.
If you'd like to customise the appearance in some way, but don't feel able to do it yourself, let us know what you'd like to do and we'll endeavour to help. If we think your suggestions are generally useful we'll incorporate them in future versions.
Expand the zip file to a directory on your machine and run the setup program. If you've not got some of the necessary components installed (Windows Installer, .Net Framework V2), the installation should prompt you to download and install them. Once these are installed, the ExpPrint installation will continue. Follow the on-screen instructions to complete the installation.
The last step of Setup informs you that ExpPrint is installed and briefly tells you how to use it. If you're upgrading an existing version, you should log off and back on again to ensure that Windows Explorer has unloaded the previous version. If you don't, you may be surprised to find that you still have the previous version when you start it.
You need to run the installation from an account with Administrator privileges - on newer operating systems such as Windows Vista, Windows 7, or Windows Server 2008, you should be prompted to elevate the installation to run with Administrator permissions.
If an administrator applies the EnforceShellExtensionSecurity policy to limit the use of shell extensions to approved ones, they will need to add ExpPrint to that list in the registry:
Create a REG_SZ value whose name is "{81A64FE0-7101-11cf-8731-444553540000}" under the HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Shell Extensions\Approved branch.
The installer supports the MSI administrative installation options.
For example:
msiexec /jm expprint.msi
"Advertises" ExpPrint on all the machine's users Programs menu items. When a user invokes the Start->Programs->JD Design->ExpPrint->Readme option, the installation of ExpPrint will complete.
or:
msiexec /a expprint.msi
Performs an "administrative" installation to a shared network location.
ExpPrint setup installs files to the following directories:
| %ProgramFiles%\JD Design\ExpPrint | The main installation directory Contains the core program files |
| ...\Plugins | The plug-in's directory Contains the viewer plug-in components, and the XSLT and CSS style sheets |
| ...\doc | The documentation directory Contains this document and related image files |
Additionally, any user settings for the Detail Table format are stored in the user's (My) Documents\ExpPrint folder.
Setup will also add relevant registry entries and Start menu items.
From Windows Explorer, select the directory, disk drive, or the set of files you want to obtain a listing for. Right click on the selected item(s) to display the context menu and choose the "Print Directory Listing..." item to display the ExpPrint dialog box.
If you want to use the default options (or the last saved settings which are applicable in a registered version), just click the "Create..." button. If you want to save the listing data file (its contents are XML data), make sure that you specify a unique file name as there is no warning that an existing file will be overwritten (so as not to complicate the default operation).
The text in the Document Title field will appear as the document title when you view or print it from the browser. If you want something other than the default generated title, change it before pressing the Create button.
ExpPrint can calculate hash values for file contents using several popular algorithms: Crc32, MD5, and SHA-1. These are commonly used for file verification purposes - you may encounter their use as a means of checking that downloaded files haven't been corrupted. You should note that each file has to be read in full in order to generate these values, so including these options can greatly slow down the listing generation.
ExpPrint can obtain the file owner and in the case of EXE/DLL files, any version information in the file. These operations however can be slow, so use them only if you need them.
Once the listing file has been generated, the viewer application is started automatically with the name of the listing file.
Note that you can run the ExpPrint Viewer at any time from the Programs, JD Design, ExpPrint, ExpPrint Viewer menu item, to display any previously saved listing file.
From the viewer you can select which layout format you want to use. In an installation with no custom plug-in viewers installed there are currently 2 options, DetailedTable or MultiColumn. Select the one you want in the list and then press the "Next..." button.
The main viewer window displays an example preview and text explanation of the type of listing that the selected layout format will produce. While the preview attempts to be representative of the general result you will obtain, it is only a static image and does not reflect the range of options that you can use.
Depending on which format you selected you will now see different dialogs:
This creates a tabular format such as the example below, with each row containing the name and properties of a file, a directory, or a directory summary.
The controls on the main dialog allow you to:
This page allows you to:
| Column | Description |
|---|---|
| Shared | This is an indicator that a directory is one that's shared on the network |
| Name | The short form name as you see it in Windows Explorer, or the full path name (depending on the "Show Full Path Name for" options on the "Miscellaneous" page). |
| Size | For files, this is the size of the file. For a directory, this is the size of all the files in the directory. For a directory total, this is the size of all the files contained in this directory and its sub-directories. |
| Type | The type of file or directory as you see it in Windows Explorer. |
| Modified Created Accessed | The file system timestamp values. |
| Owner | The file owner. |
| Attribs | The file or directory attributes such as read-only, system, hidden, etc. |
| Version | For exe, dll, and similar files that contain a version resource, this is their version. |
| Crc32 MD5 SHA-1 | These are different hash (or checksum) values that are commonly used for file content verification purposes. |
Above the column list is a horizontal representation of the columns that will appear in the listing.
To alter the order of the columns, select the column item in the list, then use the Left (up)/Right (down) buttons to position it in the order you want.
You can choose which columns are listed by setting the check box for the column.
You can sort the listing by any column data - select it in the "Sort by" control. Note that the sorting capability is independent of which columns are displayed, so for example, although you might not want to see the "Type" column, you can still sort by it. The sort order is in ascending order unless you set the "Descending" check box.
If you right click on the columns list you can add and remove the columns displayed in the list.
You can change the column heading text that's produced in a listing by selecting the column name in the list, and pressing the "Edit Name..." button.
The "Shared Directory Indicator Text" is the text that will appear in the listing under the "Shared" column for any directories that are shared on the network. Choose some text that works well for you - such as "*" or something like ">>>" may be good.
This page allows you to filter the listing by hiding:
The preview picture on the dialog shows the effect of the option as you check them.
Note that the option here to hide items with the hidden file attribute is subtly different than using the "Hidden Items - Not Displayed" style sheet. This option eliminates the hidden items from the HTML output while the "Hidden Items - Not Displayed" style sheet instructs your Internet browser to not display them. The visible result is the same, but if you import the HTML file into an application such as Excel, the non-displayed hidden items would be apparent. Additionally, if you use one of the colour style sheets that produces alternating colours, where hidden files are interspersed with non-hidden ones, the alternating colours will break due to the non-visible items.
The following diagram illustrates the sections of a listing that can be hidden using the options on this page.
Hiding Files, Directory Totals, and the space between directories is useful for directory "tree" listings like this:
This page allows you to:
The indent width is expressed in em units so that it scales apprpriately with the font size. You can use fractional values, such as 1.5.
The preview panel will give you an accurate illustration of the effects of these settings.
This page allows you to:
If you want to use your regional default time format, leave this blank. If you want to override the default, enter a suitable Windows time format (e.g. HH:mm:ss).
If you want to use your regional default date format, leave this blank. If you want to override the default, enter a suitable Windows date format (e.g. dd/MM/yyyy).
If you leave this setting blank, ExpPrint will use a condensed display format that shows the file size in the most applicable units for the size value. For example, a file that's larger than 1GB will be shown as GB, while a file that's larger than 1KB but less than a 1MB will be shown as KB.
If you'd prefer all files to be shown with a consistent scaling, you can use a format pattern and specify the scaling. For example, if you want to show all files as KB, you can use a Size Format of "#,##0.## KB" (leave off the quotes), and set the scaling combo box to KB.
For a fuller explanation of the size formatting, see the description of the XSLT format-number function here: http://www.w3schools.com/xsl/func_formatnumber.asp
This page allows you to:
With these options off, the Name column is the normal display name that you see in Windows Explorer. If you enable these options the Name column shows the fully qualified path name.
If you only want to show the top levels of a deeply nested directory structure, you can set the number of levels here. To indicate that there are further unlisted sub-directories, ExpPrint displays the directory name of the first truncated level of directories along with an indicator, however if you don't want to see these levels, just set the "Don't show limited levels" option.
Note that a "[+]" prefix is the default indicator, if you don't like this, you can add your own style sheet to override the default (defined in the DefaultTableBaseCss.csd style sheet file - it's the tr.NotExp item).
This sets the size of files where emphasis is applied in the listing.
If you'd prefer something other than the default red emphasis, you can change it - either in the DefaultTableBaseCss.csd style sheet file (it's the tr.Hi item) or by adding your own style sheet file to optionally override the default.
This is a simple presentation of the directory and file names (no size, timestamps, etc.) arranged in multiple columns as in the example below.
The multi-column options are:
Classic mode is now deprecated and not available by default. Please contact us by email if you need to enable this mode.
The classic ExpPrint dialog box lets you configure a single default set of settings. Note that an unregistered version does not let you save or restore any settings, and prints an evaluation banner on the page footer.
For more information see the ExpPrint pages on our web site or contact us by email.
Printing and print preview facilities in IE7 and IE8 are very good.
If you want to print in colour you may need to alter the setting in Internet Explorer: Tools, Internet Options, Advanced, then in the Settings list it's Printing, "Print background colors and images".
The print preview can take quite a while to generate if the document is more than a few pages long.
There's a minor bug in Internet Explorer 7 (which is fixed in IE8) when displaying mixed language texts. If a line contains a mix of left-to-right and right-to-left language texts, at anything other than 100% zoom, the texts will overlap.
IE8 appears to have a bug that may show up in some conditions with ExpPrint. It involves a particular HTML construction that can arise with ExpPrint in the directory total row if the directory name has a high-order Unicode character. If this situation occurs, the whole listing doesn't appear! Given the obscurity of the character range involved I don't think this will occur very often though, I only hit on it by chance in testing.
See: http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/iewebdevelopment/thread/ed19c7df-8e2b-4591-8c3b-e0cc03380cca where I've attempted to record the problem where someone from Microsoft may discover it.
Printing & print preview from Opera is OK, though not as good as current versions of Internet Explorer or FireFox (in my opinion). It still doesn't repeat the header cell on subsequent pages.
Printing & print preview appear to be very good.
Printing support is quite basic, still no print preview.
The easiest way to register is by credit or debit card and one of the secure online payment facilities available from our web site.
Once you've made the payment, we'll email your registration information to you as soon as possible. Copy and paste your registered name and number into the About dialog box. You can access this dialog from the main ExpPrint dialog "Register" button. This button will change to "About" once you've completed the registration successfully.
You must enter the information exactly as it appears. The case, spaces, and punctuation of the name are significant, and the number is composed of the characters 0-9, A-F and again, the case of the letters is significant. If you register the set of utilities, be sure to use the correct registration number for each product.
You can check that registration has worked by re-displaying the About box from the main dialog. When the product is successfully registered your registration name is displayed in the About dialog rather than the entry fields.
As always, if there's something you'd like to see in a future version, don't hesitate to email us and let us know.
Use the Control Panel, Add/Remove Programs applet and choose the ExpPrint item.
We maintain a list of frequently asked questions on our web site. If you have a technical question, please check there to see if you can find an answer before contacting us by email.
We will post the latest versions of our utilities on our web site as soon as they are available, so please take a look there and subscribe to our RSS feed to keep up to date and to see what other software and services we offer.
Web Site: http://www.jddesign.co.uk/
If you have any suggestions for improvements to any of our utilities, please contact us via email (see our web site for contact information). It's always good to hear from people using our products, and we appreciate your taking the time to tell us.
Thanks
JD Design