What's New

Changes and additions in ShellToys 6.3.1:

NEW Move/Copy To New Folder Here options can be added to the context menu shown when you drag-and-drop one or more files or folders using the right mouse-button.
The drag-and-drop taskbar buttons feature now has an added option to prevent taskbar buttons from being hidden (dragged off the taskbar).
Print Folder Listing now includes an option to limit the number of subfolder levels included in contents listings and tree listings.
The Convert Audio Files CD ripper now retrieves details of all available album-art images, rather than just a single image, allowing you a wider choice of which cover art image (if any) to save.
The Convert Audio Files CD ripper now allows audio CD tracks to be previewed.
Play Media Album now supports audio CDs. You can right-click a drive containing an audio CD to play it, or choose to play the CD with ShellToys in the AutoPlay dialog presented after inserting an audio CD.
Browse Media has a collection of improvements:
- audio CDs are now supported: select a drive containing an audio CD to play it; track titles and cover art can be retrieved and displayed automatically.
- an Update Album Art dialog makes it easy to find and save cover art images for any album.
- in 'Images' mode, popup picture previews can now be displayed when you hover over a thumbnail.
- in 'Audio' mode, embedded images and lyrics in MP3 ID3v2 tags are read and displayed.
- several extra media file formats are now supported, including MP2/AIFF/AU/MID/M1V.
The Go To Folder dialog (Shown if you assign and use a hotkey to the Go To Folder tool) can now be resized vertically to suit the number of items displayed.
The usual variety of additional bugfixes and improvements.

Changes and additions in ShellToys 6.3.0:

NEW For Windows Vista users with User Account Control enabled, ShellToys context menu tools can now be run with 'elevated' administrator privileges in Windows Vista by holding the Shift key when clicking the context-menu item. For example, to open a command prompt window as an administrator, hold Shift when clicking the Command Prompt item.
A new Live Update feature (for Vista/XP/2000 users) makes it possible to upgrade 'in-place' from one ShellToys version to another, and to update files with minor bug-fixes or new features we release between official versions.
Media Info now includes a Copy Info item on the context menu, allowing you to copy the media information to the clipboard.
Fixes a (long-running) issue in which ShellToys tool windows could open in the background if the Ctrl or Shift keys were held when clicking the context-menu item.
Fixes two bugs in the Find Folder tool. (1) Hidden or protected folders would be excluded from the search. (2) When searching from the root of a drive, the folder paths would be shown with an invalid double-slash after the drive identifier.
Fixes a bug in ShellToys' hotkey handling in which hotkeys wouldn't work (or would produce the wrong result) if you selected a shortcut to a file. Hotkeys are now applied to the file targeted by the shortcut rather than the .LNK file itself.

Changes and additions in ShellToys 6.2.1:

Fixes a bug in the Image Size tool when used in Windows Vista, in which no preview of the selected image was shown on the context menu.
Adds support for FLV (Flash Video) movies to ShellToys. Media Info displays information about selected FLV movies on the context menu and can play them in its video window. Browse Media will play FLV movies (but will not currently display thumbnail captures of FLVs).
Media Info and Browse Media now both include options to specify the maximum video playback size, letting you choose between 50%, 100% or 200% of the native video dimensions or Fit To Window. In Media Info these options are reached by right-clicking the video window; in Browse Media they are on the Tools menu.
Fixes a bug in Browse Media in which the statusbar showed the wrong dimensions for a selected movie file.
Fixes a bug that could sometimes result in ShellToys tool dialogs being placed halfway between the two monitors in a dual-screen setup.

Changes and additions in ShellToys 6.2.0:

NEW Preview tool for Windows Vista provides a more flexible alternative to the awkward Preview Pane in Explorer windows. Preview opens in a separate window, but uses the same Vista previewing features as well as allowing a greater number of file types to be previewed.
NEW Drag-and-drop taskbar buttons option for Windows Vista/XP allows the order of taskbar buttons to be rearranged by dragging and dropping them into different positions. Taskbar buttons can also be hidden by dragging them off the taskbar.
In Windows Vista with Aero enabled, the ShellToys context menus are now drawn in native Windows style.
In Windows Vista, an option on the Menu & Tool Options page of the ShellToys Control Panel allows icons to be shown beside any ShellToys tools that have been moved to the main context menu.
In Synchronize Folder, each item to be synchronized now has a Properties dialog giving details of the file being added or deleted, or comparing details of the two files involved in a 'replace' action.
You can now choose the action to be taken for the Copy Path tool via an option on the Menu & Tool Options page of the ShellToys Control Panel. This replaces the old 'Always show dialog for Copy Path' option.
Clipboard+ and AutoType now have Unicode support for clipboard text and filenames captured by Clipboard+, and for folder names, captions and text in AutoType.
When playing audio or video files in ShellToys (in Media Info, Play Media Album and Browse Media) the +/- keys on the numeric keypad can be used to raise or lower the volume.
ShellToys tools that play audio or video files (in Media Info, Play Media Album and Browse Media) now have smoother handling of DRM-protected files. Although protected files can't be played, these tools now either display an explanatory dialog or, if more appropriate to the tool, skip automatically to the next file in the sequence.
In Batch Rename, collections of renaming settings can be saved as named 'profiles' for easy reuse.
In Copy/Move to Folder, when filenames conflict during a copy or move operation, the prompt dialog now includes the option to copy/move the file giving it a unique name.
Browse Media has a variety of new features and options:
- A new Audio Tag Editor allows the tags of multiple audio files to be edited at once.
- A new Movie Frame Grabber allows frames from movies to be captured as individual JPEGs or as a single animated GIF.
- Movie thumbnails can now animate when the mouse hovers over them, displaying an in-place slideshow of frames from the movie to give an overview of the movie's content.
- An added option allows you to play movies in the AutoPreview panel by double-clicking a movie thumbnail rather than single-clicking.
- The View menu now includes an Arrange By option, letting you choose how items are listed in the window (such as by name, date or size). This setting is maintained separately for images, movies and audio.
- Bookmarks are now listed on a menu, rather than a tab behind the Folders panel, to make bookmarks more accessible.

Changes and additions in ShellToys 6.1.0:

Fixes a bug in which right-clicking the icon of a removable drive would cause the ShellToys menu to display file-related (rather than folder-/drive-related) tools.
When right-clicking a drive icon, ShellToys now checks whether the drive contains a disk and chooses the appropriate items to display.
It's now possible to create new folders in the Copy/Move To Folder dialog by right-clicking a drive or folder in the tree and choosing 'New Folder'.
Fixes two bugs in Convert Audio Files: (a) Encoding files in MP3 format would fail with an error message in Windows Vista; (b) when ripping an audio CD, the 'Find Titles' features failed to find the CD track titles online.
The Convert Audio Files tool has been rewritten and now includes additional features when ripping from CD:
- Mixed-mode CDs are now supported, allowing their audio tracks to be extracted
- Two or more consecutive tracks can be 'joined' and ripped to a single file (or an entire album can be ripped as a single continuous file)
- The tool can now find album cover art online and save it with the ripped tracks (or you can paste a cover image into the dialog)
- CD information and cover art is now looked up automatically as the dialog appears if you have an active Internet connection, saving you a little time and a button-click
Browse Media now supports audio files in addition to images and movies.
Browse Media now includes a 'Bookmarks' feature letting you store favorite media folders for quick access.
The Clock+ calendar now lets you choose whether to treat Sunday as the first day of the week, or (as in previous versions) Monday.
In Synchronize Folder, icons are now shown beside files in the final step for easier recognition.
The Set Attributes tool now indicates whether selected items have the Compressed or Encrypted attributes, and allows you to quickly apply NTFS compression to a file or folder, or a group of selected files.
The Add/Remove Templates dialog now includes a 'Rename' button allowing you to rename a file or folder template.
Fixes a bug in the Add/Remove Templates dialog in which clicking the 'Remove' button to delete a template would leave the item in the list until the next time the list was displayed, giving the impression that the template had not been deleted.

Changes and additions in ShellToys 6.0.0:

The most obvious change is in the name. With the arrival of Windows Vista, we've dropped the 'XP' suffix.
The majority of changes in this version have been to provide full Windows Vista compatibility and a native Vista look and feel on Vista systems. Those changes represent many hundreds of hours' work, but they are all too dull to list here individually.
Another bundle of changes improve the design, speed and useability of numerous tools, ranging from the complete redesign of some tools to smaller tweaks and improvements in others. Among others, we've given a complete overhaul to Clipboard+, Copy/Move To Folder, Extended Delete, Extended Search & Replace.
Shortcuts are now resolved throughout ShellToys. When right-clicking a shortcut, all context menu tools now relate to the shortcut's target. All windows that support drag-and-drop allow you to drag a shortcut to a compatible item into the window.
Some ShellToys tools that act on multiple files (such as Batch Rename, Copy/Move To Folder, and Copy Paths) now support files and folders from different locations, such as those found in a Search window.
Browse Media now offers the option of intelligent video-thumbnail caching, providing a huge speed improvement when browsing the contents of folders containing movies.
The MD5 tool now calculates both MD5 and CRC32 concurrently, displaying both hashes in its window.
The Copy Path tool now copies the full path to selected items by default. You can hold the Ctrl key to display a dialog offering other name-format options, or choose to always display the dialog via a checkbox on the page of the ShellToys Control Panel.
The AutoType feature now supports "prompts" — placeholders that are inserted into a text clip. When the clip is used, AutoType will prompt you to fill in the text of the placeholders.
The Add To Send To tool and Send To customization page now support the creation and use of subfolders/submenus in Send To. (However, Windows Vista currently doesn't support Send To submenus; hopefully this is just a temporary oversight.)
ShellToys now provides a Migrate Settings page from which you can export all ShellToys settings and data files, and import them for another installation — such as on a new PC, or for a different user on the same PC.

Changes and additions in ShellToys XP 5.2.3:

Provides correct painting and automatic theme support for Clock+ in Windows Vista.
Corrects a problem that could cause certain ShellToys tools to open windows and dialogs in the background rather than making them the active window.
Fixes a bug in Batch Rename which could cause a file to be deleted in situations where the Replace option was used to change the case of part of the filename.
Additional minor improvements to Windows Vista (RC2) support.

Changes and additions in ShellToys XP 5.2.2:

New Zip Files tool makes it easy to create a new zip archive containing one or more selected files, or a combination of files and folders.
Fixes a bug that could cause the Clipboard+ window to lock after clicking its Clear History button.
Fixes a bug that could cause settings made on the Menu & Tool Options page of the ShellToys XP Settings window to be ignored.

Changes and additions in ShellToys XP 5.2.1:

Fixes a bug that could prevent items on the Go To Folder submenu from working in some circumstances.
Fixes a bug in the New From Template dialog: in some cases the default application associated with the new file wasn't listed in the Open With list.

Changes and additions in ShellToys XP 5.2:

The ShellToys XP Settings window has had a major redesign, along with varying levels of cosmetic overhaul throughout ShellToys XP.
As part of the redesign, ShellToys XP has edged away from Windows 98/Me/2000 users. Although still compatible with 98/Me/2000, the visual design now assumes a true-color display and support for alpha-blended icons used in Windows XP/Server 2003/Vista. Some aspects of ShellToys XP may therefore look poor on older Windows versions.
In addition to disabling unwanted ShellToys XP menu tools or moving favorite tools to the main context menu, the Configure Menu Items page of the ShellToys XP Settings window now allows the items to be displayed in any order, and separators to be added to the menus.
For users of Windows 2000/XP/Server 2003/Vista, the Personal Folder used to store user-specific settings for ShellToys XP is now created in the Application Data folder. When upgrading from an earlier version of ShellToys XP, the installer moves files from the original location of the Personal Folder (within the ShellToys XP installation folder) to this new folder.
New Dialogs+ provides easy management of file dialogs (including Microsoft Office dialogs), letting you choose the size and view-style of Open/Save dialogs when they appear. Dialogs+ also adds a handy toolbar menu containing folders on your Go To Folder list for easy folder navigation in dialogs.
The desktop icon position saver is no longer built into the Control Panel's Display Properties window. Instead a new 'Desktop Icon Positions' item is shown on the context menu when you right-click a blank space on the desktop.
The desktop icon position saver now includes options to manage desktop-icon layouts: you can duplicate, rename and delete saved icon layouts.
Extended Delete now includes a 'negative mask' option, allowing you find files that don't match the specified file mask.
Extended Search & Replace also allows you to search for files that don't match the specified file mask.
Improves the loading-speed and quality of image thumbnails in Browse Media.
Improves the quality of image thumbnails shown on the context menu in Image Size.
You can now reach ShellToys XP's Image Editor directly from the Image Size tool by holding the Ctrl key when clicking the Image Size context-menu item (or the image-preview on the menu).
Browse Media now has a 'Details' tab showing file and EXIF information (if available) for the selected image.
The View Icons window now includes a 'Browser' panel which will find and list all icon files and icon-libraries (such as .exe and .dll files) in the selected folder. Click a filename to view the icons it contains.
The View Icons tool is now available for folders and the folder background, allowing you to browse a folder for icons and icon libraries.
The Properties dialog in View Icons now includes Save As and Custom Export buttons, giving a quick way to save an icon.
Print Folder Listing has been entirely rewritten to produce improved output and provide more options. Printed output is now HTML-based (requiring Internet Explorer 5.5 or higher) and can include file icons. Contents listings and tree structures can also be copied to the clipboard in ASCII or RTF formats, or saved as ASCII, RTF or MHTML files.
Encrypt File now includes an option to create a self-decrypting file, making it possible to distribute encrypted files to non-ShellToys XP users.
The Duplicate File tool now allows more than one copy of the selected file or folder to be created.
In Batch Rename, when using the Construct Sequence tab to create an alphanumeric sequence of filenames, a new Sort menu allows the selected files to be easily sorted by name, date or size before renaming them.
In Play Media Album you can now drag-and-drop a folder into the window to play the audio files it contains.
The video player used in Browse Media and Media Info now supports forward/rewind: hold PageDown to scroll forward or PageUp to scroll backward; combine with the Ctrl key for faster winding. You can use these keys while the movie is playing or paused.
In Media Info, the player window for audio and video files allows you to drag-and-drop multiple files into the window, to play them sequentially in alphabetical order.
In New From Template, when you create a new file from a template and want to open it for editing straight away, you can now choose which application to use from a list of compatible programs.
The Reminders feature of Clock+ now allows you to set reminders to occur monthly or annually at the same date and time.
The Clock+ calendar now adjusts its colors according to whether the blue, silver or olive XP theme is used.
Fixes a bug that prevented the Duplicate Folder tool from being 'detached' and shown on the main context menu.
Fixes a bug that caused an exception if Copy Path or Shortcut Target were used and the options to resolve mapped network drives were selected on the Menu & Tool Options page of the ShellToys XP control panel.
Improves support for Windows Vista (based on Vista Ultimate build 5384). The majority of ShellToys XP tools and features can be used in this build of Windows Vista, but we don't claim full compatibility with Vista.
Numerous other improvements and a few minor bug-fixes.

Changes and additions in ShellToys XP 5.1:

New The Explorer Control hotkeys in the ShellToys XP Settings dialog now include two additional items: you can set a hotkey to toggle the visibility of system and hidden files, and a hotkey to toggle the visibility of file extensions.
New Delete On Reboot makes it easy to schedule the automatic deletion of files or empty folders next time Windows starts. (This tool is available only in Windows 2000/XP/2003).
The View Icons tool now supports the display and export of most icons created using the new Windows Vista icon format (256x256-pixel PNG-compressed images).
The Change Date & Time tool now includes a 'Touch' option for single files and folders, allowing the creation and modification dates to be set to the current date and time with one click.
Corrects a bug in the display of items on ShellToys XP's Shut Down submenu on some versions of Windows.
Improvements to the way the Folder Color tool works, ensuring that a customized folder can be copied or moved without losing its custom icon.
Corrects a bug in the Copy/Move To Folder tool which could cause the dialog's OK button to wrongly remain disabled.
Minor tweaks to provide wider support for Windows Vista (based on Vista Ultimate build 5308). The majority of ShellToys XP tools and features can be used in this build of Windows Vista, but we don't claim full compatibility with Vista.
Various other small tweaks that are too dull to mention.

Changes and additions in ShellToys XP 5.0:

New Duplicate File provides a quick and easy way to create a copy of a selected file in the same folder and give it a different name – an ideal candidate for assigning a hotkey.
New Folder Color tool allows you to colorize standard folder icons (and save colors as named presets), making it easy to color-code particular folders for quick recognition.
New Portfolio is a powerful tool for creating a list of files and folders gathered from anywhere on your system. You can then copy or move all these items in one action, or open the Portfolio window to work with them as if they were in a single folder.
New Run With Parameters tool allows you to right-click an executable file (or a shortcut to one) and run it with the parameters and switches you choose. The parameters can be saved for easy reuse.
New Find Folder tool searches a selected folder or drive to find folders containing particular characters (with wildcard support).
New Clock+ customizes the Windows clock to let you display your own choice of date/time format on up to three lines. Clock+ also includes a calendar, a reminders utility, and 3 audio alarms.
New Custom Menus allows you to customize standard Windows context menus: you can hide items you never use, or move rarely-used items to a separate submenu, making context menus smaller and easier to navigate.
New AutoType tool allows you to define an unlimited number of text clips and organize them into categories and sub-categories. Pressing a global hotkey displays a menu containing all the clips (along with the last 10 clipboard items): simply click a clip to insert it into the current window, bypassing the clipboard.
New Drag-and-drop hard link/junction point creation: this feature for NTFS file systems allows you to create hard links or a junction point by dragging-and-dropping one or more files or a folder using the right mouse-button. In addition, ShellToys XP can display an overlay icon for junction points, and adds a Junction Point Target menu item when a junction point is right-clicked, showing the path to the junction point's source folder and allowing the junction point to be deleted.
New Customize 'New' submenu items: hide template items shown on the 'New' submenu, or easily add your own templates to the submenu.
New Image Editor: by popular demand, ShellToys XP now includes an image editor allowing images to be cropped, rotated and resized, and effects and filters to be applied. The image editor can be run from the Start menu and is also available from the Image Size and Browse Media tools.
New Eject utility is a tiny extra that you can use to create desktop or Start menu shortcuts that open/close CD/DVD drives.
The ShellToys XP Control Panel dialog now has an Apply button, allowing you to apply changes without closing its window.
Items on the ShellToys XP menu can now display icons beside their names for quicker recognition.
The Batch Rename tool has numerous improvements: you can now preview the new filenames before applying them; create filename sequences by adding prefixes or suffixes to existing filenames; remove characters from the beginning or end of names; insert characters at a certain position in filenames.
The Set Attributes tool is now available for multiple selected files, rather than just a single file.
The Change Date & Time tool now makes it possible to select the earliest or latest date among the selected files.
When using the Shortcut Target tool, you can hold Shift when clicking Shortcut Target to go straight to the target instead of displaying its path in a dialog.
Improvements to Synchronize Folder include a combined 'Update' and 'Delete Orphans' action, and an indication of how many files will be added/replaced/deleted by the chosen action.
In Convert Audio Files, when ripping tracks from CD, a checkbox is included allowing the CD to be ejected automatically on completion.
The Shortcut Target and Copy Path tools can now determine whether paths relate to mapped network drives and optionally use the UNC path instead of the local mapped name, using options in the ShellToys XP Control Panel dialog.
The New Folder Here tool has two improvements: you can apply a Folder Color icon to folders when creating them, and (for a single new folder) open it immediately in the same window or a new window.
Holding the Shift key when displaying a context menu now causes all ShellToys XP items to be shown, even those that have been removed via the ShellToys XP Control Panel dialog. You can therefore remove tools you rarely use, but still display them by holding Shift when you do need them.
Clipboard+ has numerous improvements including a redesigned window and icons, display of item numbers, display of the total number of clips in the titlebar, a Find and Find Next option for text clips, and better handling of large numbers of clips.
Archive Contents now has a Copy Filenames menu item, allowing the filenames of the items in the archive to be copied to the clipboard.
It's now possible to assign hotkeys for Windows Explorer options for View style and Arrange Icons in addition to Invert Selection.
The Media Info and Convert Audio Files tools now read/write ID3v2 tag information for MP3 tracks as well as ID3V1.
When viewing a full-sized image in Image Size or Browse Media, it's now possible to switch to a full-screen view of the image and run timed slideshows of the images in the current folder.
When displaying images, the Browse Media window now offers a choice of vertical or horizontal layouts for the image-preview panel.
The Desktop Icons property sheet now has an option to automatically apply the correct desktop-icon layout after a change of screen resolution.
The Cascade On Start Menu tool now uses a built-in Windows feature, a 'folder shortcut', to add a drive or folder to the Start menu. This one item causes a live, dynamic view of the drive or folder to be shown, changing as the folder's contents changes. (As a result, Cascade On Start Menu is no longer available in Windows 98/98 SE.)
The Add To Send To tool now intelligently supports shortcuts: if you right-click a shortcut to add to the Send To menu, this tool now copies the shortcut to Send To, rather than creating a shortcut to the shortcut.
The hotkey options for window control now provide a single hotkey for toggling window transparency, rather than separate on/off hotkeys.