Browse

Browse is a lightweight Windows file-explorer-style app (Win32/C++17) with built-in video playback via libVLC and a handful of practical, power-user file operations. It was forked from MediaExplorer and intentionally removes all FFmpeg/combine/edit features—this is meant to stay small and fast.

Features

Browsing

• Drives view and folder view
• Folder view shows all files (not just videos)
• Column sorting (directories always shown first)
• Responsive UI while loading large folders (title-bar spinner)
• Optional command-line start folder:
  Browse.exe C:\data\new

Video playback (libVLC)

• Select one or more video files and play them as a playlist
• Seek bar + title bar shows current time / total time
• Fullscreen toggle
• Video metadata columns (Resolution / Duration) populated quickly when available, then filled in by a background worker

Video search (videos only)

• Recursive search for video files by keyword (case-insensitive)
• Search can be scoped:
  • If you select folders/files before searching, Browse searches only inside your selection
• While in Search view, pressing search again adds another keyword and filters results (AND semantics)

File operations

• Rename files/folders (F2 or context menu)
• Delete files and folders (folders deleted recursively)
• Cut/Copy/Paste for files and directories
• Uses the system clipboard (CF_HDROP) so cut/copy from Browse can be pasted in Explorer and vice‑versa
• Paste shows a progress dialog with Cancel
• Cross-volume moves are handled as copy + delete

Network drives

• Context menu:
  • Map Network Drive…
  • Disconnect Network Drive…
• In Drives view, persistently mapped but disconnected drives are shown in red (displayed as X:)
• Disconnected mapped drives are blocked from navigation and offer a single action:
  • Fix (disconnect + reconnect to the same \\server\share)
• Optional default credentials for map/fix can be read from browse.ini

Logging (optional)

• If enabled, writes browse.log to your configured log folder.

Keyboard shortcuts

List view (browsing/search)

• Enter / Double‑click: open folder OR open file
  • video file(s) → play in built-in player
  • non-video file → open with default app (ShellExecute)
• Left / Backspace: up one folder (drive root → Drives view)
• Ctrl+A: select all
• F2: rename selected item
• Del: delete selected items (folders deleted recursively)
• Ctrl+C / Ctrl+X / Ctrl+V: copy / cut / paste
• Ctrl+F: search (recursive) for video files by keyword
• Right‑click: context menu (Open/Play/Rename/Cut/Copy/Paste/Delete + network drive actions)

Playback

• Esc: exit playback
• Enter: toggle fullscreen
• Space: pause
• Tab: resume
• Left / Right: seek -/+10 seconds (Shift+Left/Right: -/+60 seconds)
• Ctrl+Left / Ctrl+Right: previous / next item in playlist
• Up / Down: volume +/-5
• Ctrl+G: open playlist chooser
• Ctrl+P: show video properties (optionally uses ffprobe for codec details)
• Del: queue delete of the current file (applied when you exit playback)
• Ctrl+R: queue rename of the current file (applied when you exit playback)
• Ctrl+C: queue “copy current file to…” (applied when you exit playback)

Note: The playback-time file actions (Delete/Rename/Copy-To) are applied when you exit playback so playback stays smooth.

Configuration (browse.ini)

Place browse.ini next to Browse.exe. The parser is simple key=value, case-insensitive. Lines starting with ; or # are comments. Section headers like [general] are ignored (allowed, but not required).

Example:

; browse.ini (next to Browse.exe)

; Optional: show codec details in Ctrl+P “Video properties”
ffprobeAvailable = 1

; Optional: write logs
loggingEnabled = 1
loggingPath    = C:\browse_logs

; Optional: default credentials for mapping/reconnecting network drives
; (leave blank to let Windows prompt interactively)
username = DOMAIN\user
password = your_password

ffprobe notes

If ffprobeAvailable=1, ensure ffprobe.exe is available on your PATH (or in the working directory). If disabled or unavailable, Browse still shows basic information but may omit codec details.

Building (Visual Studio 2022)

• Windows + Visual Studio 2022
• C++17, x64 recommended
• Links against libVLC (libvlc.lib / libvlccore.lib)

Typical steps:

1. Open your solution/project (for example, Browse.sln) in Visual Studio 2022.
2. Select Release | x64.
3. Ensure include/lib paths point to your libVLC headers and import libraries (many forks keep these under a vlclib/ folder).
4. Build.

Runtime requirements (libVLC)

The executable needs the VLC runtime at run time:

• libvlc.dll
• libvlccore.dll
• the plugins/ folder

You can provide these next to Browse.exe, or use an installed VLC distribution (depending on how you package your app).

Notes / behavior details

• Folder view shows all files; Search view is videos only.
• Resolution/Duration columns may appear a moment later for some files due to background metadata fill.
• “Fix” for a broken mapped drive uses the persisted mapping from HKCU\Network\<Letter>\RemotePath.

License

Choose a license for your repository (MIT is a common choice). If this code is derived from another project, ensure you comply with that project’s license and attribution requirements.