BFExplorer Is An Enhanced Tabbed Windows 7 Explorer

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Previously we came across one full-fledged Windows Explorer called CubicExplorer, which provides multitude of options and features to explore your system. On the top of feature list, the tabbed interface helps user to quickly navigate through multiple locations. Recently we discovered BFExplorer, an opensource enhancement application that aims to replace the standard Windows Explorer found in Windows 7. At the moment it is in alpha build, supporting only Tab Toolbar, Glassy view, Basic Search, ExplorerListview, and Breadcrumbbar.

The developer plans to add tab functionality together with use of standard explorer browser control. The final build will also include additional toolbars with more features like, Changing Library icons, File operation with files and folders, Synchronized command prompt, Change of folder icons, Extended Jump list support (Windows 7), Double panel explorer, and Extended search like extended search pane in Vista (Windows 7).

The most significant part is the tabbed interface that is astonishingly similar to Windows Explorer. With seamless Windows 7 integration, it offers aesthetic Aero-glass support which makes it look like an enhanced Windows Explorer. All that is required is to install the application and run the executable, by default it will open library folder. From extreme right side, you can insert a new tab by clicking the respective button. It can be observed from the screenshot below that there’re not much options to go around with. You only have options for adding and removing the tab.


BFExplorer 1

The developer has so far not mentioned any plans of adding hotkey support, which can made the whole procedure of working in multiple windows much easier. As application is still in alpha phase, we are hoping to get the full-featured explorer with some advance and handy options in the final release. The application has been designed to work on Windows 7 only.

Download BExplorer

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  • Mark Wagie

    Umm…try Alpha1 phase? Did you read anything on the site? Did you notice the latest version is Better Explorer 0.5a1? You do realize that means Alpha 1?

    Don’t get me wrong, thanks for posting about it since either the QtTabBar developer is dead (yes, there were rumors) or it’s abandonware. It was the best integrated (was it the only?) tabbed Explorer alternative I ever found. It would have been very nice if it worked with Windows 7. But no. Very basic rudimentary support was added for Vista before the developer went AWOL for years. To this day no one has heard from him.

    • http://www.addictivetips.com Usman

      Thanks for leaving a comment Mark. The post has been updated to better reflect the current alpha build.

  • Sérgio Dias

    A college student took over QtTabBar, and it’s working on Windows 7. See here:
    http://sourceforge.net/projects/qttabbar/

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  • C-Dan

    I am developing one.

    Here is the pre-alpha build.

    http://tech.c-dan.com/cware.aspx

    Fully functional & identical to windows 7 explorer except for the address-bar with breadcrumbs & some buttons. There is an empty path bar instead which can be used to navigate to a path.

    Still has to be styled. Please provide feedback here
    http://tech.c-dan.com/cweaks.aspx (use compatibility mode to type in comments if you are using IE9 RC)

    The difference between this & QTbar is that this displays the explorer exactly as it is(unlike Qtbar where under “change your view”, you don’t have content & there are quite some other changes)
    & also that in the future builds,
    the address bar can be used for navigating to a website too
    (web browser + explorer) so you can have a couple tabs with win7 explorer & coupla tabs navigated to websites.

    Will be posting the alpha build in some time.

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