New Version of ExplorerPatcher

chip222 · Jul 13, 2022

@valinet
I just tried out SAB again as part of answering your question. It does a good job of restoring the Win 10 taskbar.
Seeing as EP is just a never ending job because of MS tweaks , what about just stripping out the Windows 10 start menu code and just releasing that as a stand alone program.
For the taskbar people can use SAB and 7+ Taskbar Tweaker but I believe no one but you has open sourced and restored the win 10 start menu.
Wouldn't that be a lot less work and avoid duplicating code with SAB?

The-Hive · Jul 13, 2022

chip222 said:
@valinet
I just tried out SAB again as part of answering your question. It does a good job of restoring the Win 10 taskbar.
Seeing as EP is just a never ending job because of MS tweaks , what about just stripping out the Windows 10 start menu code and just releasing that as a stand alone program.
For the taskbar people can use SAB and 7+ Taskbar Tweaker but I believe no one but you has open sourced and restored the win 10 start menu.
Wouldn't that be a lot less work and avoid duplicating code with SAB?

I think you are missing the point as to why the project was started in the first place

chip222 · Jul 13, 2022

The-Hive said:
I think you are missing the point as to why the project was started in the first place

maybe I am, but I have been following it, sometimes contributing to it and chatting with Valinet since the very early days on Github :)
If you mean that it it is the only free as in open source application that does this, then okay.

The-Hive · Jul 13, 2022

chip222 said:
maybe I am, but I have been following it, sometimes contributing to it and chatting with Valinet since the very early days on Github :)
If you mean that it it is the only free as in open source application that does this, then okay.

I thought he started it as a learning process, not to be a full time forever type of thing, and great you contribute, that is what it is for

chip222 · Jul 13, 2022

The-Hive said:
I thought he started it as a learning process, not to be a full time forever type of thing, and great you contribute, that is what it is for

Yes, exactly... it has done a great job but it shouldn't become an obligation.

The-Hive · Jul 13, 2022

chip222 said:
Yes, exactly... it has done a great job but it shouldn't become an obligation.

That is true, but some people on here seem to think it is their right to have it updated all the time and that it is just another free program. At least we do what we can to help

chip222 · Jul 13, 2022

The-Hive said:
That is true, but some people on here seem to think it is their right to have it updated all the time and that it is just another free program. At least we do what we can to help

Yes, it is kind of amazing that no one else has picked it up and that it is always left to Valinet even though he is clearly far too busy. Maybe it is because the work of reverse engineering the windows code is just so advanced, I'm not sure.

MaRio · Jul 13, 2022

chip222 said:
I really had a think about this.. for me any Windows 10 or Windows 7 "style" start menu replacement never feels as good as the original Windows ones. SAB may be good for many people but it felt obviously like a program running on top of and modifying Windows.
EP is so well integrated and incredibly fast that once you have it set up you are not even aware you are running a program to do all this.
It is a remarkable achievement and a beautiful example of minimalistic unobtrusive design.
Just a shame that MS made it necessary considering EP is largely restoring code that MS had spent years refining themselves.
If EP stops being developed I guess I would use SAB to restore the taskbar and just use the Windows 11 start menu and hope it all gets improved over time.

I personally don't feel any different when using SAB. You forget about it after a day or so and just get used to it being a part of the OS.
I could be wrong about this next part, but I think EP is more risky for the future (not even talking about it possibly being discontinued) because it relies on that old MS code being there and being accessible. For example the old Win10 taskbar and start menu are still available because WIn11 is basically Win10 with a few UI tweaks. But as the time goes on and changes are made, old code might straight up be removed (like it should be in most cases if you ask me, I hate that baggage), just like how the XP, Vista, 7, 8 taskbar/start is. At that point you're out of choices if you don't like the default experience.

valinet · Jul 13, 2022

MaRio said:
I personally don't feel any different when using SAB. You forget about it after a day or so and just get used to it being a part of the OS.
I could be wrong about this next part, but I think EP is more risky for the future (not even talking about it possibly being discontinued) because it relies on that old MS code being there and being accessible. For example the old Win10 taskbar and start menu are still available because WIn11 is basically Win10 with a few UI tweaks. But as the time goes on and changes are made, old code might straight up be removed (like it should be in most cases if you ask me, I hate that baggage), just like how the XP, Vista, 7, 8 taskbar/start is. At that point you're out of choices if you don't like the default experience.

SAB similarly uses existing code from "explorer.exe" to revive the Windows 10 taskbar. Writing a proper taskbar is A LOT of work. So not only EP is "at risk". I don't think the taskbar code will be removed too soon, other Windows experiences rely on that code (for example, "explorer.exe" running under SYSTEM account or on Windows Team edition).

Thanks for the support guys, I was interested in general.

The-Hive · Jul 13, 2022

chip222 said:
Yes, it is kind of amazing that no one else has picked it up and that it is always left to Valinet even though he is clearly far too busy. Maybe it is because the work of reverse engineering the windows code is just so advanced, I'm not sure.

I wish I had the knowledge to contribute more

hdmi · Jul 14, 2022

chip222 said:
for me any Windows 10 or Windows 7 "style" start menu replacement never feels as good as the original Windows ones.

For me the Windows 7 "style" start menu replacement of Open-Shell feels better than the original Windows ones, and better than the original Windows 7 one. It does not merely mimic the old style, as instead, it enhances the Windows 7 start menu's superior functionality further still. By comparison, both the Windows 10 and the Windows 11 start menu are for people who love playing with Duplo... no exaggeration.

chip222 · Jul 14, 2022

hdmi said:
For me the Windows 7 "style" start menu replacement of Open-Shell feels better than the original Windows ones, and better than the original Windows 7 one. It does not merely mimic the old style, as instead, it enhances the Windows 7 start menu's superior functionality further still.

I have never tried Open-Shell myself but I can completely see how its creators have done a much better job and believe this!
The issue with me is that I'm a sucker for the start menu matching the design interface of the rest of the Windows UI. I like the Win 10 start menu as it seems like a fair compromise between usability and with EP's rounded corners and floating menu it matches well with Win 11.

chip222 · Jul 14, 2022

I know that this may not be a popular reply as it actually makes more work at first but just to be honest about my feelings and while we are discussing this I would actually like it if EP's weather app was available as a standalone open source app like Simple Window Switcher (which is also used by EP). It has become indispensable to me and I would love to be able to use it even if I was not using EP.
It would also be a lot easier to fork and understand and fixed or updated by a more average coder than the complex EP.

hdmi · Jul 14, 2022

chip222 said:
I have never tried Open-Shell myself but I can completely see how its creators have done a much better job and believe this!
The issue with me is that I'm a sucker for the start menu matching the design interface of the rest of the Windows UI. I like the Win 10 start menu as it seems like a fair compromise between usability and with EP's rounded corners and floating menu it matches well with Win 11.

The Windows 7 style start menu of Open-Shell has rounded corners. It also gives the option to make it floating. And you get the option to use your own custom .png files as the background, custom colors and custom fonts. It matches better with Windows 11 than the original Windows 11 start menu itself. The funny part is that this has been being a true fact for the past ~12 years. So much so, you could argue that Microsoft stole some of Ivo Beltchev's style so as to make Windows 11 match it well. Simply put, you just got it all backwards...

valinet · Jul 14, 2022

chip222 said:
I know that this may not be a popular reply as it actually makes more work at first but just to be honest about my feelings and while we are discussing this I would actually like it if EP's weather app was available as a standalone open source app like Simple Window Switcher (which is also used by EP). It has become indispensable to me and I would love to be able to use it even if I was not using EP.
It would also be a lot easier to fork and understand and fixed or updated by a more average coder than the complex EP.

The weather widget is indeed hosted in the same repo as ExplorerPatcher, but it is actually a standalone application with (mostly) standalone code. Idk, it made more sense, at least how I saw it back then, to have it in the main EP repo, since the actual widget drawing is very coupled with the taskbar internals. Not that I think, fair enough, living in a git submodule would have been fine as well. But I mean, I don’t really see this as a deterrent to third party contributions: I don’t see much external activity with sws or ep_dwm, which are separate git submodules used by the main repo.

I think that out of the devs having the necessary knowledge to follow EP’s code, only a tiny fraction bothers with this OS, as it’s probably horrible for their day to day activities. I mean, even personally, for what I do at work and in general, other than EP, I only use Windows mainly because Linux distros still haven’t figured proper high DPI support, whereas Windows is okay in this regard. If it weren’t for WSL and WSL2, I wouldn’t even consider daily driving Windows. I am familiar with it, but it would just get too much in the way, personally, for my workflows. It’s good that the shell is fine and usable (or was, until 11, so I guess thanks EP for that

).

The-Hive · Jul 14, 2022

@valinet very well put and interesting about WSL and WSL2

hdmi · Jul 16, 2022

valinet said:
The weather widget is indeed hosted in the same repo as ExplorerPatcher, but it is actually a standalone application with (mostly) standalone code. Idk, it made more sense, at least how I saw it back then, to have it in the main EP repo, since the actual widget drawing is very coupled with the taskbar internals. Not that I think, fair enough, living in a git submodule would have been fine as well. But I mean, I don’t really see this as a deterrent to third party contributions: I don’t see much external activity with sws or ep_dwm, which are separate git submodules used by the main repo.

I think that out of the devs having the necessary knowledge to follow EP’s code, only a tiny fraction bothers with this OS, as it’s probably horrible for their day to day activities. I mean, even personally, for what I do at work and in general, other than EP, I only use Windows mainly because Linux distros still haven’t figured proper high DPI support, whereas Windows is okay in this regard. If it weren’t for WSL and WSL2, I wouldn’t even consider daily driving Windows. I am familiar with it, but it would just get too much in the way, personally, for my workflows. It’s good that the shell is fine and usable (or was, until 11, so I guess thanks EP for that ).

From a hobby point of view, I use Windows mainly because it always makes me laugh. It is a fun OS, one that is funny. I mean, the consistency of the UI across the whole OS is the same as Frankenstein. If only you had more time to develop EP, then maybe you could add an option to make my Windows reply to me with "Yes, Igor..."

Aside from the fact that not all modern hardware components are supported by Linux (or they are supported only partially), Linux has a bad tendency to not let me do what I want to do, how I want to do it. I constantly get the feeling that a lot of software solutions available on Linux are poorly conceived "alternative choices", or inferior surrogates of what's out there for Windows, and of what's been being already out there for Windows for a very, very long time. I like playing with Windows because Java Enterprise software development takes place in another universe, for the most part. I can't live in that universe all of my time. Not without turning myself into one of them beans grown mad, I can't...

chip222 · Jul 16, 2022

hdmi said:
I like playing with Windows because Java Enterprise software development takes place in another universe

Smiles, yes from a NON productive point of view Windows never ceases to amuse. There are just so many glaring inconsistencies with it that it provides an endless reason to amuse yourself finding programs to patch it up or writing scripts to make it do things it should be doing anyway :)

hdmi · Jul 16, 2022

chip222 said:
Smiles, yes from a NON productive point of view Windows never ceases to amuse. There are just so many glaring inconsistencies with it that it provides an endless reason to amuse yourself finding programs to patch it up or writing scripts to make it do things it should be doing anyway :)

Even so, the end result of all that is still far more productive than Linux, due to the available software choices plus the fact that maintaining Linux properly can also tend to be more cumbersome in comparison. Frankenstein does save trouble!

chip222 · Jul 16, 2022

hdmi said:
Even so, the end result of all that is still far more productive than Linux, due to the available software choices plus the fact that maintaining Linux properly can also tend to be more cumbersome in comparison. Frankenstein does save trouble!

So nice to hear that POV compared to the usual thread hijack with the why not try linux meme :)

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