Best Programming Language for Writing Windows File Manager Application

Question

I would like to write my own file manager, that is, something like what XYplorer or Free Commander does, but with a set of functions that is more useful for programmers.

What is the best language to write. I'm basically looking for a language that has rich GUI libraries and a good wrapper library for the Windows shell APIs.

I tried with C #, but writing my own PInvoke wrapper layer on top of Shell32.dll is PITA. I am sure I hope to skip so that I can start writing the application itself.

Answer 1

I will make a second recommendation for akyu for Delphi. In fact, the kit includes demo applications for working with the Windows shell. The whole Delphi VCL is basically a giant shell so that the Win32 API invokes triviality.

Here is a good link with lots of examples. Turbo Delphi is free, but I don’t know if it includes the demos I mentioned.

Answer 2

Since you are going to write a graphical application, I would recommend looking for a tool with good support for developing a graphical interface. not a specific language. In my opinion, VisualStudio (WinForms \ WPF) or Delphi is great for this task. For PInvoke, you can use www.pinvoke.net to avoid writing wrappers yourself. You can also write Windows shell code using managed C ++, it allows you to mix winapi with .net code.

Answer 3

Maybe you should take a look at UltraExplorer , which is a Windows file manager written in Delphi. It is based on several sets of components created specifically for this kind of thing --- and they are also free!

Delphi should be the perfect tool for creating your own Win32 application with a rich user interface, which allows you to easily call all kinds of Windows API functions.

Answer 4

Check this. Very interesting material from Anders and his team. There is an excellent file explorer (the point of which is its cool extensibility model implemented using the Managed Extensibility Framework).

http://www.codeplex.com/MEF

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Answer 5

I understand the late answer, but I could not resist.

Do you know that XYPlorer is still written in the old Visual Basic 6?

This is a great example of how little programming language matters. This is what you build with it, and how useful and effective it really is.

I have a copy of XYPlorer, and I don't care what language it was built in. Initially, I thought it was like a Delphi application. but I was wrong on the XYPlorer forums.

These days I do mostly C # /. NET, but it's good to know that there are applications like XYPlorer.