CobView  1.0.013  

                                                                                                                   FREEEEBIE                                
                                   





CobView is a shell context menu extension used to quickly access the properties of the selected files. This is a replacement for the old QuickView utility, but much more powerful due to its plug-in architecture. 
You can access CobView when you right click any file or folder on your computer. The program analyzes the file extension and starts the right plug-in to view the file. 
Some standard plug-ins show, for example, text files with syntax highlighting (Pascal, c++, java, html, etc), the exported and imported functions of a dll or exe file, the ID3 tags of a mp3 file, and many more... 



*****Creating CobView plugins*****

If you are a developer, you may want to create your own plug-in. If you create a cool plug-in and want to publish it, please, send it to me to [email protected] and I will put it on the program's site. 

I am NOT responsible for any 3rd parts plug-in. You, as the plug-in author are the responsible for your plug-in functionality and support.

How does it work? 
CobView is a shell extension in the form of a context menu that shows when the user right clicks on any file or folder on Windows Explorer. When the user clicks on CobView, the following actions happen:  

*The program CobView.exe is loaded.   
*This program search the registry on the key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWARECobianCobViewExt where the associations are stored.   
*If the extension of the selected file is found there, the associated plugin is called and the file name is passed to it.   
*If the extension is NOT found on the registry, the CobGeneral.dll plugin is called then. 
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As a plug-in developer you can create your plug-ins in any language you want. 

A plug-in MUST have 2 exported procedures with a fixed format. 

All other procedures and functions are free. You can download a plug-in example here.

 The two obligatory procedures that must be present on a plug-in are: 

procedure RegisterExt;stdcall; 

procedure ShowInfo(FileName:PChar);stdcall; 

The first procedure is used to register the extensions by the program CobReg.exe. An example in Delphi of what this procedure may do is: 

procedure RegisterExt;stdcall; 
var   
Reg:TRegistry;   
DllName:array[0..MAX_PATH] of char;   
Dll:string; 
begin    
//Register the extensions that the DLL handles
    Reg:=TRegistry.Create();
    try
      Reg.RootKey:=HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE;
      if Reg.OpenKey ('SoftWareCobianCobViewExt',true) then
        begin
          GetModuleFileName(hInstance,DllName,SIzeOf(DllName));
          Dll:=ExtractFileName(String(DllName));
          Reg.WriteString('.ex1',Dll);
          Reg.WriteString('.ex2',Dll);
       end;
   finally
     Reg.Free;
   end;
 end; 

In this example, the program will register the extensions ex1 and ex2 to be open with your plug-in. 

 The second procedure will receive the file name as a PChar and it is up to you what to do with this file name. I recommend you to download the sample program from my site. 

Some guidelines: 

*Your plug-in may include a readme file with your Copyright and other legal information. (for example that YOU are the responsible for your plug-in as the author) 
*If you store some configuration keys on the registry, please use the key HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareCobianCobViewPluginsYourPlugin where YourPlugin is your plug-in name. *See the Delphi example on my site. 
*You can provide your own about box, but you can use my standard box for plug-ins by passing to it your own information. See again the Delphi example. 

                           Happy programming! 
   


Installation 
Unpack and run CobViewInstall.exe
 
http://www.educ.umu.se/~cobian/cobview.htm
      


                            !!!!!!!!!!ENJOY!!!!!!!!!!