Immersive Explorer
version 0.1.2 Alpha (Please do NOT redistribute)
http://www.julien-manici.com/immersive_explorer/ 
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Immersive Explorer is designed to be an alternative to the default file explorer included in Windows (known as Windows Explorer).
It aims to provide an "immersive" experience to the user by focusing on the content rather than hiding it behind useless icons and large window chrome and borders.
It will also avoid the user from having to open different applications and navigate between multiple windows when doing things as simple as viewing a picture.
For example, when the user want to see a photo, instead of opening Windows Photo Viewer in a new window, the photo will be displayed directly in the Immersive Explorer window.

Although it is not a Windows 8 "Metro application", it is designed around the "Metro" user interface guidelines. 
It will be optimised for touch-screens, but will offer a great experience for desktop users too (with features like scroll-to-zoom, keyboard navigation).

Immersive Explorer is based on Win32/.net/WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation).
It uses graphical hardware acceleration to display fluid animations and transitions, making it look more modern than the default GDI-based Windows file explorer.
Note that this app is not a complete replacement for the Windows Shell (it's just an alternative to Windows Explorer) and it won't even need admin rights to be installed.

As it is not based on WinRT, unfortunately it means that it won't work on Windows RT devices (but it will work on Windows 8 tablets like Surface Pro).
I expect Windows 8 (x86) tablets to be more popular than Windows RT tablets among power users, so lack of Windows RT support is not a huge problem.


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Release notes :

Version 0.1.2 (2012/08/04) :
-bug fixes and visual improvements
-very basic support for audio playback (no playlist support yet)
-supports JPEG thumbnail extraction when available for faster thumbnail loading
-on the "My Computer" screen, thumbnails are now displayed only on the "My Pictures" tile
-pushed the expiration date to 2012/08/25

Version 0.1.1 (2012/07/29) :
-added a temporary icon for the exe file
-fixed a compilation issue that prevented the app from working on 32bit systems

Version 0.1.0 (2012/07/28) :
This is the first public release of Immersive Explorer. Please do NOT redistribute.
It will check online for updates at startup, and expire automatically after 2012/08/04. Expect at least a new update every week.

Most features are not yet working, there is still a lot of bugs, and I'm aware that scrolling performance is still bad on low end CPUs.
I'm releasing this version just to offer a preview of this project as it is being developped, and to hear your suggestions early in the development phase.
You can visit this page http://www.julien-manici.com/immersive_explorer/ to submit me suggestions and bug reports.

When the app will reach version 1.0, it will be open-sourced. For now the code quality is not good enough to be shared widely.


Features supported in this first release:
-local file system browsing (no network drive support yet, write operations are not supported in this version)
-picture viewing (scroll to zoom, tap to zoom, arrows up/down to zoom, but no touchscreen support yet - except for pinch-to-zoom)
-MD5/SHA1 hash calculation

Features that will be supported in the near future:
-caching and performance improvements
-audio and video playback (using wmp codecs)
-touchscreen support
-picture manipulation (rotate, crop, and mass resize)
-file system operations: move, copy, delete, rename
-advanced view filters and sorting


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Configuration required :

-Windows 7 or Windows 8
-A Core 2 Duo processor, or better (this app will be optimised to run on low end CPUs like Intel Atom or AMD Fusion in a future version)
-At least 1 GB of ram
-The .NET Framework 4 must be installed (it is already installed by default in Windows 8, but not on Windows 7)
