Tips, tricks, tools, and techniques for Microsoft Office

Though the File dialog boxes in Office are getting better, they are still woefully inadequate for any but the most primitive file management chores. Ditto the Explorer in Windows. Nice, but when you can't see into the files on your drive, having a file list just isn't enough.

FileStream just released Turbo Browser Express 3.0 and it's well worth a look. TBE offers many of the file management tools you need (moving, copying, and deleting files, for example), but it's especially useful for previewing file content. You can open, view, e-mail, or manage documents from a single interface, whether files are on your hard drive or your network. In addition to the standard file listing options (large icons, small icons, details, etc.) you can create a very handy thumbnail gallery.

Click to enlarge

With TBE you can view an individual file in the viewer pane -- especially useful when looking at an HTML file: the application shows both the code (with keywords in colors) AND the resulting page (including animated graphics) in the viewer. Such syntax color-coding also works for ASP, JAVA, PERL, and a host of other programming languages. TBE supports a wide variety of file formats, including most of the standard graphics files (BMP, JPEG, PCX, TIFF, among others) and displays some key information (RGB values, for example) as well as providing a cropping tool for copying a section of the image to the clipboard.

Turbo Browser supports native and WYSIWYG ActiveX file viewing using what's called ActiveX Container technology. This means that the program automatically updates its ActiveX and ActiveMovie viewers whenever a new control is installed. For example, because I have Office 2000 installed, TBE is able to display Office documents from Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and so on. If you don't have Office 2000, the company's Web site will point you to the ActiveX viewer support files you'll need. The thumbnail viewer could display my Photoshop files, and by telling TBE to use an ActiveX control already on my system (I have Photoshop installed), I can view a larger version of the file. It's a smart way to make sure that TBE doesn't become obsolete or need to be manually upgraded whenever a file format changes.

You can snoop into Zip and other archived file formats, play AVI, MP3, MPEG, and QuickTime files, and even look at Outlook Express (eml) and Outlook (msg) files. With its e-mail integration, it's easy to highlight a file and then use the File/Send command to create an e-mail message with the file attached.

TBE offers multiple FTP site connections, though it isn't as easy to use as PowerDesk (from OnTrack Data). For example, to move a file from your hard drive to your Web server is a simple one-pane-to-another drag-and-drop operation in PowerDesk. In Turbo Browser, it takes a couple of extra mouse clicks, but the company says its design is a direct result of keeping things less confusing for novice users. TBE's FTP goes one step beyond PowerDesk's: it offers the ability to change file permissions (chmod) on a remote server.

The $49.95 program is very spry - I never had to sit and wait and wait…and wait…while it churned in the background. That's particularly impressive given the on-the-fly thumbnail creation it achieves. Part of the speed comes from its smaller set of features. Like its bigger brother, Turbo Browser 2001, it can read Zip files, but it cannot create them as TB 2001 can. If you need Zip features, you might want to consider purchasing FileStream's Web Tools suite, which includes TBE, TurboZIP Express, Web Boomerang (for capturing all or part of a site for offline viewing), and a communication trace utility for about $40 more.

For under $50, there's plenty to like here. "Recent Files" and "Recent Folders" menu options take you back to previous locations; you can use the Address Bar to enter a specific folder directly if you're a faster touch typist than you are a mouse clicker. A file can be opened with any of the defined viewers, enabling you to open an ASCII text file in a variety of applications, not just the default Notepad. Turbo Browser Express 3.0 has a clean, simple layout and it takes virtually no time to learn.

Check out Turbo Browser Express, including its 30-day trial, at:
   http://www.filestream.com/tbx/

-- James E. Powell

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