Tips

Various tricks that don't fit in other pages:

Shortcuts

• Middle-click or shift-click the ChromaFiler icon in your taskbar to open a new window
• You can also pin the New Scratch File task to your Start menu or taskbar, as a convenient shortcut for opening a new text file:
  • Find ChromaFiler in the Start menu, right click and choose "Open file location"
  • Make a copy of the ChromaFiler shortcut and rename to "New Scratch File"
  • Right click this new shortcut and open Properties. At the end of the text in the "Target" box, add a space and type /scratch. You can also optionally change the icon of the shortcut.
  • Apply your settings. You should now find "New Scratch File" in your Start menu.
• Add the ChromaFiler install directory to the PATH environment variable to launch it anywhere from a command line. Use chromafiler . to open the current working directory.
• If you have ChromaFiler installed as your default file browser, you can type any folder path into the Windows Run dialog (Win+R) to open it in ChromaFiler.

Special Folders

Windows has some useful special folders which are hard to locate normally. You can navigate to them in ChromaFiler using the Run dialog or by launching from command line (see above), and then pin them to the Tray for easy access.

• shell:AppsFolder (Windows 8+): List of all installed applications that would normally appear in the Start menu
• shell:Recent: List of recently opened files
• shell:History: Recent files, organized by date
• shell:::{679f85cb-0220-4080-b29b-5540cc05aab6} (Windows 10+): Quick Access / Home
• Control Panels:
  • shell:::{7B81BE6A-CE2B-4676-A29E-EB907A5126C5}: Programs and Features (uninstall)
  • shell:::{A8A91A66-3A7D-4424-8D24-04E180695C7A}: Devices and Printers

Search

ChromaFiler can view saved "Search Results" folders. These are special folders which automatically update their contents based on your search criteria. They can be created using File Explorer (instructions here)

Right-click drag

Currently proxy icons don't support right-click drags. This can occasionally be a useful operation, for example to extract a zip file to a specific destination. As a workaround, you can begin a drag with the left mouse button, then switch to the right in the middle of the drag. While holding the left button, press the right and then release the left. When you let go of the right button at the destination, you will get a menu of options for moving the file, beyond what's available with the standard modifier keys.