The Portable Freeware Collection Forums

I would like to know what you think about my app "File Joiner" (very intuitive name, i know ) and if you think I should implement some feature.
Its for joining files that were split by for example HJsplit (i hope everyone knows what i'm talking about). Usually someone will split files because there is file size limitation in file sharing host or file is to big for email attachment, etc.

- it's freeware
- supports unicode
- saves settings in application folder, does not use the registry or user folder
- 32bit & 64bit versions

Download:
64bit
32bit

EDIT: Replaced links to new domain...

Please clarify, This File Joiner just joins files, it does not split them?

If this is correct why should anyone use HJ Split to split a file and then use your application to join it.

HJ Split is capable of joining files on its own.

Is your application smaller, possibly small enough to be an attachment?

I am not intending to be rude I am just curious.

Also another file joiner mentioned on the HJ Split website is HJ Join.

They (the HJ site http://www.freebyte.com/hjsplit/#win32) also do not give a good reason why to use 2 applications when 1 will do.

The executable is just 84 KB when UPX compressed, compared with 342 KB of HJSplit, so is more attachment friendly. The interface is certainly a lot cleaner than HJSplit (albeit with one minor spelling error: Options -> "Allways on top" should read "Always on top").

@donald
Yes, this is just to join files. Mainly because I dont use any file splitter software but I needed something that could join files when someone sends split files to me. I will look into implementing file split functionality.


@M@tty
Dont know if I should use compressor. Last time I experimented with (I think) FSG 2.0 compressor, some AV software would just mark it as unsafe if they dont know how to unpack it, also gmail would not let me send it as attachment.
Thanks for the spelling error, its corrected for next version.


About the size, my icon alone is 43KB (:D) because it has png image for Vista/W7. It's about ~29KB. If i remove it, 32bit app is 96KB and 64bit is 105KB, both without compression. I think i will remove that PNG icon, only time it is shown is when you chose "Extra Large Icons" in Windows Explorer.

I found a bug in Windows 2000, tooltips don't work. Cant figure out why I will have to find some debugger that works with W2000.

OK so I removed high quality 256x256 png icon and I compressed exe files, now 32bit exe is only 53KB and 64bit is 63KB.

That bug i mentioned about tooltips not working in Windows 2000, they actually did not work even in newer operating systems if the "Visual Styles" were turned off. That's fixed now.

New version can be download from the same links that I posted in first post.

IF your file splitter splits file in parts without modifying bytes THEN you don't need a File Joiner on Windows, if this command works (according to the MS-DOS version):

Yes, this is true. You don't actually need it, however there are a few things that make my application (or any other GUI app) more easy to use then MSDOS command.
For example, how long would it take to write a command for ~100 files (or 1000)? In my app you can just drag & drop those files or folder where those files are.
There is sorting and also I dont think that you get a progress for that copy command (I'm to lazy to check now ).

Would it be possible to add a checkbox: "Exit when done" ?
Thanks!

@joby_toss
I added "Exit when done" checkbox, its available only before you click on join button.

MD5 and CRC32 hash calculation, if enabled, slows things down a bit. I hope to optimize that when i find some time, until then its easy to disable it if speed is what people want

Could an option like "Auto join files on drop" be a good idea?
I'd like less user intervention (fewer mouse clicks) as possible.
So far it works great.
Thanks!

Hmm, if user relies solely on auto sort without checking if files have been properly sorted/ordered, it could potentially result in corrupt output file, I don't know should I implement it.
That's probably too much automatic.

Why the need for "Auto sort on Input" as a separate option ? I'd never wont to join files not in the right order, I can't imagine a reason anyone would. I think this shouldn't be an option, but the default (normal) behavior.
Another thing: could it be possible to drop only the first file and the software to recognize automatically all the parts?
Thanks!

"Auto sort on Input" is turned on by default. It's a separate option because auto sort might not recognize file naming pattern of some file spliting software, in such a case auto sort would just get in the way and users can turn it off.

If name of the droped file is "file.001" I could make it recognize and load other parts ("file.002", "file.003", etc.) that would not be to hard, but parts with other patterns and extensions like "file.a", "file.b"... "file.zz" would be to much work (probably, dont know until i try ). You think this would be useful?

Every splitter I used makes pieces with .00n extension; and if one has let's say, 50 pieces, it is not that easy to select all of them (and only them) compared to selecting only the first one.
So yes, I think it will be very useful (working only for .00n extension is ok).

I uploaded new version.

I have done auto loading of all parts when user opens or drops file with extension .001, it's triggered when list is empty and you open/drop only one file, I hope this is OK?
It can be disabled in options menu or by holding SHIFT while drag-dropping file. SHIFT key is actually a negation of "Disable auto load" option, if it's enabled SHIFT key will disable it (temporarily of course) and vice versa.

I also implemented progressbar in taskbar button for windows 7, very important feature