file managers with best support for alternate data streams?

[jimspoon]

Now that I am reminded how we can make use of alternate data streams within Everything, I'm thinking, what are the best tools for getting metadata into streams, viewing, and managing the streams? With support for "bulk" operations. What file managers provide the best tools for this?

I found a program called "V" that at least will let you see your streams in its directory listings, right alongside the containing file:



https://www.fileviewer.com/index.html - looks like development has stalled though.

Also "Files" - a very active project on Github - has just added similar support:



https://github.com/files-community/Files
https://github.com/files-community/Files/pull/9234

My build of Files doesn't seem to have this feature yet and I haven't figured out how to get the latest unreleased build that does. So I haven't been able to experiment with it yet.

I know Total Commander and 7Zip file manager also provide good support. Any others?

I'd love it if Everything could include streams in its file list just like the containing files (primary stream) but I know David's project is colossal already.

[therube]

(IMO, ADS will always be an albatross.)

[raccoon]

It would be sweet if Everything read ADS data from the NTFS $MFT fast scan, instead of slow scanning for them, and treat them as regular old file objects in the full Index. I have all the RAM i need.

[void]

Would just indexing the names be OK?

eg:

filename:streamname

I'll look into an option to do this.

[jimspoon]

That would be amazing! Perhaps you could have a regular mode and a stream mode, to hide or show the streams in the results list. Hopefully the contents of the stream would appear in the Preview Pane. And ideally a way to edit the contents and write back to the existing stream. But just seeing the stream in the results list would be great.

The Files app on Github has this description of the changes adopted within the last few days:

Add basic support for alternate streams
Alternate data streams appear as semitransparent files under the main file
Eg: main file: "file_name" -> ADS: "file_name:ads_name")
Copy/move/delete/rename operations work
Opening ADS will copy it to temporary folder first (otherwise it can't be opened by external programs)
Preview pane works

https://github.com/files-community/Files/pull/9234

[harryray2]

Thanks for suggesting the V file manager.

It has a good grep function which supports looking in archives such as 7zip and RAR, which is something I've been looking for.

Maybe this thread will help re alternate data streams:
viewtopic.php?f=10&t=10289&p=38404#p38404

[jimspoon]

I need to look at V a bit more closely. It seemed to have some interesting and unusual features not common in file managers. But ... I might be mistaken, but I couldn't find a "preview pane" like we're used to ... so to view a file you have to open it in a separate viewer window.

[therube]

Fast File Copy (FFC, a command-line copy utility), while not a file manager, has options for both sparse files & ADS.

[therube]

I didn't realize, but Win10/11 (cough) use ADS for WOF.
(And can compress files, with Concat.)

What is WofCompressedData? Does WOF mean that Windows is a dog?

[jimspoon]

Thanks for posting that ... very interesting. I'd never heard of the Windows Overlay Filter before. Sounds like a good reason not to mess with your recovery partition!