Microsoft has been facing severe criticism for bolting Metro interface on non Touch Windows PC, ever since the launch of the developer’s preview. Even in the tablet space, towards which Metro is primarily targeted, has been receiving few sniggers due to the fact that Windows Explorer is just not built for the touch interface, making file management really cumbersome.
While Microsoft could dilly dally for months about things like flash in Metro Internet Explorer, it left something as basic as the Windows Explorer out in the cold without a Metro avatar leaving tablet users grumbling about the clumsiness of Windows Explorer on touch interfaces.
Thanks to Julien Manici, we finally have a wonderful substitute. Immersive Explorer, is a file manager built from the ground up based on Metro interface guidelines. While it is in very early stages of development, we decided to take a peek at its Metro implementation. It would be unfair to comment and criticize the apps’ minor missing functionality at this stage, so we are not going to rant about missing features here (trust me there are loads!)
Download: Immersive Explorer 0.1.2 Preview [0.5 MB]
Features of Immersive Explorer
- Built completely based upon Metro Guidelines – the first pure Metro file explorer for Windows.
- Gels extremely well with Windows 8 Metro UI.
- Uses hardware acceleration for fluid animations and transitions, unlike the default Windows Explorer.
- Very intuitive and simple user interface.
- Native picture viewing with (scroll to zoom, direction key zoom, supported )
- MD5/ SHA1 hash calculation
- Fullscreen Mode
- Basic audio playback
Given the fact that the app is still in Preview mode, the features are extremely limited and some of the basic file operations like copy , move delete just don’t work.
What’s Future Updates Hold is Store?
- Video Playback using Windows Media Player Codecs
- Picture Manipulation – Rotate ,Crop and Mass Resize (yay for the last one)
- Caching and Performance improvements.
Give it a spin
We warn you again, it is in preview stage and many basic features are missing. But for a 0.1 version release, it is simply amazing and it does not even require admin privileges or installation. You can safely toy around with it without messing anything. Just extract the zip and run the .exe file.
Download: Immersive Explorer 0.1.2 Preview [0.5 MB]
Immersive Explorer runs only on Windows 7 and Windows 8. Windows 7 users will need the .NET 4.0 framework to run it , which can be downloaded here
You will need a fairly modern computer to run it as of now. A PC with Core 2 Duo or a better processor and 1 GB of RAM is necessary to run it smoothly.
The App
Immersive Explorer works very smoothly. Browsing and viewing photos is a real treat within the app and it will only get better with the upcoming audio and video playback capability. The animations and transitions make Windows Explorer even on Windows 8 look like software from the past decade.
Some basic features are missing for now, so do not expect it to replace Windows Explorer just yet. The tiles are not resizable or movable yet, but we guess this functionality will be added soon. However heavy file management junkies will snigger at Immersive Explorer for sure, which brings me to the next point.
A Metro File Explorer for Windows 8 with Mouse and Keyboard ? Meh.
I reckon it will be pretty cumbersome to quickly copy selected files/folders from a directory packed with lot of stuff, given the fact that you have to move through and forth the metro transitions, which can be extremely distracting. Not to mention it will take some time getting used to the weird horizontal scrolling on the PC. The icon free interface which is supposed to reduce the visual clutter only makes the matter worse, making it tough to differentiate between folders and files (for now).
While you might be really thinking this is blatant exaggeration, those who work for long hours on the PC will definitely agree with me that a Metro based file explorer is bound to take a toll on productivity. Also I wish there were some good substitutes for List and Detail views of Windows explorer in Immersive Explorer, but given the nature of tiles, in all the probability it simply cant be done.
Having said this, Immersive Explorer will surely come as a relief for many people hoping to buy Windows 8 Tablets.
