Greetings everyone.
Like pretty much everyone else here, I got hooked on QTTabBar a long time ago. When Windows 7 hit, I was devastated to learn that I’d have to leave it behind. I’ve waited patiently for an update that would bring back my beloved single-window Explorer experience, but alas, as we all know, it never came. And with this rumor that Quizo might be dead, it’s looking extremely likely that it never will come.
The time has come to stop waiting and start doing. At this point, I think we can safely say that Quizo isn’t coming back. Therefore, I’ve decided to pick up the torch myself. Thanks to the incredible .NET Reflector, I’ve managed to decompile QTTabBar in its entirety. I’ve also rebuilt the project files complete with resources. The decompilation process seems to have introduced a few bugs, but the project does compile, and the resulting binary loads with Explorer. The bugs that make it unusable on Windows 7 still exist, but now that the source is organized, compliable, and debuggable, they can finally be addressed.
QTTabBar is quite a sizable project: over 36000 lines of code. To make matters tougher, compilers strip out comments from source code when compiling, which means the source code I’m working with has not a single comment to explain anything. Fortunately, it seems Quizo was a downright brilliant programmer. The source is incredibly self-documenting, meticulously organized with very descriptive function and variable names. To be honest, the code is so beautiful that I almost feel like I’m trampling on holy ground by modifying it.
I’ve started a new project on SourceForge and checked in the source under the GNU General Public License. I don’t know if I have the legal right to do this, and in fact, I’m pretty sure that I don’t. However, I don’t see any license information on this webpage or in the Plugin SDK, and I doubt anyone’s going to complain. I don’t know how Quizo would have felt about this project being open source, but I’m sure all of you will appreciate the security knowing that if I ever get bored with this project or get otherwise incapacitated, someone else will be able to pick it up.
I have big plans for QTTabBar, including implementing all kinds of Windows 7 specific features, such as tab thumbnails on the taskbar just like Internet Explorer. Other than the source code (which can be checked out by anyone) I don’t have anything ready for download yet. But rest assured, this project isn't dead!
—Paul Accisano
PS: In the interest of full disclosure, I should mention that, while I have a great deal of programming experience, including programming shell extensions, I have no experience publicly releasing and maintaining a program. Advice and constructive criticism is always welcome.
SourceForge project webpage: http://sourceforge.net/projects/qttabbar/
