14 DAY TRIAL // In most cases, I am really glad to see a potential replacement for Windows Explorer, because I can't imagine myself living with that as a "file manager". Although I am addicted to Total Commander, I found a couple of excellent replacements, and even some excellent free file managers, to my amazement. Unfortunately, today I don't have a free file manager for you, but a commercial product that comes from Serbia.
The name of this program I am talking about is Stylet File Manager and its latest version is 1.0. Of course that what I have here is a trial version, as usual, and you can also get this and use it 30 days for free. After the trial period ends, you are required to remove the program or register it by paying 21$. The setup package has 6.82MB in size and installing the program was really easy, so the road to the interface and features is free. Prepare yourselves for the ride!
I like colored interfaces, sometimes I also enjoy big fonts, but I don't like it when things go beyond any decency, and Stylet's interface is one of those sad situations when this happened. Every window of this program is completely messed up, including the Configuration and Search ones. The background texture of the main window is nothing more than useless and does nothing good for your eyes, but on the contrary, makes all text harder to read, the main menu looks awful and the rest of it can be seen later in the screenshots. This is it, but maybe at least the features can fix things a little, so let's move on and check them...
Drag and drop seem to be the magical words here, and this may sound good for some people, but I can't forgive the lack of support for the traditional keyboard shortcuts I am used to, and if you've ever used the old Norton Commander, Total Commander or Frigate, you must know what I am talking about here.
You can open as many file browsers as you want, and so, you can use this program to copy and move files and folders easily with your mouse. The extra operations that can be performed are packing, wiping, encoding/decoding and splitting/joining of the currently selected file(s) or folder(s). Obviously, without using any keyboard shortcuts, because they are not available...
The Tools menu offers a File Viewer that made me really curious, and I am going to stay that way for a while, because what I got from Stylet when trying to open that submenu was a charming access violation error...
The Search through files tool can prove quite useful, but its interface has nothing to do with the rest of this program... I also love nature, but I wouldn't put a green window in a program that has nothing to do with that color otherwise!
The last tool allows you to format removable files, and other interesting features can be the ability to save current session or to keep bookmarks of your favorite folders, but they are not making this program much better.
Once we know all these, the time has come to check the conclusions, and I don't think they are going to look good...
The Good
Stylet File Manager can be used by beginners to ease the drag and drop file management that they would do with Windows Explorer, at least during its one month trial period.
The Bad
This program's interface is a mess, the File Viewer doesn't work, there aren't any keyboard shortcuts to ease your work, and it moves extremely slowly.
The Truth
Unfortunately, Stylet File Manager is a not-so-charming program, and I am sure that its producers should appreciate their work to its real value and try harder. Much harder. The way things are, if you are really bored to death and don't find anything to kill your free time, you'd better try this program than join any religious sect or spend money on any pointless online game...
Here are some snapshots of the application in action:
