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Looking for an external reg file viewer


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Hi folks.

I'm in search of something that can view reg files in an external viewer. If you're familiar with IrfanView, you know you can press the space bar to view the next file in the directory, F2 to rename, F7 to move, delete to delete and so on. IrfanView can view ANSI files that contain text but not Unicode files so renaming to reg files to txt does not work.

The only viewers I've been able to find is Lister (part of Total Commander) and a bunch of registry hive viewers. Lister only lets you go forward and back. No editing or anything else.

Anyone, know of something that functions like IrfanView but for reg files?

Thanks!

Edited by -X-
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I use this for both .ini and .reg files. The beauty is that it can sort them (but unfortunately chokes on multi-line values).

There is also a x64 beta version, let me know if you're interested so I can find it. I saw it in a Russian or Ukrainian forum.

*Edit: Here it is anyway. :) But I still use version 1.2 for x86 because the beta has some bugs.

GL

Edited by GrofLuigi
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Thanks a lot! It works!

The bad part is the keyboard shortcuts of Lister are disabled and it uses the plugins shortcuts so no more N for next file and P for previous. :(

Ideally, I want to be able to go through a list of files rapidly and don't have the time to use the mouse in Lister to move to the next file.

So I'm still open to suggestions.

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I've never seen one that I would truly consider a must-have tool, which is understandable because so few really care about REG exports in the first place and even if someone developed one, they would likely leave out something important, or insert some silly annoyance anyway. But I'm always open to new ideas, so maybe someone will pop in here with something else to try.

I stopped looking and just set upon using a normal editor, UltraEdit, as my REG viewer/editor. This one is good because of the user customizable Syntax Color definitions ( plain ASCII file defining the pairs of syntax chars, delimiters and keywords ) that are responsible for how a given filetype appears in the GUI when opened. I find this approach "close enough for hacking work".

As noted above, INI files are very close ( but still different ) to REG files, so any INI file editor/viewer does a decent job. In fact my REG def for UltraEdit is very close to the INI def, which are both kept in the Wordfile.uew file used by UltraEdit ( I never did look to see if other users developed a better one, I'll have to check that out ).

If you use a bunch of different editors, you can experiment by just temporarily renaming a file's extension ( e.g., REG to INI ) to see how it appears in these different editors. There are lots of types to try ( REG INI BAT C CPP ASM ISS AUT AU3 PAS CMD HTM CSS XML PHP JS ... ). This approach let's you first determine the capability of an editor with respect to syntax recognition, and once you find one that you like, you can then go and duplicate that syntax, then tweak it up and use it specifically for registry exports.

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I guess I am missing something, but reg files are plain text, so why would you want special program for viewing them?

Try the RegPad I posted a link to before, this could give you some ideas on a possible different way to view a "plain text" file which is a .reg file. :whistle:

jaclaz

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I guess I am missing something, but reg files are plain text, so why would you want special program for viewing them?

Syntax Coloring. It lets the Key names show up in one color, the value names as another, value data as yet another.

It gets real fun when trying to make strings a certain color because of the way REG exports tend to have (") quote marks that are not perfectly paired ( most syntax recognition relies on an 'open' and 'close' delimit character to identify things ). Paired quotes are always used for string values, but unfortunately quotes are also used elsewhere unpaired ( escaped command lines which themselves are within quotes ). Tricky.

Proper programming languages will never have this problem because of iron-clad syntax, and when you see a syntax coloring problem you know there is a mistake in your code or comments. But not with REG files. You'll have a giant REG file opened and then for big chunks of it the coloring is okay, and then suddenly NOT okay, and then fine, then ...

So standard programmer editor syntax recognition often breaks on REG files. Consequently a really elaborate algorithm would be better, and it would need to self-close broken quotes after a number of CRLF's have occurred. Even that is a problem because of multi-line strings with proper quote pairing. It would be quite a chore. Alternatively you can just remove (") quote marks from syntax recognition.

EDIT: typo

Edited by CharlotteTheHarlot
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I'll just throw this on the table :w00t: (before hiding my hand behind my back ;)).

Pygments:

http://pygments.org/

has a lexer for .reg files:

http://pygments.org/docs/lexers/#lexers-for-non-source-code-file-types

jaclaz

Looks very promising. Never heard of it before. Thanks for wiping out my next few hours of spare time :lol:

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  • 1 month later...

I found it! :thumbup

It's called Universal Viewer Free @ http://www.uvviewsoft.com/download.htm.

(Scroll down to the bottom of the page for the portable version or it uses a spyware ridden installer!)

Works just like IrfanView after you set the hot keys. Space for next, backspace for back, delete to delete, etc. The only annoying thing is it wants you to confirm deleting the file to the recycle bin. Kinda dumb. :thumbdown

EDIT: Forgot the add: Wish it let you edit the files directly but it's a viewer. It has customizable buttons for external tools so I just set 2 up...one for Notepad and the other for UltraEdit.

Here's a screenie...

Universal_Viewer.png

Edited by -X-
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