🚀 TotalPlug

Modern Total Commander Plugin Manager, Version Auditor & Updater (WCX, WLX, WFX, WDX).

TotalPlug is a fast, lightweight, and extensible utility written in Go for managing, inspecting, and keeping your Total Commander plugins up to date.

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📥 Download

Prebuilt Windows x64 binaries are on the Releases page:

• totalplug-vX.Y.Z-win-x64.zip — both binaries at the archive root, plus the license: totalplug.exe is the desktop GUI (Wails window, no installer, run it from any folder) and totalplug-cli.exe the command-line scanner and updater;
• totalplug-vX.Y.Z-win-x64.zip.sha256 — the archive's checksum, in the format sha256sum -c reads.

Extract the whole folder instead of running an exe out of the archive: Windows keeps the downloaded zip's marker and repeats the warning for every file inside it. Both need Windows 10 or 11; the GUI renders through the WebView2 runtime that already ships with Windows 11 and with current Windows 10 updates.

The binaries are not code-signed, so SmartScreen shows "Windows protected your PC" on the first run — pick More info → Run anyway. TotalPlug writes only to your Total Commander plugins directory, to its own data folder and to a throwaway download folder it removes on exit (see Where Your Files Live), and every plugin folder it changes is backed up next to it.

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📁 Where Your Files Live

TotalPlug keeps its data in one folder, picked at every start:

• Portable — a totalplug folder next to the .exe, whenever that folder accepts writes. Copy the app's folder to another machine or a USB stick and the whole setup travels with it, WebView2 profile (theme, language, font size) included. On the first portable run the database, the overrides, the update history and the settings are copied out of %APPDATA%\totalplug — only the files this version reads, so old caches and retired files stay behind. The originals are left alone, so nothing is lost by trying.
• Per-user — %APPDATA%\totalplug, when the executable sits somewhere read-only: Program Files, a write-protected share, a mounted image.

Inside that folder the plugin database, the overrides, the update history and the window settings sit at the top level, the downloaded catalog and GitHub release snapshots go to cache\, and the WebView2 profile to webview2\. Deleting cache\ only costs the next download; deleting webview2\ resets the theme, language and font size.

An update also needs somewhere to hold its download while it is unpacked — the only place TotalPlug writes that is neither your plugins folder nor its own data folder: %TEMP%\totalplug, with one subfolder per running instance so two copies of the app never unpack into each other. The subfolder goes when the update ends; a run killed mid-download leaves a leftover that a later start sweeps once it is over an hour old. TOTALPLUG_SCRATCH_DIR moves the whole tree elsewhere.

The About panel prints the folder in use. TOTALPLUG_DATA_DIR pins it to any path you choose.

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✨ Key Features

• 🔍 Zero-Config Total Commander Detection:
  Automatically discovers wincmd.ini from Windows Registry (HKCU/HKLM 32-bit & 64-bit) or %APPDATA%, and resolves %COMMANDER_PATH% / %COMMANDER_DRIVE%. The installation folder is recognised by the Total Commander launcher found next to the ini or one level above it — the layout a portable install uses (<install>\ini\wincmd.ini, with totalcmd64.exe on a 64-bit copy) — so pointing TotalPlug at any wincmd.ini scans the install it belongs to, not the one the registry happens to know. When no launcher is found around the ini, the folder is reported as unresolved instead of guessing.
• 📦 Smart Plugin Parser & Deduplication:
  Extracts all Packer (WCX), Lister (WLX), File System (WFX), and Content (WDX) plugins, merging duplicate archive extensions into single logical plugins.
• 🧬 4-Tier Version Extraction Engine:
  1. Tier 1 (PE Binary Resources): Reads exact VS_FIXEDFILEINFO and StringFileInfo via Windows API version.dll.
  2. Tier 2 (Companion DLLs): Inspects companion libraries (e.g. MediaInfo64.dll) if the wrapper lacks metadata.
  3. Tier 3 (Docs / INF Scanner): Extracts version strings from pluginst.inf, readme.txt, and history.txt.
  4. Tier 4 (Confidence Tags): Transparently labels confidence ([PE Binary], [Readme/INF], [Manual DB], [Unknown]).
• 🌐 Powered by TotalPlug Community Catalog:
  Checks updates against the open totalplug-catalog database. The on-disk copy is revalidated by ETag on every launch — a newly published plugin shows up on the next start, an unchanged catalog costs a 304 instead of a full download — and it is what answers when the network does not.
• 🗜️ Archive-Format Aware Updater:
  Plugin packages are dispatched by their magic bytes, so ZIP, RAR and 7z all install, while an unsupported container is refused with a clear message instead of a half-extracted folder.
• 💾 User Overrides & Database:
  Persist custom names, versions, and update sources in user_overrides.json, inside the data folder TotalPlug picks for you.
• 🖥️ Dual Interface:
  High-speed command-line interface (CLI) and hybrid desktop GUI powered by Wails v2.

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🖥️ Desktop GUI

totalplug.exe shows the same audit the CLI prints as a table you can act on:

• Update all — a bar above the table appears whenever updates are available and applies the whole list in one pass, one plugin at a time. Plugins whose installed version could not be determined stay out of the batch, exactly like --update-all on the command line.
• Per-plugin update — the button in the row, for the cases a batch skips.
• Plugin card — click a row for the description, update source, homepage and install path, plus an editor for a manual version/source override when auto-detection got it wrong.
• History — the updates TotalPlug applied, with version and timestamp.
• Settings — light/dark/system theme, English/Russian interface, font size, and a Total Commander panel that names the wincmd.ini the next scan reads: auto-detected, or one you pick when the registry does not know your install.
• Remembered window — the size, position and maximised state you closed with are what the next launch opens with; only the very first run starts at the default 1024×768.
• About — the running version, where your data lives, and a check for a newer release. TotalPlug never replaces its own files: it opens the release page.

Close Total Commander before applying updates — its process holds the plugin files, so the first locked file stops the queue and the rest is skipped.

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📸 Screenshots

The same window in both themes, with a scanned install of 28 plugins.

Light

Main window	Plugin card	About

Dark

Main window	Plugin card	About

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🚀 Quick Start (CLI)

Run from Source

go run cmd/totalplug/main.go

Force Refresh Catalog Cache

go run cmd/totalplug/main.go --refresh-cache

Apply Available Updates

Interactive mode — lists pending updates and asks for confirmation:

go run cmd/totalplug/main.go --update

Non-interactive mode — applies every available update without prompting (for scripts and Task Scheduler):

go run cmd/totalplug/main.go --update-all

Close Total Commander before applying updates, otherwise locked plugin files will fail to replace. Updates are safe by design: the plugin folder is backed up as <dir>.bak_<timestamp> next to it, and any mid-apply failure is automatically rolled back to the previous state. Plugins whose installed version cannot be determined are never auto-updated: in --update they are offered separately with a per-item [y]es / [N]o / [a]ll prompt, and --update-all skips them.

Point to a Portable Total Commander Install

go run cmd/totalplug/main.go --ini D:\TC\wincmd.ini

Check Which Build You Have

go run cmd/totalplug/main.go --version

Prints the version stamped at build time — the same value the GUI shows on its About panel, which drops the trailing .0 of a four-part stamp. go run passes no -ldflags, so this command reports the unstamped dev even in a tagged tree; use scripts\build.cmd for a numbered binary.

Example Output

================================================================================
                     TotalPlug - Total Commander Updater
================================================================================
[+] Scanning Total Commander plugins...
[+] Total Commander Dir: C:\totalcmd
[+] Found wincmd.ini:    C:\totalcmd\wincmd.ini
[+] Fetched fresh catalog from GitHub CDN!

Discovered 14 installed plugins:

--- [WCX] Packer / Archiver Plugins (WCX) (4) ---
 1. Total7zip          ✓  | Ver: 1.3.5      | [PE Binary]    ➔ Latest: 1.3.5
 2. PAXZ Archiver      ⚠️ | Ver: 1.0.0      | [Readme/INF]   ➔ Latest: 1.0.0

--- [WLX] Lister / Viewer Plugins (WLX) (5) ---
 3. CudaLister         ✓  | Ver: 1.8.6.1    | [PE Binary]    ➔ Latest: 1.8.6.1
 4. MDView             🚀 | Ver: 1.2.0      | [PE Binary]    ➔ Latest: 1.2.5

================================================================================
SUMMARY: Total 14 | 13 Valid ✓ | 1 Updates 🚀 | 0 Missing ✗ | 1 Uncertain ⚠️
================================================================================
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
LEGEND:
  ✓  - Up to date
  🚀 - Update available
  ⚠️ - Uncertain version (check manually or force update)
  ✗  - Plugin file missing on disk

[🚀] SUCCESS: Found 1 plugin update(s) available!

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🔨 Build from source

Requirements: Go 1.25+, Node 22+, and for the GUI the Wails v2 CLI (go install github.com/wailsapp/wails/v2/cmd/wails@v2.14.0).

The module is github.com/goloveshko/totalplug, so the CLI alone needs no clone: go install github.com/goloveshko/totalplug/cmd/totalplug@latest. The GUI cannot be installed that way — it embeds frontend/dist, which is build output and stays out of the repository — so it is built with the scripts below.

Command	Result
scripts\build.cmd	bin\totalplug-cli.exe, development build
scripts\build-gui.cmd	bin\totalplug.exe (also accepts extra wails flags, e.g. -devtools)
scripts\release.cmd, scripts\release-gui.cmd	Same, with -trimpath and stripped symbols
scripts\package.cmd	Release builds of both, zipped for a GitHub release, plus its .sha256
scripts\run.cmd	Runs the CLI from source (go run ./cmd/totalplug), arguments pass through
scripts\test.cmd	go test -v ./..., extra arguments pass through to go test
scripts\lint.cmd	go vet ./..., plus golangci-lint when it is installed
npm run format (in frontend\)	Prettier over the repo; format:check only reports, and is what CI runs

Tagged builds are stamped with git describe --tags --dirty through -ldflags -X, which is the version the About panel shows and the release check compares against; before the first tag exists the build scripts fall back to the version tracked in wails.json, so an untagged tree compares too. Only a binary built by hand — a bare go build, or the go install above — carries no stamp (dev) and is never told an update exists. Publishing a version (tag → build → release assets) is a documented procedure: see docs/release.md.

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🏗️ Architecture & Project Structure

totalplug/
├── cmd/totalplug/main.go     # CLI entry point: report, --update / --update-all prompts
├── main.go                   # GUI entry point: embeds frontend/dist, hands it to gui.Run
├── internal/
│   ├── buildinfo/            # Version stamped at build time, release location
│   ├── checker/              # Catalog client + disk cache, version compare, GitHub releases
│   ├── config/               # Registry & wincmd.ini resolution, data folder layout
│   ├── domain/               # Shared models (Plugin, Status, Confidence, AppInfo)
│   ├── gui/                  # Wails bridge — the Go methods the frontend may call, window state
│   ├── pipeline/             # Scan orchestration: detect → read → compare
│   ├── scanner/              # Plugin discovery, PE / INF version extraction
│   ├── storage/              # installed_plugins.json, user overrides, update history
│   └── updater/              # Download, archive extract, backup, lock-aware install
├── frontend/                 # Wails GUI: plain HTML/CSS/JS built by Vite (no framework)
├── scripts/                  # build.ps1 plus the .cmd wrappers listed above
└── wails.json

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🤝 Community Catalog

TotalPlug relies on the open community registry totalplug-catalog. Anyone can add or update plugins by submitting a simple Pull Request!

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⚖️ License

Distributed under the MIT License.

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👨‍💻 Author & Support

Developed with ❤️ by Sergey Goloveshko — AI & Systems Engineer.

• Portfolio: sergey.is-a.dev
• Telegram Support: @itz2bot
• Report an Issue: GitHub Issues