Free to browse software for linux

VFSJFileChooser 0.0.3 functions as a Java Swing Component to enable you to browse both remote(FTP, SFTP, WEBDAV, etc.) and local filesystems. It is based on Apache Commons VFS library. VFSJFileChooser is distributed under Apache License 2.0.
VFSJFileChooser was first started to be a plugin of XPontus XML Editor. Later, it was decided to create a library which wouldn't be tied to XPontus API.
VFSJFileChooser supports all the file systems available in Commons VFS. You can think of VFSJFileChooser as a javax.swing.JFileChooser with the ability to browse remote locations such as FTP, SFTP, etc. VFSJFileChooser has not been designed as a file transfer tool, however it can be easily implemented (2 VFSJFileChooser components and some buttons calling commons-vfs API methods, a queue for file operations, etc.).

Major Features:

1. Seamless filesystem browsing
   
   • Standard java file browsing with abstraction to the filesystem. You browse seamlessly local and remote file systems the same way.
   • VFSJFileChooser supports many protocols such as Webdav, SFTP, FTP, SMB, etc. Please have a look at Apache Commons VFS supported protocols. Starting from 0.0.3 release, VFSJFileChooser is using webdavclient4j for Webdav support.
2. Easy i18n support
   
   • There are translations for English, French, Spanish, Italian, Swedish per default. You can add a new language to VFSJFileChooser by dropping a new resource bundle in your classpath.
3. A default accessory panel
   
   • A toolbar provides access to a bookmarks manager and a connection wizard.
4. No inheritance of some JFileChooser known bugs
   
   • VFSJFileChooser doesn't suffer from the infamous JFileChooser freezing bug. Time to time, JFileChooser can hang for 10 seconds(even on a quad core!). The bug seems to be coming back all the time, but only on Windows.
5. Flexibility
   
   • Access to the navigation panel and the navigation buttons(new folder, etc.)
6. Simple and familiar API
   
   • VFSJFileChooser is based on the standard javax.swing.JFileChooser code. The main difference is that VFSJFileChooser uses Commons VFS FileObject instead of java.io.File.

Enhancements:

• Lots of speed : The latest version of VFSJFileChooser is too slow. The code execution have been improved at many places.
• The navigation icons are now visible all the time. No exceptions or strange issues related to the look and feel. The component use a "MetalLookAndFeel" layout but when using the system look and feel, the controls look native.
• The VFSUtils class supports the methods setFileSystemManager and setFileSystemOptions. You can set those values at anytime. When the VFSJFileChooser class is instanciated, it checks if VFSUtils has a filesystemmanager set, if not it creates one. Files are always resolved with the FileSystemOptions object in VFSUtils. Some convenience methods such as getInputStream and getOutputStream have been added in VFSUtils.
• Upgraded to commons-vfs 2.0 snapshot with patches applied for URL redirection and WebDav.
• Switched from Jakarta Slide to webdavclient4j (http://webdavclient4j.sf.net) as Jakarta Slide project is dead.
• Cleaner but incompatible API(Enums instead of int fields) : Enums are introduced for few classes which breaks the API. The method setFileselectionMode of VFSJFileChooser now accepts an Enum as parameter. The methods "showOpenDialog" and "showSaveDialog" return an Enum too.
• Sorting support : The details table has now sorting support again in the jdk5 branch. The jdk5 branch is the most up to date(patches, general improvements, etc.). The jdk5 will become the default branch to ensure code compatibility.
  
• The bookmarks dialog scrolling issues have been fixed. The bookmarks are still not serialized using Java Serialization. They are now stored in XML do avoid deserialization issues when the bookmarks API change.