A DC Member wrote about an interesting idea for a utility, which was promptly coded by resident DC coding snack phenom Skwire, and dubbed "Boot Snooze":

DC member ChalkTrauma says:

This is just a collection of command line apps that I developed over the years that lanux128 gave me the idea to release. This is the first bunch I have cleaned up and documented, I expect to keep adding to this collection as time permits. Right now I have 11 in the pack. I've done my best to test them, but I'm sure there are bugs here and there.  Hopefully someone will find them useful.  I don't know how much time I'll have to work on them so I probably won't have many cycles for feature requests unless it is something trivial, but I'll always fix bugs. You can find them here:

http://dreamcycle.net/dstoolbox

share and enjoy  

A dc member requests:

"Topic says it all. I know it is somewhat possible with iTunes by going coverflow happy and looking for the grays, but I hate that program.

Ideally, I'd want a big list, sorted by album title. An album could be determined by the directory, as I use one directory per album. Please please PLEASE do not make different artists turn it into different albums, since that's what's making most programs I found throw up with 15 similar covers for different artists - directory criterium alone is all I need. It should look for the cover in a cover.jpg, folder.jpg, front.jpg as well as tags in the files if files doesn't work. Albums that end up without any cover art should light up red in the list. It would also be nice if it was possible to see how the program found the cover (from a file (filename), from tags, etc) and whether it is consistent. A way to get the directory the album is in (Copy to clipboard) would also be awesome.

Reason I'm looking for this is that I lost a crapload of my album art when iTunes messed up my computer, and I'm not letting it back on lest it destroy stuff again.. but I do want to go through my 500+ albums to restore covers where they might be missing.

P.S.: Used the Dina font for years, always been a lurker without account till now. Great website! ^^"

A DC member requested a tool with a super simple interface that can create an mp3 file from a video file.

Member Skwire comes through again with this new tool "Video 2 mp3":

Instructions:
1) Drag & drop a video file onto this executable file.
2) An MP3 file will be created in the same directory as the executable.
3) It will use the same name as the dropped video file except with an mp3 extension.

I tested it with an AVI, MPG, and FLV file.  Obviously, the larger the file, the longer it will take to extract and produce the MP3.

A DC member asks:

A DC member asks:

Hallo!
I am a writer and not a programmer, but am in search of easy to use tools to tackle simple tasks.
They are almost always associated with text files & a tagged CSV English - German dictionary.
For the tasks I have I would like to try and use AutoHotKey. I seem to have no luck with programming languages.
The task I am trying to perform is:
1. Open a simple text file of sentences.
2. Open a CSV dictionary file
3. Read words in turn from the text file, find them each in the dictionary and
4. Copy the Parts-of-Speech for each from dictionary
5. Write the tags in brackets following each word in the text file.
Is it possible to do this uising AutoHotKey?
Has anyne tried it or done it?
Can he or she help me?
Or has one of the donation-coders a better way?
I'd be very grateful.
Thanks and regards, forkinpm.

A DC member requests:

Basically, I am currently using Screenshot Captor and I defined the PrtScr button to capture the active window each time I press it.  What I hope to do is to eliminate the need to press the PrtScr button by leveraging the left-button click on mouse to trigger it.  The left-mouse button click must still function as normal but now with an added function of simulating a press of the PrtScr button.  Is there such a program available that can help me do this?  Or can someone create a script to do this?  Thank you in advance for any suggestions.

My annoyance is fairly straightforward, as well as (I would hope) its solution:
I want to toggle this with a hotkey:

THE STORY:

I bought a touchpad for my desktop to combat RSI. It's... ok, I guess. See, the driver that it comes with doesn't actually recognize the touchpad, which means that Windows sees it as a mouse. This isn't a huge problem; it works fine. Though without the driver, it lacks some customizable options, I can live with it. My mouse remains plugged in, since I will be swapping between the two devices based on the tasks I am doing.

The problem is that I now have two devices that run on the same control panel settings, and physically are two devices with different kinds of sensitivity.

The touchpad actually causes more strain without the "Enhance pointer precision," option enabled, since moving the pointer requires repeated 'scrubbing' with the fingers. With the feature enabled, I can move the pointer much more easily while retaining control.

However, this setting is far too sensitive for my mouse, which flies all over the screen like an out of control fighter plane.

To switch devices, I have to launch the Mouse applet, toggle the "Enhance pointer precision" setting manually, then resume using my input device. Without a helpful shortcut, I have to do this many times a day.

PROBLEM: Two pointing devices on one system, one that needs mouse acceleration, the other doesn't. Need an easy way to toggle the "Enhance pointer precision" setting to aid in switching between the two devices.

SOLUTION: A small program that launches, toggles the "Enhance pointer precision" setting from the Mouse control panel applet, and then closes itself. (If the setting is active, it deactivates it. If it's inactive, it activates it.)

Since this is an issue I've found with laptops I've used as well, this could be useful beyond my specific use case. I've often had to resort to touchpad on the go, and later dock, to find that my mouse is flying uncontrollably until I toggle this setting off.

Since I already use a decent hotkey manager, I don't need this to be a running program. Ideally, it would just execute, toggle the setting, and close. I can call upon the program when I need it.

BONUS: The ability to store actual mouse settings as profiles, and toggle in between them with user-configurable hotkeys. This is far beyond my own needs, of course, but this might be a more interesting challenge for some.

Thanks for your time, o programmers of tiny things.

Give this a shot (source/binary included):
http://skwire.dcmembers.c...tter/Newline_Splitter.zip

Not sure if this is too complicated or too off-topic for the style of applications we're going for?

I live in a house with 2 other guys. We are a bit disorganised when it comes to food because we all work at different times, and never plan to eat together. When we do, its great, but its such a rare occurrence.

Because we all buy little bits of food for dinner, we end up with too much per person and a fair amount of waste, which drives me crazy.

There is a tiny netbook in the kitchen which serves as a music player, and it runs a few spreadsheets ad household duties/chores schedules for everyone.

What I'm thinking of is a simple perishables food list.
With 'add item and expiry date'
and 'how long left until we have to throw it out'
arranged by 'time left'
and various colour coding for time left on items. RED meaning EAT NOW!!

Hello fellow DC members. I've been working my butt off to make a complete overhaul of the perform function of mIRC.

For those who do not know, mIRC is an IRC client. IRC is a way to chat on the internet with others. DonationCoder has an IRC chat room, check here for more details:
http://www.donationcoder....ic=496.0%3Bprev_next=prev

"Perform" in mIRC is essentially just a list of commands that are ran when you connect to an IRC server.

PowerSchemeToggler

1) Unpack archive to a folder of your choice.

2) Run PowerSchemeToggler.exe and you'll be presented with a small interface
   that will allow you to choose two profiles to toggle between.  Click the
   "Save and exit" button when done.
   
3) Run PowerSchemeToggler.exe with the -toggle parameter to toggle between
   your chosen schemes.

Clicking the desktop icon (.exe) to open menu from it's place. just a simple application for cluttered desktop.

by making the .ahk available, users can change the desired icon to use and the application list. it doesn't have to be a tray application or a service whose always on. Its a stand-alone apps. This is my request.

Selector 1.0 is ready for general use I think.  The idea is a hotkey app in the Tray that holds a few of your favorite programs that can take the command line param from selected text or the clipboard. One example would be a browser.  Instead of relying on a plugin to open the current page in another browser hit the address bar to select text and hit the Selector hotkey(Shift-NumPadDiv by default.) Choose your browser and hit the Go button.

Currently adding programs to the list requires using a FileOpen dialog to browse to the .exe file.  A short name is automatically generated but can be edited.

At the moment there's no provision for sorting the list or rearranging the order of apps.  A later version should have a few more bells and whistles.

The program uses Glass if enabled on the system.
It requires Scripting.Dictionary object on the PC.
If you don't have Scripting.Dictionary I believe installing
the .NET 2.0 or later run-time will put it on but check the
MS web site for the correct download.  If you have .NET 2.0
or later you should have it already.

Edit:  link:  http://www.favessoft.com/hotkeys.html

updated to v. 1.01  Double clicking an item in ListBox presses the Go Button to launch the item.
Items added to the ListBox are sorted(case insensitive sorting.)

A long time ago, someone saw a need for this tool (XP only)

Windows-XP-ZIP-Support-Control

I now see the need for a companion tool for Vista and Win7.
What do you think?

Here are the details on how this is done in Vista/Win7.
http://www.annoyances.org/exec/show/article03-202

Dimensions 2 Folders has been updated to v1.0.3: Webpage | Download

Tags 2 Folders is a small utility to sort audio files into folders based on their tags.  The following audio file types are suppported:

AAC, APE, FLAC, MP1, MP2, MP3, MP4, MPC, M4A, M4B, OGG, OFR, OFS, TTA, WMA, WV  

Simply choose a source folder, a destination folder, set your options and click the "Go" button.

Options

1) Recurse source folder:  Scan through the source folder's sub-directories.
2) Show destination folder after run:  Launch an Explorer window of the destination folder when done.
3) Template:  Use the tokens to come up with your own folder naming scheme.
4) Copy files to destination:  Make copies of the original files in the destination folder.
5) Move files to destination:  Move the original files into the destination folder.

Other notes

1) You can drag & drop folders onto the source and destination fields.
2) Filename collisions will be automatically renamed like this:

audio_file.mp3
audio_file[1].mp3
audio_file[2].mp3
audio_file[3].mp3
...

Webpage | Download

As a part of not-working on my MSc I decided to finally learn AHK and programme myself a little multiple clipboard tool, using an idea which came to my head a long time ago. Now that it works like I want it to work, I thought why not share with you, maybe someone is waiting for this kind of software

Here comes some description of the program:

CCCCtrlC

Simple multiple clipboard utility. Creates any number of additional clipboards
(called cccclipboards) and allows accessing them using normal keyboard shortcuts.

To put it simply

• Hold Ctrl+C to select a cccclipboard, and release to copy to it.
• Hold Ctrl+V to select a cccclipboard, and release paste from it.

Some more description
If you press Ctrl+C or any other clipboard shortcut (see below) and release it normally (without delay), then the regular clipboard is used for the operation. But if you hold the shortcut for a moment, in the bottom right corner of the screen you will see a clipboard selection info scrolling over cccclipboards. Release the keys and the action will be executed on the currently selected cccclipboard.

my default LBC dock is at the top of the screen but due to some apps not being able to differentiate between a monitor's screen area and workspace, the windows open at coordinate 0,0 and get hidden behind the dock.

so i wrote this AHK script which keeps them in line by moving those windows down. so if you have this problem then this script will be useful to you as well.

I noticed that people spend too much time flicking between programs each with their own search boxes, address bars, prompts, textareas etc. They can't learn several shortcuts for each of these programs. Now you only need to remember one!

HOW TO USE IT

Press the hotkey button (§ by default - change via system tray -> preferences) and the main input field will be selected for the active application. Press the hotkey again to cycle through the remaining ones. Support for your favorite program can be added by creating an application definition. Update the program via system tray icon > preferences >  Help > Check for updates. The following applications are supported in this version: Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, Chromium, Firefox, Windows Explorer.

• One smart shortcut to remember - hit it again to cycle through the application
• Add your favourite applications by creating simple ini files
• No learning curve
• Customizable hotkey and Run at Startup option
• DcUpdater Support

I used a program that generated file names as:
consonant : vowel : consonant : vowel : consonant ...
Using random letters, it generated 15 letter names AND you could always pronounce them!

I would like a program to generate and output:
random words of my specified length;
number of words generated of my choosing;
in the form above, consonant : vowel : consonant;
displayed in a table for easy looking;
(letters can be used more than once in the same name)

Simply sits in the Tray.  Highlight some text and hit the hotkey to paste the selected text instantly into a search engine that opens with a hotkey.  Out of the box the search hotkey is set to Control Esc for Windows search.  But you can change the hotkeys to use other utilities such as FARR, ReOpen, Everything etc..

2 key hotkey combinations are supported and may be set via dialogs with combo boxes. If your search engine has to have a 3 key combo hotkey then you may be able to find a hotkey "adapter" or make one yourself with AutoHotKey.  I guess I hate holding down 3 keys so I'm not that psyched to have 3 combo boxes in the dialogs.    Makes for simpler less buggy programming with 2 key hotkeys too.

http://www.favessoft.com/hotkeys.html

Note: Paste into Windows Search requires Vista or later due to changes in the start menu. If running on XP on first use it will prompt for search hotkey for external search engine, so use FARR or Everything or another that pops up with the caret in the input control.

If you find any bugs you can contact me via the Contact button on my site or do a followup here if you prefer.

Is there a way to recreate file/folder structure from source to target but without any content? better yet, is it possible to zip it up?

I think this will be better understood with an example.

Say if i have a source drive D: with the following


After the zip/copy operation i want this on the target E: drive (can be another computer)


...

This is useful in recreating directory and file structures on which you can run various tests for finding files ...etc. and it would be easy to transfer over the internet without the size implications.  I have to do this for about 50000+ files

Let's say, i've got 2 files: filea.jpg and fileb.jpg

But I want filea.jpg to be fileb.jpg and fileb.jpg to be filea.jpg. Normally the filenames I want to switch are longer, so it takes longer to switch them, because I have to copy/paste twice and stuff. I want a simple tool where I can drop 2 items and they will switch filenames.

BBCeditor is a simple editor for BBCode.

I am open for any comments and suggestions.

• Web page
• Download

WriteThere!

It redirects all keyboard input to one window.
Click inside the target window and press F1 to redirect the input to it.
Press F1 twice fast to disable WriteThere.

Example:
Open Internet Explorer and Notepad, and place them side by side. Click inside Notepad and press F1 to redirect the keyboard. Now you can navigate your browser using the mouse, but everyting your write will end up in Notepad!  

This is a beta if ever there was one! There's probably a lot of keys missing, it doesn't work with all programs, it disables global hotkeys, and so on.
-Skrommel

A DC forum member asks:

"Occasionally when I load a large program or a huge data file  from a file server the omnipresent hourglass appears and spins away and away .....

IDEA: A program that displays as a tooltip or message box a line from a text file instead. A text file containing a  quote, joke, reminder, any little tidbit of information.  It shouldn't slowdown the loading but just replace the hourglass only when it is on the screen, with the ability to click on it to freeze the display."

A DC forum member asks:

"One of the ways in which I'm a dinosaur is that I listen almost exclusively to entire albums, not individual songs, and I play ogg/mp3 files almost exclusively on my beloved Rio Karma, not on the PC. Which, if any, of the mp3/ogg player/cataloging programs would enable me to print a list by artist/album without printing song titles?"

Just a little doodad so you don't have to push the button on the DVD drive.

http://www.favessoft.com/downloads.html

This shell extension works on every 32 bit version of Windows I've tried, including W7.
(Does not work on Vista64)

No frills, just save and restore from the Desktop Context Menu:

http://www.favessoft.com/iconset.html

ReOpen Folders and Programs

Available for download on my Hotkeys Page.

I would like to be able to create a 'copy' of a path.  

For example, let's say I have a file in this folder:
C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Documents\My Pictures\

I would like to copy this file to D:\temp so that the path becomes like this:
D:\temp\Documents and Settings\All Users\Documents\My Pictures\

Now, I would have to go to D:\temp, create the first folder Documents and Settings, then enter that folder to create the next All Users folder, and so on, before I can copy my file to that location.

If possible, I'd like a right click option in Windows Explorer to select 'Copy with path' and then 'Paste and create path'.

Maybe kind of useless, but I really wonder what my pc looks like when the corners are overlay with a black image of an outer corner.

Not sure if something like this exists, but was wondering if someone knew about a tool/could whip something up that was able to scan & sort images based on their resolutions (would have to support non-standard sizes as well, like 1794x1250). It wouldn't have to be anything massive (or even have a GUI or options or anything), just something that would go through and make folders for each size, then move the images in. Anyone?

On several occasions there have been requests for a program that displays what global keyboard shortcuts are registered by various applications. ActiveHotkeys does just that: it will show a list of all acgtive (registered) or inactive (available) global hotkeys. Remember that Windows does not allow for detecting which application has registered a particular shortcut, so that feaure is not included.

So here's another one... a simple stopwatch/timer with a few handy features. Yes, there are plenty available, and no, I didn't quite like any of them, so I wrote my own

Please note: Windows 2000, XP and up only. Will not work on Windows 95, 98 or ME (won't even open).

At the moment, it only counts up. I didn't add the ability to count down to zero, since I didn't need it at the time, but please post if it would make your day.

Does anyone know a command (or a workaround) to duplicate a file in the same folder, adding the date or a numerical index that auto increments?

I took the AutoIt3 engine I had for monitoring when Explorer opens a folder and just converted it to a complete application.  FolderCache.

This implementation is much simpler than others I've done. Leave it run in the system tray.  Hit Shift-PgUp to open the launch window.  The GUI is no great shakes but I made it wide to avoid the need for horizontal scrolling to see all of the folder name. It should be usable in screen res 800x600 or higher.

Right now there are no user configurable options. It's hard-wired for a max of 24 folders. There's no install needed.  To have it start with Windows just make a shortcut in the Startup folder.

(One note, the launch window is created dynamically when opened and destroyed with each close.  While it is open, the folder monitor function is paused.  No folders will be added to the cache while the launch window is open.  For this reason there is no minimize button on the window frame.  If you change your mind about opening a folder in the window, just click the close 'x' on the window frame or click the Open Selected Button with nothing selected, to close it.)