Messages

1

Post New Requests Here / IDEA: Firefox disables sound for each tab until you say so

« on: September 17, 2011, 05:06 PM »

This should be a quick project for whomever wants it, but potentially very powerful and popular.

The problem is pretty obvious: you load a new page, and some advertisement video starts yelling at you. Maybe the video is entirely hidden, or you opened up a slew of tabs, and now you're scrambling to find the right tab. You can mute the whole system sound, but what if you're watching a movie or voip/skype conferencing? You can mute firefox sound, but what if you're watching a youtube video?

The solution: An add on for firefox that does not allow sound to play from any tabs until you go to that tab and hit a button that says "allow sound for this tab". Simple. Build in an exception list for websites like ted.com or youtube.com and you're golden.

What I'd like to see:
Touch screen friendly. No tiny buttons! Even if the picture of the button is small, make the area that you have to click to activate the button much bigger.
The button placed in the bookmarks toolbar. It's already there for most of us, saving valuable screen space.
Button changes colors with sound on/off for that tab. Studies show that people identify the meaning of contrasting colors much faster than sentences.
Integrate with firefox personas. This is more of an advanced/down the line pretty feature.

I have looked through a few pages of firefox addons, and haven't found anything quite like this. If it does exist, I missed it, and I apologize.

Let me know what you think!

2

Post New Requests Here / G-Code to Carvewright File Converter

« on: September 17, 2011, 04:52 PM »

Hi guys. I have something that might be a bit of an unusual request. A bit of background: I'm a mechanical engineer, and in my spare time, I design and build a lot of mechanical things. I also design and build things for a lot of people in different hobbyist communities. At this point, I have my own thermoformer, resin caster, sand blaster, lathe and two CNC Mills.

This project concerns the CNC mills. Whenever I need something vacuum formed or cast with high precision (~.002" dimensional tolerances usually), I use the CNC to create the negative/positive/molds. With most parts, this is fine because my main mill can handle a lot of wide things that aren't too tall. However, if the parts are particularly tall, they won't fit, and I need to use the other mill. The issue is that this mill is a hobby mill, and only works with proprietary software. That means that I can't directly import most of the files I use - I have to recreate them in some choppy, weak, 32 bit software.

What I would really love to have is a file converter that can take my G-code programs (simple RTF documents with a series of commands that tell a computer controlled machine what to do) and change them into the hobbyist machine files. Now, I have no idea what is inside those files. This could quite potentially be impossible.

I would be very happy to send donation credits along to anyone who could help me with this task.

Some particulars:
It's a Carvewright system. No, I would not buy this thing again if I were in the same situation. But it fills a need, just in an inconvenient way. The cost of getting a new machine that can fill that need and selling this one would be far too great.
Here's the website for the system: http://www.carvewrig.../2010CWweb/index.php
Fair warning, that site has an annoying video that auto-plays when you visit the site, and google has it listed as an attack page. Navigate to it at your own risk.

I can generate the carvewright files and send them along to whomever to work with. The g-code can be any setup really. I'll probably just stick with whatever SolidCAM outputs by default, so I don't have to write a new PPL.

Obviously, this is a project that will be much easier for someone with experience in g-code and/or machining. I work a lot (70-80 hour weeks), so I may not be available to help things along very much. Should you need an example of a file doing a particular thing (as is often the case with machine program outputs), I will generate that as soon as possible and get it to you.


When I asked mouser about this, he mentioned that if the utility is something with limited scope (as I suspect this is), it may not get done at all. If that is that case, I am willing to hire someone to code this for me. Message me for more details and we can discuss rates.

3

General Software Discussion / Re: Simple Commandline to send Keystrokes

« on: January 27, 2011, 01:21 PM »

Awesome! Got it to work. Your explanation was very helpful Ath, but in the end, I needed to figure out what to put in:
"Post Capture Commandline Tools to Run - Invoke these command lines after each capture" Box on Screenshot Captor. I mistakenly thought that those commandlines called the Tools in the way they were configured with screen captor. Once I added the parameters to that line of code, everything worked great.

Unfortunately, the software I was using was updated yesterday to my dissapointment and they removed all keyboard shortcuts for changing the page. So I used AutoHotKey to send a mouse click to the particular button every time certain keystrokes were sent, then I used your tool to send those keys. Everything is working great! Thanks so much!

You've all been a huge help, with the quick replies and scripting. Thanks again!

Edit: I'm going to wait until I get paid so I can put in a bigger donation.

4

General Software Discussion / Re: Simple Commandline to send Keystrokes

« on: January 26, 2011, 01:30 PM »

Thanks so much guys! I have been following this and the other thread, and I just spent some time tinkering with it. Unfortunately, I'm having some issues. I'm pretty new to this stuff (I'm an engineering major, so my programming background is just VB6 and C++, some javascript). Can you tell me where I'm going wrong with this?

My "Tool Properties" window fields are:
Title: WinSendKeys
Program: C:\Users\Tyler\Books\Software\Ripping books\WinSendKeys.exe
Working Dir: C:\Users\Tyler\Books\Software\Ripping books\
Parameters: (blank)

I've tried a million variations of the commanline, but to be honest, I'm basically guessing. Of the many:
WinSendKeys <50> <"Materials"> <"{RIGHT}">
WinSendKeys [-t 50] [-d] [-w] <"Materials"> <"{RIGHT}">
WinSendKeys [-t 50] [-d] [-w] "Materials" "{RIGHT}"

The window is "Materials Science and Engineering: An Introduction, 8th Edition - CourseSmart Bookshelf". I've tried using the full name and different lengths, different times, different keys... :/

Any help is so very much appreciated!

5

General Software Discussion / Simple Commandline to send Keystrokes (WinSendKeys)

« on: January 23, 2011, 06:50 PM »

This is continued from https://www.donation...ndex.php?topic=25388

I'm looking to use Screen Captor to basically screen cap every page of a book; the book software navigates to the next page via the Right Arrow key or Page Up key. Screen Captor can do the whole process, but only if I give it a proper commandline to invoke. So that brings me here.

Just looking for a couple of lines of code that I can plug into Screen Captor (in post-capture commandline option) to hit one key (either right arrow or page up) once. Thanks a ton in advance!

6

Screenshot Captor / Post Capture Commandine Key Press?

« on: January 23, 2011, 06:11 PM »

Hey guys. I love this software, but there's one thing I need. If it's there, or gets added, I'll make a nice big donation to you guys to use for whatever you'd like. For this post-capture commandline, I just need it to hit the Right Arrow key or the Page Up key.

The idea is to use the auto capture timer to screen cap a page of a book, then turn the page (with either right arrow or page up) and screen cap the next and so on. The delay built in to the timer solves most of the issues, but I can't figure out how to invoke a virtual key press. Any help would be appreciated; I'm keeping a keen eye on this thread.

Tons of thanks in advance!