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Only 4 years late   Just wanted to say, great stuff thanks. Always loved these puzzles and my mum adores them too, so she'll be chuffed!

(...) the combination of QTTabBar, ClassicShell and FolderMenu v3, the W7 Explorer does pretty much everything I want. (...)

+1

-except that I am using QTTabbar 1.5 Beta 2, StExBar, Hyperionics FileBox eXtender (FbX), Better File Rename, TeraCopy Pro, and ShellToys. I do not love Windows 7....

Yes exactly ... I forgot to mention all the other extras I use to make W7 do what I want it to, in the way that I want it to ... TeraCopy, AgentRansack, AdvancedRenamer, 7zip, EditPad, FSViewer, the list goes on and on.
 
On the plus side I do like the W7 "Preview Pane" a lot, I use it loads ... even though you have to a; install a codecs pack (I use Shark), b; Use Ramesh's "Preview Config" to tell W7 that you would please like it to display in Preview all the file types you've just installed the codecs for, and c; leave WMP as the default handler for all media files otherwise the Preview Pane just stops working...

But surely this has always been an essential part of the sheer fun of being a Windows user... the immense feeling of satisfaction and completeness that you get from adding endless 3rd party apps to make it behave how you want it to....

Miscellaneous beasties... (completely failed to work out how to embed images here)

How strange... have you tried it on a different PC-printer setup?

I've found that with the combination of QTTabBar, ClassicShell and FolderMenu v3, the W7 Explorer does pretty much everything I want. And none of it seems to slow down my PCs noticeably.


QTTabBar - Has the context preview capability and 'Sub-folders tip' like in TotalCommander and Directory Opus, and also tabbed browsing in Explorer which I use all the time now, and a very useful 'Filter' box.

ClassicShell - It's just great to have the Explorer toolbar icons back again. Gives you a very configurable Start Menu as well.

FolderMenu 3 - Just brilliant. An extra 'context menu' triggered by mouse-wheel click (by default.. you can change it) which you can fill with your own directory short-cuts, programs, functions like 'Toggle Hidden Files' etc. It works anywhere in Windows, including the open/save dialog (Except for in Firefox, where mouse-wheel click triggers the auto-scroll... but you can still access it via the System Tray). Can't praise this one enough : )

I also have FreeCommander and Q-Dir portable versions, although I never seem to use them any more.

I had a look at Phrase Express, it does look very good and it's free for private use.
Also Ka Type In... there hasn't been a new version since 2007, but I've been using it for a few days and it's great. Has a slide-out menu for text snippets (triggered by mouse to edge of screen) and also auto-complete with a hot-key.

Hi yes, I think I remember asking you about this a few months back, in the context of AHK apps.

Time to draw a line under this one I think. I've been using 'Ka Type In' all day, and I think it's the closest I'm going to get. And it's excellent, even if it is relatively old now. I guess the reason that apps like this one work is that they don't try to integrate into existing menus. My understanding of the issues is very sketchy sorry.

A worthwhile thread though... it introduced me to a couple of really useful apps that I might not otherwise have found. So, many thanks everybody.

Hi, some interesting suggestions there thank you.

I'm really liking Ka Type In, mostly because it can be triggered by mouse position and then just one more click pastes the item. Also it pastes the item without formatting so it's good with Open Office. And should I be feeling sufficiently energetic to use my keyboard, it also has an auto-complete capability. Nice.

Text Editor Anywhere, unrelated but very neat little app.

PowerPro lol. I remember downloading it years ago thinking "Wow this looks really really useful..!!". No prizes for guessing the end of that story  I'll have another look at it though, I'd like to think I've learned at least a little in the intervening years...

Anyway I'm uncomfortably aware that I'm probably way out of the area of coding snacks now. But ever the optimist, I'll just attach a couple of jpg's... mock-ups of my ideal paste extension. Doesn't have to attach to the actual "Paste" menu item of course, anywhere in the context menu is fine

Hi thanks for your reply. I'm afraid I don't really understand what native character set means (and not really any the wiser after googling the phrase ), but if it's any help I use a Slovenian keyboard layout.

I also noticed that while yesterday, č was shown as é, today it's shown as c(.

On the other hand it seems to cope with š and ž, no problem.

This is fantastic! Found it totally by accident while looking for something else, but so chuffed.

I've only managed to find a couple of comparable freeware apps elsewhere, and one had all kinds of fancy FX that I didn't want, while the other, I just didn't like much.

Many thanks.

Wow that's a serious looking app you have there :-)  I've been using AdvancedRenamer for ages, it does everything I want very easily ... but I'll be downloading this just to have a play with that astonishing amount of options...

Hi, I just decided to revisit your prog today, after our discussion in a different thread - you seem to have done quite a bit of work since last time I tried it, I especially like the addition of image capability.

One minor thing though... when I copy text that contains an accented character, e.g. 'č', I see that CHS doesn't display this correctly in the clips list. In this instance, it displays 'é' instead... it does however paste the correct character, so it's not a huge problem.

I see elsewhere in the CHS discussions a comment about problems with the cyrillic alphabet... is this a related issue?

Excellent app anyway, thank you.

I really like GMail Notifier Pro. It's standalone so you don't need your browser running, and also has a portable version. And it isn't just limited to GMail.

Unlike others I've tried, when you use it to compose/send, then the message appears in your Gmail Sent Mail. It also works well as a default mail handler in W7, as well as linking to your Google Calendar with pop-up reminders.

The free version only lets you monitor two email addresses but the license is only 13 US dollars, and it's easy enough to monitor more accounts anyway, if you just have all your other email addresses forward their received mails straight to your Gmail.

The only issue I've had, is that it doesn't seem to work with Yahoo, but that's only because YMail doesn't allow IMAP with their free account. Or something like that... I didn't spend much time on it to be honest so there might even be a work-around. Correct me if I'm wrong there anybody.

It will add a few seconds to your boot time, but I like it enough not to mind that.

Also it's very very easy to set-up and configure ... no messing around with server addresses, ports, or anything ... just give it the email address and the password and that's it.

Lastly the developer seems very helpful... I asked for a (completely pointless) Sent Mail Confirmation pop-up ... "Your Mail Has Been Sent" kind of thing, and that was added to a new version within a couple of weeks I think.

And, I agree with ppass... WebMail Notifier is also great if you have Firefox running all the time.

Hi Barney thanks for your suggestion... I thought I'd tried all the freeware clipboard apps but Ethervane Echo is new to me so I'll try it today.
Shortkeys also looks v good, but ideally I'd like a solution that's entirely mouse-driven (most of my working day is spent with my mouse in one hand and a piece of paper or cuppa in the other). And also freeware if poss... not because I'm too tight to pay out for a good solution (honestly!), but because I don't use credit cards so actually paying for stuff can be difficult.

Thanks for your reply ... yes I have used Clipboard Help+Spell for several years, it's very good. But it's really the whole hotkey and seperate list thing, that I'd like to lose if possible, just for the purposes of quickly pasting particular snippets of text.

I don't know if I'm posting in the right place here... definitely don't know if this qualifies at all as a 'snack', but...

In Firefox, there's an add-on called 'Clippings', which lets you add text items to a context sub-menu for instant pasting into text areas. I know nothing about coding, but I'm wondering how possible/difficult would it be to have something like this that works globally across Windows? i.e. in Notepad, Open Office, Open/Save dialogs, etc?

Been all around the block, and always come back to Firefox... I love it for its add-ons, which don't slow it down overly, if I'm careful about which ones I install. And since around v9 or 10 when they finally fixed its tendency to take 20 minutes to quit properly, it now seems very smooth and quick.

Opera used to be the fastest thing available, before v11 I think when it became a RAM hog like FF pre-v9. Chrome I liked because it syncs so nicely with Google accounts... and sync'ing also syncs add ons, but I didn't find it especially fast.

The main thing was that my favourite download manager (FDM) never seemed happy with Chrome or Opera. Especially for downloading vids from Youtube etc. So, back to Firefox.

Hi.

I also gave up on dedicated backup software some time ago, for 2 reasons - the main one being that none of them seemed able to cope with foreign characters (e.g. č, š, ž etc) in filenames, and would either fail completely or just pass over them and not back them up. The other reason is that they all seem to bypass empty folders. And the great thing about filesync apps is that they don't create their own format of back up... so you can use different ones without having to re-create your back ups.

Anyway, after trying several, I've settled on FreeFileSync. It's on version 5 and I like it a lot... it can seem very slow at times, but when I actually timed it against other sync apps, there didn't actually seem to be much difference.
It's really easy to use; compares first and then shows you a list of pending changes, which can be kept or deselected as you please. It has various sync options... Mirror/Update/Auto/Custom, and an option for deleted files to go in the recycle bin, just in case. You can save jobs, can drag and drop folders onto it, and it can copy file permissions if you tell it to. Also it has a portable version.

Before FreeFileSync, I always used FileMenuTools which has a built in sync'er... excellent app overall but I stopped using it when I moved on to Windows 7.

Lastly you might like PureSync... I tried it and it seems very good, just a bit too heavyweight/over-complicated for my own needs.