Messages

101

Clipboard Help+Spell / Re: I can't figure some things out in this program

« on: October 19, 2006, 11:11 PM »

... add some options for letting user have submenus for their favorites and better display favorites separately from quickpaste so that you won't run out of places ...

-mouser (October 18, 2006, 05:55 PM)

I wouldn't make it too fancy.  Honestly, people don't want to see more than 26 items in their Quick Paste menu.  What they need to do is define the Quick Paste SQL search so less than 26 are in there in the first place.

Honestly, I didn't even realize you could do this until I read this thread.  Now that I know how to limit (control) the items in Quick Paste, I can probably adjust the SQL search criteria for just the items I really need.

102

Clipboard Help+Spell / Re: Copy to Favourites

« on: October 14, 2006, 04:39 PM »

... Why not having a configurable hotkey that would be able to add a clip to favourites? Or maybe one that would copy the last clipboard entry to the favourites?

-jgpaiva (March 22, 2006, 06:18 PM)

What do you do after you've collected 2000 clips in favorites?  How do you find and index anything if all clips are going into one favorites folder?

I get your point, though.  What we really need is an API Windows-COM model for capturing clips in CHS, then sending them to one's note taking program.  This way both the clipboard enhancer and the note taking program can share information.

The really integrated solution would be a note taking program with a clipboard enhancer (CHS) plug-in.  You're still going to have to develop an API for the plug-in as in the above solution.

103

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Registry Cleaning Software

« on: September 28, 2006, 12:04 PM »

Even removing some obsolete entries without defragmenting will speed up your system.

I've never seen an effect of doing that, and it doesn't surprise me. Windows uses a binary search when looking up keys, which means that even to look up a key in 4.2 billion keys it needs to look at maximally 32 keys.

-f0dder (September 28, 2006, 09:56 AM)

Deleting obsolete B-tree (registry) entries isn't going to speed up B-tree lookups much.  It might speed up logins/startup some.  The reason applications speed up when bad registry entries are fixed is because they aren't waiting for non-existent service/procedure (COM) calls to answer that were pointed to by some obsolete registry link that says this service exists when in fact it has been uninstalled.

This brings up an interesting programming question.  If your application blocks on a service call that's not responding, how long should you wait before giving up?  Should you inform the user at all (after all, most users wouldn't know how to patch the registry correctly in the first place)?  I guess this issue belongs in the programming forum instead.  Sorry.

104

General Software Discussion / Re: Best Registry Cleaner?

« on: September 28, 2006, 11:37 AM »

FWIW, Registry First Aid (RFA) identifies the most problems and also searches for "fixes" to them which are turned on by default. This is pointless as many of those fixes are completely incorrect, so if you simply run RFA and hit the clean button, you're just adding more useless junk to your registry and possibly mucking it up to boot.

-Darwin (March 28, 2006, 09:32 AM)

I agree 100% with that!  Even automatically fixing the green-safety-level flagged entries with their default suggested fixes would be undesirable.  RFA's suggestions are put in a pull-down menu, and what you need to do is look through that menu for the correct suggestion of 3-7 possible suggestions.  The first suggestion in the menu is not to be trusted.

What you can do automatically is apply the green-safety-level fixes which have no suggestions except to delete them.  But this is not clearly stated in the instructions.

With RFA returning over 2500 and Registry Medic over 650 problems on my system, who has time to check each key! ...the only way around the amazing number of problems reported is to install the cleaner over a fresh Windows install and check the errors reported (there will probably be around 80 or so) and then run it after every software installation/uninstallation.

-Darwin (March 28, 2006, 09:32 AM)

Hmmm.  I think you're absolutely right!  This is the best strategy.

In medicine (especially pharmacology), we have a saying "Above all, do no harm."  This also applies for registry fixing.  If you just had RFA automatically fix those 2500 entries, you would be doing harm somewhere for sure.  I would have RFA sort the flagged list by safety-level color, then just fix those green-flagged entries which have no suggestions, and therefore can be deleted.  That should knock your list of 2500 to 1000.  The rest you'll have to look at.  For the remaining green ones, go through their pull-down menu of suggestions and select the right one.  Some should be deleted.  You can work on that over a couple days.

You shouldn't get more than 50 yellow or red ones.  I would leave the red ones alone.  Fix the yellow ones you're sure about, and leave the rest alone because they are probably correct already.  For example, RFA flags a path name with %USERNAME% in it for the Default User because it's not found.  Well--of course--it's not found because the username for the Default User is undefined.  So path names for the Default User should have symbolic references in them such as %USERNAME%.  Just leave that good entry alone and ignore RFA's stupid list of suggestions.  Gee, if you selected one of those stupid suggestions, you could create real problems because the Default User is used as a template for creating new user accounts (where %USERNAME% will then be appropriately defined).  Remember, "Above all, do no harm".

Regisry Medic returns fewer problems, also suggests corrections, but leaves doesn't enable those suggestions by default, leaving it up to the user to check them, so if you run a sweep and then hit clean its default setting is to either delete or leave alone the problem keys found.

-Darwin (March 28, 2006, 09:32 AM)

I like that behavior better, especially for new users of a registry cleaner.  Maybe we should suggest that RFA work the same way.  RoseCity Software (for RFA) is good about listening to its users' suggestions.

I like RFA the best for power users.  It does find the most problems, but not all it flags at the yellow or red safety level is a problem to begin with (these entries may be correct), and suggestions at the green level need to be inspected and judged before they are applied.

If fixing the registry was a turn-key operation, then we wouldn't need a registry in the first place.   

105

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Registry Cleaning Software

« on: September 28, 2006, 09:47 AM »

I've never seen any advantages from running registry cleaners....
defragmenting the registry, however, can bring some decent speed boost....

-f0dder (September 28, 2006, 02:41 AM)

Tons of obsolete registry entries effectively fragment your registry.  Even removing some obsolete entires without defragmenting will speed up your system.  Applications will sometime wait for nonexistant service links to respond before timing out.  Your results will depend on how well your registry cleaner finds broken links and how well you know how the fix them.  A few registry problems require some research with RegEdit and your directory tree to figure out what some installer couldn't. 

The ... thing about system breakage is that it happens silently, obscure, and you don't find out until weeks later,...

-f0dder (September 28, 2006, 02:41 AM)

All too true.  Don't mess with entries you don't understand.  The problem is some entries look unnecessary, but how can you really know?

I sent a suggestion to one of the registry cleaner developers suggesting a Windows registry knowledgebase be started on the web for each application key in the registry.  This way, by checking the knowledgebase, the registry cleaner can really tell if an empty entry is really needed or not by its application.

106

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Registry Cleaning Software

« on: September 28, 2006, 01:50 AM »

I dither between Registry Medic and Registry First Aid Platinum,... I'm with Registry Medic 4 (though I have a license for RFA Plat 5) because I much prefer the way it organizes entries found by class (active-x plugins and com, start menu, recently used file lists, uninstallers, help files, etc.)...

-Darwin (September 27, 2006, 01:08 AM)

Well, Registry First Aid breaks them down too.  And you can sort either by their category or rank of fixing safety (green, yellow red).  But Registry Medic might break it down with better granularity.  I haven't tried that one.  Maybe I should.

... I find [Registry Medic] much easier to navigate. For example, it's nice to be able to clear the start menu items and other no brainer stuff all in one go without trying to wade through hundreds ... of entries.

-Darwin (September 27, 2006, 01:08 AM)

Well, you can sort by fit-it-safely level, then fix all the green flagged issues together.  But a few of Registry First Aid's suggestions are not correct (even at the green level), so you should exam each one of them.  Usually at the green flagged level, you can just delete those bad enties flagged as green.

107

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Registry Cleaning Software

« on: September 26, 2006, 05:32 PM »

I have been using Registry First Aid for some time now and find that it's excellent....

-Baseman (January 06, 2006, 11:52 PM)

I've been using Registry First Aid since version 3.1.  It's now on version 5.0.1.  It has been excellent for me.  I never had a crash and never had to roll any RegEdit backups.  Well ... there was a System Restore once, but that was many years ago.

Registry First Aid won't fix any entries unless you approve them, so you stay in complete control.  It also will rank the safety of each proposed fix Green, Yellow, or Red.

My only gripe is when I first ran it, there must have been over 1000 registry errors.  It took me 2.5 afternoons to look at each one of those.  Most can be fixed or deleted easily, but some require 3-5 minutes of research even when you know what you're doing.

It does provide quick registry-key links to RegEdit for doing the research as well as the file directory tree, but you still need to figure out what some installer (or uninstaller) couldn't figure out for itself.  This takes study, even on a system that you are familiar with.  I guess, if all the fixes were straight forward, you wouldn't need the registry in the first place. 

The Platinum version will also compress the registry.

It also has a feature to search out obsolete software entries.  For example, after uninstalling AOL, there are still 100s of AOL entries lurking in the registry.  You can have it search out the string "AOL" to find those entries, then determine if they're safe to delete.

AOL is so inter-woven into the registry that tracking down all its references for deletion purposes is hard.  I just don't have time to do it.  But if someone has written a smart uninstaller that can track down latent AOL reg entries automatically, please let me know about it.  I got latent entries for AOL client 7.0 & 9.0.

Cleaning and compressing the registry does make the computer operate somewhat faster.  I've been meaning to get Microsoft's book on the registry, but haven't had time as yet.

108

Clipboard Help+Spell / Re: Feature limits for clipboard extenders

« on: September 25, 2006, 06:50 PM »

It's daunting to see how much overlap there is between all of these programs, and the note taking programs, don't you think?

-mouser (September 25, 2006, 05:16 PM)

Just another example of the need to use a plug-in standard (DLL or ActiveX objects) whenever possible so individual programmers are empowered to enhance a part of the application for their special needs.

Once Firefox with its extensions and IExplorer with its ActiveX components establish themselves, the browsers which don't support plug-in extensions will probably go away.

109

Clipboard Help+Spell / Re: Feature limits for clipboard extenders

« on: September 25, 2006, 06:20 PM »

Just a quick note while you're reviewing clipboard extenders, AceText doesn't offer any degree of RichText....

-allen (September 25, 2006, 04:39 PM)

Thanks for noticing that.  I corrected it.  There's a screen shot showing a WordPad window such that it looks like part of AceText, but it's not really.  See the last screen shot at http://www.acetext.com/screen.html  The intention of that screen shot is to show (1) that AceText can be split into two windows, main and AceTower, and (2) how it would work with a second application like WordPad.

There are some more in-depth comparisons floating around here somewhere,...

-allen (September 25, 2006, 04:39 PM)

Please post any links to comparative reviews of clipboard extenders.  I would be very interested in them.

There are quite a few clipboard extender apps ... "the best" depending on the needs of the user in question.

-allen (September 25, 2006, 04:39 PM)

I have a follow-up to that observation.  I use Firefox because it empowers developers to write extensions (code snippets) for it.  My list of Firefox extensions is probably different than yours because your needs are different than mine.  Moreover, trying to organize enough independent programmers to enhance Firefox to its 2000 extension level would be mind boggling.

The truth is adding DLL or ActiveX objects as plug-ins for application enhancement has an important place in community software development.  There are too many clipboard extender apps because no one has developed an extensible plug-in standard at SourceForge.net for this class of application.  What's worse, nobody even talks about doing it. 

110

Clipboard Help+Spell / Feature limits for clipboard extenders

« on: September 25, 2006, 03:01 PM »

Why not combine this program "Clipboard Help+Spell" and "The Form Letter Machine" into one new program for clipboard control and writing text blocks?...

-escalona (September 05, 2006, 06:47 AM)

I thought about this suggestion for a long time because I use both programs a lot.  But honestly, combining both applications would make program operation too confusing for beginners.  Clipboard Help+Spell employs a single integrated database for everything in its clipping tree structure.

In contrast, The Form Letter Machine has separate files for each unrelated passage/answer tree, which is reasonable.  It also has separate symbolic variable substitution files for each collection of symbolic variables used for text substitution.  For example, one passage/answer tree structure may supply information about seasonal semester classes and use symbolic variables to denote class times.  If the response requires information about fall classes, the fall-class variable substitution file is selected; if it's spring classes, the spring-class variable substitution file is selected instead.  Adding collections of symbolic variables to a clipboard extender seems unexpected and awkward.

Adding radio buttons to clips also seems awkward.  You would have to take time to appropriately group your clipboard clips before you could add radio buttons to them, and most clipboard users wouldn't do this.

I think clipboard extenders should stick to managing data that's more transient and emphasize easy/quick text manipulation.  In contrast, a canned response manager like The Form Letter Machine should manage static data trees.  As a result, the configuration of such trees can be carefully crafted for radio buttons and check boxes for conditional assembly.  If transient data exists in these carefully crafted tree structures, it needs to be coded with symbolic variables, which falls outside the mission of a clipboard extender.

The other commercial program, AceText http://www.acetext.com/

-escalona (September 05, 2006, 06:47 AM)

I took a detailed look at that very nice program, and it does support collections of acronym/mnemonic substitution for different trees.  I'm not sure if you can use different collections for the same folder tree though.  For example, for seasonal class times, could you have one substitution variable collection for fall and another for spring semester.  But adding simple acronym substitution into a clipboard extender might be useful.

I reviewed both AceText and Clipboard Help+Spell in my StumbleUpon blog.  Go into my blog and select the "Windows" or "clipboard" tag to find it at http://superticker2.stumbleupon.com/

111

Clipboard Help+Spell / Re: Setting a short delay for pasting into an active window?

« on: September 20, 2006, 01:36 AM »

... [Clipboard Help+Spell does a] super fast paste now; ... FIRST click in target window, then bring up chs and tell it to send a clip to last active window.

-mouser (September 19, 2006, 03:43 AM)

Well, whatever you did, CHS v1.11.01 works great now.  You can mark my paste-to-last-active-window bug report resolved.  Thanks for fixing it!

112

Site/Forum Features / Closing, updating, & resolving bugs w/Mantis bug tracker

« on: September 19, 2006, 04:02 PM »

The Mantis manual explains that after a bug is marked resolved, the reporter should close it.  I have reporter-level access and I'm the reporter of a resolved bug, but I fail to see the Close button in my views window.  Is that because this bug-closing feature is not used here at DonationCoder?

I'm just asking.  I'm not suggesting this closing feature should be enabled here.  I see there's a button to reopen a resolved bug, so maybe the closing feature is unnecessary, and may never be used anyway.

There's no update button on my reporter-level view window.  Is that normal?  What if I want to modify my bug report later?  Should I just attach a note?

Some bugs I reported earlier are resolved now, but there's no resolved button available in the reporter-level views window.  Is that normal?  Is it only the programmer that marks the bug resolved, not the reporter?  If so, I guess he hasn't gotton around to doing that yet.  :-)

113

General Software Discussion / Re: Social bookmarking sites

« on: September 13, 2006, 10:09 AM »

One feature ... is the unique name ma.gnolia assigns to each and every bookmark.  Essentially, it's an automatically generated tinyurl ala tinyurl.com.

I'm trying to decide if that's a good thing or a bad thing?

I don't see any downside to it -- everybook mark you have is one more step to easy sharing,... what could be bad about it?

-allen (September 13, 2006, 06:07 AM)

You mentioned tinyurl.com.  What I don't like about their URLs is I never know where their mystery URL is taking me.  I would rather see the real URL before clicking on it so I know where I'm being taken before getting there.  I would like to avoid pages I've already explored.

114

General Software Discussion / Re: Social bookmarking sites

« on: September 13, 2006, 01:20 AM »

Yes, ma.gnolia does have an api....  Furthermore, they're in the process of further expanding it to support del.icio.us' api, since so many applications use it....  Handy for already made applications that use the del.icio.us api,...

-allen (September 12, 2006, 08:07 PM)

So I can use applications written for del.icio.us on ma.gnolia?  That sounds cool.  I guess that means I'll be able to import ma.gnolia bookmarks to StumbleUpon.

... but using the ma.gnolia native api would give you access to more advanced, proprietary ma.gnolia features.

-allen (September 12, 2006, 08:07 PM)

So what features would I be missing that ma.gnolia's proprietary API has?

One feature ... is the unique name ma.gnolia assigns to each and every bookmark.  Essentially, it's an automatically generated tinyurl ala tinyurl.com.

-allen (September 12, 2006, 08:07 PM)

I'm trying to decide if that's a good thing or a bad thing?

115

General Software Discussion / Re: Social bookmarking sites

« on: September 12, 2006, 07:20 PM »

... to re-comment on ma.gnolia,...  It has ... become very convenient/usable.  Bookmark and tag management is great and the social aspects are implemented really smartly. Plus, it looks great.

-allen (September 08, 2006, 08:26 PM)

Does ma.gnolia have an API so third-party tools can be developed for it?

The reason so many nice third-party tools have been released for spurl and del.icio.us is because programming APIs exist for them.  In contrast, a service like blinklist (which has a smartly designed AJAX interface) is closed shop at the moment because there is no established API for it.

Another issue is whether the bookmarking info can be cached locally to improve search and response times.  Do any of these services feature this?

116

The Form Letter Machine / Re: Assembling e-mail digests for announcement lists

« on: August 31, 2006, 11:39 AM »

I'm quite interested in hearing more about what you would like to do - I'm having a bit of a hard time following it completely, but I'm quite interested in the idea.  maybe an example would help?

-mouser (August 31, 2006, 09:55 AM)

Are you asking what an e-mail digest is?

Back in the old days (1988), before the web, Usenet, and its forums, people used e-mailing lists for forums.  The problem was one e-mailing list (forum) might generate 30 messages a day.  So e-mail list servers (like Majordomo and LISTSERV) would optionally let subscribers join a digest version of their e-mailing list.   Basically, the list server combines the day's (or week's) e-mail together into a digest, then sends it out as one big e-mail with a table of contents.  There's an RFC specification written describing the digest layout (which could be defined today with an XML style sheet).

When your e-mail client receives such a digest, it displays it in your inbox as a folder.  When you click on the folder, it opens and displays a directory of the individual members (e-mails within the digest).

The e-mail list server always assembles the digests in FIFO order.  However, for my announcement e-mailing list, I would want the digests assembled in chronological order based on the meeting times of the events listed in the digest.  In other words, news releases for each individual event come in randomly.  I want them sorted by event meeting date in the outgoing e-mail digest (say based on a sort-key header component).

I think some kind of database that outputs its results according to an XML style sheet (defined by the RFC digest layout) may work the best.  You could use The Forms Letter Machine (FLM) as a front end interface to such a database.  The problem is you would have to define a different FLM node for each kind of XML tag in the output XML style sheet.  In short, the FLM would become an XML file editor.

I have just looked at Help & Manual http://www.ec-software.com/index.html which DonationCoder is offering a big discount on to registered users.  It can do conditional output formatting and has a built-in XML editor.  I'm wondering if it can be used to maintain a list of typical events that can be conditionally assembled into a digest defined by an XML style sheet?  It would have to have the conditional selection features of the FLM, but work like an XML editor.

117

The Form Letter Machine / Re: Assembling e-mail digests for announcement lists

« on: August 31, 2006, 09:48 AM »

What would be really neat is if the FormsLetterMachine actually assembled (formatted) the e-mail digest so that digest-aware e-mail programs would see these e-mail message digests as folders that they would explode into individual message members.  In other words, have the FormsLetterMachine become an e-mail digest creating machine just like e-mail list servers do today.

-superticker (August 30, 2006, 01:55 PM)

I've given this suggestion a little more thought asking myself what would be the ideal solution.

The ideal solution would let an XML style sheet (like a CSS style sheet) define the output format so one could use it for anything (including assembling an e-mail digest).  That brought me to the realization that database applications already support this feature.  My question now is ...

Can someone recommend a low-cost database application that can input incoming e-mail data, parse it into fields, and then output it according the an XML style sheet?  It could be a flat-file database, although if it had relational features, that would be nice.

The initial application would be to take incoming news releases (event e-mail announcements), parse then into fields, then output them as an e-mail announcement digest employing an XML style sheet to format the output.

118

The Form Letter Machine / Assembling e-mail digests for announcement lists

« on: August 30, 2006, 01:55 PM »

... I also got your bug report that i introduced a wrapping bug in latest form letter machine; I'm on it.

-mouser (August 29, 2006, 11:01 PM)

Good deal.  That bug prevents me from putting the Forms Letter Machine in production use for an announcement e-mailing list (event digest) I moderate.

What would be really neat is if the FormsLetterMachine actually assembled (formatted) the e-mail digest so that digest-aware e-mail programs would see these e-mail message digests as folders that they would explode into individual message members.  In other words, have the FormsLetterMachine become an e-mail digest creating machine just like e-mail list servers do today.

Your next question is going to be, why not let the e-mail list sever (we use Majordomo) build the e-mail digest for you instead?  The answer is because Majordomo assembles messages into digests in FIFO order (by arrival), and we want the events listed in the digest to come in chronological order (by event date) instead.  If someone knows of a list server that assembles digests by a sort key (in the message header) instead, please let me know.

119

The Form Letter Machine / Re: Sharing user-dictionary spell files between programs

« on: August 30, 2006, 01:41 PM »

i could make an option for custom specifying of dictionary file location.

-mouser (August 29, 2006, 11:01 PM)

There's already an option to specify Local Dictionaries built into the spelling checker.  My question is can several programs open those Local Dictionaries at the same time?  If so, would there be write conflicts in updating those dictionaries if one of those programs sharing the Local Dictionaries wanted to add a word?

Right now I have separate "superticker2.adu" user-dictionaries in the:

C:\Programs Files\Chaos Software\Chaos 6
C:\Programs Files\Clipboard Help+Spell\Dictionaries
C:\Programs Files\TheFormLetterMachine\Dictionaries

It would be nice to just have one private dictionary specified as a Local Dictionary file for all my spell-checking needs.  Does the Local Dictionary option let me do this now?  Will I get write access to these Local Dictionaries if I do?

If there's another website that documents how the spell checker manages its dictionary files, please cite that link.  I can investigate this more myself.

120

The Form Letter Machine / Sharing user-dictionary spell files between programs

« on: August 29, 2006, 10:55 PM »

Can the user-dictionary spell file I have continually open by Clipboard Help+Spell also be shared with The Forms Letter Machine spell checker?

Let me re-phrase my question.  Do applications such as Clipboard Help+Spell and The Forms Letter Machine only open the user-dictionary spell file for write access briefly (when needed) so as to minimize write conflicts between these two programs sharing the same user-dictionary file?

I would also like to share the same user-dictionary spell file with the Time & Chaos 6.0 contact manager, if possible.  It uses the same brand of spell checker.

121

Clipboard Help+Spell / Re: A new name

« on: August 10, 2006, 11:02 AM »

The main thing that attracted me to Clipboard Help+Spell was its spelling feature.  Therefore, it would be desirable if "spell" was somehow included in the name, such as with a name like ClipNspell.

122

Clipboard Help+Spell / Re: A new name

« on: July 30, 2006, 02:18 AM »

the key requirement for a new name is that when you type it into google you get less than 10 hits.

-mouser (November 19, 2005, 11:28 PM)

Hmmm.  I'm trying to decide if that criteria is a good thing or a bad thing?  It cuts both ways.

ClipNspell - I like this because the spell feature is its best feature.
ClipJuggler - Emphasizes the merge & clip indexing features, which is important.

123

Clipboard Help+Spell / Re: Calling the Modify Format/Case dialog box

« on: July 14, 2006, 09:00 AM »

I got it.  I was looking in the main menu for this function.  Somehow I thought modifying the formatting was up in there (like in the Edit menu).

124

Clipboard Help+Spell / Calling the Modify Format/Case dialog box

« on: July 14, 2006, 12:31 AM »

Although I can open the Modify Format/Case dialog box in the 1.08.X version of Clipboard Help+Spell, I can't figure out how to open this dialog box in version 1.10.5 or 1.10.6 of the program.  I want to define a new regexp from this dialog box, but I can't figure out how to open it for the 1.10.X version of this clipboard program.     Any ideas how you open it now?

125

Clipboard Help+Spell / Re: Using F11 key to spell check active text box

« on: July 10, 2006, 01:50 PM »

... If you check in hotkey options you will see hotkey configuration for Spell Windows Object.  It works on some programs but not all - i will keep working on it if its something people want.

-mouser (July 04, 2006, 04:20 PM)

I've tried it with Firefox 1.5.0.4 text boxes (while blogging), and it doesn't work.  If you can fix this, that would be super.

Yes, Firefox 2.0beta has spell checking, but (1) I'm stuck with FF 1.5 until all my FF extensions are updated, and (2) I would prefer using a single spelling dictionary for all my spelling needs.  Why create, augment, and maintain several separate dictionaries?

Also, if you get this spell-object function to work well, you could better promote it, and that would make Clipboard Help+Spell as popular as the commerical spell checkers.