Messages

26

Screenshot Captor / Re: Feature Request: Add Anchor Points to Objects For Connectors

« on: December 01, 2015, 02:53 AM »

+1 for connecting objects, similar to mindmap/flowchart programs

Line object with and without endpoint arrows - just set up your own object presets, this will take care of it.

27

Screenshot Captor / Re: hotkeys no longer working in version 4.15.2

« on: December 01, 2015, 02:51 AM »

... adding a mode where making an arrow auto-added some numbered text (step 1, step 2, step 3),

-mouser (November 30, 2015, 01:00 PM)

+1

28

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: PhraseExpander Professional for PC 79% off $29.99

« on: August 28, 2015, 02:34 AM »

You might care to look at John Knowles' ABCZ Typing Abbreviation System for one rational approach to choosing short forms.

There are many threads on DC about text expanders and similar applications - worth reviewing, though many are getting old, and some are heated.  For all the software they mention, they aren't complete.  Text expanders and similar products are quite a big category, though a requirement for portability winnows them out.

-rjbull (August 25, 2015, 03:37 PM)

And thanks again for that link. Great guidelines. 

29

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: PhraseExpander Professional for PC 79% off $29.99

« on: August 25, 2015, 01:07 AM »

Many thanks to all contributors. This has developed into a very informative thread, more helpful than I had expected.

ATM, I am trialing several products. I am curious to find out what will happen with PhraseExpress after 30 days. They claim it will continue to be free for personal use, no limitations other than having to see the license reminder - probably all over the place, but I will see.

What rules out PhraseExpander -  and also most of the other products geared to those professional markets = they don't have portable editions. For me that's an absolute must, one of the main reasons I need an expander in the first place. Once I get used to my abbreviations and phrases I want to carry them along wherever I go, to whatever machine I happen to be on.

@xtabber - thanks for pointing the license restriction to one computer only, I would have missed it.

I knew about TA and Lintalist, but not Auspex and Echo - many thanks to wraith808 for mentioning them.
And thanks to rjbull for InstantText - another novelty for me.

After checking it out, I am beginning to better understand the repeated mentioning of legal and medical usage:
http://www.textware....iew/wordabbvpage.htm
Not that I need it, but this built-in smartness does make a lot of sense when I think about it.

30

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Forte Notation free until Sep 14

« on: August 24, 2015, 11:11 PM »

  Thanks. Much appreciated.

31

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: PhraseExpander Professional for PC 79% off $29.99

« on: August 22, 2015, 07:30 AM »

Thanks dr_andus,

I like what you said about this category of software being pretty generic. Convincing case for my usage scenarios. I figure it's probably different for someone who intends to rely on pre-defined phrases and vocabulary that is very specific. I've seen such add-on lists elsewhere, but didn't care to investigate quality and compatibility issues.

I certainly don't need it, for me it's general purpose, no legal or medical profession involved.

May I ask what program you settled for?

32

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: PhraseExpander Professional for PC 79% off $29.99

« on: August 21, 2015, 03:25 AM »

2. Both products are aimed at the medical transcription market.

-wraith808

Wasn't obvious to me, from neither product's website.
Don't know how many companies hang out here to find a good deal. My perspective is purely personal, strictly private usage scenarios. If anything, I was expecting differences in ease of use, maybe, or performance or compatibillity. Like you said, feature-wise they seem much the same.

Thanks for your well-written assessment. I also appreciate the link to Breevy, although I have not checked it out further, got too many text expanders lined up already, for testing purposes sooner or later.

33

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: PhraseExpander Professional for PC 79% off $29.99

« on: August 20, 2015, 03:42 PM »

I cannot help but wonder how much of a deal this really is.
The price tag of $150 is totally ridiculous, and even 30 bucks seems very steep, considering the many free alternatives.

The description on their website just mentions the usual run-of-the-mill features.
Do you - or anybody else - know what advantages it offers over free stuff, like say, PhraseExpress?
http://www.phraseexp...ess.com/features.htm

34

N.A.N.Y. 2015 / Re: NANY 2015 Release - Splat (Simple Program Launching and Termination)

« on: August 19, 2015, 03:45 PM »

Dunno. My UAC is in full armor - so it may well be the reason for it.
Anyway, like I said, no showstopper, just wondered if there was an easy cure. If not, no worries, can live with it.

35

N.A.N.Y. 2015 / Re: NANY 2015 Release - Splat (Simple Program Launching and Termination)

« on: August 19, 2015, 11:22 AM »

Thanks for the quick reply, skwire,

hm, don't know what to say, maybe because I run the portable version?



No big deal, I can click away the pop-ups.

When I don't specify a specific chm-file, but just fire up the kchmviewer, it tries to launch another instance and I also get an error. But again, no showstopper. Just wanted to let you know.

36

N.A.N.Y. 2015 / Re: NANY 2015 Release - Splat (Simple Program Launching and Termination)

« on: August 19, 2015, 02:03 AM »

Run process only if its not running does not work in a bunch of cases
 - for some programs running silently in the background, such as http://www.listary.c...text-editor-anywhere
 - for chm or pdf files; if already open, it will attempt to open them again in the same default application, which - depending on the application, results in yet another read-only copy, or in an error message

37

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Ultimate Zip 7.0 [free]

« on: August 18, 2015, 08:20 AM »

Does anyone have even 1 useful/compelling argument for using a non-free zip-file 'manager'? As I have been unable to detect one. (this isn't sarcastic!)

-Ath (August 18, 2015, 03:58 AM)

Actually, yes. WinRar. If you're into the rar-format and it's advantages, that is. It allows superb compression rates, multi-part archives, and most importantly, redundant data storage within the archive by which you can later recover a broken archive.

The interface itself looks good with font sizes large enough on high res screens, customizable toolbar with big buttons and themes/ skins, it's reasonably fast and you can make it portable.

On the downside, it lacks the preview options that Bandizip has, not in the portable version, though 

And while you can extract most stuff, WinRar will only pack zip and rar, afaik.

38

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Ultimate Zip 7.0 [free]

« on: August 17, 2015, 12:27 PM »

Hm I tried the key, it seems to work at first, but then it never comes up again under the help menu, it keeps saying register. BTW, the key they provided is the exact same key I was given by on Shareware_on_Sale in January 2015

Startup is slow, really slow, takes several seconds, The fonts are tiny on my hi resolution, it won't respond to Ctrl mousewheel or Ctrl Num+ or any of the usual zoom shortcuts.

And it refuses to open some zip that I have no problem opening in 7-zip, Bandizip, FreeArc and IZArc. Tested the zips in question - they are fine everywhere else but UlitmateZip.

Guess I pass up on this one - got enough archive handlers anyway. But thanks for letting me know.

39

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Ultimate Zip 7.0 [free]

« on: August 17, 2015, 12:26 AM »

I've also been using Bandizip - not bad at all. What I really miss though are commandline parameters.
Seems like the situation is not likely to change anytime soon:
http://www.bandisoft....php?f=16&t=3022

40

Skwire Empire / Re: Release: sChecklist

« on: July 21, 2015, 04:02 AM »

I made a general comment on your use of the C:\Program Files folder for 'installation' of portable software: You shouldn't.

-Ath (July 20, 2015, 01:46 AM)

I fully agree. Besides, I like skwire's handling of paths for portable programs and I hope that all data and config will continue to be kept inside the app's program folder. This makes it really easy to take checklists along whereever you go, simply by copying the folder. No worries, no UAC, no need to deal with user accounts. The program is lightweight enough to be copied as a whole, should you need different user setups.

41

Skwire Empire / Re: Release: sChecklist

« on: July 12, 2015, 11:28 PM »

I ran into the same problem a while ago. Switching to Details View should help:

42

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Judy's TenKey (10Key) award-winning calculator

« on: June 20, 2015, 05:44 AM »

For me, Opalcalc sits nicely between the input complexity of the calculator (infix or postfix? Do I start with a number and apply a trig function to it, or start with the function as if I were writing the formula on paper? How do I get at the stats functions again?) and the big iron of the fullblown spreadsheet

-oblivion (May 17, 2015, 11:37 AM)

Completely agree. After checking it out further, I have to say this makes a nice complement to CalcTape which I will continue using for it's sleek interface. OpalCalc makes it a bit hard to see your caption/ comments sitting at the results to which they belong.

But I am very impressed by its features. Not that I am much of a math guy. But the date-time functions alone are amazing. Easy to create time sheets. He provides a nice Workday example sheet (example #5). And just recently I discovered the smart handling of currency conversion. On the first conversion it will get ALL rates and save them in currencies.txt to have them as up-to-date as possible when you're offline.

Celsius to Fahrenheit, Least Common Mulitiple (to check up on kids' homework), custom units .... I am glad this calculator came up in this thread.

43

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Best Windows Giveaway Sites

« on: May 21, 2015, 12:04 PM »

http://www.bitsdujour.com/pc-download
Does not happen all too often, but they do have 100% off free deals.

44

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Judy's TenKey (10Key) award-winning calculator

« on: May 09, 2015, 04:46 AM »

BTW, if your main objective is the tape, I've been using the free version of this TapeCalc
http://www.sfr-softw...pps/calctape/windows
for many years.

Their tape editing is great but the math stuff is rather basic.

45

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Judy's TenKey (10Key) award-winning calculator

« on: May 08, 2015, 03:24 PM »

I enter the WindowsDeal Code required to ge the license, then I get the message:
Problem: Maximum WindowsDeal licenses assigned under this promotion. You can still use the program in evaluation mode, and later purchase it if you like it.

 

46

Skwire Empire / Re: Release: sChecklist

« on: May 04, 2015, 02:53 PM »

Thank you so much.
All is good now. Smooth and effortless, plain sailing. 

47

Skwire Empire / Re: Release: sChecklist

« on: April 24, 2015, 05:04 AM »

Nice-to-have: ESC to hide, irrespective of hotkey, or rather in addition to the hide/show hotkey.

I've become conditioned to pressing ESC to dismiss a window - a habit reinforced by other apps so that I keep doing it without thinking. Only to be reminded countless times a day that this won't do for checklists, here I have to use the toggle-shortcut with modifier keys.

48

N.A.N.Y. 2015 / Re: NANY 2015 Release - Splat (Simple Program Launching and Termination)

« on: April 21, 2015, 12:56 AM »

Turns out I had a backslash up front that's not needed. 
Influenced negatively by other apps, I tried

.\data\

and other crazy variations.
All fine now.
Thank you.

49

N.A.N.Y. 2015 / Re: NANY 2015 Release - Splat (Simple Program Launching and Termination)

« on: April 20, 2015, 12:26 PM »

Thank you for the speedy reply. Yes, I had read about Kill, but felt reluctant to use it - the warnings and caveats - so I decided to ask first, I might have missed something... Will try it out with caution.
Thanks.

BTW, any chance for making the command line profile call relative/ portable? Not meaning to be obnoxious or pushy, just wondering if it might get implemented in some future version. I'd rather wait than start tinkering with work-arounds.

50

N.A.N.Y. 2015 / Re: NANY 2015 Release - Splat (Simple Program Launching and Termination)

« on: April 20, 2015, 10:33 AM »

What's the recommended way to close applications that reside in the tray? I have things there like clipboard manager and LaunchbarCommander - none of them close with the regular close -command, I get an error that it cannot close.