DonationCoder.com Software > Find And Run Robot
10+ suggestions to make FARR the most interesting launcher
electronixtar:
Hi everyone ;D I used to be a launchy 2.0 user now I am switching to FARR. FARR is one of the best & most customizable launch programs :-) I recommend it to lots of my friends ;D
Here's some of my suggestions. I quite n00b to FARR so if any of these were actually implemented by plug-ins, reply me. Thanks!
1. Simplify settings & options UI like launchy. In fact users do not care what a path's score is. Just keep it simple and stupid. It'll be never better if you could get hands on FARR without even reading the manual
2. Index registry "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\App Paths" so Launchy acts exactly as Win+R
3. Support indexing Google Bookmarks, Live bookmarks, Del.icio.us bookmarks
4. Support Opensearch like firefox do.(Something like Google Suggest) The AJAX drop down list is really cool.
5. I strongly recommand "launchy"-like two-column UI design. On the left you type command, the right display program name, the middle display an icon. The advantage of this is, you can type 1+1 on the left while display 2 on the right. Another example: Left for word input right for spell check or dictionay? LOL.
6. Now the most intersting part, if user's input matches a file, and a icon appears, display Explorer menu when right click the icon. :-)
7. When a exact file/folder matches, support drag & drop operations compatible with Explorer. e.g. I type C:\Tools\Notepad.exe and then drag 1.txt from desktop to FARR so FARR launch 1.txt with C:\Tools\Notepad.exe :-)
8. Index IE, Firefox, Opera history URL's & Webpage title
9. Options for store settings in Registry, .ini in %APPDATA% and in FARR directory to make FARR "portable"
10. An "Apply" & "Cancel" button in Options window so if a user tweak something wrong, he could just click Cancel.
11. i18n UI please :-)
12. Another i18n consideration. Suppose I am a Chinese user, I wanna match "你好.txt" typing "ni hao" or "ni h" or "n hao". You can launchy an i18n file/app without actually switching IME!
13. I strongly disagree using Ctrl+Space as the default FARR toggle hotkey cauz many CJK Windows use Ctrl+Space as default hotkey for IME switching
14. Something like weby in launchy, But provide more variables, %s for ANSI escaped keyword, %us for UTF-8 escaped keyword
15. Tab, Tab and Tab. Use the tab key more. e.g. "wikipedia TAB Donationcoder" opens http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donationcoder. I think Tab is much better than space. Using space to separate parameters u have to worry the existing space in a parameter and use double quotes wrap a parameter, and Tab could avoid this
update:
16. How about store indexed file/folders in a SQLite database? So 3rd party tools could easily add entries to the list?
17. FARR UI will froze when doing network query. Hmm. May be display a "loading" and start a new background thread query will be nicer?
18. Support environment variables internally. Though a plugin could do this but envrionment is far too important.
That's as far as I could think of. FARR the coolest! Thank you Mouser & DonationCoder community!
Armando:
Did you give farr some time ? most of your suggestions are already implemented in some ways.
[edit : :) yes, it seems slightly impolite or defensive. Sorry about that.]
>1. Simplify settings & options UI like launchy. In fact users do not care what a path's score is. So K.I.S.S ? LOL
There's already a beginner UI mode. I personally care about path score... Although the K.I.S.S. philopsophy is good at times, it's also good to be able to configure a software to your liking.
>2. Index registry "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\App Paths" so Launchy acts exactly as Win+R
farr already looks in all the right places so I wonder what positive change would that make. Could be interesting to implement... don,t know.
>3. Support indexing Google Bookmarks, Live bookmarks, Del.icio.us bookmarks
Did you look at the addons ? I don't use these , but Del.icio.us bookmarks are "supported"
>4. Support Opensearch like firefox do.(Something like Google Suggest)
There are already some plugins doing similar things.
>5. I strongly recommand "launchy"-like two-column UI design. On the left you type command, the right display program name, the middle display an icon. The advantage of this is, you can type 1+1 on the left while display 2 on the right. Another example: Left for word input right for spell check or dictionay? LOL.
I personally very much prefer farr's UI : you can see more info at once (creation date, path, etc.), not to mention, more results, if you wish. Much more precise. To browse directories, it's more convenient.
>6. Now the most intersting part, if user's input matches a file, and a icon appears, display Explorer menu when right click the icon. :-)
This is already the case & more. Have you tried it?
>7. When a exact file/folder matches, support drag & drop operations compatible with Explorer. e.g. I type C:\Tools\Notepad.exe and then drag 1.txt from desktop to FARR so FARR launch 1.txt with notepad.exe :-)
Some of that can be achieved. But can't you just double click on your txt file ????
>8. Index IE, Firefox, Opera history URL's & Webpage title
Much of that can already be achieved through addons, and just plain configuration.
>9. Options for store settings in Registry, .ini in %APPDATA% and in FARR directory to make FARR "portable"
Settings are already strore in an ini file in farr's directory. I don't know how portable it is though as I've never tried it on different machines.
>13. I strongly disagree using Ctrl+Space as the default FARR toggle hotkey cauz many CJK Windows use Ctrl+Space as default hotkey for IME switching
All hotkeys are customizable. IIRC Ctrl+space is the default toggle hotkey in many launchers (like Quicksilver).
steeladept:
>9. Options for store settings in Registry, .ini in %APPDATA% and in FARR directory to make FARR "portable"
Settings are already strore in an ini file in farr's directory. I don't know how portable it is though as I've never tried it on different machines.
-Armando (May 26, 2008, 08:45 PM)
--- End quote ---
I agree with Armando on the parts I know about, but as far as portability is concerned, ALL of mouser's software (at least that I use) is 100% portable. In fact, I can easily add all his apps to my PortableApps launcher by creating a folder and unzipping the file into it. There is no need to install, using the installer is basically unzipping to a predefined area anyway from what I can tell, and there is no need to configure anything special. The only issue I ran into (and fixed quickly) is to get the PortableFARR to recognize the files on the USB.
Before I go much further with this, you must understand my Portable setup. I have a tiny part of my USB with TrueCrypt and some Alpha version AutoHotKey scripts that autoload my TrueCrypt containers into predefined drives. One of the scripts asks me for my password, which then gets passed to TrueCrypt which loads my "favorites" and applies the password to them. This way they automatically mount to (in my case) the I: and J: drives for different things. This keeps all my files safely encrypted yet completely available.
Now to make FARR automatically find the files on the USB, I just define custom paths to I:\ and J:\. These are guaranteed to be available as they need to be mounted before FARR is available, so it works as long as my AutoHotKey scripts work.
Unfortunately, the scripts are still in Alpha, as they don't always work as intended. As I find time, I will put more work into them and pass them on to others through DC.
sri:
electronixtar: Though not all, I've addressed some of your points in my blog post.
mouser:
The first thing to say when reading a post like electronixtar's is: Thank You for taking the time to prepare such a list. :up:
Now we need to figure out which ideas are the best ones to put on the todo list.
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