Author Topic: [Bug] Farr no longer auto completes custom alias after "tab" (v2.12.03) (Read 30669 times)

kartal · « **on:** June 25, 2008, 12:53 PM »

I have custom aliases that would call some exe files and pass some arguments. At the moment Farr cannot auto complete them with tab anymore. So I cannot pass my custom arguments. And tab completion is checked in the pref.

CatamountJack · « **Reply #1 on:** June 26, 2008, 04:41 AM »

Yep, exact same problem here - occurred as of yesterday's update. Turned it off in options, closed, opened options and turned it back on - no change.

Didn't realize just how much I depended on tab auto-complete until it didn't work anymore...

(mouser: I'm in love with FARR, BTW - thanks for all of your hard work on it!)

mouser · « **Reply #2 on:** June 26, 2008, 05:50 AM »

I'm going to try to fix this today.
Thanks for the nice comments CatamountJack (had to look up the word catamount).

cranioscopical · « **Reply #3 on:** June 26, 2008, 08:02 AM »

had to look up the word catamount
-mouser (June 26, 2008, 05:50 AM)

Come now, it's not difficult. I was asked to pay one on the bill from my veterinarian!

s.newave · « **Reply #4 on:** June 27, 2008, 12:52 PM »

Any update on this? Not being able to tab complete is killing me

kartal · « **Reply #5 on:** June 27, 2008, 09:44 PM »

Yes progress? Bugs are there to be bugged

mouser · « **Reply #6 on:** June 28, 2008, 02:00 AM »

ah now i understand why they call them "bugs"

mouser · « **Reply #7 on:** June 28, 2008, 09:49 AM »

I need some help here.
I guess my first question is how did it used to work?
Can anyone give me a concrete example?

And then if the answer is different, the next question is: how should it work?

in other words, what should it auto complete to?
especially if this is a regular expression alias, it's not clear how to autocomplete it.
and if its not a regular expression alias, then what do you want autocompleted?

and what does it do now? i ask because it seems to be autocompleting for me so i'm a bit lost.

mouser · « **Reply #8 on:** June 28, 2008, 09:55 AM »

I think maybe i see.. the old version would autocomplete an alias match (whether name or regular expression) with the name of the alias, is that what you guys want back?

I will do that, and then we can talk later about the idea that maybe regular expression aliases should have an extra value you can figure which would be kind of like a "DEFAULT STARTER SEARCH STRING" that would be what is put into edit box if you autocomplete on a regular expression with tab, or if you select it from the agroups list.

kartal · « **Reply #9 on:** June 28, 2008, 11:12 AM »

I liked the way it was before the latest release. If you can revert back to that that would be fine. But personally I would like it to behave more like launchy as far as tab goes.

In Launchy you can use tab to auto complete and pass arguments, I will try to demosntrate how it could be below

simple example
goo (tab)->google (tab)->"search item(from this point only space should be used for seperating words)" (enter) ->search starts

example with argument passing (passing 2 arguments to an exe file for example sendemail.exe)
sende (tab)->sendemail (tab) ->"first argument(whichs is $$1)" (tab) ->"second argument(which is $$2)" (enter) -> arguments are passed to sendemail.exe

Now in the second example tab is used to seperate arguments also. So I can have $$1=this is a long sentence argument, $$2=this is another long sentence argument
Because of of tab usage Farr could distinguish between arguments by looking at tab usage before and after rather than spaces. At the moment because of spaces in long multiple arguments one may need to write more complex regular expressions to seperate and pass the arguments to executables. I just think that introducing tab as a true argument passer will make life way more easy in many cases.

Let me know if this is well articulated or not. If not I can maybe make a video.

s.newave · « **Reply #10 on:** June 28, 2008, 01:46 PM »

I think maybe i see.. the old version would autocomplete an alias match (whether name or regular expression) with the name of the alias, is that what you guys want back?

simple example
goo (tab)->google (tab)->"search item(from this point only space should be used for seperating words)" (enter) ->search starts

example with argument passing (passing 2 arguments to an exe file for example sendemail.exe)
sende (tab)->sendemail (tab) ->"first argument(whichs is $$1)" (tab) ->"second argument(which is $$2)" (enter) -> arguments are passed to sendemail.exe

+1 similar to a suggestion i posted here https://www.donation....msg114435#msg114435 coupled with a visual representation for the ui similar to this:

It would be great to be able to display which alias/plugin is currently being used or active in a more intuitive/attractive manner. For example lets say you are using the delicious plugin. Once you enter dlc the search results show tags and posts. When you select tags and hit tab the search box changes to dlc +tags and displays all the given tags it finds. Lets say you choose the software tag and type in "farr" now the search box shows dlc +posts :software farr. I think one idea could be to show some type of breadcrumb structure either on the status bar or preferably in a new area right above the search box and subsequently clearing the search box after a new crumb is added. A standard key such as esc could be used to go back a step and tab could be used to move forward. So for the delicious plugin instead of having "dlc +posts :software farr" you would display something like dlc > posts > software above the search box and only the current search term "farr" in the search box. Another visual cue to inform you of which plugin/alias you were using would be to keep the same icon to he left of the search box
-s.newave (May 15, 2008, 05:27 PM)

i figure the more i ask the better the chances of seeing it implemented in some way

CatamountJack · « **Reply #11 on:** June 28, 2008, 02:54 PM »

Yes, mouser, that's what I'd like to see back...

For example, I have a batch file called enable.bat that I can use to enable different things on my computer, such as my wireless lan (wlan). I've created an alias regex (^enable (.*)?) that calls the batch file. I used to be able to type en, press tab to auto-complete to enable, type the argument, wlan, and press Enter to execute. At least that's how I think I remember it... perhaps I had to type a space before wlan though? Like many others, I'm a Launchy convert and am most familiar/comfortable with how that works.

Returning the old functionality would make me happy, but another +1 on suggestions from kartal and s.newave.

lanux128 · « **Reply #12 on:** June 29, 2008, 03:21 AM »

i noticed that this function still works for default aliases (those that come with Farr). only custom aliases fail to respond to the 'tab' key. type 'agroups' then check all the listed aliases. the ones on the top of the list (the default ones) works flawlessly, then compare the behaviour with the custom ones.

jgpaiva · « **Reply #13 on:** June 29, 2008, 03:53 AM »

Actually, it's stranger than that, lanux. It's working for "tm", but not working for "maps" nor "email".

lanux128 · « **Reply #14 on:** June 29, 2008, 04:00 AM »

@jgpaiva: thanks to your thorough testing, i now realize that it does seem to have a mind of its own. anyway, more info is better in helping mouser to debug the problem.

jgpaiva · « **Reply #15 on:** June 29, 2008, 04:28 AM »

Ok, it's simple to debug. It autocompletes all the names that don't have a regular expression. Or.. Not. It also works with define, even though that one also has a regular expression. I'm clueless $:-\$

mouser · « **Reply #16 on:** June 29, 2008, 12:13 PM »

basically i believe what happened is it stopped working for aliases with only one result.
im going to fix it so it worked as before, and i should have an update today.

then we can return to the issue of a more interactive completer for aliases with arguments, i had a few more ideas about it i will talk about later.

jgpaiva · « **Reply #17 on:** June 29, 2008, 12:16 PM »

then we can return to the issue of a more interactive completer for aliases with arguments, i had a few more ideas about it i will talk about later.
-mouser (June 29, 2008, 12:13 PM)

YAY!!! \o/ \o/

kRs · « **Reply #18 on:** June 29, 2008, 03:06 PM »

First post on this board. Just to say that FARR is a really good program.. The best keyboard launcher i've ever tried, without any doubts. I've installed it today for the first time, and i quickly noticed this problem with alias autocompletion, came to the forum and saw that a fix was already in progress.. thanks to the author for this very useful tool!

mouser · « **Reply #19 on:** June 29, 2008, 03:09 PM »

https://www.donation...AndRunRobotSetup.exe

let me know if it works as before

ps.
welcome to the site kRs.

lanux128 · « **Reply #20 on:** June 29, 2008, 08:14 PM »

so far, it works as it used to.

kartal · « **Reply #21 on:** June 29, 2008, 09:06 PM »

Actually it is broken. Auto complete works but this time if you have aliases that lists multiple commands, you cannot launch them anymore via F-keys or ctrl+numbers. This is the case for aliases without any regex so barebone list what I am talking about here. Or just type "news" and try to launch any of them via keyboard.

lanux128 · « **Reply #22 on:** June 29, 2008, 09:28 PM »

lol, you're right, Kartal! Function keys don't work anymore but 'Ctrl+Alt+Enter' to launch all and 'Enter' to launch the top item works.

mouser · « **Reply #23 on:** June 29, 2008, 09:36 PM »

wait. i thought everyone understood the rules already.. there are a fixed number of bugs in each of my programs (534 in each program to be precise). if you ask me to fix one bug naturally i will just exchange it for another.

lanux128 · « **Reply #24 on:** June 29, 2008, 10:09 PM »

how did you arrive at the 'precise' number of 534 - was it a result of some elaborate doctorate-level calculations?