DonationCoder.com Software > Find And Run Robot

Discussing major features to add to Find and Run Robot 2 continued..

<< < (2/4) > >>

mouser:
you can now easily right click on a result to add it to an alias, but i agree its a very powerful feature which is underused because it's a bit hard to use.  how can we make it easier and better?

as far as non-contiguous letters.. it's not just a matter of speed its also a matter of what do multiple words do..
this is one of the main features being added for version 2; right now farr assumes you are typing a phrase when you type multiple words, and i'm enhancing that to add more options.

farr is more strongly based on the idea of intelligent scoring than the rest of these applications.  it basically tries to heuristically score matches based on a lot of criteria to best figure out what you want, so it will match anywhere in a word but gives bonuses for when what you type matches the start of a title, etc.

so any extra matching has to fit into this framework..

so if you type "f f"
does this mean an F followed by some characters and then another F, or is order not important.

this also gets back to anothe idea we discussed and didn't fully resolve regarding whether multiwords should be treated as AND or OR.

so if i type: "word1 word2"

should this match all items with:

* word1 AND word2 in them, in any order
* word1 OR word2 in them, in any order
* phrase "word1 word2"
* with "word1" FOLLOWED BY "word2"
in general the farr philosphy would be to match on ALL of these cases but score them differently..

jgpaiva:
I guess i should have been more specific on how easy it is to create aliases with typeandrun.
Here goes a small tuturial and a few suggestions:
I'll create an alias for screenshotcaptor:
First, i call typeandrun, and write the full path of sc (with auto-complete, it's fairly easy, but in farr, it is even easier, since i only have to type the name of the app.):

Discussing major features to add to Find and Run Robot 2 continued..

then, i press ctrl + n and get this:

Discussing major features to add to Find and Run Robot 2 continued..

i press enter, and it's done ;)
The things i want to demonstrate here are that in farr, i wouldn't even have to write the full path, so, I'd only write "screen" and sc would be the first result, then i would press ctrl+n (one important thing here, is that this interface would only work for the first result) and then, I'd press enter, since the name of the alias was already there, as it is the name of the app.
To add to an already existing group alias, i think ctrl+shift+n could make a dialog appear with all the aliases groups, I'd select one, press enter to select it and enter to confirm configuration, and I'd have an app added to an alias.
Don't you agree with me that this just brings alias to another level? They become much more practical and easy to create.
(BTW, i don't like to use my mouse when I'm typing, that's the only reason I'm insisting on this..sorry)

mouser:
ok understood now - basically you're just asking for a keyboard-centric way to do what the right click popupmenu provides for in farr.  i.e. easily add items to an alias group, etc.

this matches with the rest of the discussion here regarding having a way access and select "operations" on a search result easily from the keyboard.

jgpaiva:
:Thmbsup: :Thmbsup:
Exactly! Actually, i didn't think about the possibility of adding this option to the "keyboard-accessed context menu options" on the results mentioned before, but it sure is a perfect solution for the problem!
Thanks!!
(at last, i can sleep without worries.. ;) )

Jay Levitt:
By "F F", I mean "press the F key twice".  The first F shows me all apps with an F in them, with Firefox at the top; the second F narrows it to apps containing two Fs (since QS allows non-consecutive letter searches).  If I had an app "ffilemaker" it'd probably show up before Firefox a few times, since the F's are consecutive, but luckily I don't :)  It also nicely underlines the matching letters so I see why I'm finding things.

As for sorting vs. stable keystrokes: QuickSilver manages it because you DON'T use the number keys to launch the apps.  "F F ENTER" and I'm done, no matter where Firefox initially showed up under the "F" apps.  Also, it combines the dropdown box with the text-entry field, so the arrow keys work more sensibly.  I see now that FARR can in fact launch the first app by pressing ENTER, but it beeps at me, which indicates I did something wrong, and it seems to take a bit longer (maybe that's just the synchronous beep slowing things down).

I've tried the "bonus for already-launched apps", but it's pretty non-granular -  every app I launch gets the same 200 bonus.  I believe QS gives a most-frequently-used score instead.

And while caching launched apps is nice, caching SEARCHED apps would be better (absent pre-caching, of course), so that my common searches would be instant. Every time I press "F", it shows firefox instantly since I've used it, but then has to go load everything else.

Jay

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page

[*] Previous page